Death of heavy metal is music to the ears of these pollution-fighters

William Boei
Sun

University of B.C. researchers are designing a community-wide geothermal heating system for Britannia Beach, using the same runoff water that made the Howe Sound community one of the worst mine pollution sites in North America.

The system would extract heat from the warm water that runs out of the old Britannia copper mine, said UBC mining engineering professor John Meech.

“If we can pull this off, it helps move Britannia from being the eyesore of the industry to something that becomes a showcase for the world,” said Meech, who heads UBC’s Centre for Environmental Research in Minerals, Metals and Materials.

The project has not yet been funded or approved by the provincial government, but it would work hand-in-glove with an acid water treatment plant the province is commissioning to strip heavy metals, especially copper and zinc, from the mine runoff.

The government said this week it has short-listed three consortiums bidding to build the treatment plant as a public-private partnership. The plant is scheduled to open in the fall of 2005.

UBC mining engineers have built two gigantic plugs in old mine shafts to block multiple runoff sources and divert them into a single stream that is being piped directly into the deep layers of Howe Sound instead of flowing down Britannia Creek. One plug, built of sand, gravel and clay and being installed this year, is known as the Millennium Plug, because it is expected to last 1,000 years.

“Britannia Creek is now free of significant copper and zinc levels, and there are signs of salmon fry coming back to the mouth of the creek,” Meech said.

The treatment plant is expected to eliminate — almost overnight — the heavy-metal pollution that has created a dead zone in Howe Sound since the mine closed in the mid-1970s.

The runoff from the mine is a nearly constant 13 C to 14 C year-round.

A geothermal plant would use heat exchangers to extract heat from the runoff, either before it enters the treatment plant or after it leaves, and use it to heat clean water that would circulate through a closed-loop community distribution system.

“Each user would have a heat pump that can extract the heat into their homes for personal use or into their business,” Meech said. “It would supply 45-degree water, which is more than enough for heating a home or even supplying hot water.”

The system could supply heat to 1,200 people, four times Britannia Beach‘s current population of over 300.

A utility company would be formed to install and maintain the distribution system. Residents’ heating bills would fall significantly, Meech said, and the provincial government, which now “owns” the mine runoff water, could expect to collect a royalty.

Meech said his research centre is considering a small demonstration project that would be built after the treatment plant opens, followed by a heat distribution system for the existing town. It would be expanded as new development takes place.

Development companies that own land north and south of the existing townsite have plans to build 400 to 500 new homes in the near future.

“We could heat all of that with what’s available,” Meech said. “And with that kind of phased-in approach, the economics look very attractive.

“Everybody benefits from this because it’s a resource that’s green. It takes what is currently a very negative thing and turns it into a positive. And everybody gets something out of it.”

There are also plans, first revealed last fall, to turn Britannia Beach into a major tourist stop capable of attracting 400,000 to 500,000 tourists per year.

The centrepiece would be an expanded B.C. Museum of Mining, with its existing museum in the old mine buildings representing past mining practices, exhibits of current environmental mining technology, and a research centre to develop new technologies such as magnetic levitation hoisting and isolating a virus that targets the bacteria that generate acid rock drainage.

Project backers are hoping to get funding from UBC and the federal government. The Museum of Mining is working on a feasibility study.

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

Report recommends increasing budget for animal-control services

Frances Bula
Sun

VANCOUVER – Vancouver is about to embark on a new program to require dog owners to buy licences for their pets.

The city also plans to increase penalties for mistreatment or lack of control, and to educate people about responsible dog ownership.

The new program will include such measures as having police officers accompany animal-control officers at parks and beaches, starting this summer, so they can require owners to produce identification and fine them if their dogs don’t have a licence.

All of the new plans, going to council for approval next Thursday, are the result of a changing Vancouver dog world.

The dog population is soaring, along with the human population. More people see their dogs as part of the family, which means they believe they should have the right to go everywhere with them. And more people in apartments are buying dogs, which increases the demand for public space.

The downside of all that has been more attacks by vicious dogs, more complaints from people about dogs in public spaces, and more complaints about how people treat their dogs.

“We feel we’ve done a great job so far. Now we need to take that next step,” said the city’s chief licence inspector, Paul Teichroeb.

