From Ore to Nuggets, With Peril

CISITU, Indonesia — In the remote mountains of West Java, workers like 15-year-old David Mario Chandra are an integral part of Indonesia's gold industry.

A workshop next to his family's house in Cisitu, in Banten Province, contains machinery that turns gold ore into usable nuggets. The procedure seems simple enough: The crushed ore is tumbled with other ingredients in cylinders called balls until the valuable stuff is amalgamated. But there is a crucial material — and a final step — that alarms environmental and health experts around the world.

"We put 15 kilograms of gold ore and water into each ball, and we use 100 grams of mercury per ball," or 3.5 ounces for 33 pounds of ore, said David, who runs the family's workshop. Workers then purify the nuggets using an open flame, burning off the mercury in sites among residential areas throughout the village.

Yuyun Ismawati, an environmental campaigner based in Britain, says the scope of the problem is evident in the amount of mercury being exported from around the world to Indonesia, her home country. Most of it, she says, is brought in illegally.

According to the Indonesian Ministry of Trade, the country imported slightly less than one metric ton of mercury in 2012 through two local companies, primarily for commercial manufacturing, including the production of light bulbs and batteries, and for use in hospital equipment. According to United Nations trade statistics, however, 368 metric tons of mercury, about 810,000 pounds, were legally exported to Indonesia in 2012 from countries that included Singapore, the United States, Japan and Thailand.

The yawning gap between what Indonesia officially reported as receiving and what was actually exported to it is not an anomaly. In 2011, the country officially imported 7.8 metric tons of mercury, while the United Nations reported that 286 metric tons was exported to Indonesia. The same disparity is evident for numerous other recent years.

In fact, the only data that added up for Ms. Yuyun, 49, a graduate school alumna of Oxford, was not about mercury but global gold prices, which nearly doubled from an average of $872 an ounce in 2008 to $1,669 in 2012. Gold ended 2013 at just over $1,200 an ounce.

To Ms. Yuyun, the conclusion was obvious: Hundreds of tons of mercury had been smuggled into Indonesia for illegal, small-scale miners in a modern gold rush that analysts and activists say is causing major environmental and health crises.

"It's quick cash," she said. "You dig, you get money — and you get poisoned."

The quick and dirty production process emits mercury into the atmosphere. The metal has also seeped into soil, rivers, fish ponds and rice fields. Mercury is known to cause health problems, which may not appear for years, that include brain damage; kidney, skin and eye problems; miscarriages; and dysfunctional neurological development in infants and children.

Then there are the environmental impacts. According to the United Nations Environment Program, small-scale gold mining is responsible for 37 percent of global mercury emissions and is the largest source of air and water mercury pollution.

According to a study by the Blacksmith Institute, a nonprofit research organization in New York that focuses on pollution, one-tenth of global mercury emissions from such mining originate in Indonesia. Those emissions can spread from country to country and continent to continent.

Parts of Indonesia, including the resort island of Lombok, where illegal gold mining is rampant, have the highest mercury contamination readings on earth, according to studies by Blacksmith and other groups.

Industrial gold mining companies in Indonesia are forbidden to use mercury during processing, government officials said. They would not anyway, as they can afford safer, more effective alternatives. But the country does not ban mercury use outright in small-scale gold mining operations.

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Long Review of Bayonne Bridge Project Is Assailed

That was back in 2009. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey first spent more than six months importuning various federal offices to serve as the lead agency for an environmental review. The law is vague about which agency is responsible. The Coast Guard finally agreed.

Since then, the Port Authority's "fast-track" approach to a project that will not alter the bridge's footprint has generated more than 5,000 pages of federally mandated archaeological, traffic, fish habitat, soil, pollution and economic reports that have cost over $2 million. A historical survey of every building within two miles of each end of the bridge alone cost $600,000 — even though none would be affected by the project.

After four years of work, the environmental assessment was issued in May and took into consideration comments from 307 organizations or individuals. The report invoked 207 acronyms, including M.B.T.A. (Migratory Bird Treaty Act) and N.L.R. (No Longer Regulated). Fifty-five federal, state and local agencies were consulted and 47 permits were required from 19 of them. Fifty Indian tribes from as far away as Oklahoma were invited to weigh in on whether the project impinged on native ground that touches the steel-arch bridge's foundation.

Maybe it would have been easier to lower the water than to raise the bridge. (In fact, the channel had already been dredged by the Army Corps of Engineers in anticipation of the Panama Canal project.)

The approval process for the Bayonne Bridge reconstruction has become a case study, critics say, in the bureaucratic roadblocks imposed by decades-old federal environmental regulations.

"Environmental review has evolved into an academic exercise like a game of who can find the most complications," said Philip K. Howard, a lawyer who cites the Bayonne Bridge in his forthcoming book, "The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government." "The Balkanization of authority among different agencies and levels of government creates a dynamic of buck-passing."

