The Y6B Baby
Bosnia - Last October, the United Nations declared a newborn Bosnian baby, Adnan Nevic, the Six Billionth Human. It was a fleeting moment of glory for Adnan: Before the week was out, another 1.5 million new kids were added to the planet. China's Premier Zhu Rongji commemorated the occasion by observing that, had it not been for China's one-family-one-birth policies, "the world's population would have passed 6 billion four years ago."

How Now, Mad Cow?
UK - Until recently, Mad Cow Disease could be diagnosed only after death when an autopsy revealed brain tissue riddled with telltale holes. Now, researchers at London's St. Mary's Hospital have discovered that prions (the infective agent that causes Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human version of mad cow disease) can be detected in lymphoid tissue in human tonsils. Britain has announced plans to test thousands of citizens for the infection. There are no plans to offer similar tonsil tests in the US.

Disarming Logic
Scotland - On June 8, 1999, Angela Zelter, Ellen Moxley and Bodil Ulla Roder slipped into the Faslane Naval Base near Argyll, commandeered two inflatable rafts and made a beeline for a nuclear-armed US Trident submarine.

The peace activists managed to toss some of the sub's equipment into Loch Goil before they were apprehended. The defendants argued that a 1996 International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling gave them the right to "disarm" the base. On October 20, Judge Margaret Gimblett, citing the ICJ's ruling that the possession of nuclear weapons violates inter- national law, ruled that the peace action was justified because "the threat or use of Trident could be construed as ... an infringement of international and customary law." The judge acquitted all three.

Kings of the Road Abdicate
US - Fallout from the Population Bomb has clogged roads during commute hours, making urban parking a nightmare. In a contrite in-house essay on "The Future of Traffic," California State Automobile Association President James P. Molinelli now admits: "States can no longer rely exclusively on highway development to meet the public's needs. There simply is not enough space or funding to build enough highways to accommodate all the people who want to drive."

No Cars for Earth Day
France - Car-free holidays are becoming an international cause celebre. Last September, France's second national "car-free" day saw carbon monoxide levels in downtown Paris fall 30 percent. Noise levels fell as much as 50 percent. Sixty-six French towns closed streets to all but electric or alternatively fueled cars. A French poll found that 44 percent of the people surveyed wanted car-free days to become a weekly event.

In Italy, 14 million people in 92 towns went car-free. In Brussels, European Commission President Roman Prodi and Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström biked to work. Spain, Greece and the UK are also planning car-free days. If you would like the US to go "Car-Free for Earth Day," contact the White House.

Smokescreens
US - A new book called Emissions and Air Quality argues that gasoline-burning cars, trucks and buses are responsible for only 0.5 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions. The authors argue that the major contributors to global CO2 are "sources such as wetlands, forests, grasslands and oceans." Who published the book? The Society of Automotive Engineers!

Sprayed to Death
UK - Jonathan Capewell, a 16-year old Manchester lad, may be the first human known to have overdosed on deodorant. His parents report that Jonathan habitually sprayed his entire body with deodorant at least two times a day. "He just wanted to smell good," his father recalled. After the teenager died suddenly of a heart attack, an autopsy revealed that his blood contained 10 times the lethal dose of propane and butane. Jonathan's family is demanding that warning labels be placed on deodorant cans.

Bee-1 Bombers
US - The US Navy has trained dolphins to recover bombs and kill enemy divers; now University of Montana researchers are working on a Pentagon contract to turn honeybees into flying spies. Initially the idea was to see if bees could be trained to detect explosives. Engineers at the Pacific Northwest National Lab in Richland, Washington designed rice-sized bar codes that could be glued to a bee's back, allowing the insects to be tracked by hand-held radar guns. Science News reports that "similar techniques might also transform bees into scouts for illegal drugs or nuclear-bomb ingredients.

Classrooms or Gas-rooms?
US - Many US children attend school in portable classrooms saturated with formaldehyde, benzene, toluene and arsenic. The Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health reports that two million California kids spend their days inside 86,500 poorly ventilated "temporary" classrooms. They are exposed to chemicals that can cause headaches, nausea, nosebleeds, asthma, cancer, and brain damage.

High levels of toxic chemicals have been found in some students' blood while others have been diagnosed with immune system dysfunction. One student was sickened by "a poisonous mold growing on her lungs." California schools rank dead last nationwide in terms of environmental quality. The message is clear, writes author Jonathan Kozol in his book Illiterate America: "It reminds children that their society doesn't think of them very highly."

Fish Sticks and Stones
ULK - Britain's Department of Health has been advising people to eat lots of oily fish as a guard against heart disease. Perhaps that's why Food Surveillance Information Sheet No. 184 was covered up. The bulletin revealed that herring and fish sticks contained high levels of dioxins and PCBs - deadly pollutants thought to cause cancer, immune system damage, nervous disorders, hormonal disruption, sperm and fertility decreases and genital malformation. The Independent reports that the disclosures will "increase alarm about the state of Britain's food, following ... revelations about antibiotics in meat, and long-running concerns about genetically modified produce."

Coastal Forests in Fatal Pinch
US - Salt intrusion from rising seas is killing coastal forests, according to University of Florida Botany Professor Francis Putz. Each year, Putz reports in the journal Ecology, rising sea levels slowly transform another two meters of west Florida's forests into salt marsh as southern red cedars give way to cabbage palms. The spread of oceanfront hotels and condos has left these forests with no fallback position. "With all the development," Putz says, "forests are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea." The only way to save these forests is to remove some coastal housing to give the trees somewhere to retreat.