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Medicine

EPA Approved a Chevron Fuel Ingredient That Has a Lifetime Cancer Risk 121

Posted by BeauHD from the not-a-good-look dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ProPublica: The Environmental Protection Agency approved a component of boat fuel made from discarded plastic that the agency's own risk formula determined was so hazardous, everyone exposed to the substance continually over a lifetime would be expected to develop cancer. Current and former EPA scientists said that threat level is unheard of. It is a million times higher than what the agency usually considers acceptable for new chemicals and six times worse than the risk of lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking. Federal law requires the EPA to conduct safety reviews before allowing new chemical products onto the market. If the agency finds that a substance causes unreasonable risk to health or the environment, the EPA is not allowed to approve it without first finding ways to reduce that risk. But the agency did not do that in this case. Instead, the EPA decided its scientists were overstating the risks and gave Chevron the go-ahead to make the new boat fuel ingredient at its refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Though the substance can poison air and contaminate water, EPA officials mandated no remedies other than requiring workers to wear gloves, records show.

ProPublica and the Guardian in February reported on the risks of other new plastic-based Chevron fuels that were also approved under an EPA program that the agency had touted as a "climate-friendly" way to boost alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. That story was based on an EPA consent order, a legally binding document the agency issues to address risks to health or the environment. In the Chevron consent order, the highest noted risk came from a jet fuel that was expected to create air pollution so toxic that 1 out of 4 people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer. In February, ProPublica and the Guardian asked the EPA for its scientists' risk assessment, which underpinned the consent order. The agency declined to provide it, so ProPublica requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. The 203-page risk assessment revealed that, for the boat fuel ingredient, there was a far higher risk that was not in the consent order. EPA scientists included figures that made it possible for ProPublica to calculate the lifetime cancer risk from breathing air pollution that comes from a boat engine burning the fuel. That calculation, which was confirmed by the EPA, came out to 1.3 in 1, meaning every person exposed to it over the course of a full lifetime would be expected to get cancer.

Another serious cancer risk associated with the boat fuel ingredient that was documented in the risk assessment was also missing from the consent order. For every 100 people who ate fish raised in water contaminated with that same product over a lifetime, seven would be expected to develop cancer -- a risk that's 70,000 times what the agency usually considers acceptable. When asked why it didn't include those sky-high risks in the consent order, the EPA acknowledged having made a mistake. This information "was inadvertently not included in the consent order," an agency spokesperson said in an email. [...] The risk assessment makes it clear that cancer is not the only problem. Some of the new fuels pose additional risks to infants, the document said, but the EPA didn't quantify the effects or do anything to limit those harms, and the agency wouldn't answer questions about them. Some of these newly approved toxic chemicals are expected to persist in nature and accumulate in living things, the risk assessment said. That combination is supposed to trigger additional restrictions under EPA policy, including prohibitions on releasing the chemicals into water. Yet the agency lists the risk from eating fish contaminated with several of the compounds, suggesting they are expected to get into water. When asked about this, an EPA spokesperson wrote that the agency's testing protocols for persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity are "unsuitable for complex mixtures" and contended that these substances are similar to existing petroleum-based fuels. The EPA did address the concerns in June when it proposed a rule that "would require companies to contact the agency before making any of 18 fuels and related compounds listed in the Chevron consent order," notes ProPublica. "The EPA would then have the option of requiring tests to ensure that the oil used to create the new fuels doesn't contain unsafe contaminants often found in plastic, including certain flame retardants, heavy metals, dioxins and PFAS. If approved, the rule will require Chevron to undergo such a review before producing the fuels, according to the EPA."
Electronic Frontier Foundation

DOJ Often Used Cell Tower Impersonating Devices Without Explicit Warrants 146

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the bending-the-rules dept.
Via the EFF comes news that, during a case involving the use of a Stingray device, the DOJ revealed that it was standard practice to use the devices without explicitly requesting permission in warrants. "When Rigmaiden filed a motion to suppress the Stingray evidence as a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the government responded that this order was a search warrant that authorized the government to use the Stingray. Together with the ACLU of Northern California and the ACLU, we filed an amicus brief in support of Rigmaiden, noting that this 'order' wasn't a search warrant because it was directed towards Verizon, made no mention of an IMSI catcher or Stingray and didn't authorize the government — rather than Verizon — to do anything. Plus to the extent it captured loads of information from other people not suspected of criminal activity it was a 'general warrant,' the precise evil the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent. ... The emails make clear that U.S. Attorneys in the Northern California were using Stingrays but not informing magistrates of what exactly they were doing. And once the judges got wind of what was actually going on, they were none too pleased:"
Google

