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If you swallow the scary stories anti-food activists are constantly pushing to the media, you might be worrying about trace amounts of mercury in the fish you eat. But new research shows that levels of mercury in fish might be irrelevant after all. Since 2006 when we published “The Flip Side of Mercury,” we've been saying that selenium levels in seafood might actually be canceling out the negative effects of mercury, in an all-natural conspiracy to make fish the “brain food” your mom always said it was. (Selenium is a key antioxidant that helps guard against heart disease and boosts...

Many parents worry about a possible link between autism and mercury exposure. But most research dismisses those fears as groundless, and a new study says autistic children actually have lower blood levels of mercury than children who are developing normally. Mercury levels were closely related to fish intake, the study found, and children with autism and related disorders tend to be picky eaters who avoid fish. After researchers adjusted for the lower fish consumption of autistic children, they found no differences between their mercury levels and those in other children. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of public health sciences at the...

SNIPPET: "After the 4 July DDoS attacks, wrongly attributed to North Korea, it’s wise to treat reports of DPRK security hacks with some caution. Nevertheless, The Korea Times reports the following: Classified Info on Dangerous Chemicals Hacked Hackers stole classified information on dangerous chemicals in their raid on the South Korean army computer network in what was believed to be an attack by North Korea, Yonhap News Agency reported Saturday, quoting government officials." SNIPPET: "The Sydney Morning Herald adds more information: A North Korea cyber warfare unit hacked into a South Korean military command earlier this year and stole some...

Just a week after it emerged that the German armed forces was getting a different kind of A/H1N1 vaccine to the general population, Der Spiegel magazine reports that the government will also get special treatment. The general population will be offered the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine, called Pandemrix, which contains a new booster element, or adjuvant, as well as a preservative containing mercury. Controversy has grown around the rapid licensing of the GSK vaccine – and a similar one being made by Novartis. Critics said not enough testing had been conducted before European licensing authorities rushed an approval. Chancellor Angela Merkel, her...

NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft is receding from Mercury after a Sept 29th flyby that put smiles on the faces of mission scientists. MESSENGER is beaming back images of thousands of square miles of previously unseen terrain, including this cheerful crater: The arc-shaped depression in the crater's floor is a "pit crater." A few of these have been seen on Mercury, and they are probably volcanic in nature. Pit craters may have formed when subsurface magma drained away and left a roof area unsupported, leading to collapse and the formation of the pit. In this example, the southern area of the pit...

Energy Savings: Europe's ban on the incandescent light bulb began phasing in this month, and the U.S. will soon follow. Is Thomas Edison to blame for global warming? And why are we exporting green jobs?When the warm-mongers assemble in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, no doubt their work to save the earth from the carbon dioxide that gives it life will take place under the eerie light thrown off by compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) mandated by the European Union to fight climate change. The bulbs are more expensive, costing up to...

A NASA spacecraft is again testing a creationist theory about the magnetic fields of planets. On 14 January 2008, the Messenger spacecraft, made by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA, flew by Mercury, the innermost planet of the solar system, in the first of several close encounters before it finally settles into a steady orbit around Mercury in 2011.[1] As it passed, its ‘magnetometer’ made quick measurements of Mercury’s magnetic field and transmitted them successfully back to Earth. Probably it will take the Messenger team several months to process the magnetic data accurately. I’m looking forward to...

There is no such thing as ‘a right to a job’—there is only the right of free trade, that is: a man’s right to take a job if another man chooses to hire him.” —Ayn Rand, “Man’s Rights,” 1963— If you want to understand the most common reason for unemployment in America—the real unemployment rate of which is now well into the double digits—you need only look as far as Washington, D.C., home of the federal government, for the answer: bureaucratic intervention in the economy in the form of minimum wage laws, “public works” projects, “stimulus” programs and the regulation...

"General Motors has quit working with a partnership that collects toxic parts from scrapped cars, jeopardising an effort to prevent mercury pollution just as hundreds of thousands of clunkers are headed to recyclers. Participants in the environmental programme told The Associated Press the timing of GM's departure could hurt their work. The government's "cash-for-clunkers" programme will lead to trade-in and recycling of an estimated 750 000 vehicles, some of which contain mercury switches. GM says it's a new company, formed with substantial government aid in the wake of bankruptcy protection, and is not a member of the partnership because it...

