'Bioplastics' seek market niche

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- Target offers shoppers an unusual message about its gift cards at some stores, advising that they are biodegradable. "Just make sure you spend them first," the displays conclude.

Dr. Oliver Peoples is co-founder of Metabolix, which produces an organic biodegradable plastic.

This isn't just a marketing gimmick. Plastics made from corn and other plants are carving a tiny niche from the market for conventional petroleum-based plastics and being touted as green alternatives for everything from bulk food containers to lipstick tubes and clothing fiber -- as well as gift cards.

So-called "bioplastics" offer the world a way to wean itself off oil, and most biodegrade to varying degrees. But their makers' green argument is complex, and environmentalists are cautious in their support.

Manufacturing bioplastics produces carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming. The materials are made from crops -- corn, switchgrass, sugar cane, even sweet potatoes -- that require land and water to grow. Some sound alarms because genetically modified organisms are used to spur the fermentation that creates them. And recycling them presents still other pitfalls.

They also can cost three times more than conventional plastics, which gives businesses pause about adopting them. Yet, until bioplastics expand beyond their current tiny fraction of the overall plastics market, the road to popularity is expected to be rough.

"It's almost a chicken-and-egg scenario," said David Cornell of the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers. "It might someday reach that critical mass, but it has to happen very quickly, because in the meantime it can be a nuisance for us."

Bioplastics' main benefit would be to reduce from 10 percent the share of U.S. petroleum consumption that goes into plastic. The types that are biodegradable also could help compensate for the country's slow progress in recycling -- only about 6 percent of plastic made in the U.S. was recycled in 2005, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Bioplastics also lack toxins like polyvinyl chloride that have raised health concerns and led California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this month to sign legislation banning chemicals called phthalates from toys and baby products.

"This is a promising new technology that faces some challenges," said Mike Schade of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, a Falls Church, Virginia-based nonprofit. "But we don't view them as insurmountable, if the industry is willing to face them head-on."

The market's newest entrant is Mirel, from Cambridge-based Metabolix Inc. It more easily biodegrades than rival materials and, unlike others, can break down in a backyard compost bin. Its first consumer application came in July when Target Corp. began using it in gift cards at 129 stores. Metabolix is talking with potential clients about dozens more applications for Mirel, from razor blade handles to a coating for disposable coffee cups.

Agricultural processor Archer Daniels Midland Co. provides corn feedstock for making Mirel, which requires genetically engineered bacteria to aid in fermentation.

The most widely used bioplastic, NatureWorks -- a product of a subsidiary of Minnesota-based Cargill Inc. -- also is corn-based and biodegradable. It is made without genetically modified bacteria. Some of the corn that goes into it is modified, raising environmental concerns on the sourcing end, but the company notes that protein from the corn is destroyed in processing. NatureWorks already is used in dozens of products, including water bottles -- an application unsuited to Mirel, which isn't transparent.

Other bioplastics that biodegrade to some degree include Ecoflex, from German chemical company BASF AG; Mater-Bi, from Italy's Novamont S.P.A.; Cereplast, from a Hawthorne, California-based company by the same name. And two major conventional plastics makers -- DuPont Co. and Brazilian chemical company Braskem SA -- make recyclable bioplastic that isn't biodegradable, the first from corn and the second from sugar cane.

No figures are available on overall bioplastics production, but bioplastics makers acknowledge the products occupy a tiny niche in the global plastics market, which totals $250 billion and produces 360 billion pounds a year. By comparison, the 300 million-pound capacity of NatureWorks' Nebraska production plant is less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the market total.

For most biodegradable bioplastics, including NatureWorks, an industrial compost plant is recommended -- facilities that are few and far between. The products are stable in places where microbes and moisture are minimal, as on a kitchen shelf. Metabolix says Mirel will decompose in a backyard compost within two months and about twice as slowly in soil, rivers, lakes or the ocean. But very few Americans compost, and most who do try not to include even paper products, let alone unfamiliar bioplastics.

"There's a lot more to it than saying it's scientifically and technologically possible to compost these materials," said Betty McLaughlin of the Container Recycling Institute, a nonprofit encouraging greater materials recovery and recycling.

And, just as different types of petroleum-base plastic can't be mixed in recycling, bioplastics should not be mixed with any conventional plastic because even tiny quantities can irreparably contaminate some melted petroleum-based plastics that have higher melting points, Cornell said.

"The sustainability concept is taking hold broadly, including in the corporate sector," said McLaughlin. "But these materials face a long road gaining acceptance."

A major bump on that road will be their cost. But, in another chicken-and-egg paradox, growing the market for bioplastics is key to bringing down their price, industry leaders said. NatureWorks says its production costs are just 10 to 20 percent above those of conventional plastics. Companies buying Mirel pay about $2.50 a pound, compared with 70 cents to 90 cents for petroleum-based resin, although the price difference is expected to shrink as quantities grow and oil prices rise.

Tamara Nameroff, acting director of the American Chemical Society's Green Chemistry Institute, said being as good as the product it replaces is not good enough for any green product, "even if you've proved you can make it environmentally friendly."

"You have to show a cost advantage to what it's replacing," she said. "The idea that people just want to purchase environmentally friendly products has been demonstrated in some markets, but not universally."

Though most consumers lack the patience to sort out all the arguments, environmental friendliness can sell. Ralph DiMatteo, 48, of Painesville Township, Ohio, said after learning Sam's Club gift cards are made of NatureWorks plastic that he would buy them as holiday gifts.

"I don't spend a lot of time researching these kinds of things, but if something is presented to me properly to show how my effort can make a difference for the environment, I'm willing to pay a couple extra cents," DiMatteo said.

For now, Metabolix is banking on that kind of attitude, said co-founder and chief scientific officer Oliver Peoples.

"We believe that there is a segment of the population that is willing to pay to basically feel better about using plastics," Peoples said. "And if a company decided it wanted to go in that direction of charging $2.03 for a cup of coffee rather than $2.00, our view is that we're adding something to their brand."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Tests reveal high chemical levels in kids' bodies

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Michelle Hammond and Jeremiah Holland were intrigued when a friend at the Oakland Tribune asked them and their two young children to take part in a cutting-edge study to measure the industrial chemicals in their bodies.

