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Rice Bolstered for Climate Impacts by Fungus Spores
Rice can become adapted to climate change by colonizing its seeds or plants with the spores of tiny naturally occurring fungi, according to new research led by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The study is published online in the journal PLoS One. Rice, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, feeds half of the…
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Chemical Particles in Diesel Fumes Pose Cardiac Risk
Researchers at University of Edinburgh in the U.K. and colleagues in the Netherlands and Sweden have found that ultrafine particles from the burning of diesel fuel can increase the chances of blood clots forming in arteries, leading to a heart attack or stroke. Their findings appear in the current issue of the European Heart Journal.…
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Engineers Develop Nanotech Solar Thermal Fuel Cell
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a process for storing solar energy in the form of heat with a material based on carbon nanotubes. A description of the process by engineering professor Jeffrey Grossman and postdoc Alexie Kolpak appears online in the journal Nano Letters (paid subscription required). Grossman and Kolpak’s methods involve…
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FDA Issues Draft Guidance on Diagnostic/Therapy Companions
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a draft of guidance to encourage the development and review of diagnostics tests to help health care professionals determine if a patient should receive a particular drug therapy or its dosage. The agency is seeking public input on the draft guidance for 60 days. The draft document…
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Individualized Medical Cost-Effectiveness Metric Proposed
A physician and health economist at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto have devised a way to tailor a common measure of medical cost effectiveness for individual decision-making. Their findings appear in the current issue of the journal PLoS Medicine. John Ioannidis, chief of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, and health economist Alan…
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Quick Color-Change Lens Technology Leads to New Company
A professor of chemistry and colleagues at University of Connecticut in Storrs have devised a process for quick-changing, variable colors in films and displays, such as sunglasses. Greg Sotzing and one of his colleagues started a company called Alphachromics Inc. to commercialize the technology for consumer sunglasses lenses and military goggles. Transition lenses normally use…
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Study: Start-Ups Hiring and Keeping Fewer Workers
A new study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation indicates recent start-up businesses — like those formed by scientists to commercialize their research findings — are not generating the numbers of jobs created by earlier start-up businesses. The foundation says the trend of less hiring by start-ups pre-dates the 2007-2009 recession. The Kauffman findings show…
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Company-Institute Teams to Tackle Residual HIV Infection
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of National Institutes of Health awarded three research teams more than $14 million a year, for up to five years, to develop strategies to help rid the body of HIV infections. The grants to project teams composed of private companies and universities or research institutes are…
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Fewer VCs in U.S. Raise More Funds in First Half of 2011
According to Thomson Reuters and National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), the number of venture capital companies raising money in the first six months of 2011 dropped sharply, but the amount of funds collected also rose sharply compared to the first half of 2010. Venture capital (VC) companies are often sought out to invest in early-stage…
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New on Technorati: Health Care Costs and Health Care Spending, Not the Same Thing
There’s no argument about the need to cut government spending on health care. But when discussing health care you need to separate the ideas of spending from costs, since they can mean very different things. Read More: Generic Drugs Can Generate Sharp Health Care Cost Reductions * * *