Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Researchers Discover Potato Blight-Resistant Gene
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Wisconsin researchers announced they had discovered a gene that confers blight resistance on potatoes.
The late blight fungus was partly responsible for the great Irish famine of 1845 in which more than 1 million people died, and blight is still a major source of potato crop loss around the world.
Researchers discovered the blight resistant gene in a wild variety of potato, and then inserted the gene into other varieties. In initial testing, the genetically modified potato was much more resistant to the blight.
Researcher John Helgeson said of the GM potato that, “So far, the plants have been resistant to everything we have thrown at them.”
The availability of a blight resistant potato would dramatically reduce the amount of pesticides that farmers today have to apply to kill the fungus. In warm climates, for example, pesticides have to be applied as frequently as 25 times a year to keep the disease in check.
More research is needed on the GM potatoes, and a blight resistant potato is unlikely to reach market for at least five years.
Source:
Blight-resistant gene ‘could have averted potato famine’. U-TV, July 15, 2003.
GM potato is ‘blight resistant’. The BBC, July 15, 2003.
UW Researchers Develop Blight-Resistant Potato. Wisconsin Ag Connection, July 16, 2003.
Tags: Uncategorized
Bacteriophage Vaccines?
The BBC recently ran an article on the state of research into using bacteriophages to vaccinate against diseases.
A bacteriophage is a virus that attacks bacteria but which is generally harmless to human beings. The Soviet Union researched using bacteriophages to attack bacterial disease, but researchers are currently focused on using bacteriophages as vaccine delivery vehicles.
Such research relies on the fact that in some cases injecting a DNA strand of a virus into an animal creates an immune response to the protein that the DNA expresses. If a genetically engineered bacteriophage could be developed that would contain DNA of common viruses that would then elicit an immune response when injected into human beings, this would drastically reduce the cost of producing vaccines because the bacteriophages could be cheaply grown in culture.
The major obstacle is that so far this phenomena has only been reproduced in mice and other small animals. Even there, however, bacteriophage vaccines could positively impact human health. For example, researchers at the University of Florida are investigating using bacteriophages to prevent and treat Vibrio vulnificus which is the leading cause of death associated with eating seafood. Researchers are looking at using bacteriophages to purify oysters of V. vulnificus before they reach the tables of consumers.
As the research in animals continues, scientists learn more about bacteriophages and their possible role in vaccination that could someday lead to breakthroughs in understanding how they could be applied to vaccinating human beings.
Source:
Hope for cheaper, better vaccines. Richard Black, The BBc, June 5, 2003.
Tags: Uncategorized
Study: Encouraging Breastfeeding in Developing Countries Could Save Lives
The BBC published an article outlining how an emphasis on breastfeeding in developing countries could substantially reduce infant deaths.
The BBC cites a recent Lancet study that found children born to mothers who went through a program designed to encourage breastfeeding had a third lower incidence of diarrhea at six months, and a 15 percent lower incidence at six months than the general population.
Maharaj Bhan of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences told the BBC,
Our findings indicate that promotion of exclusive breastfeeding until age six months in a developing country settling through existing primary-health-care services is feasible, does not lead to growth faltering, and reduces the risk of diarrhea.
Additionally, educational intervention greatly improved the rates of exclusive breastfeeding, as previously indicated by the results of two community-based trials, which assessed the use of peer counselors, and several hospital and clinic based programs.
Apparently significant numbers of mothers in developing countries will give infants water and/or tea based on traditional beliefs. Infants need lots of iron to avoid anemia, and tea tends to inhibit iron absorption.
Source:
Breastfeeding could save lives. The BBC, April 25, 2003.
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A Closer Look at the Rice Genome
Researchers at the University of Arizona and The Institute for Genomic Research have been taking a closer, detailed look at the rice genome and are finding some surprising results.
The rice genome was decoded in 2002, but that effort was essentially a rough draft that relied on automated processes to quickly sequence the DNA of rice. The work on the rice genome at The Institute for Genomic Research is more labor intensive laboratory-bases work. TGIR researcher C. Robin Buell compares the difference between the two as looking at the universe through an off-the-shelf telescope compared to looking at it with the Hubbell Telescope.
The latest look at the rice genome has focused on sequencing the smallest rice chromosome, chromosome 10, and discovered that it had twice as many genes as the initial rough draft indicated. Judith Plesset of the National Science Foundation said in a prepared statement that, “One of the lessons here is, ‘Don’t think you know everything simply because you’ve done the draft.’”
Researchers compared chromosome 10’s proteins to the proteins found in a mustard plant, Arabidopsis, whose genome has been completely sequenced. They found that about two-thirds of the proteins in chromosome 10 were also present in arabidopsis, indicating, according to a press release that,
. . . some of the specific genes responsible for enzyme production, binding of nucleic acids, cell growth and maintenance, cell communication, immunity, development and other functions and processes.
