Search Results for: Research

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN EU network of research institutions investigating the safety and health effects of phytoestrogens has been created. Phytohealth will especially check whether phytoestrogens prevent cancer. They are found in plant foods, such as beans, cabbage, flax seed, rye, berries, grains and soya products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN research consortium says it has adapted existing nanotechnology to create tiny switches that can further shrink the size of computers. The E! 2839 MESCI-I project – coordinated by European Union (EU) research network EUREKA – claims to “have succeeded where many others have failed – by making the production of miniature electric and computer systems economically viable”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BULGARIA has come under fire for failing to effectively reform its shoddy mental hospitals, which have been described by a human rights group as “dumping grounds where people are robbed of the right to any activity and wait only to die”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has bitten the bullet and proposed a comprehensive regulation controlling the production, sale and use of children’s medicines in the European Union (EU) following many months of consultations. Brussels wants to ensure special care is taken to ensure the safety and effectiveness of paediatric medicines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INCOMING European Union (EU) Commissioner for research Janez Potocnik has declared he would be prepared to build an ITER-scale fusion reactor at Cadarache, France, if there is no international agreement on where to build the prototype. In answers to a European Parliament questionnaire, he said the EU “could consider launching the construction of the ITER at Cadarache…with those of its partners willing to be involved”, although only at the “very last resort”.…

Keith Nuthall
NEELIE Kroes, the European Union (EU) Commissioner-designate for Competition – called the Commission’s second most important job after its president’s – vigorously defended herself at the European Parliament against allegations of divided loyalties today.

Appearing at a hearing before parliament’s economic committee earlier today, she endured a three hour grilling from cross-party tormentors who included her Dutch countryman Paul van Buitenen, formerly a whistle blower and now an MEP.…

BY MONICA DOBIE and KEITH NUTHALL
USA retail food product sizes are outstripping weights declared on their labels by as much as 72%, according to a new study published by the American Dietetic Association.

Researchers from the US Agricultural Research Service (ARS) found that out of 99 food items checked, just 37 had contents weighing what was declared on their labels, 15 were underweight, and 47 products were oversized.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
SCIENTISTS from the USA’s Agricultural Research Service are trying to improve the taste of reconstituted orange juice in order to match the flavour of freshly squeezed orange juice that most consumers prefer.

To do this, researchers had to isolate 40 “flavour aroma compounds” that make freshly squeezed OJ taste the way it does.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SALMONELLA levels in free-range organically produced poultry are roughly the same as conventionally produced chickens according to recent findings from the US Agricultural Research Service. Its scientists found that approximately 25 % of chickens from both farming methods tested positive for salmonella, quashing some consumer beliefs that free-range chickens are microbiologically superior.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A STUDY ordered into the effects of European Union (EU) chemical control system REACH has been roundly criticised by members of the European Parliament committee that ordered it. Wiesbaden-based company Arthur D. Little’s report claimed that REACH could cause “a 2.9% loss in GDP and a 24.7% loss in (chemical and related industry) production”.…