St. Louis-based utility Ameren has agreed to cut mercury, smog and soot pollution from its coal-fired power plants in Illinois.
Under a deal with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Ameren will install mercury controls on most of its generating units by 2009 and significantly cut emissions of soot and the pollutants that make smog.
Full Story: […]

Since the discovery a little more than a decade ago of bacteria that chemically modify and neutralize toxic metals without apparent harm to themselves, scientists have wondered how on earth these microbes do it.
For Shewanella oneidensis, a microbe that modifies uranium chemistry, the pieces are coming together, and they resemble pearls that measure precisely 5 […]

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is stepping up its assault on the world’s deadliest diseases with a $500 million, five-year grant to an organization that shares its passion for measurable results.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria holds the nations and organizations it assists to high performance standards — an approach the […]

The plug-in being pursued by Toyota would be able to ”travel greater distances without using its gas engine; it will conserve more oil and slice smog and greenhouse gases to nearly imperceptible levels.”
[…]
Press, highlighting the company’s work on alternative vehicles, said Toyota is also ‘’strongly considering” a program to develop flexible fuel vehicles in the […]

A single molecule, trapped between two electrodes, acts as a switch and has a ‘memory’ of the type used in data storage, Swiss and US researchers have found.
Heike Riel of IBM’s research labs in Zurich says this is ‘a step along the way’ to making nanoscale electronic components a reality.
Full Story:Chemistry World.
(via Kurzweil […]

The maker of the morning-after pill said it received assurances Tuesday that the government would quickly settle a three-year battle to sell the emergency contraceptive without a prescription to at least some women.
Full Story: Buffalo News.
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Mr Lieberman’s opponent, political novice Ned Lamont - who was unknown six months ago - campaigned hard on an anti-war platform and became the first man in decades to beat an incumbent senator in a primary race.
Full Story: BBC News.
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Republican Congressman Bob Ney abruptly abandoned his bid for re-election Monday, becoming the latest Capitol Hill figure to fall victim to the congressional corruption scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Full Story: International Herald Tribune.
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The discovery that the dengue fever virus needs to bend into a circle in order to replicate suggests new ways to treat this and similar diseases, including West Nile virus and encephalitis, say researchers. Future drugs that prevent the virus from forming a ring shape could one day save thousands of lives, they add.
Full Story: […]

The Kansas electorate has voted to get rid of two of its anti-evolution school board reps in the State’s primary elections. The result has been welcomed by pro-evolution board members and science advocacy groups.
Although it is just a primary, it means the two ousted candidates will not stand for re-election come the General Elections. Both […]