#Google Facebook Others Launch Sustainability Platform Unilever Coca-cola Google Facebook Nike Pepsico and dozens of other major companies and nonprofits have launched a digital sustainability platform
intended to drive conversation and action on sustainability. The companies say the nonprofit editorial platform called Collectively aims to#make sustainable living the new normal.#
#Collectively brings together global sustainability nonprofit Forum of the Future with some of the biggest companies in the world.
Unilever BT Group Coca-cola Marks & spencer and Carlsberg came together to sponsor Collectively in response to discussions at the World Economic Forum about how to inspire
and accelerate more sustainable ways of living. They have since been joined by more than 20 other leading multinational companies including Diageo General mills Johnson & johnson Mcdonalds Microsoft Nestl
#and Dow chemical. The sponsoring companies want to broaden the coalition to include more NGOS youth organizations and other brands.
Collectively represents a new approach to the way businesses engage consumers on sustainability according to the coalition.
The sponsors say they hope it will grow the marketplace for sustainable products and services.
Earlier this week 57 global companies funds and associations including Unilever Ikea Royal dutch shell and Coca-cola Enterprises signed a letter to support a#robust#2030 energy
and climate policy for European union states a
#NYC's 10-Year Plan Sets New Standards for Other Cities Last week, the day after the eople Climate Marchand right before the United Nationsclimate Summit, New york city
Mayor de Blasio announced that the City is committing to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent over 2005 levels by the year 2050.
This bold initiative, strongly supported by the City council and a diverse network of community-based organizations,
Transforming New york city Buildings for a Low-Carbon Future plan. A sweeping ten-year plan aimed at retrofitting New york public and private buildings
in order to dramatically reduce the city contributions to climate change, while spurring major cost savings and creating thousands of new jobs for those who need them most.
This makes New york the largest US city to commit to the 80 percent reduction by 2050, in line with the IPCC recommended reduction target for climate stabilization,
with currently approximately three quarters of the city greenhouse gas output stemming from energy expended to heat,
cool and power its buildings. In particular, New york is poised to make direct investments to increase the efficiency of every single city-owned building,
including schools and public housing, with any significant energy use which amounts to approximately 3, 000 buildings.
They will be retrofitted by or before the year 2025, with interim goals along the way.
Furthermore, New york city will spur private building owners to invest in building efficiency upgrades, with ambitious interim targets and incentives to catalyze voluntary reductions,
while implementing mandates that trigger if such interim reduction targets are met not. This should lead to retrofits of tens of thousands of privately owned buildings.
The plan is herewith not so much focused on the city large real estate owners and management companies, who already now
what this is aboutaccording to Bill Goldstein, a senior adviser to Mayor de Blasio, but rather on the numerous smaller building owners who need to be encouraged to embark on the retrofit journey.
In addition to the plan leading to considerable carbon emission reductions in the order of 3. 4 million metric tons a year by 2025, the resulting upgrades should help protect many lower-income citizens from rising utility bills
and stimulate demand for jobs in the construction and energy services sectors. ne City: Built to Lasttherewith explicitly links building efficiency improvements to other key city goals of reducing social inequality
and improving the local economy. The plan has in short been informed by five key guiding strategies in order to achieve the greatest benefits from the efforts that will be put in,
comprising: 1. Lead by example; 2. Empower New yorkers to take action; 3. Hold New york city buildings to the highest energy performance standards;
4. Ensure benefits are shared by New yorkers in every neighborhood; and 5. Use data analysis, and stakeholder feedback to drive the approach.
Drilling further down into the actual measures proposed under the plan, a key aspect will be to expand
and accelerate the City efforts to implement energy efficiency and renewable energy across its own municipal building portfolio.
This will range from promoting deep energy retrofits or piloting new technologies on City-owned properties to investing in training opportunities for its workforce.
Nonetheless, a thriving, self-sustaining private sector market for energy efficiency upgrades and renewable energy generation will be essential if New york city is to achieve its goals.
Ample (real or perceived) market barriers currently prevent many building owners and decision-makers from taking action
even when it is in their economic interest. The City will therefore aim to play a key role in reducing
Overall, New york city recently released ne City, Built to Lastten-year plan sets a new standard for major cities aiming to pursue energy efficiency.
