Experts admit that the Sea of Azov, one of the world’s unique seas, extremely rich in resources, stocks and diversity of flora and fauna and fish breeding grounds, is in an appalling state. According to scientists at the Azov Institute of Fishing Industry, the “human factor” is taking an increasingly devastating toll on the ecosystem. A mathematical model of the Sea of Azov as a living organism was created back in the 1970s-1980s. But on the other hand, the creation of a network of water reservoirs on rivers in the 1950s reduced the annual inflow of fresh water into the Sea of Azov by 15 cubic kilometers, which is equivalent to the total flow volume of the Kuban River. That, among other things, accounted for a 3-percent increase in the sea’s salinity. Annually, approximately four cubic kilometers of water is removed from the Azov. A high concentration of artificial radio nuclides was detected in the sludge, especially of cesium 134, which concentration in fish is at least 10 times higher than in other local foodstuffs. The haul of valuable fish is about 3 percent of the overall catch in the 1970s.
To save of the Azov Sea specialists proposed various measures, the basic principle being a comprehensive approach to the problem. First, it would be a very good idea to ban all commercial fishing in the area for at least 20 years, to say nothing of poaching. Obviously, it is also necessary to build sewage treatment facilities, stop any oil and gas development, and reduce shipping in the area.
Yet everyone realizes that such plans are utterly unrealistic. It is unlikely that the construction of a methanol terminal at Azov will be suspended and one of the few Russian ports in the south – Taganrog – will be closed. There are funds to build purification installations while Azov pike-perch fillet costs between 7 – 12 DM per kilogram in Germany. As for alleviating socioeconomic tension, which is largely responsible for the increase in poaching, this is too much of a hassle even to contemplate.
So, there is very little that the state can do at present: control and regulate the catching of fish, enforce law and order in fish trade, and help reproduce endangered species.
UNIT 4
THE PURPOSE OF SCIENCE
Text 1
A Future with Nowhere to Hide?
We're all too familiar with the concept of technology as a double-edged sword and wireless is no exception. In fact, the back edge of this rapier is sharp enough to draw blood. Yes, the idea of shedding wires and cables is exhilarating: we can go anywhere and still maintain intimate contact with our work, our loved ones and our real-time sports scores. But the same persistent connectedness may well lead us toward a future where our cell phones tag and track us like FedEx packages, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes when we're not aware.
To see how this might work, check out Worktrack, a product of Aligo, a Mountain View, Calif., producer of "mobile services." The system is sold to employers who want to automate and verify digital time-logs of their workers in the field. The first customers are in the heating and air-conditioning business. Workers have cell phones equipped with GPS that pinpoint their locations to computers in the back office. Their peregrinations can be checked against the "Geo Fence" that employers draw up, circumscribing the area where their work is situated. (This sounds uncomfortably like the pet-control technology, those "invisible fences" that give Rover a good stiff shock if he ventures beyond the backyard.)
"It they're not in the right area, they're really not working," says Aligo CEO Robert Smith. "A notification will come to the back office that they're not where they should be." The system also tracks how fast the workers drive, so the employer can verify to insurance companies that no one is speeding. All of this is perfectly legal, of course, as employers have the right to monitor their workers. Smith says that workers like the technology because it insures they get credit for the time they spend on the job.
Worktrack is only one of a number of services devoted to tracking humans. Parents use similar schemes to make sure their kids are safe, and many drivers are already allowing safety monitors to keep GPS tabs on their travels (OnStar anyone?). Look for the practice to really explode as mobile-phone makers comply with an FCC "E911" mandate dictating that by the end of 2005 all handset must include GPS that pin-points the owner's location.
The prospect of being tracked "turns the freedom of mobile telephony upside down," says Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. His concern is government surveillance and the storage of one's movements in databases. In fact, if information from the GPS signals is retained, it would be trivial to retain a log of an individual's movements over a period of years (just as phone records are kept). An even darker view is proposed by two academics who wrote a paper warning the advent of "geoslaveiy'." Its definition is "a practice in which one entity, the master, coercively or surreptitiously monitors and exerts control over the physical location of another individual to routinely control time, location, speed and direction for each and every movement of the slave."
My guess is that the widespread adoption of tracking won't be done against our will but initially with our consent. As with other double-edged tools, the benefits will be immediately apparent, while the privacy drawbacks emerge gradually. The first attraction will be based on fear: in addition to employers' keeping workers in tow, Mom and Dad will insist their teenagers have GPS devices so parents can follow them throughout their day, a human equivalent of the LoJack system to find stolen cars. The second stage will come as location-based services, from navigation to "friend-finding" (some systems tell you when online buddies are in shouting range) make our lives more efficient and pleasurable.
