Smart Economy

When will the Recession End? Part 209 Most Russians believe that the economic crisis is not yet over - poll

Abstract (Summary)

Eighty-two per cent of participants in the poll, which was carried out in 130 locations in 45 regions around the country, highlighted the substantial increase in prices around the country in comparison with the increase in salaries and pensions. At the same time, 93 per cent of respondents experienced an increase in the cost of foodstuffs over the last year, 92 per cent felt an increase in housing and utility rates, and 79 per cent experienced the same with medicines.

Full Text

Moscow, 31 March: Most Russians are not making optimistic plans about their financial situation, believing that the country has not yet overcome the economic crisis, research by sociologists has shown.

Now over half of citizens (54 per cent, 55 per cent in 2009-2010), like in the last three years, are setting themselves the goal of living no worse than most families in their city or district, Levada Centre sociologists told Interfax on Thursday [31 March] when presenting the results of an all-Russian survey carried out in March.

According to their figures, one in five people (21 per cent) are currently trying "to survive, albeit on the most primitive level of existence", while 17 per cent want to live better than most of their neighbours. Meanwhile, 7 per cent are seeking the standard of living of an average family in Western Europe and the USA, and 1 per cent is aiming to exceed this standard of living.

The survey showed that over half of Russians (57 per cent) think that the economic crisis in the country is not yet over, and one in five (19 per cent) is confident that it is coming to an end. Five per cent of Russians said that they had not experienced any problems related to the crisis.

Thirty-six per cent of respondents believe that "tough times" for the country still lie ahead, but 26 per cent disagree with them, claiming that the difficult period has already been passed.

Eighty-two per cent of participants in the poll, which was carried out in 130 locations in 45 regions around the country, highlighted the substantial increase in prices around the country in comparison with the increase in salaries and pensions. At the same time, 93 per cent of respondents experienced an increase in the cost of foodstuffs over the last year, 92 per cent felt an increase in housing and utility rates, and 79 per cent experienced the same with medicines.

Credit: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0930 31 Mar 11 

Walter Derzko

 

Latest Hands-Free Electronic Water Faucets Found to be Hindrance, Not Help, in Hospital Infection Control

 

In the "unintended consequences" department ......A study of newly installed, hands-free faucets at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, all equipped with the latest electronic-eye sensors to automatically detect hands and dispense preset amounts of water, shows they were more likely to be contaminated with one of the most common and hazardous bacteria in hospitals compared to old-style fixtures with separate handles for hot and cold water. (Embargo expired on 31-Mar-2011 at 08:00 ET)

Society for Health Care Epidemiology of America

—Johns Hopkins Medicine

 

Latest Hands-Free Electronic Water Faucets Found to be Hindrance, Not Help, in Hospital Infection Control

Released: 3/28/2011 11:45 AM EDT

Embargo expired: 3/31/2011 8:00 AM EDT

Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine

-Old-fashioned, manual faucets work better, study shows; Hopkins is removing new ones

Newswise — A study of newly installed, hands-free faucets at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, all equipped with the latest electronic-eye sensors to automatically detect hands and dispense preset amounts of water, shows they were more likely to be contaminated with one of the most common and hazardous bacteria in hospitals compared to old-style fixtures with separate handles for hot and cold water.

“Newer is not necessarily better when it comes to infection control in hospitals, especially when it comes to warding off potential hazards from water-borne bacteria, such as Legionella species,” says senior study investigator and infectious disease specialist Lisa Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H. “New devices, even faucets, however well intentioned in their make-up and purpose, have the potential for unintended consequences, which is why constant surveillance is needed,” says Maragakis, director of hospital epidemiology and infection control at Hopkins Hospital and an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Although the high-tech faucets cut daily water consumption by well over half, Johns Hopkins researchers identified Legionella growing in 50 percent of cultured water samples from 20 electronic-eye faucets in or near patient rooms on three different inpatient units, but in only 15 percent of water cultures from 20 traditional, manual faucets in the same patient care areas. Weekly water culture results also showed half the amount of bacterial growth of any kind in the manual faucets than in the electronic models.

While the precise reasons for the higher bacterial growth in the electronic faucets still need clarification, the researchers say it appears that standard hospital water disinfection methods, which complement treatments by public utilities, did not work well on the complex valve components of the newer faucets. They suspect that the valves simply offer additional surfaces for bacteria to become trapped and grow.

The Johns Hopkins researchers will present their findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Health Care Epidemiology (SHEA) in Dallas on April 2.

Infection control experts behind the latest study, believed to be the first detailed analysis to show how and why these new fixtures pose a problem in preventing Legionella infections in hospitals, say the electronic devices were widely introduced in patient care and public areas of hospitals across the United States, including in The Johns Hopkins Hospital, more than a decade ago. The idea was to prevent bacterial spread from people touching the faucet’s water handles with their dirty hands.