Researchers also found a stretch of heterochromatin on chromosome 10 — a compact string of DNA with few genes whose biological function remains unknown.
Japanese and Chinese research groups have largely finished sequencing chromosomes 1 and 4 respectively, and a full sequence of chromosome 3 is expected by the end of the year.
Source:
Going with the grain: A tale of rice’s smallest chromosome. Press Release, National Science Foundation, June 5, 2003.
Tags: Uncategorized
Commonwealth to African Nations: Stop Changing Your Constitutions
Commonwealth Secretary General Donald McKinnon made a trip to Zambia recently where he stated the obvious — African states need to stop changing their constitutions so frequently or no one will take the documents seriously.
The Times of Zambia summarized his comments by writing,
. . . [Luskin said] that constitutions should not be changed for the sake of it but only when absolutely necessary.
. . .
He gave an example of the United States (US) constitution which has been in existence for over 200 years but had been amended only on a few occasions.
“The US constitution is a solid document that has been amended on a number of times and mainly it has been to fit into the modern times,” he said.
In fact sometimes it seems some developing nations have had more constitutions than the U.S. constitution has amendments (okay, that is an exaggeration but not by much).
A bigger problem is establishing a political culture that sees a constitution a document that is untouchable except in extreme situations, which has not always been easy to establish even in the United States (as prohibition certainly demonstrated). That requires political parties to subjugate their goals to a constitutional political process which can often be frustrating, rather than pursuing extra-constitutional solutions at the drop of a hat which seems to happen all too frequently in developing countries.
Source:
‘Club’ chief cautions Africa over constitutions. Times of Zambia, June 16, 2003.
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Enviros vs. Enviros on Wind Power
The New York Times carried an interesting article on June 5 about environmentalists squaring off with other environmentalists over wind farms designed to harness the wind to produce energy.
Wind farms never made much sense when you have such other viable low-footprint options such as nuclear power, but the federal government offers tax breaks to wind farms and hence people are beginning to build more of them — and some environmentalists are beginning to apply the same obstructionist tactics that they would normally apply to more traditional power generating projects.
It was objections from environmentalists such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for example, that were responsible for bringing to a halt — at least temporarily — construction of the first off-shore wind farm in the United States. The wind farm was to have been placed of Cape Codd in Nantucket Sound, but the power generating facility is just too ugly to be tolerated.
As businessman Wayne Kurker told the New York Times on why he opposed the wind farm,
I didn’t like the idea that what we consider our Grand Canyon was all of a sudden going to be industrialized.
I.e., generate low-polluting electricity, just do it in someone else’s backyard.
Charles Komanoff, who the Times describes as a “longtime economic consultant to environmental groups” told the Times that such motives are just selfish,
They want to have it all and they won’t brook any trade-off, especially a trade-off that sacrifices their own comfort.
The American Wind Energy Association tells the Times that although wind power generates less than 1 percent of the electricity produced in the United States, by 2020 they predict that will be up to 6 percent. I suspect that prediction’s just a lot of hot air.
Source:
Windmills sow dissent for environmentalists. Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York Times, June 5, 2003.
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Brazilian President Offers Hunger Fund Proposal
At the recent G8 summit in France, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva offered an intriguing proposal — institute a global tax on arms sales and use the money for a hunger fund to alleviate hunger.
Lula told the G8,
My proposal is the creation of a global fund capable of feeding those who are hungry and at the same time creating the conditions to eradicate the structural causes of hunger.
Like I said, an intriguing proposal but not likely a realistic one. The obvious response to the existence of such a fund would be for developed countries to reduce their aid to forestall hunger on the grounds that now there is this new fund to take up the slack.
It is also difficult to understand how Lula thinks the mere presence of such a fund would be able to solve the structural causes of hunger. Has he taken the time to add up all of the money spent over the last 50 years on this problem and just how ineffective such efforts have been? If simply throwing money at developing nations worked, hunger would have been eradicated decades ago.
Source:
Lula proposes hunger fund. The BBC, June 2, 2003.
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Ben Wattenberg on the Coming Population Implosion
Ben Wattenberg wrote a nice summary of the unprecedented changes in population back in March following the United Nations downward revisions of its population estimates.
Wattenberg wrote,
Now, in a new report, United Nations demographers have bowed to reality and changed this standard 2.1 [total fertility rate] assumption. For the last five years they have been examining one of the most momentous trends in world history: the startling decline in fertility rates over the last several decades. In the United Nations’ most recent population report, the fertility rate is assumed to be 1.85 not 2.1. This will lead, later in this century, to global population decline.
It is startling to realize that the decline in fertility rates has occurred almost as quickly and unexpectedly as did the massive increase in population in the 20th century. As late as the 1960s, Wattenberg points out, total fertility rates in developing countries was averaging 6.0. Today, that average has declined by more than half and rests at 2.9 and still declining.
