Blogs / 80beats

California is striking a blow against obesity and heart disease: On Friday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill outlawing the use of trans fats in all restaurants and bakeries. The bill creates the first state-wide ban of trans fats, but follows the path set out by cities like New York City and Philadelphia, which have already evicted the substance from restaurants within city limits.

Trans fats are created by pumping hydrogen into liquid oil at high temperature, a process called partial hydrogenation. The process results in an inexpensive fat that prolongs the shelf life and appearance of packaged foods and that, many fast-food restaurants say, helps make cooked food crisp and flavorful [The New York Times]. The artificial fats have been shown to increase levels of “bad” cholesterol and decrease levels of “good” cholesterol, and are therefore linked to heart disease.

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A federal judge declared that California’s water management system is jeopardizing the existence of the state’s salmon and steelhead, which have to navigate the complicated network on their journeys out to the ocean and back to their riverine spawning grounds. The judge’s ruling established that the canals and pumps that deliver water to 23 million Californians are causing “irreparable harm” to two salmon species, as well as the threatened Central Valley steelhead [AP].

The judge stopped short of ordering immediate remedies like storing more water behind Shasta Dam, which could be released later to help migrating fish. But the judge’s conclusions mean regulators will be forced to impose more protective conditions when they issue a new permit in March, lawyers said. “It’s a clear signal that business as usual in the Delta is not going to be acceptable,” said Kate Poole, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council [Contra Costa Times].

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Researchers working at California’s San Andreas Fault say they detected subtle geological shifts that occurred hours before two small earthquakes, raising the possibility that scientists could eventually develop an early warning system to get people out of harms way well before the earth started to tremble.

“If you had 10 hours’ warning, from a practical point of view, you could evacuate populations, you could certainly get people out of buildings, you could get the fire department ready,” said co-author Paul Silver of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington. “Hurricane [warnings] give you an idea of what could be done” [BBC News].

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Just weeks after the U.S. Senate failed to pass a sweeping set of regulations to slow global warming, the state of California is pointing the way forward. California air regulators today announced a bold plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions that would alter the way utilities generate electricity, automakers build cars and developers construct buildings, and launch the nation’s broadest market in carbon-credit trading [Los Angeles Times].

The 99-page document really marks the beginning of negotiations over the finer policy details; that debate will continue until the end of 2010. One point of contention is the state’s proposal to force automakers to curb emissions of greenhouse gases from new California vehicles more quickly than required under federal mileage standards – a proposal currently blocked by the Bush administration [Sacramento Bee].

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They were starting to look like the next big thing in biotech. Personal genetics testing companies have been popping up in the last few years, offering regular citizens the chance to pay about a thousand bucks to see their own genomes. The companies say this service can give people insight into their chances of developing inherited diseases and can cast light upon their ancestry, and consumers have begun to plunk down their money.

But now there’s a hitch. Regulators in California sent “cease and desist” letters to 13 companies last week, ordering them to stop offering testing to California residents until they can prove that they have the proper clinical laboratory license, and, more importantly, that each genetics test was ordered by a doctor. The [Public Health Department] said it began investigating gene-testing companies after receiving complaints from consumers “about the accuracy and cost of genetic testing advertised on the Internet” [San Jose Mercury News].

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It’s official: California is in a state-wide drought, according to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Following the driest spring in 88 years, the state’s reservoirs are low, its farmers are complaining, and its forests are tinder-dry, which may lead to more forest fires like the one that scorched the Santa Cruz mountains two weeks ago.

In giving the current dry spell the official “drought” stamp for the first time since 1991, the governor cleared the way for water transfers to stricken areas and a possible infusion of federal aid to speed water conservation projects. But Schwarzenegger stopped short of declaring a water emergency, which would permit water rationing.

Some researchers have wondered whether the state is already suffering the early effects of global warming, which is predicted to alter California ecosystems by raising temperatures, and thus allowing less snow to build up in the mountains of Northern California.

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