As a result of the study, conducted over a seven-week period from December 2008 to January 2009, Johns Hopkins facilities engineers removed all 20 newer faucets from patient care areas and replaced them with manual types. A hundred similar electronic faucets are also being replaced throughout the hospital, and hospital leadership elected to use traditional fixtures – some 1,080 of them – in all patient care areas in the new clinical buildings currently under construction at Johns Hopkins’ East Baltimore campus. The new buildings are set to open in 2012.

Lead study investigator Emily Sydnor, M.D., a fellow in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins, says Legionella bacteria, commonly found in water supplied from public utilities, rarely cause illness in people with healthy immune systems, but pose a real risk of infection in hospital patients whose immune systems are weakened from cancer chemotherapy, anti-rejection drugs after organ transplant, or from diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

Sydnor says this is why some hospitals, including Johns Hopkins, treat water supplied from public utilities with chlorine dioxide or other methods to keep Legionella levels low.

Indeed, the original goal of the research team, says co-investigator Gregory Bova, senior engineer at Johns Hopkins, was to test the new faucets to determine how often and for how long treated water needed to be flushed through the hospital’s taps to keep Legionella and any other bacteria at nearly undetectable levels.

“We were surprised by the initially high bacterial counts,” says Bova. Study results showed Legionella bacteria levels between 0 and 3,000 bacterial colony forming units per milliliter of water from electronic faucet samples.

High Legionella and overall bacterial counts were detected in tests of the newer faucets after the hospital’s water flow from the city was briefly interrupted for a few hours before and immediately after the study began. The double interruptions produced a fresh influx of Legionella and other bacteria, requiring Bova and his staff to perform additional disinfecting water treatments, prompting the latest study investigation.

As part of the study, Bova and his team disassembled four of the electronic faucets and their component parts, two before the water was treated and two afterward, with swab culture tests showing Legionella and other bacteria on all of the main component valves and other parts, very few of which, if any, exist in manual faucets.

“Our findings show us that standard hospital water treatment practices are not effective at disinfecting these more complex, electronic-eye faucets of Legionella and other potentially harmful bacteria, even after remediation and additional treatment,” says Bova, who has reported his findings to the faucet manufacturer, the Chicago Faucet Co., in Des Plaines, Ill. “We would have to take apart, clean and disinfect the entire faucet assembly, every time, which is simply not practical or cost-effective.”

Among the study team’s other observations were that the electronic faucets were used continuously, between seven and 110 times per day. Such continuous flushing, says Sydnor, helps suppress bacterial growth.

“It’s good for infection control purposes that staff are actually washing their hands so frequently,” says Sydnor, “but these faucets may not be the best option to aid our staff in protecting our patients from potential risk of infection.”

Bova says actual water usage for the new faucets, which have electronic control settings for precise volumes, averaged over 18 gallons per day, or roughly a quarter of what he estimates was used by the manual faucets, which have no precise volume measurements. He says the electronic variety can actually be programmed to consume as little as a fifth of traditional models, down to as little as a half-gallon per minute.

Researchers say their next steps are to work with manufacturers of electronic and manual faucets to help remedy their flaws and to design components that can be cleaned more easily and save water. They have also notified infection control staff at other hospitals of their latest findings.

Funding for the study was provided by The Johns Hopkins Hospital. In addition to Maragakis, Sydnor and Bova, other Hopkins investigators involved in this study were Joshua Bord, M.S.; Anatoly Gimburg; Sara Cosgrove, M.D., M.S.; and Trish Perl, M.D., M.Sc.

 

For additional information, go to:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heic

http://www.shea-online.org/about/annual_meeting_overview.cfm

 

Walter Derzko

Researchers Discover Way to Reverse Immune System Aging

Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have discovered a way to reverse the aging process by removing old B lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell in the vertebrate immune system) from old mice, and forcing the production of young, potent cells to replace them. The findings were reported in the January 2011 issue of the scientific journal Blood.

“As with every aging process in the body, it is generally thought that aging of the immune system – including that of the B cell population – is a progressive process that cannot be stopped and/or reversed,” says lead researcher professor Doron Melamed of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. “But we have succeeded in showing that it is possible to turn back the aging process.”

As is the case with the rest of the body, the immune system is weakened with age, a fact reflected by a significant increase in illness among the elderly, and a dramatic decrease in their ability to respond to vaccination. The B lymphocytes are major cellular components in the function of the immune system and are responsible for the production of antibodies.

According to Melamed, many studies have shown the B cell population undergoes dramatic changes with age as a result of a decline in the body’s ability to produce new B cells and a selection process that leads to an accumulation of old B cells with a limited and reduced response capability.

