One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies. The 2009 figures from the US Department of Agriculture shows ethanol production rising to record levels driven by farm subsidies and laws which require vehicles to use increasing amounts of biofuels. ‘The grain grown to produce fuel in the US [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels,’ said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington thinktank ithat conducted the analysis. Last year 107m tonnes of grain, mostly corn, was grown by US farmers to be blended with petrol. This was nearly twice as much as in 2007, when Bush challenged farmers to increase production by 500% by 2017 to save cut oil imports and reduce carbon emissions. More than 80 new ethanol plants have been built since then, with more expected by 2015, by which time the US will need to […]
Circumcision, long one of the most emotionally charged surgical procedures performed in the United States, has become the focus of yet another intense debate as leading health authorities are about to issue major new evaluations of the potential health benefits of the operation. The war of words over the procedure has been sparked by a decision by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue recommendations for the first time about whether newborn boys and possibly even adult men should undergo the common surgical procedure, just as the American Academy of Pediatrics is poised to revise its position of not recommending the operation. The two evaluations, which are nearing completion, come in the wake of new research indicating that the procedure has more health benefits than previously thought, including reducing the risk for getting the AIDS virus and contracting other sexually transmitted diseases. The rate at which U.S. male newborns are undergoing the procedure has dropped to about 56 percent since peaking at about 80 percent in the 1960s. The new data on its health benefits have prompted supporters of circumcision to call for greater efforts to encourage the surgery, but opponents liken the […]
Two competing pills to treat multiple sclerosis could reach the market this year or next, after excellent clinical trial results were reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. Until now the estimated 2.5m people worldwide with relapsing MS have been treated with injections that have only limited efficacy and serious side-effects. The two pills, cladribine and fingolimod, work much better than existing treatments or placebo, according to three large clinical trials with a total of 3,800 patients. ‘This is great news for people with MS and signifies a shifting tide in the treatment of the condition, said Doug Brown, biomedical research manager at the London-based MS Society. ‘Availability of oral therapies will give people greater choice, and being able to take a tablet instead of unpleasant injections will come as welcome relief. Until recently it seemed that cladribine, made by Merck of Germany, led the race to bring an MS pill to market. But fingolimod from Novartis of Switzerland may be catching up. The market for MS drugs is worth $7bn (ââ¬5bn, ã4.3bn) a year but this is likely to grow substantially when oral treatments become available. The latest clinical trials suggest cladribine and fingolimod […]
When the time came for chemical ecologist Walter Leal to test whether humans make a natural odor that attracts mosquitoes, Leal himself was the first to volunteer. ‘I measured my own levels,’ Leal said. ‘I thought I would set a good example. If you do it first, then others won’t be scared.’ In truth, there was little if any reason to be frightened. The scientists were looking only for the substance itself, not trying to find out whether the compound would lure the insects into a blood meal. And they found it - nonanal, a substance made by humans and birds that creates a powerful scent that Culex mosquitoes find irresistible. Leal only had to roll up his sleeve. His colleagues laid a syringe-like instrument next to his skin, and then wrapped his arm in aluminum foil to keep the environment confined. After an hour, the tip of the syringe was injected into a special machine to see if it contained nonanal and, if so, how much his body had produced. Plenty, as it turned out. ‘It’s there. I have lots of it,’ he said. ‘I think I released 20 nanograms in an […]
NEW YORK — Has the global economy recovered? Forecasters say there will be an uptick this year of 2.4 percent, but they’re forgetting something. China could fail soon, and, if it does, the world’s most populous state will drag the rest of us down. Skip to next paragraph At this moment, a Chinese crisis seems like the last thing we should be worried about. After all, last year China overtook America as the planet’s largest car market and passed Germany as the biggest exporter. On Thursday, Beijing announced that growth for the fourth quarter of 2009 was 10.7 percent and 8.7 percent for the entire year. Some analysts said the numbers were so strong that the country zoomed past Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. Stock markets, property prices, you name it: Everything Chinese is soaring. Dubai was once soaring, too. Global markets therefore, shuddered in November at the news that Dubai World, Dubai’s state investment firm and biggest corporate debtor, had asked for an extension on its $59 billion of obligations. Troubles in the booming emirate had been evident for some time, but stock investors were nonetheless caught unawares, apparently thinking a default would not […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