Tests showed Rowan's blood had high levels of a chemical that can cause thyroid dysfunction in rats.

"In the beginning, I wasn't worried at all; I was fascinated," Hammond, 37, recalled.

But that fascination soon changed to fear, as tests revealed that their children -- Rowan, then 18 months, and Mikaela, then 5 -- had chemical exposure levels up to seven times those of their parents.

"[Rowan's] been on this planet for 18 months, and he's loaded with a chemical I've never heard of," Holland, 37, said. "He had two to three times the level of flame retardants in his body that's been known to cause thyroid dysfunction in lab rats."

The technology to test for these flame retardants -- known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) -- and other industrial chemicals is less than 10 years old. Environmentalists call it "body burden" testing, an allusion to the chemical "burden," or legacy of toxins, running through our bloodstream. Scientists refer to this testing as "biomonitoring."

Most Americans haven't heard of body burden testing, but it's a hot topic among environmentalists and public health experts who warn that the industrial chemicals we come into contact with every day are accumulating in our bodies and endangering our health in ways we have yet to understand.

"We are the humans in a dangerous and unnatural experiment in the United States, and I think it's unconscionable," said Dr. Leo Trasande, assistant director of the Center for Children's Health and the Environment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

Trasande says that industrial toxins could be leading to more childhood disease and disorders.

"We are in an epidemic of environmentally mediated disease among American children today," he said. "Rates of asthma, childhood cancers, birth defects and developmental disorders have exponentially increased, and it can't be explained by changes in the human genome. So what has changed? All the chemicals we're being exposed to."

Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, a public health advocacy group, disagrees.

"My concern about this trend about measuring chemicals in the blood is it's leading people to believe that the mere ability to detect chemicals is the same as proving a hazard, that if you have this chemical, you are at risk of a disease, and that is false," she said. Whelan contends that trace levels of industrial chemicals in our bodies do not necessarily pose health risks.

In 2004, the Hollands became the first intact nuclear family in the United States to undergo body burden testing. Rowan, at just 1 years old, became the youngest child in the U.S. to be tested for chemical exposure with this method.

Rowan's extraordinarily high levels of PBDEs frightened his parents and left them with a looming question: If PBDEs are causing neurological damage to lab rats, could they be doing the same thing to Rowan? The answer is that no one knows for sure. In the three years since he was tested, no developmental problems have been found in Rowan's neurological system.

Trasande said children up to six years old are most at risk because their vital organs and immune system are still developing and because they depend more heavily on their environments than adults do.

"Pound for pound, they eat more food, they drink more water, they breathe in more air," he said. "And so [children] carry a higher body burden than we do."

Studies on the health effects of PBDEs are only just beginning, but many countries have heeded the warning signs they see in animal studies. Sweden banned PBDEs in 1998. The European Union banned most PBDEs in 2004. In the United States, the sole manufacturer of two kinds of PBDEs voluntarily stopped making them in 2004. A third kind, Deca, is still used in the U.S. in electrical equipment, construction material, mattresses and textiles.

Another class of chemicals that showed up in high levels in the Holland children is known as phthalates. These are plasticizers, the softening agents found in many plastic bottles, kitchenware, toys, medical devices, personal care products and cosmetics. In lab animals, phthalates have been associated with reproductive defects, obesity and early puberty. But like PBDEs, little is known about what they do to humans and specifically children.

Russ Hauser, an associate professor of environmental and occupational epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, has done some of the few human studies on low-level phthalate exposure. His preliminary research shows that phthalates may contribute to infertility in men. A study led by Shanna Swan of the University of Rochester in New York shows that prenatal exposure to phthalates in males may be associated with impaired testicular function and with a defect that shortens the space between the genitals and anus.

The Environmental Protection Agency does not require chemical manufacturers to conduct human toxicity studies before approving their chemicals for use in the market. A manufacturer simply has to submit paperwork on a chemical, all the data that exists on that chemical to date, and wait 90 days for approval.

Jennifer Wood, an EPA spokeswoman, insists the agency has the tools to ensure safe oversight.

"If during the new-chemical review process, EPA determines that it may have concerns regarding risk or exposure, the EPA has the authority to require additional testing," she said. EPA records show that of the 1,500 new chemicals submitted each year, the agency asks for additional testing roughly 10 percent of the time. The EPA has set up a voluntary testing program with the major chemical manufacturers to retroactively test some of the 3,000 most widely used chemicals.

Trasande believes that is too little, too late.

"The problem with these tests is that they are really baseline tests that don't measure for the kind of subtle health problems that we're seeing," Dr. Trasande said.

In the three years since her family went through body burden testing, Michelle Hammond has become an activist on the issue. She's testified twice in the California legislature to support a statewide body burden testing program, a bill that passed last year. Michelle also speaks to various public health groups about her experience, taking Mikaela, now 8, and Rowan, now 5, with her. So far, her children show no health problems associated with the industrial chemicals in their bodies.

"I'm angry at my government for failing to regulate chemicals that are in mass production and in consumer products." Hammond says. "I don't think it should have to be up to me to worry about what's in my couch."

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France on green crusade

PARIS, France (AP) -- Stamping camembert with a "carbon footprint" rating. Charging Parisians for the empty Bordeaux bottles they discard. Banning high speeds through the pasture-lined highways of the Loire Valley.

The Eiffel tower with all lights shut down during a five-minute "lights-out" on Tuesday.

France is trying to clean up its act, readying measures this week aimed at reversing its image as environmental laggard and making it a pioneer in the fight against global warming and other threats to the Earth's well-being.

Yet environmental groups fear the measures, to be finalized at a conference Wednesday and Thursday, will be too watered down to make a difference in France's carbon emissions and have little impact on worldwide efforts to reduce the pollution that is warming the planet.

President Nicolas Sarkozy isn't letting those fears slow his push to raise France's eco-profile.

He put global warming high on his agenda after his election in May, creating Europe's most powerful environment ministry and berating the United States for its resistance to emissions cuts. At the United Nations, Sarkozy urged developed countries and major polluters to commit to a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.