The approach as put forward doesn rely on high tech-driven solutions such as e g. the rollout of smart grids,
and accelerate building energy efficiency projects. Although the plan doesn spell out yet how exactly New york city will push the private sector to act in case voluntary action doesn result in the intended uptake
with some groups wary of leaving too much of the plan to market forces, this effort is a clear example of the concerted and decisive action needed from cities as the world key consumers of energy.
#Hospital Sustainability Spending on the Rise Fifty-four percent of global health care professionals say their hospitals currently incorporate sustainability into purchasing decisions
and 80 percent expect that to be the case in two years according to a Harris Poll commissioned by Johnson & johnson. The global findings are similar to those of US health care providers where 52 percent say their hospitals currently incorporate sustainability into purchasing
According to respondents their hospitals have plans in place for minimizing environmental impact when using or disposing of medical products.
Globally respondents report their hospitals prioritize sustainability purchasing as follows: About eight in 10 respondents say sustainable products help protect hospital staff
and more than half say green initiatives help improve health outcomes and are an important factor for patients
when choosing a hospital. Health care professionals also agree it makes good financial sense for hospitals to go green both in the US (79 percent) and globally (69 percent) and report a strong commitment to sustainability from top hospital management
at 67 percent in the US and 60 percent globally. In regard to purchasing US respondents report the most important sustainability considerations are followed energy efficient devices by recyclable packaging latex free devices products designed for multi-use devices free of heavy metals
reduced packaging size and products including recycling content in packaging. The survey results are in line with a 2012 report released by Johnson & johnson
which showed that hospitals were placing greater emphasis on green products used in patient care and throughout their facilities.
Last year Johnson & johnson launched a recycling campaign on Tumblr with the goal of encouraging consumers to recycle bathroom products instead of throwing them in the trash h
#Intel Smart city Tech Furthers City's Green Goals Intel and the city of San jos Calif. are collaborating on a public-private partnership to further the city s Green Vision goals.
The project known as Smart cities USA is expected to help drive San jos s economic growth foster 25000 cleantech jobs
and create environmental sustainability. The pilot program in San jos is Intel s first smart city implementation in the US.
The scalability of Intel architecture enables the intelligence and flexibility necessary for cities across the country to quickly deploy a range of smart city solutions for everything from air
and water quality to traffic and parking management to communications systems and other city infrastructure the company says.
The joint project was selected to be showcased this week as part of the White house Smartamerica Challenge. The program is A white house Presidential Innovation Fellow initiative that aims to bring together research in Cyber-Physical Systems
and the internet of things and combine test beds projects and activities from different sectors including smart manufacturing healthcare smart energy intelligent transportation and disaster response.
The goal of the Smartamerica Challenge is to show tangible and measurable benefits to the US economy and the daily lives of American citizens.
Cities consume two-thirds of the world s energy according to the UN. To address the escalating demands of existing and future residents cities are looking for ways to introduce more technology to become smarter about the use of limited resources The Smart cities USA pilot project will give San jos residents real-time local data that can
inform their personal decisions. For example the community will better understand how they can help Spare the Air on poor air quality days.
When there is a local air quality alert residents can choose to take public transit bicycle or carpool to get to work
or school and thus reduce emissions and improve air quality. San jos known as the Capital of Silicon valley is installing a network of sensors to create a sustainability lens that uses Intel technology to measure characteristics such as particulates in the air noise pollution and traffic flow.
Such measurement data will produce meaningful insights that will lead to improvements in air quality noise transportation efficiency environmental sustainability health and energy efficiency.
This project also aligns with the San jos Green Vision a long-term sustainability initiative adopted by the city in 2007 to protect the environment stimulate economic growth
and achieve sustainability. City governments are projected to collectively invest about $41 trillion over the next 20 years to upgrade their infrastructure.
Intel says its technology can help cities cost-effectively manage infrastructure growth and resource sustainability that can help them meet the demands of escalating population rates.
The city of San jos has installed a sensor demonstration platform using Intel Gateway Solutions for the Internet of things with an Intel Quark processor and third-party sensors.
Each gateway incorporates Wind River Intelligent Device Platform software with Mcafee security features connected to Intel s Hadoop distribution in the cloud.
IBM and Cisco are the top smart city suppliers positioned to become global leaders in the market according to a July 2013 Navigant Research report.