The question is being asked at dinner tables and water coolers throughout Wisconsin: Why would those union workers at Mercury Marine's Fond du Lac plant vote against the company's last contract proposal? Why, indeed. At first glance, the consensus rejection by members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) Local 1947 on Sunday makes no sense. The company had flat-out threatened to leave Wisconsin for Stillwater, Okla., unless the Fond du Lac workers bent over and took substantial cuts in pay and benefits. So, why would the Fondy workers cut their own throats? Isn't a job with...

WASHINGTON (AP) - General Motors has quit working with a partnership that collects toxic parts from scrapped automobiles, jeopardizing an effort to prevent mercury pollution just as hundreds of thousands of clunkers are headed to recyclers. Participants in the environmental program told The Associated Press the timing of GM's departure could hurt their work. The government's "cash-for-clunkers" program will lead to trade-in and recycling of an estimated 750,000 vehicles, some of which contain mercury switches.

A collision of Earth with Mercury, Mars or Venus possible in distant future.

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WHEN British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of “green” lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories. Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment. Doctors,...

Science Museum to feature Astronaut Scott Carpenter.

The days when the dietary supplements industry is allowed to regulate itself may be numbered following release of a federal report addressing growing concerns about dietary supplement industry. The report, issued this month by the Government Accountability Office, calls on the Food and Drug Administration to expand adverse event reporting and increase its efforts to educate the public about the safety, efficacy, and labeling of these products. The GAO investigation into supplement safety was made at the request of Congress. According to the 77-page report, the FDA should be tracking all levels of adverse events related to the use of...

High fructose corn syrup is not as sweet as it may seem, as recent research and new publications have reported this past week. Products containing the sweetener, which I have encouraged consumers to avoid in prior articles, were recently tested for mercury contamination. Yes, that's right — mercury. Apparently, the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is made by a process through which contamination with mercury can occur. The caustic soda that removes the corn starch from the kernel has been done for decades by mercury-grade caustic soda. Unfortunately, the mercury can end up in the HFCS. While most processing plants...

NAIROBI, Kenya – The new U.S. government abruptly reversed years of Bush administration policy Monday by calling for a legally binding international treaty to reduce mercury pollution, which a senior American diplomat called the most important chemical problem in the world today. Some 6,000 tons of mercury enter the environment each year, about a third generated by power stations and coal fires. Much settles into the oceans where it enters the food chain and is concentrated in predatory fish like tuna. Children and fetuses are particularly vulnerable to poisoning by the toxic metal, which can cause birth defects, brain damage...

Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies. HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average. "Mercury is toxic in all its...

Throughout war, disaster and recession, it has kept Britain illuminated for more than 120 years. But the traditional incandescent lightbulb is finally being switched off for the last time. Retailers have stopped replenishing stocks of conventional 100watt bulbs and will have run out within weeks. The voluntary withdrawal – part of a Government campaign to force people into buying low-energy fluorescent bulbs – follows the scrapping of the 150w bulb last year. The move has angered medical charities who say the low-energy alternatives can trigger a host of ailments, including migraines, epilepsy and skin rashes. The lightbulb revolution was first...

NCPA: Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs Not Worth Cost and Trouble Report Says Government Should Not Force CFLs on Consumers DALLAS (Dec. 10, 2008) - Although touted by many as the smart energy choice, compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs are not suitable for many common uses and should not be required by the government, according to a new report by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). The Environmental Protection Agency states that CFLs will reduce energy use and will last longer than standard bulbs. However, NCPA Senior Fellow and report co-author Sterling Burnett argues: "For many uses, compact fluorescent bulbs...

