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President Bush today signed into law Project BioShield, which provides new tools to improve medical countermeasures protecting Americans against a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) attack. The President first proposed Project BioShield in his 2003 State of the Union address and Congress approved it last week. Project BioShield is a comprehensive effort overseen jointly by Secretary Thompson and Secretary Ridge, and involving other Federal agencies as appropriate, to develop and make available modern, effective drugs and vaccines to protect against attack by CBRN weapons.
We present the narrative of this report and the recommendations that flow from it to the President of the United States, the United States Congress, and the American people for their consideration. Ten Commissioners-five Republicans and five Democrats chosen by elected leaders from our nation's capital at a time of great partisan division-have come together to present this report without dissent. We have come together with a unity of purpose because our nation demands it. September 11, 2001, was a day of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United States. The nation was unprepared. How did this happen, and how can we avoid such tragedy again? To answer these questions, the Congress and the President created the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Public Law 107-306, November 27, 2002).
President Bush today signed bipartisan legislation designed to make America safer in the face of a biological attack. Bush signed the Project BioShield legislation at a ceremony in the Rose Garden. The president thanked the Senate and House members from both parties who worked on and sponsored the legislation. Project BioShield grew out of the desire to protect Americans from the threat that terrorists armed with biological weapons pose to the United States.
Ecologists must take their science in bold new directions if humans and the natural systems on which they depend are to coexist in the future. So states the Ecological Society of America's (ESA) just-released action plan, ''Ecological Science and Sustainability for a Crowded Planet.'' Prepared by a 20-member ESA committee at the request of the Society's Governing Board, the report calls for greater use of ecological science in decision-making, research targeted at sustainability of a human-dominated Earth, and cultural changes within ecology.
The same stuff that stains your coffee mug could reduce pollution in the computer hard-drive industry, while saving drive makers millions of dollars in manufacturing costs. The compound is derived from the tannin phytochemicals commonly found in plants. Green tea has a lot of them. John Lombardi, president of Tucson-based Ventana Research Corp. combined phytochemicals from green-tea extract, synthetic proteins and an abrasive to produce a lapping slurry that is three to four times faster at polishing magneto-resistive heads than the ones currently in use. An added bonus -- one that could save millions of dollars for hard-drive manufacturers -- is that it's also environmentally friendly.
With a budget deficit estimated at $521 billion this year, coupled with a commitment to halve it in five years, U.S. President Bush is proposing a budget that would mean cuts in research and development (R&D) funding for all but three federal agencies, according to the latest analysis from AAAS, the non-profit science society. "The projected cuts to most nondefense R&D programs would leave key programs with budgets well below recent historical levels," said Kei Koizumi, director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program. "Particularly during a Presidential election year, it's important for policymakers and taxpayers to understand the impacts of any federal budget changes, especially any proposals that may have implications for the pace of scientific discoveries in coming years."
Dr. George E. Pake, the founder of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, passed away on March 4, 2004 after a prolonged illness. The world lost a preeminent research leader, an accomplished scientist, and an extraordinary human being. Dr. Pake is best known for leading the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) from its inception in 1970 until 1978 and overseeing Xerox Corporate Research from 1978-1986. He was responsible for fashioning an institution whose unique and enduring culture spawned such innovations as laser printing, Ethernet, the graphical user interface, client-server architecture and many of the ideas that define modern computing.
The American Society for Cell Biology, a nonprofit organization representing basic biomedical researchers in the United States and 45 other countries, said it objects to the decision by President Bush to remove biologist Elizabeth Blackburn from his Presidential Bioethics Council. Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, who served as ASCB President in 1998, was reportedly terminated from service on the Council with a late Friday afternoon call from the White House.
More than 60 scientists -- including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors and university chairs and presidents -- issued a statement calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. According to the scientists, the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels.
Some pundits have discussed recently whether President Bush's Iraq and economic policies have been failures ? and whether they might signal an overall failure of the Bush presidency. But not long ago many of these same pundits were praising Bush for his determined leadership. And if recent presidential history is any indication, it may be too soon to assess what Bush has accomplished, said John Kessel, a professor of political science at Ohio State University. Kessel recently discussed how Bush's policies are being assessed in light of a study he did that examined presidential successes and failures of nine recent presidents ? Eisenhower through Clinton. In that study, Kessel found that successful policies dominated failed policies by a ratio of three to two.
Saria Mohamed Hassan's dream of becoming a doctor was interrupted for a year when she left the United States to conduct a brief malaria workshop in Dakar, Senegal, and then found herself stranded in a bureaucratic no-man's land: Her international student visa had expired while she was away, and her bid to renew it quickly became mired in a massive, ever-growing backlog of cases under review. Faced with a seemingly impenetrable firewall of post-9/11 security procedures, the Sudanese medical student eventually lost a year's worth of classes at Harvard.
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced agreement with Chinese Vice Premier and Health Minister Wu Yi to increase collaboration with China toward improved detection and management of infectious diseases. The agreement stems from President Bush's pledge to Chinese President Hu Jintao to provide resources necessary to help stem the SARS epidemic in China.
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced today the release of a $150 million solicitation for a project that will spur the development of both hydrogen vehicles and hydrogen infrastructure needed to support them. This solicitation represents a critical step in implementing President Bush's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and supports his FreedomCAR Initiative.
Building upon its leadership position in robotics research and development, and in recognition of the increasing benefits robots are bringing to society, Carnegie Mellon University has established "The Robot Hall of Fame" to honor noteworthy robots, both real and fictional, along with their creators.
Vitamin C helped convert mouse embryonic stem cells growing in the laboratory to heart muscle cells, researchers report. This basic-research discovery could lead to future research on ways to treat people suffering from damaged heart muscle. "Although the findings of this study are very preliminary with respect to their impact on human lives, this line of research has enormous implications for the future care of thousands of patients who develop heart failure each year," says Robert O. Bonow, M.D., president of the American Heart Association.