Using old mice, the Technion researchers showed that active removal of the B cells changes the cellular homeostasis in the body and generates conditions of chronic deficiency of these cells. To overcome this deficiency, the body re-activates the bone marrow, forcing it to produce B cells again at a rate not different than that which exists in young mice. The researchers found that the newly generated B cells replaced the old cells that were removed, and led to an improvement of up to 400 percent in the ability of the treated mice to respond to vaccinations.

“This paper shows -- for the first time -- that physiological aging is a regulated process that can be reversed, thus raising many questions concerning our understanding of the mechanisms of aging,” Melamed says. “It also presents a novel approach for rejuvenating the immune system, and for enhancing the efficacy of vaccination among the elderly population, an approach that is now being studied.” 

source: http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/news/2011/01/researchers-discover-way-to-reverse-immune-system-aging.aspx

Walter Derzko

 

When will the Recession End? Part 208 The Clash of Principles and Interests in the Arab Revolutions; The Double Standard Trap

The Double Standard Trap

The Clash of Principles and Interests in the Arab Revolutions

By ESAM AL-AMIN

“To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.”

--Confucius

On February 15, 1991, then-President George H. W. Bush announced to the Iraqi people and the world in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, "There is another way for the bloodshed to stop. And that is, for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside."

Nudged by the American president, several uprisings broke out within a few days in the Shi’a-dominated southern Iraq. But they were ruthlessly crushed by the defeated regime of Saddam Hussein. Not only did the American-led coalition stand idly by while tens of thousands of Iraqis were massacred during the unrest, but nearly two million Iraqis ended up in Iran as refugees after fleeing for their lives.

None other than Dick Cheney, the Secretary of Defense at the time, explained the reason the U.S. abandoned the Iraqis when he said, “It would be very difficult for us to hold the coalition together for any particular course of action dealing with internal Iraqi politics.”

Translation: Our Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Gulf countries strongly objected for fear of empowering the Iraqi Shiites.

It took the U.S. and its mainly NATO allies less than seven months to reverse Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait. But the U.S. did not hide the reason behind its unprecedented worldwide campaign. Jim Baker, the U.S.  Secretary of State at the time, said in his testimony before Congress that the U.S. mobilization was about “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,” a euphemism for the US and British corporations that would control the flow of oil and its forty percent reserves in that region, and by extension, the global economy.

Sadly Rwanda, Bosnia, and Kosovo did not have much oil, so in the 1990s the administration of Bill Clinton basically ignored these simmering crises. Within the span of three months in 1994, over 800,000 people were massacred in Rwanda while the world watched the ongoing genocide.

Years later, encouraged by the do-gooders, slam-dunkers, and cake-walkers, George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 under the false pretense of eliminating Weapons of Mass Destruction, later modified to spreading “democracy and freedom.” But his real aim was to impose American hegemony and control over this strategic region with potential military bases and oil deals.

However, his gross miscalculation resulted in a fractured Iraq and the colossal failure of American objectives with a cost of at least two trillion dollars, tens of thousands of casualties, and millions of refugees, all while enhancing Iran’s strategic position.

The only consistent policy by Western powers across these examples has been their sheer inconsistency. There can be no doubt that such policies are guided not by the West’s declared values and principles, but by cold and calculated interests, even when they conflict with its most basic and cherished moral standards.

The ongoing Libyan campaign is no different. Libya, with its small population of 6 million, is the largest oil producer in Africa, with proven reserves of over 42 billion barrels (more than twice as those in the U.S.) and 1.5 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. As far as its sulfur content, Libyan oil is the cleanest in the world as well as the cheapest to extract at $1 per barrel. With Libya’s proximity to Europe, its oil and gas are the cheapest to transport.

Shortly after the Feb. 17 peaceful revolution by the Libyan people protesting Muammar Gaddafi’s forty-one year tyrannical reign, Western countries led by the U.S, France, and Britain condemned Gaddafi and his assaults on his people. Within days, several UN resolutions were passed, freezing the accounts of the Libyan dictator, his sons and close associates, imposing a no-fly zone, and authorizing other military measures for the declared protection of civilians.

Meanwhile, the same countries outraged by Gaddafi’s behavior looked the other way as the Bahraini army, aided by military units from Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf countries, cracked down on thousands of peaceful demonstrators in the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain, causing dozens of casualties. The protestors were calling for democracy and freedom from the 230-year dictatorship of the Al-Khalifa family.

Similarly, hundreds of thousands of people across Yemen have been demonstrating continuously during their seven-week struggle for freedom and democracy. However, the crackdown by Yemen’s thirty-two year old regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh against this peaceful revolution was met in the West with a muted or weak response.

In the case of Bahrain, where the fifth fleet of the U.S. navy is stationed, strategic and military calculations have evidently trumped any moral obligation to support the people’s call for democracy and freedom from dictatorship and repression. Likewise the incessant cooperation of Saleh’s regime with the U.S. in the so-called war on terrorism against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula outweighed any consideration for the Yemeni people’s right to live in a free and democratic society.

