In a late-year flurry, Congress passed many bills last week. Among others, Congress passed an all-in-one spending bill. It combined eleven spending bills and additional spending for the Iraq war into one. H.R. 2764, now called the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, is the bill. Its cost per U.S. family is a little over $9,400, about $720 of which is for the additional military spending.

Most relevant to readers here is P.L. 110-140, The CLEAN Energy Act of 2007.

Costs $4.28 per family
What People Think: 51% For, 49% Against

http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_PL_110-140.html

If you want to read the rest of the expenditures, here you go:

H.R.

A unique electron microscope that can help create four-dimensional “movies” of molecules may hold the answers to research questions in a number of fields including chemistry, biology, and physics, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News.

In the article, C&EN Associate Editor Rachel Petkewich notes that the microscope, located at the California Institute of Technology, is a modified transmission electron microscope interfaced with an ultrafast laser. The ultrafast microscope is the only one capable of capturing four-dimensional pictures of molecules — 3-D structural changes over time — as they form and break apart, the writer states.

Researchers in New Jersey report development of a new type of non-stick material whose ability to shed liquids like water from a duck’s back can be turned on or off simply by flipping an electrical switch.

The material, called “nanonails,” offers a wide-range of potential applications including contamination-resistant and self-cleaning surfaces, reduced-drag ships, and advanced electrical batteries, they say. Their study is scheduled for the Jan. 1 issue of Langmuir.

For years, researchers sought to develop surfaces that repel virtually any liquid. They’ve created non-stick surfaces that repel water and certain other liquids, but have had little success with repelling common organic liquids such as oils, solvents and detergents.

In a finding that defies conventional culinary wisdom, researchers in Italy report that cooking vegetables can preserve or even boost their nutritional value in comparison to their raw counterparts, depending on the cooking method used. Their study is scheduled for the Dec. 26 issue of Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Nicoletta Pellegrini and colleagues note that although many people maintain that eating raw vegetables is more nutritious than eating cooked ones, a small but growing number of studies suggest that cooking may actually increase the release of some nutrients.

Scientists have genetically engineered a mosquito to release a sea-cucumber protein into its gut which impairs the development of malaria parasites, according to research in PLoS Pathogens. Researchers say this development is a step towards developing future methods of preventing the transmission of malaria.

Malaria is caused by parasites whose lives begin in the bodies of mosquitoes. When mosquitoes feed on the blood of an infected human, the malaria parasites undergo complex development in the insect’s gut. The new study has focused on disrupting this growth and development with a lethal protein, CEL-III, found in sea cucumbers, to prevent the mosquito from passing on the parasite.

A brain chemical that makes us sleepy also appears to play a central role in the success of deep brain stimulation to ease symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease and other brain disorders. The surprising finding is outlined in a paper published in Nature Medicine.

The work shows that adenosine, a brain chemical most widely known as the cause of drowsiness, is central to the effect of deep brain stimulation, or DBS. The technique is used to treat people affected by Parkinson’s disease and who have severe tremor, and it’s also being tested in people who have severe depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder.