May 31, 2007
Concussions Tied to Depression in Ex-N.F.L. Players
By ALAN SCHWARZ
The rate of diagnosed clinical depression among retired National Football League players is strongly correlated with the number of concussions they sustained, according to a study to be published today.
The study was conducted by the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study of Retired Athletes and based on a general health survey of 2,552 retired N.F.L. players. It corroborates other findings regarding brain trauma and later-life depression in other subsets of the general population, but runs counter to longtime assertions by the N.F.L. that concussions in football have no long-term effects.
As the most comprehensive study of football players to date, the paper will add to the escalating debate over the effects of and proper approach to football-related concussions.
The study, which will appear in the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, found that of the 595 players who recalled sustaining three or more concussions on the football field, 20.2 percent said they had been found to have depression. That is three times the rate of players who have not sustained concussions. The full data, the study reports, “call into question how effectively retired professional football players with a history of three or more concussions are able to meet the mental and physical demands of life after playing professional football.”
In January, a neuropathologist claimed that repeated concussions likely contributed to the November suicide of the former Philadelphia Eagles player Andre Waters. Three weeks later, the former New England Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson not only revealed that his significant depression and cognitive decline had been linked by a neurologist to on-field concussions, but also claimed that his most damaging concussion had been sustained after his coach, Bill Belichick, coerced him into practicing against the advice of team doctors.
While consistently defending its teams’ treatment of concussions and denying any relationship between players’ brain trauma and later neurocognitive decline, the N.F.L. has subsequently announced several related initiatives. The league and its players union recently created a fund to help pay the medical expenses of players suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or similar dementia. Last week, N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell announced wide-ranging league guidelines regarding concussions, from obligatory neuropsychological testing for all players to what he called a “whistle-blower system” where players and doctors can anonymously report any coach’s attempt to override the wishes of concussed players or medical personnel.
The N.F.L. has criticized previous papers published by the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes — which identified similar links between on-field concussions and both later mild cognitive impairment and early-onset Alzheimer’s disease — and reasserted those concerns this week with regard to the paper on depression.
Several members of the league’s mild traumatic brain injury committee cited two main issues in telephone interviews this week: that the survey was returned by 69 percent of the retired players to whom it was mailed, and that those who did respond were relying solely on their memories of on-field concussions. One committee member, Dr. Henry Feuer of the Indiana University Medical Center and a medical consultant for the Indianapolis Colts, went so far as to call the center’s findings “virtually worthless.”
Dr. Ira Casson, the co-chairman of the committee, said, “Survey studies are the weakest type of research study — they’re subject to all kinds of error and misinterpretation and miscalculation.”
Regarding the issue of players’ recollection of brain trauma, Dr. Casson said: “They had no objective evaluations to determine whether or not what the people told them in the surveys was correct or not. They didn’t have information from doctors confirming it, they didn’t have tests, they didn’t have examinations. They didn’t have anything. They just kind of took people’s words for it.”
According to other experts, the 69 percent return rate was quite high for such survey research, which has been widely used to establish preliminary links between smoking and lung cancer, explore the relationship between diet and health, and track trends in obesity and drug use.
After reading the depression study and considering the league’s issues with recollective survey research, Dr. John Whyte, the director of the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Philadelphia and an expert in neurological research methodology, said he did not share the league’s criticisms.
“To the person who says this is worthless, let’s just discard a third of the medical literature that we trust and go by today,” said Dr. Whyte, who has no connection with either the N.F.L. or the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes, which is partly funded by the N.F.L. players union. “Here, the response rate was good and not a relevant issue to the findings. We have some pretty solid data that multiple concussions caused cumulative brain damage and increased risk of depression, and that is not in conflict with the growing literature.
“Do I think this one study proves the point beyond doubt? No. Does it contribute in a meaningful way? You bet.”
The study, which underwent formal, anonymous peer review before publication, reported that of the 595 players who recalled sustaining three or more concussions on the football field, 20.2 percent said a physician found they had depression. Players with one or two concussions were found to have depression 9.7 percent of the time, and those with none, 6.6. (Respondents were on average 54 years old and had played almost seven seasons in the N.F.L. A minimum of two seasons was required for inclusion in the study.)
The study considered concussions sustained in high school and college as well, not just in the N.F.L. Because the diagnosis of concussions has undergone substantial refinement since the 1960s and 1970s, when many of the survey respondents had played, a modern description of symptoms — such as nausea or seeing stars following a strong blow to the head, not simply being knocked unconscious — was provided.
Members of the N.F.L. concussion committee criticized the use of such a retrospective definition. They also cited a mail survey by doctors at the University of Michigan, results of which were published two months ago in the same American College of Sports Medicine journal, that found the self-reported incidence of depression among retired N.F.L. players to be 15 percent — similar to that of the general population — and that such depression was strongly correlated with the chronic pain many N.F.L. retirees experience.
The associate editor-in-chief of the journal who handled the review of both papers, Dr. Thomas Best, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the studies did not conflict. Dr. Best explained that the Michigan study did not consider concussions specifically, and that the North Carolina study in fact used statistical tests to account for players’ chronic pain and found that the strong correlation between number of concussions and depression remained virtually unchanged.
“The North Carolina paper is not saying that N.F.L. players are or are not at risk for depression,” said Dr. Best, the medical director of the Ohio State University’s Sportsmedicine Center. “What we learned from the paper is that there’s a correlation between the number of concussions sustained and depression they experience later in life.”
Mr. Goodell said last week that the league’s concussion committee had just begun its own study “to determine if there are any long-term effects of concussions on retired N.F.L. players.”
Dr. Casson, the committee’s co-chair, said that players who retired from 1986 through 1996 would be randomly approached to undergo “a comprehensive neurological examination, and a comprehensive neurologic history, including a detailed concussion history,” using player recollection cross-referenced with old team injury reports. He said that the study would take two to three years to be completed and another year to be published.
Given that the average N.F.L. retirement age from 1986 to 1996 was approximately 27, a random player from that period would be approximately 46 at the N.F.L. study’s completion, eight years younger than those considered by the paper being released today.
Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz, the center’s research director and the principal author of the study, said that even with those differences he was confident the N.F.L. study would corroborate his group’s conclusions.
“It sounds as if they need to study the question themselves to believe the findings,” Dr. Guskiewicz said. “I think they’re going to be very surprised at what they find, compared with what they’ve been led to believe by members of their own committee.”

A Healthy Mix of Rest and Motion
By PETER JARET
SOME gymgoers are tortoises. They prefer to take their sweet time, leisurely pedaling or ambling along on a treadmill. Others are hares, impatiently racing through miles at high intensity.
Each approach offers similar health benefits: lower risk of heart disease, protection against Type 2 diabetes, and weight loss.
But new findings suggest that for at least one workout a week it pays to be both tortoise and hare — alternating short bursts of high-intensity exercise with easy-does-it recovery.