The firm forecasts that the global smart city technology market will grow from $6. 1 billion in annual revenue in 2012 to $20. 2 billion by 2020 0
#Tiny needles could target drugs to front of eye Georgia Institute of technology rightoriginal Studyposted by John Toon-Georgia Tech on November 14 2014microneedles almost too small to be seen with the naked eye may offer the best way
to treat glaucoma and corneal neovascularization two of the world s leading eye diseases. The microneedles range in length from 400 to 700 microns
and could provide a new way to deliver drugs to specific areas within the eye relevant to these diseases.
By targeting the drugs only to specific parts of the eye instead of the entire eye researchers hope to increase effectiveness limit side effects
and reduce the amount of drug needed. Glaucoma affects about 2. 2 million people in the United states
and is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide. The goal is to develop time-release drugs that could replace daily administration of eye drops.
A painless microneedle injection made once every three to six monthsâ##potentially during regular office visitsâ##could improve treatment outcomes by providing consistent dosages
which could overcome patient compliance issues. In the second disease corneal neovascularization corneal injury results in the growth of unwanted blood vessels that impair vision.
To treat it researchers developed solid microneedles for delivering a dry drug compound that stops vessel growth.##
##The power of microneedles for treating eye conditions is the ability to target delivery of the drug within the eye##says Mark Prausnitz professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular engineering at the Georgia Institute of technology.##
##Research for two studies both published in the journalâ#Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science was done using animal modelsâ
##and could become the first treatment technique to use microneedles for delivering drugs to treat diseases in the front of the eye.
Glaucoma results from elevated pressure inside the eye that can be treated by reducing production of the aqueous humor fluid in the eye increasing flow of the fluid from the eye or both.
Glaucoma is controlled now by the use of eye drops which must be applied daily. Studies show that as few as 56 percent of glaucoma patients follow the therapy protocol.
The first study shows that the microneedle therapy would inject drugs into space between two layers of the eye near the ciliary body
which produces the aqueous humor. The drug is retained near the injection side because it is formulated for increased viscosity.
In the animal model researchers were able to reduce intraocular pressure through the injections showing that their drug got to the proper location in the eye.
Because the injection narrowly targets delivery of the drug researchers were able to bring about a pressure reduction by using just one percent of the amount of drug required to produce a similar decline with eye drops.
The researchers hope to produce a time-release version of the drug that could be injected to provide therapy that lasts for months.##
##The ultimate goal for us would be for glaucoma patients visiting the doctor to get an injection that would last for the next six months until the next time the patient needed to see the doctor##Prausnitz says.##
##If we can do away with the need for patients to use eye drops we could potentially have better control of intraocular pressure and better treatment of glaucoma.##
##For the second study researchers took a different approach to treat corneal neovascularization. They coated solid microneedles with an antibody-based drug that prevents the growth of blood vessels
and then inserted the coated needles near the point of an injury keeping them in place for approximately one minute until the drug dissolved into the cornea.
In an animal model placement of the drug halted the growth of unwanted blood vessels for about two weeks after a single application.
Eye injections with hypodermic needles much larger than the microneedles are used routinely to administer compounds into the center of eye.
These injections are tolerated well and Prausnitz expects the use of microneedles would also not cause significant side effects.##
so injections into the eye are becoming more common##says Henry F. Edelhauser emeritus professor of ophthalmology.##
For the glaucoma drug for instance the needle is only about half a millimeter long which is long enough to penetrate through the sclera the outer layer of the eye to the supraciliary space.
Hans Grossniklaus professor of ophthalmology at Emory University contributed to the study. Yoo C. Kim Henry F. Edelhauser and Mark R. Prausnitz hold microneedle patents and Mark Prausnitz and Henry Edelhauser have significant financial interest in Clearside
Biomedical a company developing microneedle-based products for ocular delivery. This potential conflict of interest has been disclosed and is overseen by Georgia Institute of technology and Emory University.
Source: Georgia Techyou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license n
#Scientists grow norovirus stomach bug in a dish University of Florida rightoriginal Studyposted by Morgan Sherburne-Florida on November 13 2014researchers have grown for the first time a human norovirus in a cell culture dish taking a step toward developing medications to treat the stomach
bug that strikes millions of people every year in schools hotels and cruise ships.####The biggest hurdle to doing norovirus research for its entire historyâ
##since it was discovered in 1972â##has been that we can t culture the human viruses in a cell culture dish##says Stephanie Karst associate professor in the molecular genetics and microbiology department at University of Florida College of Medicine.##
##That complicates every aspect of research. We can t study how it replicates we can t test therapeutics
and we can t generate live virus vaccines.####Noroviruses are intestinal viruses that cause violent vomiting and diarrhea.
