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IN BRIEF . . .

Crowder College in Neosho, Missouri has selected teacher ART BOYT to develop a new curriculum in alternative energy and lifestyles . . . to begin at the onset of the spring semester, 1980. The Boyts — who live by the principles proposed for the program — will use their own farmstead as a field laboratory and demonstration model.

At 76, CHARLES CLARK may be one of the last remaining ice harvesters . . . and he's been spreading the secrets of his skill to gatherings in such institutions as the Stamford, Connecticut Museum and Nature Center. "When we run out of oil," Clark insists, "ice will be as necessary as it was before the days of the electric refrigerator."

JEREMY F. CRISS of Eldersburg, Maryland has developed a "worm toilet" that flushes with only two ounces of water, and doesn't need to be connected to a sewage system or septic tank! The apparatus — which is hooked up to a vacuum pump that's attached to a windmill — sucks the waste into a six-foot vat containing mulch and redworms . . . the latter of which convert the sludge to natural humus.

DR. MOSTAFA K. HAMDY and graduate student M.T. NUNN — microbiologists with the University of Georgia College Experiment Station's food science department — have discovered that some forms of bacteria can be used to partially biodegrade PCB (a man-made industrial chemical that can cause many dangerous side effects, including cancer, when taken into the food supply).

FRANKLIN HEESE and MARV NORLUND, founders of a company called Truck Tracks (P.O. Box 466, Shelley, Idaho 83274 . . . please include a few dollars when requesting information), have developed a way to enable trucks to "float" over sand, mud, and snow. The secret: large rubber tracks that can be slipped onto the back tires of any tandem-axle truck. — JV.

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