Future Scope, May-June 2010

TECHNOLOGY

Electric Cars That Charge Themselves

Materials scientists may have come up with the ultimate solution for keeping cars running: automobile body parts that store and discharge electrical energy.

The prototype material designed by researchers with Imperial College London, Volvo, and other partners is a lightweight composite of carbon fibers and a polymer resin, which could be used to replace metal flooring. Ultimately, the material could make hybrid gasoline/electric vehicles lighter and more energy efficient, allowing motorists to travel longer distances between recharges.

The material could also be used in a number of other applications, such as casings for cell phones and other electronic gadgets used on the go.

Source: Imperial College London, www.imperial.ac.uk.

HEALTH

Children with HIV Are Living Longer

Fewer children are dying of AIDS, thanks to the intensive antiretroviral treatments that have been prescribed since the 1990s, according to the National Institutes of Health. The death rate of children with HIV has been reduced ninefold, although mortality among children with HIV is still 30 times higher than among their noninfected peers.

The “cocktails” of multiple drugs used for highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) help ward off the opportunistic infections and other complications in HIV-infected patients. The death rate among HIV patients under age 21 has fallen from 7.2 per 100 in 1994 to a now-stabilized 0.8 in 2000, and the mean age at death has more than doubled, from 8.9 to 18.2 years old.

Source: National Institutes of Health, www.nih.gov.

ENVIRONMENT

Second-Hand Pollution

Recycling old equipment in developed countries for reuse in the developing world could be bad for the environment in the receiving countries, warns a research team from the University of Luxembourg and the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

Access to affordable tools and equipment has helped stimulate economic growth in the Third World, but these older technologies tend to be more polluting than newer, more-efficient manufacturing equipment. Thus, the short-term choice of purchasing equipment that is cheaper but dirtier may have long-term costs in increased pollution.

“Pressures put on developing countries in order to reduce their barriers to imports of used goods should thus be balanced against the costs of supplementary pollution that the use of older technology will induce,” the researchers conclude.

Source: “Polluting Technologies and Economic Development” by Luisito Bertinelli et al., International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 2010 (Volume 10, Number 1/2), Inderscience, www.inderscience.com.

GOVERNMENT

Alternatives to Prison

The United States could save $9.7 billion by exploring alternatives to imprisonment for low-level offenses, claims the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

In 2008, about 414,000 Americans were serving time for nonviolent, nonsexual crimes that do not involve significant property loss. Most would be eligible for alternative sanctions that would be less costly than incarceration, such as electronic monitoring or enrollment in drug treatment or work-release programs.

Such programs have proven effective in states where they have been implemented, according to the Council. The United States currently spends about $12.9 billion to incarcerate individuals convicted of these less-dangerous crimes.

Source: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, http://nccd-crc.org.

RESOURCES

Making Food Plants Climate-Proof

Agricultural scientists believe they have isolated the “thermometer” gene in plants that allows them to sense and adapt to temperature changes. The work could one day lead to crops that are impervious to climate change.

Researchers Vinod Kumar and Phil Wigge of the John Innes Centre in Norwich, U.K., discovered a mutant plant that seemed to grow as though it were in hot conditions, despite the temperature being turned down.

The defective gene gives the scientists a clue in plant growth switching mechanisms, which may permit them to create crops that could grow in any climate condition. Such a possibility would be a boon to places like Africa, where food production is predicted to decline dramatically over the next decade.

Source: John Innes Centre, www.jic.ac.uk.