The report going to council recommends increasing the budget for animal-control services to $1.7 million, from the current $1 million, over the next six years.

It paints an ominous picture of what could happen if Vancouver doesn’t improve its animal-control services.

“The status quo could lead to more people and dogs being injured, an erosion in residents’ sense of security, an escalation in conflict between dog owners and non-dog owners [and] and greater sense of entitlement for bylaw violators.”

The biggest chunk of the budget, about $200,000, would go to hiring four more animal-control officers to add to the nine currently working.

It’s hoped the city can cover part of the extra costs by bringing in extra money from licences. In 2002, it issued only 15,750 dog licences, which is conservatively estimated as representing only a third of the dogs in Vancouver. A recent poll indicated the total population is about 44,000, although figures on dog-to-human ratios elsewhere indicate the number could be as high as 56,000.

Licences are $34 for spayed and neutered dogs, $54 for those that aren’t.

Teichroeb said there’s no plan to increase the licence fees. He just wants all dog owners to buy a licence. If the city could achieve even 80-per-cent compliance from 44,000 dog owners, it would bring in an additional $675,000.

In Calgary, 90,000 dogs are licensed, which is estimated to be 92 per cent of the population.

Teichroeb said there is also a plan to rebuild the city’s animal shelter at some point. Vancouver‘s shelter already had to be expanded recently, from 32 kennels to 48, because of the “no kill” policy it adopted.

But it still doesn’t have the kind of space it needs to make sure the dogs get lots of exercise and for the 200 volunteers who come down to work with them.

Teichroeb said the plan is going to go out to the public for feedback on this often controversial issue.

Margaret Newton of the Vancouver Dog Owners Association said the group hasn’t had a chance to see the plan, but is looking forward to responding to it at the public sessions.

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

Hot, dry summer could mean a total ban on watering

William Boei
Sun

LOWER MAINLAND – Greater Vancouver residents may face the toughest-ever water-use restrictions this year as another hot, dry summer is expected to strain the region’s drinking-water supplies.

Water district officials are considering adopting a plan to tighten existing regulations and give the region the power to impose dramatic new measures that would ban virtually all outdoor uses of drinking water during a severe water shortage.

“This stage would only be required for the most extreme of situations,” says a water district staff report that outlines the draft Water Shortage Response Plan.

But it may come to that this year if the summer is as hot and dry as last year’s, said Surrey Coun. Marvin Hunt, who chairs the boards of both the Greater Vancouver Regional District and the Greater Vancouver Water District.

The emergency stage would ban all lawn and garden watering, including commercial gardens and turf farms; stop watering of artificial turf, playing fields, parks, cemetery lawns and golf courses; shut commercial car washes; prohibit refilling of private swimming pools, and shut public pools, water-play parks and fountains.

“Yeah, there’s an awful lot of stuff in there that is really, really tough,” Hunt said Thursday.

“But if we find ourselves in that same position again as we did last year with the consumption of water, we’re going to be there.”

The Greater Vancouver Water District’s board is meeting today to consider setting up a public consultation process for the plan, possibly including a public meeting in May to hear from delegations.

The revised plan was commissioned last year after unusually dry weather in summer and early fall forced the district to ban lawn-watering completely and keep a high level of restrictions in effect until seasonal rains finally arrived in October.

There are signs of similar conditions this year. With only sunshine in the forecast for today, this month is expected to be the region’s second-sunniest and third-driest April on record.

By midnight tonight, Vancouver will have had about 251 hours of sunshine, second only to April 1951’s remarkable 294.1 hours. This month’s 14 millimetres of precipitation compares with 13 millimetres in 1973 and 13.7 in 1956.

The long-term outlook is for a drier and slightly warmer summer than normal, Environment Canada said Thursday.

The water district adopted the current shortage response plan in 1993, when population growth and limited storage capacity first presented the prospect of shortages.

It requested a staff review after last summer, when a tight water supply and high warm-weather water usage forced the district to impose the most strenuous restrictions yet.

Hunt said the problem is not so much a shortage of water as a shortage of water storage capacity. The district has three reservoirs and two small lakes in several watersheds in the North Shore mountains for drinking water storage. It has restricted access to only the largest, the Coquitlam reservoir.

