Failure to meet United Nations sanitation target could affect millions of the world's poorest
Worldwide, billions of people lack access to a reliable source of safe drinking water and basic sanitation facilities. To address the problem, the United Nations established the Target 10 initiative, which aims to halve the proportion of people without sustainable acces...RNA enzyme structure offers a glimpse into the origins of life
... been the first self-replicating molecule to arise billions of years ago on the evolutionary path toward the emergence of life. In all forms of life known today, the synthesis of DNA and RNA molecules is carried out by enzymes made of proteins. The instructions for making those proteins are contained in gen...Winner of Tyler Environmental Prize announced
...ing highest priority to the quality of life of the billions of poor people on this planet who are deprived of clean drinking water and sanitation." Compared to energy-intensive traditional processes, anaerobic treatment actually produces energy in the form of methane gas, which can be reused as fuel. In ad...Stem cell therapy shows promise in regenerating damaged muscle in heart attack patients
... appropriate environment. One donation can produce billions of MSCs. The cells can be stored for years in a frozen state, ready to be used when they are needed." Adult stem cells are designed by nature to perform tissue repair in a mature adult. It is believed that these cells can be used in patients unrela...International risk research strategy and funding needed for nanotech safety
...notechnology is an area of research that could add billions of dollars to our economy, but that wont happen if it is shrouded in uncertainty about its consequences. The American government needs to take action urgently in three critical areas of nanotechnology: first, documenting what relevant risk researc...New science of metagenomics 'will transform modern microbiology'
...other functions necessary for survival. There are billions of benign microbes in the human body, for example, that help to digest food, break down toxins, and fight off disease-causing microbes. Microbes are used commercially for many purposes, including making antibiotics, remediating oil spills, enhancing...3.2 billion-year-old surprise: Earth had strong magnetic field
...ficult enough, but these rocks have also witnessed billions of years of geological activity that could have reheated them and possibly changed their initial magnetic record. To reduce the chance of this contamination, Tarduno picked out the best preserved grains of feldspar and quartz out of 3.2 billion-year-......credible promise of the fast emerging fieldand the billions in public and private investment that it has attractedthe Wilson Center's Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) launched today a new series of NanoFrontiers newsletters and podcasts focused on progress toward exciting applications on the horizon...Marine reserves could save coral reefs
...te (limestone) secreted over thousands of years by billions of tiny soft bodied animals called coral polyps. Coral reefs are the world's most diverse marine ecosystems and are home to twenty-five percent of known marine species, including 4,000 species of fish, 700 species of coral and thousands of other pl...Nanotechnology requires immediate changes in EPA
...notechnology is an area of research that could add billions of dollars to the U.S. economy, but that won't happen if it is shrouded in uncertainty about its [environmental, health and safety] consequences.' " The report provides a thorough analysis of how nanotechnology can serve as a catalyst for change in...Adult stem cells from human cord umbilical cord blood successfully engineered to make insulin
...an individual and grow them in the laboratory into billions of cells, Denner explained. Then, for a person with type 1 diabetes, researchers might engineer these cells to become islets of Langerhans, the cellular masses that produce the hormone insulin, which allows the body to utilize sugar, synthesize prote...Massive herds of animals found to still exist in Southern Sudan
... deforestation east of the Sudd wetlands. With the billions being spent annually in Southern Sudan by the international community, almost nothing is being spent on natural resource management, particularly on wildlife conservation, said Undersecretary Akwoch. We need donors, partners and well wishers to recog...University of Washington researchers play leading role in major study of human genome function
...hods for finding these unfolded regions within the billions of DNA bases on the genome. First, they used an inexpensive enzyme, called DNaseI, as a molecular bloodhound. When it is injected into a living cell, the enzyme seeks out regions of unfolded chromatin that correspond to functional elements. By mappin...Mucosal-surface immune function discoveries could boost vaccine research
...dle. "The answer lies in a surprising place -- the billions of epithelial cells that line the gut, urogenital tract and respiratory mucosa," explains co-lead author Dr. Bing He, an investigator in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Up to now, biologists have typically thought of epithelial c...Turn-ons and turn-offs for neurons
Our brain consists of billions of nerve cells enabling to learn, remember and reason. Every time we think and experience, touch, smell or fear, millions of neurons in our brain becomes active. These nerve cells communicate with each other by chemical and electrical impulses to com...NJIT professor says certain home shapes and roofs hold up best in hurricane
...r for people, while saving government and industry billions of dollars annually. Design of Low-Rise Buildings for Extreme Wind Events (Journal of Architectural Engineering, March, 2007) by Taher highlighted such research findings. Wind researchers at the Center for Building Science and Technology (CSTB) in ...UN issues analysis of global investors' sustainable energy 'gold rush'
...urces is sure to rise substantially as the tens of billions of new investment dollars bear fruit. Says UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner: One of the new and fundamental messages of this report is that renewable energies are no longer subject to the vagaries of rising and falling oil pricesthey are beco...New method for reading DNA sheds light on basis of cell identity
...gle-molecule sequencing makes it possible to read billions of DNA letters simultaneously. Single molecule-based methods for decoding DNA are now throwing open the doors to a plethora of unexplored questions in chromatin, epigenetics and many other areas of biology, said Bernstein. Empowered by this new te...Measuring the unseeable: Penn researchers probe proteins' dark energy
...re very small, but very fast, on the time scale of billions of movements per second, explains Wand. Proteins just twitch and shake. The internal motion represents a type of energy called entropy. Current models of protein structure and function used in research and drug design often do not account for their...AAAS analysis finds Congress would add billions to FY 2008 R&D investment
...ate and House of Representatives are poised to add billions of dollars to the fiscal year 2008 research and development (R&D) budget, with much of the proposed new funding targeted for environmental, energy and biomedical initiatives, according to a new report by the R&D Budget and Policy Program of the Ameri...