Once again, the population doomsayers completely underestimated the ability of human beings to modify their behavior for the pure selfish pursuit of self-interest. The same increase in wealth that led to the population explosion also ultimately created economic incentives for couples to limit family size. Once effective contraception, education and other goods reached even less developed nations, people decided on their own (for the most part) to have fewer children.
One area where Wattenberg underestimates the power of people to change is how Europe will face what Wattenberg calls the birth dearth,
Nations with low fertility rates, meanwhile, will face major fiscal and political problems. In a pay-as-you-go pension system, for example, there will be fewer workers to finance the pensions of retirees; people will either have to pay more in taxes or work longer.
No, they’ll likely choose the third option — replace such anachronisms with alternatives (and since people in those countries will likely be even wealthier 50 years from now than they are now, the current political objections to such a solution will likely decrease).
The real danger, which Wattenberg also mentions, is the possibility that the 21st century will end with China and India having huge advantages in population and at best a questionable dedication to liberal values (China, obviously, could remain a dictatorship while India has recently seen a revival of Hindu extremism).
The United States seems likely to maintain its middle road and continued world dominance. Unlike Europe, the U.S. total fertility rate hovers above 2.1 and it continues to accept more immigrants than any other nation. As a a result, the U.S. population will likely increase by another 100 million people in the 21st century.
Source:
It will be a smaller world after all. Ben Wattenberg, New York Times, March 8, 2003.
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CDC Reports Large Declines in Measles Deaths
According to data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, an estimated 777,000 children died in 2000 from measles. Deaths from measles makes up much of the 1.7 million annual deaths that the World Health Organization estimates could be prevented by vaccination, and it was the fifth leading cause of death in children under 5 years of age.
The 2000 figure marked an 11 percent decline in estimated measles deaths from 1999, however. In 2001, WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund created a Global Measles Strategic Plan whose goal was to cut measles deaths in half by 2005.
In order to reach that goal, vaccination rates in Africa and Asia would have to rise significantly. The CDC notes that in 2001-2002 WHO and other organizations raised $40 million which was spent on an intensive vaccination program targeting children 14 years and under in several African nations. The CDC reports that preliminary, unpublished data from WHO suggests that this had an immediate, significant impact on measles cases in those countries.
Sources:
Mass vaccination programs cut world measles deaths. Reuters, May 22, 2003.
Update: Global Measles Control and Mortality Reduction — Worldwide, 1991–2001. Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Review, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, May 23, 2003.
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Predicting an End to Oil . . . Again
Reuters featured a long article on author Richard Heinberg who has written a book guaranteed to attract attention — he’s the latest in a long line of folks predicting that this time the world really is about to run out of oil and all sorts of catastrophes will ensue.
According to Heinberg,
The party, which is the past 200 years of fossil fuels use, is coming to an end, and we have the choice as to how to bring that party to an end. Either we do it voluntarily or it will be thrust upon us.
Heinberg, of course, envisions industrial countries “run[ing] the movie of globalization in reverse” with some sort of ecotopia where urbanization declines, people buy their power from cooperatives that utilize solar power, and everyone abandons cars for bikes and walking. Ugh.
Heinberg, like others before him, insists that otherwise there will be a calamity. Remember, like the calamitous transition from coal to oil in the 19th century. Why do these environmental types always assume that transitioning away from oil will of necessity be calamitous? As Ron Minsk, an economist who worked for the Clinton administration, points out
(An alternative to oil) is presumably going to cost more, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be catastrophic and it doesn’t meant that the change is going to be abrupt, it could be a smooth transition.
In fact it will likely be a smooth transition. Despite Heinberg’s claims, oil is likely to persist at relatively low prices for the rest of this century. But there are numerous other efforts to find alternative fuel sources in progress. These will likely be adopted initially where they offer some sort of benefit to a specific application that oil or other traditional power generation methods lack. As mass production there gears up, the price will come down and the oil alternative will begin to gain ground where previously oil had an advantage.
This is already beginning to happen with fuel cells. Fuel cells aren’t close to being competitive with oil yet, but there are some applications where fuel cells have a clear advantage over other methods of providing power. For example, there are efforts to create a fuel cell laptop battery. What’s the advantage of using a fuel cell-based system? It could last about 10 times as long as a standard lithium ion battery before requiring recharging. Even if it’s more expensive, that’s a benefit that many people would be willing to pay for. And as such products lead to mark, inevitably new innovations and techniques in using the technology will appear that have application in other areas.
Finally, Heinberg uses a very misleading claim about oil exploration. Heinberg quotes geologist Colin Campbell as claiming that, “We now find one barrel of oil for every four we consume.”
But with oil today hovering at $26/barrel and only recently coming out of a period when the price of oil hit record lows, there’s not exactly a lot of incentive to invest heavily in oil exploration. That we consume more oil than we find at the moment says more about the current state of the world oil market than about how much oil is left in the ground waiting to be discovered.
Source:
The oil-consumption party is over, author warns. Reuters, May 13, 2003.
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