July 13, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The investigative news magazine Vanguard reports from Indonesia on the tobacco industry’s massive, coordinated effort to get as many young people across the developing world, hooked on deadly cigarettes, in order to profit from their addiction. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg says 1 billion people will be killed by smoking this century, unless something is done to curb big tobacco’s efforts to profit from destroying the health of its customers.
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July 6, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Generative economics is rooted in a simple insight: that economic activities can have corrosive or generative impacts on future available resources. The dynamics of an economic environment can add another layer of corrosive or generative potential to the activities in question. Analysis can be subtle, however, because generative qualities are often not the focus of conventional thinking or play out over the long term.
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July 12, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Scientists in Mississippi say they have discovered microscopic globules of hydrocarbons, i.e. petroleum, inside the outer shells of blue crab living along the Gulf coast. This discovery appears to show that oil has now entered the food chain. This process cannot be reversed, though measures may be taken to limit the spread of the oil deeper into the local and regional ecosystem.
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June 4, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Malaria Kills Millions Every Year in Africa. It is responsible for anywhere from 1 to 3 million deaths per year, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Efforts to eradicate the disease are mounting: in the year 2000, just 3% of children under 5, in sub-Saharan Africa, slept with mosquito nets; by 2008, that figure had risen to 56%. Aid groups now project that aggressive preventive measures can protect 100% of the population by the end of 2010 and reduce the number of deaths to near zero by 2015.
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June 1, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Geneticist and biotech pioneer Craig Venter unveils the process of experimentation and research that allowed his team to create the “first synthetic cell”. The video includes not only information about how the genetic code was created first on a computer and includes “watermarks” such as the name of the new species’ official website, but also about how the team studied ethical issues relating to the project of creating synthetic life. The project took 15 years and was aimed at creating “error-free genetic code”.
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December 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Intellectual property laws designed to help protect the ability of researchers to retain compensation for major innovations have led to a uniquely problematic “innovation” in the laws themselves, where specific genes, or the informational access to them, are patented, barring individuals or their physicians from dealing directly with those genes except through the for-profit patent-holders.
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October 3, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Water resource depletion leads not only to chronic scarcity of clean, safe drinking water for increasing numbers of people, but means arable land is harder to cultivate and to maintain. Persistent drought and accelerated desertification (the expansion of deserts into the farmed and/or built environment) are results of water resource depletion.
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October 2, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Clean, safe drinking water is scarce for over 3 billion people across the world. At least 1 billion literally never have access to clean, safe drinking water, putting them at constant risk of severe thirst-related ill health effects, infectious diseases or toxic contamination. Over 100 countries face either sporadic or chronic crisis-level problems related to clean water scarcity.
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August 31, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
A new innovation developed by scientists in Israel may be able to detect traces of lung cancer in human breath, by identifying molecules linked to the condition. The device would be hand-held and easy to use, and could potentially be available at any family doctor or general practitioner’s office, in the future.
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July 28, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
DNA is an amazingly efficient memory bank for the design and scheduling of biological development. Cell DNA have their own replication systems, but human scientists who want to interfere with the content of the genome have been working to find ways to achieve artificial replication and synthesis of disparate properties, and now they may have achieved a landmark breakthrough.
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July 28, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Researchers have stumbled upon a surprise possible treatment for swelling of nerves in the spinal cord. It turns out that FD&C blue dye No. 1 bears certain key similarities to a compound used to treat nerve inflammation. Since there is no active immediate treatment for spinal cord injuries, and secondary inflammation often leads to long-term damage, this treatment holds great promise. The one side-effect observed: the rats’ skin turned blue.
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July 16, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The influenza A/H1N1 virus, popularly known as “swine flu” was officially declared a pandemic in June. Shortly after the pandemic declaration, it was confirmed that H1N1 was confirmed in human patients in 74 countries. In the 5 weeks since then, it has spread rapidly and is now confirmed to have caused human infection in 140 countries.
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July 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The New Scientist magazine is reporting on an intriguing and brazen new Pentagon program that would create living “OrthopterNets”, communication networks made of insects implanted with special technologies to modulate their wingbeats. Crickets, cicadas and katydids, all use their wings to generate sounds, the patterns of which communicate information to others of their kind. The Pentagon wants to use this natural communications network to prompt the insects to emit specific sounds in the presence of specific chemicals.
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July 14, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
What methods and strategies can be developed for speeding MRSA-effective Manuka honey to production and distribution for clinical treatment? What similar discoveries hold promise for treating multi-resistant bacteria?
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July 12, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Honey is a surprisingly complex and mysterious substance, known to have antibacterial properties, but which continues to reveal new qualities apparently favorable to human health. Now, scientists in Australia have discovered that a specific type of honey, is highly effective at killing the multi-resistant “superbug” MRSA. The discovery could give medical science a way to combat the spread of multi-resistant bacterial strains.
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June 11, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
The “public option” for healthcare reform is about competition. With that competitive edge —no profit motive—, such an insurance plan could reduce costs across the board, for all who seek coverage. This raises the question of whether a new paradigm might be private not-for-profit insurers, possibly organized through doctors’ associations and hospitals, which seek to establish a more reliable payment structure, under a larger-pool of coverage.
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May 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
TheHotSpring.net :: John Kanzius discovered, through his experience with radio technology, that the use of metal nano particles could allow a targeted way to attack cancer cells and weaken or kill a tumor. The technology came to be known as Kanzius RF therapy, and remains experimental. It uses nano-scale particles of gold or carbon, which [...]
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April 16, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Electronic medical records (EMR), like health insurance, benefit from being spread over the widest pool possible. A system that aggregates and cross-references data from hundreds of millions of patients can find statistical evidence far more efficiently than today’s statistical modeling for health problems and solution improvement.
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