Search Results for: Research

BY DEIRDRE MASON

NURSES at Birmingham Heartlands hospital are excited about the potential time saved in spotting superbug infections through the ground-breaking electronic nose now on trial there. Charge nurse Peter Sutton, who works at the hospital’s intensive care unit, told the Nursing Standard:
“It’s still very much at the trial stage, but being able to spot an infection in 15 minutes rather than the standard 24 to 48 hours will make a great difference to patient control.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW research project spending around Euro 12 million in European Union (EU) money will investigate how cancer cells evade the human immune system, maybe promoting new treatments. An international consortium of 16 partners, coordinated by Britain’s University of Manchester, and including Oxford Biomedica Plc, will collaborate in the five-year ATTACK project (adoptive engineered T-cell targeting to activate cancer killing).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UN Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has hailed a blueprint agreed by experts at a Beijing conference as groundbreaking, by promoting food security and environmental sustainability. It called on governments to prioritise public expenditure on rural roads, information technology, research and training.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT’S tough extracting DNA samples from microscopic organisms, but much easier to harvest such data from the environment where they live, such as soil and seawater. This concept has inspired the European Union (EU) to help launch the METAFUNCTIONS project.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) has signed a practical agreement with the European Commission on minimising animal tests used to develop medicines. In an unprecedented deal, also involving other European Union (EU) chemical and cosmetics federations, a voluntary partnership will be created aimed, said the Commission, at “refining, reducing or replacing animal use”.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

AMERICAN researchers have developed a sunscreen made of soybeans that is to be commercially exploited. SoyScreen, created by scientists from the US Agricultural Research Service (ARS), is a biodegradable sunscreen derived from soybean oil. It contains ferulic acid, an antioxidant also found in rice, oats and other plants, that is the active ingredient which protects the skin against the sun’s harmful rays.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has launched a research project developing a virtual-reality unit, training construction workers in using potentially dangerous heavy plant, without the risk of injuring their co-workers. Researchers from Spain, Germany, France, Slovakia, Poland, Portugal and Italy are designing a computer-aided training programme, involving a virtual-reality platform or cabin with controls mirroring those on real-life equipment plant.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
NEW research from the Harvard School of Public Health has found that cigarette makers are increasingly targeting young smokers by launching new brands featuring confectionary and liqueur-flavours that mask the harsh flavours found in tobacco smoke. In one case, a tobacco manufacturer used innovative product technology to imbed a flavour pellet in the actual cigarette filters, to deliver fruit and liqueur tastes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has launched a research project aimed at developing a virtual-reality unit, training construction workers in using potentially dangerous heavy plant, without the risk of injuring their co-workers. Researchers are currently designing a computer-aided training programme, an electronic simulator, and even a virtual-reality platform or cabin allowing workers to use controls mirroring those on a piece of plant.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) says developing countries can prosper more from tourism through locally-run websites enabling potential customers to research, reserve, and buy trips and hotel stays. This stops money leaching back to western tourism companies, it says, especially if “well-linked websites allow domestically owned hotels, banks and travel firms to provide the entire package of services”.…