Tag: umich

How to Avoid the Flu

  • Research finds that Americans don't wash their hands enough (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Health experts say handwashing is the single most important thing you can do to reduce your chance of getting sick or making other people sick. But as Rebecca Williams reports, recent research finds antibacterial soap is not any better than plain soap at keeping us from getting sick. And some scientists and doctors worry there might be risks to widespread use of antibacterial products:

Transcript

Health experts say handwashing is the single most important thing you can do to reduce your chance of getting sick or making other people sick. But as Rebecca Williams reports, recent research finds antibacterial soap is not any better than plain soap at keeping us from getting sick. And some scientists and doctors worry there might be risks to widespread use of antibacterial products:

Some studies estimate about 70% of liquid soaps on store shelves have antibacterial ingredients in them. Ingredients such as a chemical called triclosan.

Allison Aiello teaches epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Aiello is lead author of a paper in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

She examined more than two dozen studies on antibacterial soaps containing triclosan. She says triclosan kills bacteria by going after the bacterium’s cell wall.

“The cell wall cannot be kept intact anymore; it’s not able to survive.”

But Aiello says there’s a growing body of evidence that even though antibacterial soap kills bacteria, it’s no better than regular soap at preventing illness.

Regular soap doesn’t kill bacteria, but Aiello says it works just as well at getting rid of bacteria and viruses like swine flu.

“Regular soap, is basically, it has a surfactant in it and what it does is it allows bacteria to be dislodged from hands and then the motion that you’re using under water helps dislodge it and make it go down the drain, basically.”

Aiello says it’s important to note that the soap studies were done with basically healthy people.

She says more research needs to be done to find out if antibacterial soaps could be more effective for elderly people or people with compromised immune systems.

But Aiello says generally, for healthy people, antibacterial soaps are no better than plain soaps at keeping you healthy.

And she says there could be risks to antibacterial products. She says there’s evidence from lab studies that antibacterial soaps might be adding to the emergence of super-bugs: bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.

“In the laboratory setting, it is clear that there are mechanisms that can lead to antibiotic resistance when bacteria are exposed to triclosan.”

Aiello says they haven’t seen this play out for antibacterial soaps in the real world yet. But she says researchers need to keep an eye on it because antibiotic resistance might take some time to develop.

The soap industry dismisses the idea that antibacterial soaps might have something to do with antibiotic resistance.

Brian Sansoni is with the Soap and Detergent Association.

“The last thing we want to see is people discouraged from using beneficial products. Antibacterial soaps have proven benefits, they’re used safely and effectively by millions of people every day. Consumers should continue to use these products with confidence.”

The Food and Drug Administration has the final word on antibacterial soaps. But they’re still trying to figure out what to say about them.

The FDA has been trying to come up with rules for the products for more than 30 years. Right now there are no formal rules about the levels of antibacterial chemicals in soaps. And there aren’t any rules about how the products can be marketed or labeled.

There’s one thing both the soap industry and doctors agree on – Americans don’t wash up often enough with any kind of soap.

A recent study found one out of every three men walk out of the bathroom without washing their hands. Women did better than the guys, but still, about one of every ten women didn’t wash their hands either.

Experts say after you sneeze, cough or visit the restroom, you should scrub your hands with soap and water for 20 to 30 seconds.

That’s as long as it takes to sing the happy birthday song twice.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Swine Flu and Factory Farms: Any Connection?

  • It’s not uncommon for influenza viruses to be exchanged between pigs and humans (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)

The current swine flu outbreak was first detected in a region of Mexico with large confined animal feeding operations – factory farms. Many environmentalists wonder if there’s a connection. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The current swine flu outbreak was first detected in a region of Mexico with large confined animal feeding operations – factory farms. Many environmentalists wonder if there’s a connection. Lester Graham reports:

A US government brochure indicates it’s not uncommon for influenza viruses to be exchanged between pigs and humans.

