Some intriguing ways to improve the world’s health

CHALLENGES are all the rage in science this week. Besides the Centennial Challenges organised by NASA, America’s space agency (see adjacent story), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges Explorations are also in the news. This programme, which is open to researchers from around the world, is intended to provide seed money for the development of ideas that might improve the health of those living in poor countries.

Seventy-six grants of $100,000 each are being disbursed in this, the third round of funding. The lucky winners range from a type of chewing gum that can detect signs of malaria in a person’s saliva, via a solar-activated mosquito-larva poison, to a way of equipping mobile phones with microphones to record people’s coughs and allow pneumonia to be diagnosed remotely. …