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NOVEMBER 20, 2006
Edited by Adam Aston GLOBAL WARMING Spreading Like Wildfire Even before five firemen were killed by fast-moving flames in California last month, it was a record year for wildfires. About 9.5 million acres of forest and grassland have gone up in 2006, a rate that's on track to double the recent annual average of 5.3 million. From the West to Texas to Florida, fires are bigger, longer, and more numerous than in any year since 1960, when records begin. The grim trend is in line with findings published in Science last July, when the fire season was still young. Using data since 1970, a multi-institution team found that fire activity leapt suddenly in 1987, as plant and soil moisture levels began to fall below a critical threshold earlier each year. The scientists contend that climate change, rather than forest management, is the culprit. Earlier springs, along with hotter, drier summers, are transforming moist plants from fire barriers into fuel. INNOVATIONS Of Corn Biodiesel And Just A Spritz Of Ethanol — VeraSun Energy has cooked up a novel way to get more fuel out of a bushel of corn: It plans to extract both ethanol and biodiesel from each kernel. The biodiesel comes from "dried distillers grain," the protein-rich matter that is left over after corn is distilled into ethanol. Typically, DDGs are sold as animal feed. But since they contain about 10% oil, VeraSun plans to use chemicals to extract and convert it to biodiesel before selling the leftovers as a lower-fat, higher-protein feedstock. For every 100 gallons of ethanol, VeraSun says its process can harvest about 8 gallons of biodiesel. — Just a spritz, rather than a slosh, of ethanol could deliver major mileage gains. Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists have found that a mist of ethanol sprayed directly into a hot cylinder can boost engine performance by up to 30%--even using regular, non-ethanol-enriched gasoline. In today's fuel, ethanol is mixed in at concentrations of about 10% and sometimes up to 85%. MIT's trick is to spray the ethanol in tiny computer-controlled doses. Injected at just the right time, the ethanol prevents efficiency-robbing engine "knock" and helps the motor do more work with each gallon of gas. The necessary engine modifications would cost about $1,000 per vehicle, the MIT team estimates. Their startup, Ethanol Boosting Systems, is working with Ford Motor to market the technology.   SURGERY Nice Stunt For A Stent: It Disappears For years surgeons have used biodegradable sutures made of polylactic acid to patch up patients. Now this material may improve the performance of stents used to prop open clogged arteries. Today's metal-mesh stents can lead to scarring in blood vessels. More advanced, drug-coated versions prevent this but can result in blood clots months or years later. The bioabsorbable stent, developed by Abbott Laboratories (ABT ), may reduce these risks. It's rigid enough to widen an artery, but begins to dissolve after 12 months. By that point the vessel has reshaped itself and can stay open without a prop, says Dr. John Ormiston of the Auckland City Hospital in New Zealand, who performed the first experimental im-plants on humans. Within three years, the stent is fully absorbed. Fresh clinical data on the stents are due next March. By Michael Arndt INFECTION Cleaner Tissue For Transplants Each year thousands of patients undergoing hip and knee surgery receive implants of bone, tendon, or ligament taken from deceased donor patients. Doctors first disinfect these tissues, but in rare cases they can still transmit serious infections, including hepatitis and HIV. NovaSterilis has a novel technique for sterilizing donated tissue that kills all common pathogens but leaves helpful cells intact. They expose the bone or tendon to carbon dioxide that has been compressed into a "supercritical" state, meaning it has properties both of a liquid and a gas. Supercritical carbon dioxide has been used for years to sterilize food products. Scientists at Cornell University decided to apply it to living tissue and licensed key technology from Dr. Robert S. Langer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not only does the technique kill off all the microbes, but in mouse experiments, bone that has been sterilized and transplanted back into the animals seems to promote new bone growth that signals acceptance, reports Cornell chemistry professor Bruce Ganem, an adviser to NovaSterilis. The company has begun to sell its system to tissue banks, which supply biomaterials to hospitals. By Neil Gross
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