“We get lots of rain here, but we just haven’t the capacity to store it up there,” Hunt said. “So we have to make sure that what is there is going to last us through the summer until sometime in October, when we usually get the rains coming again.”

The water district is also working on longer-term plans to solve the problem, Hunt said.

It is trying to encourage individual municipalities to adopt water metering and other measures to reduce use, and is urging municipalities and the provincial government to consider building code changes such as requiring toilet tanks that use less water.

“Really, we use an awful lot of water compared to the rest of the world,” Hunt said.

As well, the district is in long-term talks to get access to a larger share of the Coquitlam reservoir, most of which is controlled by BC Hydro. “We are in negotiations with BC Hydro over that,” Hunt said. “It’s got a number of layers of process to go through.”

[email protected]

‘WHAT IFS’ FOR DROUGHT SCENARIO:

Greater Vancouver‘s proposed new Water Shortage Response Plan calls for escalating stages of action. Each successive stage includes all measures from the previous one.

STAGE ONE

When: June 1 to Sept. 30 or longer

Lawn sprinkling: Restricted to early-morning and evening hours two days a week.

Car and boat washing: Only with hoses that have spring-loaded shut-off valves.

Cemetery lawns, artificial turf and outdoor tracks, municipal lawns and boulevards: Limited watering.

Routine municipal hydrant flushing: None.

STAGE TWO

When: As needed

Lawn sprinkling: One day a week.

Water play parks: Some shut off.

Public and commercial fountains and water features: All shut down.

Sidewalk and driveway washing and pressure-washing: Banned except for health and safety reasons.

Cemeteries, etc.: More restrictions.

STAGE THREE

When: As needed

Lawn sprinkling: Totally prohibited.

Flower and vegetable gardens, shrubs and trees: Watering only by hand.

Golf courses, etc.: Watering cranked down to minimum levels.

Water play parks: Most shut down.

Private pools, spas and garden ponds: No refilling.

Outdoor car or boat washing: None — except for windows and lights.

STAGE FOUR

When: As needed

Watering: None of any kind, including commercial flower and vegetable gardens.

Commercial car washes: Shut down.

Water play parks: All shut down.

Municipal outdoor pools: All closed.

Watering of any kind using drinking water at turf farms, golf courses, municipal lawns, etc.: None.

NOTE: None of these restrictions apply to watering with rain water, “grey” water, other forms of recycled water, or other sources of water besides regional district drinking water.

Source: GVRD Frank Myrskog, Vancouver Sun

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

Margaret Munro
Sun

Scientists who dream of someday unleashing tiny computers in the body to diagnose and treat disease have produced their first minuscule prototypes.

A team of researchers at Israel‘s Weizmann Institute of Science reports in the journal Nature Wednesday that they have created biological computers that can diagnose cancer and produce drugs to combat the invasive disease. The computers have so far worked only in the test tube, but even that is seen as a major accomplishment.

“This work represents the first actual proof of the concept and the first actual demonstration of a possible real-life application for this kind of computer,” says Dr. Ehud Shapiro, head of the research team.

Shapiro and his colleagues hope to eventually create “a ‘doctor in a cell” able to operate inside a living body, spot disease and apply the necessary treatment before external symptoms even appear.”

Their computers are so tiny, several trillion can fit in a drop of water. They are not made of silicon chips but of such biologically active molecules as the DNA normally found in genes. One computer was able to identify the molecules that indicate the presence of prostate cancer and release short DNA strands designed to kill the cancer cells, according to the Nature report. In another experiment, a computer detected lung cancer.

But, Shapiro says researchers have a long way to go before such computers roam through people’s bodies.

“It may take decades before such a system operating inside the human body becomes reality,” says Shapiro, who presented the findings at a meeting of Nobel laureates in Brussels on Wednesday. “Nevertheless, only two years ago we predicted that it would take another 10 years to reach the point we have reached today.”

Dr. Kirk Schultz, a cancer specialist at B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, says such computers may sound like something out of Star Trek, but the technology is moving ahead quickly.

“That they could do this is very exciting,” says Schultz. He says miniaturized diagnostic and treatment devices that could be implanted or worn just outside the body are not far off. He envisions devices for diabetics that could monitor and manage the disease, and others to check for the molecular markers of prostate cancer and administer agents to inhibit the malignancy.

