PIPE NIGHTMARES: Residents have been allowed back into the San Bruno, Calif., neighborhood that was rocked last week by a violent natural gas explosion, but it was a somber homecoming. Four people died in the blast and four remain missing, while at least 60 people were injured and nearly 50 homes were destroyed. Questions have begun swirling around the ruptured gas pipeline that triggered the explosion, and California regulators on Sunday ordered the company that owns the pipeline, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., to survey all of its thousands of miles of similar lines throughout the state to ensure there aren't more disasters waiting to happen. The ruptured pipe had been installed in 1956, when the area's population was much smaller and more rural, and was just one of several aging sections that was coming due for an overhaul. Another section of pipe located a few miles north, for example, was installed in 1948 and posed an "unacceptably high" risk of failure, according to PG&E, which was already planning to replace it before Thursday's explosion. The ruptured section was last checked for leaks in March, when none were found, and contrary to reports from some residents, PG&E says it received no complaints of a natural gas smell in the weeks leading up to the blast. "We take action on a daily basis to repair our equipment as needed," a company spokesman tells the AP. "PG&E takes a proactive approach toward the maintenance of our gas lines and we're constantly monitoring our system." But that hasn't satisfied many residents or regulators in California, where the state Public Utilities Commission plans to appoint an independent panel to help investigate why exactly the pipeline burst and whether any others are in danger of following suit. The National Transportation Safety Board is also conducting its own investigation, which it expects will take 12 to 14 months. (Sources: Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle)

 

CYCLONE WARS: Hurricane Igor is poised to grow into a powerful Category 5 storm today, following an eventful weekend that saw the tropical storm erupt into a Category 4 hurricane in just a couple of days. Forecasters as the National Hurricane Center describe Igor as "large and powerful," adding that "some fluctuation in intensity is likely during the next 48 hours, and Igor could become a Category 5 hurricane [Monday]." Early Monday morning, Igor was located more than 900 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands and moving west at about 13 mph, with maximum sustained winds roaring at up to 150 mph. Hurricane-force winds extend up to 40 miles out from the cyclone's center, while tropical storm-force winds are currently reaching out as far as 160 miles, the NHC reports. Igor is projected to skirt north of Caribbean islands, and may weaken back down to a Category 3 later in the week, but forecasters warn that the slow-moving storm could still have lots of tricks up its sleeve. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Julia is hot on Igor's heels, further highlighting that the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season is kicking into high gear and beginning to live up to its more dire expectations forecast earlier in the year. Julia formed Sunday night off the west coast of Africa, and as of Monday morning, has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph. The storm is on a slightly more northerly track than Igor, and is also expected to become a hurricane quickly, possibly as early as Tuesday night. (Sources: National Hurricane Center, CNN)

 

WING AND A PRAYER: Bats have been dropping like flies across the Eastern U.S. for four years, as the deadly and mysterious "white-nose syndrome" has killed more than 1 million of the flying mammals and pushed some species near the brink of extinction. But scientists now believe they may have discovered some ways to help the nation's bats, either by treating them with antifungal drugs or by decontaminating their caves with antiseptics. "Both of those are critical elements," says Jeremy Coleman, head of the federal government's white-nose syndrome response effort. White-nose syndrome is linked to a previously unknown fungus that appears on the noses, wings, ears and other membranes of an infected bat's body, producing a white fuzz that's believed to irritate the animal so much it wakes up from hibernation too early, eventually starving to death without its summertime food supply. The disease was first detected in New York in 2006, and has since spread as far south as Tennessee and as far west as Oklahoma, obliterating several bat species along the way. But after testing six strains of the fungus against a range of existing antifungal drugs, scientists may have found a few ways to treat individual bats — not a practical strategy for saving them in the wild, but at least offering hope in case a population or species must be saved in a lab from going extinct. "We found that two major classes of antifungal drugs have very good activity," microbiologist Vishnu Chaturvedi reported Sunday at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. Researchers also screened more than 2,000 antiseptics before finding five that limit the fungus' growth, offering a way to sterilize the equipment of spelunkers who may be inadvertently spreading the disease from cave to cave on their shoes, backpacks or clothing. But while that's promising, there are still major logistical challenges in eradicating the fungus, even just from a single bat cave, Coleman tells the AP: "You don't want to go in and bomb a cave with an antifungal because you could be impacting other species." (Sources: AP, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

 

WALK IN THE PARK: A dog park in Cambridge, Mass., has come up with a novel way to generate light for its late-night dog walkers: the dogs themselves. The dogs' excrement, more precisely, provides the power source for a new methane digester called "Park Spark," which uses bacteria in an underground tank to digest the dogs' droppings into methane, which in turn serves as fuel for a gas-burning street lamp. People walking their dogs in the park are encouraged to collect their pets' waste, place it inside biodegradable bags (which are supplied at the park), and drop them into the digester's "feeding tube." A hand crank next to the feeding tube then allows the dog owner to stir up the mixture, jump-starting the anaerobic bacteria's digestion and helping the methane gas rise up to the lamp, where it's burned constantly like an "eternal flame." The park hopes to eventually generate enough methane from dog poo to power other objects in the park and surrounding neighborhood, such as tea carts and popcorn stands, but the main idea is to simply point out the surprising amount of power hidden inside something most people see as simply trash. "As long as people are walking dogs and throwing away dog poo, a flame can burn," the project's developers boast on their website. (Sources: PhysOrg, The Park Spark Project)

 

— Russell McLendon