Search Results for: Climate change

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved harmonising EU chemical labelling rules with those of the United Nations Globally Harmonised System. This will change some warning messages and pictograms, with the aim of making them better understood.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE EUROPEAN Commission is confident that the 27 European Union (EU) member states will vote next Wednesday (Nov 12) to repeal the marketing standards for 26 different types of fruit and vegetables, thus ending the EU’s much-derided ban on curved cucumbers and other odd-shaped vegetables.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A COMPROMISE proposal from France aimed at securing agreement this year over the European Union’s (EU) proposed climate change package would see major energy consumers being eligible for free pollution permits. Paris does not want such European heavy industries to face unfair competition from rivals outside the EU based in jurisdictions operating much looser greenhouse gas controls.…

By Keith Nuthall

Windscreens are not such something to look through, say European university scientists: they also act as loud speakers, attracting and magnifying noise created by a car or lorry, reflecting the racket back at drivers and passengers alike. This fact has made researchers in the European Union (EU)-funded and University of Twente, Netherlands-coordinated InMAR (‘Intelligent Materials for Active Noise Reduction’) project consider how to change the materials making windshields, so that they absorb noise rather than amplify it.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SWEDEN’S on-hold policy of phasing out its nuclear power industry has been roundly criticised in an International Energy Agency (IEA) assessment of Swedish energy policy. Releasing the report, Nobuo Tanaka, IEA executive director noted nuclear power provides almost half of the electricity in Sweden, at a low cost and without CO2 emissions.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, JULIAN RYALL, and PHILIPPA JONES

COMPARED to their counterparts in Europe and Asia, North American men are at the bottom of the league tables for using beauty products, leaving male cosmetics marketers with both a lot of work, and a lot opportunity.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE PSYCHOLOGY of colour has fascinated philosophers and scientists down the ages, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the world’s paint companies devote much of their time to working out why consumers prefer certain colours for certain everyday items – and why these tastes vary so much across the world.…

BY MARK GODFREY

TO the casual observer in Beijing there is plenty of proof that China’s market for recyclable waste has crashed. The army of waste collectors that normally patrols the city’s thoroughfares has visibly thinned over the past two month.…

By Keith Nuthall

In a sign that the credit crunch is not demolishing all long term thinking in the financial sector, France’s AXA insurance group has continued rolling out funding from a five-year Euro 100 million programme into innovative research exploring risk.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

INTRODUCTION

About 10 years ago the American distiller JB Wagoner decided to market a fiery liquor made from the cactus-like agave plants growing in the hills on his estate at Temecula in California. He called it "temequila." It soon became known as "the American tequila," proving indistinguishable in taste, texture and effect from the well-known Mexican drink.…