Search Results for: Research

BY KEITH NUTHALL
UTILITY research units can bid for funding for international collaborative projects into sustainable energy systems from a pot of Euro 3 million released under the European Union’s (EU) sixth framework programme. In a formal call for proposals, the European Commission is looking to fund studies that may have medium and long term impact.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) is calling for a prioritised list of indoor pollutants for possible regulation, following the release of data showing that offices can be more polluted than the outdoors. Examining so-called ‘sick-building syndrome’, the JRC examined the effects of benzene, tobacco smoke and volatile organic compounds used in some paints, adhesive and varnishes; these ranged from sensory irritation to “behavioural, neurotoxic, hepatoxic, and genotoxic effects.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMANY Sweden and Denmark must do more to prevent nutrient-rich water run-off from their rivers and coasts killing thousands of fish in the western Baltic Sea, said an international research project. The official Baltic Sea international environmental watchdog The Helsinki Commission – tasked with investigating mass deaths of fish in the region in 2002 – has concluded that higher levels of nutrients from agriculture, urban wastewater and air pollution poured into the sea after heavy rain and snow the previous winter, creating algal blloms that starved the lower levels of the western Baltic of oxygen over the summer and autumn of last year.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
A NEW technique for drying timber using microwaves has been developed by an Australian research team. The Cooperative Research Centre for Wood Innovations conceived and developed the equipment – 300 times larger than a domestic microwave oven – for drying timber rapidly without warping the goods.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE DISHWAHER, that symbol of the modern household, appears to have provided a crucial breakthrough in minimising the impact of oil slicks on birdlife. According to a University of California study, two brands of dishwashing detergents, “Dawn” from Proctor and Gamble, and Birdwash, marketed as a joint bird and dish washer detergent in New Zealand by Tergo, are the ideal agents for cleaning the birds.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE 19th century saw imperial rivalry create the “Great Game”, when Russia and the British Empire tweaked one another’s tails in the region that following Russia’s Bolshevik revolution became known as Soviet Central Asia. The old Great Game was tied to control of India, and to gems and gold.…

BY PHILIP FINE

RESEARCHERS at the US Agricultural Research Service have successfully developed a new variety of corn that is high in Vitamin E. The team helped isolate an enzyme responsible for producing the vitamin in cereal grains. When they added it to corn plants, the kernels’ vitamin E content increased six-fold.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THERE is strong optimism in north America that an animal vaccine could soon be developed for the deadly strain of E coli bacteria sometimes referred to as hamburger disease. A US-Canada team has found positive results in research studies where vaccinated cattle showed a 59 per cent reduction of E coli O157:H7 in their manure compared with unvaccinated cattle in a University of Nebraska research facility in tests carried out during the summers of 2002 and 2003.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEW advanced carbon-fibre composites have been developed by a European Union research project that can be used to strengthen decaying and historic buildings, allowing contractors to avoid using more cumbersome traditional methods. The international COMREHAB project has created high resistance synthetic fibres from epoxy or polyester resin matrixes.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE and KEITH NUTHALL
A SHORTLIST of seven designs for a planned 16.7 billion yuan (US$2 billion) third and international terminal at Beijing’s Capital Airport has been unveiled. Beijing Capital Airport Authority announced that the competing designers include the UK dominated NACO Foster ARUP consortium; the British Airports United Consultants Consortium; France’s Aeroports de Paris/Ingénierie consortium; China’s Beijing Municipal Architecture Design and Research Institute plus the USA’s Landrum & Brown & Yang Molen; Murphy/Jahn Inc; and Parsons & Fentress.…