Those complications are a particular concern among local officials in the Northeast, where a public works program is often intended both to help an ailing economy and to salvage aging bridges and highways, since most projects are likely to be replacements (brand-new ones would require even more rigorous environmental reviews). The sweeping final environmental impact statement that was required before the Port Authority could begin replacing the nearby Goethals Bridge took almost 10 years to complete.

The only reason a federal review was required at all for the Bayonne project was that the bridge spans a navigable waterway — even though raising the deck to 215 feet from about 151 feet above the waterline of Kill Van Kull, the tidal strait that separates Staten Island from Bayonne, N.J., will facilitate navigation rather than impede it.

"We're not proposing to build a nuclear plant on a pristine mountain lake," said Patrick J. Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority. "We're not building a bridge, we're not knocking a bridge down, we don't think there'll be any increase in vehicular traffic. The environmental impact is more energy-efficient ships. They will emit less schmutz per container and per pair of Nikes."

Even as construction began in June, environmental groups and civic groups challenged the review process in a federal lawsuit. They argued that bigger containers being unloaded in Port Newark and Port Elizabeth would result in more truck traffic through Newark and other poor neighborhoods already polluted with diesel fumes and saddled with congested streets.

"It assumes a more efficient port will cause people to buy more sneakers and iPads," Mr. Foye said dismissively. The case is still pending.

"The environmental process for public infrastructure is too long, costly and uncertain," he said. "Public infrastructure ought to be treated differently, especially replacement of public infrastructure. And there ought to be someone in the process on the federal side who is looking at the impact of economic development and job retention."

As it is, the project manager, Joann Papageorgis, said the existing deck would be removed in two years after the locks of the Panama Canal have been widened to 180 feet from 110 feet and lengthened to 1,400 feet from 1,050 feet. That means ships carrying as many as 12,000 containers will pass under the Bayonne Bridge — the maximum today is 9,000 containers. A new roadway for the bridge is to be completed by mid-2017; the current bridge will be partly closed.

The cost is estimated at $1.3 billion. The cost of a new bridge or a tunnel would have been about $4 billion. The new bridge will have wider lanes, bicycle and pedestrian pathways and the capacity to add public transit.

The entire project, from conception to completion, is expected to take less than a decade — with the environmental review accounting for nearly half that time. As cumbersome as it was, the process was expedited by a presidential directive to speed construction of the Bayonne Bridge and six other public works projects across the country.

And despite the protracted environmental review period, Ms. Papageorgis said the project was being done at warp speed when compared with other public works projects. (Consider, for example, the Second Avenue subway line in Manhattan.)

"In my 40 years, this is the fastest I've ever seen an environmental assessment get done," Ms. Papageorgis said. "We're being criticized for rushing it."

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Concern Over Safety Grows as More Oil Rides the Rails

Bruce Crummy/Associated Press

Near Casselton, N.D., on Monday, a train carrying crude oil crashed into a train carrying grain that had derailed.

WASHINGTON — Safety officials have worried for years about hazardous materials carried on trains, but concern has intensified recently as a drilling surge in remote oil fields has generated heavy traffic on North America's aging rail-freight networks.

That concern was heightened on Monday when a train of oil-tank cars near Casselton, N.D., plowed into a train carrying grain that had derailed on an adjacent track. The fire burned for more than a day.

That accident was outside the town. But last July, in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, a similar train of tank cars that had been left unattended rolled down a grade and derailed, killing 47 people and burning down much of the downtown.

Even before the accident in Quebec, the United States Transportation Department had warned that shippers were failing to follow basic precautions, like determining the temperature at which oil will turn into a gas and burn or explode, and selecting appropriate tank cars to transport the material.

On Thursday, the department told oil shippers and railroads that it was "imperative" to test the oil being transported to determine its volatility. The department is also considering stricter requirements for the tank cars themselves, which are prone to puncture and burn in derailments. Sometimes the problem is as basic as the effect of a derailment, which can throw open valves and spill flammable contents.

Tank car specifications pit the shippers, which own the rail cars, against the railroads, which say they do no more than haul the cars. The National Transportation Safety Board recently called the level of threat to the public "unacceptable." Municipal officials are worried.

"We have a couple of sets of tracks that run through town and we can see the increased number of cars going through," said Jeff Lawler, the village manager of Barrington, Ill., about 30 miles northwest of Chicago. Barrington was among several local governments to ask the Transportation Department to put tighter controls on shipments of dangerous chemicals, including oil.

"These tank cars, they've known for 20 years, they have failed in different derailments," Mr. Lawler said. "It's not like that's new news." But "just looking at the math, with the increases, the likelihood of tragedies occurring here or elsewhere increases," he said.

Deborah A. P. Hersman, the chairwoman of the safety board, said in a telephone interview, "It's called 'hazardous material' for a reason."

Derailed grain trains attract wild animals to feed at the site, creating another hazard. If the train carries coal, "it's not a big deal, you pick it up and drop it back in the hopper and move on," she said. But with oil, "we want to make sure we're addressing it in a way that's commensurate with the risk." And risk rises with traffic, she said.

