Search Results for: Research

BY PHILIP FINE

TEAMS of microbiologists have concluded that it is not just unsafe to swim in sewage infiltrated waters, but that the amount of sickness caused by such pollution is actually far more predictable than previously thought. The findings have prompted them to call for global health-based legislation on the quality of the world’s bathing waters.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A US government scientist has found a way to make hair gel more environmentally friendly and less expensive to produce. Styling agents currently on the market have costly synthetic polymers to thank for their ability to keep hair in place.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ANOTHER Briton has been appointed head of a key EU environmental health organisation. This time, Professor Jacqueline McGlade, an environmental scientist, will become the next Executive Director of the European Environment Agency. Prof. McGlade, 47, is currently Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Professorial Fellow in Environmental Informatics and Mathematics at University College, London.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN EU-FUNDED research project has discovered a gene that regulates the yield, protein and fat content of milk in cows. MTT Agrifood Research, Finland, and the University of Liège, Belgium, say isolating the gene will help Ayrshire, Holstein and Jersey breeders.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCERN has been raised by the European Commission about a fall in European investment into biotechnology, which has matched the declining confidence of EU consumers in genetically modified products in general. Brussels’ first progress report on its action plan for European life sciences says that “urgent action” is needed to reverse this trend, especially as EU legislation has now been agreed regulating the development of GM technology and its potential adverse effects.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A SMALL private college in upstate New York, USA, has lost a patent case against

two pharmaceutical heavy-hitters. Three years ago the University of

Rochester sued Pharmacia and Pfizer, seeking royalties on the popular

painkiller, Celebrex. The university cited its own patent that treated pain

and inflammation by inhibiting the Cox-2 enzyme.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, ALAN OSBORN, PHILIP FINE and KEITH NUTHALL

IF there had been feelings bubbling under the surface of the British civil nuclear industry that the regulations governing its security were due for an overhaul, the events of September 11, 2001 – becoming universally known by its American shorthand 9/11 – certainly brought everybody to the table.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
LIFE isn’t going to get any easier for hill and mountain farmers if Dr Franz Fischler, EU farm commissioner, has his way. He wants to “de-couple” payments from production for farmers generally and introduce direct fixed supports based on farm size, past output and acceptance of environmental and other standards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
*The European Investment Bank (EIB) is lending Euro 150 million to a special fund to counter the damage caused by the Prestige disaster in Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria. It will be operated by local savings banks and cover recovery project costs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE RECENTLY established database created by the European Clinical Trials Directive (EUDRACT) has come under fire from the European Science Foundation (ESF), which claims that its information is too tightly controlled to allow effective debate.

Although the EUDRACT database was set up to provide European Union (EU) Member States with information on the safety of medicines used in clinical trials, data security standards set by the European Commission prevent independent non-regulatory organisations from accessing it.…