The biggest moon in the solar system is Ganymede, the third large moon out from Jupiter. Larger than Mercury, Ganymede has a heterogeneous surface of dark and light areas (picture), grooved terrain, abrupt changes of landforms, and bright splashes where impacts have scarred its icy surface (gallery). What goes on inside, though, is more surprising: it has an intrinsic magnetic field. Researchers could only make it last for the assumed age of the solar system by appealing to “special conditions” that are not necessarily compatible with theories of its formation...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. mercury exports to developing countries will be banned under a measure expected to be signed by President George Bush, backers say. Under the measure, which was passed by the U.S. Congress with bipartisan support, exports from the United States' mercury stockpile would be banned starting in 2013 and users will be required to store the toxic heavy metal permanently rather than shipping unused mercury overseas, The Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday. The bill's chief was sponsor Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who introduced the bill after the Tribune published a series...

Mercury, the smallest planet, bakes in the heat of the Sun, but it has water in some form. It has volcanoes. It appears to have an active magnetic field generated by a molten iron core. And it has shrunk more than scientists thought. Those are some of the findings gleaned from the flyby of NASA’s Messenger spacecraft in January, the first close-up look since Mariner 10 flew by three times in the 1970s. “After five months of analysis, we’ve got some fascinating new results, and some of them have resolved debates that are more than 30 years old that go...

First surprise from mission to Mercury: signs of water Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:43 PM By Kevin Mayhood THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Mercury facts Diameter: 3,032 miles Magnetic field: only rocky planet other than Earth with an active magnetic field Density: densest planet in solar system; 5.3 times denser than water Distance from sun: average of 36 million miles Distance from Earth: 50 million to 200 million miles Messenger facts Distance Messenger will travel: 4.9 billion miles as the spacecraft circles the sun 14 times before slowing enough to enter Mercury's orbit Size: 56 inches tall, 73 inches wide and 50...

Biblical Text-Writing May Have Poisoned Monks Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Damaged Skull June 27, 2008 -- Medieval bones from six different Danish cemeteries reveal that monks who wrote Biblical texts and other religious materials may have been exposed to toxic mercury, which was used to formulate just one of their ink colors: red. The study, which will be published in the August issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, also describes a previously undocumented disease, called FOS, which was like leprosy and caused skull lesions. Additionally, the researchers found that mercury-containing medicine had been administered to 79 percent of the...

Researchers create mercury-absorbent container linings for broken CFLs Brown University engineering students Love Sarin (left) and Brian Lee display a nanoselenium-enriched cloth that can capture mercury vapor from broken compact fluorescent lamps. Brown has applied for federal patents covering the invention and plans soon to begin commercial negotiations. Credit: John Abromowski, Brown University With rising energy prices and greater concern over global warming, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are having a successful run. Sales of the curlicue, energy-sipping bulbs, which previously had languished since they were introduced in the United States in 1979, reached nearly 300 million last year. Experts expect...

Some big retailers are promoting compact fluorescent light bulbs as a way to save energy. But improper disposal of the bulbs creates a hazard, because they contain small amounts of mercury. Recycling them is about to get easier. Home Depot, the nation’s second-largest retailer, will announce on Tuesday that it will take back old compact fluorescents in all 1,973 of its stores in the United States, creating the nation’s most widespread recycling program for the bulbs. “We kept hearing from the community that there was a little bit of concern about mercury in the C.F.L.’s,” said Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has documented that compact fluorescent light bulbs are not safe to use in some locations, and cleanup of broken fixtures can involve cutting out sections of carpeting that are contaminated with mercury. Now a property manager that operates facilities in Washington and Idaho is telling tenants under a new program it will replace all bulbs with CFLs, without any warning about their dangers. A spokesman at Rockwood Lodge Apartments in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, told WND that the new program is moving forward, although it is not mandatory. The apartment spokesman referred WND to the company's...

Broken Compact Fluorescent Causes Mercury PoisoningJune 13, 2008 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: To Royse City, Texas. Jonathan, glad you called. Nice to have you here. CALLER: Yes, thank you. I admire you a lot, and I really love your program. RUSH: Thank you, sir, very, very, very, very much. CALLER: I just wanted to tell you about a little incident I had at work with these lightbulbs that all the Democrats and liberals are promoting saying they're better for everybody and -- RUSH: You're talking about the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. CALLER: That is correct. RUSH: What happened, were you mandated at...

