Opting for Tofu & Planet Friendly

GREENHOUSE gas emissions are spiking - China’s 2009 carbon dioxide emissions alone increased nearly 10 percent in one year,according to a BP report released this past summer - and global cooperation on the matter is nil(no legally-binding deal was reached at the United Nations’ December Climate Change Conference in Cancun).Can swapping beef for tofu at the dinner table bring solace? It can,somewhat.In 2008,the UN recommended that people go meat-free one day a week to help rein in global warming. According to estimates produced that year by its Food and Agriculture Organization,nearly a fifth of the world’s green-

An Unwelcome Growth

CANCER is hitting the developing world hard,and Africa in particular. Although the disease has a reputation of being a condition that afflicts the rich,it is increasingly affecting the world’s poor. New research published this past February by the American Cancer Society(ACS) shows that two-thirds of the 7.6 million cancer deaths recorded globally in 2008 occurred in low-income states. This number is expected to double by 2030. Cancer patterns are different in Africa than elsewhere.Though shifts in diet and exercise habits are contributing to the continent’s cancer rates,not every factor parrots the disease’s trends

Halos of Plastic

The halos that span South africa’s coastline are anything but angelic. Fanning out around four major urban centers-Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and durban-they are made up of innumerable bits and pieces of plastic. as a form of pollu

The Probability Game

ZHANG Yifeng is heading into a new chapter of her scientific career.The 39-year-old recently landed a coveted principal investigator （PI） job at the Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai. There are only 27 PIs on staff,23 of whom are men and 4are women.It＇s a ratio that differs from when Zhang was in university, where gender ratios in her biology classes tended to be fifty-fifty. ＂Maybe even slightly more women than men,＂ she muses.

Herd Mentality

AT the Rio＋20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Develop- ment taking place later in June in Brazil, desertification will be a major issue of focus. Conference attendees will ruminate on how to go about solving the problem, but Allan Savory won＇t be among them.

Vaccine Vexes

IT’S always nice when expectations are exceeded by half a billion dollars.This was the case for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization(GAVI) at its fundraising conference in June.A public-private initiative,GAVI,which works to ensure children in developing countries receive crucial vaccinations,had gone into the meeting hoping to net $3.7 billion.They came away with $4.3 billion,"despite the fact that donors everywhere are coping with budget crises," as Bill Gates

The Berlin Patient

LAST December,the science journal Blood published a paper claiming a cure for HIV had been found.While the announcement breathes new life into the AIDS research community,it’s not without caveats. The paper’s authors’ evidence came in the form of a 44-year-old man referred to as "The Berlin Patient." An American living in Germany,the man,whose real name is Timothy Ray Brown, was diagnosed with HIV around age 30.He spent a decade following a traditional drug regimen for the disease with success; he was healthy and had a high T-cell count.Then,in 2006, Brown was diagnosed with acute leukemia.His doctor,Gero H(u|¨)tter,decided to use the cancer as an opportunity to also rid Brown of his HIV.

East Africa’s Quick Killer

HEALTH and politics don’t always mix.In January,as increasing numbers of returnees from North Sudan entered Southern Sudan to vote on a referendum for independence, the World Health Organization(WHO) reported that a major visceral leishmaniasis epidemic was in danger of breaking out.Incidences of the disease - the world’s second deadliest parasitic killer after malaria - had nearly doubled within the span of a month,according to case records from last November. WHO officials speculated that the surge was due to that fact that returnees typically did not have immunity against the disease.

Emerging Epidemics

THIS summer marked the fourth Ebola outbreak in Uganda since 2000. The Ebola virus, which was discovered in the Republic of Congo in 1976, is known for hemorrhagic fevers that rapidly and violently wreak havoc on the human body. By the time Uganda＇s Ministry of Health （MOH） declared in August the outbreak＂under control,＂ 16 people had died from exposure.

