The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University
Ancient alchemists dreamed of transforming base materials like lead into gold and other valuable commodities. While such efforts generally came to naught, researchers today are having some success in extracting a variety of useful products like aviation fuels, lubricants, solvents, food additives, and plastics from organic waste.
The trick is accomplished with the aid of specialized bacteria, whose metabolic activities can convert simpler chemicals into useful products through a microbial growth process knows as chain elongation.
Anca Delgado, a researcher in the Biodesign Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at Arizona State University (ASU), has been exploring the phenomenon. In a new study, she describes for the first time how the chain elongation processes are carried out by microorganisms under normal conditions in soil.
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My daughter’s lockdown achievement is that she does not let food go to waste. It’s reminded me that humans don’t have to leave a mass of trash in their wake.
By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX Arizona is getting only about a third of the doses of COVID-19 needed to keep pace with demand, the state s top health official said Friday.
Dr. Cara Christ said the state is in line to get another approximately 169,000 doses this coming week, about half in the Pfizer vaccine and half the Moderna formula. But what s really needed and what Christ said she has asked for from federal officials is another 300,000 on top of that, not just for next week but for weeks and weeks beyond that.
And it is that issue of supply that is resulting in many people having trouble getting an appointment.
Banner Health hospitals, ICUs are filling up in Phoenix area
By PAUL DAVENPORT and JONATHAN J. COOPERDecember 23, 2020 GMT
PHOENIX (AP) Three Banner Health hospitals are operating above capacity as Arizona confronts a surge in coronavirus cases, the top doctor for the state’s largest hospital chain said Wednesday.
Banner’s Desert, Thunderbird and University hospitals in the Phoenix area have more patients than they’re typically licensed to handle, said Dr. Marjorie Bessel, chief clinical officer. Systemwide, Banner’s intensive care units are at 160% of their typical winter peak, she said, and nearly six in 10 ICU patients have COVID-19. Non-emergency procedures, such as cancer surgeries and hip replacements, have been canceled at some hospitals to keep beds open for patients battling the coronavirus.