Mercury in dental amalgams may pose health risks to children, fetuses and pregnant women, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning. The FDA issued a statement, on its website Wednesday, about the potential dangers of dental amalgams. As part of a legal settlement reached Monday, the federal agency has agreed to release a new ruling on the safety of dental amalgams in July 2009, and alert consumers about potential related hazards. Consumer advocacy groups, including Moms Against Mercury, called for a ban on the fillings in the U.S. "Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the...

Medicinal mercury in Medieval bones [June 1, 2008] The Middle Ages, often referred to as Medieval times, spanned a long period in history from the 5th to the 16th Centuries. During this time, European society and culture enjoyed many advances and it could be argued that the quality of life improved beyond recognition. One area which progressed steadily was medicine and the treatment of disease, although these days we would not touch some of the medicinal compounds with a bargepole, let alone administer them to patients. One substance in popular use was mercury, used variously in gilding of jewellery and...

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. -- It's a message being drummed into the heads of homeowners everywhere: Swap out those incandescent lights with longer-lasting compact fluorescent bulbs and cut your electric use. Governments, utilities, environmentalists and, of course, retailers everywhere are spreading the word. Few, however, are volunteering to collect the mercury-laced bulbs for recycling -- despite what public officials and others say is a potential health hazard if the hundreds of millions of them being sold are tossed in the trash and end up in landfills and incinerators. For now, much of the nation has no real recycling network for CFLs, despite...

WINDSOR, Ontario (AP) - Mercury discharges into the Detroit River are causing cancer, amount to "child abuse" and are damaging the quality of life in this border city, American environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr. said Sunday.

The latest political crusade is the crusade to replace ordinary light bulbs with the new CFL light bulb that is supposed to save electricity, reducing the need for fossil fuels and helping the fight against global warming. Since crusaders seldom stop to weigh the cost of what they are advocating, it is especially important that the rest of us do so before we get swept along by rhetoric and emotions. With the CFL light bulb, the initial cost -- several times that of a regular light bulb -- is only the financial cost. A bigger problem is what to do...

Enlarge ImagePoisoned. The ice fields of the north (top) carry surprisingly high concentrations of mercury in their surface crystals (bottom).Credit: University of Michigan Deadly Frost in the Arctic By Phil BerardelliScienceNOW Daily News25 February 2008The shimmering ice crystals spread across the Arctic landscape may look beautiful, but new research reveals that they carry an ugly secret: They contain surprisingly high concentrations of mercury, even when mercury is almost totally absent in the atmosphere. The researchers who made the discovery hope their findings will encourage stricter standards on mercury emissions that drift north. The form of mercury that emanates from...

The speeding freight train carrying toxic waste liability for makers, sellers and purchasers of compact fluorescent lightbulbs, or CFLs, was only faintly audible in the distance last spring when this column first warned of it. Now we’re beginning to see that environmentalist-stoked train speed toward its victims, whom President Bush and Congress just finished tying to the tracks. CFLs and all other fluorescent lightbulbs require special clean-up and disposal procedures because they contain small amounts of mercury, which is neurotoxic at sufficiently high exposures. For example, you’re not supposed to vacuum breakage or toss used bulbs in household trash. Despite...

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court today struck down a market-based effort by the Bush administration to regulate emissions of mercury from coal- and oil-fired power plants, agreeing with critics that the Environmental Protection Agency had violated the Clean Air Act when it established the rule. A coalition of environmental groups and 17 states, California among them, challenged the policy, which was slated to take effect in 2010. The EPA had planned to establish a mandatory national cap on mercury emissions and then allow power plants that fail to meet their targets to buy credits from less-polluting plants. Environmentalists have...

A whole new side of Mercury has been revealed in pictures taken by NASA's MESSENGER probe, which flew by the tiny planet two weeks ago in the first mission to Mercury in more than three decades. MESSENGER skimmed only 124 miles (200 kilometers) over Mercury's surface on Jan. 14, in the first of three passes it will make before settling into orbit March 18, 2011. The photos, released today, include one of a feature the scientists informally call "the spider," which appears to be an impact crater surrounded by more than 50 cracks in the surface radiating from its center....