Schultz is working on a Canadian research initiative to bring such microtechnologies to the bedside and doctor’s office. He says they would be tiny but not invisible.

The Israeli scientists are operating on a much smaller nanoscale and the cancer-detecting computers are just the team’s latest creation. In 2001, they built a biomolecular computer that could do simple mathematical calculations in the test tube. Last year, they created what was dubbed the smallest biological computing device on the planet. It used DNA as its source of energy.

The scientists say the beauty of biological computers is that they should be able to function where silicon-based machines cannot — inside the body.

The computers developed for the latest experiments have “software” that is composed of DNA, while DNA-manipulating enzymes make up their “hardware.” They work by assessing concentrations of specific molecules, which are known to be over-produced or under-produced in prostate and lung cancer. The computers make a diagnosis based on the detected levels of these compounds. In response to a prostate cancer diagnosis, it initiates the controlled release of a single-stranded DNA molecule that is known to interfere with the cancer cell’s activities, causing it to self-destruct.

“Our medical computer might one day be administered as a drug and be distributed throughout the body by the bloodstream to detect disease markers autonomously and independently in every cell,” says Shapiro.

“In this way, a single cancer cell could be detected and destroyed before the tumour develops.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

European system finally adapted to North American market

David Bradley
Sun

North Americans love their hot water. Lots of it. And while tankless water heaters deliver unquenchable supplies of on-demand hot water, many homeowners are warming to other benefits of these appliances: big energy and water savings.

According to a water-heater expert, tankless versions can lop 30 to 50 per cent off water heating costs compared with traditional water heaters. On-demand heating doesn’t waste water by allowing the flow to run until warm enough for use.

“A typical 40-gallon heater is like running your car all night in the garage until you drive it,” says Peter LaRose of Nelson and Small, a northeastern U.S. distributor of top-rated Rinnai tankless heaters. “Why have a water heater running when you don’t need it? A tankless system uses no energy until you turn on the faucet.”

Tank systems guzzle energy nearly all day to maintain a preset temperature. As water cools, the system kicks on to reheat water. The cycle repeats day and night whether anyone is home or not.

And as many morning bathers who are last in line for a shower can attest, a tank water heater often can’t keep up with high volume demand for showers, spa-like tubs and whirlpools. LaRose says only about 30 per cent of a tank is drawn off before water must be heated again. “It’s an illogical way to heat water.”

European homes use two or more tankless heaters to offset energy costs several times higher than in North America. But the demand for hot water — and lots of it — makes the U.S. market different.

Tankless heater maker Rinnai now markets a single unit better suited to American homes and American appetites for hot water.

The compact natural gas unit is wall mounted inside or outside a home. Sensors detect when a faucet is turned on, forcing water over a thin copper plate heated by 32 small burners. The unit is vented outside.

The compactness of the heater — 18 inches wide by 27 inches high — makes it a space saver. No mechanical room is necessary.

Homeowners use digital keypads to preset water temperatures to various rooms. Control pads are typically installed in laundry rooms, master baths or kitchens.

The keypads resolve safety issues, too.

Scalding water is a danger to small children or older adults. Tank systems heat water 130 F or higher, well above the 120 F comfort zone for most showers. Once set, tankless water cannot be heated above the preset limit.

Expect to pay $1,000 to $1,200 US for a Rinnai system, including installation. This compares with $200 for the cost of a tank and $300 to $500 for professional installation. Tankless systems are not a do-it-yourself project.

LaRose says beyond energy and water savings, homeowners will save on replacement costs. Tankless systems should last up to 20 years, nearly three to four times longer than tank systems.

“We think within 10 years, tankless systems will be the dominant source of hot water in North America,” says LaRose. “As energy costs and water conservation become even bigger issues, homeowners will turn to tankless systems. It’s the one responsible way to heat water for the home.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

Sun

TORONTO — Economic growth this year will disappoint the Bank of Canada and prompt a further reduction in short-term interest rates, CIBC World Markets economist Jeff Rubin predicted Thursday. His statement follows by one day predictions from the merchant bank J.P. Morgan and Toronto-Dominion that the central bank will begin raising rates because of a rising economy here and in the United States.