Sarkozy's friendly relations with President Bush have had no apparent effect on U.S. climate policy, but the French president is reaching out to other Americans, too: Al Gore, who won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his work against global warming, will be at Sarkozy's side at this week's conference in Paris, Sarkozy's office said.

At twilight Tuesday, the Eiffel Tower's twinkling lights went out for five minutes -- along with lights at the Elysee presidential palace, the prime minister's office and other sites -- to call attention to energy consumption and its consequences.

Households were asked to join in and many apparently did. The company that manages the flow of electricity, RTE, said it measured a 0.9 percent drop in consumption -- equivalent to use of 10 million 60-watt light bulbs.

The measures to be announced Thursday came out of three months of talks among activists, farmers, businesses and government officials that have been fraught with friction.

They made no progress on nuclear energy -- which Sarkozy champions and environmental groups reject -- or on biofuels, the junior minister for ecology, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said in an interview.

Still, she insisted the conference was a crucial first step.

"We want to see what we can do ourselves, with the idea to be exemplary, to be pioneers," she said in an interview. "We think that there are new markets, a new economy" to be tapped in making the French more environmentally conscious, she added.

Ideas emerging include stickers on food packaging indicating how much carbon dioxide was emitted in making the product, lowering speed limits on roads throughout France to encourage fuel efficiency, charging households per pound of garbage they produce, charging money to drive in big cities, requiring environmentally "clean" cafeteria food and refitting historic mansions to make them more energy efficient.

Greenpeace International director Gerd Liepold was unimpressed.

"There's nothing groundbreaking in this," he said. "What is happening in France is what happened in other European countries 10, 15 years ago."

France is more dependent on nuclear energy than any other nation and falls behind several European neighbors in recycling, energy conservation and cleaning up agriculture. France was later than other developed nations in banning use of asbestos, and concerns are mounting lately about the long-term health risks.

Genetically modified crops are another sensitive topic in this country that values its agriculture. The conference may produce a temporary freeze on them, but activists say that is not enough.

Yannick Jadot of Greenpeace France said Tuesday that if the conference doesn't lead to a long-term ban on genetically modified crops, it will be a "total failure."

Jim Leape, director of the World Wildlife Federation, urged Sarkozy to get the European Union to take a strong stance on emissions cuts ahead of crucial global warming talks in Bali in December.

"France needs to lead ... industrialized countries to stand up to this challenge. President Sarkozy's peers will be paying attention," he said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Controversial Nobel winner resigns

(CNN) -- The Nobel prize-winning biologist who caused a furor with comments about the intelligence of black people resigned Thursday from his longtime post at a renowned research lab.

James Watson won the 1962 Nobel prize for discovering the structure of DNA.

In a statement announcing his departure from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on New York's Long Island, Dr James Watson did not mention the comments but instead cited "events" which led to his decision.

"The circumstances in which the transfer is occurring," he wrote, "are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired."

The lab's board had already suspended him pending a review of his remarks, for which Watson apologized last week.

The controversy began with an interview with Watson published October 14 in Britain's Sunday Times.

Watson was quoted as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."

He also asserted there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically, and that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

Watson had been on a tour of the United Kingdom to promote his new book, and the comments led several venues to cancel his planned appearances.

The 79-year-old biologist apologized "unreservedly" last week and said he did not understand how he could have made the quoted remarks. The paper stood by its interview.

Watson won the 1962 Nobel prize for his role in discovering the double-helix structure of DNA. He had been chancellor of the lab and served on its board for 43 years, but he said it was now time to retire.

"Closer now to 80 than 79, the passing on of my remaining vestiges of leadership is more than overdue," he wrote.

Watson said he was proud of the laboratory's legacy and reputation as one of the world's leading sites for biological research and education. Specifically, Watson mentioned cancer research as one of the lab's achievements.

Eduardo Mestre, chairman of the lab's board, said Watson had made "immeasurable contributions" to the lab's research and that the board respected his decision to retire.

The lab's director, Bruce Stillman, credited Watson with raising the lab's profile.

"Jim's legacy will not only include CSHL and the double helix, but his pioneering efforts that led to the sequencing of the human genome and his innovations in science writing and education."

Watson had made controversial remarks in the past. In 1997, Britain's Sunday Telegraph quoted Watson as saying that if a gene for homosexuality were isolated, women who find that their unborn child has the gene should be allowed to have an abortion.

During a lecture tour in 2000, he suggested there might be links between skin color and sexual prowess, and between a person's weight and their level of ambition.

And in a British TV documentary that aired in 2003, Watson suggested that stupidity was a genetic disease that should be treated.

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Greenland's ice sheet melts as temperatures rise

ILULISSAT, Greenland (CNN) -- From the air, Greenland's ice sheet, the second largest on Earth, appears to be perfectly still.

A boat sails by an iceberg floating in the Jacobshavn Bay near the town of Ilulissat, Greenland.

But below the surface, the ice sheet is in constant motion, as ice built up in the interior pushes toward the coast in the form of massive glaciers. During warmer months, ice from these glaciers melts into the ocean.

It's an age-old process that scientists say has sped up in recent decades because of global warming.

The fear is that melting ice from Greenland and other Arctic areas could cause sea levels to rise enough to flood low-lying cities, such as Shanghai, China, and New York City, displacing millions of people in the process.

A recent report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of scientists from around the world, estimates the sea level rise by 2100 could be as much as 1 feet.

"That sea level rise is only based on melt from ice sheets, and does not include a new fast flow of ice we have detected in Greenland that is generating additional icebergs," said Dr. Konrad Steffen, a climate scientist with the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Steffen estimates sea levels could rise three feet over the next century, a stark prediction that could wreak havoc around the world if it comes to pass. Greenland holds enough ice to cause sea levels to rise 23 feet if the entire ice sheet melted, a development few scientists expect to happen anytime soon. But global sea levels have been rising at the rate of three millimeters per year since 1993.

For each of the past 17 years, Steffen has spent one month at a remote research site called Swiss Camp, located 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Greenland. He monitors the changing ice sheet through a network of global positioning systems and weather stations, which have recorded a dramatic rise in temperatures since the mid-1990s.

