Tag: economics
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New U.S. Start Ups Rise in 2010: That’s the Good News
According to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, American adults created 565,000 new businesses in 2010, which represents the highest level of entrepreneurship over the past 15 years. The foundation notes, however, that the dismal state of the economy and high unemployment may have pressed more individuals into going it alone, rather…
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Federal, Corporate Grants to Fund Manufacturing Technology
A new public-private partnership will deliver $4.5 million in grant funding to help small- and medium-sized manufacturers in the U.S. Midwest make better use of advanced digital technology. The grants include $2 million from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) and $2.5 million from private-sector, state, and institutional partners. The partners providing the $2.5 million…
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Blood Protein Test Can Reduce Heart Failure Readmissions
A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland indicates that a routine test for a protein in blood can reduce the number of hospital readmissions due to congestive heart failure. Their findings appear online in the American Journal of Cardiology (paid subscription required). Johns Hopkins research fellow Henry Michtalik and colleagues tested…
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USDA Tests Climate Change Impact on Arizona Wheat
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) research center in Maricopa, Arizona devised a method of testing the potential impact of warming temperature from climate change on the wheat crop in the U.S. southwest. The technology and the results are discussed in the February issue of USDA’s Agricultural Research magazine, and earlier in the…
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Canadians, Americans Get Different Drug Info in Web Searches
A research team at University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada report that Canadians and Americans get much different search results when they look up prescription drug information online. Their findings were published yesterday in the online issue of the Annals of Pharmacotherapy (paid subscription required). The researchers found residents of the United States…
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Michigan Start Up Company Licenses Biodiesel Technology
NextCAT Inc. in Detroit, Michigan says it has licensed biofuel catalyst technology developed at the National Biofuels Energy Lab at Wayne State University, also in Detroit. The company says the technology can help restart the biodiesel industry that has been mostly idle in the United States since 2008, when rising feedstock prices made the production…
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Cutting Waste and Costs in the O.R.
A team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins University schools of medicine and public health in Baltimore, Maryland has proposed ways of reducing the environmental footprint of surgeries without compromising patient care. Their recommendations, which also offer potential significant cost savings to hospitals, appear in the February issue of the journal Archives of Surgery (paid…
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HSBC Takes Climate Change Research to the Bank
The international financial company HSBC, headquartered in London, has become a champion of climate change, and says its business benefits as a result. Part of HSBC’s involvement includes committing its staff as volunteers in large-scale climate research projects, a story told yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science…
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USDA Funding Research on Climate Change, Agr Production
USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awarded three grants to study the effects of climate change on agriculture and forest production. NIFA Director Roger Beachy made the announcement today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. A research team led by Dr. Tim Martin,…
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Genetic Modification Leads to Longer Tomato Shelf Life
Researchers at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Beltsville, Maryland have introduced a new gene to tomatoes that help make the fruit last longer in stores and at home. The team published their findings in the February issue of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research magazine, and last fall in The Plant Journal (paid…