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A volcano has been erupting on the ocean floor 130 miles off the southern Oregon coast since Tuesday, April 3, but scientists say it does not pose a threat to ships or coastal communities.

The eruption has generated more than 1,000 minor earthquakes, with the largest measuring 4.5.

?We?re mobilizing to get a research ship to check it out,? says Robert Embley, a marine geologist with NOAA?s Vents Program. Researchers would like the ship to arrive in time to find ?megaplumes,? gigantic bursts of hot, mineral-rich water that are spewed out of underwater eruptions. So far, they have been using undersea instruments to track the volcano?s activity.
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A controversial operation to transplant the entire head of a monkey onto a different body has been a partial success, as the monkey lived for some time after the operation. The scientist who performed the operation, Professor Robert White of Cleveland, wants to try the same thing on humans, but other members of the scientific community have called the experiment ?grotesque.?

White says that the operation could be used to treat people who are paralyzed or whose bodies are severely diseased, while their brains are still healthy. ?People are dying today who, if they had body transplants, in the spinal injury community would remain alive,? he says.

The monkey could see, hear, taste and smell after the operation because the nerves were left intact in the head. read more

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The Hanford nuclear reservation, in the windswept desert of south-central Washington State, is being menaced by radioactive tumbleweeds. Russian thistle has tap roots that reach down as far as 20 feet into the ground. Every winter, the roots decay and the spiny brown skeletons break off and roll away, a common occurrence in desert areas all over the U.S.
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Our New Resource Crisis

By Peter Phillips

Monsanto plans to earn revenues of $420 million and a net income of $63 million by 2008 from its water business in India and Mexico.

Monsanto estimates that water will become a multibillion- dollar market in the coming decades.

Imagine, that we are beyond the energy crisis-in that we are used to paying double or triple prices for what in the previous century was a small part of the family budget. But now we are faced with a new shortage that taps another precious resource. Water only comes through the tap four hours a day and we are forced to pay ten to hundred times what we paid in the 90s.
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