The cargo involved in Monday's accident was crude oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota. The state's oil production has doubled in the last two years and will nearly double again in the next three, to 1.6 million barrels a day, according to the state Department of Mineral Resources in Bismarck. Rail shipment capacity has increased far faster than pipeline capacity.

The safety board cited national figures that show that in 2012, there were 37 times the number of crude oil shipments by railroad as there were in 2007. Ethanol shipments more than quadrupled between 2005 and 2011, according to the board.

In February 2003, in Tamaroa, Ill., a train carrying methanol derailed and forced the evacuation of 850 people in a three-mile radius. In 2006, in New Brighton, Pa., a train carrying ethanol derailed, and the resulting fire burned for 48 hours. The Federal Railway Administration has been trying to persuade shippers to sample and characterize their shipments so they would be put in appropriate tank cars, although investigators have not said if that was a factor in Casselton.

The railroad industry voluntarily adopted new standards for newly built tank cars, although these are not as strict as the safety board recommends. A spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads, Holly Arthur, said that about 14,000 of the 98,000 tank cars in service met the standard. Her group favors replacing the old cars, not retrofitting them, she said.

The safety board has pointed out that if a train uses a mix of new and old designs, the benefit of the new designs will be lost if an older car derails, ignites and sets off the others.

Opponents of tighter standards argue that weak or defective tank cars do not cause derailments. But safety officials say that derailments happen daily.

In the next two years, railroads are supposed to install "positive train control," using GPS technology, which could alert engineers to problems ahead — as millions of car drivers are alerted — and could prevent some crashes.

The safety of rail shipments also affects the arguments over the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. While opponents of the pipeline claim that exploitation of the oil sands creates too much carbon dioxide, they have lately focused on pipeline leaks and spills. But few of those cause catastrophic fires.

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Daunting Calculus for Maine Shrimpers as Entire Season Is Lost

PORT CLYDE, Me. — Shrimping in the Gulf of Maine was so bad last season that Randy Cushman, a longtime fisherman, wondered if there was any point in going out at all.

"I can honestly say it was the worst catch that I've ever seen in my career," said Mr. Cushman, 51, who has captained a boat for more than 30 years. "I was calling people and saying, 'Let's shut this fishery down, this is stupid.' "

Regulators recently did just that, closing the 2014 Gulf of Maine shrimping season — which, in a normal year, might have run from December through the spring — to give the supply time to recover. The unusual step has brought some hope to Mr. Cushman and to other fishermen and processors whose livelihoods depend in part on the shrimp's making a comeback, even as they wonder how to weather this season, and perhaps longer, without it. But others say closing the season completely will deal too heavy a blow to the tiny, specialized market, eroding another part of New England's imperiled fishing economy.

The shrimp in question are called Northern shrimp or, more locally, Maine shrimp. They are the southernmost appearance of a species, Pandalus borealis, that can also be found in Canadian and Icelandic waters, but the ones caught here in the Gulf of Maine tend to be at the bigger end of the species. They are usually caught in the winter, when females come close to shore to lay their eggs in cold water. They are smaller and typically sweeter than warm-water or farmed shrimp, with delicate, edible shells, and are popular in European and Scandinavian markets, although New England chefs use them, too.

"They're something that I love to have," said Michael Leviton, the chef at Area Four and Lumière, two Boston-area restaurants, who said he would use local fish in lieu of the shrimp this year. "My favorite thing to do with them is to basically pan-fry them whole, head and shell on."

The fishery is among the last in Maine to be open-access, meaning licenses are not limited as they are elsewhere. As a result, some fishermen say, the supply is vulnerable to overfishing when prices are high. It had a peak in the late 1960s and the '70s before the supply collapsed and regulators imposed the last complete closing, in 1978. In 2011, regulators estimate, about 350 boats — mostly in Maine, with some in Massachusetts and New Hampshire — caught $10.6 million worth of shrimp; last season, about 200 boats caught an estimated $1.2 million worth.

In 2013 researchers towing nets to assess the size of the stock counted an average of 27 shrimp per tow, compared with a historical average of 1,400 per tow.

"The 2013 survey was the worst ever," said Maggie Hunter, a scientist at Maine's Marine Resources Department and a member of the technical committee that advised the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates Northern shrimp, to close the fishery for the season.

Ms. Hunter and other scientists ascribe the precipitous decline to a combination of overfishing and, more important, higher ocean temperatures over the past few years, which seem to threaten the survival of newly hatched shrimp. "One mechanism that has been proposed is that if it's warm, the shrimp's eggs mature too fast and they hatch too early," Ms. Hunter said.

Marshall Alexander, 67, a longtime shrimper who lives in Biddeford, Me., has grudgingly piled his gear.

"It affects me dearly, O.K.," Mr. Alexander said. He added that he would have to take long, cold trips offshore this season, which he would usually prefer to do in the summer, in search of ground fish — cod, haddock and others that live near the ocean floor — because he cannot shrimp close to shore. "At my age, I don't enjoy the beating I used to take when I was younger," he said.

