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WASHINGTON, March 22 — High concentrations of fluoride that occur naturally in a small minority of the nation's drinking water supplies can damage teeth and bones, and federal regulators should reduce the level that is considered safe for human consumption, a National Academy of Sciences panel said Wednesday. The 12-member panel, which spent almost three years studying the issue at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, did not address the health effects of the much smaller amounts of fluoride added to the drinking water of 160 million Americans to prevent tooth decay. Instead, its report dealt with the 200,000...

Wiring an old hotel for wireless Internet access can easily cost more than $1 million in construction and cabling costs, and that doesn't even factor in the lost revenue when rooms are unavailable due to the work. But some hotels have found a way around that problem using power line communications, or PLC, products, from TELKONET Inc. The company's technology, also known as "broadband over power line," is installed in the basement of a building and connects to its existing electrical system. To get wired broadband access, guests simply plug a modem into any electrical outlet. "It did not make...

Freeport man is identified by his family A Navy flight instructor and student were killed Friday when their training plane crashed three miles south of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. The single-propeller T-34 crashed into a field off Yorktown Boulevard between Linda Lee Road and Madison Street at 9:43 a.m. The T-34C craft, assigned to Training Squadron 27, crashed while conducting routine flight training, said Lt. j.g. Sean Robertson, public affairs officer with the Naval Air Training Command. The pilot's and student's names were not released, pending notification of their families. But relatives identified one of those killed as Raul...

President Bush plans to thumb his nose at critics next week by visiting the National Security Agency to defend its practice of eavesdropping on conversations between overseas al Qaeda suspects and Americans. >snip "We are stepping up our efforts to educate the American people," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "This is a critical tool that helps us save lives and prevent attacks." >snip "The executive power of our country is not an imperial power," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU legislative office in Washington. "The president has demonstrated a dangerous disregard for our Constitution and our laws with...

EMC Corp. said Friday it plans to eliminate 1,000 positions but added that it will see a net gain in total employment by year's end as the company moves to emphasize data services and software amid pressure to cut costs in the data storage hardware business. EMC, whose shares fell about 2 percent Friday, announced the cuts affecting about 4 percent of its work force as it raised its fourth-quarter revenue estimate. The company also said a total $269 million in charges from the job moves and other expenses will reduce its quarterly and full-year 2005 earnings, to be announced...

KEY WEST, Fla. (NNS) -- Naval Air Station (NAS) Key West Sailors returned home Oct. 30, after evacuating ahead of Hurricane Wilma, to flood-damaged homes but also to helping hands of a special hurricane recovery team from Commander, Navy Installations Command (CNI) and Commander, Navy Region Southeast (CNRSE). The CNI/CNRSE team gathered at Key West’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) youth center and set up a Task Force Navy Family Community Support Center (CSC) for Navy families and a command center to coordinate with parent commands. Partnered with NAS Key West offices, insurance companies, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and...

KEY WEST, Fla. (NNS) -- Key West service members and their families returned to the island Oct. 30 after a weeklong evacuation from Hurricane Wilma. Upon their return, they discovered an air station invaded not only by the sea, but a surge of Navy support hard at work to bring Naval Air Station (NAS) Key West air operations and family life back to full mission capability. “Military careers are full of challenges but no challenge is greater than the one Mother Nature threw our way with Hurricane Wilma,” said NAS Key West Commanding Officer Capt. James Scholl. “It’s going to...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (NNS) -- Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been working together to provide relief to the victims of Hurricane Wilma. Navy personnel have been working feverishly to provide FEMA with food, shelter and security in an effort to streamline the delivery of relief supplies. FEMA's partnership with NAS Jacksonville has resulted in the delivery of more than 1,492 truckloads of relief supplies to hurricane-ravaged portions of South Florida since relief efforts began Oct. 21. Trucks have trickled in from around the country with much needed relief supplies since the beginning of...

BELLE CHASSE, La. (NNS) -- Firefighters and Marines from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base (NAS JRB) New Orleans helped evacuate more than 60 people Sept. 24 from an area flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita. Eight firefighters and three Marines responded to a call for assistance from the Lafitte Volunteer Fire Department. The call was placed early that morning when water from the nearby bayou started flooding the small community, which is located approximately 25 miles southwest of New Orleans. Two fire engines, a military humvee, and a seven-ton transport vehicle were sent with the team to help...

NEW ORLEANS (NNS) -- Hours after the worst of Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans Aug. 29, a 22-person emergency management team at Naval Air Station (NAS) Joint Reserve Base (JRB) New Orleans was surveying the damage and implementing plans to open up the airfield to receive aircraft to assist with disaster relief. Normally, the base hosts approximately 34 tenant commands, including 85 aircraft from all branches of the service, and has about 3,000 service members and their families living in base housing. However, the hurricane forced service members and their families to evacuate to Memphis, Tenn.; Fort Worth, Tex.; Atlanta,...

