Month: September 2010
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Innovation Challenge Yields Type-1 Diabetes Ideas
A collaboration between Harvard University and innovation/crowdsourcing company InnoCentive generated nearly 200 ideas for new strategies to cure Type-1 diabetes, with the 12 winners announced yesterday by Harvard. The winners each received a $2,500 prize. The program was funded by an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant to Harvard Catalyst, the university’s cross-disciplinary clinical and…
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First Wave Energy Device Connected to Power Grid
Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) in Pennington, New Jersey, says it has completed the first-ever grid connection of a wave energy device in the United States at Marine Corps Base Hawaii on Oahu. The grid connection uses OPT’s PowerBuoy systems to produce what the company calls utility-grade, renewable energy that can be delivered compliant with national…
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Industry’s 2009 R&D Spending Rises at Universities
The National Science Foundation Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges reports that private companies significantly increased their percentage of R&D spending on science and engineering at American universities in the government’s 2009 fiscal year. R&D spending at universities from all sources increased to $54.9 billion from 2008 to 2009, an increase…
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Technique Revealed to Curb Farm Ammonia Emissions
A soil scientist and engineer team at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has found a way for dairy farmers to reduce ammonia emissions from their production facilities: injecting liquid manure into crop fields below the soil surface. A study conducted by soil scientist April Leytem and agricultural engineer David Bjorneberg at the ARS Northwest…
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Stem Cell Source Collection Gets Review Board OK
International Stem Cell Corporation (ISCO) in Oceanside, California, said today that its unfertilized egg collection and activation protocol have received the approval of an Institutional Review Board (IRB). IRB review and approval is a Federal requirement for studies with human subjects, and ensures to protect subjects from unnecessary medical risks. ISCO’s work has resulted in…
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Korea Boosts R&D Budget, Targets Economic Growth
The Korea Herald newspaper reports today that the Korean government plans to increase the budget for its Ministry of Knowledge Economy by 7 percent in 2011 to KRW 4.5 trillion (USD 3.9 billion), with most of the funds going to research and development that benefits sustainable economic growth. The plans released today show substantial increases…
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Nestlé to Open Health Science Subsidiary and Research Institute
Nestlé, the global food and health products company based in Switzerland, announced today the creation of Nestlé Health Science S.A. and the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences to expand the company’s industrial presence in nutrition and wellness. Nestlé says the two new organizations — one an operating division and the other an R&D center —…
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Study: Tactile Signals Can Give Directions to Drivers
A new study finds drivers talking on cell phones and not hearing spoken instructions from a passenger or navigation system, can still get directions from devices mounted on the steering wheel. Nate Medeiros-Ward, a psychology doctoral student at University of Utah in Salt Lake City will present the findings tomorrow at the annual meeting of…
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U.K. Partnership to Research TB Testing Methods
A collaboration between the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the U.K.’s national measurement institute in Teddington, England and Orla Protein Technologies, a biotech company in Newcastle upon Tyne, England has been awarded £91,000 ($US 144,000) by the U.K. Technology Strategy Board to investigate improved methods for the detection of tuberculosis (TB). The U.S. Centers for Disease…
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Trial Shows Positive Results for Hodgkin Lymphoma Drug
Seattle Genetics Inc., a biotech company in Bothell, Washington, and and Millennium, a developer of cancer drugs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, today released positive top-line results from a trial of their drug brentuximab vedotin. The drug is antibody-drug conjugate that works like an antibody carrying molecules toxic to cancer cells, targeted to CD30, a marker for…