Tech

Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have taken an important step in converting methane gas to a liquid, potentially making it more useful as a fuel and as a source for making other chemicals.

Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is plentiful and is an attractive fuel and raw material for chemicals because it is more efficient than oil, produces less pollution and could serve as a practical substitute for petroleum-based fuels until renewable fuels are widely useable and available.

MBL, WOODS HOLE, MA—A report examining the impact of a global biofuels program on greenhouse gas emissions during the 21st century has found that carbon loss stemming from the displacement of food crops and pastures for biofuels crops may be twice as much as the CO2 emissions from land dedicated to biofuels production.

A team of 13 prominent scientists and land-use experts has identified an important but fixable error in legal accounting rules for bioenergy that could, if uncorrected, undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gases by encouraging deforestation.

The error, reported in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Science, involves an issue that is at the heart of ongoing discussions about how biofuels and land use change will be treated under the global climate treaty nations are developing for the December summit in Copenhagen, Denmark.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A fixable error in the way carbon is counted in current U.S. climate legislation and in the Kyoto Protocol could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by using biofuels, says a premier group of national environmental and land use scientists.

Trying to understand the complex workings of a biological cell by teasing out the function of every molecule within it is a daunting task. But by making synthetic cells that include just a few chemical processes, researchers can study cellular machinery one manageable piece at a time.

Medical clinics the world over could benefit from new software* created at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where a team of scientists has found a way to improve the efficiency of a pneumonia vaccine testing method developed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

Although syphilis is one of the oldest known diseases, most health professionals do not have access to the tests necessary to reliably diagnose it in its earliest and most infectious stage. A recent survey of infectious diseases specialists regarding the diagnosis and treatment of syphilis appears in the November 15, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.

The Guidelines are the work of the IDF Task Force on Clinical Guidelines, which is focused on meeting the critical global need to provide up-to-date evidence-based information and training for healthcare professionals. This is especially important as, alarmingly, the latest data from the IDF Diabetes Atlas show that over 285 million people worldwide now live with diabetes. Within 20 years, IDF predicts the figure will jump to 435 million. Healthcare professionals must be equipped with the latest improvements and standards in diabetes care to tackle this spiralling epidemic.

It is very difficult to predict whether a cancer drug will help an individual patient: only around one third of drugs will work directly in a given patient. Researchers at the Heinz Nixdorf Chair for Medical Electronics at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have developed a new test process for cancer drugs. With the help of microchips, they can establish in the laboratory whether a patient's tumor cells will react to a given drug. This chip could help in future with the rapid identification of the most effective medication for the individual patient.

The American College of Physicians, representing 129,000 internal medicine physicians and medical student members, is gravely disappointed by the failure of the "cloture" vote today in the U.S. Senate on S. 1776, the Medicare Physician Fairness Act of 2009. We commend Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), the bill's principal sponsor, for her diligent efforts to persuade her colleagues to support this long-overdue legislation to sunset the flawed SGR formula and put an end to the cycle of annual Medicare cuts that threaten seniors' access to physician services.

Arlington, Va. – Medical providers on the front lines of HIV care applaud the U.S. Congress for extending the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, helping to ensure that more than half a million low-income, uninsured, or underinsured people living with HIV/AIDS have access to lifesaving care. The HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) and the Ryan White Medical Providers Coalition (RWMPC) are pleased with Congress' four-year extension of this critical safety net and urge President Obama to quickly sign this important legislation.

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 21 – Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, may be hot on the heels of a Holy Grail of cancer therapy: They have found a way to not only protect healthy tissue from the toxic effects of radiation treatment, but also increase tumor death. The findings appear today in Science Translational Medicine.

DETROIT, Mich.---A University of Michigan survey released today shows widespread consumer interest in buying plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). But the cost of the cars is much more influential than environmental and other non-economic factors as a predictor of purchase probabilities.

With potential adverse health and environmental effects often in the news about nanotechnology, scientists in Arkansas are reporting that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could have beneficial effects in agriculture. Their study, scheduled for the October issue of ACS Nano, a monthly journal, found that tomato seeds exposed to CNTs germinated faster and grew into larger, heavier seedlings than other seeds. That growth-enhancing effect could be a boon for biomass production for plant-based biofuels and other agricultural products, they suggest.