Mark Wilson is a professor of epidemeology at the University of Michigan. He says factory farms can make that exchange easier.

“The combination of animals being confined in close quarters as well as the large number of animals is likely to lead to more transmission of infectious agents among them. And as people – workers – are in contact with these animals, the possibility of transmission from those animals to those workers is increased. Absolutely.”

But, Wilson says it’s anyone’s guess whether this strain of swine flu began at a factory farm.

“Completely unknown at this point.”

Health officials from Mexico and the US Centers for Disease Control are investigating the source of the virus.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham

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Uncovering the Baby Mammoth

The National Geographic Channel is airing a documentary called “Waking the Baby Mammoth” this Sunday. The discovery of an intact baby mammoth carcass is also the cover story of the May edition of the National Geographic Magazine. Lester Graham has more on that:

Transcript

The National Geographic Channel is airing a documentary called “Waking the Baby Mammoth” this Sunday. The discovery of an intact baby mammoth carcass is also the cover story of the May edition of the National Geographic Magazine. Lester Graham has more on that:

(National Geographic) “This is the story of a nomadic reindeer herder, an extinct baby wooly mammoth, and a team of scientists on a quest to learn her secrets…”

One of the scientists on that quest is Dan Fisher. He’s a paleontologist at the University of Michigan.

This nearly 40,000 year carcass is the most complete baby mammoth ever discovered. The scientists named it Lyuba.

Fisher flew to Russia two years ago to get his first look at the mammoth, an animal that’s been extinct for thousands of years.

“It’s overwhelming really to feel the privilege of getting to be that close to something that does hold so many answers to questions many people have.”

Graham: “This was a fascinating find, but I wonder how much has it added to our knowledge of that period.”

“What it tells us about the period is that it was really a wonderful time to be a mammoth – to be a large mammal – on the open steppes of the high north.”

(National Geographic) “For paleontologists this is a time capsule from the Ice Age. When Lyuba lived, the mammoth steppe was at its peak. It was rich with vegetation that sustained millions of woolly mammoths for hundreds of thousands of years.”

An autopsy of the baby mammoth revealed a lot about where she died – 40,000 years ago a dry grassland. Today it’s a frozen tundra in Siberia.

Dan Fisher says the well-preserved carcass still had traces of what Lyuba ate.

“It’s remarkable that we can take evidence that’s with us today, that’s at our fingertips and generate from that new understanding that can give us perspective on big questions like extinction and climate change, issues that we certainly will have to continue to face as we deal with other endangered species and with the future of our own civilization and planet.”

Fisher says the mammoth remains help add to our understanding of a related animal still around today, the elephant. And they help us better understand our impacts on other endangered species.

And Fisher says learning more about the climate 40,000 years ago can help us understand one other thing.

“We want to, of course, understand the Earth’s climate system better and one of the ways we can test the computer models that help us to project patterns of climate change into the future is to essentially try them out on the past. The past is essentially the training wheels for learning to refine these models. So, information from Lyuba and other mammoths can help us to develop a better understanding of how the Earth’s climate system works.”

(National Geographic) “Dan Fisher and his colleagues will continue to unravel Lyuba’s secrets and to search for reasons why mammals went extinct at the end of the Ice Age.”

The National Geographic program indicates research continues to reveal a lot about Lyuba’s life, and her death, which the scientists begin to piece together in the documentary.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Recession Proof Construction

  • One company created a website that acts as kind of a Craigslist just for reclaimed building materials (Photo courtesy of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction)

In the middle of a recession that’s

crippling the construction field,

there’s at least one sector of

industry that’s doing pretty well.

That’s “material reuse.” Taking pieces

of old buildings and using them in

new ones. Advocates say used materials

could save developers a heap of money.

Samara Freemark has the

story of one re-use company that’s both

green and in the black:

Transcript

In the middle of a recession that’s

crippling the construction field,

there’s at least one sector of

industry that’s doing pretty well.