Google Pledges Not To Sue Any Open Source Projects Using Their Patents 153

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the now-and-forever dept.
sfcrazy writes "Google has announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge. In the pledge Google says that they will not sue any user, distributor, or developer of Open Source software on specified patents, unless first attacked. Under this pledge, Google is starting off with 10 patents relating to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google. Google says that over time they intend to expand the set of Google's patents covered by the pledge to other technologies." This is in addition to the Open Invention Network, and their general work toward reforming the patent system. The patents covered in the OPN will be free to use in Free/Open Source software for the life of the patent, even if Google should transfer ownership to another party. Read the text of the pledge. It appears that interaction with non-copyleft licenses (MIT/BSD/Apache) is a bit weird: if you create a non-free fork it appears you are no longer covered under the pledge.
The Almighty Buck

The Man Who Sold Shares of Himself 215

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the social-experiments-gone-awry dept.
RougeFemme writes "This is a fascinating story about a man who sold shares in himself, primarily to fund his start-up ideas. He ran into the same issues that companies run into when taking on corporate funding — except that in his case, the decisions made by his shareholders bled over into his personal life. This incuded his relationship with his now ex-girlfriend, who became a shareholder activist over the issue of whether or not he should have a vasectomy. The experiment continues." The perils of selling yourself to your friends.

Comment Re:Why is this news? (Score 1) 244

by misterye (#37565648) Attached to: Top 1% of iOS Game Developers Make a Third of All Revenue

Numbers: check http://www.softwaretop100.org/top-25-gaming-companies-2010 for the rankings of the top 25 by revenue. We see Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, Sony, and the rest of the top 10 make up over half of the estimated global game revenue. 10 companies out of hundreds? thousands? who knows? The iOS market will probably move more and more towards this as the big publishers like EA continue to press their marketing advantage to sell their games, but the nice thing is there is always an opportunity for the little guy with the killer game to sell just as many copies as EA.

Comment Why is this news? (Score 1) 244

by misterye (#37565568) Attached to: Top 1% of iOS Game Developers Make a Third of All Revenue

Compared to the console and PC gaming world I would imagine the disparity there to be even greater than this. EA, Take Two Interactive, Nintendo, Capcom, Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, Sega, Sony, etc are likely the top 0.01% when it comes to developers and probably take in almost all the (it's too damned early for me to actually do the research, sorry). The important difference here is that in iOS, as of now, the top 1% is only taking in 30% and that those developers are made up of a far greater number of indie studios.

Comment What if we ran schools the worst way possible? (Score 1) 380

by misterye (#33943130) Attached to: What If We Ran Universities Like Wikipedia?

...think of the faculty at a place like the University of Phoenix

To anyone who is any anyway involved in education or has even received one (I mean an education, not just a piece of paper) the thought of all universities being run by U of Phoenix types leaves me even more frightened for the future than normal. Watch PBS's Frontline or just work with someone with a University of Phoenix degree and you'll see what I mean. I have a much better idea: how about we make all universities the opposite of the University of Phoenix. How about all schools have actually competent people get paid to actually teach people who actually give a shit about learning something instead of just adding a few extra letters to their resumes (or in the case of the U of Phoenix teachers, just getting stock options in the University and an extra paycheck)?
Media

Lack of Manpower May Kill VLC For Mac 398

Posted by timothy from the vlc-generally-rocks dept.
plasmacutter writes "The Video Lan dev team has recently come forward with a notice that the number of active developers for the project's MacOS X releases has dropped to zero, prompting a halt in the release schedule. There is now a disturbing possibility that support for Mac will be dropped as of 1.1.0. As the most versatile and user-friendly solution for bridging the video compatibility gap between OS X and windows, this will be a terrible loss for the Mac community. There is still hope, however, if the right volunteers come forward."

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