People ill with the virus remain contagious up to three days after they seem to recover.
Although a vaccine for these viruses is in clinical trials there is still no medication to combat them.
That s in part because researchers have not been able to culture human noroviruses so they can test potential treatmentsâ##until now.
In the United states alone human noroviruses cause 19 million to 21 million cases of illness everyâ#year
and contribute to 56000 to 71000 hospitalizations and 570 to 800 deaths mostly in young children and older adults.
and protect it from pathogens. But the new study published in the journal Science demonstrates that the virus targets B cells a type of white blood cell common in the intestine.##
and that this interaction stimulates viral infection of the B cell##Karst says.####This is a really exciting emerging theme.
These viral infections are enhanced by the presence of bacteria in the gut.####Ultimately this system should open up new avenues for norovirus vaccine
and antiviral drug development.####Source: University of Floridayou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license l
#Chip lets scientists see how cancer spreads Johns hopkins university rightoriginal Studyposted by Phil Sneiderman-JHU on November 12 2014a new lab chip is giving researchers an unprecedented look at the complex process that spreads cancer from its birthplace
to other parts of the body. By showing scientists precisely how tumor cells travel the tool may help them plot new strategies for preventing metastasis
which leads to more than 90 percent of cancer deaths. The work is published in the journal Cancer Research.
There s still so much we don t know about exactly how tumor cells migrate through the body partly
because even using our best imaging technology we haven t been able to see precisely how these individual cells move into blood vessels says lead researcher Andrew D. Wong a graduate student in materials science and engineering at Johns hopkins university.
Our new tool gives us a clearer close up look at this process. Researchers can now record video of individual human breast cancer cells crawling through a three-dimensional collagen matrix.
The material resembles the human tissue that surrounds tumors when cancer cells break away and try to relocate elsewhere.
The process is called invasion. Wong also collected video of single cancer cells prying and pushing their way through the wall of an artificial vessel lined with human endothelial cells the kind that line human blood vessels.
Entering the bloodstream through this process called intravasion cancer cells can hitch a ride to other parts of the body
and begin to form deadly new tumors. Wong then replicated the processes in a small transparent chip that incorporates the artificial blood vessel and the surrounding simulated tissue material.
A nutrient-rich solution flows through the artificial vessel mimicking the properties of blood. The breast cancer cells inserted individually
and ultimately produced impressive results says Peter Searson a professor in the Whiting School of engineering and Wong s doctoral advisor.
Cancer researchers should now have a much clearer look at the complex physical and biochemical interplay involved in leaving a tumor moving through surrounding tissue and approaching a blood vessel.
The inventors have captured already detailed images of a cancer cell finding a weak spot in a vessel wall exerting pressure
Cancer cells would have a tough time leaving the original tumor site if it weren t for their ability to enter our bloodstream
and gain access to distant sites Wong says. So it s actually the entry of cancer cells into the bloodstream that allows the cancer to spread very quickly.
This device allows us to look at the major steps of metastasis as well as to test different treatment strategies at a relatively fast pace.
or even stop the spread of cancer. Next the researchers plan to use the device to try out various cancer-fighting drugs within this device to get a better look at how the medications perform
and how they might be improved. The device is protected by a provisional patent. A grant from Johns Hopkins Institute for Nanobiotechnology and a National Cancer Institute grant supported the work.
Source: Johns Hopkins Universit t
#Paper circuit might diagnose Ebola in the field The first case of the Ebola outbreak currently ravaging West Africa appeared in Guinea in December 2013.
Partly because confirming the diagnosis required that epidemiologists fly from Europe to Africa collect blood samples fly back to Europe
and analyze them in sophisticated labs. Now a team of biologists has created a new tool that could provide a quick cheap way to perform sophisticated lab analyses
and diagnostics in the field and may also offer a way to speed science in the lab. The tool called a paper gene circuit takes biological reactions out of cells and puts them onto a piece of paper.
