A team of researchers in collaboration with the WHO has identified a set of interventions for the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease (CVD) that are cost-effective in two developing regions—sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2012.42

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This review is an updated and expanded version of the three prior reviews that were published in this journal in 1997, 2003, and 2007. In the case of all approved therapeutic agents, the time frame has been extended to cover the 30 years from January 1, 1981, to December 31, 2010, for all diseases worldwide, and from 1950 (earliest so far identified) to December 2010 for all approved antitumor drugs worldwide. We have continued to utilize our secondary subdivision of a “natural product mimic” or “NM” to join the original primary divisions and have added a new designation, “natural product botanical” or “NB”, to cover those botanical “defined mixtures” that have now been recognized as drug entities by the FDA and similar organizations. From the data presented, the utility of natural products as sources of novel structures, but not necessarily the final drug entity, is still alive and well. Thus, in the area of cancer, over the time frame from around the 1940s to date, of the 175 small molecules, 131, or 74.8%, are other than “S” (synthetic), with 85, or 48.6%, actually being either natural products or directly derived therefrom. In other areas, the influence of natural product structures is quite marked, with, as expected from prior information, the anti-infective area being dependent on natural products and their structures. Although combinatorial chemistry techniques have succeeded as methods of optimizing structures and have been used very successfully in the optimization of many recently approved agents, we are able to identify only one de novo combinatorial compound approved as a drug in this 30-year time frame. We wish to draw the attention of readers to the rapidly evolving recognition that a significant number of natural product drugs/leads are actually produced by microbes and/or microbial interactions with the “host from whence it was isolated”, and therefore we consider that this area of natural product research should be expanded significantly.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/np200906s

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It is shown that without binding commitments for Developing Countries, the warming target of 2 °C will be exceeded with a probability above 50%, even if Annex B countries eliminate their emissions. However, moderate commitments of DCs (when they reach sufficient economic development), make the 2 °C scenario feasible. Technology Treansfer Protocols combined with binding emission reduction targets thus provide a mechanism to reduce climate change damages, and may generate significant secondary benefits. For example, the reduced tax-subsidy scenario (RTS20) has 77% to 40% chances to remain below 2 °C of warming and an undiscounted cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) cost of 0.75% relative to baseline (not accounting for the benefits of avoided damages).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.01.063

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“We could have been the first nuclear country in Southeast Asia, but we were not able to do it,” said Mauro Marcelo, a nuclear engineer at the National Power Corporation, the state-owned utility. “There are several dates when we could have become a nuclear country, but every time a catastrophic event happened. We don’t need to hire nuclear experts but feng shui masters to get rid of the bad luck.”Still reeling from Fukushima, the plant’s owners have decided to turn it into a tourist attraction, featuring a tour of the containment building. The plant, which has never generated a watt of electricity, is now producing revenues from the flow of tourists from the Philippines and abroad, especially Japan. Tours of the plant, whose owners sold off the uranium in 1997, are booked months ahead, said Dennis Gana, a spokesman for the utility.

Ed. Note: How about converting this to another form of energy plant such as geothermal or waste to energy? Certainly there are aspects of the system that could be used for other purposes than tourism.

Bataan Nuclear Plant, Never Opened, Now a Tourism Site – NYTimes.com

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The Nagoya Protocol was agreed in October 2010 by 193 countries to tackle biopiracy and share the benefits of research into natural resources in an equitable manner.

The NPIF was set up by the UN funding agency the Global Environment Facility (GEF) four months later, as a multi-donor trust fund to help nations implement the protocol.

The GEF announced earlier this month (12 January) that Panama will receive US$1 million from the NPIF to carry out a three-year project at the Coiba Island National Marine Park — one of the most important nature reserves in the country — located in the Gulf of Chiriqui.

Researchers will collect samples of plants, fungi and algae that have symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationships with corals, and bacteria in fresh and sea water, according to Dario Luque, an officer at the country’s National Environmental Authority (ANAM).

http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/bioprospecting/news/panama-is-first-to-benefit-from-fund-to-tackle-biopiracy.html

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About half of the rural population of Cambodia lacks access to improved water; an even higher percentage lacks access to latrines. More than 35,000 concrete BioSand Water filters (BSF) have been installed in the country. However, the concrete BSF takes time to produce and weighs hundreds of pounds. A plastic BSF has been developed but may not perform to the same benchmarks established by its predecessor. To evaluate plastic BSF performance and health impact, we performed a cluster randomized controlled trial in 13 communities including 189 households and 1147 participants in the Angk Snoul district of Kandal Province from May to December 2008. The results suggest that villages with plastic BSFs had significantly lower concentrations of E. coli in drinking water and lower diarrheal disease (incidence rate ratio 0.41, 95% confidence interval: 0.24–0.69) compared to control villages. As one of the first studies on the plastic BSF in Cambodia, these are important findings, especially in a setting where the concrete BSF has seen high rates of continued use years after installation. The study suggests the plastic BSF may play an important role in scaling up the distribution/implementation of the BSF, potentially improving water quality and health in the region.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es203114q

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