Bacteriophages, a class of viruses that only attack bacteria, have been controversial ever since their discovery by a brash, young, self-taught researcher named Felix d’Herelle nearly a century ago. In the 1920s and ’30s, before the advent of antibiotics, doctors using phage therapy reported near miraculous cures for infections, even at the critical stage. The treatments, however, didn’t work in every case, and after the discovery of much more reliable antibiotics, starting with penicillin in the 1940s, phage therapy was ushered off the medical stage in the United States and Western ... Read More
Can Farmed Fish Flourish on a Veggie Diet?
February 16, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Seafood reached a tipping point in 2009 when, for the first time, more than 50 percent of fish used for human consumption came from farms. That might sound like good news for oceans, but farmed fish largely subsist on a steady diet of smaller fish, which are caught from fragile fisheries. It’s not a sustainable equation. Aaron Watson, a researcher at University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science, says there is clear evidence that we are “fishing down the food chain, catching smaller and smaller fish to bring to the table and to bring to market, depleting wild ... Read More
Among Antibiotics, Resistance Knows No Bounds
September 15, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Since penicillin was isolated from a fungus in 1929, mankind's stockpile of antibiotics has expanded to include a diversity of life-saving compounds. However, from streptomycin in the 1940s to synthetics such as ciprofloxacin in the late 1980s, they are losing their effectiveness. While the idea that we are losing some potent antibiotic weapons is widely known, that's not the same as it being widely understood, says Jo Handelsman, Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor of microbiology at Yale University. She cautions that what researchers know and what the public knows are not the ... Read More
Building Cities With Sustainability in Mind
April 12, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
A leading ecologist says if we want to build sustainable cities, we need to start with our money on our minds, and our minds in the gutter. William Patrick Lucey, an aquatic ecologist and special adviser to the British Columbia government on water policy, says little has changed in the way we have built cities in the 2,000 years since the Roman empire. Aside from some notable improvements in sanitation, and perhaps civility, our infrastructure still follows the Roman model; centralized water works, all-weather roadways with engineered drainage, and municipal sewers to whisk away our ... Read More
Pollinating Local Is the New Buzz
February 1, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Scientists say if bees were better homebodies it might be better for them and for us. During a few weeks in February, some 1.5 million honeybee hives will be drawn from all over North America for a pilgrimage to California, in which they will descend on the state's almond groves at a critical moment in the trees' flowering cycle. More than three quarters of North America's honeybees will arrive in the Central Valley just in time to pollinate the $2.3 billion almond crop. And when their work there is done the beekeepers will fan out with their bees to provide the same service for nearly ... Read More