Global revenue for standalone storage systems grew 8.6 percent year over year to reach $3.8 billion in the second quarter, according to market researcher IDC. This growth, an improvement over the first quarter, was mainly due to double-digit growth in network attached storage, or NAS, systems, IDC said Friday. This segment grew 16.1 percent to $2.5 billion. EMC, with $807 million in revenue, retained its position as the top standalone storage systems company. EMC also grew its market share to 21.2 percent from 21 percent a year ago. But the credit for the strongest growth in the quarter went to...

Ancient Mayan entrepreneurs working along the coast of what is now Belize distilled salt from seawater and paddled it to inland cities in canoes, all without government control, researchers reported on Monday. They found evidence of 41 saltworks on a single coastal lagoon and the remains of a 1,300-year-old wooden canoe paddle. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows the extent of trade just before the Mayan civilization in that region mysteriously fell apart. "The discovery of the saltworks indicates that there was extensive production and distribution of goods and resources outside the cities...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 - In an eagerly awaited report on perchlorate, one of the most controversial unregulated toxic pollutants in the country's drinking water and food supplies, the National Academy of Sciences said Monday that people would be safe if exposed to daily doses 20 times those under consideration by the Environmental Protection Agency. Depending on how federal and state regulators interpret the academy's recommendation, the Defense Department, its contractors and other federal agencies responsible for contamination from perchlorate, a component of solid rocket fuel, could avoid cleanup costs of hundreds of millions of dollars. The environmental agency and the...

Last month, the National Academy of Sciences issued a 328-page report on gun control laws. The big news is that the academy's panel couldn't identify any benefits of the decades-long effort to reduce crime and injury by restricting gun ownership. The only conclusion it could draw was: Let's study the question some more (presumably, until we find the results we want). The academy, however, should believe its own findings. Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, a survey that covered 80 different gun control measures and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a...

'No Credible Evidence' That Carrying Concealed Weapons Laws Decrease Crime Press ReleaseContact:Wisconsin Anti-Violence EffortP.O. Box 170393Milwaukee, WI 53217Phone: 414-351-9283'No Credible Evidence' That Carrying Concealed Weapons Laws Decrease Crime According to a New Report From the National Academy of Sciences: Statement by Wisconsin Anti-Violence EffortGun Lobby Shoots Blanks on False Claims That Wisconsin Families Will Be Safer If Residents Are Allowed to Carry Hidden and Loaded Handguns in Public Places MILWAUKEE -- A new report released from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), "Firearms and Violence," found "no credible evidence" that carrying concealed weapons laws decrease crime. The gun lobby...

I've just returned from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Naval Air Station base where we did three shows for the troops and toured several locations around the post visiting with some of the finest military personnel on planet earth. The kids seemed to really enjoy the shows and especially liked "This Ain't No Rag, It's A Flag" and "In America". We had a great time with them. We saw Camp X-Ray, where the Taliban detainees are being held only from a distance, but I picked up a lot of what's going on there from talking with a lot of different people....

I don't normally "do" vanities. Heck, I rarely post articles. But I absolutely have to get some attention to what Hurricane Ivane did to Pensacola and some of the nearby communities. The landscape has changed. Tens of thousands are now without homes or businesses. Roads needed for resupply are out. Power is out and food supplies for many miles are threatened. Grocery stores don't have power. Power may take weeks to restore, water 6 weeks or more.

Genetically engineered crops do not pose health risks that cannot also arise from crops created by other techniques, including conventional breeding, the National Academy of Sciences said in a report issued yesterday. The conclusion backs the basic approach now underlying government oversight of biotech foods, that special food safety regulations are not needed just because foods are genetically engineered. Nevertheless, the report said that genetic engineering and other techniques used to create novel crops could result in unintended, harmful changes to the composition of food, and that scrutiny of such crops should be tightened before they go to market. "The...

WASHINGTON, July 13 - An expert panel from the National Academy of Sciences said Tuesday that the Hubble Space Telescope was too valuable to be allowed to die in orbit and that NASA should commit itself to a servicing mission to extend its life, perhaps with astronauts in a space shuttle. "NASA should take no actions that would preclude a space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope," the panel said in a letter to Sean O'Keefe, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The committee of outside experts urged the space agency to commit itself to replacing...

[Snip]In the mid-1980s, the National Science Foundation warned that the nation would soon lack enough scientists and engineers to fill the necessary posts in academe -- a forecast that turned out to be wildly inaccurate. Instead, over the past decade, thousands of frustrated researchers have labored in postdoctoral positions at low wages because they could not find jobs in academe or industry.[Snip] Current data suggest that the new predictions may fare no better than earlier ones. In fact, contrary to prevailing wisdom, which fixes blame on poor training in science and mathematics from kindergarten through the 12th grade, record numbers...