Weight watchers, prediabetics and those who simply want to increase their fitness all stand to gain.
This alternating fast-slow technique, called interval training, is hardly new. For decades, serious athletes have used it to improve performance.
But new evidence suggests that a workout with steep peaks and valleys can dramatically improve cardiovascular fitness and raise the body’s potential to burn fat.
Best of all, the benefits become evident in a matter of weeks.
“There’s definitely renewed interest in interval training,” said Ed Coyle, the director of the human performance laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin.
A 2005 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that after just two weeks of interval training, six of the eight college-age men and women doubled their endurance, or the amount of time they could ride a bicycle at moderate intensity before exhaustion.
Eight volunteers in a control group, who did not do any interval training, showed no improvement in endurance.
Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, had the exercisers sprint for 30 seconds, then either stop or pedal gently for four minutes.
Such a stark improvement in endurance after 15 minutes of intense cycling spread over two weeks was all the more surprising because the volunteers were already reasonably fit. They jogged, biked or did aerobic exercise two to three times a week.
Doing bursts of hard exercise not only improves cardiovascular fitness but also the body’s ability to burn fat, even during low- or moderate-intensity workouts, according to a study published this month, also in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Eight women in their early 20s cycled for 10 sets of four minutes of hard riding, followed by two minutes of rest. Over two weeks, they completed seven interval workouts.
After interval training, the amount of fat burned in an hour of continuous moderate cycling increased by 36 percent, said Jason L. Talanian, the lead author of the study and an exercise scientist at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Cardiovascular fitness — the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to working muscles — improved by 13 percent.
It didn’t matter how fit the subjects were before. Borderline sedentary subjects and the college athletes had similar increases in fitness and fat burning. “Even when interval training was added on top of other exercise they were doing, they still saw a significant improvement,” Mr. Talanian said.
That said, this was a small study that lacked a control group, so more research would be needed to confirm that interval training was responsible.
Interval training isn’t for everyone. “Pushing your heart rate up very high with intensive interval training can put a strain on the cardiovascular system, provoking a heart attack or stroke in people at risk,” said Walter R. Thompson, professor of exercise science at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
For anyone with heart disease or high blood pressure — or who has joint problems such as arthritis or is older than 60 — experts say to consult a doctor before starting interval training.
Still, anyone in good health might consider doing interval training once or twice a week. Joggers can alternate walking and sprints. Swimmers can complete a couple of fast laps, then four more slowly.
There is no single accepted formula for the ratio between hard work and a moderate pace or resting. In fact, many coaches recommend varying the duration of activity and rest.
But some guidelines apply. The high-intensity phase should be long and strenuous enough that a person is out of breath — typically one to four minutes of exercise at 80 to 85 percent of their maximum heart rate. Recovery periods should not last long enough for their pulse to return to its resting rate.
Also people should remember to adequately warm up before the first interval. Coaches advise that, ideally, people should not do interval work on consecutive days. More than 24 hours between such taxing sessions will allow the body to recover and help them avoid burnout.
What is so special about interval training? One advantage is that it allows exercisers to spend more time doing high-intensity activity than they could in a single sustained effort. “The rest period in interval training gives the body time to remove some of the waste products of working muscles,” said Barry A. Franklin, the director of the cardiac rehabilitation and exercise laboratories at the William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich.
To go hard, the body must use new muscle fibers. Once these recent recruits are trained, they are available to burn fuel even during easy-does-it workouts. “Any form of exercise that recruits new muscle fibers is going to enhance the body’s ability to metabolize carbohydrates and fat,” Dr. Coyle said.
Interval training also stimulates change in mitochondria, where fuel is converted to energy, causing them to burn fat first — even during low- and moderate-intensity workouts, Mr. Talanian said.
Improved fat burning means endurance athletes can go further before tapping into carbohydrate stores. It is also welcome news to anyone trying to lose weight or avoid gaining it.
Unfortunately, many people aren’t active enough to keep muscles healthy. At the sedentary extreme, one result can be what Dr. Coyle calls “metabolic stalling” — carbohydrates in the form of blood glucose and fat particles in the form of triglycerides sit in the blood. That, he suspects, could be a contributing factor to metabolic syndrome, the combination of obesity, insulin resistance, high cholesterol and elevated triglycerides that increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes.
By recruiting new muscle fibers and increasing the body’s ability to use fuel, interval training could potentially lower the risk of metabolic syndrome.
Interval training does amount to hard work, but the sessions can be short. Best of all, a workout that combines tortoise and hare leaves little time for boredom.

May 22, 2007
Vital Signs
Nutrition: A Healthy Diet May Keep Chronic Lung Disease at Bay
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, poultry and whole grain foods may offer protection against chronic lung disease, a new study suggests, in addition to the other benefits of such a regimen.
Researchers studied more than 42,000 male health professionals enrolled in a long-term study that began in 1986. All filled out food frequency questionnaires, and the scientists ranked them by how closely they followed what the authors call the “prudent” diet, or how much they stuck to a “Western” diet dominated by refined grains, cured and red meats, sweets and French fries. The study appeared online May 15 in Thorax.
After adjusting for age, smoking and other factors, the scientists found that the more strictly a person followed the prudent diet, the lower the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or C.O.P.D., the umbrella term for chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Compared with the one-fifth of people with the highest intake of foods from the prudent diet, the one-fifth with the lowest intake were twice as likely to suffer from newly diagnosed C.O.P.D.
At the same time, the one-fifth of men who followed the Western diet most closely were more than four and a half times as likely to be diagnosed with chronic pulmonary disease as the one-fifth who ate the least from that menu.
Raphaëlle Varraso, the lead author, said that fruits, vegetables and omega-3 fatty acids probably explained the protective effect, and that red meat, cured meat and French fries actively increased the risk. Dr. Varraso was at the Harvard School of Public Health when the study was done, and is now a researcher at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research in France.

May 22, 2007
Abortion Foes See Validation for New Tactic
By ROBIN TONER
WASHINGTON, May 21 — For many years, the political struggle over abortion was often framed as a starkly binary choice: the interest of the woman, advocated by supporters of abortion rights, versus the interest of the fetus, advocated by opponents of abortion.
But last month’s Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act marked a milestone for a different argument advanced by anti-abortion leaders, one they are increasingly making in state legislatures around the country. They say that abortion, as a rule, is not in the best interest of the woman; that women are often misled or ill-informed about its risks to their own physical or emotional health; and that the interests of the pregnant woman and the fetus are, in fact, the same.
The majority opinion in the court’s 5-to-4 decision explicitly acknowledged this argument, galvanizing anti-abortion forces and setting the stage for an intensifying battle over new abortion restrictions in the states.