If the imposition of the no-fly zone against the tyranny of the Libyan regime was based on moral grounds, then the same consideration should have also been applied to the Israeli planes freely roaming the skies of Gaza and wreaking havoc. On the same day that NATO planes were protecting Libyan civilians from Gaddafi’s terror, American-made Israeli planes were openly terrorizing Gazan Palestinians, killing eight, including one elderly man who had just finished praying at a mosque, and three children playing soccer.

The following day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had it backwards when she condemned the four ineffective crude rockets that were fired from Gaza in retaliation for the unprovoked Israeli air attack, causing no Israeli casualties, while excusing the earlier Israeli raid killing innocent Palestinian civilians.

On March 17, the U.S. lauded the UN Security Council resolution on Libya that passed with 10 votes (and 5 abstentions) arguing for a world consensus in stopping the carnage against the Libyan civilians. But just a month earlier, on Feb. 18, the U.S. cast the sole negative vote in the UN—defying the world consensus of 14 votes—against the end of the illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. In effect, the U.S. vetoed its own declared policy of the illegality of Israeli settlements for purely domestic political reasons without any regard for moral norms or international law.

But the moral dilemma of applying double standards is not just the dominion of the West. For example, Al-Jazeera, the popular Arab news network, has played a key role in covering the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. However, its coverage of the significant demonstrations in Bahrain was weak, while its reporting on demonstrations in Saudi Arabia was almost non-existent. Meanwhile, the mass demonstrations of thousands of people in sixty cities across Morocco on March 20 were totally ignored by the celebrated network. Clearly political, not technical, grounds were behind its vast coverage in some countries and a lack thereof in others.  

On March 19, Hasan Nasrallah, the Lebanese leader of Hezbollah, after praising the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, correctly criticized Arab civil society institutions, political movements, media outlets, intellectuals, and other elites for not lending genuine support –unlike for other revolutions -- to their fellow demonstrators for democracy and freedom in Bahrain. He rhetorically asked whether sectarianism was the real reason behind the lack of support for the Bahraini revolution because most of its demonstrators were Shiite.

But Nasrallah himself did not utter a word about the thousands of protesters in neighboring Syria who are equally yearning for the same rights and freedoms as their brethren in Bahrain. If Bahrainis paid with their blood in Pearl Roundabout and the streets of Manama, dozens of Syrians have also been killed and injured by the Syrian security forces in the Omari mosque in Dara’a and other cities.

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which has been in control of Gaza since 2007, were not only silent about the Mubarak regime as it cracked down against the millions of Egyptians protesting in the streets, but it even prevented any demonstrations by other Gazans who wanted to show solidarity with the Egyptian protesters. Apparently Hamas’s excuse was that it did not want to antagonize the former regime, which colluded with Israel in imposing the four-year old crippling sanctions against Gaza, and could have made life even harder for them had they shown any support for the Egyptian revolution.

Throughout these conflicts, there are politicians and leaders who have been consistent in their policy and positions. For instance, Representatives Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Ron Paul (R-TX) equally objected to the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Libya and have been consistent in their positions regarding how and when American military power should be employed. Similarly, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader oppose American intervention on principle. However, many other politicians lack the moral standard to advocate consistent policy.

For example, former House speaker Newt Gingrich disparaged President Barack Obama on March 7 for not imposing the no-fly zone and taking out Gaddafi sooner, when he said on Fox News, “All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes.” By the time Obama signed onto the UN resolution to do just that Gingrich did not miss a beat criticizing Obama for getting involved in another foreign war, when he told NBC’s Today show on March 23, “I would not have intervened. I would not have used American and European forces.”

What is needed is the formation of a consistent paradigm for when the international community or regional powers must intervene to save innocent lives against the transgression and violence of military dictatorships or invasions, whether in Libya, Bosnia, Rwanda, the Kurdish areas, Darfur, or Palestine. In essence, the paradigm should be based on the moral imperative of helping and protecting all innocent civilians who call for help after being unjustly attacked by ruthless dictators or aggressors, by supporting their just cause and lending them material support, short of military occupation or economic exploitation.

Such standard must be adopted irrespective of whether the perpetrators are friends or foes of the U.S. or other international powers. Nations and movements can certainly exercise their option whether or not to get involved. But let there be no confusion as to what is right, just, and appropriate.

Abraham Lincoln once observed that, “Moral principle is a looser bond than pecuniary interest.” But he stood firmly against slavery on moral grounds even though the cost to his country was significantly high. Common humanity dictates that moral values must trump any narrow or short-term interests. Saving human lives should always take precedent over economic interests. Taking a firm stand against occupation and oppression cannot be sacrificed at the altar of immediate political electoral gains.

