Radiators

Question: My radiator recently failed. My mechanic said I sprang a leak in the radiator's plastic tank, though I'm not sure what the tank is. But he said a lot of new cars (mine is a Ford) now use plastic radiators instead of copper. This seems to me like just another cheesy cutback by auto companies. I ended up with a rebuilt radiator, which set me back $280. Why did the car companies stop making radiators out of copper? --J.L.

Marine biologist Dan Madigan stood on a dock in San Diego and considered some freshly caught Pacific bluefin tuna. The fish had managed to swim 5,000 miles from their spawning grounds near Japan to California's shores, only to end up the catch of local fishermen. It was August 2011, five months since a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami had struck in Japan, crippling the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Madigan couldn't stop thinking about pictures he'd seen on TV of Japanese emergency crews dumping radioactive water from the failing reactors into the Pacific Ocean.

New Orleans' second-favorite (to the Neville Brothers) sons attempt to spice up the commercial ingredient in their white-soul/bar-band/blues gumbo, with less-than-finger-lickin' results most of the time. Instead of moving toward the elegant, contemporary blues of a Robert Cray or the fiery blues-rock of a Mason Ruffner, the Radiators land facelessly smack dab in the middle of mainstream rock. On the title tune the band locks into an infectious, rolling rhythm worthy of a Crescent City street parade, and they turn in a solid version of J.J. Jackson's 1966 hit "But It's Alright."

These days, thanks to advances in treatment and detection, millions of women survive breast cancer.   But surviving the disease doesn't necessarily mean the entire battle is over, a population-based study of breast cancer survivors in Sweden and Denmark, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine , seems to suggest. Assessing a total of 2,168 women whose breast cancer was treated with radiation therapy between 1958 and 2001, a team of researchers found that women's chances of having a major coronary event - a heart attack, bypass surgery or heart disease death - rose in proportion with the radiation dose they received, even at the lower doses of radiation delivered in newer treatments.

You don't have to be a tinfoil-hat-wearing paranoiac to be worried that the electromagnetic radiation from modern wireless devices may be harmful to your health. But are the "smart meters" being installed by utilities throughout the state frying homeowners' brains, as many consumers and even municipal governments fear? The risks are vanishingly small, while the economic and environmental benefits of smart meters are wide and obvious. In fact, we wish L.A.'s municipal utility would get busy installing the devices, though that isn't likely to happen any time soon.

Marine biologist Dan Madigan stood on a dock in San Diego and considered some freshly caught Pacific bluefin tuna. The fish had managed to swim 5,000 miles from their spawning grounds near Japan to California's shores, only to end up the catch of local fishermen. It was August 2011, five months since a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami had struck in Japan, crippling the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Madigan couldn't stop thinking about pictures he'd seen on TV of Japanese emergency crews dumping radioactive water from the failing reactors into the Pacific Ocean.

Ford Motor Co.'s 3.8-liter V-6 engine has been a modern-day workhorse, used in such popular vehicles as the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable mid-size sedans, the Ford Windstar minivan and the Lincoln Continental luxury car. But many mechanical experts and consumer advocates say it is troubled by a major defect. Failure of the engine's head gasket is so common that many independent garages are doing a booming business replacing it.

The radiation leaking from crippled nuclear power plants in Japan has unleashed fears on this side of the ocean. Despite assurances from experts that the amount of radiation reaching the U.S. is miniscule and harmless, many people here are worried that the fallout could pose a serious health threat. And if William McBride's inbox is any indication, they're also wondering whether they should protect themselves by taking supplements or changing their diets. "I've been getting emails from friends asking me if they should take this or that," said McBride, professor of radiation oncology at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

These days, thanks to advances in treatment and detection, millions of women survive breast cancer.   But surviving the disease doesn't necessarily mean the entire battle is over, a population-based study of breast cancer survivors in Sweden and Denmark, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine , seems to suggest. Assessing a total of 2,168 women whose breast cancer was treated with radiation therapy between 1958 and 2001, a team of researchers found that women's chances of having a major coronary event - a heart attack, bypass surgery or heart disease death - rose in proportion with the radiation dose they received, even at the lower doses of radiation delivered in newer treatments.