This ferment adds to the widespread recognition that abortion politics are changing, in ways that are, as yet, unclear, if not contradictory. Even as the anti-abortion forces relish their biggest victory in the Supreme Court in nearly 20 years, they face the possibility of a Republican presidential nominee, former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, who is a supporter of abortion rights.
The anti-abortion movement’s focus on women has been building for a decade or more, advanced by groups like the conservative Justice Foundation, the National Right to Life Committee and Feminists for Life.
“We think of ourselves as very pro-woman,” said Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee. “We believe that when you help the woman, you help the baby.”
It is embodied in much of the imagery and advertising of the anti-abortion movement in recent years, especially the “Women Deserve Better Than Abortion” campaign by Feminists for Life, the group that counts Jane Sullivan Roberts, the wife of the chief justice, among its most prominent supporters.
It is also at the heart of an effort — expected to escalate in next year’s state legislative sessions — to enact new “informed consent” and mandatory counseling laws that critics assert often amount to a not-so-subtle pitch against abortion. Abortion-rights advocates, still reeling from last month’s decision, argue that this effort is motivated by ideology, not women’s health.
“Informed consent is really a misleading way to characterize it,” said Roger Evans, senior director of public policy litigation and law for Planned Parenthood. “To me, what we’ll see is an increasing attempt to push a state’s ideology into a doctor-patient relationship, to force doctors to communicate more and more of the state’s viewpoint.”
Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said, “It’s motivated by politics, not by science, not by medical care, and not for the purposes of compassion.”
The Guttmacher Institute, a research group and an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, said recently that “a considerable body of credible evidence” over 30 years contradicted the notion that legal abortion posed long-term dangers to women’s health, physically or mentally.
But Allan E. Parker Jr., president of the Justice Foundation, a conservative group based in Texas, compares the campaign intended for women to the long struggle to inform Americans about the risks of smoking. “We’re kind of in the early stages of tobacco litigation,” Mr. Parker said.
All sides agree that the debate reached a new level of significance when Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the majority opinion in the Supreme Court case last month, approvingly cited a friend-of-the court brief filed by the Justice Foundation.
The foundation, a nonprofit public interest litigation firm that has handled an array of conservative causes, has increasingly focused on abortion through its project called Operation Outcry. Mr. Parker said the group began hearing from women in the late 1990s who considered themselves victims of legalized abortion — physically and emotionally — and wanted to tell their stories. Operation Outcry, which grew to include a Web site, a national hot line and chapters around the country, eventually collected statements from more than 2,000 women, officials said.
In its friend-of-the-court brief, the group submitted statements from 180 of those women who said that abortion had left them depressed, distraught, in emotional turmoil. “Thirty-three years of real life experiences,” the foundation said, “attests that abortion hurts women and endangers their physical, emotional and psychological health.”
The case before the Supreme Court involved a specific type of abortion, occasionally used after the first trimester, that involves removing a fetus intact after collapsing its skull. Justice Kennedy upheld that ban on narrower, legal grounds, but he used the Justice Foundation brief to write more broadly about the emotional impact of abortion on women.
“While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained,” Justice Kennedy wrote, alluding to the brief. “Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.”
Given those stakes, the justice argued, “The state has an interest in ensuring so grave a choice is well informed.”
Many, on both sides, viewed that as an invitation from a newly conservative court to pass tough new counseling and informed-consent laws intended for women seeking abortions — “a green light for enhanced informed consent,” in the words of Clarke D. Forsythe, president of Americans United for Life, a leader in that legislative effort.
The abortion-rights side was caught off guard, in part because its strategists believe the scientific debate has been so decisively settled against the Justice Foundation’s argument over the years. “We thought that brief was so extraneous that we didn’t even bother coming up with a response to it,” said Mr. Evans of Planned Parenthood.
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed. “The court invokes an anti-abortion shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable evidence,” she wrote.
But Mr. Parker at the Justice Foundation said the point of view being promoted by his group had already had an impact in states debating informed consent and other abortion regulations, including South Dakota.
That state’s law, currently being challenged in federal court, requires women seeking an abortion to be told that the procedure will terminate a “whole, separate, unique, living human being,” and that it carries a variety of psychological and physical risks to the woman.
Other new “informed consent” proposals in the states would require women to receive an ultrasound before their abortion; according to Naral, 10 states have considered such legislation this year. South Carolina has been debating proposals that encourage, if not require, a woman to go a step further and review the sonogram.
This focus on women by the anti-abortion movement has real power, many experts said. Reva B. Siegel, a Yale law professor and a supporter of abortion rights who recently conducted a study of this effort, said it combined “the modern language of trauma and women’s rights” with “some very traditional ways of understanding women.”
But Geoffrey Garin, who conducts polls for abortion-rights groups, said, “Once you get past the verbiage, women get that the motivation here is political as opposed to medical.”
History suggests that the way the abortion struggle is framed has a significant effect, over the years, on legislative and political outcomes. In the late 1980s, the Naral slogan “Who Decides?” was widely credited with helping the abortion-rights movement capture the voters of the center. A decade later, the campaign to outlaw what critics call partial-birth abortion — symbolizing a broader argument that the right to an abortion had gone too far — helped the anti-abortion movement widen its support and win significant victories in Congress, state legislatures and the court.
The anti-abortion movement clearly hopes this emphasis on women as victims of abortion has similar influence, although some of its strategists acknowledge it is a huge task; there are an estimated 1.3 million abortions a year in the United States, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Mr. Parker said his organization planned to make its legal argument, and the accompanying testimonials from women, available to more state legislatures. Every time he speaks on the issue, he said, he receives more phone calls from women who have had abortions.

May 13, 2007
Felipe Massa Wins Spanish Grand Prix
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:20 p.m. ET
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) -- Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton aren't making it easy for defending world champion Fernando Alonso. Massa won his second straight Formula One race Sunday for Ferrari, holding off McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton at the Spanish Grand Prix by 6.790 seconds.
A third straight runner-up finish saw Hamilton pass team founder Bruce McLaren to become the youngest driver to lead the standings. The 22-year-old Hamilton has 30 points. Alonso, who finished third, has 28 and Massa is third with 27.
With seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher only watching -- not driving -- many expected Alonso to duel for the title with Kimi Raikkonen, the German driver's replacement at Ferrari.
So far, the season hasn't followed the script.
''I keep saying I'm living my dream and it's really true,'' said Hamilton, who celebrated in the pit lane with his family.
Massa pumped his fists as he stood atop his car before running into the arms of Ferrari boss Jean Todt after his fourth career win.
''For the second consecutive race weekend, Felipe Massa put in a flawless performance,'' Todt said.
Massa, who came sixth at the season-opening Australian GP, isn't getting too confident.
''We finished the race with only one car so it's a bit of concern,'' the 26-year-old Brazilian said. ''Reliability is the key.''
