Search Results for: Research

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMANY Sweden and Denmark must do more to prevent nutrient-rich water run-off from their rivers and coasts killing thousands of fish in the western Baltic Sea, said an international research project. The official Baltic Sea international environmental watchdog The Helsinki Commission – tasked with investigating mass deaths of fish in the region in 2002 – has concluded that higher levels of nutrients from agriculture, urban wastewater and air pollution poured into the sea after heavy rain and snow the previous winter, creating algal blloms that starved the lower levels of the western Baltic of oxygen over the summer and autumn of last year.…

KEITH NUTHALL
A FORMAL call for proposals for collaborative research projects into sustainable energy systems funded by a Euro 3 million pot from the EU sixth framework programme has been made by the European Commission. It wants to fund studies securing a leading role for Europe in sustainable energy systems, such as hydrogen energy technology, “which are affordable and clean.”…

BY PHILIP FINE

SCIENTISTS at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have developed a flexible paper-thin food wrapping made entirely of vegetables and fruits. Tara McHugh, a scientist in the processed foods research unit at the USDA’s Western Regional Research Center, said that the ecology-friendly wraps would not only reduce synthetic waste but effectively cover and preserve products such as sandwiches.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening nuclear energy researchers with a cut in EU funds if they do not combine their efforts in collaborative projects. The Commission’s coordinator for nuclear reactor safety research Georges Van Goethem told Commission research news service Cordis: “Unless people show a willingness to merge laboratories and combine their efforts, they will no longer receive financial support from the Commission.”…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane
AUSTRALIAN researchers have developed a pilot plant to sterilise ships’ ballast water. This technology, invented by researchers from the Cooperative Research Centre for Reefs, at James Cook University in Queensland, is undergoing tests in Townsville. The finished product will help protect marine environments by preventing the global transport of unwanted marine species, as well as improving marine safety.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE and KEITH NUTHALL
A SHORTLIST of seven designs for a planned 16.7 billion yuan (US$2 billion) third and international terminal at Beijing’s Capital Airport has been unveiled. Beijing Capital Airport Authority announced that the competing designers include the UK dominated NACO Foster ARUP consortium; the British Airports United Consultants Consortium; France’s Aeroports de Paris/Ingénierie consortium; China’s Beijing Municipal Architecture Design and Research Institute plus the USA’s Landrum & Brown & Yang Molen; Murphy/Jahn Inc; and Parsons & Fentress.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
A NEW technique for drying timber using microwaves has been developed by an Australian research team. The Cooperative Research Centre for Wood Innovations conceived and developed the equipment – 300 times larger than a domestic microwave oven – for drying timber rapidly without warping the goods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States and Canada have been asked to lift Euro 120 million of extra tariffs levied against European Union (EU) exporters following the imposition of a hormone treated beef directive that the European Commission claims satisfies a World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling on the matter.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A WING of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre tasked with promoting non-animal tests for the chemical and cosmetics industries has been restructured to take account of recently agreed reforms to European Union (EU) vivisection laws. The European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) has now been divided into 11 key work sections, directly targeting animal tests which need replacing with alternative methods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DETAILS of the European Commission’s plan to create a comprehensive European Union (EU) environmental health strategy have been unveiled by its environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom in a speech to a conference in Warsaw. She told environmental health specialists that a draft action plan would be presented to EU ministers next spring and would be debated in full at the Fourth Pan-European Environment and Health Ministerial Conference in Budapest, Hungary, in June.…