"When we came here in 1990, the first two, three years were actually colder than normal. Then in 1994, 1995, it started to warm steadily and since then, we've had a temperature increase during the winter months of 4.5 degrees centigrade, 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit, which is very large, the largest temperature increase on earth," he said.

The rising temperatures feed what scientists call a "positive feedback loop." As the air warms, it melts ice on the sea and snow on land. This exposes more water and land to the sun. Those surfaces in turn absorb more of the sun's heat, leading to more snow melt and ice melt.

"When you look at our satellite analysis, we can see the melt area of Greenland over 30 years has increased by 30 percent," Steffen said.

Despite all the changes in Greenland, this is not the first time temperatures have risen on the world's largest island. During the 1920s and 1930s, there was a significant warming trend that occurred without the level of man-made greenhouse gases recorded in our atmosphere today. The majority of scientists say greenhouse gases are the chief cause of global warming.

The fact Greenland has warmed before leads some scientists to question how worried we should be about the current warming trend. Dr. Patrick Michaels, a climatologist, is part of a small group of climate change skeptics. He said Greenland's warm past didn't cause the ice sheet to disappear.

"Well, this happened for 50 years in the early 20th century, and it happened for a millennium after the end of the last ice age," he said. "And the ice didn't shed off it."

But Dr. Jay Zwally, a climate scientist with NASA, said he thinks the latest trend is different.

"The current warming trend in Greenland is very extensive and is not likely to be explained by natural variability alone," he said. Zwally said the warming is consistent with scientific predictions about the effects of man-made greenhouse gases.

Last year, satellite data collected by NASA scientists revealed Greenland is losing 100 billion tons of ice each year, more than it is gaining from snowfall in the interior. Steffen and others have also detected a new, faster movement of the ice sheet, causing the glaciers to dump more ice into the ocean, where it melts and contributes to sea-level rise.

Part of this faster flow is caused by moulins, deep holes in the ice sheet that allow water to flow beneath the surface.

"During the summer months, as the ice sheet melts, large running rivers of melt water snake down through the ice, to the bedrock base below," Steffen said.

Last year, researchers lowered a camera into a moulin to explore the depth and flow of the melt water. Once the melt water from the surface reaches the bedrock below the ice, it can lift the ice sheet and provide a layer of viscosity for the ice to move faster toward the sea, a process that could accelerate as Greenland continues to warm.

Steffen hopes his prediction of a three-foot rise in global sea level by 2100 won't become a reality. But he warned that even if we are able to reduce the world's carbon output from cars and power plants, it will take a long time for Earth's climate to stop warming and seas to stop rising.

"Even if we reduce our carbon dioxide output, the climate will continue to warm," he said. "So even by stopping the increase of carbon dioxide today, we will have a warming, we will have sea level increase."

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Warmer temperatures tied to wildfires, scientists say

(CNN) -- Huge wildfires, such as the ones that have charred more than 460,000 acres this week in Southern California, are becoming more common in the Western United States, and scientists say warming trends and other climate factors may be responsible.

Scientists say that warming trends appear tied to increased wildfire activity in parts of the U.S. West.

A study published last year in the journal Science found that the number of large wildfires (greater than 1,000 acres) in Western forests increased dramatically in the mid-1980s.

The length of the fire season also increased, the study found. It noted that the average length of the fire season between 1987-2003 was 78 days longer than it was between 1970 and 1986.

That's a 64 percent increase, the study found.

Thomas Swetnam, one of the study's authors, said that there's a pretty strong connection between the early arrival of spring and increased wildfire activity.

"Fuel has a longer season to dry out, and the soils have a longer season to dry out so the fire season starts earlier and lasts longer," Swetnam said.

The greatest increase in wildfire frequency was in the Northern Rockies, which made up 60 percent of the rise in large fires, according to the study.

"I think the evidence is lining up that indeed there is some connection between the warming trends and especially the early arrival of spring," he said. "The strongest signal is actually in the northern states of the West -- Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana -- and also Alaska and Canada are showing a pretty clear connection between warming temperatures and wildfire activity."

Swetnam, director of the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, said different climate factors are fueling the Southern California fires.

First there's the hot, dry Santa Ana winds, which sweep into the region and can fan the tiniest embers into a roaring blaze.

"I don't think there are any really good studies that show that the increased severity or duration of Santa Ana winds could be related to global warming. That link has not been established yet," Swetnam said.

Wet winters in 2005 and 2006 promoted the growth of shrubs, grasses and other fine fuel plants, he said.

This year's extreme drought and record temperatures have made those plants tinder dry.

Fire weather expert Rob Balfour said surface temperatures are 10 to 20 degrees hotter than the air in the hills around San Diego.

"So we're looking at 120 degrees for the grasses and things like that," Balfour said. "So if an ember lands in there, it's just going to ignite immediately."

Plants such as mountain mahogany, chamise and sage are filled with oils that burn fast and hot.

"In those shrubby systems, you don't have surface fires," said Monique Rocca, a wildfire fire science professor at Colorado State University. "The fire just goes through all the shrubs and kills them, but because that's the normal fire regime for down there the shrubs are highly adapted to re-sprout or reseed after a fire."

Those plants grow back quickly after a fire, and several species of wildflowers only grow in areas that have burned, Rocca said.

Swetnam said smaller, surface fires are good for forests because they destroy shrubs and other brush without hurting trees.

If that brush builds up, it can fuel more intense crown fires, which can reach the tops of trees and kill them.

"In many cases the extent of these crown fires are so large that the canopy holes that are created won't recover back to forest for a long, long time," Swetnam said.

Grasses and brush often establish themselves in those clearings because they grow faster than trees, he said. They're also well-adapted for fire, so they may burn again and kill young trees growing in the area.

"If you lose the forest canopy and it reverts to shrubs or grasslands, it may not revert to forests," Swetnam said.

CNN's Rob Marciano contributed to this report.

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Toyota looks to next-generation hybrids

TOYOTA, Japan (AP) -- Since he was a teenager, Takeshi Uchiyamada's dream was to make a car. But as he entered his 50s as a Toyota engineer, he had all but given up hope he would ever head a project to develop a model.