Raikkonen retired after nine laps due to an electrical fault
Unlike at the Malaysian GP where Alonso won, Massa defended his pole position against the Spaniard on Sunday. He pushed Alonso out wide and into the gravel after he tried to overtake the Brazilian and their tires touched around the first bend.
''For sure I think the most difficult part of the race was the start,'' Massa said.
''It was pretty tough but afterward I saw nothing happened on my car and we responded, we managed to build the gap, we built it straightaway and I had the race in my hands.''
Though he had a sellout record crowd of 140,000 supporting him, Alonso said he knew from the first corner that a second straight title at the Circuit de Catalunya was unlikely.
''I lost three places because of that touch,'' Alonso said. ''The car was damaged all through the race and it was a little more difficult to drive.''
Alonso drove back onto the track and nearly sideswiped Hamilton and Raikkonen, who were running 2-3 after Hamilton overtook the Finn around the opening corner.
''After the first corner you have to risk too many things and it's difficult for all things to go well then,'' Alonso said. ''If not for Kimi's retirement I would probably be off the podium.''
Raikkonen joined Ferrari after a 2006 season mired with breakdowns with McLaren, something he was hoping to avoid with the Italian team.
''Honestly, there's little to say except that I'm disappointed,'' Raikkonen said. ''I have lost precious points but there's still 13 races to recover.''
Alonso followed up last year's win here with a victory in Monaco to help pad his lead in the championship. It looks tighter this year but Alonso said he's ready for all challengers.
''(Lewis) is still the same, still my teammate,'' Alonso said. ''I see him the same way as I see Felipe and Kimi. But he is the one who worries me less because he is my teammate and we are here to help each other.''
After the race Hamilton stopped short of saying he'd win the championship but joked that Massa had harder times ahead.
''Like I said to him just now, we'll get him soon,'' Hamilton said.

May 7, 2007
As Pope Heads to Brazil, a Rival Theology Persists
By LARRY ROHTER
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, May 2 — In the early 1980s, when Pope John Paul II wanted to clamp down on what he considered a dangerous, Marxist-inspired movement in the Roman Catholic Church, liberation theology, he turned to a trusted aide: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Now Cardinal Ratzinger is Pope Benedict XVI, and when he arrives here on Wednesday for his first pastoral visit to Latin America he may be surprised at what he finds. Liberation theology, which he once called “a fundamental threat to the faith of the church,” persists as an active, even defiant force in Latin America, home to nearly half the world’s one billion Roman Catholics.
Over the past 25 years, even as the Vatican moved to silence the clerical theorists of liberation theology and the church fortified its conservative hierarchy, the social and economic ills the movement highlighted have worsened. In recent years, the politics of the region have also drifted leftward, giving the movement’s demand that the church embrace “a preferential option for the poor” new impetus and credibility.
Today some 80,000 “base communities,” as the grass-roots building blocks of liberation theology are called, operate in Brazil, the world’s most populous Roman Catholic nation, and nearly one million “Bible circles” meet regularly to read and discuss scripture from the viewpoint of the theology of liberation.
During Benedict’s five-day visit here, he is scheduled to meet with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, canonize a saint, preach to the faithful and visit a drug treatment center before addressing the opening session of a conference of Latin American bishops that will discuss the future of the church in the region where liberation theology originated, prospered and drew so much of his censure. Some liberation theology supporters will be present, others will be at a parallel meeting, and all have been cautioned not to be too aggressive in pressing their views.
In the past, adherents stood firm as death squads made scores of martyrs to the movement, ranging from Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador, killed in 1980 while celebrating Mass, to Dorothy Mae Stang, an American-born nun shot to death in the Brazilian Amazon in February 2005. Compared to that, the pressures of the Vatican are nothing to fear, they maintain.
“Despite everything, we continue to endure in a kind of subterranean way,” said Luiz Antonio Rodrigues dos Santos, a 55-year-old teacher active in the movement for nearly 30 years. “Let Rome and the critics say what they want; we simply persevere in our work with the poor and the oppressed.”
On a cool and cloudy Saturday morning in late April, evidence of the movement’s vitality was plain to see. Representatives of 50 base communities gathered at the St. Paul the Apostle Church on the east side of this sprawling city, in an area of humble workers’ residences and squatter slums.
With four priests present, readings from the Bible alternated with more worldly concerns: criticisms of government proposals to reduce pensions and workers’ rights under the Brazilian labor code. The service ended with the Lord’s Prayer and then a hymn.
“In the land of mankind, conceived of as a pyramid, there are few at the top, and many at the bottom,” the congregation sang. “In the land of mankind, those at the top crush those at the bottom. Oh, people of the poor, people subjected to domination, what are you doing just standing there? The world of mankind has to be changed, so arise people, don’t stand still.”
Afterward, discussion turned to other social problems, chief among them a lack of proper sanitation. A representative of the left-wing Workers’ Party discussed strategies to press the government to complete a sewer project. Congregants agreed to organize a campaign to lobby for it.
In other areas here, liberation theology advocates have strong links to labor unions. At a May 1 Mass to commemorate International Labor Day, they draped a wooden cross with black banners labeled “imperialism” and “privatization” and applauded when the homily criticized the government’s “neoliberal” economic policies, the kind Washington supports.
“We believe in merging the questions of faith and social action,” said Valmir Resende dos Santos, a liberation disciple who brings base communities and labor groups together in the industrial suburbs here. “We advise groups and social movements, mobilize the unemployed, and work with unions and parties, always from a perspective based on the Gospel.”
Since liberation theology first emerged in the 1960s, it has consistently mixed politics and religion. Adherents have often been active in labor unions and left-wing political parties and criticized governments they complain are beholden to modern-day Pharisees.
Supporters see that activism as a necessary virtue to answer the needs of the poor. Opponents say it dangerously insinuates the church into the temporal, political realm, and in recent years they have repeatedly announced the movement’s decline or disappearance.
Some of the distinctions in this debate are finely drawn. John Paul II’s reach extended into human rights and politics, as he discouraged abortion and divorce and encouraged fellow Poles and other Europeans to reject Communism. He is widely credited with helping to bring about the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
That, some say, differs from the direct, class-oriented political activism embraced by liberation theology. Cardinal Ratzinger once called the movement a “fusing of the Bible’s view of history with Marxist dialectics,” and other critics complain of what they see as its emphasis on direct collective action in Jesus’ name over individual faith.
As John Paul II put it early in his papacy: “This conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, does not tally with the church’s catechism.”
Certainly at the upper levels of the church hierarchy, liberation theology has been forced into retreat. Bishops and cardinals who supported and protected the movement in the 1970s and 1980s have either died or retired, succeeded by clerics openly hostile to such communities and the values they espouse.
“Base communities can only thrive in areas where there are bishops to encourage them,” said Margaret Hebblethwaite, a British religious writer whose books include “Base Communities: An Introduction” and “The Next Pope.” “If you take away the support of the bishop, it becomes very difficult for them to get anywhere.”