Mr. Alexander is among a group of fishermen and processors who acknowledge that stocks are in trouble but have pushed regulators to allow so-called no-harm fishing of older shrimp that have already hatched their last round of eggs for the year, in order to keep parts of the market supplied and the infrastructure functioning. They argue that this could prevent a price crash should European markets have moved on by the time the fishery reopens, but scientists say it would not be possible to exclusively target shrimp that can no longer lay eggs.

"The shelf space we had in Waitrose in the U.K. or the market in Norway is gone with Maine shrimp," said Spencer Fuller, a shrimp manager at the Portland-based seafood distributor Cozy Harbor, who called the cuts "draconian, not necessary."

But another subset of fishermen and processors view the decision to close the season as an overdue investment in the future of the species.

"There's so little we can do to control what's going on in the ocean," said Glen Libby, a founder of a fisherman-owned seafood processing business called Port Clyde Fresh Catch. "We have to try to make some contribution to help the stock."

Shortly after the closing was announced, Mr. Libby had just two bags of shrimp — last season's, found hidden in a freezer behind some monkfish. As he watched two employees pick crab, he said he hoped crab legs, scallops and fish could see his business through the winter.

"That's our shrimp substitute," he said gamely.

Across town, Mr. Cushman, who is also part of Mr. Libby's processing business, was less optimistic. "It kills me — it breaks my heart," he said. "You need them shrimp in order to keep that business alive."

One of Mr. Cushman's brothers handed him a paycheck: With shrimp in so much trouble, Mr. Cushman is working as his stern man. It used to be that ground fishing could help him through a bad shrimping season, but because of deep cuts, that is no longer the case.

"We have two fisheries that are failing now," Mr. Cushman said, looking over the Port Clyde harbor and counting, to his surprise, just a handful of boats capable of catching ground fish and shrimp.

"We keep losing boats out of this harbor every year, and I keep forgetting about it," he said. "This is why you see guys like me disappearing."

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Dot Earth Blog: The Hazards of Moving Oil By Rail Again on Display, This Time in North Dakota

The fiery derailment of a 106-car oil train in North Dakota on Monday is the latest manifestation of the perils that come with expanding shipments of the country's Bakken oil bounty by rail. The Wall Street Journal has a good update, as does NPR. An Associated Press report included this context:

Government regulators defended their record on moving hazardous materials by rail, noting that 2012 was the safest year in the industry's history. But oil trains have bucked that trend, thanks in part to the massive amount of oil being moved out of western North Dakota, where the industry's rapid growth is far outpacing pipeline development.

The Toronto Globe and Mail has published an excellent investigative package on the growth of rail shipments of oil attending the surge in shale-oil production. Here are the main elements, which focus, naturally, on the extraordinary oil-fire disaster that befell the small Quebec community of Lac-Mégantic in July (there's an excellent video overview, as well):

For a closer look at those lost in the Quebec inferno, read "The Ghost Train That Changed Lac-Mégantic Forever," part of the annual "The Lives They Lived" package in The Times.

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Tool Kit: Cleaning the Mobile Germ Warehouse

TAKE a look at your mobile device. Do you see oily fingerprints and lint on the touch screen? Dust and crumbs forming particulate frost in the corners? Is that a hair stuck at the screen's edge?

Because our electronics are constantly within our grubby grasp, they can get pretty gross. They are taken into public restrooms, handed to runny-nosed toddlers, passed around to share photos and pressed against sweaty skin in gyms. Repeated studies show what accumulates is germy nastiness worse than what is on the bottom of your shoe.

"That devices can be a source of disease transmission is not a subject of debate anymore," said Dr. Dubert Guerrero, an infectious disease specialist at Sanford Health in Fargo, N.D., and co-author of a study about the persistence of bacteria on iPads published in November in The American Journal of Infection Control.

So it is a good idea to keep your devices clean, not only to keep from getting sick but also to maintain resale value when it's time to upgrade. Companies like Best Buy, Target, Gazelle, Amazon, Verizon and AT&T all offer trade-in or cash-back programs, said Derek Meister, a technician for the Geek Squad, Best Buy's repair and online support service.

"People don't want any marks or grime on their devices," Mr. Meister said, because like trading in a used car at a dealership, "the better the condition, the more like new it is, the more money you get on your trade-in."

A word of warning: Cleaning your device can be tricky, since you don't want to damage it and manufacturers don't give you much guidance. It can be done, however, if you're careful and conscientious.

Dr. Guerrero and his colleagues found that regularly wiping down your device with a moist microfiber cloth was sufficient to eliminate many kinds of common bacteria. More enduring and dangerous bacteria like clostridium difficile (which can cause diarrhea or even inflammation of the colon) and flu viruses may require a sterilizing agent like bleach or alcohol, he said.

This is a problem, since Apple on its website officially warns against using "window cleaners, household cleaners, aerosol sprays, solvents, alcohol, ammonia or abrasives" to clean its products and advises instead to "simply wipe the screen with a soft, lint-free cloth to remove oil left by your hands." Other manufacturers offer similar advice or none at all.