That’s “material reuse.” Taking pieces

of old buildings and using them in

new ones. Advocates say used materials

could save developers a heap of money.

Samara Freemark has the

story of one re-use company that’s both

green and in the black:

You’ve probably heard what’s going on in the construction industry
these days.

(news montage of housing crisis)

But in middle of all that bad news, there might be one bright spot.

“We’ve actually been expanding quite a bit. I guess it’s one of the
only times I’ve heard
of where that’s the case.”

That’s architect Brad Hardin.

He got interested in reusing building materials pretty early in his career.
He likes the way
the old stuff looked. And he likes the idea of saving resources. And
he’s also kind of
horrified by the tens of millions of tons of construction waste that get
tossed into landfills
every year.

But actually getting his hands on used materials, so that he could reuse
them- that turned
out to be a real pain in the butt.

“You know you’ll be literally going out to someone’s yard and getting
rained on, or
sorting through someone’s basement– it was kind of a hit and miss
process.”

A big part of the problem was simple logistics. Imagine you’re knocking
down an old
house to build a new one. You’d like to sell off whatever pieces of the
old building you
can. But how do you find someone to buy all that stuff? Where do you store
it while you
look for a buyer? And how do you ship the materials?

Harry Giles is a professor of green architecture at the University of
Michigan.

He says most developers don’t want to bother with all that hassle. In the
end, they usually
just end up bulldozing everything. Giles says that’s because there’s no
real secondhand
market for used construction materials- not like there is in a lot of other
industries.

“If you take the car industry, a lot of it is geared around the reuse of
materials. Not just
taking the car and crushing it, but taking it apart and finding useful
components on it.”

You know, like a salvage yard.

And that was the problem Brad Hardin wanted to solve – how to create a
secondhand
market for spare building parts. He figured that if he could do that,
reusing building
materials could actually end up profitable.

So last year he started a company called Planet ReUse. The company’s
website acts as
kind of a Craigslist just for reclaimed building materials. Buyers and
sellers can find each
other on the ‘net.

And Planet ReUse tests all material to make sure it’s up to code. That
way the buyer
doesn’t end up with, say, eight tons of rotten planking. And Planet ReUse
arranges all the
shipping- trying to hook up sellers to nearby buyers. That saves money and
fuel.

By removing those basic barriers, Hardin says his buyers save about 20%
compared to
buying new. And Planet ReUse still makes a profit.

And it’s also a start to reducing those millions of tons of landfill
waste.

So, what kind of stuff does he sell on the site?

“How much time do you have? Steel, flooring…”

It turns out there’s money in just about everything you can salvage from
a building.

Harry Giles says that cash is the key to cutting down waste.

“If people see that it’s a lucrative business to actually salvage
materials, that will drive it
much faster than concern for the environment.”

And it’s not just buildings. Remember President Obama’s inauguration
stage? Well, that
got torn down, and Planet ReUse is trying to get the pieces to New Orleans.
They’ll be
used to rebuild houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

It’s just one more way for Planet ReUse to prove that you can do good, be
green, and
make a little money too.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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Interview: Nature Improves Productivity

  • Not everyone can get out and walk along the Lake Superior coastline everyday, but researchers say any walk in a natural setting will help. They count an increase in productivity among the benefits. (Photo courtesy of Dave Hansen.)

You’ve probably heard about studies that show enjoying nature can reduce stress. Well, a new study published in the journal Psychological Science shows a walk in nature can also help you focus better. It can improve your memory and attention. Lester Graham asked one of the researchers, Marc Berman from the University of Michigan, if he was up for a walk:

Transcript

You’ve probably heard about studies that show enjoying nature can reduce stress. Well, a new study published in the journal Psychological Science shows a walk in nature can also help you focus better. It can improve your memory and attention. Lester Graham asked one of the researchers, Marc Berman from the University of Michigan, if he was up for a walk:

Marc Berman was one of the co-authors of a study on nature and focus published in the journal Psychological Science. He spoke – and walked – with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

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Book Machine to Curb Paper Waste?