The Toyota Prius was the dream of engineer Takeshi Uchiyamada.

In 1994, he finally got his dream. Little did he know that the car he was about to design -- the Prius -- would revolutionize the global auto industry.

Uchiyamada, 61, now executive vice president, was tackling the first mass production gas-electric hybrid, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in December.

With other engineers, he trudged away at 16-hour work days, patiently testing hundreds of engines. Fistfights broke out over what option to take to overcome engineering obstacles.

The Prius was a big step forward for the future of green cars. Up next for Toyota and its rivals: Far more powerful batteries for next-generation hybrids, plug-in electric cars and eventually zero-emission fuel-cell vehicles powered by hydrogen, which combines with oxygen in the air to form water.

In an interview, Uchiyamada recalled the exhaustion, the loneliness and the gambles as his team debunked Toyota's image as a safe and boring imitator of rivals' successes.

Introduced in Japan in December 1997, and the following year in the U.S., the Prius, now in its second generation, gets about 46 miles per gallon switching between a gas engine and electric motor. It has been by far the most successful hybrid, selling a cumulative 829,000 vehicles -- making up for most of Toyota's nearly 1.2 million hybrid sales.

Toyota has gotten a kick from the Prius, an enhanced global image for technological innovation, social responsibility and fashionable glamour, analysts say.

The Prius is also one solid bright spot for Toyota, whose reputation for quality is starting to tarnish as it targets a record of selling 10.4 million vehicles globally in 2009. Meanwhile, its recalls are also ballooning.

But when it all began, Uchiyamada wasn't even thinking hybrids.

Orders from management -- then president Hiroshi Okuda and Shoichiro Toyoda, the company founder's son and chairman -- were ambiguous: Come up with the 21st century car, the vehicle that would hands-down beat the competition in mileage and environmental friendliness.

Uchiyamada initially proposed an advanced gasoline engine that was quickly rejected as lacking imagination. But advanced technologies like fuel cells and the electric vehicle were too expensive for a commercial product.

Creating a hybrid would demand excruciating labor, and management had moved up the deadline to 1997. The engineering obstacles were tremendous, especially the development of the hybrid battery, which must deliver power and recharge in spurts as the car is being driven.

Uchiyamada ditched the usual back-up plans and multiple scenarios, focusing his team on one plan at a time and moving on when each failed.

As Uchiyamada tells it, the Prius wasn't the kind of car Toyota would have ever approved as a project, if standard decision-making had been followed. It was sure to be a money loser for years.

Conventional wisdom was wrong; Toyota's once skeptical rivals are now all busy making hybrids.

The Frankfurt auto show in August had hybrids galore.

Porsche AG showed off a version of its Cayenne sport utility vehicle that is powered by hybrid technology developed with Volkswagen, and BMW pulled back the curtain on its X6, an SUV coupe crossover hybrid.

General Motors Corp., which makes the Saturn Vue, Saturn Aura and Chevrolet Malibu hybrids, is working on a more advanced lithium-ion battery to beat Toyota in the race to bring to market plug-in hybrids, which recharge from a regular home socket. GM has begun production of a two-mode gas-electric hybrid transmission system for the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid and GMC Yukon Hybrid SUVs which uses a computer to choose from thousands of combinations of two electric motors and the gasoline engine.

Ford Motor Co. already has its Escape Hybrid, introduced in 2004, but is working on improved versions. Earlier this year, Ford and Southern California Edison agreed to test rechargeable hybrid vehicles in an effort to speed up their mass production.

Chrysler LLC is debuting a new hybrid system next year on the Chrysler Aspen and Dodge Durango sport utility vehicles.

Hybrids will be among the experimental, or "concept," models from Toyota's rivals on display at the Tokyo Motor Show which opened last week.

Toyota showed a "concept" plug-in Prius made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic that's about a third of the weight of the current Prius and doubles mileage.

Nissan Motor Co. has fallen behind Toyota in hybrids, and is instead focusing on electric cars with plans to mass market them by 2012.

Toyota officials acknowledge Honda Motor Co. is their biggest threat in developing new hybrids. Honda, which already markets the Civic hybrid, is hot on Toyota's heels with a hybrid sports car, a fuel-cell vehicle and other ecological cars.

Automakers worldwide seem to be taking hybrids as a serious option and demand should grow, said Koji Endo, auto analyst with Credit Suisse Japan. He noted interest in hybrids is growing in other parts of the world, such as China, a burgeoning auto market.

Yasuaki Iwamoto, auto analyst with Okasan Securities Co. in Tokyo, says Toyota faces a tough challenge with the next Prius, expected in a few years, with other automakers all hot on its heels.

"The popularity of Toyota's hybrids has been limited so far to the Prius. That means Toyota still has a lot of work to do," he said. "If a car doesn't meet consumer expectations, it won't sell. That's the fate Prius must now shoulder: It can't disappoint fans."

Uchiyamada and Satoshi Ogiso, executive chief engineer working on the next Prius, confidently promise greater things.

The third-generation Prius could include a new lithium-ion battery more advanced than the current nickel-metal hydride battery, allowing more power to be packed into a smaller battery.

But engineers acknowledge that will require a breakthrough in battery technology.

Endo said Toyota must be careful in introducing the lithium-ion battery, which has been found recently to be prone to fires in laptops. Even a single hybrid battery fire could destroy an automaker's reputation, he said.

Uchiyamada denied media reports that problems in developing the lithium-ion battery would delay the new Prius.

Toyota has other options in the works to dramatically boost mileage and performance, so a battery upgrade isn't the only way to revamp the Prius, he said. Toyota recently has begun public road tests on a plug-in hybrid.

Uchiyamada -- who has spent 38 years as an engineer at Toyota -- admits much of Prius' success was sheer luck.

He still remembers the thrill he felt when he saw a Prius on the streets driven not by an engineer, but by a real customer.

Ogiso, 46, agrees. Toyota workers -- who haven't faced massive layoffs like their American counterparts -- are invested in the company's future.

