Woods Hole research centers join forces

The Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the Woods Hole Research Center will form the Woods Hole Consortium, which is also designed to raise the village's reputation as an international scientific hub, raise money, and create jobs.

The consortium will focus on climate change, sustainable energy, oceans, human health, and impacts on the plant. Each institution will maintain its own identity but collaborate on issues of mutual concern.

Said the Marine Biological Laboratory's director and CEO, Gary Borisy: "This unique and powerful scientific partnership will be more effective than the sum of the individual efforts of these institutions."

Clean coal?
About 20 Greenpeace activists held a "coal circus" on Boston Common last week to poke holes in the idea that coal-burning power plants can produce energy without significant greenhouse gas emissions.

Part of a global Fossil Fools Day, the activists wore clown suits and erected a banner that read "The Coal Circus. It's So clean! (April Fools).

Coal-burning power plants are a leading cause of heat-trapping emissions that contribute to global warming. While the industry is attempting to develop a new generation of coal plants known as "clean coal" that will not release any of those gases into the environment -probably by injecting it deep into the earth - it is not a proven technology.

Greenpeace wants a federal focus on energy efficiency and renewable sources.

Industry weighs in on toxins in children's bath products

I recently reported on a study that noted dozens of children's bath products sold in New England were tainted with chemicals the government says are probable carcinogens.

The research, by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow, elicited a lot of response - especially from parents who didn't want formaldehyde or other chemicals in baby shampoo and bubble bath.

But the Personal Care Products Council also weighed in, noting that the two chemicals the group focused on, formaldehyde and 1,4 dioxane, were found in trace or low levels, well below regulatory limits or known safety thresholds.

The council notes they are at low levels "precisely because companies have gone to great lengths in the formulation and manufacturing processes to ensure that the products are safe and gentle for children and also protected from harmful bacterial growth."