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The end of drug discovery? 21 May 2012Last updated at 20:32 ET By Smitha Mundasad BBC Radio 4 Will we find new cures for the 21st Century? Half a century ago, in the drug industry's golden era, we were bestowed with countless pills to lower blood pressure, control blood sugar and get rid of infections. But today it costs about $1bn to bring a new medicine to market, a process that can take 15 years. The industry faces multiple crises as budgets are squeezed and tough scientific challenges loom. Academics and patients' groups are concerned we will not have the drugs necessary to treat future ills. Last year, the World Health Organization's director general, Margaret Chan, warned that the world was heading for a "post-antibiotic era". She raised fears that many common infections might no longer have a cure and could once again "kill unabated".
Major problems, Dr Chan suggested, included growing resistance to antibiotics. 'Inefficient model' But the old model of drug discovery is no longer working well. 'Better visibility' How Life Begins in the Deep Ocean - YouTube. Fab's Themes in Twitter & Blogs - Filed under 'human' World of 7 billion: What's your number? | Human World. The coolest thing I’ve seen today are the online “What’s your number?” Calculators, presumably showing your approximate birth order among those alive today. Where do you fit into this story of human life? Check out these links to find out. “What’s your number?” Calculator from the BBC “What’s your number?” Of course, the numbers don’t agree, and they’re only estimates after all. Who will be the 7 billionth human? In case you’re wondering, the number of people on Earth has more than doubled in the last 50 years.
Joel Cohen: Top 10 key population trends on Earth with 7 billion EarthSky award for excellence in population reporting in the year of 7 billion Population challenges to the year 2050: A compilation of articles on population from the award-winning EarthSky team. World Population: 7 Billion. The UN predicts the world's population explosion: visualised | Environment. Turn autoplay off Edition: <span><a href=" Sign in Beta About us Today's paper Subscribe Custom Search The UN predicts the world's population explosion: visualised With the population hitting 7bn this month Spanish design house Bestiaro's has produced this visualisation of the UN population data for us using its Impure design language. World news Population Global development Series More from Datablog on World news Population More blogposts More interactives Facts Are Sacred by Simon Rogers From the war in Afghanistan to the London riots, Facts Are Sacred is a full-colour collection of the most interesting findings from the Guardian datablog.
Hot topics © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Send to a friend Your IP address will be logged Share Short link for this page: Contact us Close. When analogies go bad. Lots has been written about the scientific method (and even I have written about it in a minor way in the past). The cycle of “make hypothesis, make predictions, test predictions, revise hypothesis, repeat” is the main thing people focus on when talking about how scientific progress happens. What’s less talked about is where the hypothesis comes from in the first place, which starts with someone (maybe you, dear reader) noticing something that needs to be explained.
This is harder than it may sound, because in order to see something that needs to be explained, you need to be able to see past the existing explanations. You need to notice that what the textbook says should happen isn’t quite correct, instead of falling prey to the temptation to edit what you’re seeing to match what you expected to see. You need, in short, to creatively ignore dogma.
And so it’s always interesting to me to watch what happens as a dogma begins to shift. Tail Short mutant mouse. Like this: Like Loading... Welcome. What is the difference between a buffalo and a bison?* The question of how a genotype (the arrangement of letters in DNA) maps to a phenotype (the shape and behavior of an organism) can be examined at many levels.
On the one hand, we’d like to know how small differences in DNA sequence determine differences between individual humans, such as susceptibility to disease, height, IQ, maybe musical talent… the list is long. On the other hand, we’d like to know which DNA differences determine the crucial differences between species. What makes the beak short or long or pointy, what makes the neck short or long, what determines the size of the average member of the species? Many of these factors can vary significantly within a species, too: take, for example, the enormous range of size that we see in dogs, from Elwood the 9cm-high Jack Russell to Giant George the 110cm-tall Great Dane. A recent paper (Yanai et al. 2011. The nice thing about these two frogs is that they go through almost identical developmental stages. Like this: Like Loading... Carbonnation - The Movie.
Energy Information. We launched Google PowerMeter as a free energy monitoring tool to raise awareness about the importance of giving people access to their energy information. PowerMeter included key features like visualizations of your energy usage, the ability share information with others, and personalized recommendations to save energy. We partnered with device manufacturers and utilities around the world. Many of our partners now have new options available for accessing energy information. We are pleased that PowerMeter helped demonstrate the importance of access to energy information, and created a model for others. We retired the service on September 16, 2011.
We continue to see encouraging results about the importance of access to energy data. A recent study by CenterPoint Energy Inc. and the Department of Energy found that 71% of customers reported changing their energy consumption as a result of accessing energy data through in-home displays. LUNA RING/Shimizu's Dream - Shimizu Corporation. LUNA RING Shimizu Corporation Développement durable et territoires - Économie, géographie, politique, droit, sociologie. Médiaterre - toute l'actualité du développement durable en langu. Hans Rosling on global population growth. Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool - Subscription. EcoLocalizer - Celebrating Local Environmental Action. Ecological Footprint Quiz by Redefining Progress. How Many Times Can You Recycle Paper: How Paper Is Recycled. Photo: tonx (flickr) How many times could you recycle a single sheet of paper before the fibers got too short and weak to hold together?
You’ve seen the recycling logo, three arrows pointing around in an endless loop. This is a little misleading though, because you just can’t recycle the same piece of paper endlessly. A sheet of paper is made of interlocking fibers, which originally started out as wood fibers suspended in water, a mixture known as pulp. As the pulp dries, the fibers stick together in an interlocking pattern. A good way to picture this is to imagine a bunch of cooked spaghetti. When you recycle paper, the paper is mixed with water, then ground up in a machine like a giant blender. How many times could you recycle a single sheet of paper before the fibers got too short and weak to hold together?
Global Footprint Network :: HOME - Ecological Footprint - Ecological Sustainability. Earth Overshoot Day. In 8 Months, Humanity Exhausts Earth's Budget for the Year August 20 is Earth Overshoot Day 2013, marking the date when humanity exhausted nature’s budget for the year. We are now operating in overdraft. For the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Just as a bank statement tracks income against expenditures, Global Footprint Network measures humanity’s demand for and supply of natural resources and ecological services.
In 1993, Earth Overshoot Day—the approximate date our resource consumption for a given year exceeds the planet’s ability to replenish—fell on October 21. Earth Overshoot Day, a concept originally developed by Global Footprint Network partner and U.K. think tank new economics foundation, is the annual marker of when we begin living beyond our means in a given year. The Cost of Ecological Overspending Methodology and Projections Click here for the 2013 press release. Colibris - Mouvement pour la Terre et l'Humanisme. Tout savoir sur le tri et le recyclage - Eco-Emballages. Développement durable. Sources d'énergie des réseaux de chaleur.