And yet, in the Apple Store, you'll find the 32-percent isopropyl alcohol Clens wipes by Bausch & Lomb. Apple declined to explain the contradiction. Nevertheless, the wipes work great at cleaning grime, muck and marks off your device and they also disinfect. A Clens kit that includes three Clens wipes, a 3-ounce bottle of Clens cleaning spray and a cleaning cloth costs about $20.

But it's far cheaper to make your own alcohol and water solution. To clean his own mobile devices, Mr. Meister at the Geek Squad said he used a 1:1 ratio of 70 percent isopropyl alcohol and distilled water, which together cost less than $4 at most grocery and drugstores. "You want distilled water and purer alcohol so there are fewer chemicals or minerals left behind when the solution evaporates," he said.

Fill a spray bottle with the diluted alcohol, lightly moisten a lint-free, preferably microfiber, cloth (no paper towels) and gently wipe down the screen and case. Never spray directly onto the device. To clean corners and around ports, use lint-free foam rather than cotton Q-tips.

If you're supergermophobic, you might consider purchasing an ultraviolet sanitizer. Violife makes a $50 cellphone sanitizer about the size of a coffee can. Just pop your phone into the dock and replace the lid for ultraviolet light to zap pathogens. Verilux sells a $40 sanitizing wand, which the company claims kills up to 99 percent of germs when waved over your electronics. This won't improve the look of your device or maximize value at trade-in but it might spare you the sniffles or worse during cold and flu season.

Using a can of compressed air to blow around ports and between keys, on the other hand, will help maintain the look, performance and value of your device. This gets rid of dust and particles that can infiltrate and damage electronics. Another option is to buy a specialized air compressor like the DataVac Electric Duster, which lists for $100 and comes with all sorts of little attachments for cleaning out your devices' crevices and seams.

"An air compressor gets things really clean and it's environmentally good because you don't have a little can to throw away after blowing air," said Miroslav Djuric, chief information architect at ifixit.com, an online do-it-yourself community. He uses an all-purpose compressor he bought at Home Depot and fitted with an inflating needle (the kind used to inflate a basketball or a bike tire) to precisely direct the air flow.

To repel germs, grease and pet hair from your laptop, there are antimicrobial and protective keyboard, trackpad and palm rest covers that are nearly invisible and washable. Moshi, NewerTech, iSkin and Protect Computer Products all make these covers for less than $30.

"We get so many computers damaged from kids spilling things on them," said David Bensinger, owner of The Little Laptop Shop in Manhattan. "At least people say it was their kids when they drop the computers off."

Washable screen protectors for laptops, tablets and smartphones are available from manufacturers such as Boxwave, BodyGuardz, iSmooth and Moshi at a cost of $5 to $40, depending on the size. They are easy to apply and reapply without unsightly bubbles or impaired visibility or functionality of touch screens.

Similarly, Ultra-Sleeves and Chef Sleeves are clear, hygienic and protective iPad and tablet covers. They enclose the entire device and are disposable. They are intended for people working in health care, construction, industrial or restaurant settings. These covers are also ideal for those who might have to share their devices with multiple people during the course of the day, like teachers or salespeople. A pack of 10 costs about $12.

It's up to you how obsessively you want to clean your mobile devices, but health and electronics experts advise wiping down your mobile device with a moist microfiber cloth at least daily for basic sanitation and upkeep.

Like your toothbrush, "your mobile device is something you want to clean regularly," said Dr. Guerrero, the infectious disease specialist. And it is probably not something you want to pass around the table.

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The New Old Age Blog: Vitamin E Slows Decline of Some Alzheimer’s Patients in Study

Updated, 6:17 p.m. |

Does vitamin E help people with Alzheimer's disease? For years, scientists have been trying to find out, guessing that the vitamin's antioxidant properties might be beneficial. But the results from clinical trials have been mixed and — following a report that high doses of vitamin E may increase the risk of death — cautionary.

Now a study suggests that vitamin E supplements may be good for some Alzheimer's patients after all. The benefit was not huge, but for a devastating disease that has proved almost impervious to treatment, it was notable.

The study, published in Wednesday's issue of JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that over a little more than two years, high-dose vitamin E slowed the decline of people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's by about six months on average.

Vitamin E did not delay cognitive or memory deterioration, however. Instead, it seemed to temporarily protect something many patients consider especially valuable: their ability to perform daily activities like putting on clothes and feeding themselves.

Compared with other study participants, people who took vitamin E also required about two fewer hours of help from caregivers per day, the researchers said.

"Is it really going to dramatically alter the lives of Alzheimer's patients? That's unclear," said Dr. Scott Small, director of Columbia University's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who was not involved in the study. "But it might improve patients' ability to bathe themselves and dress themselves."

Notably, in this study, high-dose vitamin E appeared safe. Many doctors had stopped suggesting it to Alzheimer's patients after a 2005 analysis suggested that high doses could increase the risk of mortality. That analysis looked at vitamin E's effect on patients with various diseases, not just Alzheimer's.