##This could really be a game-changer for a lot of applications including diagnostics##say James Collins who is a professor of biomedical engineering and medicine at Boston University and a core faculty member at Harvard s Wyss Institute.##
##The best diagnostic tools currently use antibodies to sense things like hormones or viruses in a patient s bloodstream.
A standard pregnancy test for example tests for a hormone produced when a fertilized egg implants into a women s uterus.
##The antibody-based tests are exquisitely sensitive and we can t compete with that sensitivity yet##says Keith Pardee a postdoctoral fellow in Collins lab coauthor of the Cell paper and a Wyss Institute research scientist.##
##But to make a custom antibody it costs between $4000 and $30000 and it will take between four and six months.##
##We made 24 different Ebola sensors and tested them in a day for $21 each.##
Like computer circuits gene circuits usually consist of a sensing component (or##input##)a logic gate and an output but they are crafted from parts of cells rather than wires and transistors.
Over the past 15 years biologists have created hundreds of these gene circuits picking and choosing useful bits of biology
and putting them together in new ways. Pardee s circuits use a device called a##toehold switch##created by coauthor Alexander Green also a postdoctoral fellow at Boston and Pardee s colleague at the Wyss Institute
which allows the scientists to rationally design sensors and detectors. Because biological systems are particularly good at sensing changes in the environmentâ##our cells constantly monitor blood sugar
and scan for infection for exampleâ##synthetic gene circuits are especially useful for detecting things like contaminants pesticides heavy metals and counterfeit drugs.##
##You can imagine that there s a lot of potential for these gene circuits because they can sense
and they can report by say changing color. Does your fruit have listeria on it? is contaminated the soil with pesticides?
The gene circuits can answer these questions##says Pardee. But there s a problem. Because synthetic gene circuits are usually hosted in organisms like E coli they can t be used for many applicationsâ##smearing fruit with E coli may detect contamination for example
and stored without refrigeration and it would produce answers by changing color so a person could read the answer by eye alone.
But would something that worked for a chemical reaction work for biology too?####That was our first question:
can we even get gene expression in paper?####says Pardee. Using a standard laser printer stocked with special wax-based inks he printed patterns of small dots onto uncoated filter paper.
Each dot served as a well or pit to hold a gene circuit and the cellular enzymes that made it work.
But Pardee wanted to take it a step further stabilizing the components at room temperature by freeze-drying them sticking them onto paper then seeing
##There s still tons of work to do##he adds.####But I knew that having that core insight was going to enable the whole thing.##
###This was Keith s big insightâ##freeze-drying the circuit##says Collins.##I couldn t believe it worked as well as it did.
and also for faster science in the lab.##In biology you spend a lot of time tool building.
##Now researchers can see if a tool works on paper in a matter of minutes and use only the best-performing tools in their experiment.##
##The technology can be embedded in any porous material such as cloth potentially opening the door for wider applications says Collins. He envisions smart scrubs for health care workers that can sense exposure to a virus;
bandages that signal when a wound is infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria; or smart clothing that tells a runner she s getting dehydrated.##
but belongs to a different class of biochemical substances. Copsin is a protein whereas traditional antibiotics are often non-protein organic compounds.
The researchers led by Markus Aebi a mycology professor at ETH Zurich discovered the substance in the common inky cap mushroom Coprinopsis cinerea.
Copsin belongs to the group of defensins a class of small proteins produced by many organisms to combat microorganisms that cause disease.
The human body also produces defensins to protect itself against infections. They have been found for example on the skin and in the mucous membranes.
Whether copsin will one day be used as an antibiotic in medicine remains to be seen. This is by no means certain
Why does this work for fungi while humans have been using antibiotics in medicine for just 70 years with many of them already becoming useless due to resistance?
Fungi have internal instructions on how to use these substances without resulting in selection of resistant bacteria.
It was the biochemical properties of the substance that led the scientist to do so. Copsin is an exceptionally stable protein says Essig.
The researchers were also able to unravel the exact mechanism of action discovering that copsin can bind to lipid II an essential building block for the cell wall of bacteria.
In addition to being used as an antibiotic in medicine it may also be possible to use copsin in the food industry as well.
This is because copsin kills many pathogens including Listeria a type of bacteria that can cause severe food poisoning
Researchers from the University of Bonn collaborated on the study which was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry y
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