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

Clinical trials are slated for turmeric, the yellow spice common in curries

Margaret Munro
Sun

Turmeric, the bright yellow spice common in curries, appears to have potent medicinal power that could help alleviate cystic fibrosis, a debilitating disease that hits one in every 2,500 Canadian children.

Canadian and U.S. researchers report in the journal Science today that feeding a key component of turmeric, called curcumin, to mice make symptoms of the disease disappear.

While encouraged by the results, the doctors stress more study is needed to find out if curcumin will have the same healing power in people with cystic fibrosis.

“We know that this works in mice, “ says Dr. Michael Caplan at Yale University. “But mice are not people and we don’t know how well these results will translate to people.

“We don’t know what high doses of this stuff will do to people, we don’t know if there are any long-term side-effects and we especially don’t know if this stuff will interact with any of the many medications that CF patients have to take,” he said in an interview.

He also stressed that commercial sources of curcumin can very widely.

“There is no quality control in terms of the composition and what else might be in the preparation,” Caplan said. “So I would encourage people to be patient.”

A clinical trial in humans is slated to start this summer to see if curcumin’s remarkable effect on rodents applies in people with CF, a life-threatening disease in which thick, sticky mucous clogs the lungs and the pancreas. People with CF typically die in their early 30s.

The disease is usually caused by a genetic mutation that causes misfolding of a protein. The protein becomes trapped by the cell’s quality control machinery and does not make it to the surface to perform its normal function.

Caplan and his colleagues at Yale teamed up with Drs. Kai Du and Gergely Lukacs at the University of Toronto to see if curcumin would enable protein to escape the cell’s inner machinery by starving so-called inspector proteins.

They fed curcumin to mice with the CF gene mutation and found that it allowed the protein to function normally in the cells lining the nose and rectum. It also prevented the gastrointestinal problems caused by the disease.

The scientists fed the mice curcumin at doses of 45 mg per kilogram of body weight for three days. Comparable consumption in humans has been shown to have no adverse effects, the scientists note in their paper. People have been eating curcumin in curries for centuries.

While six of the 10 untreated mice in the control group died of intestinal problems within 10 weeks, only one curcumin-treated mouse died. They also found that treating hamster kidney cells with curcumin allowed mutated proteins to reach the cellular membrane.

The researchers say in their Science paper that curcumin and its derivatives represent “promising new candidate compounds” that may prove useful in treatment of CF and other protein-folding diseases.

Turmeric has long been used for medicinal purposes in eastern Asia and recent studies have suggested it can help lower cholesterol and relieve inflammatory bowel disease. Just last week researchers reported that curcumin might also help slow neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

Frances Bula
Sun

VANCOUVER – City bar owners have agreed to roll back their late-night closings from 4 a.m. to 3 a.m. to try to eliminate problems caused by people driving in from the suburbs to put in an extra two extra hours’ drinking time.

John Teti, president of BarWatch, said the 21 clubs that currently have licenses allowing them to stay open until 4 a.m. have agreed to new licences that will cut an hour off the time. The new hours will probably go into effect the weekend after next, he said.

However, BarWatch and the city have agreed that the bylaw will not be changed so that the licences for 4 a.m. closings could be restored at some later date.

Councillor Tim Stevenson, who has been working closely with the bar owners on the issue, said it’s time to re-assess the experiment.

“We think it’s necessary now to move back to 3 because of the young people coming in from the suburbs. If bars close at 3, those people probably won’t come in because it won’t be worth it for only an hour.”

There has been a significant increase in incidents of fighting and violence since the city started allowing the 4 a.m. bar closings last summer. Stevenson and Teti said the problem partly stems from the fact that a lot of people pour into the downtown after 2 a.m., when suburban bars close, to continue drinking in Vancouver.

Bar owners have been working to find ways to contain the problem by introducing metal and identity checks at bars and hiring private security guards.

Teti said things have been improving in the last three to four weeks, as private security firms have imposed more order. But he thinks it’s time to retrench a little.

“We don’t want to lose the 4 o’clock possibility. So if we have to take a step backwards to take two steps forward, that’s okay.”

