"Autocumulus" Clouds?
Japan - Haruhiro Tsukamoto, a member of the Meteorological Society of Japan, has named a new kind of cloud. Kan-nana and Kan-pachi clouds are pollution-filled cumulus clouds that form above Tokyo's Kan-nana and Kan-pachi highways. Helicopter pilots report that the clouds smell like exhaust fumes. Flying through them causes burning eyes and sore throats. Since 1990, there has been a 30 percent increase in local rains due to these automobile clouds. The raindrops contain dioxins, are more acidic than vinegar, and leave permanent stains on clothing. Look for similar "contrails" over US highways.

Shell to Sell the Sun
South Africa - Solar power is coming to 50,000 homes in South Africa, thanks to a joint agreement between Eskom, South Africa's national power supplier, and Shell International Renewables. But there is a hitch: According to Renewable Energy World, the solar homes are "activated for a 30-day period by a magnetic-strip card. When the 30 days are up, customers can buy a replacement." When it comes to making a deal to sell sunshine, Shell holds all the cards.

Solar Race Gets Wings
Australia - The World Solar Challenge kicks off in October with dozens of solar cars from around the world racing from Darwin to Adelaide. For the first time, some 20 solar-powered gliders will take to the air on the 3,000-km (1,864-mile) trek. The next day, 40 sun-boosted bikes will set off from Alice Springs on a seven-day sprint toward Adelaide. In 1990, the solar racers averaged 65 kph (40.4 mph). In 1996, the contestants averaged 94 kph (58.4 mph). This year's winner could break the 100-kph mark.

Green Bullets
US - Lead bullets are out of favor be-cause, once fired, they leach deadly metal into the environment. The US Army plans to order one million "green" bullets made from tungsten. The International Tungs-ten Industry Association estimates that stockpiling 200 million of these "enviro-friendly" bullets would consume "more than 5,500 tons or one-eighth of existing annual tungsten consumption in the world." Savings in lead-abatement clean-up costs could reach $20 million a year.

The Soft Path to Kyoto
US - According to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the US need not break a sweat trying to meet its carbon-dioxide-cutting goals under the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. Simply applying existing energy-efficient technologies could meet 60 percent of our carbon-cutting goals. Efficiency measures would also save $160 billion annually, which could mean a $1600 tax cut for every US household.

US Men Face Extinction
Japan - As human sperm counts con-tinue to fall in the industrialized world, Japanese scientists have targeted two new sources for modern man's chemical castration. The National Institute for En-vironmental Studies finds that exposure to auto exhaust can kill up to 50 percent of sperm in lab mice. Nagasaki University Associate Professor Koshi Arizono reports that bisphenol A (an epoxy resin used to coat the insides of cans of sports drinks and vegetable juices) is an endocrine disrupter. American men today are now only half as fertile as their counterparts in the 1940s. If current trends continue, European males will be completely sterile by the year 2010; US males will be sterile by 2020. (This troubling trend may explain the West's sudden interest in cloning.)

Memo to Steve Ford
US - Sport-utility vehicles don't have to be gas-guzzling road hogs. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has redesigned a Ford Explorer to shave 621 pounds, double its fuel economy and cut pollution by 75 percent. UCS claims that its "Ford Exemplar" could be built today with existing technologies. The added cost - $715 - would be quickly recovered through fuel savings.

Sellafield Killing Fields
UK - After testing the soils around Bri-tain's Sellafield nuclear processing plant, scientists from Germany's University of Bremen declared the place to be as heavily contaminated as the landscape around the ruptured Chernobyl reactor. "People are prohibited from entering a 30-km zone around Chernobyl," notes Greenpeace, but "there are no such restrictions around Sellafield." A British survey of 22,000 child cancer deaths by former Birmingham University epidemiologist George Know confirms increased cancer deaths among children born near the Sellafield and Dounreay nuclear facilities.

Clean Dishes, Polluted Air
US - The biggest source of indoor air pollution may be the dishwasher. US tap water is laced with trace amounts of toxic chemicals - by-products of water-treatment with chlorine and fluoride. Environmental Science & Technology reports that the hot, pulsing spray of a dishwasher liberates 96 to 100 percent of the toluene, ethylbenzene, and cyclohexane in the water within minutes and releases it into the surrounding air. Washing machines, showerheads and faucet taps also release toxins in lesser amounts. (The hotter the water, the more toxins are freed.) Chlorine cleansers compound the problem University of Texas researches warn.

Earth-Busting RHICochet?
US - A panel of scientists will decide whether to pull the plug on the Brook-haven National Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a 2.4 mile-long atom-smasher on Long Island, New York. BBC World reports that RHIC was built to "generate minuscule fireballs of super-dense matter with temperatures of about a trillion degrees - 10,000 times hotter than the sun. Such conditions are thought not to have existed ... since the Big Bang that formed the universe." One possibility: RHIC might create a "mini black hole" that could suck Long Island and the rest of the planet into oblivion. The greater risk: RHIC might cause "perturbations of the universe" by generating subatomic particles called strangelets. MIT Physics Professor Bob Jaffe notes that "the probability of something unusual happening is not zero." "The big question," adds Birmingham University Physics Professor John Nelson, "is whether the planet will disappear in the twinkling of an eye."