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Show MONDAY: TIME & TECHNOLOGY * TUESDAY: OUTDOORS & RECREATION The Salt Lake Tribune WEDNESDAY: FOOD & GARDEN « FRIDAY: HOME & FAMILY : ~~ Section C Dennis Green/ The Salt Lake Tribune Nurses' hotline, a “It was, about the size of a baseball,” Caprio recalled. The nursetold Caprioto take his son, Tyler, to the nearest hospital emergency room. He was diagnosed with a life-threatening case of croup, given a strong inhalant to clear his bronchial tubes cure for medical panicattacks. and released. “It scares me to death to think that some other parent might not knowwhatto look forto identify a kid in distre: 2 ‘apriosaid. “If [the nurses] had not been as knowledgeable and specific as they BY NORMA WAGNER THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Andrewand Sue Caprio could tell their 3-yearold son’s chest congestion wasgetting worse. But they didn’t realize he was suffocating until they called a nurse's hot line when the child started flopping his armsin distress. “It's bringing tears to my eyes to even talk aboutit,” Andrew Capriosaid of that Thanksgiving Day two years ago. “It scared the living crap outof us.” The nurse told Caprio to lift the toddler’s shirt to seeif the skin between hisribs was retracting as if being pressed in by the tip of a pen. were, we would have watched our son suffocate.” On call 24 hours a day, every weekend and holiday. a team of 42 registered nurses at Intermountain Health Care’s TeleHealth Services counsels callers complaining of everything from sprained ankles to crushing chest “We make no diagnosi: rector of TeleHealth Services. symptom-based and howto treat. What's important is whether you need to be seenor not.” The nurses punch symptoms into a computer program of 360 common ailments and then scroll down a tree of questions to determine who should go to the emergency room or all-night clinic, who WHENSPARKSFLY Discoveries iscover on an odd luminescent phenomenon pieespineseencs onethe flashing o light when a material is fractured or deformed — has been observed , for years. Researchers have found molecular shapes and symmetries that cause the phenomenon. Here's how triboluminescence works: can wait for a doctot ppointment, and who can safely treat symptoms at home. Complaints range from life-threatening to hu- ri hand vomiting lot of people would attack [telephonetriage] as phonemedicine.thinkingit's a wayof keeping woman who wonderedif the pain in her wrist was “corporate” tunnel syndrome deal with medical problems,” said Jane Galvin, managed-carepolicy director for the Health Insurance Association of America. “It's a welcome aspect for health-care consumers becauseit al- morous, such as the father who was concernedhis newborn's “biblical” cord was infected, or the This type of telephonetriage (evaluating the urgencyof a medical problem) is a booming trend in managed carethat offers patients a convenient service and reduces unnecessary trips to hospital emergency rooms. About 35 million Americans nowhave ac medical-advice lines, up from fewer than m lion in 1990, according to The Wall Street Jour- nal. The telephone-triage business is growing by more than 25 percent each year and could cover 100 million Americans by the year 2000. according to health-care analysts quoted bythe Journal. More than 93 million Americans — about 36 visits per 100 people — visit the ER everyyear. according to a study bythe national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found more than half of those ‘‘emergencies” are minor DALLA MORNING ar and flavoring in the candies whenteeth crunch them. Foryears, no one understood why. But now, sci helpexplain eerie lights at the bottom of the ocean and the enigmatic process of sonoluminescence, in tribo, meaning“friction,” and /uminé “to emit light.” When a meaning triboluminescent material is crunched, crushed, ripped or pulverized, it transforms that foundto flashin experiments. The crystal is not centrosymmetric In this diagram, the number of features features pointing pointing upandthe number pointing down are notthe same up in the crystal as there are “COPY ing mechanical energy into cold. ‘The phenomenon of triboluminescence is of great curiosity,” said Arnold Rheingold, a chemist at the University of Delaware Triboluminescence