Electricity

Bright lights shone from two ranch buildings in the isolated "freemen" compound over the weekend, a sign that the anti-government group is generating its own power after the FBI cut off electricity last week. Lights could be seen in two ranch buildings, one of them the home of freemen leader Ralph Clark. Neighbors had said before the electricity was disconnected that the freemen had a generator.

The San Fernando Valley's thriving sex industry landed two local residents in court within the last week, one in federal court in Kentucky and the other in Municipal Court here in Los Angeles. Mark C. Carriere of Encino, considered one of the nation's largest producers and distributors of sexually explicit material, was fined $850,000 by a federal judge last week in Louisville, Ky.

Seven space shuttle astronauts blasted into orbit Thursday to attempt a Space Age version of Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment--unreeling a satellite on the end of a 12.8-mile cord. The shuttle Columbia, carrying an international crew, rose from its seaside pad at 12:18 p.m. PST. As the shuttle sliced through a hazy sky, Mission Control got a scare when a cockpit light came on, indicating engine trouble that could force the crew to abort the flight. But it proved to be a false alarm.

Scientists may have found a better way for your dentist to look for cavities. It involves passing an electric current through a tooth and all the way down your arm. By detecting the very earliest stages of decay, the technique could spare you the hassle of drilling and fillings, researcher Christopher Longbottom of the University of Dundee Dental School in Scotland reported in Nature Medicine.

High-voltage power lines that sparked protests from hundreds of nearby homeowners will be coming down next week. The 66,000-volt lines, which sizzle and arc atop 80-foot-high towers, wind past hundreds of homes, prompting safety concerns from residents. The power lines are used as part of an emergency backup system by Rockwell International Corp. The removal will take about a month, according to city officials.

Viken Najarian is betting that he can do for the oud what Leo Fender did for the guitar. Najarian, working alone in his dusty garage workshop, has produced an electric version of the oud, a traditional pear-shaped instrument that has been an integral part of Middle Eastern folk music for more than 2,000 years.

Following in the footsteps of California regulators, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered major changes Wednesday in the way electricity is sold at the wholesale level and said the new rules should save consumers $3.8 billion to $5.4 billion a year. The electric rates for millions of people will be affected, according to the commission. "This is the most significant policy issue decided among this set of commissioners," Commissioner Vicky Bailey said.

In what some scientists are calling a potentially major breakthrough, French researchers said in a news report Wednesday that they have made a new material that carries electricity friction-free at room temperature--a long-sought discovery that could revolutionize the electric power industry. Such so-called "superconductors" normally work only at frigid temperatures, requiring expensive refrigeration systems.

The first thing Susan Kosek noticed was a discrepancy in her employer's light bill. "Something didn't seem right," she recalled. Because her employer is Caltrans, which spends about $2.2 million a year on 8,100 highway lights in Orange County, this was no small matter. Kosek, an electrician, went about comparing bills with their corresponding circuits.