Oxygen

A daytime talk show that has topped the ratings for the better part of a decade, made by her own production company. A lauded turn as a movie star. Made-for-TV movies, best-selling books, cable productions, glam cover shots gracing this month's Vogue. Is it enough for Oprah Winfrey? Hardly. Yesterday, the Big O signed on to help run Oxygen, a cable television and online company for women that's set to launch Jan. 1, 2000. Winfrey joins founder Geraldine Laybourne, former president of Nickelodeon, and the Carsey-Werner-Mandebach Co., the television production company responsible for The Cosby Show, Roseanne, and 3rd Rock from the Sun, as partners in the venture.

Microscopic bubbles trapped in hardened tree resin for 80 million years indicate the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere has decreased by one-third, scientists say. Preliminary data from the tree resin, or amber, suggest the level of atmospheric oxygen 80 million years ago may have been as high as 30 percent, compared with today's 21 percent, Robert A. Berner of Yale University told a meeting of the Geological Society of America this week....

The Air Force and many Americans have been puzzling for more than two weeks over the aerial odyssey of pilot Craig Button, whose A-10 fighter disappeared over Colorado after veering away from a training flight. But retired Air Force Lt. Col. Donald Towner thinks he may have an answer. When he heard the story, the first thing that popped into his mind was: "That guy's got hypoxia. " Hypoxia is a strange phenomenon of oxygen starvation that can induce a kind of aerial rapture producing confusion, poor judgment and muscle incoordination, experts say. Those conditions could produce the kind of erratic flight path reported for Button, Towner believes.

The deaths of two men Saturday on a ship docked at the Beckett Street Terminal were accidental, the result of insufficient oxygen in the atmosphere of the ship's hold, the Camden County Medical Examiner ruled yesterday. But the medical examiner, Dr. Robert Segal, could shed no more light on why the Saga Wave's deep bowels, loaded with lumber from Canada, lacked normal oxygen levels. One theory still being investigated by Segal's office, the Coast Guard and other agencies was that enough mold may have grown inside the cargo hold to consume most of the oxygen.

There was a moment, on a crag 28,000 feet up Mount Everest, that Peter Hackett knew exactly what would happen if he simply let go and stepped off the mountain. He would fly. He knew it with the certainty that dreams have, except, of course, that he was wide awake, freezing cold and breathing heavily through an oxygen mask. All around the view was spectacular, and the air was thin. "I stood on the very edge of the mountain," he recalled in a recent interview about his 1981 expedition.

TUCSON BIOSPHERE DUO TAKING PURE 'O' Two of the eight men and women sealed in Biosphere 2 are breathing pure oxygen at night to offset the effects of a drop in oxygen levels inside the experiment-under-glass. Dr. Roy Walford, 68, the crew's physician, said he and Jane Poynter began taking concentrated oxygen last weekend.

As the surgical team began delicate heart surgery on a premature, two-pound infant, the unthinkable happened. The baby boy suddenly became engulfed in flames. Doctors and nurses immediately doused the fire and tried to revive the baby at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, but it was too late. He died soon after. "We really aren't sure what happened," a hospital official said at a news conference. Mark Bruley, summoned to the scene from his lab across the country in Pennsylvania, had an answer in five minutes.

10 tonight OXYGEN Known as New Jersey's first family of fashion, the Scalis run Diane & Co., a popular source for extravagant formalwear. New reality series follows sisters Kim and Christina (at right) as they run their business.

A Pennsylvania state biologist is monitoring oxygen levels in Ridley Park Lake, where 1,000 fish died during the weekend, a state Department of Environmental Protection official said Wednesday. The biologist is testing twice a day to measure any fluctuations in the oxygen in the water. Deoxygenation caused the fish to surface and die starting Saturday, but the reason isn't clear. - Bonnie L. Cook

Quick, get out your pencils and notebooks, sports fans. You too can become familiar with some scientific terminology that coaches and athletes from around the world are using (in different languages, of course) to describe the astonishing fitness of the 1988 Olympic athletes. Because all Olympians are now painstakingly tested and evaluated before competition, the public learns what they eat, how they sleep, even how they breathe. Two terms that apply are maximal oxygen uptake and anaerobic threshold.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - New Jersey fire officials said that an 82-year-old homeless man with emphysema accidentally caused a car explosion when his cigarette ignited gas from a leaking oxygen tank inside his vehicle. The Record reports that four people - the man, two police officers and Fire Department Lt. Stephen Lindner - were hurt in yesterday's explosion. Lindner was approaching the smoke-filled car with a hose when it exploded. An employee of a nearby store had pulled the man from the car. Fire Chief Matt Wagner said that the man, who wasn't identified, uses about a tank of oxygen a day and was storing them in his car. - Associated Press

Paula Marie Thomas braved the big nor'easter of 1962 that pounded much of the East Coast, including her hometown of Atlantic City. Water came up to her porch - nine steps up from the ground. But she stayed put and made it through. Almost 50 years later, Hurricane Irene threatens destruction to the area. This time, though, she isn't being allowed to weather the storm. "They said it was mandatory. We had to go," Thomas said. Gov. Christie declared a state of emergency for New Jersey on Thursday, and residents along the coastline were told to evacuate the area.

As the surgical team began delicate heart surgery on a premature, two-pound infant, the unthinkable happened. The baby boy suddenly became engulfed in flames. Doctors and nurses immediately doused the fire and tried to revive the baby at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, but it was too late. He died soon after. "We really aren't sure what happened," a hospital official said at a news conference. Mark Bruley, summoned to the scene from his lab across the country in Pennsylvania, had an answer in five minutes.

A Pennsylvania state biologist is monitoring oxygen levels in Ridley Park Lake, where 1,000 fish died during the weekend, a state Department of Environmental Protection official said Wednesday. The biologist is testing twice a day to measure any fluctuations in the oxygen in the water. Deoxygenation caused the fish to surface and die starting Saturday, but the reason isn't clear. - Bonnie L. Cook

A man who continued to smoke while relying on oxygen was killed and his wife was injured in a fire that ripped through a ground-floor garden apartment in Camden County late Tuesday, officials and neighbors said. A dog named Rocky was also being called a hero by its owner, because its barking helped his wife, daughter and step-father escape. Neighbors identified the victims as James Beck, 60, and his wife, Frances, 51, who lived in apartment 181 at the Bellmawr Manor complex on Kings Highway in Bellmawr.

When we last heard about Mother Mary, I was worried she wasn't using her oxygen, as the doctor ordered, and her nose was turning blue. Well, we were on our way to a blue Christmas. Because we stopped speaking to each other. Here's what happened. At first I didn't realize it. One day, I just noticed that since our conversation about the oxygen, Mother Mary hadn't called me. She usually calls every three days or so, just to say hi, but it had been about six days, and no word.

Albert Hicks has a problem that plagues many diabetics: a disc-shaped wound on the sole of his foot that is taking ages to heal. He and his doctor at the Drexel University College of Medicine's wound-healing program have been working on it since April. It looks as though they are making progress, but it is surprisingly hard to tell. A big man who works in construction, Hicks is helping Drexel researchers test a device that uses light to measure how well diabetic wounds are healing.