The future for plants and plants for the future

A report of the 2007 EMBO Conference Series on Plant Molecular Biology 'From basic genomics to systems biology', Ghent, Belgium, 2-4 May 2007.     

Imagining imaging's future

Imaging specific molecules and their interactions in space and time will be essential to understand how genomes create cells, how cells constitute organisms and how errant cells cause disease. Molecular imaging must be extended and applied from nanometre to metre scales and from milliseconds to days. This quest will require input from physics, chemistry, and the genetics and biochemistry of diverse organisms with useful talents.     

Mass survey--Its future

Experience with a fast-tempo case finding survey in Seattle confirms the opinion expressed with regard to other areas, that the tools now are at hand to eradicate tuberculosis in Seattle in a 20-year period. The most important single factor in controlling tuberculosis is segregation and treatment of patients with active cases - sanatorium care that is sufficient in quantity and quality. Aggressive use of community-wide, mass x-ray program constitutes the second largest factor in controlling tuberculosis and has its greatest application in cities of over 100,000 population. The cost of such a mass survey program is trifling when compared with the cost of an adequate hospitalization program. The Seattle experience indicates that the cost of a mass survey program amortized over a five-year period is only 2 per cent of the cost of one year of hospital care.     

Creating our future

The evolving health-care system in the United States increasingly rewards successful efforts to keep people healthier and more productive. This is exactly what applied psychophysiology and biofeedback have to offer. However, if we wait to be included in the system, we will wait forever. Inclusion can only come as a result of our efforts to educate decision-makers about the value of our research and services. That education won't take place unless we have an instructional plan and materials. Detailing that plan and producing those materials is the immediate challenge to this Association.This paper was presented as a presidential address at the annual meeting of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback in Cincinnati, Ohio, March 10, 1995.     

Calcium carbonate cycling in future oceans and its influence on future climates

In the last few years, evidence has accumulated that calcifyingorganisms are likely to be affected by ocean acidification.Therefore, the production of calcium carbonate will probablydecline, although conversely global warming, increasing stratificationand sea level rise may also stimulate increases in global calcification.As acidification reaches the deep ocean, it will cause pronouncedshallowing of the lysocline depths for calcite and aragonite,leading most probably to an almost complete cessation of deep-seacalcium carbonate burial for some centuries. Here, I brieflyreview the consequences of these and other changes on futureocean calcium carbonate cycling, and the consequences of thisfor future climate. Associated climate impacts are not likelyto be significant over the next few centuries, but will becomeincreasingly important thereafter. After the carbonate compensationresponse to acidification has run its course, extra CO₂ is expectedto be left behind in the atmosphere, protecting against futureice ages.     

The future of bioenergy

Energy from biomass plays a large and growing role in the global energy system. Energy from biomass can make significant contributions to reducing carbon emissions, especially from difficult‐to‐decarbonize sectors like aviation, heavy transport, and manufacturing. But land‐intensive bioenergy often entails substantial carbon emissions from land‐use change as well as production, harvesting, and transportation. In addition, land‐intensive bioenergy scales only with the utilization of vast amounts of land, a resource that is fundamentally limited in supply. Because of the land constraint, the intrinsically low yields of energy per unit of land area, and rapid technological progress in competing technologies, land intensive bioenergy makes the most sense as a transitional element of the global energy mix, playing an important role over the next few decades and then fading, probably after mid‐century. Managing an effective trajectory for land‐intensive bioenergy will require an unusual mix of policies and incentives that encourage appropriate utilization in the short term but minimize lock‐in in the longer term.     

The future of ecolabels

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment -     

Biocides for the future

New regulatory measures require greater disclosure of toxic agents including biocides and the performance of risk assessments for each specific biocide application. There is a duty to minimise risk and hence an obligation to use concentrations which are effective but not excessive. A number of strategies are discussed which could lead to enhanced anti-microbial activity at lower use concentrations.