Policy Wise

As reported by the New York Times’ health blog, a University of Wisconsin study confirms what many people already suspect.
Healthy eating really does cost more.
That’s what University of Washington researchers found when they compared the prices of 370 foods sold at supermarkets in the Seattle area. Calorie for calorie, junk foods not only cost less [...]

I have wondered previously, in the context of global warming, about how energy efficiency and carbon cutting measures might be of economic benefit. This Economist article talks about an interesting study undertaken by Vattenfall, a Swedish power utility, to quantify the economic costs of various emission control measures. (via)

The measures below the horizontal [...]

Via Marginal Revolution, a new US government report on climate change(pdf document) mentions how private insurers are responding to future climate changes.
Major private and federal insurers are both exposed to the effects of climate change over coming decades, but are responding differently. Many large private insurers are incorporating climate change into their annual risk management [...]

According to this AP story, companies are being asked to donate unused patents to spur entrepreneurship. I had heard from a friend in IBM about large number of patents remaining unused, but the figure of 90-95% sounds startling. Of course, one must realize that all patents do not have the equal potential of developing into [...]

Over at Nanopolitan, Abi raises the issue of the abysmally low budget allocation for government sponsored research and development in India. In response, Nitin points out that R&D should be left to private enterprise. Some interesting discussions in the comments section of both blogs (part of this write-up is essentially reposting a comment left on [...]

Through an opinion piece in The Hindu, Prof Gautam R. Desiraju argues that an important reason for India’s lag behind China in terms of scientific output is the lack of research infrastructure at the undergraduate level.
A major area of investment in Chinese universities is the upgrading of undergraduate teaching labs. We spend almost nothing [...]

From New Scientist, a report on how Novartis is is mounting a legal challenge on India’s patent laws to prevent production of low-cost generic AIDS drugs.
Tens of thousands of people being treated for AIDS will suffer if Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis succeeds in changing India’s patent law, the humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on [...]

It may seem a bit obvious, but Science News has a story on research on correlation between urban sprawl and obesity.

[University of British Columbia Professor Lawrence] Frank is part of an emerging area of cross-disciplinary science that’s examining the relationship between the shapes of our cities and the shapes of our bodies.He and other researchers [...]

 
Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen outlines various options/scenarios vis-a-vis India and China’s fossil-fuel consumption (and consequent contribution to global warming) and possible responses from the US.
1. China and India are less locked into fossil fuels than is the United States, and as Brazil has done they will take the lead in moving [...]

It is perhaps not very surprising that Japan is leading the developed countries in energy conservation. According to this New York Times story, the country has achieved this by a combination of technology development;
In many countries, higher oil prices have hurt pocketbooks and led to worries about economic slowdowns. But here in Japan, [...]