  • The Espresso Book Machine prints paperback books in about three to five minutes. (Photo by Suzanne Chapman)

Books are changing. Just like the music industry, books are going digital.
There are already those digital books you can read on a little handheld
device. Now there’s a machine that will print the book you want from a
digital file while you wait. Rebecca Williams reports the machine’s creators
say it could transform the publishing industry by making it a lot less
wasteful:

Transcript

Books are changing. Just like the music industry, books are going digital.
There are already those digital books you can read on a little handheld
device. Now there’s a machine that will print the book you want from a
digital file while you wait. Rebecca Williams reports the machine’s creators
say it could transform the publishing industry by making it a lot less
wasteful:

The makers of the Espresso Book Machine say it’s like an ATM for books. It
prints paperback books in about three to five minutes.

It’s a big metal and glass contraption with lots of little robotic parts on the
inside. Maria Bonn at the University of Michigan Library is showing me how
hers works. With a click of a mouse, she’s chosen a book file, and the thing
kicks into action.

(sound of a printer)

“This is standard laser printing on both sides of the paper… (TAP TAP TAP)
That tap, tap you hear is pages being lined up and put all into place.”

Everything happens so fast. I mean, I blink and it’s already printed the color
cover. Then the pages get rolled over this pot of orange glue, stuck to the
cover, and the whole thing gets trimmed down.

“You have to catch the book (SND of book dropping out) oops, which I
failed to do, and there’s your book!”

And just like that, I have my very own copy of “Stories of Ye Olden Time”
from 1895.

“It’s pretty indistinguishable from a paperbound book in a book store.”

And that’s exactly the idea.

Dane Neller heads up On Demand Books. It’s the company that makes the
machine and the software system behind it.

“Our overall vision is a radically decentralized marketplace where these
machines will be installed – could be coffee shops, libraries, bookstores,
cruise ships.”

There aren’t a lot of these things around yet. Just about 15 libraries and
bookstores have the machine. But there are about a million book titles
ready to go. And– if the book’s under copyright, the system automatically
sends off royalties to the right people. Dane Neller says these machines
could make the publishing industry more efficient.

“Most of the book industry is wasteful in that publishers built into their
model an oversupply of books because they factor it into their sales price.
Especially on the trade side, the bestsellers and books the general public
buys – typically that represents a 33 to 40% return factor.”

That means about 4 out of 10 books don’t get sold at bookstores. So they
get shipped back to publishers. Then they might get shipped out again to
somewhere like Costco, or Sam’s Club, or recycled – but they’re often
thrown away or burned.

Dane Neller says the book machine can stop all that extra printing and
shipping and waste – because you only print what you sell.

But he says bookstores will always need lots of copies of the big bestsellers
on hand.

“It will not replace centralized production because there will always be a
need to produce large quantities of single titles, the Danielle Steeles, the
large romance novels, that’s still much more efficiently done centrally. But
everything else can be done decentrally.”

So, when I walk into a bookstore in the future, there might be big stacks of
bestsellers, and then a few book machines – but not a lot of other books to
look at.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I don’t know what I want when I
walk in. I like to see what catches my eye.

Cynthia Ransley manages the Shaman Drum Bookshop. She says maybe the
book machines will help her industry make more money and be more
efficient.

But she says she can’t imagine not having a physical store where you can
spend hours just looking around.

“I think the book as an object is still a tangible part of people’s lives and
that’s where bookstores like ours really, you know, we have tons of
beautiful books and the way cover art has been improving and it becomes a
piece of art in and of itself.”

