Search Results for: Research

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank is planning to lend Euro 50 million to the Politecnico di Torino (Turin Polytechnic) to help fund an investment programme, which includes the establishment of a new automotive industry research centre, in partnership with General Motors.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has already started considering the potential shape of the eighth framework programme on research (which would start in 2014), even as the final details of its seventh predecessor are still being thrashed out.

Brussels’ directorate general (DG) for research commissioned a study, and it has recommended that the next big EU research programme look well beyond the shores of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

Scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany have found that doubling the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere could lead to global warming of between 1.2 and 4.3°C, with the most likely value being around 3°C.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

FOOD consumers often do not understand the nutritional information given on packaging labels, according to a comprehensive US study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Vanderbilt University Medical Centre researchers have found that the reading and mathematical skills of a significant number of consumers may actually be insufficient to extract needed dietary information from labels.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

The Dutch are Europe’s top recyclers of household rubbish, recycling 65% of their total waste according to a new study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). Next come the Austrians at 59% and the Germans at 58% says the report though it notes that in parts of Germany some local areas charge per kilo of waste not recycled and the regional collection of recyclable materials goes up to more than 65 per cent.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

NEW American research could promote smokeless tobacco products by demonstrating that nicotine protects against a brain-damaging chemical maybe causing Parkinson’s disease. Animals given ‘MPTP’ by the Parkinson’s Institute had 25% less cell damage when taking nicotine, compared with controls.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to lend Portuguese electricity utility EDP (Energias de Portugal) up to Euro 180 million to retrofit three coal-fired power stations in Spain and Portugal. The plan is to research, design, build and install clean coal technology, namely flue gas abatement systems, removing SO2, NOx and particulates.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

UNIVERSITIES are set to benefit from a quantum leap in data storage that could see the pages of two million books copied onto electronic chips as small as a postage stamp.

The downsizing of digital memory and related computers, mobile telephones, iPods and other consumer durables has almost seemed like an inevitable progression.…

BY MARK ROWE

ACCESSION to the European Union (EU), with its attendant necessity to comply with environmental directives, along with a surprising surge in water-based coatings, have combined to make the past year an eventful one for the Polish paint industry.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

RESEARCHERS from the USA’s Agricultural Research Service have developed methods to lessen odour-causing compounds in pigs’ manure, a constant environmental problem. Cutting pigs’ protein intake by using less soybean meal and balancing diets with crystalline amino acids, reduces the stench of manure and pig flatulence: a 1% reduction in dietary crude protein resulted in pigs emitting 8-10% less ammonia, which makes slurry smell bad.…