Eideard

Testing of imported orange juice for a banned fungicide has not turned up any product with dangerous levels of the chemical since Jan. 4, U.S. regulators said today.

The Food and Drug Administration has collected 45 samples of imported orange juice, the agency reported. 19 have proven to be safe, and 26 are awaiting analysis, according to a weekly update from the FDA posted online. Regulators have released 12 of the 19 samples back to companies.

The safe samples came from Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and Belize, the FDA said. The agency began temporarily holding and testing orange juice samples after trace levels of the fungicide carbendazim were detected in products from Brazil.

“If the FDA collects and analyzes three shipments of orange juice products from the same manufacturer and all samples are found to be in compliance, products from that manufacturer will no longer be sampled under the current assignment,” the agency said in its report.

Carbendazim is banned in use in U.S. oranges and has been linked to liver tumors in animals. U.S. regulators were alerted to use of the chemical in December by Atlanta-based Coca Cola Co., which owns the Minute Maid brand…

The U.S. is the biggest single importer of orange juice…

The serious part of the problem is that most of the time you don’t know whether or not some imported OJ has been mixed in with domestic product. And Carbendazim not only isn’t banned in most of Central and South America – its use is pretty common.

Berlin geothermal field, El Salvador, producing 104 MW

Dotted with active volcanoes, Central America is seeking to tap its unique geography to produce green energy and cut dependence on oil imports as demand for electricity outstrips supply. Sitting above shifting tectonic plates in the Pacific basin known to cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the region has huge potential for geothermal power generated by heat stored deep in the earth.

Geothermal power plants, while expensive to build, can provide a long-term, reliable source of electricity and are considered more environmentally friendly than large hydroelectric dams that can alter a country’s topography…

Guatemala, Central America’s biggest country, aims to produces 60 percent of its energy from geothermal and hydroelectric power by 2022.

The government is offering tax breaks on equipment to set up geothermal plants and electricity regulators are requiring distributors buy greater proportions of clean energy.

Some 1,640 feet below the summit of Guatemala’s active Pacaya volcano, which exploded in May, pipes carrying steam and water at 347 degrees Fahrenheit snake across the mountainside to one of two geothermal plants currently operating in the country.

Run by Israeli-owned Ormat Technologies Inc, the plant harnesses energy from water heated by chambers filled with molten rock deep beneath the ground. The company has been operating two plants in Guatemala for three years and wants to expand but is weighing the risks of drilling more costly exploratory wells…

More than a fifth of El Salvador’s energy needs come from two geothermal plants with installed capacity of 160 MW and investigations are being carried out to build a third.

Costa Rica, which has 152 megawatts of capacity in four geothermal plants, is due to bring a fifth plant online in January 2011 and is looking into building two more.

Nicaragua generates 66 MW from geothermal energy and in the next five years plans an increase to 166 MW.

Bravo!

The coneheads up at Los Alamos have participated in geothermal experiments, off and on, over the years. But, generally, the powers-that-be would rather keep the focus on death and destruction. Which is too bad. There’s enough intellectual horsepower there to lead to breakthroughs – no doubt.

The ancient stone spheres of Costa Rica were made world-famous by the opening sequence of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” when a mockup of one of the mysterious relics nearly crushed Indiana Jones. So perhaps John Hoopes is the closest thing at the University of Kansas to the movie action hero.

Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Global Indigenous Nations Studies Program, recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica where he and colleagues evaluated the stone balls for UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization that might grant the spheres World Heritage Status…

Hoopes, who researches ancient cultures of Central and South America, is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Costa Rican spheres. He explained that although the stone spheres are very old, international interest in them is still growing.

“The earliest reports of the stones come from the late 19th century, but they weren’t really reported scientifically until the 1930s — so they’re a relatively recent discovery,” Hoopes said. “They remained unknown until the United Fruit Company began clearing land for banana plantations in southern Costa Rica.”

According to Hoopes, around 300 balls are known to exist, with the largest weighing 16 tons and measuring eight feet in diameter. Many of these are clustered in Costa Rica’s Diquis Delta region. Some remain pristine in the original places of discovery, but many others have been relocated or damaged due to erosion, fires and vandalism.

The KU researcher said that scientists believe the stones were first created around 600 A.D., with most dating to after 1,000 A.D. but before the Spanish conquest…

Speculation and pseudoscience have plagued general understanding of the stone spheres. For instance, publications have claimed that the balls are associated with the “lost” continent of Atlantis. Others have asserted that the balls are navigational aids or relics related to Stonehenge or the massive heads on Easter Island.

“Myths are really based on a lot of very rampant speculation about imaginary ancient civilizations or visits from extraterrestrials,” Hoopes said.

John Hoopes maintains a website to disseminate the realities of the stone balls – and to dispel some of the myths. As well as he can.

A spider that dines almost exclusively on plants has been described by scientists. It is the first-known predominantly vegetarian spider; all of the other known 40,000 spider species are thought to be mainly carnivorous.

Bagheera kiplingi, which is found in Central America and Mexico, bucks the meat-eating trend by feasting on acacia plants…

The jumping arachnid, which is 5-6mm long, has developed a taste for the tips of the acacia plants – known as Beltian bodies – which are packed full of protein…

The ants and acacia trees have co-evolved to form a mutually beneficial relationship: the aggressive ants protect the trees from predators, swarming to attack any invaders; and in return for acting as bodyguards, the ants get to gorge on the acacias’ Beltian bodies themselves…

One of the study’s authors, Professor Robert Curry, from Villanova University, Pennsylvania, told BBC News: “The spiders basically dodge the ants.

“The spiders live on the plants – but way out on the tips of the old leaves, where the ants don’t spend a lot of time, because there isn’t any food on those leaves.”

But when they get hungry, the spiders head to the newer leaves, and get ready to run the ant gauntlet.

Professor Curry said: “And they wait for an opening – they watch the ants move around, and they watch to see that there are not any ants in the local area that they are going after.

“And then they zip in and grab one of these Beltian bodies and then clip it off, hold it in their mouths and run away. And then they retreat to one of the undefended parts of the plant to eat it.”

Whoda thunk it?