Now and then some declaration from a scientist will be an exasperating statement of the obvious. Take this recent headline in a science publication:

"Acrid Smoke from Raging Wildfires Hazardous to Those with Lung, Heart Diseases, National Jewish Physician Says"

"Scientists Warn that Bullet to the Head Damages Brain"

We already knew that pollution was a bad thing; that certain pollutants can cause cancer, asthma, birth defects, the whole list. But there are unexpected pollutants -- and odd worries cropping up around new technologies.

And many of us have heard about estrogen pollution a.k.a. female-hormone pollution…

What? Sure you have. Think back to that newspaper article you skimmed before you turned to the stocks page. Pollutants in drag, so to speak, have been a concern for a while. For example, UC Davis’ research on estrogen-like agricultural and industrial pollutants. These pollutants, almost identical to estrogen, mimic some of estrogen’s effects in the body when people absorb them through food and the air and water, interfering with the endocrine systems of humans and animals.

They can trigger, yes, malformations in the testes, reversed sexual characteristics, as well as cancers. The chemicals that break down into estrogen-mimickers are found in pesticides, paints, some plastics, floor wax and shoe polish, and as by-products of incinerating wastes.

So if you’re a man growing breasts and you’re not a transsexual, check to see what you are downwind of.

Another strange pollution is widespread medication contamination in the water — not from pharmaceutical factories, usually, but from human urine!

A woman in the Bengali village of Matlab holds a piece of white sari cloth to '4-fold' it before use as a water filter to avoid cholera. The woman next to her filters and collects water using a pot with a 4-fold of sari cloth.

The pharmaceutical pollutants, in relatively low parts-per-billion, seem to be coming from flushed toilets and sewage sludge spread onto soil, both sources making their way eventually back into groundwater, and reservoirs — and to other major bodies of water: the Danube River, the Po River and the entire North Sea contains measurable quantities of clofibric acid -- a drug used for reducing cholesterol (and, interestingly, a close cousin to a highly toxic weed killer). The drug estradiol, yet another female sex hormone, is present in groundwater in sufficient amounts to alter the sexual characteristics of certain fish in some areas.

So in order to avoid this sort of thing, I’ve been ordering fish from fish farms, reasoning that they grow in more pristine waters -- only to find out, in the Safe Shopper’s Bible by David Steinman and Samuel Epstein (forward by Ralph Nader -- of course), that fish from fish farms are among the most dangerous to eat because this new industry is unregulated. Hence farm-raised fish contain residues of a wide variety of animal drugs used by the farmer, like anitbiotics and hormones, similar to those used for cattle. The authors recommend fish from the deep sea, like off the coast of New Zealand and Alaska, as reasonably safe.

To be fair, toxicity in fish doesn’t come only from human activity — there are weird, naturally occurring poisons in tropical fork-tailed snapper, barracuda, grouper, mahi-mahi and royal sea bass, created by dinoflagellates called "ciguartera". Besides nasty pains and diarrhea, these natural toxins can cause tres bisarre reversals in sensation; a hot liquid may feel cold and ice may feel hot. Cold water can burn the skin.

Maybe I should just eat, I dunno…Spam. But best not to have that stuff analyzed too rigorously, if you’re going to eat it.

In recent decades learning disabilities and related behavioral problems like attention deficit disorder (ADD) have been radically on the increase; one in every six children measurably suffers from problems such as autism, abnormal aggression, dyslexia and ADD. In California, reported autism rose 210 percent between 1987 and 1998.

Worried scientists like Deborah Rice who did studies for Health Canada, point to neurotoxicants as a likely cause. Neurotoxicants such as PCBs are found in pesticides of all kinds, in head-lice shampoos, insect repellents, and sometimes simply in the air downwind of industry.

Could there be a relationship between neurotoxicants and inexplicable events like the Columbine massacre? You have to wonder.

Of course at least some apparent new "pollution" worries appear to be non-issues, when you look at them closely — so far I don’t see anything convincingly scary about irradiated food, since it doesn’t actually make the food radioactive. Microwave cooking is more radioactive.

Nexia says spider dragline silk is widely recognized as the strongest material known.

I mean, I like goat’s milk cheese. And I don’t like spiders.

But to be fair, they don’t seem to be making the stuff for drinking or cheese. An outfit called Nexia got interested in finding ways to mass produce spider silk because of its enormous tensile strength and elasticity (presumably, in thicker than usual strands, for human use).

With their "silk glands," spiders produce "dragline" or "frame" silk, which has apparently been That Obscure Object of Desire for materials engineers "because of its extreme performance properties."

Nexia’s product, BioSteel, utilizes similarities between the spider silk gland and mammary glands in goats. In both cases, epithelial cells create the desired proteins in large amounts. Nexia has produced fully soluble spider silk protein in vitro within genetically engineered mammary cell lines. They call it "a transgenic goat system".

Revolting, if you think too much about it — but no doubt useful, even a boon to mankind. Just don’t put it in my cheese.

Some people, of course, worry about other kinds of techno-dangers — that is, technology designed to be dangerous. Energy weapons make them nervous — and if so, they’re bound to be diving for cover after the recent successful demonstration of the Army’s Tactical High Energy Laser. This big, ragin’-full-on laser was used to shoot down a Katyusha rocket on June 6 at White Sands. Yes, the blasted (or blasting?) thing finally worked.

Riding a guide-wire, a small laser-propelled "lightcraft" shoots forward, powered by light.

What does the electro-blaster do to you? It’s a case of "set phasers on stun". You’re temporarily paralyzed, dazed, helpless and soon handcuffed. This "freeze ray", the brainchild of Eric Herr at HSV technologies, would initially be the size of a small suitcase.

The usual doomsayers are saying it could blind innocent passersby if it hits them in the eyes…but then a bullet fired instead by the same nearsighted cop would do a lot more than blind that same passerby.

I say bring ‘em on – it’s a more humane peacekeeping device than a .45 automatic. If certain New York cops had had that kind of stun gun recently, Mayor Giuliani wouldn’t have had to do all that political tap-dancing.

So the modern lifestyle is good — but it has its dark side. And conversely there’s modern tech that’s initially scary -- but could actually be good.

We can choose laser weapons, if we want to — but because of poor planning, those bizarre pollutants have so far been foisted on us.

What’s really good … is being able to choose.