Search Results for: Research

KEITH NUTHALL
A GERMAN research group has been awarded an EU European Business Award for the Environment for developing technology to produce fibre-board from the residue wood of palm oil plantations. The Fraunhofe Institute for Wood Research’s system will help Malaysian producers create a marketable product from the 40 million tonnes of biomass waste produced annually, which is usually either burnt or stored in poor conditions.…

BY MARK ROWE
EUROPEAN scientists have been granted pioneering access to Tibet in the hope of discovering industrial catalysts that could lead to a new generation of chemicals for textile production.

The research team from Britain’s Leicester and Seville universities will next year visit pristine soda lakes, salt lakes and hot springs rich in microbial biodiversity.…

BY MARK ROWE
A TEAM of scientists has visited Bosnia and Herzegovina amidst concerns that 12 areas of the country were contaminated with harmful radiation after being targeted by ordnance containing depleted uranium (DU) during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A BID has been launched by the European Commission to create a network of major radioactive waste management organisations across Europe, to boost co-operation on research into the disposal of radioactive waste. Brussels wants groups from seven European Union (EU) Member States – Belgium, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden – as well as Switzerland, to join the Net.Excel…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GROUNDBREAKING development aid scheme has been launched with the support of the European Commission, which specifically promotes the development of Internet networks and related e-commerce in poorer areas of Europe. The Euro 4.35 million e-MINDER scheme will target Cyprus, Galicia, (Spain), and Pomerania, (Poland), pump-priming small and medium-sized businesses to develop e-commerce projects, boosting regional economies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ORNAMENTAL plant buyers will be given a new research tool to expand their range of knowledge about African tropical plants via a new European Commission and the Netherlands government funded research project PROTA, where African and European experts will review and document existing knowledge on around 7,000 species.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU enterprise Commissioner Erkki Liikanen has called on European governments and public institutions to examine further ways of encouraging the pharmaceutical industry to spend more on research and development into medicines for rare diseases. Highlighting the special marketing rights granted in the EU to orphan drugs, the Commissioner told a Brussels roundtable on the subject: “We should more and more find means to get the pharmaceutical industry involved in clear and targeted projects.”…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
AUSTRALIAN researchers have programmed a satellite computer operating 800 kilometres above the surface of the Earth to repair itself from blasts of potentially catastrophic space radiation, such as those emitted by a sun spot this week. Scientists from the Canberra-based Cooperative Research Centre for Satellite Systems (CRCSS) used a combination of smart software and components called Field Programmable Gate Arrays to create their self-healing computer on the satellite FedSat.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
UP to 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide emissions caused by industry in the EU could be absorbed by forests and other “carbon sinks” according to CarboEurope, an EU research project developing ways to reduce greenhouse gases.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRITISH government has been given permission by the European Commission to extend its Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme, which supplies GBPounds 17 million a year in grants to encourage the development and take-up of energy efficient and low carbon technologies.…