But the movement remains especially active in the poorest areas like the Amazon, the hinterlands of northeast Brazil and on the outskirts of large urban centers like this one, the largest in Brazil, with nearly 20 million people in the metropolitan area. Hoping to draw less attention and opprobrium to themselves, some of these groups simply say they are engaged in a “social pastorate.”
Sparring between liberation theologians and Benedict — whose own theology was formed in reaction to the reach of Nazi ideology — has been long and bitter. In 1984, as the Vatican official charged with supervising questions of faith and doctrine, he declared that “the theology of liberation is a singular heresy.”
More recently, he said, “it seems to me we need not theology of liberation, but theology of martyrdom,” and argued that the movement will become a valid theology “only when it refuses to accept power and worldly logic” and instead emphasizes “inner liberty.” But that was when his job was to carry out John Paul’s orders, and there is speculation here that his views may have softened somewhat.
That helps explain some of the theological maneuvering that has been going on in Latin America recently.
At the behest of conservatives, the Vatican has imposed sanctions on the liberation theologians Gustavo Gutiérrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of Brazil and, most recently, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, a Jesuit born in Spain. But when the Vatican admonished Father Sobrino, in March, Pedro Casaldáliga of Brazil, one of the bishops most committed to liberation theology, wrote an open letter calling on the church to reaffirm its “real commitment to the service of God’s poor” and “the link between faith and politics.”
That drew a sharp rebuke from Felipe Aquino, a conservative theologian whose views are often broadcast on Catholic radio stations here. “In spite of having received the Vatican’s cordial warning, you continue to be incorrigible, poisoning the people with the theology of liberation, which, as Ratzinger noted, annihilates the true faith and subverts the gospel of salvation,” he wrote.
At a news conference here on April 27, the newly appointed archbishop of São Paulo, Odilo Scherer, 57, tried to conciliate the two opposing viewpoints. While he criticized liberation theology for using “Marxism as a tool of analysis,” he also praised liberation theologians for redirecting the church’s mission here to focus on issues of social injustice and poverty.
He also argued that the movement was in decline. Adherents, however, are less sure.
“The force of Latin America’s harsh social reality is stronger than Rome’s ideology, so the theology of liberation still has a great deal of vitality,” Mr. Boff, a former Franciscan friar who left the clergy in 1992, argued in a recent interview. “It is true it doesn’t have the visibility it once had and is not as controversial as it once was, but it is very much alive and well.”

Let´s Embrace The Pale, Say No To Tan

Skin Deep
Beware the Afterglow
By NATASHA SINGER
YEARS before Ursula Andress, the Swiss actress who was the first Bond girl, emerged from the waves in “Dr. No” with her caramel skin offset by a blindingly white bikini, the tan had taken hold as the abiding fashion image.
A honey-glowing face and a body that is buff and bronzed had come to conjure up associations of beauty, leisure and upper-class privilege: of exotic private beaches, robust games of tennis, long afternoons aboard a yacht and, of course, the healthy-looking afterglow of exercise or sex.
Even in the 25 years since medical groups began warning that ultraviolet irradiation can lead to skin cancer as well as to dire consequences for the appearance-conscious — wrinkles! — tan-looking skin has remained an iconic beauty image, promoted by fashion magazines, advertisements and celebrities.
But the chic method of acquiring a tan has shifted. With sunbathing and tanning beds deemed risky, some doctors, magazines and beauty companies are promoting the idea of a “sunless” tan begat by cosmetics as the safe alternative to UV irradiation.
And so simulated tanning is booming. This month, cosmetics brands are introducing new artificial bronzing agents including sprays, lotions, mousses, powders and towelettes into a market that is already brimming with products. Meanwhile, fashion magazines are enthusing over the fake tan with buzzwords like sun-kissed, radiant, natural-looking, tawny, healthy and glowing.
“We are being inundated with the look of a woman of leisure who has a beautiful glow, whether from a sunless tanner or a bronzer,” said Karen Grant, the senior beauty industry analyst for the NPD Group, a market research firm. “The marketing theme is that the products can give you the same glow that the sun can provide without the risks of going out into the sun.”
Indeed, the notion of a safe, healthy sunless tan is making Malibu Barbie the retro icon of the season.
But some researchers who study the skin are worried that promulgating the simulated tan as a beauty ideal is simply perpetuating an image that is fundamentally linked to risky behavior. The concern is that the fashion for a bronzed look, even a cosmetically induced one, may encourage young women to seek a tanned appearance at any cost.
According to a study published last year in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, for example, young women who used sunless tanners were more likely to have been sunburned and to have visited tanning parlors compared with those who were not interested in and did not use such bronzing lotions. The study, conducted at Boston University School of Medicine, also reported that, although many self-tanning products do not contain sunscreen, a number of young women believe they offer sun protection.
“We know that physicians are urging patients to use sunless tanning products instead of tanning booths,” said Alan C. Geller, a research associate professor in dermatology at Boston University and one of the authors of the study. “But sunless tanners are not serving the purpose of a safe alternative because we found young women using them as an adjunct to sunbathing and tanning beds.”
Many women say self-tanners have become as regular a part of their beauty routine as moisturizer or mascara. Most commonly, they apply powdered bronzer to their faces and tanning moisturizers to their arms and legs.
The sales figures bear this out. In the last five years, department-store bronzer sales have increased to about $62 million from about $30 million, according to NPD. At the mass market level, self-tanners, bronzers and tanning moisturizers, called “natural glow” lotions, have annual sales of about $229 million, according to Information Resources Inc., a market research firm that covers the personal care industry.
Nina Jablonski, the chairwoman of the anthropology department at Penn State University, said that trying to change one’s skin color is a peculiar and disturbing phenomenon — whether it be Africans and Asians who use bleaching products to lighten skin or lighter-pigmented Americans seeking to emulate deck stain. Along that continuum, the sun-tanned look is a relatively new beauty ideal, she said.
“For most of the last 500 years, a tan was considered the mark of a hard-working person who toiled outside,” said Dr. Jablonski, the author of “Skin: A Natural History.” “A tan was eschewed by people who considered themselves upper class.”
During the Industrial Revolution, as work increasingly moved to indoor factories, sun-baked skin became the province of the upper classes who had more leisure time and money to travel. Coco Chanel, who returned to Paris with a dramatic suntan acquired during a holiday on the Riviera in the 1920s, is credited with initiating the vogue for sunbathing. She reincarnated what had been a lower-class stigma as an aspiration, a symbol of upper-class wealth, leisure, good looks and healthy athleticism.
In the 1960s, George Hamilton personified the perpetual tan. In 1971, Mattel introduced Malibu Barbie, the ultimate beach bunny. And baby oil, used to hasten a deeper tan, was the rage in the 1970s.