"We were concerned about safety, and we didn't find a safety problem," said Dr. Maurice Dysken, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, who led the new study.

Still, experts, including the authors, said the new study did not mean that high-dose vitamin E should be taken by everyone with dementia or everyone hoping to prevent it. The study found benefit only in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's, a result that echoes research in 1997 showing that vitamin E could delay functional decline for about seven months in people with moderately severe Alzheimer's.

But other studies have found that vitamin E failed to delay dementia in people without symptoms or with mild cognitive impairment, which may precede Alzheimer's.

"It was dead stone cold in the M.C.I. trial," said the leader of that study, Dr. Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic's Alzheimer's center. "You couldn't have found a closer match to placebo."

Dr. Denis Evans, a professor of internal medicine at Rush University, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new study, cautioned against extrapolating the results to anyone without mild to moderate Alzheimer's.

"Does this mean that all of us who don't want to develop Alzheimer's should rush out and purchase a bottle of vitamin E?" he said. "Oh, please don't."

The study involved 613 veterans, mostly men, from 14 Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals around the country. The veterans were already taking drugs like Aricept for mild to moderate Alzheimer's. One group received 2,000 I.U.'s of vitamin E daily, much higher than the amount available in a typical supplement. Other groups received memantine (a dementia drug used in medications like Namenda), vitamin E plus memantine or a placebo.

"What we hoped was that memantine would have benefit, vitamin E would have benefit, and combined it would have double the effect," Dr. Dysken said. That did not happen.

Only vitamin E showed a statistically significant effect. Memantine was no better than the placebo at preventing decline, and, inexplicably, the combination of memantine and vitamin E did not work either.

There were other confusing results. While vitamin E helped people retain their ability to perform daily functions longer, it did not significantly slow their cognitive decline, the defining feature of Alzheimer's.

"That they found differences in functional measures and not the cognitive measure gives you pause," Dr. Petersen said.

Some studies have focused more on measures of function than on cognitive scores because the ability to maintain daily routines can matter more to patients and their families. Functional abilities decline for a wide variety of reasons related to aging, not necessarily to Alzheimer's, noted Dr. Evans. Most experts say a truly effective Alzheimer's treatment will improve both function and cognition.

The new study also underscores the complexity of Alzheimer's. Experts could not explain why vitamin E would work in fully developed Alzheimer's, for example, but not earlier. In many conditions, treatments ease symptoms at the early stages but lose effectiveness as diseases strengthen.

Dr. Evans and others said doctors should now consider discussing vitamin E supplements with patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. But, Dr. Evans said, "2,000 I.U.'s is a lot, and I wouldn't recommend it unless there's some oversight" by a doctor.

Dr. Small said that while he would not "twist the patient's arm to take vitamin E, in the absence of anything else that's dramatic, I would certainly raise this with patients."

Dr. Petersen said he might mention it after trying the other treatments he recommends.

"It's not a slam-dunk; it's not a home run," he said. "It does give some credence to the notion that high-dose vitamin E might be doing something. It gives doctors and patients another option to use as the disease progresses."

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U.S. Solar Panel Maker Seeks to Close Loophole in Duties on Chinese Products

European Pressphoto Agency

Workers pack solar panels in Baoding, China. The Commerce Department was asked to place duties on modules with Chinese parts, expanding a trade dispute.

A major maker of solar panels opened another chapter in a long-simmering trade dispute on Tuesday, asking the Commerce Department to impose new duties on imported modules made of certain components from China or Taiwan.

The petition, brought by SolarWorld Industries America, is intended to close a loophole in the United States decision to impose duties on imported Chinese modules.

Should the petition go forward, it could effectively block Chinese manufacturers from the American market, said Shayle Kann, vice president of research at GTM Research, which tracks clean-tech industries.

In 2012, the United States issued final rulings that Chinese solar companies had received unfair subsidies from their government and dumped products on the American market below costs. But the duties, roughly 24 to 36 percent, applied only to panels made from Chinese solar cells, the final major parts that are assembled into finished modules.

As a result, many Chinese companies were able to avoid the duties by assembling panels from cells produced elsewhere, especially in Taiwan, even if those cells were derived from components — called ingots and wafers — from China. Should SolarWorld win the case, modules made from Taiwanese cells or cells made from Chinese ingots or wafers would be subject to duties as well.

"We're finishing the job of presenting the facts to our trade regulators to prevent China from further damaging yet another manufacturing industry and another rich base of employment," Mukesh Dulani, president of SolarWorld Industries America, said in a statement. "China obviously recognizes the key importance of solar technology manufacturing to future economic competitiveness. But we do, too."

Under federal regulations, the Commerce Department is required to consider the petition, and is to determine whether to investigate around the middle of January. China is continuing to pursue imposing duties on American polysilicon, the base compound for conventional solar panels; the country negotiated a settlement with the European Union over similar trade complaints in July.