The ABC network said on Monday it will go ahead with plans to air an episode of its new legal drama "Eli Stone" despite objections from pediatricians who say the show may discourage parents from having their children immunized. The debut episode features the show's title character and hero, a trial lawyer for big corporations who decides to fight for the little guy, convincing a jury that a mercury-based preservative in a vaccine caused a child's autism. On the show, a jury awards the boy's mother $5.2 million in damages after it is revealed the CEO of the vaccine maker...

WASHINGTON - The first pictures from the unseen side of Mercury reveal the wrinkles of a shrinking, aging planet with scars from volcanic eruptions and a birthmark shaped like a spider. Some of the 1,213 photos taken by NASA's Messenger probe and unveiled Wednesday help support the case that ancient volcanoes dot Mercury and that it is shrinking as it gets older, forming wrinkle-like ridges. But other images are surprising and puzzling. The spidery shape captured in a photo is "unlike anything we've seen anywhere in the solar system," said mission chief scientist Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of...

Dramatic new pictures have revealed the unseen side of Mercury in detailed images taken from a Nasa spacecraft orbiting the planet. Astronomers saw firsthand the clear image of the Skull & Cross Bones of Mercury, a sure sign that Space Pirates have been to the planet closest to the Sun. "It all makes sense," says one astronomer, asking not to be named. "Mercury is poisonous, and the symbol represents poison. Mercury is known as Quicksilver, and Long John Silver was a pirate. Pirates wanted pieces of eight, and there are eight planets." The Space Pirates obviously didn't recognize Pluto as...

Scientists are sifting through their first new views of the planet Mercury in more than three decades thanks to images beamed home by NASA's MESSENGER probe. The car-sized spacecraft zipped past Mercury in a Monday flyby and is relaying more than 1,200 new images and other data back to eager scientists on Earth. "Now it's time for the scientific payoff," MESSENGER principal investigator Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington told SPACE.com after the flyby. "It's just a complete mix of results that we're going to get." In one new image, released today, the planet's stark surface is shown...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's Messenger spacecraft sped within 124 miles of Mercury on Monday, putting it on a course that will have it orbiting the solar system's innermost planet in three more years. It was the first visit by a spacecraft to Mercury in three decades. The closest approach occurred a little after 2 p.m.; it took about 10 minutes for the radio signals to reach flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., who confirmed everything had gone according to plan. "I haven't seen so many smiles around this place for a long...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A NASA probe next week will become the first spacecraft in 33 years to fly by Mercury, a sojourn scientists hope will unlock the secrets of the small sun-baked planet. NASA's car-sized MESSENGER spacecraft is scheduled to zip about 124 miles above the cratered, rocky surface of the closest planet to the sun on Monday, part of a mission designed to place it into orbit around Mercury in 2011. "I think we're in for some big surprises," Faith Vilas, one of the scientists involved in the mission, told reporters during a conference call on Thursday. "You know...

Researchers at the California Department of Public Health said autism rates in that state have continued to rise despite the removal of the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal from most childhood vaccines.The research, which is being published in this month's Archives of General Psychiatry, looked at autism rates of children ages 3 to 12 from 1995 through March 2007 who had active cases with the department, or those who were receiving services from the state for an autism disorder. In 1999 federal health officials recommended the elimination of thimerosal from children's vaccines on concerns about a possible link to rising autism rates...

LOS ANGELES, (AP) -- Autism cases in California continued to climb even after a mercury-based vaccine preservative that some people blame for the neurological disorder was removed from routine childhood shots, a new study found. Researchers from the state Department of Public Health found the autism rate in children rose continuously during the 12-year study period from 1995 to 2007. The preservative thimerosal hasn't been used in childhood vaccines since 2001, but is used in some flu shots. Doctors say the latest study adds to existing evidence refuting a link between thimerosal exposure and autism risk and should reassure parents...

OSLO, Norway, Jan. 3 -- Norway recently announced a ban on the use of mercury, including dental amalgam, that took effect on January 1, 2008. Sweden announced a similar ban and dentists in Denmark will no longer be allowed to use mercury in fillings after April 1, 2008. "These bans clearly indicate that amalgam is no longer needed. There are viable non-mercury filling substitutes that are used everyday in the US," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project. "By eliminating amalgam use, which is 50% mercury, we can reduce mercury pollution much more efficiently than end-of-the-pipeline solutions." In...