“The tan went from being a thing that working people got by the sweat of their brows to being associated with a glamorous, luxurious lifestyle,” Dr. Jablonski said. “It is one of the most deeply ingrained images in American advertising.”
But in the early 1980s, the tan began to lose some of its allure after health authorities in Australia noticed an increased incidence of skin cancer among residents who had emigrated from Europe. They began to link skin cancer and sunbathing. In 1985, the American Academy of Dermatology conducted its first national campaign to warn Americans about the risks of sun exposure.
As a result, the product-induced tan has replaced the outdoorsy tan as a beauty ideal. And celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba and Eva Longoria, with their own naturally glowing skin, are inspiring legions of imitators. Now starlets like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton often appear preternaturally bronzed. Even the model Natalia Vodianova, known for her porcelain face, appears this month in a Calvin Klein perfume ad looking as if she has been powdered with baked earth.
“Bronzer makes you look healthy, healthy, healthy,” said Olivier Échaudemaison, the makeup artistic designer for Guerlain. “Pale skin makes you look tired, but if you are wearing bronzer nobody knows you are tired underneath.”
To provide that simulacrum of health, cosmetics that create ersatz tans now come in three categories: self-tanners, bronzers and “glow” lotions.
Self-tanners trigger a chemical reaction, causing a brownish stain to form on the outer layer of the skin. Until recently, self-tanners were often messy to use, noxious-smelling, time-consuming and capable of turning the skin a bright shade of Oompa-Loompa orange. In the last few years, however, cosmetics companies have introduced improved formulas.
Bronzers are powders that are applied like blush. Guerlain is credited with creating the category in 1984 when it introduced Terracotta Powder, which could be brushed on for an instant coppery sheen.
“Suddenly, they have the look of just coming back from St. Barth’s, but really they spent the weekend at home and put on the powder,” Mr. Échaudemaison said.
Meanwhile, other brands, including Lancôme, are bringing out increasingly elaborate bronzing compacts that are embossed with patterns and come in multiple luminescent hues that can be used all over the body.
“Women today are on the go and they have no time or desire to sit down and sunbathe or wait overnight for a tanner to show its real color,” said Gracemarie Papaleo, assistant vice president for new product development at Lancôme USA. “With a bronzer, you get immediate results.”
“Glow” lotions, which are moisturizers that gradually darken the skin with each use, are also a growing trend. Jergens Natural Glow, introduced in 2005, was the first successful tanning moisturizer. Now other beauty brands are coming out with similar products based on the idea of a healthy, natural-looking glow. Ads for the new Nivea Visage Sunkissed Facial Moisturizer, for example, promise “a healthy-looking tan in just five days.”
“People want to look healthy without getting sun damage, to have that same California, sun-kissed type of look like every celebrity on the red carpet,” said Leigh Anne Rowinski, director of client solutions at Information Resources Inc.
But some critics worry that promoting sunless tans and glows as healthy, stylish and natural perpetuates the tan — whether cosmetic induced or sun-induced— as a beauty ideal, even as it posits pale skin as unhealthy, dull, unnatural and even passé.
“Even though a tan is now associated with pathology, it has had such a profound impact on the American psyche that to be untan is to look as terribly uncool as an unplucked chicken,” said Dr. Jablonski of Penn State. “People tend to think they look healthier if they have some sort of glow on their cheeks.”
But researchers at Boston University School of Medicine did not find that those who use self-tanners necessarily avoid UV rays. In a survey of 448 people age 18 to 30, the researchers found that young women who used sunless tanners were more likely to get sunburns and use sun beds than their peers who were not interested in self-tanning products; the results were similar to those found in studies in Australia. The researchers urged companies to include a minimum of S.P.F. 15 sunscreen in every sunless tanning product.
In a related research project, Zeina Dajani, a medical student at Boston University, found that a number of sunless tanners that did not contain sunscreen failed to carry a warning label, mandated by the Food and Drug Administration, to indicate that the products do not protect against sunburn and other damage.
“The question is whether dermatologists should stop recommending sunless tanning products as an alternative to tanning beds and discourage the idea of a tan altogether,” Ms. Dajani said.
At least one celebrity is glow-averse. In the May issue of Allure magazine, the actress Michelle Trachtenberg said the pressure to bronze is her pet peeve with beauty advisers at makeup counters.
“They’re like, ‘Maybe you’d like to warm up your skin tone,’ ” Ms. Trachtenberg is quoted as saying. “And I’m like, ‘No, I’m going to embrace the pale.’ ”

Practical Traveler Low-Cost Airlines
Travel in Latin America: Cheaper and Easier
By MICHELLE HIGGINS
TRAVEL to Latin America has been on the upswing as countries there look to tourism for economic growth, and tour operators in the United States and Canada offer exotic vacations to the south. But until recently, getting around within Latin America — even in popular countries like Mexico — was a hassle often involving multiple plane changes or long bus rides over rough roads.
Now, thanks to an increase in low-cost airlines in Brazil and Mexico, which account for 60 percent of the Latin America’s air traffic, it’s getting easier to jet around.
In the last two years, at least five new low-cost carriers, including Click Mexicana, InterJet and Volaris, have started service in Mexico, according to ALTA, the Latin American Air Transport Association. And the low-cost airlines GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes, BRA and WebJet now account for more than 40 percent of Brazil’s domestic market.
Even some budget carriers from the United States have begun expanding to Latin America. Spirit Airlines started service to San Jose, Costa Rica, on April 5 and plans to serve Guatemala City from Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles starting May 10 and 11 respectively. It also has filed for service to Caracas, Venezuela, and to Lima and Chiclayo in Peru.
JetBlue, which flies to Cancún, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, hasn’t yet announced plans for other routes to Latin America, but Sebastian White, a spokesman, said in an e-mail message that the airline is “constantly evaluating new routes,” and Latin America “is certainly an attractive market.”
In Mexico, said Alex de Gunten, executive director of ALTA, “the typical joke about two years ago was that everybody and their mother was starting a low-cost carrier.” The jump in budget airlines, he said, “has meant more competition in a number of routes and translated to better deals for U.S. consumers.”
Volaris, for example, has been advertising one-way domestic fares on its Web site, http://www.volaris.com.mx/, at prices as low as 769 Mexican pesos, or about $70 at 11 pesos to $1, between Toluca Airport, 40 miles from Mexico City, and Aguacalientes from April 16 to May 13 (for the San Marcos National Fair) and 250 pesos between Puebla and Tijuana from May 18 to June 18. Alma de México, which flies to 13 destinations in Mexico, has been advertising flights between San José del Cabo and Guadalajara for 1,324 pesos at http://www.alma.com.mx/. And a recent search on Click Mexicana’s Web site, http://www.clickmx.com/, for flights in May from Mexico City to tourist cities like Mérida and Zihuatanejo, turned up one-way fares from 1,085 and 1,049 pesos, with taxes and fees.
