Search Results for: Research

BY PHILIP FINE

THIS past year, a senior American scientific panel studied the idea of consumers

eating food derived from cloned animals and they came up with an answer. At the end of the summer, they said they could find nothing unsafe about it.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation has welcomed the development of a privately funded fish farming sector in Saudi Arabia, following 20 years of research to identify the ideal fish for local aquaculture.

A note published by the FAO says that the Saudi Fish Company, at Al-Shaqiq near the southern Red Sea, is already producing 1,500 tonnes of fish-a-year; the National Shrimp Company, in the Al-Laith area, also on the Red Sea, is expecting to produce 10,000 tonnes annually soon; and the Gizan Agricultural Company is building farming facilities for 1,000 tonnes-a-year.…

BY MARK ROWE
MANY air traffic control (ATC) organisations experience difficulties in attracting sufficient qualified staff. Indeed, the air transport industry does not seem to be as attractive an employer as it used to be. As a result, CANSO is examining selection and scaling methods, benchmarking qualification requirements, and evaluating common programmes for attracting new applicants.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership has been launched by the European Commission. Commanding Euro 200 million of Brussels’ money, the initiative will develop new medicines and vaccines against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. It will involve the pharmaceutical industry and Norway as well as developing countries and will also see EU institutions participating in Member States’ national research and development programmes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL Agenda for Action has been drawn up at a UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) workshop on boosting “Clean Coal Combustion in Small and Medium Sized Boilers in Central and Eastern Europe.” The plan has been approved by experts from the region, along with those from western Europe, the USA, the World Coal Institute, the World Energy Council, IEA Coal Research and UNECE.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union energy Commissioner Philippe Busquin has announced that his European Commission directorate-general establish a so-called High Level Group on hydrogen. This group of experts will be tasked with drawing up a strategy to boost the development and use of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, especially for cars.…

BY MARK ROWE
ENVIRONMENTAL organisations and an American local authority have issued a lawsuit against the US government for its contribution to global warming, a move that may have important repercussions for the insurance industry.

A lawsuit filed in the US District Court in San Francisco claims that two American export credit agencies illegally provided US$32billion in financing for oil fields, pipelines and coal-fired power plants over the past 10 years without assessing their contribution to global warming.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FIRST update to the European Union’s inventory of national policies and regulations promoting the availability of orphan drugs has been completed and published by the European Commission. This new detailed inventory lists all incentives made available by the EU and its Member States to support research into orphan medicinal products.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SMART cards for health are not exactly a novelty but the Prevencard to be launched in the UK next year uses some particularly smart technology.

Prevencard, which is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International, is a commercial application of security research carried out under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW “smart card” for health and safety to be launched in the UK next year could have important implications for insurance companies in the occupational safety and health field. The so-called Prevencard is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International using technology developed under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…