In the words of Albert Einstein, a great leader or individual should not aim to be “a man of success” but rather “try to become a man of value.” Equally, nations as well as individuals should be judged on moral grounds by their consistent adherence to their stated values and principles irrespective of other considerations- not some of the time or under certain circumstances, but all the time and under all circumstances.

Esam Al-Amin can be reached at [email protected]

 

Walter Derzko

 

 

China rockets to second in science publications, but Russian science is cooked

[Big hat tip to Dr Andrew Zhalko-Tytarenko for the Google Maps article below by Loet Leydesdorff & Olle Persson--Walter Derzko]

March 28, 2011

China has rocketed into second place in the number of articles published in international science magazines, according to a report released Monday by the Royal Society in London.

While the top 10 is filled with major Western powers, their share of research papers published is falling, while nations such as China, Brazil and India are growing

[....but what it doesn't show is that there is more to science excellence than just sheer publication volume. More significant then quanity is quality - the number of citations you get from a paper you publish..ie. how often you get quoted in other journals and recognised by your academic peers--Walter Derzko]

 

[as an aside...The map above shows citations in Chemistry by city. The green circles indicates frequent citations, red circles low citations and size of the circle indicates the number of publications.The west still obviously dominates. But the largest red circle on the map that is over Moscow, shows that Russians are publishing in chemistry but that they are largely ignored by the rest of the world. I'm told by Russian academic expats that the reasons for science mediocracy may vary-overemphasis on incremental vs breakthough science; falling back on me-too, copy-cat science;  it could be due to lack of originality (everything is just copied or stolen) or the lack of young scientists that are as a rule more original then older ones or just plain political bias...most westerners don't read or speak Russian and  the same goes for Physics .

As a proxy for future global competitiveness, it clearly shows that Russian science is "cooked" or "done like toast"...As one former Soviet scientist told me begrudgingly.." oddly, Kampala (Uganda) looks better, then most  Russian science centers."

But that doesn't mean that you won't find any "jewels in the rough" though in former Soviet republics. You just have to look harder, below the rotting, collapsing infrastructure of science. 

"We have found several "gems" in Ukraine.

In medicine, you have the discovery of Hydrated Fullerenes (or water soluble Buckyballs) or HyFN-C60 in Kharkiv, Ukraine (praised by Nobel prize winners who discovered fullerenes 25 years ago, as the "silver bullet" in medicine in the 21 century) . This fullerene-based water drink  was just approved by the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, after extensive clinical trials, as the world's first nanotechnology-based health drink. It's classified as a food supplement and not a drug, because it's found in nature.

In Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, you have the discovery of a new green drilling technology for shale gas, that obsolesces conventional fracking, which contaminates the water table with over 250 chemicals" --Walter Derzko.

See original science mapping story here.....  http://arxiv.org/abs1103.3216v3  --Walter Derzko]

Related Post: Who will be the next S&T super powers?

Also on the rise but further behind are Iran and Turkey. [but with low citation rates too--wd]

China has shot up from sixth place in the period 1999-2003 (4.4 percent of the total) to second place behind the United States with 10.2 percent over the years 2004-08, overtaking Japan.

The United States remains in the top spot, but has seen its share shrink from 26.4 percent to 21.2 percent.

Japan has slipped from second to fourth, falling from 7.8 percent to 6.1 percent, while Britain has remained third with its share at 6.5 percent, down from 7.1 percent.

Germany, in fifth place, published six percent, down from seven percent, while France, in sixth, published 4.4 percent, down from five percent.

They were followed by Canada, Italy, Spain and India.

"The scientific world is changing and new players are fast appearing," said Chris Llewellyn Smith, who chaired the study at the Royal Society, Britain's national science academy.

"Beyond the emergence of China, we see the rise of southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, north African and other nations.

"The increase in scientific research and collaboration, which can help us to find solutions to the global challenges we now face, is very welcome.

"However, no historically dominant nation can afford to rest on its laurels if it wants to retain the competitive economic advantage that being a scientific leader brings."

The Royal Society's findings were published in its report entitled "Knowledge, networks and nations: Global scientific collaboration in the 21st century".

Outside the top 10, Turkey improved its scientific performance rate at a speed almost rivalling China, with four times as many papers with Turkish authors published in 2008 as in 1996.

Meanwhile Iran was the fastest-growing country in terms of numbers of scientific publications, rising from 736 in 1996 to 13,238 in 2008.

 

Walter Derzko

Cancer drug found hiding in sunflower seed protein

Cancer drug found hiding in sunflower seed protein

 

UQ scientists have found sunflower proteins and their processing machinery are hijacked to make rogue protein rings in a discovery that could open the door to cheaper, plant-based drug manufacturing.

Dr Joshua Mylne, who led the research, has a personal connection with sunflowers - his grandfather, Alan Lemon, introduced them to Australian farms, creating a multimillion-dollar industry.

