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Edible vaccines are seen by many to be a key part of developing workable vaccination programs for many of the world's developing nations. The cost of storing and distributing vaccines accounts for a large part of their expense - a plant-based delivery system, in which genetically engineered seed could be distributed, then planted and harvested to yield working vaccines, would make vaccines accessible to more areas of the world. In addition, of course, edible vaccines have the advantage of not requiring the painful needle-stick of injected vaccines. The potato-based vaccines currently under study must be eaten raw - but other plants under consideration include banana and tomato, much tastier in uncooked form. Scientists are looking to edible vaccines to help fight diseases from diahhrea to cholera to hepatitis B. Then...In early March, two teams of astronomers announced that they had found that the universe was expanding at an ever-increasing rate - instead of gradually slowing to a halt, reined in by the pull of gravity. (Check out SciFri's coverage of the announcement - web page | RealAudio recording) This weekend, astrophysicists from across the country are gathering at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois to discuss the findings and what they mean. Some propose that Einstein's "cosmological constant" may actually exist, and point to a type of energy that comes from a vacuum as the source of the constant's push. Others use theories involving superstrings or exotic particles like pions and bosons to explain the push and pull of the universe. In other astronomical mystery news, this week a team of astronomers from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, University College in London, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, WV announced that they may have discovered the long-sought after "missing matter" that provides the gravitational glue keeping galactic clusters from flying apart. Using NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer satellite, the team detected a faint glow coming for something in between the galaxies. The glow, they theorize, may be the ultraviolet signature of a very dilute cloud of gas spread throughout interstellar space. Although the cloud is very thin - on Earth it would be better than the best vacuum available - when added up over trillions of cubic light years, the cloud could weigh more than the stars in hundreds of galaxies. That extra mass, the team concludes, would provide enough extra matter to balance the equation.
Guests: Mary Lou Clements-Mann Michael Turner Books/Articles Discussed: Related Links: Some information about edible vaccines Boyce Thompson Institute for
Plant Research Cosmological
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