There are also new direct flights replacing connections that previously required stops or plane changes. For example, vacationers planning to sightsee in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, and then hit the sand in Cancún, used to have to stop in Mexico City. Now Click, a subsidiary of Mexicana Airlines, which advertises leather seats with 35 inches of legroom as Coach Plus, flies nonstop between Guadalajara and Cancún.
The new nonstop routes “make it very attractive to travelers coming from cities, that otherwise would require a very long trip, to come to Cancún,” said Arturo Escaip Manzur, chief executive of the Cancún Convention and Visitors Bureau, which attributes an increase in domestic travelers to new direct flights from budget airlines and plans to promote the routes in marketing campaigns. “A stop in Mexico City,” he said, “might make them choose another location.”
Ben Gritzewsky, a travel agent who specializes in Mexico at Frosch Vacations in Houston, said he tended to book with major national airlines like Aeroméxico or Mexicana because of their mileage program partnerships and ease of booking, but also noted that there were a few routes between second- and third-tier cities that the larger carriers don’t cover. “For Southern California residents,” he said, “it may be advantageous to use Avolar’s Tijuana gateway occasionally in order to fly directly into the interior.” Toluca, he added, which Volaris and InterJet both fly from, “is an alternative if you are in far west Mexico City and want to avoid the big airport or crosstown traffic.”
Like most low-cost carriers in the United States, the Latin American budget airlines are generally of the no-frills variety, offering a single class of seats, serving snacks instead of meals, and keeping costs down with low maintenance and high efficiency.
Booking can be a challenge if you don’t speak Spanish. Only a few have agreements with companies like Worldspan and Sabre, which distribute fare information to United States travel agents or familiar discount Web sites like Expedia. And since their business is primarily geared toward domestic travelers, few offer their own Web sites in English or take American Express credit cards. Volaris, which offers flights to 14 destinations in Mexico including Cancún, Los Cabos and Morelia, is one of the few that does both. Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes, which serves 49 destinations in Brazil and also flies to Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and Peru, also offers booking in English (http://www.voegol.com.br/). Outside Brazil, it accepts only American Express cards or, at a ticket counter, cash.
The Latin American carriers are regulated by civil aviation authorities in their own countries. “They’ve been very strict,” said Alex de Gunten, of the Latin American Air Transport Association, in enforcing their regulations. Last month the Mexican government suspended operations of the low-cost carrier Lineas Aéreas Azteca because it failed to comply with safety, administrative and technical rules, the Associated Press reported. Azteca, which has 90 days to correct the problems, is the second low-cost carrier to be grounded by the government in the last year. Aero California was suspended last April for failing to meet safety standards. It corrected its violations and has resumed some flights.
Last fall, a Boeing 737 operated by Gol crashed in the Amazon, killing all 154 people aboard. Investigations of the crash, which is believed to have been caused by a collision with a small business jet, are continuing.
As low-cost carriers continue to take off in Latin America, they are gaining a greater share of the overall market. In the fourth quarter of 2006, Gol accounted for more than a third of the Brazilian air market. At the end of March, the company bought Varig, once Brazil’s largest airline.
But as the low-cost carriers grow, the boundaries between them and older airlines are blurring. “Gol entered the market strong and with this idea of low cost,” said Augusto Simas, managing director at Travel Place, a travel agency in Rio de Janeiro. But as the company expanded, he said, its prices went up slightly, and its competitors’ prices went down a little bit. “Now,” he said, “they’re kind of balanced.”

Hydrogen's Second Coming
On the Road, Hope for a Zero-Pollution Car
By DON SHERMAN
LAKEHURST, N.J.
WHEN the largest aircraft ever built — the pride of Nazi Germany — crashed in flames at the United States Navy’s airship base here, it took 36 lives and smeared the reputation of hydrogen for decades.
In less than a minute, the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 turned hydrogen, which provided the zeppelin’s lift, into a pariah. But 70 years later, a growing number of advocates are promoting hydrogen as a panacea, a promising alternative to petroleum. In the last decade, every large carmaker has jumped on the hydrogen express.
In dozens of laboratories and research centers, scientists and engineers are busy searching for ways to reduce the cost and improve the practicality of hydrogen-powered vehicles. Development has progressed to the point that some of these prototype vehicles are in daily service, commuting around Detroit, delivering packages in Washington, serving urban bus routes.
To look in on the development progress of hydrogen vehicles, The New York Times invited 10 companies actively promoting hydrogen for personal transportation to bring their vehicles to the Naval Air Engineering Station here. With pressure mounting to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, the anniversary of a pivotal event 70 years ago seemed an appropriate time to look for a clearer understanding of what cars may be like in 30 years.
Some carmakers deemed the disaster site an awkward location for this gathering; others were sympathetic but unable to field a vehicle because experimental mules have testing and appearance schedules busier than those of presidential hopefuls. The three hydrogen-powered vehicles that did arrive here (all by trailer, because refueling was not available for the long trips from their bases) were not the latest models from the auto show circuit, but hard-working development vehicles with thousands of testing miles on their odometers.
Weather was also a factor. The day of the gathering was fraught by a severe northeaster. Six inches of rain was followed by flooded roads and snow, as the winds blew and angry skies frowned. But the show went on, thanks in part to the hosts at the base and the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society.
The Hindenburg anniversary is not the only reason hydrogen is in the news. Four years ago, in his State of the Union address, President Bush announced a $1.2 billion hydrogen initiative to foster clean air and lessen dependence on imported oil. The Department of Energy has conducted marriages of sorts, joining automakers with energy companies — General Motors and Shell; Ford and DaimlerChrysler with BP — to encourage research and set standards for refueling hardware.
As hydrogen gains favor, hydrocarbons seem to be taking over the role of villain. Peak oil theorists, especially Matthew Simmons, chairman of the Simmons & Company investment bank and the author of “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy” contend that increased demand will outpace the ability to increase production. And the Supreme Court’s April 2 ruling that the E.P.A. has authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, as it does tailpipe emissions, was a powerful vote against fossil fuels.
So the three hydrogen-fueled vehicles that gathered at the Hindenburg crash site are harbingers of the future, proof that all of hydrogen’s potential in transportation did not go up in flames 70 years ago.
The spot where the Hindenburg met its end is now a historic landmark. A heavy yellow anchor chain surrounds a concrete pad replicating the size, shape, and final resting place of the Hindenburg’s control car. Rick Zitarosa, historian of the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society, said the Navy intended to preserve the site in its current form.
The vehicles here, and three other experimental cars driven elsewhere, cover a broad spectrum of hydrogen possibilities. Here are highlights:
FORD E-450 SHUTTLE Ford regards hydrogen-fueled internal-combustion engines as “a bridge to fuel cells, the powertrain of the future.” Teamed with BP, Ford built a fleet of 30 E-450 shuttle buses.
