Search Results for: Research

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE US Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has developed technology to process chicken feathers into a plastic-like material that can be moulded just like any other plastic, with properties similar to polyethylene and polypropylene. The federal agency says this makes the feather-derived plastic a unique material for packaging or other applications where high strength and biodegradability are desired.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALTHOUGH the south Asian Tsunami meant 2004 was a terrible year for deaths caused by natural disasters, personal damage caused by such events was actually less than in 2003, the United Nations has reported. Its Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) said that more than 320,000 people perished last year in 366 natural disasters, with the Tsunami killing at least 300,000.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is investigating 13,000 personal DNA records to discover links between genetics, food components and obesity. A key aim is examining the role carbohydrates and high-protein foods could play in making consumers feel full and so less likely to continue eating.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FORGET about global warming, European scientists are currently more concerned about record low temperatures in the Arctic region, which they claim are thinning the northern hemisphere’s ozone layer to dangerously thin depths. Although Europe, Asia and north America have pumped most of the world’s ozone-depleting chemicals into the atmosphere, it is in the south where the notorious ozone hole has appeared, bringing skin cancers to Australasia and other regions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PROMOTORS of a European Commission-supported research project encouraging municipalities across Europe to establish local broadband services say their four trials have proved a success. The scheme is especially designed to help local authorities seed new comms tech investment in zones deemed too remote by commercial service providers for investing in infrastructure.…

BY TAMARA VANTROYEN, in Hong Kong

CHINA looks to be a likely candidate for the first country in the world to approve genetically modified rice, despite the fact that the State Agricultural GM Crop Biosafety Committee, a technical body which evaluates GM rice for research, did not approve the idea at its three-day meeting in Beijing, December 10-12, 2005.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

NURSES at Birmingham Heartlands hospital are excited about the potential time saved in spotting superbug infections through the ground-breaking electronic nose now on trial there. Charge nurse Peter Sutton, who works at the hospital’s intensive care unit, told the Nursing Standard:

"It’s still very much at the trial stage, but being able to spot an infection in 15 minutes rather than the standard 24 to 48 hours will make a great difference to patient control.…

IRELAND’S Celtic Tiger economy may have lost a little of its bounce recently, with double-digit annual growth figures no longer predicted. However, the beast is still in fine fettle, as a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) observer report notes: "The economy has bounced back.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg

THE PAINT and coatings industries in the Southern African states of Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia are closely linked to that of the regional economic giant South Africa in the that the major manufacturing plants are located in the industrialised area of South Africa’s Gauteng province with branch offices in the neighbouring states acting as agents for the parent companies in South Africa.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

TONY Blair has been attacked by the chairman of the European Parliament’s research committee for failing to secure a better deal for researchers within the European Union’s (EU) medium term ‘financial perspectives’ budget, that was agreed last Friday.…