is everywhere in the world around us, Rheingold said. Among the materials that flash whenfracturedare table sugar, adhesive tape and windowglass “Ina weak way, almost everything does,” Rhein. gold said. He and Linda Sweeting of Towson Uni versity in Towson, Md., have identifiedtheinternal Different materials can spark red, blue, green or virtually any other color, said Jeffrey Zink, a SOURCES: Linda Sweeting, TowsonState University ‘ sparkingfla: structure of rice-grain-size triboluminescent crys are unlikely to flash, unloss there are impurities in the crystal Knight-Ridder Trbune 1 thehospital. A Fulton County jury in 1995 found Kaiserliable for bad medical advice and awarded thechild's parents $46 million See HOT LINE, Page C-8 Thefirst time you see it, you say, ‘Holy cow!’ ” said Rheingold. “You kind of jump back thinking the thing’s going to blow up.’ In thecase of crystals in wintergreencandies, the energy comes fromgnashing teeth, but in other materials, the source of mechanical energy is different. “If yourip off an adhesive bandagein the dark, at nightin 1605 which bubbles in water uncannily light up as sound waves muscle through them. Others say that the flashing crystals could have applications such as the detection of cracks in materials. Theflashing of light whena material is fractured or deformed is knownas triboluminescence, from Non-centrosymmetric molecules were partof the health-maintenanceorganization’s dis- capped after suffering a heart attack enroute to crystals are crushed With their insights, researchersare building or- Some scientists say the sweet little flashes could Centrosymmetric molecules arrange home because closer medical centers were not count plan. The baby wasleft seriously handi- youcanseelight emitted,’ Rheingold said. “It’s excess energy being emittedin theformoflight.” nate crystals, demolishing themand then watching all the colors of the rainbow appear are just as many questions — like what to do for a baby with fever Theindustry suffered at least one black eye. A telephone-triage nurse working for Kaiser Permanente recommendedthat a sick infant be taken to an Atlanta-area hospital 42 miles from entists are deciphering the molecular shapes and symmetries that control the phenomenon, in which brilliantflashesof light appear as certain kinds of themselvesin a crystal with “centrosymmeiry.” There lows people to ask even the most elementary Can You Say 'Triboluminescence ' With a Mouthful of Candy? BY JEFFREY CHUANG. Differences in symmetry mayexplain why somecrystals flash when crushed, but others don’t these are professional medical people trained to problems, such as fever, headache, cough, skin When you bite downon a Wint-O-Green Life Sav er, sparks fly. Light actually sparkles from the sug TRIBOLUMINESCENCE AND MOLECULAR SYMMETRY people from having access to their doctors. But professorof chemistryat the University of California, Los Angeles FRIDAY IN DAYBREAK: RAGS TO RUGS IN MARYSVILLE : A The English scholar Francis Bacon observed tri- boluminescenceas he choppedblocksof cane sugar But scientists did not have many clues to the puz- ale of whycertain materials spark under pressure until morethan threecenturies later. In the 1920s, theynoted that the flashes seemedrelated to the shapesof the moleculesin triboluminescent materials. “One would believe it would have to have some- thing to do with how the atoms are arranged” in als, Rheingold said arch low in the field, but Zink and other aracterized the shapes of crystals that triboluminesce a hat don't in the 1970s Thosestudies gave mixed results, Sweeting wrote ina paper publishedinthe May issueof the journal Chemistryof Materials y, someof Zink’s crystals that were not ex- pected to spark actually did spark when mashed That puzzled scientists synthesized organic molecules allized them. Then she and several students sequestered themselvesin a pitch- black room, mashed the crystals in a transparent container and watchedfor sparks Meanwhile, Rheingold took samples of the crys- tals Sweeting was using and bounced X-rays off them. Bywatching thepattern of where the X-rays bounced, he wasableto deducethe internal structureof thetinyery: It's a little like one of those mirrored balls in a dance room,” Rheingold said. If you know where et See WHY, Page C-2 ) |
