Search Results for: Research

BY KEITH NUTHALL
STUDIES into the environmental conditions sparking asthma and allergies in Europe are to be carried out by an expert network (GA2LEN) funded by Euro 14.4 million in EU research grants. The initiative involves 650 researchers in 16 countries and will investigate national contrasts in allergy rates ranging between 32 per cent for British teenagers and 2.6 per cent for Albanian teens.…

KEITH NUTHALL
GREEK and American researchers say they have developed a fuel-cell reactor which can produce hydrogen from ethanol. Scientists from the universities of Patras and Minnesota claim that the invention could be a major advance in creating viable hydrogen-based energy systems, because the technology could be used in small fuel cells generating 350 watt-hours of electricity.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE US Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is trying to breed a better honey bee by using recently created bee genomic data. The ARS is identifying specific genes that boost honey bees’ immune systems, to improve both bee breeding and management, enabling the insect to fight diseases that regularly restrict honey production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union research project has developed ways to exploit tomato waste as a source of sugars. The TOM project says around 4 million tonnes of tomato dregs are disposed of in Europe annually, with especially seeds, containing many nutrients.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GROUP of countries have formed a network of excellence developing expertise in the deep underground storage of radioactive waste. Coordinated by the International Atomic Energy Agency, participants include Belgium’s Hades Underground Research Facility in Mol; Canada’s Underground Research Laboratory of Lac-du-Bonnet, Manitoba; Switzerland’s Grimsel Test Site and Mont-Terri Underground Research Laboratory; Britain’s Geo-Environmental Research Centre, Cardiff; and the USA’s WIPP facility, New Mexico, the Yucca Mountain Project, Nevada, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, San Francisco.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN scientists have discovered ways of protecting live chickens from salmonella, campylobacter and other pathogens that cause foodborne illness. Researchers from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the University of Arkansas have used a concept called competitive exclusion, where probiotics (beneficial live bacteria), are fed to hatchling chickens.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE STENCH from liquid waste is rarely pleasant, especially for nearby residential areas, so technology from a European Union (EU) funded project will be welcome, if its developers deliver a claim it can reduce such disgusting odours by 95 per cent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN research consortium is testing an automatic accident alert system helping drivers motoring in a foreign country raise emergency services following an accident, reducing the risk they might die or suffer serious harm. The system would help motorists who may not know where to call for assistance and may not speak the language used by nearby police, ambulance services and fire fighters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SERIES of exemptions from the European Union’s (EU) new energy taxation directive have been proposed by the European Commission for the eastern and southern European countries joining the EU in May (barring Cyprus).

They would be added to the already long list of exemptions negotiated by existing Member States that prompted EU internal market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein to liken the legislation to “Gruyere cheese”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The US Department of Agriculture has launched a US $53-million project to map the genetic makeup of cattle in the hope it will promote human health by controlling animal disease.

The multinational Bovine Genome Sequencing Project will be carried out by universities in the US and Canada.…