MY HOPES were raised by a recent news item about a tanker, planned and designed by Omar Chaalal of the Arab Emirates University in Al-Ain, that would suck up oil spills (快猫短视频, 8 March, p 16). If it works, it could at one stroke reduce environmental damage and regain a sellable product.
Chaalal鈥檚 oil-recovery ship has a large tank on board that is completely filled with seawater before the ship leaves the dock. On approaching an oil slick, a series of holes in the hull are opened to connect the tank water to the surrounding seawater. Just like a glass full of water that is upturned in a filled sink, the water in the tank does not flood out, provided the holes remain submerged. The ship鈥檚 specially designed hull forces any oil underneath it towards the holes. Since oil is less dense than seawater it rises up through the holes to the top of the tank, gradually displacing the seawater until the tank is full of oil.
David Jamieson, the shipping minister, welcomed Chaalal鈥檚 success with a scale model. However, pollution experts at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) advise the minister that a full-sized operation in the open sea might be a different matter.
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Oil is difficult to control in the open sea and a spill can spread very quickly. The chances of a single ship mopping up a slick are slight, Jamieson added, as the MCA experts suggest it would take a long time for the oil to enter the holes and rise through the tank. Emulsification between the oil and water could confound matters further.
Jamieson said it was a shame that such a promising idea would in all probability fail to materialise. Personally, I consider the prize of clean seas to be so great that the idea is worth pursuing further.
DISEASES can now cross continents within weeks, or even hours thanks to air travel, which is very worrying in the light of the SARS outbreak in China. I asked Hazel Blears, the public health minister, what the government is doing to answer the world鈥檚 demand for a global early warning system on public health and disease (快猫短视频, 22 March, p 5).
Blears replied that the World Health Organization already runs a global alert and response network. As a result, governments received early warning of the outbreak of respiratory illness in Guangdong Province in southern China, which started in November 2002, and also cases of SARS as they emerged.
In addition to this, the European Union runs an early warning system as part of its Communicable Disease Network. Through this mechanism, European member states can rapidly exchange information on suspected SARS cases reported within their borders, and the measures that each is taking to contain it, said the minister.
On what may be a related matter, a 快猫短视频 reader recently suggested to me that as notes and coins get passed from hand to hand they could be a highly dangerous way of spreading diseases such as SARS. He suggested that if ever the UK adopts the euro, all monetary transactions should be made by plastic credit cards and no coinage whatsoever issued. The suggestion left me puzzling whether coinage is really a way of spreading SARS. However impracticable the suggestion that we only use plastic, his question about notes and coins spreading disease is worth considering.