Mutating in Space

THIS past June, the spacecraft Shenzhou-9 made international headlines because its crew included the first Chinese woman astronaut to reach space. But the mission was not just about who was on board. Joining the astronauts in orbit wasa series of innocuous looking bags. Inside the bags were seeds, primed to mutate and representing the final frontier of another major Chinese accomplishment： space breeding

An Iron-Clad Catch-22

MALARIA, anemia and malnutrition are longstanding public health problems in Africa. While all three affect impoverished chil- dren, they may also be trickily intertwined, according to new research coming out of Tanzania. Data from a paper published in PLoS Medicine last November shows that iron-deficient children taking iron supplements saw their malaria rates skyrocket by 41 percent. Conversely, healthy children who ingested the multinutrient tablets had no change in their susceptability to the parasitic killer.

A Brain in Love

LOVE is tough, even for the experts. Dr. Mao lihua has worked in psychology and neuroscience for the past decade. but, says the beijing-based Peking University professor, ＂I don＇t think my training in psychology has had any obvious effect on my understanding of love. love is so spontaneous in the brain, no matter how much knowledge you have, your body and brain will respond automatically. It＇s very hard to

The Morphine Drought

NIGERIA needs morphine. According to the Global Access tO Pain Relief Initiative （GAPRI）, only 1 kg of the pain medicine has been imported since 2007, an amount that covers approximately 216 people in a nation of 155 million. Doctors instead rely on weaker analgesics like Tramadol, which may not be adequate for the severely ill.

Rising Water

IN December, the world＇s scientific community was abuzz over the results of the United Nations climate talks held in Durban, South Africa. By 2020, there will be a new international treaty to address global warming and it will be legally binding. For China, where a national report on climate change was published just a month prior to the conference, the Durban talks could influence how the country addresses the threat of rising sea levels.

High-Altitude Genetics

STANDING atop a mountain thousands of meters in the air is one of the harshest of environments human can experience. But according to a study published earlier this year by a group of Chinese scientists in the journal PLoS One, it＇s also a place where the mysteries of DNA may be solved. Although the building blocks of human biology take generations to change permanently, researchers are looking at how short-term functions contribute to the process. Their focus on gene expression, one such function, is particularly sharp.

Brave New Mobile World

An oral history of the mobile app boom in East Africa APPS are taking East Africa by storm.As mobile phone penetration rates increase,technologists and software developers in the region are scrambling to provide bigger and better services for an evergrowing consumer base. At the center of this flurry of activity is Nairobi,Kenya. But Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania and Uganda’s

Role Reversal

HIERARCHY is a guiding structure in human society.People both climb and topple down social ladders as they struggle to gain a foothold in school,at work or in the public eye. What if this instinct could be altered? Scientists in Shanghai have figured out how to do just that. Experimenting on mice,a research team with the Institute of

China’s Women,Revealed

A review of Bi Feiyu’s Three Sisters,now shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize by Maya Reid BI Feiyu is reportedly inundated with interview requests from journalists every March asking him to comment on women’s issues (March 8 is the International Women’s Day).And why not? The author has been referred to by many as "China’s best male writer on the female psyche." If his novel,Three Sisters,wins this year’s Man

Organ Donation in China

CHINA’S first voluntary organ donation system is in the midst of its trial run. The program is being tested in 11 pilot regions around the country, having harvested organs from more than 100 donors in this inaugural year. Overseen by the Red Cross Society of China and the country’s Ministry of Health, the system follows cardiac death standards in organ donation

Lost at Sea

OVER the last several years,dozens of sea turtles have been washing up on the shores of Central Africa dead.Many of these creatures,olive ridley turtles,were adult females poised to breed. Most puzzling,though,is that these turtles are being found on protected beaches that belong to national parks both in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. Olive ridleys are considered to be the most abundant sea turtles on the planet,with around 800,000 females nesting annually.They can be found around the globe,in places like China’s Hainan and Hong Kong,among others.In spite of their numbers,they are the world’s most exploited species of sea