He’s hoping that once police are up to full staffing and all bars have introduced new security measures, those who want to will be able to move back to 4 a.m. closings.

In the meantime, he says that everyone will be at 3 a.m., at least for the summer.

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

The main arteries of Water and Cordova will remain one-way

Michael McCullough
Sun

Starting this weekend, navigating Gastown will become easier for tourists and other out-of-towners, if a bit of an adjustment for commuters. And for Gastown merchants, it’s all for the best.

On Saturday, Carrall, Abbott and Cambie streets (the latter north of Dunsmuir only) will revert to two-way traffic as part of a city hall initiative to reduce travel distances and thereby cut down on airborne pollution.

“It just makes it that much easier to get into Gastown,” said Gastown Business Improvement Society president Jon Stovell.

For 20 years the historic neighbourhood has been a destination where people have to double back to get where they are going, and usually just end up parking in a parkade, said Stovell, who owns Reliance Holdings.

He expects the reconfiguration to have a similar positive impact to the recent provision for parking on Water Street outside of rush hours.

“People who have been down here for a long time like the Old Spaghetti Factory say this has done more than all the other initiatives over the years to improve the neighbourhood, and it hardly cost anything,” Stovell said of the street-parking experiment.

So far city hall has yet to hear a discouraging word from businesses in the area about the conversion of streets to two directions, echoed Downtown Transportation Plan implementation team member Nicky Hood. It will not result in any loss of street parking, she said, although a few spaces will be lost on Cambie to accommodate tour buses outside the new Storyeum attraction opening in June.

The historic district’s main arteries of Water and Cordova streets, and a single-block section of Carrall between the two, will remain one-way.

However, more extensive renovations than the 16 blocks affected in Gastown are coming this fall, when Homer, Beatty and Cambie south of Dunsmuir will also be changed to two-way traffic.

The Gastown Business Improvement Society wishes Water and Cordova could eventually go two ways as well, though city staff have credited those one-way routes for saving Gastown from a commuter freeway once proposed to access the downtown core.

“They did keep a freeway — it’s Water going west and Cordova going east,” Stovell quipped.

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

Medical mood ring will keep doctors in their patient’s loop

Misty Harris
Sun

Wireless technology has produced a “medical mood ring” that heralds a revolution in emergency health care.

Phillip Shaltis, one of three mechanical engineers behind the invention, says the battery-powered ring transmits a patient’s vital signs to a cellphone or computer, allowing caregivers to determine remotely if medical assistance is needed.

“The idea, ultimately, is to try to shrink an entire intensive-care unit down into a single ring,” says Shaltis, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “We want to provide a new kind of direction to medicine in general, taking a lot of the health care out of the hospital by providing a new modality to patients.”

Although MIT has baptized the device as a mood ring for the medical set, it’s actually aimed at measuring people’s physiological responses. Equipped with two diodes that send pulses of red and infrared light through the wearer’s finger, the ring tracks temperature, heart rate and blood-oxygen levels.

Shaltis, along with fellow MIT engineers Harry Asada and Sokwoo Rhee, designed it to be used in hospital waiting rooms, to monitor at-home recovery after surgery, to track patient reactions to medication, and for general fitness monitoring.

“The biggest difficulty with any of these wearable devices is providing a signal that’s reliable outside a hospital,” Shaltis says. “When a patient is outside running around, it’s much, much harder to transmit data because of all the motions being made and the conditions the body is going through.”

A new report issued by the Cambridge consultancy, Wireless Healthcare, suggests mobile carriers will play a key role in health monitoring in the future, and recent developments in the field support that view.

“Canada is going head to head with a number of key research groups and everybody is focusing on wireless,” says Masako Miyazaki, lead researcher on a $2.84-million University of Alberta study using computer-linked wrist monitors.

“Everybody is trying to miniaturize so their product is non-invasive, easy to manage and not so sensitive to the location of application.”

Miyazaki predicts that eventually, the new ring and wrist monitors will be replaced by biodegradable monitoring chips that can be inserted directly into the body.

“Wireless health care will become crucial in the future,” she says. “Overall, it will affect health-care expenses in crisis areas, meaning we can delay people getting sicker and reduce health-care dollars.”

