Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions: Topics & Updates

2013 Global Challenges Updates

• Supplying Safe Drinking Water: The first caffeine-‘addicted’ bacteria
• Promoting Public Health: Six in 10 people worldwide lack access to flush toilets or other adequate sanitation
• Our Sustainable Future: First mobile app green chemistry fosters sustainable manufacturing of medicines
• Promoting Personal Safety & National Security: Ancient “Egyptian blue” pigment points to new telecommunications, security ink technology
• Promoting Personal Safety & National Security: Toward a better cyanide antidote for terrorist attacks and other mass casualty events
• Providing Nutritious Foods: A new, super-nutritious puffed rice for breakfast cereals and snacks
• Our Sustainable Future: New twist on using biomass for cosmetic, personal care and antioxidant-containing products
• Promoting Personal Safety & National Security: Boosting the sensitivity of airport security screening
• Combating Disease: Leaves of carob tree, source of chocolate substitute, fight virulent food-poisoning bacteria

2012 Global Challenges Updates

• Confronting Climate Change: Stop-Gap Measures to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Speed limits on cargo ships could reduce their pollutants by more than half
• Supplying Safe Drinking Water: New analysis of drinking water-related gastrointestinal illness
• Our Sustainable Future: White rot fungus boosts ethanol production from corn stalks, cobs and leaves
• Supplying Safe Drinking Water: Leveraging bacteria in drinking water to benefit consumers
• New fuels: The sun and more: Transparent solar cells for windows that generate electricity
• New Fuels: The Sun and More: Toward super-size wind turbines: Bigger wind turbines do make greener electricity
• Promoting Public Health: Green plants reduce pollution on city streets up to eight times more than previously believed
• Combating Disease: A non-antibiotic approach for treating urinary tract infections
• Our Sustainable Future: Rivers flowing into the sea offer vast potential as electricity source
• Promoting Public Health: New, inexpensive paper-based diabetes test ideal for developing countries
• Our Sustainable Future: Ancient effect harnessed to produce electricity from waste heat
• New Fuels: Biofuels: Real-life scientific tale of the first “electrified snail”
• New Fuels:Biofuels: Meeting biofuel production targets could change agricultural landscape
• Promoting Personal Safety & National Security: Killer silk: Making silk fibers that kill anthrax and other microbes in minutes
• Providing Nutritious Foods: Strong scientific evidence that eating berries benefits the brain
• Combating Disease: Adapting personal glucose monitors to detect DNA
• Providing Safe Food: Children may have highest exposure to titanium dioxide nanoparticles
• New Fuels: Biofuels: Biofuel cell generates electricity when implanted in False Death’s Head Cockroach
• Promoting Personal Safety & National Security: New test could help track down and prosecute terrorists who use nerve gas and other agents
• Supplying Safe Drinking Water: “Miracle tree” substance produces clean drinking water inexpensively and sustainably
• Our Sustainable Future: Peatland carbon storage is stabilized against catastrophic release of carbon
• Combating Disease: Turning up the heat to kill cancer cells: “The Lance Armstrong effect”

2011 Global Challenges Updates

• Promoting Public Health: Household washing machines are a source of potentially harmful ocean “microplastic” pollution
• Promoting Public Health: Recycling thermal cash register receipts contaminates paper products with BPA
• Combating Disease: Genetically-engineered spider silk for gene therapy
• New Fuels: Biofuels: Alligator fat as a new source of biodiesel fuel
• Confronting Climate Change: Using the energy in oil shale without releasing carbon dioxide in a greenhouse world
• Promoting Public Health: Toward a vaccine for methamphetamine abuse
• Providing Safe Foods: Safety of nanoparticles in food crops is still unclear
• Developing new materials: Using banana peels to purify water
• Our Sustainable Future: A “green grid” for delivering solar and wind-based electricity
• Promoting Public Health: Toward new medication for chronic brain diseases
• Developing New Sources of Energy: Self-powered nanogenerator uses body movements to generate electricity, transmit data wirelessly
• Our Sustainable Future: “Green” cars made from pineapples and bananas
• Combating Disease: New rapid diagnostic test for MRSA “Superbugs”
• Promoting Personal Safety & National Security: New nanomaterial detects and neutralizes explosives
• Our Sustainable Future: A greener process for a key ingredient used to make paint, diapers, and other products
• Promoting Public Health: High vitamin-D bread could help solve widespread insufficiency problem
• Developing News Sources of Energy: Sewage treatment plant wastewater as a huge new energy source
• Supplying Safe Drinking Water: Don’t blame The Pill for estrogen in drinking water
• Future Cities: The right choices on transportation can shrink your own personal carbon footprint
• Our Sustainable Future: Biodegradable plastic from milk and clay

2010 Global Challenges Updates

• Promoting Public Health: Black rice bran may fight inflammation
• Supplying Safe Drinking water: Electrified nano filter promises to cut costs for clean drinking water
• Our Sustainable Future: Saving energy by reducing food waste
• In the green of health: Just five minutes of “green exercise” optimal for good mental health
• Promoting public health: Hand washing really helps stop spread of disease
• Future Cities: Nanotechnology promises more sustainable buildings, bridges, and other structures
• Developing new sources of energy: Producing cost-effective biodiesel from sewage sludge
• Our Sustainable Future: “Smart” roofs that can save energy
• Promoting Public Health: Dusting off a hidden challenge
• Promoting Public Health: Toward a fast, accurate urine test for pneumonia
• New Fuels: Biofuels: A more economical process for making ethanol from non-food sources
• Our Sustainable Future: Roadmap for preserving the planet
• Our Sustainable Future: Decomposing BPA-containing plastic using a “fungus among us”
• Combating disease: Coal from mass extinction era linked to lung cancer mystery
• Combating disease: Should people over age 50 watch their copper and iron intake?
• Providing Safe Foods: Heat forms potentially harmful substance in high-fructose corn syrup

2009 Global Challenges Updates

• New Fuels: An “artificial leaf” for making solar-energy
• Promoting Public Health: Saving lives with the first dry powder inhalable vaccine for measles
• Providing safe foods: “Killer spices” provide eco-friendly pesticides for organic fruits and veggies
• Promoting Public Health: Sandcastle worm’s secrets could yield new medical adhesive
• Confronting Climate change: “Green” roofs can help fight global warming
• Confronting Climate Change: Smoke to soak up future oil spills
• Promoting Public Health: Redefining DNA: Darwin from the atom up
• Providing Safe Foods: Making grapefruit juice safer for people who take certain prescription drugs
• Global Climate Change: The Quest for Permanent Solutions
• Combating disease: Much more than pasta and potatoes
• Promoting Personal Safety & National Security: Another “Mother of Satan?”
• Our Sustainable Future: Small generator, big applications
• Promoting Personal Safety & National Security: Targeting ricin

2008 Global Challenges Topics

• The Crises in Clean Water: Water Purification
• Water Desalination: Freshwater from the Sea
• Confronting Climate Change: Stopgap Measures to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Confronting Climate Change: The Quest for Permanent Solutions
• Our Sustainable Future
• Promoting Personal Safety & National Security
• Combating Disease
• New Fuels: Biofuels
• New Fuels: The Sun and More
• Providing Safe Foods
• Providing Nutritious Foods
• Promoting Public Health