Deborah Kaplan

Corn is a superfood — but not one you’ll find in nutrition articles for health benefits. With byproducts like corn syrup, sometimes it’s quite the opposite. But corn’s versatility goes beyond food, and beyond another well-known corn byproduct: ethanol fuel. Its super powers stem from its ability to transform into adhesives, packaging and ev...

Banana stalks. Pineapple leaves. Squeezed oranges. Mushroom roots. Corn. Spoiled milk. Wood pulp. Soy beans. Chicken feathers. Things that go to the dump? Not so fast. These are the raw materials for new textile fibers, and they’re changing not only the sustainability footprint of fabric production, but the supply chain as well.

Instead of incinerating factory floor scraps, materials-science startup Circular Systems is reusing them to create new fabrics. Instead of burning flax and hemp stalks, Circular Systems is turning them into yarn. "We’re working in the global textile supply chain and global agriculture space to transform waste into valuable new materials," t...

Beta-thalassemia is a blood disorder, with more than 60,000 infants born worldwide with the disease each year. However, unless you live in Asia, India, the Middle East or the Mediterranean where beta-thalassemia is most prevalent, you may never have heard of this inherited blood disorder that disrupts the body’s ability to make hemoglobin.
But that may be changing as doctors in Europe and North America are increasingly encountering patients with beta-thalassemia. “We’re only now starting to d...

Over the past few decades, scientists have come to understand that the loss of brain tissue—categorized into grey and white matter—in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) is linked with disease worsening. But research is revealing that grey matter loss, in particular, may be closely associated with disability and cognitive impairment.
“Grey matter loss is one of the best predictors of disease progression in people with MS,” said Dr. John DeLuca, senior vice president for research and training ...

New research has helped scientists better understand the more than 60 different molecular subtypes of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), revealing just how diverse and complex this group of blood cancers is. And with better understanding comes the potential for different treatment pathways, which clinicians anticipate seeing at this year’s American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting.
“From a biological standpoint, molecular lymphoma subtypes are very different from one another,” said Dr. G...

In August 2005, Amelia List celebrated her first birthday, and her mother Julie breathed a sigh of relief. She had feared Amelia would develop severe food allergies, as her five-year-old sister Autumn had, by the time she turned one. But it was so far, so good.
Unfortunately, everything went downhill from there, Julie recalls. A month later, the entire family got the stomach flu. Everyone recovered well except for Amelia, whose vomiting and diarrhea continued. Six weeks later, she had lost 20...

Retailers’ desire to compete with Amazon Prime’s free two-day delivery sometimes means shipping in multiple packages. The problem: The process kills efficiency and eats up profits if items are out of stock or stored at different sites.
"Free delivery is a big drain on margin if you don’t get it right," Nick McLean, CEO of OrderDynamics, told Supply Chain Dive.
Retailers looking to improve margins could begin by looking at one metric — shipment to orders. This key performance indicator is used...

If you’re like 70% of college students, you’re going to graduate with student debt. And if you’re among the lucky 30% who don’t, well, you probably still want to watch your wallet while hitting the books, to start off post-college life in the best financial position.
Anyone can make a budget, not just finance and accounting majors. It doesn’t have to be as painful as wisdom teeth removal. And having a budget can actually give ...

Thanksgiving starts in March for the nation’s food banks. Every spring, food banks around the country start placing orders for wholesale gobblers.
The Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB) distributes around 140,000 turkeys and chickens for Thanksgiving, with a goal of purchasing only half of what they need. The other half comes from donations.
"Two to three months ago, we were worried. Donations were not coming as fast," Catherine D’Amato, president and CEO of the GBFB, told Supply Chain Dive. For...

Born weighing almost 10 pounds, Caden Konecny arrived pink and loud. His mom, Ashlea, loved everything about her first-born child, except his struggles to breastfeed.
Perhaps she was doing something wrong?
At Caden's six-week checkup, he was down to 7.5 pounds. A few weeks later, a bad cough landed him in the hospital.
"He sounded like an old man trying to breathe," Ashlea said.
Doctors suspected that Caden had bronchitis. Soon, a doctor noticed something wr...

Targeted drugs are controversial in early-stage kidney cancer, but play a more important role in treating advanced disease.
When Gary Hartstein found blood in his urine in January 2017, he was alarmed, especially when he had difficulty urinating. Within a week, the urologist at his local New Jersey hospital ordered a CT scan and found a racquetball-size tumor. During surgery, the doctor removed Hartstein’s kidney and the 9-centimeter mass and found that the tumor had been pressing into blood ...

Immunotherapy and stereotactic radiation are making a difference for some patients with advanced lung cancer.

In June 2014, 46-year-old Juanita Segura couldn’t stop wheezing. Within a few months, she developed a persistent cough and started on medications for asthma, though she doubted the diagnosis. In October, she landed in the emergency room with severe shortness of breath and was admitted for possible pneumonia. Again, she questioned the diagnosis, and an X-ray showed what looked like a f...