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From saving the rainforest, to developing world-leading vaccines, to digging deep in the search for dark matter, Brazil鈥檚 skills extend far beyond football
Rainforest recovery
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It is one of the greatest environmental disasters of the past 100 years, but clearing the Amazon rainforest to make way for farmland could be over by 2020.
For decades people have been nibbling away at the forest. By 2005, 19,500 square kilometres were being cleared every year 鈥� that鈥檚 2.7 million football pitches in World Cup speak. But since then the rate has fallen 70 per cent, with only 5843 km2 being cleared in 2013.
Cutting down forests releases huge quantities of carbon dioxide, so Brazil has, in effect, slashed its emissions by over a billion tonnes since 2004 鈥� the biggest reduction in the world.
Several factors contributed to the turnaround, according to by the Union of Concerned 杏吧原创s in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Protected areas now cover more than half the Brazilian Amazon. Many have been handed over to indigenous peoples. And the soya and beef industries 鈥� the main drivers of deforestation, as they both need lots of land 鈥� have rapidly intensified over the last few years, allowing them to produce more food from the same land (; see graphs).FIG-mg29733101.jpg
While there will probably always be some clearance going on, of the Earth Innovation Institute in San Francisco, California, says that can be balanced by regrowth elsewhere, leading to 鈥渘et zero鈥� deforestation. 鈥淭he Brazilian achievement is a winner,鈥� says Nepstad. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the sort of solution we鈥檙e going to need more of.鈥�
Deep dark matter
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A tunnel bored almost 2 kilometres beneath the Andes is a great place to build a supervillain hideout 鈥� or a dark matter detector. Researchers planning the appropriately named ANDES, for Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site, have opted for the latter. The facility is a joint project between Chile, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil. If completed by 2021, it would be the first lab of its kind in the southern hemisphere. This is important because whiffs of particles that could be dark matter have been spotted in the northern hemisphere. To find out, someone needs to see a similar signal down south.
GM insects
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In April, Brazil approved the use of genetically modified mosquitoes designed to control dengue fever.
Biotech firm Oxitec of Oxford, UK, has engineered males of the species Aedes aegypti so that their offspring die before reaching maturity. The idea is to cause a population crash, reducing the chance of the insects passing dengue to humans. The firm says that in a test last year in the city of Jacobina, mosquito populations plummeted by 79 per cent between June and December.
Pest control experiments using GM fruit flies .
Start-up nation
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Think 鈥渋nnovation鈥� and you may not think of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais. But the city鈥檚 government has its own programme called , which seeks to attract entrepreneurs globally, and the Sao Pedro district is now dubbed San Pedro Valley.
On a national level, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation launched Start-up Brasil last year. It offers funding for 100 start-ups each year for three years. Many of the solutions are geared towards solving local problems 鈥� a firm that brings virtual homeware stores to slums, for instance, or for poor urban areas.
Jungle launch
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Earth spins fastest at the equator, and Brazil鈥檚 main launch facility, the Alc芒ntara Launch Center, is just a few degrees south. The extra speed provides a boost to launch vehicles, reducing the thrust they need to escape into space. Russia, Israel and Ukraine want to work with Brazil in return for access to the prime launch real estate. Brazil is developing a homegrown orbital launch vehicle and, with the help of the Russian Federal Space Agency, is designing a family of next-generation rockets, dubbed Southern Cross, says Josu茅 Cardoso dos Santos at S茫o Paulo State University.
Tackling a deadly worm
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After malaria, schistosomiasis is the most devastating parasitic infection in the world, affecting around 249 million people. A debilitating, chronic disease that can lead to organ failure, it has also been implicated in facilitating HIV infection.
Help may be around the corner, though: leading the search for a vaccine is a team from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro.
Their vaccine candidate is based on a protein from the parasitic worm Schistosoma mansoni (see picture) called Sm14. The vaccine passed the first round of human safety trials last year with flying colours. Next, 600 people aged 9 to 13 years old from Brazil, Senegal and Ivory Coast will be enrolled in a trial to test if the vaccine actually works.
No other vaccine has made it this far. The reason, says Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, is that unlike the bacteria or viruses most vaccines target, schistosomes are complex multicellular creatures. 鈥淪o the challenge is to vaccinate against an animal,鈥� he says.
Miriam Tendler, leader of the Sm14 vaccine team, says there are political as well as scientific problems. 鈥淲ith few exceptions, the vaccines in the world were developed in rich countries for meeting market needs,鈥� she says. 鈥淪chistosomiasis is a problem for the developing world.鈥� As a result it has taken a country like Brazil 鈥� with a rare combination of both resources and incentive 鈥� to tackle the scourge.
Leader: 鈥�Science, not soccer, will boost Brazil鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淏razilian science bids for world glory鈥�
