Science and Enterprise

Month: August 2011

  • USDA Develops Cooked Corn-Soy Meal Supplement Product

    The Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has developed a fully cooked food-aid product called Instant Corn Soy Blend that supplements meals, particularly for young children. The work was led by food technologist Charles Onwulata at the USDA’s Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania. A nutritionally fortified and processed corn-soy blend…

  • More Antidepressants Prescribed for Non-Psychiatric Disorders

    Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland and Columbia University in New York find that the rapid growth of prescriptions for antidepressant medications has been fueled by orders from non-psychiatrist providers and without any psychiatric diagnosis. The paper by Ramin Mojtabai of Johns Hopkins and Columbia’s Mark Olfson appears in the August 2011 issue…

  • FDA Approves First Treatment for Scorpion Stings

    The Food and Drug Administration approved Anascorp, the first specific treatment for a sting by Centruroides scorpions, commonly known as the Arizona Bark Scorpion in the United States. The drug was developed by Rare Disease Therapeutics Inc. in Franklin, Tennessee, licensing research by University of Arizona in Tucson and and two research institutes in Mexico.…

  • Electronic Glove Helps Improve Sense of Touch

    Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have developed a glove that adds a small vibration to one of the fingertips to improve tactile sensitivity and motor performance. Details of the device and preliminary test results were presented in May at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Shanghai. Georgia Tech engineering…

  • To Grow Economies with Small Businesses, Think Local

    Economists at Pennsylvania State University have found that small, locally owned businesses and start-ups tend to generate higher incomes for people in a community. Stephan Goetz and graduate student David Fleming from the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development at Penn State published their findings in the August issue of the journal Economic Development Quarterly…

  • System Being Developed to Watch for Airport Runway Debris

    A German consortium of companies, university, and Fraunhofer institutes are developing a system with multiple technologies to monitor the presence of debris on airport runways that can make them unsafe for aircraft. A piece of metal that fell off another airplane is blamed for the crash of the supersonic Concorde jet that followed on the…

  • Nanotech Coating Helps Reduce Flames in Polyurethane Foam

    Researchers from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Texas A&M University in College Station have developed carbon nanofiber-filled coatings that outperform conventional flame retardants used in the polyurethane foam found in upholstered furniture and mattresses. Their findings appear in a recent issue of the journal Polymer (paid subscription required). Ignition of soft furnishings…

  • Candidate Drug Starves Cancer Cells of Energy Source

    Researchers from the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand have identified a compound that deprives some cancer cells of their energy source, the sugar glucose. The compound is packaged in a drug candidate licensed for pre-clinical testing to a company founded by one of the study’s senior authors. The findings appear in the 3 August issue…

  • Hopkins to Study Creating Blood Platelets from Stem Cells

    Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland have begun a study of inherited blood clotting abnormalities focusing on the potential creation of human platelet cells from stem cells. The study is funded by a $9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The grant is part of an overall NIH initiative on genetic…

  • Oxford, Illumina to Sequence 500 Human Genomes

    Oxford University in the U.K. and Illumina Inc. in San Diego will collaborate on a project to sequence the whole genomes of 500 people with a range of life-threatening diseases. The research will explore how whole-genome sequencing can improve diagnosis and treatment decisions for individual patients. Illumina is a developer and manufacturer of genomic analysis…