Now, Dr Mylne hopes his research has uncovered another use for these plants through the manufacture of cheap therapeutic drugs.

Dr Mylne and Professor David Craik from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience unpicked the way sunflower seeds assemble protein rings, one of which has previously demonstrated potential as a drug for cancer.

The study, published overnight in the international journal Nature Chemical Biology, showed that the machinery used to process and mature otherwise dull seed storage proteins is commandeered by a protein ring, SFTI, for its own use.

Dr Mylne and Professor Craik used the model plant Arabidopsis for their research, demonstrating that the sunflower protein production system could be moved into another species and thus SFTI could be manufactured in a range of plants.

While this work is of interest to researchers by providing an understanding of how new proteins can evolve and how proteins are matured, it has wider applications for drug production. SFTI can be used in its natural form to block breast cancer enzymes, and in a modified form to block enzymes associated with other types of cancer.

These proteins have not been broadly adopted by drug designers despite their potential to fight cancer because of the expense of producing them using traditional, synthetic manufacturing methods.

“Although SFTI and related proteins show great promise as drug templates, the cost to manufacture them is a significant barrier to widespread use,” Dr Mylne said.

“This issue could be solved through plant manufacturing. Seeds are an attractive system for the production of pharmaceuticals, as they are cheap to grow and their contents are stable at room temperature, and sterile inside their coat.

“There are also established systems in place for their production, harvest, storage and transportation, meaning they could be the ultimate low-cost drug delivery system.”

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council and is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NChemBio.542

 

http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=22878

Smart 'Artificial leaf' can power [low usage]households cheaply

'Artificial leaf' can power [low usage]households cheaply  [Hat tip to Steve Kutz]

Washington, March 28 (IANS) [Hat tip to Steve Kutz]The first practical 'artificial leaf', an advanced, next generation solar cell as big as a poker card, can produce power for households at a cheaper price.

The leaf mimics the photosynthesis process by which green plants convert sunlight and water into energy.

"A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades," said Daniel Nocera, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who led the research team.

"We believe we have done it. The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries. Our goal is to make each home its own power station," he said, according to an MIT statement.

"One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology."

The device looks like a poker card -- and not like an actual leaf. It is fashioned from silicon, electronics and catalysts, substances that accelerate chemical reactions.

Placed in a single gallon of water in a bright sunlight, the device can produce enough power for a house in a developing country for a day, Nocera said. It does so by splitting water into its two components -- hydrogen and oxygen.

The hydrogen and oxygen gases would be stored in a fuel cell, which uses those two materials to produce power, located either on top of the house or besides it.

Nocera points out that the first "artificial leaf" was developed by John Turner of the US National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado, it was highly unstable, hence impractical.

Nocera's new leaf overcomes these problems. It is made of inexpensive materials that are widely available, works under simple conditions and is highly stable.

These findings were presented at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. 

Walter Derzko

 

Remembering the Chornobyl nuclear accident 25 years ago

Remembering Chornobyl 25 Years Later-April 26, 1986
by Ihor Ostash-The current Ukrainian ambassador to Canada; former member of Ukraine parliament.
http://www.themarknews.com/articles/4499-remembering-chornobyl-25-yearslater
First Posted: Mar 25 2011 03:07 AM

Almost a generation has passed, but the world's worst nuclear accident continues to haunt the people of Ukraine.
Japan is in the midst of a terrible tragedy. A destructive natural disaster two weeks ago resulted in not only a tremendous loss of life and infrastructure, but also damage to the country's nuclear facilities, creating a potentially dangerous situation.

While workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant are fighting to prevent the worst from happening, perhaps we should take a moment to go back in time and look at another tragedy connected with the "atom for peace": the Chornobyl catastrophe. This is all the more important as we approach the 25th anniversary of this disaster.

The accident at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, which took place on April 26, 1986, resulted in the contamination of more than 145,000 square kilometres of land in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. More than five million people were affected and 5,000 communities were contaminated with radionuclides. The Chornobyl catastrophe  along with the Ukrainian famine, or "Holodomor",of 1932-33  has become a disaster for Ukrainians and for their development as a nation.

The Chornobyl accident dramatically changed the radiation environment in many European countries. About 200 species of radioactive isotopes moved for thousands of kilometres from the nuclear plant, and in May 1986, they were observed in all countries of the Northern Hemisphere, and in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans.

