Challenges

Changing ecosystems throw scientists mega-challenges

Accelerating environmental changes have presented humanity with some significant scientific and engineering challenges, according to the new National Science Foundation (NSF) report, Pathways to the Future: Complex Environmental Systems: Synthesis for Earth, Life and Society in the 21st Century. Among the changes the report cites are rapid shifts in climate and ecosystems, the degradation...

Measurement Challenges In Detecting Cancer Biomarkers

Effective control of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) requires treatment of the sexual partners of infected patients. A new study shows that providing infected men with antibiotics to give their partners is more effective than traditional means of contacting and treating the partners, according to an article in the Sept. 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. Men with...

Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative funds Yale project

Yale has been offered $17 million from the Grand Challenges in Global health initiative to genetically engineer mice with immune systems similar enough to humans to aid in testing the safety and effectiveness of potential vaccines. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Yale project will be headed by Richard A. Flavell, M.D., Sterling Professor and Chair of Immunobiology at...

Report focuses on challenges to unlocking future promise of vaccines

Vaccines have helped eradicate and tame some of history's worst infectious diseases, but there are many more diseases out there that vaccines can help overcome. The challenges society needs to confront to unlock the future promise of vaccines against the plagues of the 21st century are the focus of a new report by the American Academy of Microbiology. "The success of vaccines in controlli...

The brain, traffic and nano-circuits -- e-Science takes on major challenges

Research into three major scientific and technological challenges is to receive a major boost from the application of e-Science and grid computing. The challenges are, understanding the brain, mapping the detailed environmental impact of traffic and designing future generation nano-scale electronic circuits. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and other funding p...

Study challenges myth that sex late in pregnancy hastens birth

A new study debunks the widely held belief that engaging in sexual intercourse during the final weeks of pregnancy can hasten labor and delivery. In fact, just the opposite was true in 93 women studied at Ohio State University Medical Center. Women who were sexually active in the final three weeks of their pregnancies carried their babies an average of 39.9 weeks, compared to average deliv...

AIDS study challenges conventional treatment guidelines for HIV patients

A newly published study by investigators at the Center for AIDS Research at Case Medical Center, led by Benigno Rodríguez, MD, along with a nationwide team of AIDS/HIV experts, strongly challenges conventional thinking about the role of measurements of the amount of HIV particles in the blood as a method of predicting a patient's ability to fight off the disease. The study, published in the curre...

China's environmental challenges

It is the most populous country in the world. Half the country is arid or semi-arid and mountains cover three-quarters of it. Natural resources are scarce. Yet 1.3 billion people live in China, which is undergoing a remarkable rate of economic growth. At the same time, China's environmental problems of energy and water shortages, water and air pollution, cropland and biodiversity losses are e...

New study challenges 'critical period' in childhood vision development

Understanding how the human brain learns to perceive objects is one of the ultimate challenges in neuroscience. In 2003, Pawan Sinha, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, launched an initiative with the hopes of shedding some light on the acquisition of visual skills. The goal of his "Project Prakash" is to find, treat, and study congenitally blind children in India. A uniq...

Paper challenges 1491 Amazonian population theories

There's a scholarly debate brewing about whether pre-Columbian Amazonian populations settled in large numbers across Amazonia and created the modern forest setting that many conservationists take to be ‘natural.' This view has become fashionable among many archaeologists and anthropologists, and is challenged in a recent paper from Dr. Mark Bush of the Florida Institute of Technology. The...

The quest for an effective HIV vaccine presents new possibilities, challenges

A vaccine that prevents HIV infection remains an important goal in the fight against AIDS, but the current top HIV vaccine candidates may not work in this way, say scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Rather, the first successful preventive HIV vaccines, if administered prior to HIV infection, may reduce...

FDA sees nanotech challenges in every product category it regulates

WASHINGTON, DC—According to Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies Director David Rejeski, “Today, FDA took a step forward in fulfilling its responsibilities for nanotechnology oversight. If nanotechnology regulation was a baseball game, FDA has scored the first run in the first inning. But the agency must act rapidly to adopt and fully implement the Nanotechnology Task Force’s recommendations....