Research chemists from the Hollings Marine Laboratory have fond a chemical from an ocean-dwelling sponge that reprograms anti-resistant bacteria to make them vulnerable to medicines again. Once-ineffective antibiotics proved lethal for bacteria treated with the compound, researchers found. The sponge’s chemical defense points to a compound called ageliferin. Fragments of the ageliferin compound successfully resensitized bacteria that cause whooping cough, ear infections, septicemia and food poisoning. The compound also works on Pseudomonas aeruginosa that causes horrible infections in wounded soldiers and on MSRA, bacteria resistant to multiple drugs.
For newly chartered e3Bank, being “green” or “sustainable” is not a suite of product offerings or a vertical market within a company. It is an operating system. “It is part of our DNA,” according to the Bank’s Chairman Sandy Wiggins. The bank’s name, e3bank, reflects its focus on a triple bottom line: sustainable enterprise, the planetary environment, and social equity. The bank has designed loan approval criteria to reflect all three dimensions of sustainability and that screen for environmental and social risk. Finance rates for a loan will be reduced, says Wiggins, as projects reach higher levels of sustainability. The bank’s employees will all be LEED certified. The Pennsylvania bank has just received its charter from the FDIC.
- Sustainable Practices provided David Schaller, daschaller at yahoo.com
