New Haven Independent

Science/ Medical

Dr. Lee Joins The Team

by Thomas MacMillan | Dec 14, 2012 12:49 pm | Comments (2)

He’s got a laser system to track bullet trajectories. He’s got a database of 40,000 sneaker-prints. He’s got ground-penetrating radar. Now New Haven cops have all that—and Dr. Henry Lee himself—on their side.

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Earthlings Probed On Mars Invasion

by Thomas MacMillan | Aug 8, 2012 8:11 am | Comments (2)

Is the Red Planet hiding little green men? Will NASA’s rover “Curiosity” find anything but dust and rocks on the surface of Mars? Will the exploration be a tiny step towards interplanetary colonization?

And what happens if the Martians turn the tables and land a craft of their own on New Haven’s Green?

New Haveners on the Green pondered those questions as a recently landed NASA probe rolled across the surface of Mars on Tuesday (or whatever day it was on the Red Planet).

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Chemical Safety Law Advances

by Gwyneth K. Shaw | Jul 25, 2012 11:00 am

(NHI Nanoblog) Democrats in the U.S. Senate are forging ahead with efforts to break a decades-old logjam and reshape the federal law governing toxic chemicals.

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on Wednesday approved an amended version of the Safe Chemicals Act, which would revamp a 1976 law, the Toxic Substances Control Act. The new bill, based on legislation pushed for several years by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, would shift much of the burden of assuring the safety of chemicals from the Environmental Protection Agency to manufacturers.

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Add Beads, Remove Arsenic: Shrimp Shells Clean Water

by Gwyneth K. Shaw | Jul 12, 2012 11:00 am

The beads look like Tic Tacs, with the slightly springy texture of a gel cap full of medicine.

This isn’t a breath mint or a dose of Tylenol, but a new way to remove a toxin from water—and save countless lives.

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“Paralysis” On Nanosilver?

by Gwyneth K. Shaw | Jul 6, 2012 12:55 am

(NHI Nanoblog) Amid the latest in a long list of scientific reviews of the potential problems posed to people, animals and the environment by super-small silver particles, two Danish researchers say it’s time to stop pondering—and start regulating.

In a sharply-worded commentary recently published online by the scientific journal Nature Nanotechnology, Steffen Foss Hansen and Anders Baun make a simple point about what’s typically pitched as a complicated question about whether nanosilver should be controlled by new laws in Europe.

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Congress To FDA: Study Nano Safety

by Gwyneth K. Shaw | Jun 27, 2012 11:55 am

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will soon have a new nanotechnology safety program, thanks to language tucked into a massive legislative package that’s on its way to President Obama.

U.S. Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, both Democrats, pushed for the program to be added during Senate debate last month. The revamped bill cleared the House last week and passed the Senate, 92 to 4, on Tuesday. Obama is expected to sign it.

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Alexion Sales Could Hit $1B; Who Gets The Jobs?

by Gwyneth K. Shaw | Jun 25, 2012 8:17 am | Comments (9)

Imagine a disease in which a part of your immune system runs wild, destroying red blood cells and causing blood clots, strokes and, often, death within a few years.

Now imagine a treatment that can curb that runaway process, saving the red blood cells and therefore the patient.

And try imagining lots of people in New Haven finding work—helping to create or market treatments like that one.

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GAO: Clearer Information Needed On Super-Small Safety Efforts

by Gwyneth K. Shaw | Jun 21, 2012 2:58 pm

A new audit says federal government is spending more on research exploring the potential environmental, health and safety implications of ultra-tiny materials, but needs to track projects better and offer clearer goals for how to best answer the main questions about these substances and their use in a wide variety of products.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) did the audit, tracking spending by seven of the 26 agencies involved in the National Nanotechnology Initiative between 2006 and 2010. (Click here to read it.)

The GAO found that funding earmarked for environment, health and safety, or EHS, research more than doubled over that time, from $38 million to $90 million. But auditors raised questions about the numbers, and the impact those dollars are having.

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Real Products, Different Results

by Gwyneth K. Shaw | Jun 15, 2012 10:36 am

(NHI Nanoblog) It’s become a rallying cry for some researchers who are scrutinizing the potential health and environmental effects of super-small particles: Test the products that use nanomaterials, not just the substances themselves.

A new study looking at the exposure risk of nano-enabled cosmetic powders offers a powerful validation of that argument. The researchers conclude that the hazards are different from what might be expected, given the size of the particles involved.

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Study: Some Nanoparticles Show Link To Autoimmune Diseases

by Gwyneth K. Shaw | Jun 13, 2012 7:05 am

(NHI Nanoblog) Does breathing in super-small particles of carbon and silica lead to the same kind of health problems caused by smoking or smog? Researchers in Ireland and the United States think they’ve found a reason to think it might.

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