In The News

Cell Out

David A. Shaywitz July 26, 2006
When US President Bush vetoed stem-cell legislation, he did not stop scientists from pursuing stem-cell research. The US creates hundreds of thousands of embryos for infertile couples, many of which are disposed of or frozen, but prohibits federal funding to study any new embryo lines created after August 2001. Researchers hope to use the cells to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, diabetes and...

From East to West

Rana Rosen July 24, 2006
As the nation debates the value of immigration, the US Senate has eased restrictions for nurses from India. Nurses from India used to travel to the Middle East, with less stringent test requirements, to earn high wages, but encountered restrictions and segregation. With countries such as Australia, Ireland and the UK setting higher standards for foreign nurses, some in the nursing profession...

Gates Won't Fund AIDS Researchers Unless They Pool Data

Marilyn Chase July 21, 2006
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, run by the chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, will deliver $287 million in five-year grants to researchers working to produce an AIDS vaccine. The caveat: Grantees must agree to pool their results. Fragmented and overlapping work in the area of AIDS research has hindered progress toward a vaccination for the virus that affects 40 million people around...

Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow

Keith Bradsher June 16, 2006
Currently, China uses more coal than the US, the European Union and Japan combined. China’s global-warming gases such as carbon dioxide will “probably exceed that for all industrialized countries over the next 25 years,” note journalists Keith Bradsher and David Barboza in “The New York Times.” These emissions have widespread impact, increasing global temperatures and releasing harmful sulfur...

Borders Fall for These Doctors

Arin Gencer June 13, 2006
Services emerge that connect physicians across the globe. Currently, medical outsourcing is limited to radiology, particularly employing physicians through an agency called NightHawk Radiology Services, based in Idaho, as well as other agencies in Switzerland, France, the UK and the Middle East. Doctors work at night in one nation and send images for analysis by alert radiologists based in other...

Cooking the Climate With Coal

Jeff Goodell June 7, 2006
Recognizing limited energy supplies, the world turns to coal for fuel. Coal meets about half of US energy needs, about 70 percent for China. Anticipating strict regulatory limits, countries like the US have stepped up coal mining and construction of coal-burning power plants. But Author Jeff Goodell suggests that relying on coal is dangerous, from mining accidents to air and ground pollution....

Pollution Killing River They Said Was Too Big to Poison

Jonathan Watts June 6, 2006
The Yangtze River cuts a horizontal swath across the middle of China, supporting 400 million people, or one out of every fifteen on earth. Long thought to be immune to acute pollution because of its size, a report by the state-sponsored Xinhua news agency has shown that poisonous water threatens marine life and drinking supplies. Despite regulations, sewage from factories, cities and ships has...