"Our bosses are going to be around five more years. But we're going to be leading this company for 10 years, maybe 20 years," he said. "I feel the Prius is like my own child."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Bridging Africa's digital divide

Intel chairman Craig Barrett is on a tour of Africa

Intel's chairman Craig Barrett is in Africa to beat the drum for initiatives designed to end the digital divide. He tells BBC News of the challenges the continent faces as it attempts to reap the benefits of the technological revolution.

When we go into schools and focus on education and technology - our primary focus is on training the teachers how to effectively use the technology. So far we've help train between four and a half and five million teachers around the world.

It's not just bringing the technology to the classroom.

If you train teachers effectively in how to use the technology and how to use it in the classroom to make it more interesting more exciting, to teach young people how to solve problems.

If technology can help do that, that's great. But if I were given the choice of being able to train and certify teachers as opposed to just bringing in technology to the classroom, I would pick training.

Let's get heavily qualified teachers into the classroom. That will do more than any piece of hardware or software or connection to the internet.

In Africa it is not a choice between clean water and broadband. You can do more than one thing at a time

It's wonderful to have connection to internet, to have access to world's body of education.

But the teachers are the real magic in the classroom.

I'm only sorry we are not able to do more as an individual company. I would like to run our teacher training in every country. I would like to be involved in computer labs in every school.

Finite resources

But there is a finite amount of energy and resources we can put into these activities.

I certainly hope that Africa will not just reach the Millennium Development Goals for access to technology but comprehensively beat them.

But it's not an issue of technology. It's not an issue of what solution do you bring.

If Africa leadership can agree on a common set of priorities I believe they can move very rapidly

It's an issue of getting people aligned, different agendas and priorities on the same page. Getting all the African countries aligned saying, 'Yes, we need these infrastructures in place'. Saying yes to getting a submarine cable in place to getting broadband infrastructure that crosses national boundaries.

We're just starting to see the internet take off. But the lack of broadband capability is a real retarding force on the internet in Africa.

There is a hierarchy of issues. First you need to have international access - so that submarine cables, fibre - going from the African coast to the US, Europe and other countries.

The next step is going from those submarine cables to terrestrial cables to the major cities.

Beyond that you have to worry about connecting villages and individuals once you've got the fibres to the big cities.

Relatively slow

If you look at what broadband or ITC in general can bring they are better education, better health care, economic development and a more transparent governance model.

Those are the four things you want in any country independent of the state of their local economy.

In Africa it is not a choice between clean water and broadband. You can do more than one thing at a time.

You don't want to give a society clean water but then say you can't have access to knowledge, education or economic development.

If you do that, you are sentencing the next generation to living in poverty.

This is a man made limitation in Africa. It's not a technology limitation that Africa faces.

If African leadership can agree on a common set of priorities I believe they can move very rapidly.

Governments can either facilitate or hold it back. I hope they move forward and work in concert to roll out the technology as widely as possible.Contraband gems Reef relief Australian election

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Wind-up lights for African homes

The Freeplay Foundation has given out more than 150,000 radios

The technology behind the wind-up radio could soon be helping to light up some of the poorest homes in Africa.

The Freeplay Foundation is developing prototypes of a charging station for house lights it hopes will improve the quality of life for many Africans.

The Foundation said the lights would replace the expensive, polluting and unhealthy alternatives many Africans currently use to light their homes.

Field testing of the prototypes will start in Kenya in the next few months.

Light and life

Kristine Pearson, director of the Freeplay Foundation, said few Africans in the continents most vulnerable areas had access to electricity to light homes.

"Their life stops or is very narrowed when the sun goes down," she said. "Two extra hours of light would make a big difference to their life."

The World Bank estimates that more than 500 million people in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to electricity supplies that could be used to light their homes.

Instead, said Ms Pearson, many used kerosene lamps, battery-powered lights or wood fires as sources of illumination after sundown.

Buying kerosene or batteries can consume up to 15% of a household's budget, said Ms Pearson. In addition wood was hard to gather and unhealthy to burn.

As part of its LifeLight Project the Freeplay Foundation has drawn up designs for a charging base unit that would be able to power up several detachable lights that can be used around a home.

The Foundation aims to train women to sell and maintain the lights

Working prototypes are now being made that will be tested with families in Kenya to refine the design.

Freeplay technology has already been used to create wind-up torches and small lights said Ms Pearson but the LifeLight Project aims to make bigger, brighter bulbs for homes.

She said the Foundation was adopting a similar approach to that used for the wind-up Lifeline radio to get the lights to families.

Instead of just giving the lights out and then leaving, the Foundation aims to recruit women who will sell the lights and be trained to repair and maintain them for customers.

Ms Pearson said the take up of the lights was likely to be rapid because it would piggyback on the network created by the Foundation to maintain Lifeline radios.

Since it was established in 1998 the Foundation has given out more than 150,000 Lifeline radios.

Ms Pearson said the Foundation had applied for a grant to fund the design and testing work from the World Bank as part of that organisation's Lighting Africa initiative.Contraband gems Reef relief Australian election

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Technology's challenge to privacy

A single fingerprint caused the biggest buzz at the meeting

The International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioner's conference brings together hundreds of privacy commissioners, government regulators, business leaders, and privacy advocates who spend three days grappling with emerging issues.

The theme of this year's conference, held in Montreal, Canada, was "Terra Incognita," a reference to the unknown lands that typify the fear of the unknown in a world of rapidly changing technologies that challenge the core principles of privacy protection.

Yet despite a dizzying array of panels on new technologies such as ubiquitous computing, radio frequency identification devices (RFID), and nanotechnology, it was a reference by United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff to a simple fingerprint that struck the strongest chord.

Privacy threat

Canada last hosted the conference in 1996 and it quickly became apparent that privacy has become virtually unrecognisable in the intervening eleven years.

The technological challenges were on display throughout the event including eye-opening presentations on the privacy impact of popular children's websites such as Webkinz and Neopets, on genetic innovation that is pushing the boundaries of science without regard for privacy, and on the continual shift toward tiny devices that can be used to collect and disclose personal information.

Chertoff seemed to say there is a known reality about our future course and there is little that the privacy community can do about it.

The conference placed the spotlight on the growing "toolkit" of responses, including privacy audits of both public and private sector organisations, privacy impact assessments that are used to gauge the effect of new regulations and corporate initiatives, trust seals that include corporate compliance programs, and emphasis on global cooperation in a world where personal data slips effortlessly across borders.