“We believe this is an affordable and sensible way to transition from today’s fossil fuels to a hydrogen-based economy,” John Lapetz Jr., the Ford program manager, said. Ford Motor also has several active fuel-cell vehicle projects.
Ford’s E-450 shuttle is a familiar sight around airport parking lots and hotels. In the conversion to hydrogen, some of the passenger area was walled off to house six pressure tanks wrapped in carbon fiber, each rated for storage at 5,000 pounds per square inch.
Mr. Lapetz characterized the modifications necessary to tailor Ford’s Triton V-10 to run on hydrogen as “fairly minor.” A supercharger was added to feed additional air.
It goes without saying that this vehicle drives like a bus. The husky V-10 provides ample urge to get the rig rolling briskly. The supercharger sounds like a distant police siren. Mr. Lapetz said that Ford had experimented with other engines and that hydrogen could replace gasoline and diesel fuel in many of them.
GENERAL MOTORS HYDROGEN3 G.M.’s first fuel-cell vehicles were shown to the public four decades ago. The 1966 Electrovan weighed 7,100 pounds and required 30 seconds to accelerate to 60 m.p.h. G.M.’s fuel-cell research intensified a decade ago. About three dozen fuel-cell vehicles and concept cars have been designed, built and tested by G.M., representing an investment of more than $1 billion, the company says.
Based on an Opel Zafira, the HydroGen3 is a third-generation design. (A Chevrolet Volt with G.M.’s fifth-generation fuel-cell was unveiled this month at the Shanghai Motor Show.) A fleet of 28 wagons was built, with hydrogen stored in either gaseous or liquid form.
HydroGen3 is a world traveler, demonstrating the hydrogen future in Washington, delivering packages in Tokyo and accumulating mileage in Europe for three years.
Since this is an experimental mule, little effort has been directed at quieting the clicks, hums, drones and growls of gases being pumped and chemically converted into electrical energy. Under acceleration, the HydroGen3 sounds like an angry golf cart. With only 100 horsepower on tap, it requires more than 15 seconds to reach 60 m.p.h. according to Matt Atwell and Joe Gerschutz, G.M. engineers along for the Lakehurst ride.
TOYOTA PRIUS The stock-appearing (well, except for the exterior lettering) Prius that visited Lakehurst was configured to run on hydrogen by ECD Ovonics. The 1.5-liter 4-cylinder engine was fitted with a turbocharger and intercooler and produces roughly the same power and torque as a gasoline-hybrid version; all of the Prius’s hybrid features were intact.
What is unusual about this car is how the hydrogen is stored. ECD Ovonics, the company that invented nickel-metal-hydride batteries, focused its expertise on carrying hydrogen in solid form in tanks filled with powdered metal. Two tanks fitted under the Prius’s floor are filled with hydrogen by connecting a 1,500 p.s.i. hose to a standard fitting. The tank capacity is 7.9 pounds, enough for nearly 200 miles.
Robert C. Stempel, the former G.M. chairman who now heads ECD Ovonics, points out that refueling at this storage system’s lower hydrogen pressure is much less expensive than the 5,000 or 10,000 p.s.i. necessary with compressed-gas storage. The system is heavy, though — 550-pounds.
Except for a few turbo whistles and whirs, the car sounds and performs exactly the same as a standard Toyota Prius. Tests showed reductions in all tailpipe emissions except oxides of nitrogen.
In addition to the vehicles brought to the base, here are three other hydrogen vehicles I have driven: BMW HYDROGEN 7 BMW, which has been studying the use of hydrogen in piston engines for 25 years, is building a fleet of 100 demonstration vehicles on a regular assembly line.
The Hydrogen 7 combines BMW’s flagship sedan, a modified 6-liter V-12 and a superinsulated storage tank to provide dual-fuel mobility. The liquid hydrogen offers a 125-mile driving range; when that is consumed, a button on the steering wheel switches the engine over to run on gasoline for 310 more miles from the standard 19.6-gallon gas tank. The engine is tuned to deliver nearly the same power on either fuel.
The detuned engine and 500 pounds added to carry hydrogen safely impair performance slightly, but the Hydrogen 7’s 143-m.p.h. top speed and 400-mile range easily surpass existing fuel-cell vehicles. While running on hydrogen, the only traces of carbon compounds in the exhaust come from engine oil consumed during combustion.
While driving a Hydrogen 7, I listened intently for changes in engine operation when the fuel supply was switched. In the hydrogen mode, there is a sharper and more metallic noise during acceleration, but most drivers would never notice that subtle difference. The beauty of the Hydrogen 7 is that it exploits hydrogen’s benefits without making existing powertrains obsolete.
MERCEDES-BENZ F-CELL Since it began hydrogen experiments in 1994, DaimlerChrysler has invested more than $1 billion and built more than 100 fuel-cell vehicles. A fleet of 30 buses has been carrying passengers daily in 10 European cities. Sixty Mercedes-Benz A-Class sedans converted from gasoline powertrains to a more futuristic F-Cell configuration have logged 2 million miles. DaimlerChrysler and Ford have made large investments in Ballard Power Systems, a leading fuel-cell developer.
In the tall four-seat A-class, passengers sit above the drivetrain, tucked beneath the floor. This arrangement is also a handy way to package the bulky storage tanks and electronics necessary to for the fuel cell.
The 20-second start-up ritual is accompanied by a chorus of clicks, whirs and buzzes. Steering, shifter, accelerator and brake controls are identical to the A-Class; an electronic display on the center console tracks electricity flow.
Even though it rides tall, the F-Cell corners securely thanks to a low center of gravity. With only 87 horsepower to move 3,380 pounds, acceleration is sluggish. According to the factory, the run to 60 m.p.h. takes 15 seconds and a governor limits top speed to 87 m.p.h. Michelin radial tires inflated to 38 p.s.i. delivered a rocky ride over the poorly maintained roads I drove.
HONDA FCX Those fearful that a hydrogen future bodes ill for style and elegance need only examine the FCX, a sleek and sexy way to ride into the future.
Honda has cleverly engineered the FCX to pack all its hardware under a low roof while leaving ample legroom for four passengers and a decent amount of trunk space. A 127-horsepower A.C. electric motor is fed by a fuel cell twice the size of a home computer that produces 100 kilowatts of power.
Driving the FCX demonstrated impressive performance: acceleration from zero to 60 m.p.h. takes less than 10 seconds and top speed is more than 90 m.p.h. There was none of the gear whine, relay clicks, motor hum and pump moaning present in other fuel-cell prototypes. There is minimal mechanical noise, just a soft growl that intensifies when you depress the accelerator (and a power gauge in the dash glows brighter).
Next year, Honda will begin building the FCX in small numbers for demonstration fleets.