Immediately after the nuclear accident, the former Soviet leadership refused assistance and co-operation from the international community, and tried to hide the truth. Soviet officials also deceived their own people and forced them to participate in the traditional May 1 demonstration in Kiev  located only 110 kilometres from the disaster site. But those who had even minimal information about the dangers of the radiation did their best to remove their children from Kiev and away from the danger.
Many experts in political science believe that the behaviour of the Soviet authorities during and immediately after the Chornobyl accident became one of the crucial factors in the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Attempts to lessen the consequences of the accident at the Chornobyl Atomic Electric Power Station began almost immediately, with many firefighters, soldiers, and nuclear experts sacrificing their lives and health to rescue others. Within a few weeks of the accident, 30 employees and firefighters had lost their lives. From 1986 to 1987, more then 240,000 people were directly engaged in these activities; in fact, more than 600,000 have been involved from the time of the accident to the present day. A decision was made to create a 30-kilometre exclusion zone around the plant, and more than 116,000 people were evacuated from the cities of Prypyat and Chornobyl, as well as regional centres and villages within the zone. It was very difficult to persuade residents, especially seniors in the villages, to abandon the land of their ancestors, and all of their belongings and property. Some of them categorically refused to leave, while others returned to their native villages in the contaminated zone and continue to live there. According to different sources, 1,200 people returned to the zone in 1986-87, and about 300 remain. The Chornobyl disaster had a great social impact: 2.3 million people are
recognized as being affected by the accident, including more than half a million children. In the last 13 years, the number of such people decreased by 26 per cent, while the number of those considered disabled by the accident increased by almost 80 per cent.

According to a report of the United Nations Chornobyl Forum, more than 4,000 thyroid cancer cases were reported in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine in 1990-1992. There was also a high level of chronic diseases of the digestive, neurological, skeletal, muscular, and circulatory systems among those affected. But it is difficult to determine whether these illnesses were linked to radiation or to other
factors, such as changes in age, a declining quality of life, and post-accident countermeasures, such as relocation.

In the exclusion zone, direct economic losses to Ukraine amounted to about $1.4 billion, while between 1986 and 1991, the cost of mitigating the consequences of the disaster was about $6 billion. During the next 20 years, expenses exceeded $10 billion ¡V in some years reaching eight to 10 per cent of the entire state budget. But it is very difficult to precisely calculate all indirect costs caused by the
loss of contaminated agricultural lands, water, and forest resources. According to estimates from experts, total losses for Ukraine will reach $179 billion by 2015. Dec. 20, 1995 marked the beginning of the end for Chornobyl, when a memorandum of understanding between the Ukrainian government and the governments of the G7 countries and the Commission of the European Community was signed in Ottawa to close the plant. Five years later, on Dec. 15, 2000, at 1:17 p.m., the Unit 3 reactor was forever shut down by an order of the Ukrainian president. The plant stopped electric power generation.
Construction of infrastructure facilities is now under way within the framework of the international technical assistance program, according to the 1995 memorandum. In 1997, the Shelter Implementation Plan was launched by the G7 countries, along with Russia, the European Union, and Ukraine, together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The new shelter is intended to safely
confine radioactive substances for at least 100 years. This 20,000-tonne structure will enclose the residual waste contained within Chornobyl's reactor.

Taking into account the lack of prospects for constructing new energy or other economic facilities on the site, it¡¦s not likely that the Chornobyl area will be brought to ¡§green field¡¨ condition. It¡¦s accepted that the most reasonable final purpose for the site would be as a "brown spot.¨ According to the Chornobyl decommissioning program, decommissioning the plant and transforming the shelter into an ecologically safe system will take about 70 years. Started Dec. 15, 2000, the Chornobyl shutdown stage will be completed in 2013, after nuclear fuel is removed from Units 1, 2, and 3. The main activities currently being carried out at the units are the final shutdown of systems and equipment,
and the partial dismantling of decommissioned equipment. There are 312 systems and subsystems being shut down; 33 of them stopped operating in 2008. Post-Chornobyl, Ukraine continues to pursue a responsible nuclear policy. Another important step was reached in April 2010 at the Nuclear Security
Summit in Washington. Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych announced a decision to get rid of the country's stocks of highly enriched uranium by the next summit, scheduled for South Korea in 2012.
Ukraine is planning to hold several events this spring dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Chornobyl catastrophe. They include a nuclear safety summit and an international conference. We are expecting high-level representatives from Canada and other countries at these events. And we hope that donor states will make a financial contribution to cover a lack of finances to make the plant safe  the current shortfall amounts to $1 billion. The Chornobyl catastrophe proved  and the recent disaster in Japan confirmed  that nuclear accidents lead to global consequences and influence vital interests of many countries. The resources needed to overcome the consequences of such catastrophes go far beyond the economic and technological capabilities of an individual country and require a joint effort by the world community.

Japanese situation worsens: Japanese Plant's Plutonium Containment Vessel May Have Ruptured

N.B.  They've been pouring hundreds of thousands of gallons of sea water all week into  the 6 reactors. If there is no damage then the reactors shoud fill up with water quite quickly. If the containment vessels are cracked then this radioactive water is continuously leaking into the environment...no one is talking about this.  Like a bath tub without a cork to stop the water leaking out.                     