Edward Luttwak argues that it is somehow irrational to oppose the use of depleted uranium in ammunition ("Radiation-Sickness Scare Ignores Scientific Facts," Commentary, Jan. 16). While the radiation danger from intact DU is apparently small, the danger from pulverized DU--the result of a hit by the ammunition on a hard target--may not be. This is not ignorance but caution, seemingly rare these days. PAUL R. COOLEY Culver City

A pair of NASA probes has discovered a previously unknown ring of radiation blanketing the Earth, upending a long-standing scientific theory about how charged particles coalesce around the planet, scientists reported Thursday. Just four days after the twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes were launched in August, NASA scientists looked on in amazement as instruments revealed a third belt of high-energy particles between the planet's inner and outer radiation belts, known as the Van Allen belts.

The Transportation Security Administration is removing controversial full-body scanners made by a Torrance manufacturer, winning praise from privacy advocates and passenger-rights groups that raised questions about the health effects of the devices. Rapiscan, a unit of OSI Systems Inc., manufactured about 200 full-body scanners used by the TSA to screen passengers for hidden weapons at airports across the country. The machines generated a storm of protest because the devices use low levels of radiation to create what resembles a nude image of screened passengers.

Elwood Jensen, a medical researcher whose ground-breaking work in the field of endocrinology and breast cancer led to revolutionary and life-saving treatments, died of complications from pneumonia on Dec. 16 in suburban Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati announced. He was 92. He was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize for his discovery of hormone receptors while at the University of Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s. At Chicago, Jensen focused on the impact that breast tissue had on estrogen while most other researchers analyzed how the hormone influenced tissue.

Astronauts on a future mission to Mars could survive radiation levels on the Red Planet's surface, according to a NASA expert. At a recent press briefing, the scientist in charge of monitoring radiation data collected by the Curiosity Mars rover said energy levels on the planet's surface fluctuate with time of day and the season but are roughly equivalent to what astronauts experience now in the International Space Station. "Absolutely,  astronauts can live in this environment," said Don Hassler, of Boulder, Colo.'s, Southwest Research Institute.

Wallace L.W. Sargent, a Caltech astrophysicist known for his observations of black holes, quasars and other celestial objects at the farthest reaches of the universe, died Oct. 29 at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles, according to a Caltech spokesman. He was 77 and had been battling prostate cancer. A professor emeritus of astronomy, Sargent arrived at Caltech from his native Britain in 1959 and spent three years as a research fellow. He returned to the university in 1966 as an assistant professor and became a full professor in 1971.

If you're still skeptical that a tan can be dangerous, consider this: Scientists have found that wild fish are getting skin cancer from ultraviolet radiation. Approximately 15% of coral trout inAustralia'sGreat Barrier Reef had cancerous lesions on their scales. In that regard, they resemble Australians who live on land - 2 in 3 people who live down under will be diagnosed with skin cancer before the age of 70, the highest rate in the world. It's probably no coincidence that Australia is under the Earth's biggest hole in the ozone layer.

The sun does lots of cool stuff. We couldn't live on Earth without it. But the havoc it wreaks with our skin is not so hot. The culprit is ultraviolet, or UV, radiation, which can actually be very useful in fluorescent lighting and sterilizing medical equipment, or by stimulating our bodies to make vitamin D. But a little goes a long way, and overexposure to UV radiation is a major cause of skin cancer. (It's classified as a human carcinogen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization.)

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission plans to ask whether its standards protect humans from mobile-phone radiation, a question it hasn't posed in 15 years, as people use smartphones for longer, more frequent calls. Julius Genachowski, the agency's chairman, is to ask fellow commissioners today to approve a notice commencing a formal inquiry, Tammy Sun, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an emailed statement. The notice won't propose rules, Sun said. "Our action today is a routine review of our standards," Sun said.