Loading...
The Citizen, 1994-02-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9,1994. PAGE 5. Arthur Black Mind-bending, history-changing Goo! Remember the movie The Graduate? Remember the scene where a painfully adolescent Dustin Hoffman, desperately trying to deke away from a hideous cocktail party around his parents' pool, is cornered by a sleazy businessman guest who claps a hand on his shoulder and mutters boozily: "Kid...I'm just gonna say one word to ya. Plastics."? If they were filming The Graduate in 1994, the guy would sidle up to Dustin, grab him by his Beavis and Butt Head T shirt and snarl "Kid...I'm just gonna say one word to ya. Goo." Yes, Goo! The all-new miracle building block! Stronger than steel! Lighter than aluminum! As comfortable as cotton! You can wear it or bum it in the fireplace! You can use it to caulk canoes or thicken eyeliner! You can even make bullet-proof vests out of it! Mind-bending, history­ changing Goo! Jeez. Entrepreneurial enthusiasm gets infectious. I sound like a major Goo stockholder but I'm just an amateur birdwatcher with my Bushnells trained on the laboratory of a chirpy little science researcher by the name of R. Malcolm Brown Jr. Doctor Brown is a botanist at the International Scene Romania — the odd man out Once, in my travels throughout Europe, I picked up a newspaper and thought that someone was playing a trick on me. A lot of words looked like Italian words but there were enough strange ones mixed in so that I knew it wasn't that language. I picked out a few Slavic ones and then it hit me; this was Romanian, the language with the same origin as Italian, French and Spanish but with a mixture of Greek, Albanian, Turkish and Hungarian words, as well as the above mentioned Slavic ones. There is an explanation for all this. Those of you who remember their high school history may recall that the Romans, during the height of their powers, wandered as far away as the Black Sea. They eventually had to come home to defend Rome but one of the main things that they left behind was then- language which survives today although somewhat more mixed than it was about 2,000 years ago. As a Balkan country Romania has seen any number of invasions, the last of which was that of the Russians during the latter stages of World War II. Needless to say, all that part of the world came under Russian hegemony after the end of the war but Romania soon became a Communist country unlike any other. Under Nicolae Ceausescu (Cheysesku), the local version of Joseph Stalin, the country remained Communist but decided that it would decide its own policies instead of letting Moscow do it. It was in such a strategic location that there was little the Kremlin could do, short of invasion. Thus Ceausescu was able to develop ties University of Texas down in Austin. Mind you, you'd never guess he was a plant man from the aroma emanating from his lab. It smells like a brewery. The reek comes from the flat 12-foot-long trays of sappy white liquid fermenting peacefully under a bank of fluorescent lights. That's the Goo! Bacterial cellulose, actually. The stuff is a chemical cousin of the cellulose that makes up the trunks of trees. It's ironic - we spend billions of dollars and lumberjack-hours and chain-saw teeth hacking down our forests to get at the cellulose. Doctor Brown whips the stuff up in test tubes in his lab. What's more, he says there's no reason we couldn't be doing it big time. He says we could stop the assault on the earth's forests, cut down global warming - and create a whole new branch of agriculture for farmers - make 'em Goo-growers, producing endless tons of the stuff in huge fermentation bins. How good is Goo? To hear Doctor Brown tell it, it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. As a matter of fact it IS sliced bread. Or sliced something. Yes, you can actually eat the stuff. It's a dessert delicacy called Nata de Coco, sold in better gourmet food shops from Istanbul to Antigonish. But edibility is the least of Goo's pedigree. Doctor Brown has convinced the experts at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that his goo is in their future. He says goo can be used as a rocket booster additive, as a structural component for the rockets themselves - even as a fabric for space suits. By Raymond Canon with Israel and the west, mainly because he thought that was what Moscow didn't want him to do. When it became obvious that the days of Communism were nearing an end in eastern Europe, such countries as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia started experimenting with more liberal reforms; Ceausescu decided to go in the opposite direction. He increased state control over the economy in general, introduced all sorts of glamorous but inefficient projects and kept the country poor so that he could pay off his foreign debt. It did him no good. The economy collapsed just when the political systems all around him were falling down and Ceausescu was rewarded for his efforts by being arrested and executed along with his wife, the only eastern European country to take such drastic measures. He did leave behind a few economic bonuses. In 1990 Romania had the lowest rate of inflation in the entire region; it now has the highest, at over 200 per cent, with the exception of Serbia which really doesn’t count. There is a good reason for all this, even if it is not appreciated by the vast majority of Romanians, who are now suffering from it. Rather than let inefficient companies go bankrupt, the government propped them up, allowing them to run up huge debts with each other. It indexed wages to inflation which means that one price increase began another. Finally it has tried to shield the blow by keeping 10s of thousands of workers in government offices doing little if anything. Firms that are trying to make a go of it in the private sector cannot, therefore, find the labour that they need. You all now what pyramid schemes are; you may unknowingly have been involved in one. Well, you haven't seen anything