It's Raining Oil In Louisiana?

Louisiana residents 45 miles off the Gulf of Mexico claim to have videotaped an oily substance raining down. Worst case scenario? It's petroleum mixed with Corexit, the cancer-causing dispersant BP's spraying on its oil slick. Best case scenario? Dirty roads.

Video is circulating which purports to show the effects of an oily rain coming down off the coast of Louisiana. It could be as simple a More..s the sheen which develops on the road following rain on a dirty road or someone attempting a sensationalist hoax. At this point nobody knows. A smattering of reports from along the coast indicate similar occurrences accompanied by a strong odor of oil.

Our first thoughts were oil we're accustomed to dealing with generally doesn't evaporate, and that's true for engine oil sitting on a shelf, however crude oil at sea is an entirely different story. According to a 2003 study titled "Oil in the Sea III: Inputs, Fates, and Effects" put out by Ocean Studies Board, Marine Board, and Transportation Research Board, oil behaves very differently when on the open water. The study states:

Within a few days following a spill, light crude oils can lose up to 75 percent of their initial volume and medium crudes up to 40 percent. In contrast, heavy or residual oils will lose no more than 10 percent of their volume in the first few days following a spill. Most oil spill behavior models include evaporation as a process and as a factor in the output of the model.






The oil included in the Deepwater Horizon disaster is most certainly crude, and was at one point a heavy crude, which reduces the overall loss to evaporation, however it's been mixed up by the effects of the ocean and become an emulsification, which according to the study, enhances the likelihood of evaporation:

Emulsification, if it occurs, has a great effect on the behavior of oil spills at sea. As a result of emulsification, evaporation slows spreading by orders of magnitude,more from live leak

Put The Phone Down! Keep Your Eyes On The Road!

 CBS/AP   Nearly 6,000 people were killed and a half-million injured last year in U.S. auto accidents due to drivers being distracted, particularly by mobile phones, the government said Wednesday.

The Transportation Department brought together experts for a two-day "distracted driving summit" on highway hazards caused by drivers talking on cell phones or texting from behind the wheel. Secretary Ray LaHood was expected Thursday to offer recommendations that could lead to new restrictions on using the devices while driving. 

"You see people texting and driving and using cell phones and driving everywhere you go, even in places where it's outlawed, like Washington, D.C. We feel a very strong obligation to point to incidents where people have been killed or where serious injury has occurred," LaHood said.

Hours before the start of the meeting, Transportation officials said in a report that 5,870 people were killed and 515,000 were injured last year in crashes where at least one form of driver distraction was reported.

Public sentiment for banning cell phone use while driving may already be in place. In a CBS News/New York Times poll released Sunday, 90 percent of Americans said that it should be illegal for drivers to send text messages.  Nearly all age groups in the poll supported a ban of texting while driving, the only dissenters being those between the ages of 18 to 29, in which only 16 percent agreed with an anti-texting law.