Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL, EMMA JACKSON and ALAN OSBORN

Although today’s nuclear technology is used primarily to produce electricity, meeting about 14.2% of the world’s demand, the birth of nuclear power, like many technologies, was not intended for civilian use. Rather, it was used to harness a militaristic advantage at the onset of the Second World War.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITISH dealers of France-made cars can breath a sigh of relief in the knowledge that their suppliers are not going to become a swift victim of the credit crunch, with the European Commission approving a Euro 6.5 billion bail-out package drafted by the French government.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE STRENGTH of Britain’s recycling sector is becoming a force to reckon with across Europe, according to the latest available comparative figures from European Union (EU) statistical agency Eurostat. The proportion of municipal waste recycled in the UK equalled the EU average in 2007, it says – 22%.…

By Monica Dobie

A European Union (EU)-funded research project called SonoDrugs is developing tiny, image-guided medicine capsules conveying doses through blood vessels to the centre of an infection or disease, after which the drugs are activated by ultrasound pulses. This new technology is initially being developed for cardiovascular disease and cancer by the Euro 15.9 million project, which includes Dutch electronics giant Philips; Nanobiotix, of France; and Lipoid, of Germany; as well as academics from the University of Cyprus, University of Gent (Belgium), University of Helsinki, University of London, University of Tours (France), University Victor Segalen Bordeaux (France), University of Technology Eindhoven (the Netherlands), and the University of Udine (Italy).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

COLLAPSING demand in the European Union’s (EU) auto industry is piling so much pressure on its national governments to save their own manufacturers one casualty could be the EU’s laws restricting public subsidies.
These ‘state aid’ rules have long been a lynchpin of EU membership.…

BY MARK GODFREY

BARRY Lee is probably typical of Chinese wine drinkers. The auto-sales accountant started off drinking a local Great Wall red at an office lunch, then got curious and went to a Beijing branch of the French Carrefour supermarket chain where he spent RMB78 (US$11.40) on a bottle of Chilean red.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN INTERNATIONAL Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has been launched in Bonn, Germany, with the support of 76 countries, including its host nation, Spain, Italy, France and Sweden. Britain and the United States have yet to become signatories. IRENA will promote green energy, providing, said a communiqué: "…practical advice and support for both industrialised and developing countries."…

BY MARK ROWE

FOR the past 10 years, the message from the environmental movement has been "biofuels good, fossil fuels bad". And the search for alternatives has exercised many industries, not least the cosmetics sector, which widely uses mineral oils, but has increasingly been looking for ways to use bio-based oils and fats.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the planned acquisition of French cosmetics companies Vania and Polivé by the USA’s Johnson & Johnson. Its subsidiary Johnson & Johnson Consumer France (JJCF) already owns 50% of Vania and 50% of Polivé, and now wants to buy the remaining stock.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SCIENTISTS in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovenia are trying to map the genetic code of superbug Clostridium (or C) difficile to help efforts to develop effective antibiotics or even a vaccine. The bug is often present in hospitals where it is hard to destroy through disinfection and infections are hard to treat.…