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Derek Lovley and Daniel Bond, of the University of Massachusetts, have made a battery from microbe-rich sediment from the ocean floor, producing a new environmentally friendly and potentially inexhaustible source of power?mud. Enough ?mud power? was obtained in the experiment to operate a pocket calculator.

The microbes responsible for the mud power are called Geobacteraceae. They oxidize the organic matter in mud to gain energy, producing excess electrons which can be used to make electrical current.
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When thinking about the upcoming Oympics, it?s worth noting that athletes are using drugs and medical techniques in order to beat former world records to the extent that some of them are becoming almost nonhuman. Scientists are starting to think about what kinds of medical intervention athletes may undergo in the future.

We may be watching genetically-modified (GM) athletes at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, according to Charles Yesalis, an expert in performance enhancing drugs at Pennsylvania State University. Gene doping, in which athletes genetically modify themselves with performance enhancing DNA, will soon be possible to achieve and almost impossible to detect, according to Peter Schjerling at the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center in Denmark.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began an ongoing study in 1999 in an effort to calculate the public?s exposures to environmental contaminants, including mercury, tobacco smoke, and certain pesticides. By taking blood and urine samples, scientists can monitor the population?s contact with chemicals present in the air, water, dust, food, and soil over time.

?So far, the results of the initial CDC National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals confirm what many people already suspected,? says Susan Kegley, staff scientist at Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA). ?The general population has contaminant levels exceeding those set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as safe.?
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Goma volcanologist Dieudonne Wafula recently warned local authorities that the 11,380-foot Mount Nyiragongo volcano would erupt soon. No one paid attention, and four days later the volcano unleashed red-hot lava over 40 percent of Goma, killing hundreds of people and displacing half a million.

Jacques Durieux, a French volcano expert, received an e-mail from Wafula last week saying Nyiragongo was getting ready to erupt. The French expert was not the only one to receive Wafula?s warning. Japanese volcano experts were brought into the area, but that they discounted Wafula?s predictions.
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