While the effectiveness of these measures has improved in recent years, there remained a pervasive sense that these responses are inadequate.

Part of the unease arises from the growing realisation that the legal foundation of privacy law is being rendered increasingly irrelevant.

Privacy and data protection laws have long relied on the twin pillars of notice and consent whereby consumers are notified of, and consent to, the collection, use, and disclosure of their personal information.

Critics argue that both notice and consent are today little more than legal fictions, as consumers ignore overly complex notices and shrinking technology makes it virtually impossible to obtain informed consumer consent.

Moreover, privacy law has also emphasised the distinction between personally identifiable information - information that can be traced to a particular person and is therefore deserving of legal protection - and non-identifiable information that does not enjoy any legal protection.

Technology threatens the ability to easily distinguish between the two as powerful computers and ever-expanding databases make it easier to identify individuals from what was once thought to be non-identifiable information.

Addressing these legal shortcomings will command the privacy community's attention for the foreseeable future; however, it was Chertoff's keynote address that crystallised the challenge to global privacy protection.

'Chilling future'

In a room full of privacy advocates, Chertoff came not with a peace offering, but rather a confrontational challenge.

Michael Chertoff said the US intends to expand its fingerprinting

He unapologetically made the case for greater surveillance in which governments collect an ever-increasing amount of data about their citizens in the name of security.

For example, in support of his security agenda, he noted that US forces in Iraq once gathered a single fingerprint from a steering wheel of a vehicle that was used in a bombing attack and matched it to one obtained years earlier at a US border crossing.

He added that there was a similar instance in England, where one fingerprint in a London home linked to a bombing was matched to a fingerprint gathered at a US airport (the identified person was actually innocent of wrongdoing, however).

Chertoff explained that in the autumn the US intends to expand its fingerprinting collection program by requiring all non-Canadians entering his country to provide prints of all ten fingers (it currently requires two fingerprints).

In the process, his vision of a broad surveillance society - supported by massive databases of biometric data collected from hundreds of millions of people - presented a chilling future.

Rather than terra incognita, Chertoff seemed to say there is a known reality about our future course and there is little that the privacy community can do about it.

As privacy advocates lamented the remarks, warning of creeping surveillance and urging commissioners to take action, delegates were left to wonder whether the privacy world will again be unrecognisable when the Data Protection and Privacy Commissioner's conference next convenes in Canada.

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Support for ad-tracking opt out

Google targets adverts based on searches

US privacy advocates and consumer bodies are seeking the creation of an opt-out list for internet users who do not want to be tracked by advertisers.

The "do not track" list would prevent companies from tailoring adverts based on a user's web habits.

The groups behind the idea include the Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Consumer Federation of America.

They have approached the Federal Trade Commission to create the list.

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Google opens up social networking

News services

Developers will have wider distribution for their widgets

Google has launched a system that will allow developers to create applications for a variety of social networks.

Developers currently have to customise their designs for a particular site with many partnering with the hugely popular Facebook.

Google's OpenSocial system will allow a wider distribution for tools like Facebook's music recommendation service iLike and its Top Friends application.

It has long been reported that Google has big ambitions in social networking.

Last week it missed out on the chance to buy a stake in Facebook with the founders choosing instead to do a deal with Microsoft.

"Facebook-fear"

Google said that around a dozen social network partners had signed up to the system, including business site LinkedIn, Friendster and Google's own social network Orkut.

Developers already onboard include Flixster, iLike and RockYou.

Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial allows developers to write in normal javascript and html with only minor adjustments needed for the code to work on its platform.

According to blog TechCrunch the plan is likely to be a big hit with developers as well as Facebook's rivals.

"Developers have been complaining non stop about the costs of learning yet another markup language for every new social network platform, and taking developer time in creating and maintaining the code," wrote TechCrunch's Michael Arrington.

He is impressed by the number of social networks that have signed up so far.

"Facebook-fear has clearly driven good partners to side with Google," he wrote.

Technology writer Om Malik observed: "OpenSocial attacks Facebook where it is the weakest (and the strongest): its quintessential closed nature." Anger in Chad Not so tragic? Australian election

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Leopard upgrade hits Mac firewall

News services

Upgrading to Leopard can mean your firewall is turned off

Upgrading to the latest version of Apple's operating system, might make a Mac less secure, say experts.

A test of Leopard revealed that installing it led to the firewall on a Mac being turned off and its default setting changed to leave it disabled.

Heise Security, who conducted the tests, said the failings meant users could not "rely" on the firewall to protect them.

Apple has yet to comment about the security shortcomings in Leopard.

Leopard, the newest version of OS X, was launched on 26 October and since then Apple claims to have sold or delivered more than two million copies of the software.

But a test of Leopard by Heise Security security expert Jurgen Schmidt found that the firewall in the updated software was set to off and allowed any and every incoming net connection.

Mr Schmidt also found that installing the software as an upgrade to a machine on which the firewall was turned on would lead to this protective software being turned off when that computer was re-started.

He also found that even when the firewall was re-activated it did not let users know about all the potentially vulnerable processes running on that machine.

Commenting for Heise Mike Barwise, editor of the site, said: "This as a serious problem: It provides a false sense of security, which is more dangerous than a lack of actual security that you know about."

Apple has yet to respond to a BBC request for comment on the Heise findings.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, said: "Year after year, Macs continue to have these potential security problems.

"However, in practice they just don't seem to become real-world problems," he added. "The old wisdom still stands: if you want to avoid viruses and worms, get a Mac."Anger in Chad Not so tragic? Australian election

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Intel backs wireless Africa plan

News services Craig Barrett Africa needs to embrace wireless broadband as a potential solution to the digital divide, the chairman of Intel Craig Barrett has said.

"It's cheaper, easier and more efficient to communicate wirelessly," he told the BBC News website.

Less than 1% of Africans have access to broadband and only 4% use the net.

The International Telecommunications Union has predicted that the Intel-backed Wimax system could become the dominant mobile standard in Africa.

The continent's geography and political barriers have made it difficult to roll out wired broadband.

