IF IT KILLS CATERPILLARS, WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE?

Looking through papers on file at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, researchers from the private Environmental Working Group, based in Washington, found something startling: a California firm, Amvac Chemical, paid for a 1997 experiment in which small doses of the pesticide dichlorovos, used to kill caterpillars, were fed to volunteers in England to help determine human tolerance for the chemical. Traces of pesticides are found in foods, and the EPA uses animal tests to decide what levels are safe to ingest. If a level is O.K. for lab rats, the agency cuts it by 90% in setting limits for human consumption. Amvac argues that its tests on people, done under "strictest ethical guidelines," are a better gauge of how much pesticide is safe. But the EPA said it was "deeply concerned" and did not plan to use the human test data to make final rulings on pesticide standards.

STURGEON SURGERY FOR A TASTE OF GUILT-FREE CAVIAR

The insatiable hunger for Russian caviar has devastated Caspian Sea sturgeon populations. Now two private Russian groups are working on a way to harvest the roe without killing the sturgeon. It's like a caesarean section: a hormone injection allows quick extraction of eggs from the female's ovaries through a tiny slit in the belly. Conservationists are excited that the fish can give up its eggs and live to spawn again, but they worry about consumer acceptance: the hormone may make the caviar softer and greasier than normal.

CLONING IN CHINA: NO SEX, PLEASE, WE'RE PANDAS

The Chinese are getting desperate in their efforts to preserve the giant panda, whose population is down to about 1,000. Captive-breeding programs have had only modest success, since the animals have little sex drive, and the females are fertile just once a year. So the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched a project to mass-produce pandas through cloning. But it won't be as easy as copying a sheep or making a litter of cookie-cutter mice. With so few pandas left, the Chinese will have to find surrogate mothers--perhaps a different large mammal--to give birth to cloned panda embryos.

HEROES

FROM RED TO GREEN Mikhail Gorbachev's decision five years ago to head a new environmental organization known as Green Cross International raised an obvious question: Was he serious or was this just a nice hobby for an out-of-work Soviet leader? As it turns out, Gorby has labored to preserve the planet with all the energy he once devoted to perestroika, building a network of advocacy groups in 21 nations on five continents. "Man has exceeded nature's allowable limits," says Gorbachev. "Civilization must adjust to the laws of the biosphere. We have little room for maneuver--and little time." He is particularly worried about the growing competition for limited freshwater supplies, which he fears will "ignite some of the next century's most dangerous conflicts." Global Green U.S.A., a Green Cross affiliate, has held a symposium on water disputes, pushed for safe destruction of the military's chemical weapons and joined with Habitat for Humanity (whose most famous volunteer is another former head of state, Jimmy Carter) to develop affordable, energy-efficient housing. Gorbachev's "star power" helps make all that possible, says Matt Petersen, Global Green's executive director. Petersen recalls the night he and Gorbachev ran into Paul Newman at the Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel (the actor had come to California for a car race). Newman went to Gorbachev's suite to hear his environmental spiel and in less than an hour had pledged $250,000 to Green Cross.