And that might never change. But what if you really need a book and it’s
out of print? Sometime in the near future you could go to a bookstore, do
a search, and just print it out.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Nasa Launches Carbon Satellite

  • Artist's concept of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. The satellite crashed into the ocean on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009. (Photo courtesy NASA Jet Propulsion Library)

(NOTE: THE SATELLITE FEATURED IN THIS STORY CRASHED INTO THE OCEAN ON TUESDAY, FEB. 24TH)

Drive your car. Mow your lawn. Heat your house. It all puts climate changing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But not all of the carbon dioxide stays up there. Vincent Duffy reports scientists at NASA hope a new satellite will help them solve the mystery of where some of that CO2 goes:

Transcript

(NOTE: THE CARBON SATELLITE CRASHED INTO THE OCEAN ON TUESDAY, FEB. 24TH)

Drive your car. Mow your lawn. Heat your house. It all puts climate changing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But not all of the carbon dioxide stays up there. Vincent Duffy reports scientists at NASA hope a new satellite will help them solve the mystery of where some of that CO2 goes:

People worried about climate change pay a lot of attention to carbon dioxide.
It’s one of the chief causes of climate change. And people put a lot of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, almost 8 billion tons a year.

That has former Vice President Al Gore worried. Here he is testifying before
Congress last month –

“Our home, earth, is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the
planet itself of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for
human beings.”

If we are in danger, then scientists need a good handle on what happens to
all that carbon dioxide.

About half of the CO2 created by humans is absorbed back into the earth by
what scientists call ‘carbon sinks.’ Scientists know half of the absorbed
carbon dioxide goes into the oceans, and the other half is sucked up by
plants. But scientists don’t know which plants are absorbing the most carbon
dioxide, and how the CO2 travels there.

The scientists at NASA hope a new satellite, called the Orbiting Carbon
Observatory, will help them answer those questions.

David Crisp heads up the project. He says measuring carbon dioxide levels
from the ground doesn’t provide enough information to know where the
CO2 actually ends up.

“But from space we can actually make much more detailed measurements,
make a snapshot of the carbon dioxide distribution in the atmosphere. That
will give us much more information about where the carbon dioxide is and
from that we can infer where the sources are and where the sinks are.”

Right now it’s a bit of a blur. Anna Michalak is a professor at the University
of Michigan and part of the NASA team. She says to track what’s going on
with all the CO2 on the earth is like trying to figure out how cream went into
a cup of coffee.

“If I give you a cup of coffee, and I pour cream into the cup of coffee, and I
ask you what’s going to happen when I start stirring, it’s pretty easy to
predict that you’ll have a creamy cup of coffee. But what we do instead is
someone hands us a creamy cup of coffee and asks us, ‘Did we pour the
cream in on the left side or the right side, and did we pour the cream in five
minutes ago or ten minutes ago?’ And you can imagine that’s a much more
difficult question.”

Michalak says the satellite observatory will help answer that difficult
question, and help us understand how plants may react to carbon dioxide in
the future, as the earth’s climate changes. She says right now plants seem to
be absorbing more CO2 than ever before.

“And we have no guarantee that this is going to continue in the future. And
so you can imagine that something that has such a high value, there is an
interest in us knowing how predictable and how reliable this service is to us.
Because the cost for us to replicate anything resembling that is just
astronomical.”

The satellite will also answer other questions about climate change. Things
like which countries emit the most CO2.

Jiaguo Qi studies climate change at Michigan State University. He says the
satellite may show that people concerned about the cost of reducing green
house gasses may unfairly blame the United States and other developed
nations.

“Media report that North America is primarily responsible for global
warming. But we don’t know how much carbon dioxide other countries are
emitting, because we donít have good measure. This one will tell us who is
emitting and how much they are emitting instead of just blaming us.”

And the data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory might show that it’s not
just the forests and jungles that help keep climate change at bay. It might
also be forests and farmland in the United States, and your lawn, and even
golf courses.

For The Environment Report I’m Vincent Duffy.

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Investing in Cars of the Future

  • Both studies agree that we need more efficient cars (Photo by Karen Kelly)

Recently two reports on the future of automobiles came out. They looked at cars and trucks from very different perspectives, but came to some similar conclusions. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Recently two reports on the future of automobiles came out. They looked at cars and trucks from very different perspectives, but came to some similar conclusions. Lester Graham reports:

The first report was published in the journal, Environmental Science and Technology. It looked at what it would take to get U.S. automobiles to reduce the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, enough to lower it to 1990 levels.