Japanese Plant's Plutonium Containment Vessel May Have Ruptured

March 25, 2011

The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant has admitted there may be damage to the protective containment vessel around the most dangerous fuel rods in the complex -- the plutonium fuel rods in reactor No. 3.

The admission comes after Japan's government announced that workers who suffered burns while trying to cool the crippled No. 3 reactor were exposed to radiation levels 10,000 times higher than expected.

The evidence has raised fears that the crucial containment vessel had, indeed, ruptured in the 9.0 magnitude earthquake of March 11 or subsequent explosions after a tsunami knocked out the cooling systems of the six reactors there.

Officials have previously said that small explosions at the reactor could have damaged it, but the high seepage of radiation could imply worse damage than previously believed.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the earthquake and tsunami alone topped 10,000 today -- and there is little hope of finding alive another 17,500 people listed as missing.

compiled from agency reports

When will the Recession End? Part 207 Economist magazine weighs in: Another year of living dangerously

Another year of living dangerously

Turmoil in the Middle East and disaster in Japan arouse economic angst. Central banks must not make it worse

Mar 24th 2011 | from the print edition

 

THIS was supposed to be a stress-free year for the global economy. By January the financial crisis had faded and Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis seemed less acute. America’s economy was resurgent. Investors piled into equities and sold some of the government bonds they’d bought for troubled times. If there was a worry, it was that emerging economies would grow too quickly, inflating commodity prices.

The year without crisis is not to be. First, Arabian upheaval put oil markets on edge. Then earthquake, tsunami and a nuclear accident clobbered the world’s third-largest economy. How much of a setback to growth do these twin crises represent? And how should economic policymakers react to them?

Japan’s share of world output has been shrinking for decades, but at 9% it remains large enough for the hit to the country’s growth to subtract noticeably from global output. Then there are the ripple effects on the rest of the world. Japan is a large—in some cases the sole—supplier of intermediate goods to the world’s electronics and automotive industries, from the hardened glass on Apple’s iPad to gearboxes in Volkswagens. Many makers of such parts have had to slow or halt shipments because of damaged roads, power cuts or the loss of components from their own suppliers. The effects have spread well beyond Japan, causing shutdowns from South Korea to Spain. Still, the history of such disasters is that much of that lost production is eventually recovered and reconstruction delivers a fillip to subsequent growth.

Pinpointing the impact of Arab political turmoil is complicated by the fact that oil prices were already rising thanks to a brighter global economic outlook. Nonetheless, a good portion of this year’s 25% increase seems due to worries over supplies. A rule of thumb holds that a 10% increase in the price of oil trims 0.2 percentage points from global growth. At the start of the year, the world looked likely to grow by 4-4.5%. A crude estimate is that the two crises will subtract between a quarter and half a percentage point from that.

That may not capture the full effect. Crises by their nature generate clouds of uncertainty (see article). Businesses postpone capital spending and hiring until the clouds clear. Investors seek the safety of bonds and lose their taste for equities.

Economic policymakers can’t make peace between Arab rulers and their people or stabilise Japan’s nuclear reactors, but they can minimise the collateral damage. The greatest burden is on the Bank of Japan. Its efforts to cure deflation over the past 15 years have too often been timid. That could not be said of its rapid response to the tsunami. It poured cash into the banking system in a pre-emptive strike against panic hoarding. And it expanded its purchases of government and corporate debt and equities. Still more “quantitative easing” can keep bond yields from rising as the government borrows for reconstruction, and help the fight against deflation.

What should the rest of the world do? In a show of sympathy the G7 joined the Bank of Japan in selling the yen after it spiked dramatically. Such actions should be limited, however. Japan is too dependent on exports and its priority should be stimulating domestic demand and ending deflation, not cheapening the yen. A better way for outsiders to help is to ensure that concerns over radiation in Japanese products do not become an excuse for protectionism.

Avoidable aftershocks

Other central banks face a more complicated task. Even as higher oil prices and hobbled Japanese production reduce growth they add to mounting inflation risks (Britain is now fretting over inflation of 4.4%). But most rich-world economies have ample economic slack, and in several countries fiscal tightening will tug at recovery. Britain’s coalition government has reaffirmed its commitment to austerity with this week’s budget (see article), and America has begun to cut spending. Both the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve should resist the temptation to tighten soon.

The European Central Bank seems intent on raising interest rates next month. That would be a mistake. In the euro zone underlying inflation and wage growth are both subdued and inflation expectations are under control. By raising rates the ECB would strengthen the euro and frustrate the efforts of countries like Greece, Ireland and—the next in line for bailing out—Portugal to grow their way out of their debts.

There is only so much economic policymakers can do about crises that spring from war or nature. In this case, the priority should be not making matters worse.

Source: http://www.economist.com/node/18440781

Walter Derzko