SolarWorld, the American subsidiary of a German company, has found support for its case among some solar employers in the United States, where many manufacturers have been squeezed to the brink of bankruptcy and beyond by fierce competition from China. But the main industry trade group expressed disappointment with the new petition and called for renewed negotiations.

"Trade litigation is a blunt instrument and, alone, incapable of resolving the complex competitiveness issues that exist between the U.S. and Chinese solar industries," Rhone Resch, chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, said in a statement.

Robert Petrina, managing director of Yingli Green Energy Americas, a division of a leading Chinese manufacturer, said in an email message that the company would "fight this just as vigorously as we did the first case."

In Europe, Mr. Kann of GTM Research said, negotiations resulted in a set price floor and volume quota for Chinese panels, "so it's possible you could end up with something similar here."

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to an email seeking comment.

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Daunting Calculus for Maine Shrimpers as Entire Season Is Lost

PORT CLYDE, Me. — Shrimping in the Gulf of Maine was so bad last season that Randy Cushman, a longtime fisherman, wondered if there was any point in going out at all.

"I can honestly say it was the worst catch that I've ever seen in my career," said Mr. Cushman, 51, who has captained a boat for more than 30 years. "I was calling people and saying, 'Let's shut this fishery down, this is stupid.' "

Regulators recently did just that, closing the 2014 Gulf of Maine shrimping season — which, in a normal year, might have run from December through the spring — to give the supply time to recover. The unusual step has brought some hope to Mr. Cushman and to other fishermen and processors whose livelihoods depend in part on the shrimp's making a comeback, even as they wonder how to weather this season, and perhaps longer, without it. But others say closing the season completely will deal too heavy a blow to the tiny, specialized market, eroding another part of New England's imperiled fishing economy.

The shrimp in question are called Northern shrimp or, more locally, Maine shrimp. They are the southernmost appearance of a species, Pandalus borealis, that can also be found in Canadian and Icelandic waters, but the ones caught here in the Gulf of Maine tend to be at the bigger end of the species. They are usually caught in the winter, when females come close to shore to lay their eggs in cold water. They are smaller and typically sweeter than warm-water or farmed shrimp, with delicate, edible shells, and are popular in European and Scandinavian markets, although New England chefs use them, too.

"They're something that I love to have," said Michael Leviton, the chef at Area Four and Lumière, two Boston-area restaurants, who said he would use local fish in lieu of the shrimp this year. "My favorite thing to do with them is to basically pan-fry them whole, head and shell on."

The fishery is among the last in Maine to be open-access, meaning licenses are not limited as they are elsewhere. As a result, some fishermen say, the supply is vulnerable to overfishing when prices are high. It had a peak in the late 1960s and the '70s before the supply collapsed and regulators imposed the last complete closing, in 1978. In 2011, regulators estimate, about 350 boats — mostly in Maine, with some in Massachusetts and New Hampshire — caught $10.6 million worth of shrimp; last season, about 200 boats caught an estimated $1.2 million worth.

In 2013 researchers towing nets to assess the size of the stock counted an average of 27 shrimp per tow, compared with a historical average of 1,400 per tow.

"The 2013 survey was the worst ever," said Maggie Hunter, a scientist at Maine's Marine Resources Department and a member of the technical committee that advised the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates Northern shrimp, to close the fishery for the season.

Ms. Hunter and other scientists ascribe the precipitous decline to a combination of overfishing and, more important, higher ocean temperatures over the past few years, which seem to threaten the survival of newly hatched shrimp. "One mechanism that has been proposed is that if it's warm, the shrimp's eggs mature too fast and they hatch too early," Ms. Hunter said.

Marshall Alexander, 67, a longtime shrimper who lives in Biddeford, Me., has grudgingly piled his gear.

"It affects me dearly, O.K.," Mr. Alexander said. He added that he would have to take long, cold trips offshore this season, which he would usually prefer to do in the summer, in search of ground fish — cod, haddock and others that live near the ocean floor — because he cannot shrimp close to shore. "At my age, I don't enjoy the beating I used to take when I was younger," he said.

Mr. Alexander is among a group of fishermen and processors who acknowledge that stocks are in trouble but have pushed regulators to allow so-called no-harm fishing of older shrimp that have already hatched their last round of eggs for the year, in order to keep parts of the market supplied and the infrastructure functioning. They argue that this could prevent a price crash should European markets have moved on by the time the fishery reopens, but scientists say it would not be possible to exclusively target shrimp that can no longer lay eggs.

"The shelf space we had in Waitrose in the U.K. or the market in Norway is gone with Maine shrimp," said Spencer Fuller, a shrimp manager at the Portland-based seafood distributor Cozy Harbor, who called the cuts "draconian, not necessary."

But another subset of fishermen and processors view the decision to close the season as an overdue investment in the future of the species.

"There's so little we can do to control what's going on in the ocean," said Glen Libby, a founder of a fisherman-owned seafood processing business called Port Clyde Fresh Catch. "We have to try to make some contribution to help the stock."