yet until you look at the Romanian version of Ah...that's edible space suits of course. Is NASA buying this sales pitch? Lock, stock and cellulose. The agency is backing the doctor with research money. Goo is making friends elsewhere too. Medical pioneers in Rio de Janeiro have successfully used the goo as a human-skin substitute for bum victims. Sony Corporation incorporates the stuff in some top-of-the-line audio speakers. A Japanese consortium has ponied up millions of dollars for further research. But not everybody thinks goo is the way to go. Johnson and Johnson Inc. bailed out of a project to produce medical products from bacterial cellulose. They couldn't see any future in it. Others claim the whole concept has been seriously overhyped. What do I think? Am I going to jump on the goo bandwagon and invest my money in it? Nah. For a couple of reasons. Firstly, I came of age in a time when Toronto real estate was a sure bet, and something called Cold Fusion was going to revolutionize physics forever. Secondly, who's got cash to invest? Not this humble hack. But don't let me hold you back! Hey, if you want to get in touch with Doctor Lamb to massage with wads of money and become a major player in the good game, be my guest. And if it works out, and goo does revolutionize all our lives, incidentally turning you into a 24-karat quadrillionaire, well... Just remember who tipped you off, eh? such schemes. It is called Caritas, which promises 700 per cent return in three months. No less than a fifth of the population has fallen for it, to the tune of well over $1 billion, and, as predicted, the whole thing is falling apart When things are desperate, it seems, people get more gullible. There are some pluses; the country has minerals, a considerable amount of oil and, if it can ever get its act together, it could produce not only for the domestic market but for foreign ones as well. However, when all this is going to come about is a good question. Most of the government is made up of ex-communists who benefit from the chaos. It counts more to be loyal than it does to be competent and as a result free market reforms, especially the essential ones, are poorly understood if at all. So it is that Romania continues to be the odd man out. While the other eastern European countries are biting the bullet, the Romanians are wallowing in incompetence and chaos. One can only ask what it will take to get the government to change direction. HAVE AN OPINION? The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. They must be signed and should be accompanied by a telephone number should we need to clarify any information. Just the facts It was several decades ago wh6n I first noticed people discovering a new way to have fun in winter. Suddenly, instead of hiding from the blast of cold and snow, people were partying with Old Man Winter and Jack Frost by way of a recreational vehicle - the snowmobile. Inspired way back by Mr. Bombardier, my first encounter with a skidoo, as I knew them then, was in the 60s. A family friend was one of the first in the neighbourhood to pick up this thrilling pastime and delighted in sharing the experience. For some the exhilaration was a bit much; I recall my mother's terrified expression; but for most, this new mode of transportation, ruled by minimal guidelines, was thrilling freedom. Then I remember a friend going through a barbed wire fence, a man being killed after hitting a parked car and my cousin's tooth, which ended up somewhere near her nostril after a snowmobile mishap, and it became clear that to make it a safe sport it was going to need some regulating. Since then things have indeed come a long way. This business of fun is being taken seriously. The Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs trains members to instruct young people, 12 years and over, on safe snowmobiling. The course is thorough, covering everything from emergency treatment on the trail to the rules of riding. There are six hours of instruction and a final exam, on which the students must have three mistakes or less in order to receive a snowmobile license, giving them the legal right to drive a snowmobile on the smooth, safe trails. Indeed today's drivers are better prepared and educated to the hazards. Or at least they're supposed to be. After numerous, and surprising, discussions this week with colleagues, friends and professionals, not to mention having seen with my own eyes while riding those trails, there seems to be a misunderstanding. The provincial statutes and regulations states under Section 9(2) of the Motorized Snow Vehicles Act that no person shall drive a motorized snow vehicle across a highway unless (a)the person has attained the full age of 16 years (b) the person holds a driver's license, a motorized snow vehicle operator's license or is a resident of any other province, country or state and holds a license issued by such province, country or state which authorizes the person to drive a motorized vehicle. Also no person shall drive a motorized snow vehicle upon a trail unless the person has attained the full age of 12 years old, the person holds a driver's license, a motorized snow vehicle operator's license or is a resident of any other province or state which authorizes the person to drive a motorized snow vehicle. In other words, even if you have your snowmobile license, if you are under 16 it is illegal to drive across a road. Also, drivers under the age of 12, shouldn't be driving. A snowmobile is a motorized vehicle. For that reason that license only covers them on trails. Educators are to teach this (I know it's part of the course, I live with an instructor) and if they haven't they've been remiss. I'm not preaching; I have kids and I know how hard it is to channel their enthusiasm sometimes. These are just the facts. This is Snowmobile Safety Week so it seemed a good time to clear up these misconceptions for those who didn’t know. For those who did and don't care, maybe you should have a chat with your insurance rep, instead.