Search Results for: Australia

BY MATTHEW BRACE
GROUNDBREAKING Australian research has developed a DNA-based method for rapid detection of toxic blue-green algae in fresh water.

This technology provides water quality managers with an early warning system for potential algal blooms.

Consumption of water contaminated with the algae can damage organs and nerve function.…

BY PHILIP FINE

CONAGRA Foods Inc is to sell its red-meat business in the United States and Australia, according to the US Cattle Buyers Weekly. The multinational, with sales of US$27 billion a year, will sell processing operations, cattle feeding operations and Australia Meat Holdings, says the newsletter.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AUSTRALIAN scientists have produced what they call the world’s first virtual tour of a stretch of ocean floor, an invention that could provide undersea mining prospectors with valuable geological and topographical information.

The 3D map covers 2 million sq km of the 11 million sq km of ocean over which Australia has sovereign rights, off the island continent’s south east shores.…

Keith Nuthall
INTERNATIONAL airports have been at the centre of a Europol-coordinated series of raids that netted 335,000 ecstasy pills. Airports involved included Amsterdam-Schiphol (89,000 pills), Frankfurt/Main (83,000), Zürich (40,000), Madrid (27,000), Brussels (10,000), Paris Charles de Gaulle (26,500), and Miami (59,000).…

BY PHILIP FINE

SURPLUSES and high quality imports seem to be causing a slide in US wine prices. "There is a lot of wine out there to sell right now," Gladys Horiuchi, spokeswoman for San Francisco’s Wine Institute, told the Los Angeles Times.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
BIDDERS for the new international airport north of Durban South Africa have begun to stake claims in the project with interest being drawn from Swiss technology group ABB and the investment arm of Australia’s Macquarie Bank.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
TWO key mining research facilities in Australia are collaborating to devise a standard set of accounting practices for the industry. The international industry research association AMIRA, and the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC), at the University of Queensland, are establishing a practical and user-friendly system to suit all operations irrespective of the size, scale and type of ore involved.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A FINANCED global action plan to improve safety in the nuclear energy sector has been approved in principle by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. A number of countries have pledged around US$4.6 million to fund its programmes, although this falls far short of the US$12 million price tag claimed by the IAEA, which also wants a fund of US$20 million established to handle security emergencies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
INTERNATIONAL moves to remove the maximum permitted dose of irradiation for food could lead to a major world trade dispute, which could undermine European Union regulations, says the London-based Food Irradiation Campaign, (FIC).

A joint study by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organisation has concluded that “no upper dose limit need be imposed” as irradiated foods are deemed “wholesome throughout the technologically useful dose range.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RESEARCHERS from Melbourne, Australia, have invented an alternative to plastic packaging, made from corn starch. It is biodegradable, breaking down in water. It is being used for inner (secondary) packaging but researchers hope they can make it withstand the elements for use in outer packaging too.…