Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• US Electricity Use Falls as Economy Greens | Via Meadia

  • Historically, economists saw electricity use as an accurate measure of growth, but now that everyday products are increasingly energy efficient and the manufacturing economy is streamlined, growth and electricity use have become decoupled. This is another sign that in our new information age growth is green. Declinists and pessimists, take note; growth in the American economy is less and less about producing widgets and more about style, design, services and ideas. It’s likely that the faster we grow the more rapidly the transition to a cleaner and greener economy will go.
  • In response to falling profits, electricity companies are balancing the books by cutting investment in low-emission options like nuclear power plants (which many greens will not mourn) and especially in renewable energy projects. Falling demand for electricity plus rising supplies of cheap and reliable domestic fuels like natural gas makes subsidies for green generation more expensive and less likely to succeed.

• 22nd Century Group Announces Allowance of U.S. Patent for MPO Nicotine Biosynthesis Gene - Yahoo! Finance

  • The allowed claims of Patent Application No. 12/305,483, entitled, NUCLEIC   ACID ENCODING N-METHYLPUTRESCINE OXIDASE AND USES THEREOF, cover   nucleic acids encoding MPO, methods for producing tobacco plants with   either reduced or increased nicotine levels, and tobacco cells and   tobacco plants produced by the foregoing.
  • Scientists have attempted to clone the MPO gene for   decades
  • The MPO gene technology is one of several 22nd Century patent   families representing our second-generation gene technology for   modifying the content of nicotine and other nicotinic alkaloids in the   tobacco plant. Our second-generation technology has significant   advantages over our first generation technology
  • mainly   related to all of the key nicotine biosynthesis genes and potential   modified risk tobacco products produced therefrom

• Rubio promises proposals to bolster middle class - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

  • As a party and as conservatives we need to do a better job explaining to people why free enterprise and limited government is better for them than big government is," he added. "That's true for all Americans, including Cuban-Americans.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.