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The Department of Defense (DoD) today announced plans to award $15.7 million to 18 academic institutions in 14 states to perform research in science and engineering fields important to national defense. Thirty-one projects were competitively selected under the fiscal 2003 Defense Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DEPSCoR). The average award will be approximately $500,000.
Chances are you or someone you know is battling with a nasty cold right now. The cold bug is definitely biting its way into work places and schools all across the country, forcing millions of people to stay home. Catching a cold isn't cheap. A new study published in the February 24th edition of Archives of Internal Medicine reports that the cost to the U.S. economy is $40 billion a year - substantially more than other conditions such as asthma, heart failure and emphysema.
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced the award of two contracts totaling up to $20 million in first-year funding to develop safer smallpox vaccines. The three-year contracts were awarded to Bavarian Nordic A/S of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Acambis Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will administer the contracts.
America is facing a major roadblock to medical progress. For the speedy translation of promising scientific discoveries into patient treatment, we need a special breed of medical researchers who are trained to ask clinically relevant questions in a health research environment. It's these individuals who transform clinical observations into research studies and eventual medical advances.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced the first certification for fuel economy and emissions of a U.S. hydrogen fuel cell zero emission vehicle. This comes shortly after a Presidential commitment to further the progress of hydrogen fuel cells as a way to make the air significantly cleaner, and our country less dependent on foreign sources of energy.
Citing a need to reduce America's vulnerability to terrorism and minimize the damage and help recovery from attacks that do occur, U.S. President George Bush has requested a $36.2 billion budget for the new Office of Homeland Security. This represents a 7.4 percent increase in funding over FY2003, and a 64 percent increase ($14.1 billion) over FY2002, with over 60 thousand staff added to protect the country. The consolidation of numerous entities from Border Patrol to Coast Guard into the new Department is the largest federal reorganization in more than 50 years.
A comprehensive analysis by the University of California Auditor has favorably resolved 96% of procurement card transactions at the Los Alamos National Laboratory that were previously questioned during an external review. The new UC audit, released today (February 10, 2003), identified $195,246 in transactions that are being questioned for their allowability under the Department of Energy contract, due to incomplete documentation, technical deficiencies (e.g. missing approvals) or other reasons, including documentation destroyed in the Cerro Grande fire.
U.S. soldiers fighting in today's high-tech military force will be much more likely to survive traumatic brain injuries if University of Florida researchers succeed in developing a blood test to assess the severity of head wounds on the battlefield, U.S. Department of Defense officials say. Such a test can't come soon enough for the department, which has allocated $2.2 million to help scientists at UF's McKnight Brain Institute and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research develop the first routine diagnostic tool to define the scope of such injuries. Penetrating brain injuries claim 25 percent of soldiers killed in battle, according to department officials, yet there is no effective way to diagnose traumatic brain injury short of a brain scan, which is not practical in combat settings.
To detect toxic explosive residues in the soil - including unexploded artillery shells and other weapons - Florida researchers are using genetic engineering to modify microbes and plants that can be used as "biosensors." The three-year research project, supported by a $2.3 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency, will help clean up thousands of acres of land that have been used for military training in the United States and abroad.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has sent to Congress a fiscal 2004 budget request of $5.48 billion -- an investment representing what the agency believes will "sustain and build U.S. global leadership in science, engineering and technology, and help the United States address priorities of immediate national importance." The increase sought in 2004 over NSF's 2003 request would amount to about 9 percent. Although NSF's 2004 request calls for a 60 percent hike in major research equipment and facilities, the overall 8.5 percent increase sought for core research and related activities (people, ideas and tools) is at the heart of NSF's overall budget priorities for the coming year.
A simpler and more reliable manufacturing method has allowed two materials researchers to produce nanoscale magnetic sensors that could increase the storage capacity of hard disk drives by a factor of 1,000. Building on results obtained last summer, the new sensors are up to 100 times more sensitive than any current alternative technology, according to researchers Harsh Deep Chopra, University Buffalo associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Susan Hua, director of UB's Bio-Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems Facility and adjunct professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush announced a $1.2 billion Freedom Fuel initiative to reverse America?s growing dependence on foreign oil by developing the technology for commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells to power cars, trucks, homes and businesses with no pollution or greenhouse gases. The Freedom Fuel initiative will include $720 million in new funding over the next five years to develop the technologies and infrastructure to produce, store, and distribute hydrogen for use in fuel cell vehicles and electricity generation. Combined with the FreedomCAR (Cooperative Automotive Research) initiative, President Bush is proposing a total of $1.7 billion over the next five years to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells, hydrogen infrastructure and advanced automotive technologies.
Stanford University Medical Center researchers have found that it would be cost-effective to administer a vaccine to protect women against the virus that causes cervical cancer. Their projection, based on estimates of how effective and long-lasting a vaccine might be, was published in the January issue of Emerging Infectious Disease. The researchers found that even if a vaccine is only moderately effective, it could save 1,300 lives and prevent more than 3,300 cases of cervical cancer over the lifetime of an estimated 2 million study subjects.
"They're very good at what they do, says the U.S. Navy's Paul Armistead. Powerful even. They work fast, possess a tenacity that is remarkable, make it look easy, and they've been at it since the beginning of time. What's more, they do it underwater. Billions of them glue themselves to ship hulls and cost the U.S. Navy over $50 million a year in fuel costs alone due to friction and drag. What's worse is that each of the Navy's ships is obliged to be cleaned in port yearly ? sometimes even more frequently. We're talking the humble barnacle. Historically, everything from pitch to pesticides has been used to try to deter it, but nothing seems to repel completely this lowly, but determined crusty fouler. Now consider the sleek, smooth dolphin, which can spend its entire life in the water and never host a single barnacle, while a ship ? also designed with a smooth, sleek hull ? can develop a bad case of them in less than a month....
Smoking costs in California are nearly $16 billion annually, or $ 3,331 per smoker every year, according to a report by the UCSF School of Nursing Institute for Health & Aging. The healthcare costs alone would equal one-quarter of the projected state deficit, according to Wendy Max, PhD, co-director of the Institute for Health & Aging and UCSF professor of health economics. "Our study shows that even though tobacco control efforts in California are among the most successful in the nation, the cost of smoking in the state continues to increase," said Max. "These numbers should be a wake-up call that we need to continue our efforts to reduce the health care costs, lives lost, and pain and suffering caused by smoking."
