NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, March 14, 1997
7A
Mars life theory boosted
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A theory that microbes once lived on Mars is boosted by two new studies of a rock that was blasted away from the red planet and eventually landed on Earth.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the California Institute of Technology said the new studies did not prove that Martian microbes once lived in the rock. But they remove one challenge based on the temperature history of the potato-size chunk of Mars.
The researchers have ruled out the high temperature hypothesis that would have made life impossible, said John W. Valley of the University of Wisconsin. "I still don't have final answers. There should still be skepticism."
Wisconsin scientists determined the range of temperatures the rock was exposed to by analyzing the ratios of carbon and oxygen isotopes.
NASA scientists last summer
claimed that small globules of carbonate found inside a Martian meteorite were the fossilized remains of microbes or bacteria that lived on the red planet more than 15 million years ago.
Based on a microscopic and chemical analysis of the globules, the NASA team theorized that the microbes lived and died in the rock, leaving behind organic chemicals and fossilized remains. The rock then was blasted from the Mars surface by a meteorite impact, spent thousands of years wandering in
space and then fell to Earth in the Antarctic. The rock was recovered from an ice field and identified by chemical composition as coming from Mars.
A major challenge to the theory has been that the carbonate globules formed by inorganic processes at temperatures of more than 1,200 degrees, far too hot for life.
But the new studies show that temperatures of the globules never exceeded 212 degrees - scalding, but still within the living range of known life forms.
Man imprisoned in bedroom
Caregiver's friends crack users, overrun 88-year-old's home
The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — Crack users took over an 88-year-old man's home, stole his cars and pension checks and kept him prisoner in his own bedroom, where he was found nearly starved to death amid rats and rotting food, police said.
"He was a hostage in his own house," said Officer Terrance White. "I'll never forget the look on his face."
George Sherrill was found in a barricaded bedroom Feb.28 when a city employee who had befriended him went to his home with police.She had become alarmed because he had stopped visiting her and she couldn't reach him.
Sherrill was hospitalized with dehydration, malnutrition and pneumonia.
The man said he had taken in an acquaintance's daughter to help him care for his wife of 50 years before she died of Alzheimer's disease last year.
"It was lonely to be there all by myself," Sherrill said. "I felt like I knew someone who I might be able to trust."
But the woman apparently opened his house to crack-smoking friends.
Police said Sherrill's home had no gas, no electricity and no phone service. He had dropped from 150 pounds to 93.
"They've been using the house for a crack house," White said. "He had a steady income. They would take him to the bank every month and make him withdraw money."
According to doctors, Sherrill's friendship with Kathy Hayden of Philadelphia's Bureau of Administration saved his life.
Hayden said she helped Sherrill sort out several hundred dollars in tickets on his cars two years ago. Since then, Sherrill had made a point
"I know they've taken everything I have. I don't have nothing."
George Sherrill 88-year-old hostage
of regularly stopping by to say hello, she said.
In January, the visits became infrequent and then stopped. She tried to visit his house several times but always met resistance from a woman who answered the door.
"I knew he would want to see me and this didn't make any sense," she said.
Hayden said she doubted the house could be made habitable again, but Sherrill said he still wanted to return.
Measure would alert people of HIV contact
"I know they've taken everything I
heard," he said. "I don't have nothing."
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — States would be required to alert people of possible contacts with HIV-infected individuals under a bill being advanced by a Republican congressman.
The measure also would create a national reporting system for the virus, require testing of anyone accused of a sex crime, require insurers to disclose HIV test results to applicants and allow disclosure of HIV status of children up for adoption.
Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Olda., said the provisions would protect those who weren't infected and help those who are learn their status quickly so they could take advantage of new, life-prolonging treatments.
Cobum, a physician, said the proposal would return sound medical practices to the nation's public health policy and curtail the spread of HIV.
The American Medical Association supports the measure.
But the Human Rights Campaign, a gay political group, said the bill would intrude on the authority of local public health officials and do nothing to help at-risk individuals change their behavior.
The bill would:
Require confidential, national reporting of new HIV cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All states now report new AIDS cases, and 26 states report new cases of HIV.
Require states to notify people that they may have been exposed to HIV by a current or past partner. The CDC now requires states to establish procedures for partner notification for AIDS cases.
Require HIV testing for accused sexual offenders.
- Require insurers to reveal HIV test results to applicants and permit people to learn the HIV status of children they may adopt.
The Human Rights Campaign said evidence had shown that notifying partners was a costly and ineffective way of controlling the disease. It also questioned mandatory testing of accused sex offenders, noting that it takes at least six months after exposure for the virus to show up in the blood.
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