University Daily Kansan, February 17, 1984
NATION AND WORLD
Page 9
Scientists monitor desert for radiation
By United Press International
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Scientists imposed a round-the-clock watch yesterday for radiation which they said might escape from a cave-in caused by a nuclear test explosion in the Nevada desert.
They also halted all research operations at the site where 14 workers were injured after the blast Wednesday until officers could learn why the earth caved in.
In Moscow, the news agency Tass said the blast was a violation of international treaties governing the testing of weapons.
TASS SAID the test was new evidence that the United States violates the letter and the spirit of the treaties and limitation or reduction of armaments.
The news agency said that although U.S. spokesmen had denied that the explosion exceeded the 20-kilton limit
agreed upon in test-ban treaties, other scientists had said that seismic fluctuations had reached a level which indicated that the power of the explosion was several times greater than that.
It was the first time in the 33-year history of the test site at Rainier Mesa that injuries had occurred as a direct result of nuclear detonation, a spokesman said.
TOM CLARK, CHEIF of Nevada Operations for the Department of Energy, said that none of the injuries were related to radiation exposure and no radiation had leaked into the atmosphere, but "of course we are concerned about leaks that might develop."
"We do not have a clear picture of what happened." he admitted.
He said all nuclear weapons operations at the site had been halted until a Russian bomb collapsed without warning three hours after a weapon of less than 20 kilotons
n yield was detonated Wednesday 1,168
feet below the surface.
"We have looked at seismic data and it is consistent... there is no way in hell that the nuclear detonation could have been anywhere near the Threshold (a 150-kilton limit set by treaty). It is impossible," Clark told a news conference when asked about Soviet allegations that the nuclear detonation which caused the accident was near 100 kilotons in yield instead of less than 20 kilotons as announced by the United States.
The delayed-action cave-in, three hours after the detonation, created an oval-shaped hole 10 to 30 feet deep, 60 feet wide and 150 feet long.
The mea, is 93 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is in the northeast section of the 1,350-square mile Rainier Mesa test site and of 818 nuclear experiments since 1951.
*WE HAVE DAI industrial work accidents at the test site, but there has
never been anyone injured in a subsidence," Department of Energy spokesman Jim Boyer said yesterday. "This is the first time people have been injured here as a direct result of a U.S. nuclear test to my knowledge."
Subsidise is scientific jargon for nuclear-caused craters.
Eugene Smith, chairman of the Department of Geoscience at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, confirmed yesterday that the 4.5 reading on the earthquake scale registered by the nuclear test was "in line with other 20 kiloton weapons detonated at the Nevada Test Site."
A Department of Energy spokesman said yesterday that a panel of three top level DOE officials would be named to investigate the accident. Boyer said an advisory group would also be appointed to advise on safety advisor and numerous technical advisors on construction and scientific fields such as geology
Maternal smoking is said to retard fetal growth
By United Press International
BALTIMORE — A 2%-year study of pregnant women has provided strong new evidence that cigarette smoking alters growth, researchers said yesterday.
The study, conducted on 935 pregnant women in the Baltimore area, showed that women who stopped or reduced smoking while pregnant gave birth to younger than newborns of mothers who continued smoking at their usual level.
"I think this is very strong evidence that the fetal growth is retarded by maternal smoking," said Mary Sexton, an associate professor at the University
of Maryland School of Medicine and
Authority are dedicated by the
National Institutes of Health.
PREVIOUS STUDIES linked differences in birth weights and the number of cigarettes smoked by mothers. The University of Maryland study, however, was the first to show the relationship a randomly selected sample group, Sexton said.
Sexton said the study's findings, which appear in the Feb. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, also provide the most definitive evidence to date of smoking's ill effects.
While other studies have linked smoking to lung cancer and other cancers, the lack of evidence
ding" factors such as lifestyle and genetic background, she said.
SUCH FACTORS, critics of the studies have argued, could make cigarette smoking merely a marker of a lifestyle prone to the diseases.
The study compared the mean weights and lengths of newborns of two groups of women — a treatment group that was counselled to stop or cut down on smoking and a control group that was only observed.
Women were selected who smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day before their pregnancy. They represented a broad range of race, education, income and age.
SOMETIME DURING their pregnancies, 20 percent of the control group and 43 percent of the treatment group quit smoking. Nineteen percent of the control group cut down on smoking.
FOR ALL 10 SHUTTLE launches dating to April 12, 1981, NASA has spent more than $78,000 to transport 2,228 VIP's. The activity has prompted Sen. William Proxime, D-Wis., to give the agency his "Golden Fleece" award for government waste last month.
The results showed that among single, live births, the infants born to mothers in the treatment group had a mean birth weight of 3.278 grams — 92 grams heavier than the infants born to mothers in the control group.
Proxmie, who did not release names of the guests, said NASA was conducting a "lobby campaign" to promote its programs. NASA officials declined to be interviewed to respond to the charges.
WHEN GUION BLUFORD became the first American black to orbit in space from Aug. 30 Sept. 5, dozens of blacks were among 498 persons on hand courtesy of NASA. The list of invites included Chamberlain, the former National Basketball Association star; the Tuskegee Airmen from Tuskegee Institute in Alabama; jazz musician Lionel Hampton; and Melvin Evans, a former congressional delegate to Trinidad. As a black woman, Ada Weytie, vice president of the Food Commercial Workers Union, was invited on both trips.
The treatment group babies also were 6 millimeters greater in length.
For the June 18-24, 1983, shuttle flight of Sally Ride, who became America's first female astronaut in space, NASA invited a long list of women business and professional leaders among 299 guests.
On shuttle flight 8 alone, 87 spouses also were listed on the manifests.
Among the invited guests were numerous federal officials, congressmen who oversee NASA's budget, and many others.
Asked about the expenditures for non-NASA personnel, agency spokesman Sarah Keegan said in a prepared statement, "Most of the men and women who were transported by NASA were U.S. government officials from the executive or legislative branches with policy responsibilities for the space program."
Government records show the National Aeronautics and Space Administration spent at least $150,655 for air fares and another $300,000 for trips to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Fla. in fiscal 1983.
United Press International and the Better Government Association, during a four-month investigation of the agency's excesses, obtained flight manifests
under the Freedom of Information Act for three NASA-chartered planes carrying VIPs in 1983.
WASHINGTON — Basketball great Wilt Chamberlin, the president of an exclusive Washington department store and an officer of a conservative "think tank" were among 797 figures invited as guests of taxpayers to watch space shuttle launches last year.
By GREGORY GORDON United Press International
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the final story in a 10-part series of reports investigating waste in government spending.
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