New Iowa plant, based on technology developed at MIT, will use bacteria to produce biodegradable plastics from corn.

Every year, more than 250 billion pounds of plastic are produced worldwide. Much of it ends up in the world’s oceans, a fact that troubles MIT biology professor Anthony Sinskey.

“Plastic does not degrade in the ocean. It just gets ground up into tiny particles,” he says. In the Pacific Ocean, a vast swath twice the size of Texas teems with tiny bits of oil-based plastic that can poison ocean life. Read the full story

ALBANY — Workers at Capital Region hospitals are going to have to get a flu shot this year or face losing their jobs.

The requirement is part of a new emergency regulation adopted earlier this month by the State Hospital Review and Planning Council that requires that all hospital workers get the flu vaccine — and that it be a requirement for employment. Read the full story

Last night Zero Hedge obtained some interesting documents from the CDC web site.  They contain blank ‘forced quarantine’ orders from Iowa and Florida regarding novel H1N1 — including quarantine to a ’secure detention center’– which appear to be recent — dated April 2009.  Some may be aware the NIH and CDC just held an H1N1 conference in DC — August 19-21 2009 — that focused on ‘mass fatality management’. For many, this should be cause for concern.  Read the full story