Why cars? Because cars and trucks produce a third of U.S. CO2 emissions.

Greg Keoleian is one of the authors at the University of Michigan. He says there are three things that need work.

We need to drive less, burn cleaner fuels, and, within about 40 years, increase the average fuel mileage way beyond the 20-miles per gallon we’re getting now.

“That would need to increase to 136 miles per gallon to meet the carbon targets. Alternatively, if we just focused on fuels, basically we’d need about 80% cellulosic ethanol by 2050. And the third scenario is a reduction in driving. It would mean we’d have to cut our driving in half by 2050.”

It’s unlikely we can accomplish any one of them, and the study’s authors suggest it’ll probably be a combination of more efficient cars, better fuels, and driving less if we’re to reduce greenhouse gases enough to make a difference.

The second report entitled ‘Envisioning an Uncertain Future’ comes from the Boston Consulting Group. It looks at the future of the automobile from a business perspective.

One of the authors, Xavier Mosquet, says the study assumes rising oil prices will force some changes.

“And that the pressure from the consumer on the governments will be so high that the governments will have to take energy actions to develop green products and green cars.”

But the report notes green cars will cost more – as much as 15,000 dollars more for hybrids or plug-in hybrids compared to standard cars.

“The consumer will look at these cars and say, ‘well, these are more expensive than I can pay.’ And therefore they’re not going to buy them. So, what I think the government has to do if they want to go that way is to look at the cost of putting those technologies on the market and either subsidizing the car’s manufacturers and suppliers or helping the consumer with much more tax incentives. Otherwise it will not happen.”

So, from a business perspective, the Boston Consulting Group report suggests without government help, manufacturers won’t build more efficient cars at a price we can afford. But we’ll need them because of high fuel prices.

The University of Michigan report on cars and climate change agrees the government will have a major role.

Author Greg Keoleian says if we take climate change seriously and are committed to doing something about it, we’ll have to change driving habits, encourage innovative manufacturers and invest government money.

“We are capable of doing this and the cost of climate change to society is tremendous. And each sector needs to play a major role in addressing the needs to reduce.”

The studies look at the future of the automobile from very different perspectives, but both agree we need more efficient cars and that won’t happen without the government pushing a little and helping a lot.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Interview: Energy Innovation

  • European consumers have been quicker to adopt new technologies, like hybrids and efficient diesel cars. Energy Discovery -Innovation Institutes might change that. (Photo by Michael Pereckas, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Making the shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energy will be a long-term, expensive effort. But, there is the opportunity for jobs, energy independence and reducing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. This week a report from the Brookings Institution proposes a way to help get us there: Energy Discovery-Innovation Institutes. These institutes would take a big picture view of the change and help researchers and businesses avoid pitfalls and false starts along the way. Lester Graham spoke with a supporter of the idea, Gary Was. He’s the Director the Phoenix Energy Institute at the University of Michigan:

Transcript

Making the shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energy will be a long-term, expensive effort. But, there is the opportunity for jobs, energy independence and reducing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. This week a report from the Brookings Institution proposes a way to help get us there: Energy Discovery-Innovation Institutes. These institutes would take a big picture view of the change and help researchers and businesses avoid pitfalls and false starts along the way. Lester Graham spoke with a supporter of the idea, Gary Was. He’s the Director the Phoenix Energy Institute at the University of Michigan:

Gary Was: Energy is a very complex topic. It’s a social issue as much as it is a
technological issue. In addition to the technological challenges of coming up with
new energy sources and proving energy efficiency, we also have a lot of social issues
involved as well. The business sector is heavily involved. Economics is a big issue.
Social behavior and social preferences are big factors in our energy use patterns and
our habits.