There is a shortage of fibre cable links between African countries and very few states have extensive copper wire networks for ADSL broadband.

Mr Barrett, who is in Africa as part of the Intel World Ahead programme, said: "In every African country, except some of the more established economies, cell phones vastly outnumber fixed line phones.

"You always have to put the backhaul channels in - which is why you need an overlaid fibre network.

Mobile connections are far more prevalent in Africa than landlines

"Once you have that, forget about wires and twisted copper and go directly to broadband wireless technologies like WiMax."

Wimax is a long range, low power wireless broadband system which can be used to connect PCs and laptops, and in the future mobile phones, to a broadband network.

One internet consultant working in Africa on improving access to broadband, told BBC News that many countries had little choice but to adopt a wireless solution.

"Nigeria doesn't have much choice about skipping to Wireless, there is only one way to connect to the net and that is using wireless technologies.

"There is absolutely no copper to speak of."

In Nigeria many people access cell phone networks and wireless broadband by purchasing pre-paid scratch cards.

Users can pay up to $300 for a modem and about $200 for a 30-day scratch card, he said.

Despite the improving access to internet technology the cost for wireless technologies remains a barrier to all but a few in Africa, the consultant said.

Wimax is one of several competing technologies, which include Wibro and Ultra Mobile Broadband.

I don't think it's counterproductive to have our hand in more than one effort

Mr Barrett said Africa would not lose out if Wimax were not adopted more widely around the world.

"There are always those issues with any technology.

"We first started to give demonstrations of Wimax a couple of years ago. There are over 400 trial implementations around the world today and 100 commercial implementations."

According to the ITU, Wimax networks are currently being employed in nine countries in Africa.

Intel, in conjunction with Microsoft, has also begun the shipment of 150,000 laptops to Libya.

Intel has produced a rugged laptop designed for the developing world, called the Classmate PC.

The firm is also backing other efforts, such as the One Laptop Per Child XO machine and the Asus EEE PC.

"I don't think it's counterproductive to have our hand in more than one effort," said Mr Barrett.

"There are different education models associated with the different forms of hardware. We are a bit agnostic on which piece of hardware to support.

"It's more important to know the education model."Are you affected by the story? What is your experience of using internet in Africa? Please send us your comments by using the form below.

The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide.

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Space station troubles delay spacewalks

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- NASA canceled a spacewalk Wednesday as it scrambled to deal with two power problems at the international space station.

A solar array ripped as it was being unfurled by astronauts aboard the space station on Tuesday.

The spacewalk set for Thursday was supposed to deal with a malfunctioning rotary joint for the solar wings on the right side of the space station. Instead, the astronauts were informed that their next spacewalk would be Friday -- at the earliest -- and involve work with the station's ripped solar wing.

Both issues are competing for the precious little spacewalking time that's left in Discovery's mission, which already was extended a day after the joint problem cropped up last weekend. The problems could delay future missions and make it even harder to finish building the orbiting outpost before the space shuttles must be retired.

Five spacewalks had been scheduled for Discovery's space station construction mission, the most ever attempted for a mission like this. In the 26-year history of space shuttle flight, five spacewalks have been performed only on Hubble Space Telescope repair missions.

At a news conference earlier Wednesday, shuttle commander Pamela Melroy said that her crew is ready to tackle whatever repairs are ordered -- even if that means extending the mission again and adding another spacewalk.

"I think we're kind of in the groove right now, so if the ground decides that's the right thing to do and they ask us to do it, we'll be ready to support it," Melroy said.

Until they were informed of the switch in plans, astronauts Scott Parazynski and Douglas Wheelock were getting ready to spend the mission's fourth spacewalk Thursday thoroughly inspecting a malfunctioning rotary joint that keeps the station's solar panels turned toward the sun. A fifth spacewalk had been scheduled for Saturday for additional space station construction work, and will likely have to be put off as well.

NASA generally needs at least one day in between spacewalks to allow the astronauts to rest and get the space station prepared for the outings.

The solar wing damage occurred as it was being unfurled Tuesday. The tear forced NASA to halt the process before the wing was full extended.

Until at least one of the problems is resolved, the station won't be able to generate enough power to support new equipment, such as a European lab that is supposed to be delivered by Atlantis in December. Delaying that mission would set back other deliveries, including the planned February installation of a new Japanese lab.

NASA is up against a hard 2010 deadline for completing the space station and retiring the three remaining shuttles.

The solar panel ripped just after Parazynski and Wheelock finished a seven-hour spacewalk to install the beam that holds the wings. Deploying the damaged wing's twin went off without a hitch.

Astronauts took hundreds of pictures of the wing tear, but NASA engineers couldn't tell what caused the damage, space station flight director Heather Rarick said late Tuesday.

"Until we know what we think the cause is, maybe until we get some better pictures, I don't think we really have any solid leads on how to fix it yet," Rarick said.

Astronaut Daniel Tani said he noticed a second, smaller tear near the 21/2-foot rip while he was taking additional pictures Wednesday.

NASA also wasn't sure about the cause of the rotary joint problem. Steel shavings were found during a spacewalk over the weekend in the joint on the right side of the station. Until NASA figures out what's grinding inside the gears and fixes it, the right joint will remain in a parked position as much as possible, limiting power collection.

Discovery currently is scheduled to undock from the station on Monday and land on Wednesday.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Troops issued deck of cards with ace of artifacts

FORT COLLINS, Colorado (AP) -- American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan may soon be playing cards with the ace of artifacts or the king of archaeological digs.

Each suit in the deck has a theme for its messages: hearts for "winning hearts and minds."

Nearly 50,000 decks of cards meant to help troops avoid unnecessary damage to ancient sites and curb the illegal trade of stolen artifacts will be shipped to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as training sites in the United States.

The cards were developed by a Colorado State University researcher and graphic artist working with the Defense Department.

Each card displays an artifact or site and gives a tip on how to avoid damaging historic treasures.

Each suit has a theme: diamonds for artifacts and treasures, spades for historic sites and archaeological digs, hearts for "winning hearts and minds" and clubs for heritage preservation.

CSU says none of the decks will be sold commercially.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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