NOTES FROM ALL OVER

1) Friends of government regulation will be disturbed by the increasing use of a substance that is neither EPA nor FDA approved, though it contains not only radioisotopes (uranium, potassium 40, carbon 14) but also small quantities of chemical toxins such as arsenic, barium, lead, strontium, cadmium, boron, chromium, cobalt, bromine, sulfur, and several other poisons. For more details see "Trace elements in human milk," IAEA Bulletin, June 83.

2) A 2 MW windmill with 100 ft blades which cost the government $30 million to build would have worked out to $15,000 per installed kW, busting SoCal Edison's Solar-One record by an extra kilobuck per kW. However, the record may not be recognized, since the windmill rarely worked. When the useless $30 million toy was auctioned, a company got it for $51,000. It will salvage the generator for a small hydroelectric facility it owns in Lincoln, N.C. The 100 ft blades were given to Georgia Tech for free, perhaps as teaching aids for courses on the economy of renewable energy sources. (AP dispatch, May 8).

3) In Oct. 1981 the New England J. of Medicine, and in Jan. 1983, the J. of the Amer. Medical Assn. brought articles on the treatment of arthritis by an irradiation technique developed at Stanford U. Medical Center. This would not normally be included in this newsletter, but we received the papers from Marshall Brucer, M.D., with the following comment: "From the mid-1950s it has been almost immoral to use radiotherapy for anything but cancer (preferably terminal cancer). They even changed the name from radiotherapy to radiation oncology in some departments. Attached are the first signs of a release from the hysteria of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. I detect the beginning of the end of anti-radiation. Is the end of anti-nuke in sight?"

4) The August 1983 issue of Heath Physics is the long-awaited special issue on indoor radon. At better college libraries; or be shamelessly overcharged by Pergamon Press, Fairview Park, Elmsford, NY 10523.

5) Had the Soyland Compressed-Air Energy Storage [AtE Aug, Sep 83] materialized, it would (in a sense) not have been the first caes of CAES in North America after all. A water column was used to produce compressed air, though not electricity, for the silver mines in Ontario since the early part of the century. Some of the mines are still in business and the power plant, writes reader Wayne Joslin of Cambridge, Ont., was working unattended in 1976, and probably is now.

6) Change of address notice from a reader who joined the government in 1981: "I'm back at the old stand, disgusted with official Washington. No place for a free marketeer. Sellout, bailout, handout-so I got out."