I had a theory, once: an invention is only half-invented if its flaws are not taken into account and adjusted for.

DDT (dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane) and Thalidomide were, on the surface, useful chemical inventions. But they were introduced so hastily that no one knew until it was too late that the one killed most bird life, and the other caused cruel deformities in the offspring of women taking the drug. So should we put on the brakes — stop progress for fear of similar downsides? Not at all.

However, we can take a step back and give the "new" a critical look. We can take just a little longer to ensure that the latest innovation, in its present form, is not prone to creating dangerous waste as a side effect, or breaking down at some lethal juncture.

Aircraft, for example, are becoming more and more automated — I assume that most readers who fly will want those systems thoroughly tested before they get on board that 747.

Keeping this in mind, we continue our off-the-cuff survey of the upsides and downsides, the good and the bad, both, of Edge Trends as they unfold, this time, in the realm of technology and chemistry. Let’s start this time with a downside and head on up from there.

THE BAD -- Sandia National Labs "Red Team" has been invading and attacking dozens of information systems at various websites — but these attacks were carried out at the behest of the sites’ owners. They’ve been demonstrating that hackers can penetrate almost all networked computers. Sites investigated by the "bad guys" at the Information Design Assurance Red Team include information systems from two very large corporations and several key government agencies. They "found specific weaknesses in every system." Results "disconcert Red Team clients every time" as their defenses are always breached. This means, of course, that banking, national defense and energy providing systems are even more vulnerable than previously believed. The Trojan Horse scenario poses another problem. Most software is written overseas now, and may be without validation. Trojan Horses could go off when the adversary chooses to trigger them.

THE GOOD -- Red Team’s methods teach security specialists for the various systems how to think like an adversary. Sandia has developed a new style of defense called "intelligent agent." According to Sandia, "the cyber-agent, still in the laboratory stage, actually functions as a multi-agent collective -- a distributed program that runs on multiple computers in a network. The program reacts with suspicion to port scans that scan all ports, net addresses on a computer that allow entry to different functions, even if the scan takes place over a long period of time, like a year. The agent program works by setting up a supra-net collective that constantly compares notes to determine what unusual requests or commands have been received from external or internal sources."

THE BAD -- Our reliance on the air conditioner and our increasingly layered home entertainment systems and computer variants has left us prone to sudden, ravenous surges of power gobbling, leading in turn to rolling brownouts and the risk of bigger, less controlled blackouts.

THE GOOD -- A recent Department of Energy (DOE) study has found that new software that predicts future energy demand could avert most power emergencies. Presently, power companies simply respond to demand, willy-nilly; if they had real readiness they could disburse the power more effectively, without having to shut systems down. The DOE projects new, sophisticated software tools based on probabilistic risk assessment that would simulate load flow, energy dispersal options, weather factors and more. That is, our energy supply systems would become intelligent — a real change.

THE BAD -- The highest levels of plutonium contamination have been detected in air samples collected in a 10-day period after a fire in June 2000 scorched nearly half the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state. A second radioactive isotope has been found at elevated levels in Sagebrush across the Columbia River from Hanford, according to results from the State Department of Health. Both were detected at hazardous levels. Radiation related to nuclear energy, both in terms of waste storage risks and leakage, continues to be a major concern.

THE GOOD -- Sandia Labs has developed a cheap means for the removal of toxins from groundwater contaminated by nuclear waste — and a similar means is being tested to clean water in Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have died from arsenic poisoning in the water. The source of the arsenic poisoning is not known -- it may be natural, or pollution-related. Scientists have designed "getters" –- designer mineral solids that suck much of a particular contaminant out of the water. Contaminants are attracted to a specific type of mineral and then eventually become entrapped in it, freeing the water or soil of the arsenic or other metal molecules.

THE BAD -- Amphibians are regarded by many biologists as the "canary in the coal mine" of the ecology, forerunners of reactions that other parts of the biota may have to environmental changes. For a while it’s been known that frogs and other amphibians are declining, or turning up inexplicably sick. Some of them are the victims of a new fungus, probably introduced by human intrusion into their habitat. Large numbers of deformed frogs have been recently found and researchers suspect the deformities to be the result of pollution by chemicals similar to retinoids-compounds, which are known to cause limb deformities and birth defects in humans. Some agricultural pesticides, which easily find their way to the frogs through groundwater, are related to the retinoids.

THE GOOD -- For some time, scientists have known that certain microorganisms can be used to clean up polluted soil and water. These microorganisms can break down industrial toxins into less harmful byproducts. A microbiologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville has found that the bacterium Pseudomonas Fluorescens HK44 can be genetically engineered to emit a blue-green light as it digests hazardous wastes. The faint glow indicates which areas are tainted, how concentrated the pollutant is and whether there are enough bacteria to clean up the mess. The bacteria not only cleans a polluted area — it "lights the way"…a strangely beautiful concept. Bacteria are a perfect example of the two sidedness of organisms — they cause much misery, but they can be vastly valuable also, depending on how they’re used and where they are.

So the dark side can turn into the light side — and even glow with it.