Search Results for: Research

BY MONICA DOBIE
A MICHIGAN, USA, company recently gave employees a choice: quit smoking or lose your job. And although this could be considered an effective way to fight nicotine addiction, public health officials do not see it that way. Four employees from Weyco, a firm that manages benefit plans for workers on behalf of other companies were shown the door in January after refusing to take a nicotine test on whether they had smoked since a deadline of January 1, this year.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
*Copper

Copper dropped in production between 2003-04 and the previous year. However, the Mt Lyell Copper Mine in Queenstown has deemed copper priced sufficiently to continue its development of a decline to the next production level. Copper prices made significant gains throughout 2003-4, notably in the second half of the financial year and reached the A$4,000 (UK Pounds 1,600) mark by June, a price not achieved since 1995.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to lend around Euro 40 million to Germany’s Impfstoffwerk Dessau-Tornau to help it build a new research and development building and a new production facility for virus vaccines. The loan would also part-fund the reconstruction of a filling unit, the expansion of existing cooling, storage and vaccine production facilities plus investments in equipment.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs has called on EU national governments to increase their spending on radioactive waste management research. Speaking to a Brussels workshop on the topic, he said spending “in many – but not all – member states is not sufficient to make real progress in the short to medium term”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PAN-EUROPEAN research project is investigating how nano-particles can best be incorporated in liquids such as paints, improving their effectiveness. For instance, the three-year PROFORM project thinks nano-particles can help protect paint from the sunlight, for instance, but only if these tiny elements are consistently distributed within a liquid, a tall order given the gaps in knowledge about their behaviour and properties.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PHARMACEUTICAL companies have been accused of risking missing the opportunities offered by the latest technological zeitgeist, that of nanotechnology. Consultants Lux Research has warned that while European Union (EU) governments are spending on nanotechnology research, large medicine manufacturers are investing very little.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AMERICAN scientists have developed an “infant formula” for calves that may help them fight infection from salmonella and other microbes especially when faced with anxiety such as transport stress. The supplement contains beta-glucan from yeast cell walls and vitamin C.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
TASMANIA’S non-ferrous metals industry is enjoying a welcome resurgence with strong production targets for the next five to ten years.

Miners in Australia’s island state are reluctant to call it a “metals rush” but it is the most significant set of resource finds for more than 100 years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) says a genetically modified maize variety is safe enough for consumers, animals and the environment to secure market approval. 1507 maize kills certain “pest” butterflies and moths. EFSA also wants further research using iodine in livestock feed, which could harm meat and dairy consumers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
UNTIL now the human eye has reigned supreme in textile and clothing companies wanting to carefully check dye colour quality in their products, but that, claims the European Space Agency (ESA), is now ending. It has helped to develop an artificial eye, now being sold to textile companies to help them monitor dying quality, reducing wastage.…