Balance Sheet

Jeff Taylor from the January 2005 issue

Assets

Healing Mist

Researchers at Imperial College London find that the anti-inflammatory compound resveratrol, responsible for giving red wine some of its positive health benefits, may be more useful in a different form. Delivered in an aerosol mist, it may treat pulmonary disease, asthma, and perhaps arthritis.

Detector, M.D.

Doctors go WiFi to treat people with Alzheimer's disease. Patients suffering from dementia can be discretely monitored for signs of distress while remaining in their own homes via wearable motion detectors. Such an approach might stave off the day the patients are institutionalized.

Poop Power

Scientists at Pennsylvania State University develop a microbial fuel cell that both treats wastewater and provides energy. The fuel cell captures electrons given off by bacteria as they digest raw sewage and turns the electrons into electricity.

Sounds Good

Big Music takes a hit in two court cases. A Pennsylvania court rules that Net service providers must tell customers when record companies want to subpoena their records in file sharing cases. And a New York court rules that a law against selling bootlegs must not grant "perpetual protection" to live recordings.

Smart Cure

Researchers following up on the Scottish Mental Survey of 1932 find that intelligence is a better predictor of a long, healthy life than is social background. Smart people seem to make smart decisions about their health.

Liabilities

Gitmo Gridlock

Soldiers who were stationed at Guan-tanamo Bay report that most of the detainees have little to no intelligence value and wound up there as a result of decisions made in the field by inexperienced screeners.

Mount Duma