Sooner or later, though, it will dawn on us that information drawn from our movements has compromised our "locational privacy"—a term that may become familiar only when the quality it refers to is lost. "I don't see much that will bring it about [protections] in the short term," says Mark Monmonier, author of "Spying With Maps." He thinks that that we'll only get serious about this after we suffer some egregious privacy violations. But if nothing is done, pursuing our love affair with wireless will result in the loss of a hitherto unheralded freedom—the license to get lost. Here's a new battle cry for the wireless era: Don't Geo-Fence me in.
Text 2
Is Your Cell Really Safe?
Worries about a link between cell-phone radiation and brain cancer still can't be dismissed, says a new study
By Claudia Kalb and Karex Springex
shari welsh can't imagine life without her cell. She brings it everywhere—biking through the hills, driving in the city. "I feel so much safer," she says. But at the same time Welsh, 32, can't stop thinking about whether she's really protecting herself at all. "A lot of times when I'm using my cell phone," she says, "I wonder if I'm going to get brain cancer."
And so do a lot of other people. A whopping 100 million Americans now use mobile phones, and tens of thousands of new customers wire up every day. Health concerns first made major headlines in 1993, when a man alleged that his wife had died of brain cancer from cellphone use, sued the manufacturer and appeared on "Larry King Live." (The case was dismissed.) This week Medscape's online journal MedGenMed, raises new questions with a controversial article surveying the current wireless medical research. Its conclusion: industry claims that cell phones are absolutely safe are "no longer supportable." George- Carlo, the paper's lead author, says he was shocked by the data. "We're beginning to see a momentum of scientific and medical studies," he says, "that are now pointing in the direction of potential problems."
Safety concerns are clearly worth investigating. It has long been known that intense exposure to electromagnetic radiation can harm human tissue. The question is, can the tiny amounts emitted by cell-phone antennas do serious damage? Carlo, the former head of the industry-funded Wireless Technology Research program (set up in 1993 to study cell-phone safety), surveyed more than 50 studies, many of them still unpublished. Most showed no link. The "red flags" he cites come from recent work—much of it preliminary and in no way conclusive. In one experiment researchers at Integrated Laboratory Systems in Research Triangle Park, N.C., found that high levels of cell-phone radiation (two and a half to five times greater than legal cell-phone limits) can cause chromosomal abnormalities in human blood cells. In a Swedish study of brain-tumor patients published last year, scientists found that mobile phones posed no increased risk for brain tumors, but in a very small subgroup of patients tumors were more likely be found on the side of the head where a phone was used. And a team of researchers led by Dr. Joshua Muscat of the American Health Foundation in Valhalla. N.Y., studied 470 brain-tumor patients; they found no risk for the vast majority, but in a subgroup of 35 there was some correlation between cell-phone use and a rare type of brain cancer.
Carlo's review of the science, much of which he has already presented publicly, has drawn fire from industry officials, who say he is exaggerating the findings. Based on the science so far, says Jo-Anne Basile of the Cellular Telephone Industry Association, "there are no adverse health effects from the use of wireless phones." And some of the very researchers Carlo cites object to the way he has presented or interpreted their data and say it requires far more analysis. Carlo, who has a law degree and a Ph.D. in pathology, has spent years doing industry-funded research (he also worked for breast-implant manufacturers) and has been a controversial figure in the health field. He says he's just doing his job. Initially, he thought the data would turn up empty; now, he says, there are questions.
Some of these questions will be more fully addressed over the next few years. This week the Food and Drug Administration and the CTIA meet in Washington to collaborate on safety research. The National Cancer Institute is now analyzing data from a major survey on the causes of brain cancer, which includes an analysis of cell phones. And the World Health Organization, noting that there will be as many as 1.6 billion cell-phone users worldwide by 2005, is planning a study in at least 10 countries to examine links to head and neck cancer.
In the meantime, if you're worried about cell-phone safety, you can take some precautions. Start with an earpiece. Get an old-fashioned cell phone for your car, so that the antenna is outside the vehicle. Hang up when signal strength is bad, says Dr. John Moulder, a radiation oncologist at the Medical College of Wisconsin—that means the phone has to work harder and emit more radiation. Use digital phones (less radiation) rather than analog. And beware of devices that claim to shield radiation, since anything that blocks transmission keeps the phone from working properly. Finally, put it down when you get behind the wheel. You might enjoy the quiet.
UNIT 5
Дата добавления: 2015-09-10; просмотров: 27 | Поможем написать вашу работу | Нарушение авторских прав |