Shortly after the closing was announced, Mr. Libby had just two bags of shrimp — last season's, found hidden in a freezer behind some monkfish. As he watched two employees pick crab, he said he hoped crab legs, scallops and fish could see his business through the winter.

"That's our shrimp substitute," he said gamely.

Across town, Mr. Cushman, who is also part of Mr. Libby's processing business, was less optimistic. "It kills me — it breaks my heart," he said. "You need them shrimp in order to keep that business alive."

One of Mr. Cushman's brothers handed him a paycheck: With shrimp in so much trouble, Mr. Cushman is working as his stern man. It used to be that ground fishing could help him through a bad shrimping season, but because of deep cuts, that is no longer the case.

"We have two fisheries that are failing now," Mr. Cushman said, looking over the Port Clyde harbor and counting, to his surprise, just a handful of boats capable of catching ground fish and shrimp.

"We keep losing boats out of this harbor every year, and I keep forgetting about it," he said. "This is why you see guys like me disappearing."

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Viewing Where the Internet Goes

Will 2014 be the year that the Internet is reined in?

When Edward J. Snowden, the disaffected National Security Agency contract employee, purloined tens of thousands of classified documents from computers around the world, his actions — and their still-reverberating consequences — heightened international pressure to control the network that has increasingly become the world's stage. At issue is the technical principle that is the basis for the Internet, its "any-to-any" connectivity. That capability has defined the technology ever since Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn sequestered themselves in the conference room of a Palo Alto, Calif., hotel in 1973, with the task of interconnecting computer networks for an elite group of scientists, engineers and military personnel.

The two men wound up developing a simple and universal set of rules for exchanging digital information — the conventions of the modern Internet. Despite many technological changes, their work prevails.

But while the Internet's global capability to connect anyone with anything has affected every nook and cranny of modern life — with politics, education, espionage, war, civil liberties, entertainment, sex, science, finance and manufacturing all transformed — its growth increasingly presents paradoxes.

It was, for example, the Internet's global reach that made classified documents available to Mr. Snowden — and made it so easy for him to distribute them to news organizations.

Yet the Internet also made possible widespread surveillance, a practice that alarmed Mr. Snowden and triggered his plan to steal and publicly release the information.

With the Snowden affair starkly highlighting the issues, the new year is likely to see renewed calls to change the way the Internet is governed. In particular, governments that do not favor the free flow of information, especially if it's through a system designed by Americans, would like to see the Internet regulated in a way that would "Balkanize" it by preventing access to certain websites.

The debate right now involves two international organizations, usually known by their acronyms, with different views: Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and the I.T.U., or International Telecommunication Union.

Icann, a nonprofit that oversees the Internet's basic functions, like the assignment of names to websites, was established in 1998 by the United States government to create an international forum for "governing" the Internet. The United States continues to favor this group.

The I.T.U., created in 1865 as the International Telegraph Convention, is the United Nations telecommunications regulatory agency. Nations like Brazil, China and Russia have been pressing the United States to switch governance of the Internet to this organization.

Dr. Cerf, 70, and Dr. Kahn, 75, have taken slightly different positions on the matter. Dr. Cerf, who was chairman of Icann from 2000-7, has become known as an informal "Internet ambassador" and a strong proponent of an Internet that remains independent of state control. He has been one of the major supporters of the idea of "network neutrality" — the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications, regardless of the source.

Dr. Kahn has made a determined effort to stay out of the network neutrality debate. Nevertheless, he has been more willing to work with the I.T.U., particularly in attempting to build support for a system, known as Digital Object Architecture, for tracking and authenticating all content distributed through the Internet.

Both men agreed to sit down, in separate interviews, to talk about their views on the Internet's future. The interviews were edited and condensed.

The Internet Ambassador

After serving as a program manager at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Vinton Cerf joined MCI Communications Corp., an early commercial Internet company that was purchased by Verizon in 2006, to lead the development of electronic mail systems for the Internet. In 2005, he became a vice president and "Internet evangelist" for Google. Last year he became the president of the Association for Computing Machinery, a leading international educational and scientific computing society.

Q. Edward Snowden's actions have raised a new storm of controversy about the role of the Internet. Is it a significant new challenge to an open and global Internet?

A. The answer is no, I don't think so. There are some similar analogues in history. The French historically copied every telex or every telegram that you sent, and they shared it with businesses in order to remain competitive. And when that finally became apparent, it didn't shut down the telegraph system.

The Snowden revelations will increase interest in end-to-end cryptography for encrypting information both in transit and at rest. For many of us, including me, who believe that is an important capacity to have, this little crisis may be the trigger that induces people to spend time and energy learning how to use it.

You've drawn the analogy to a road or highway system. That brings to mind the idea of requiring a driver's license to use the Internet, which raises questions about responsibility and anonymity.

I still believe that anonymity is an important capacity, that people should have the ability to speak anonymously. It's argued that people will be encouraged to say untrue things, harmful things, especially if they believe they are anonymous.

There is a tension there, because in some environments the only way you will be able to behave safely is to have some anonymity.

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