Category: Regulations
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Combating Flu Epidemics Likely to Take More Than Vaccines
Researchers at MIT urge public health policy makers to rely on more than just vaccines to control future flu epidemics. Richard Larson and Stan Finkelstein of MIT’s Engineering Systems Division make their recommendations in this month’s issue of the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness (paid subscription required). Larson and Finkelstein (who is also…
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Robotic System to Test 10,000 Compounds for Toxicity
Three U.S. agencies have begun a testing program of some 10,000 chemical compounds for potential toxicity. The Tox21 program is a collaboration of National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, and Food and Drug Administration. The program aims to find out if these chemicals have the potential to disrupt human processes that can lead to…
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Report: Electrical Grid Needs Technology, Regulatory Changes
The electrical power grid in the U.S. faces significant changes in technology over the next two decades, says a new report from the MIT Energy Initiative, but the grid also needs regulatory, economic, and security upgrades to meet these changes. The authors — 13 MIT faculty members plus one author from Harvard — discussed the…
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Mobile Lab to Test Environmental Impact of Farms
The Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development, (Neiker-Tecnalia) in Spain has built a mobile environmental monitoring unit to assess on site greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions from farms. The measurements from the mobile lab will be used to assess techniques based on scientific protocols to ease the environmental impact of livestock farming developed by…
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Study Takes Down Renewable Energy Myths in the U.S. South
A study by researchers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and Georgia Tech in Atlanta analyzes myths propagated by both advocates and opponents of renewable energy and finds they don’t hold up to scrutiny. Their findings appear online in the journal Energy Policy (paid subscription required). Duke’s Etan Gumerman and Georgia Tech’s Marilyn Brown,…
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Research Project to Develop Salad Vegetable Safety Science
A new research initiative aims to provide U.S. growers and industry with the scientific basis to answer questions about the safety of salad vegetables. The research, led by University of Maryland food science professor Robert Buchanan, will conduct tests and collect data to develop safe and hygienic practices in farming, packing, transporting, and storing fresh…
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Trial Shows Safety of Engineered Gene Therapy
In an early-stage clinical trial, researchers at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill have demonstrated the safety of creating a genetically-engineered virus to treat a form of muscular dystrophy. The findings of pharmacologist Jude Samulski (pictured left) and colleagues are reported online in the journal Molecular Therapy; paid subscription required. With gene therapy, a…
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Contaminants in City Soil Found Similar to Industrial Sites
Engineers at University of Iowa in Iowa City tested residential soil in nearby Cedar Rapids after the city flooded in 2008 and found industrial pollutants similar to those found at industrial sites. The findings appear in the online issue of the journal Environmental Pollution (paid subscription required), and scheduled to appear in print in the…
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European Commission Approval Granted for Blood Pressure Drug
The pharmaceutical company Novartis in Basel, Switzerland says its drug Rasitrio has received approval from the European Commission (EC) for the treatment of hypertension or high blood pressure. The drug was designed for blood pressure patients who need multiple medications to treat their condition. Rasitrio has the compound Rasilez, an inhibitor of the enzyme renin…
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Commentary: Manufacturing the Health Care Venture Crisis
Rahm Emanuel, the current mayor Chicago and former chief of staff to President Obama, once famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) has gone Emanuel one better, using highly selected bits and pieces from an industry survey to predict an imminent retreat by investors…