Lester Graham: Give me an example of that.

Was: Well, one example is plug-in hybrid electrics. There’s a lot of questions to
how these plug-in hybrids are going to function, and whether they’ll be successful. A
lot of that depends upon people’s preferences. The idea of plugging in, when you
can plug in, how long you have to plug in, how complicated or how difficult it is –
can make a big difference. We’ve seen examples of that with diesel. In Europe, half
the cars are diesel powered. We have the same technology here. There are no diesel
powered cars here. It’s a social issue, not a technological issue.

Graham: Steven Chu, the new Energy Secretary, has spent a good deal of his career
in research. What do you expect his reaction will be to your suggestion of tying
together this energy research?

Was: I think it will be quite positive. Dr. Chu has a background both in the
academic setting as well as in the National Laboratories, and I think he appreciates
well the capabilities of each institution. The meat of this whole proposal, and of this
whole concept, is that the National Laboratories alone, or universities alone, or
industry alone – the three principal research institutions in the US – really aren’t
prepared to handle a challenge of this breadth, and depth, and complexity. And that
we need a new paradigm. We need a new way to be able to take basic science,
accelerate it into development, and push it through technology, transfer it to the
private sector. None of these institutions alone can do that really highly successfully.

Graham: What is this going to do require? Is this government money to get this
launched? Is this going to be another scientific layer of bureaucracy when we get
finished? How do you handle this to make sure it’s effective?

Was: One of the problems we have with energy in the country is that, overall,
regardless of these institutes, this institute concept, its terribly underfunded – in terms
of its comparison to the impact on the economy. The energy business is a 1.5 trillion
dollar business in the US. It’s comparable to healthcare. In healthcare, there is
approximately ten times the amount of federal funds going into research than there is
in energy. So in comparison to the impacts on our lives, it’s underfunded by almost
a factor of ten.

Graham: If we’re to invest in these kinds of institutes, and invest in more research
into energy and how we use it, what kind of return might we see on our tax dollars
that we shovel over to you guys?

Was: Well, that’s a very good question. These discovery institutes, these will be
regionally situated, and each one might be on the order of 200 million dollars a year
funding, and so the entire price tag would be maybe 5 billion dollars. So what do
you get for 5 billion dollars? We expect that the transformation will be much more
rapid, it will be with fewer false starts, and left turns, or dead ends, and it will be
much more efficient than we’re able to do right now. Right now, the system is such
that technology advancements tend to sort of diffuse through society in an uncharted
and undirected way. The objective here is to sharpen that diffusion so that we can
pull these technologies out, translate them into useful products much more quickly.

Graham: Gary Was is the director of the Phoenix Energy Institute at the University
of Michigan. Thanks for coming in.

Was: Thanks very much.

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The Peanut Butter Panic

  • There’s a chance that potentially-contaminated food is still sitting on store shelves, and maybe in your pantry (Source: Gene.Arboit at Wikimedia Commons)

Hundreds of products with peanuts or peanut-butter have been yanked from
store shelves. That’s because of an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. Kyle
Norris has the latest on the outbreak:

Transcript

Hundreds of products with peanuts or peanut-butter have been yanked from
store shelves. That’s because of an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. Kyle
Norris has the latest on the outbreak:

We know the products include cookies, crackers, snack bars, cakes, candies,
ice cream—even pet foods are affected. And there’s a chance that
potentially-contaminated food is still sitting on store shelves. And maybe in
your pantry.

Matthew Boulton is an associate professor of epidemiology. He’s at the
University of Michigan School of Public Health. He says the testing of the
Georgia facility that made these peanut-butter products shows there are
flaws in the food safety system.

“I think one of the big problems is this divide we have between the folks who do the
regulation and the folks responsible for human health. Sometimes you don’t have good
communication between those two groups and it’s really critical if you’re going to get a
handle on insuring a safe food supply.”

Boulton says this peanut-butter scare could go on for a few weeks. Or a few
months.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

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