Tag Archives: alternative

Next Scientific Fashion Could be Designer Nanocrystals

Three University of Chicago chemistry professors hope that their separate research trajectories will converge to create a new way of assembling what they call “designer atoms” into materials with a broad array of potentially useful properties and functions.

These “designer atoms” would be nanocrystals—crystalline arrays of atoms intended to be manipulated in ways that go beyond standard uses of atoms in the periodic table. Such arrays would be suited to address challenges in solar energy, quantum computing and functional materials. (more…)

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Promising Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology for drug delivery shows promise in treatment of pediatric leukemia

Nanotechnology developed by Delaware scientists could potentially deliver chemotherapy to children in a way that attacks cancer cells without harming healthy cells, greatly reducing side effects.

The work, conducted by researchers in the University of Delaware’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research, was published this month in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics. (more…)

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Transforming America by Redirecting Wasted Health Care Dollars

Eliminating excessive spending could mean windfall for U.S., study suggests

The respected national Institute of Medicine estimates that $750 billion is lost each year to wasteful or excessive health care spending. This sum includes excess administrative costs, inflated prices, unnecessary services and fraud — dollars that add no value to health and well-being.

If those wasteful costs could be corralled without sacrificing health care quality, how might that money be better spent? (more…)

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Medication Beliefs Strongly Affect Individuals’ Management of Chronic Diseases, MU Expert Says

Health practitioners should use behavior-change tactics so patients take medications as prescribed

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Nearly half of patients taking medications for chronic conditions do not strictly follow their prescribed medication regimens. Failure to use medications as directed increases patients’ risk for side effects, hospitalizations, reduced quality of life and shortened lifespans. Now, a University of Missouri gerontological nursing expert says patients’ poor adherence to prescribed medication regimens is connected to their beliefs about the necessity of prescriptions and concerns about long-term effects and dependency.

MU Assistant Professor Todd Ruppar found that patients’ beliefs about the causes of high blood pressure and the effectiveness of treatment alternatives significantly affected their likelihood of faithfully following prescribed medication regimens. In his pilot study, Ruppar focused on older patients’ adherence to medication treatments that control high blood pressure, a condition that affects nearly 70 million adults in the U.S. and can lead to heart disease and stroke. (more…)

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National Deficit Outlook Unchanged Under Obama: UMD Policy Analysis

Public Policy’s Philip Joyce Offers Election Policy Fact Check

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – From a public policy point of view, the national debt accumulation since President Obama took office is largely a result of policies put in place prior to his inauguration, says a new analysis by University of Maryland expert Philip Joyce. He adds that Obama’s policies will make little impact in the debt over the next decade.

“The best that can be said about presidential fiscal policies thus far is that they would slow the bleeding, but they neither would stop it nor would they do much to heal the patient,” Joyce says.

The size of the debt has been one of the biggest issues of the presidential campaign, with Republicans arguing that the President has allowed the debt to rise out of control and Obama saying that he inherited the policies that led to an increase in debt and deficits. (more…)

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Mapping Grasslands for Biofuel Potential

USGS scientists have developed a new method for mapping grasslands that demonstrate high potential for growing biofuel crops with relatively little energy input and environmental impact.

The pioneering investigation used remote sensing data from satellites to identify detailed areas of the Greater Platte River Basin (most of Nebraska, parts of adjacent states) that are best suited for producing cellulosic (from the cell walls of plants) biofuel derived from hardy switchgrass, a native plant that grows wild or is easily cultivated. (more…)

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Between the Nightmare of the Gulf and the Magic of Solar Impulse

While the BP Deepwater Horizon well spits tens of thousands of barrels of oil offshore on the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental disaster of proportions never before imagined, a beautiful new kind of bird flies silently in the skies on its first test flight. 

(more…)

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