SCIENCE
Top Story: Quantum Secrets of Photosynthesis Revealed - [ScienceDaily] Through photosynthesis, green plants and cyanobacteria are able to transfer sunlight energy to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. Speed is the key –- the transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously so little energy is wasted as heat. How photosynthesis achieves this near instantaneous energy transfer is a long-standing mystery that may have finally been solved.
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TECHNOLOGY Top Story: Plastic Made by Bacteria Commercialized - [Technology Review] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new kind of absorbable sutures that are more flexible and far stronger than those currently on the market. The sutures are made out of a polymer produced by genetically engineered bacteria.
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BUSINESS Top Story: Silicon Valley's "Best Brains" Work on Energy - [Reuters] Venture capitalists in Silicon Valley have been searching for the next big thing in high-tech for years, but now many have switched to greener pursuits -- finding technology to help cut global warming.
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SOCIETY Top Story: In Europe, Care for the Elderly is Being Transformed - [International Herald Tribune]
By 2050, people over 65 are forecast to make up one-third of the EU population, a jump from 16.5 percent today. As the old safety nets erode, European states are searching for formulas to reduce health care and retirement costs in the face of strong demand for services. So how will the next generation fund its needs? The solution is part private, part public and the answer, of course, varies from country to country, shaped by national regulations and the relative generosity of taxpayers.
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GLOBAL POLITICS Top Story: China, Pakistan Team Up on Energy - [Christian Science Monitor] If China is to become the economic powerhouse it envisions, the road to its new future could run, literally, through Pakistan. Or so the two nations hope. Last month, they inaugurated Gwadar Port in Pakistan's Balochistan Province, the first step in an elaborate "energy corridor" that will one day ship Persian Gulf oil from Gwadar overland through Pakistan to China. China bankrolled the $200 million port and plans to put billions more into railways, roads, and pipelines linking Gwadar to China. Pakistan hopes it will generate $60 billion a year in transit fees in 20 years' time.
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ENVIRONMENT Top Story: U.S. Southwest Drought Could Be Start of New Dust Bowl - [National Geographic News] The unprecedented drought that has gripped the southwestern United States isn't almost over, researchers say, it may have only just begun.
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THE FUTURE Top Story: Website Checks Your Home's Climate Change Risk - [USA Today] A computerized service that assesses global warming risks and other environmental threats is now available for any address in the contiguous USA. Three University of Arizona scientists won approval from the board of regents to create Climate Appraisal Services with an East Coast entrepreneur. They call it the first online, address-based tool for gauging climate-change hazards in the next 50-100 years.
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