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Chicago Students To Get Lessons On Diagnostic Testing From The "Unsung Heroes" Of The Clinical Lab Profession
Chicago high school students interested in science and health care will get a chance to learn about diagnostic tests and the laboratory professionals who perform them during the American Association for Clinical Chemistry"s 2009 Clinical Lab Expo on July 21 and 22.
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Shanghai To Relax One-Child Policy As China Faces Aging Population, Shrinking Work Force
Nearly three decades after China implemented its one-child policy, the city of Shanghai is planning to encourage young couples to have a second child in an effort to address the country"s aging population and shrinking work force, the New York Times reports. The city"s plan is the most public effort made by the government to counteract a program that is "considered both a tremendous success and a terrible failure," the Times reports. The policy has managed to keep population growth under control but also has led to forced abortions, according to the Times.The country is not abandoning the one-child policy, which applies mostly to residents in urban areas. Rather, the government is allowing more exceptions to the rule, with Shanghai -- where about 22% of its 20 million residents are older than age 60 -- leading the effort. China as a whole faces a similar problem seen in Shanghai, the Times reports. About 8% of the country"s population was older than age 65 in 2006. That figure is expected to increase threefold by 2050 to about 322 million people, or nearly 25% of the population, according to the United Nations.In Friday"s issue of China Daily, Xie Lingli, director of the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission, was quoted as saying, "We advocate eligible couples to have two kids because it can help reduce the proportion of the aging people and alleviate a work force shortage in the future." City officials plan to visit homes, pass out leaflets, and offer counseling and financial incentives, the Times reports. Current exceptions to the one-child policy are in place for ethnic minorities and rural residents, who can have a second child if the first child is a girl. Couples made up of two parents who have no siblings have always been allowed to have a second child and are now being encouraged to do so (Barboza, New York Times, 7/24).
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British Medical Association Voices Concerns About Plans For London Hospitals
Plans to replace London"s District General Hospitals with new local hospitals providing fewer services carry clinical risks and need more thought, the BMA says today.
Oncology

Drinking Water From Air Humidity

Cracks permeate the dried-out desert ground, the landscape bears testimony to the lack of water. But even here, where there are no lakes, rivers or groundwater, considerable quantities of water are stored in the air. In the Negev desert in Israel, for example, annual average relative air humidity is 64 percent - in every cubic meter of air there are 11.5 milliliters of water. Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart working in conjunction with their colleagues from the company Logos Innovationen have found a way of converting this air humidity autonomously and decentrally into drinkable water. "The process we have developed is based exclusively on renewable energy s such as thermal solar collectors and photovoltaic cells, which makes this method completely energy-autonomous. It will therefore function in regions where there is no electrical infrastructure," says Siegfried Egner, head of department at the IGB. The principle of the process is as follows: hygroscopic brine - saline solution which absorbs moisture - runs down a tower-shaped unit and absorbs water from the air. It is then sucked into a tank a few meters off the ground in which a vacuum prevails. Energy from solar collectors heats up the brine, which is diluted by the water it has absorbed. Because of the vacuum, the boiling point of the liquid is lower than it would be under normal atmospheric pressure. This effect is known from the mountains: as the atmospheric pressure there is lower than in the valley, water boils at temperatures distinctly below 100 degrees Celsius. The evaporated, non-saline water is condensed and runs down through a completely filled tube in a controlled manner. The gravity of this water column continuously produces the vacuum and so a vacuum pump is not needed. The reconcentrated brine runs down the tower surface again to absorb moisture from the air. "The concept is suitable for various sizes of installation. Single-person units and plants supplying water to entire hotels are conceivable," says Egner. Prototypes have been built for both system components - air moisture absorption and vacuum evaporation - and the research scientists have already tested their interplay on a laboratory scale. In a further step the researchers intend to develop a demonstration facility. Siegfried Egner Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft


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