For the past three years, NASA has been working on its own wearable health monitor. The crew physiological observation device, or CPOD, is a 2.1-ounce monitor that wraps around the waist and transmits astronauts’ health information to doctors in real time.

Similarly, a portable health-monitoring kit made by the Canadian company March Networks is now being used on a Mount Everest expedition. The telehealth equipment monitors the climbers’ vitals, stores the data on Bluetooth-enabled PDAs and transmits it via satellite to a website. (Bluetooth is a wireless technology that transmits data over short distances. The personal digital assistants, such as a Palm device, can be equipped to transmit data over long distances to the satellites.)

So far, none of the devices are being sold directly to patients. But Shaltis says they hope to have their medical mood ring commercialized and mass-produced within the next five years, at an estimated retail cost of a few hundred dollars per device.

When good phones go bad: portables that can kill

Sarah Staples

CanWest News Service

April 21, 2004

In two decades, the cellphone has evolved from a clunky thing complete with cumbersome battery pack to a ubiquitous consumer tool.

It has also emerged as a pre-eminent terror and counter-terrorism device, useful for the same reasons that make it a practical necessity, experts say.

Its use is all the more chilling because bombs designed to be triggered by cellular signal are technically difficult to disarm.

“It’s magnificent in terms of technology; versatile and attractive, very affordable and amazingly easy to get access to,” said Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent who runs an Ottawa security consulting firm, The Northgate Group Corp.

“But the human brain is capable of twisting something good into something bad, and that’s what we see with the cellphone.”

With the number of cellphone subscribers now estimated at more than one billion worldwide, according to the wireless market researcher EMC, the phones offer terrorists the convenience of a weapon that can be used in plain view without raising the slightest suspicion.

Unlike alarm clocks, cellphones rigged to detonate when called offer the convenience of precision timing managed by remote control.

“What if you change your mind and want to set it five minutes later because there’s more people? With the cellphone, you’ve got the luxury to detonate at will,” said Juneau-Katsuya.

What sets cellphones apart from other everyday items is that, like the planes that were turned into weapons on Sept 11, 2001, they’re suited to the macabre business of inflicting mass casualties, he said.

To the terrorist the cellphone represents the ultimate in global reach: Anyone in the world can make the call that detonates a cellphone-rigged device. And unless security forces know the phone number, such a trigger is difficult to stop.

Cellphones have been exploited successfully by terror groups ranging from al-Qaida to Ireland‘s Real IRA. The bombs that exploded on Madrid commuter trains March 11, killing 191, were triggered by cellphones hidden in backpacks left on the trains — although in that case it was the internal alarm clock function of the phone, not its ringer, that functioned as the trigger.

Sony packs up the old TV into portable kit lighter than laptop

Vancouver Sun

April 21, 2004

Gizmo-crazed Vancouverites will soon be able to go gaga over Sony’s LocationFree portable TV system, available this fall.

Like something out of a 1940s science fiction story, the all-in-one entertainment device — with its 30-centimetre LCD touch screen monitor and base station — allows you to take your fun with you in an easily-totable package that costs a mere $2,499.

It weighs less than a laptop and once you set up this multi-tasking chameleon you can, using its graphical on-screen interface, watch television programs, flip through your digital photos and even take a look at streaming videos.

Also, you can go on the Internet, read your e-mail or even take a gander at your favourite website.

As well, you can listen to Internet radio.

According to Sony, the unique product is a fusion of traditional television and broadband technology.

“It’s a location-free TV that’s perfect for those without a laptop PC or who simply don’t want the hassle of complicated hookups, synching and downloading the way you must do now if you want mobile entertainment using PC-based systems,” said Sony of Canada’s, general manager, consumer display products, Toshi Matsuo.

The base station, which has an Ethernet jack for a direct connection to the Net, sends its signals to the monitor over a Wi-Fi connection, similar to the wireless ones used in today’s hot spots.

In addition to being a monitor, the touch screen unit — which has a built-in slot for Sony’s Memory Stick media — can display digital images, including videos.

For business travellers and road warriors, an additional smaller portable monitor will also be available that can be carried to the local coffee shop for browsing or to their hotel room. The wireless TV will be available in October.

© The Vancouver Sun 2004