How about this for finding a silver lining? The offshore oil
platforms that dot the Southern California coast have long been
despised by residents because, quite frankly, they are ugly. The
gigantic oil spill of 1969 off Santa Barbara, resulting from
punctures in the ocean floor as one of the platforms was being
erected, ignited a groundswell of public resentment and
catapulted a nascent environmental movement onto center stage.
As one who covered that spill for the Los Angeles Times, it was
hard for me to find anyone with a good word for the platforms.
They looked like the work of a kid with a giant erector set and
a twisted mind. But now, scientists are turning to those same
platforms in the search for new pharmaceutical drugs for
everything from headaches to cancer. Not the platforms
themselves, but the small creatures that cling to the towering
subsea pilings that hold the platforms aloft. A $500,000 grant
from the U.S. Department of Interior will let scientists from
the University of California, Santa Ba