Search Results for: Research

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE INDIAN Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) is conducting laboratory and field evaluations into cow urine, to prove whether it can so effectively ward off plant diseases, it could become a useful product for Indian farmers. India’s minister of state for agriculture, Hukumdeo Narayan Yadav, has told the Indian parliament that initial tests have shown it can protect plant health.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MASSACHUSETTS Institute of Technology study has concluded that hydrogen powered cars will not perform better than hybrid diesel-electric vehicles regarding energy use and greenhouse gas emissions until after 2020. It predicts that in the short term, “aggressive research on a hybrid car with a diesel engine will yield the most environmentally friendly results,” because converting hydrocarbons into hydrogen for fuel uses energy and emits greenhouse gases.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IMPENDING enlargement of the European Union, admitting countries that were once part of the communist eastern bloc, poses risks for the western European pharmaceutical sector, as well as benefits from the opening up of new markets, a senior industry figure has warned.…

KEITH NUTHALL
INNOVATION from European Union-funded research has continued to offer improvements to the way that EU water utilities work. For instance, the European Commission-funded MicroChem initiative has developed miniaturised laboratory-on-a-chip systems suitable for rapid field testing of water streams. They examine water in tiny pictolitre quantities, flowing through microbore channels produced by photolithographic etching.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
Mr Willem de Ruiter (51), a Dutchman with a degree in civil engineering, has been appointed the first executive director of the European Maritime Safety Agency, which was created by EU governments last year and is in the process of being set up.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE PRESIDENT of India, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has called for the creation of a database of plants used in his country for traditional medicinal purposes, to allow them to be researched and maybe exploited by the Indian pharmaceutical industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament is calling for the proposed European Union programme on AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis research to be expanded to include other diseases found in developing countries. It has adopted amendments allowing the programme’s Euro 600 million to be spent on clinical trials for drugs treating co-infections of these conditions.…

BY RICHARD HURST
INDIAN steel producer Tata Steel has launched an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study to determine the ecological feasibility of building a high carbon ferrochrome smelter in Richards Bay, Kwazulu-Natal. The project would attract tax relief from the South African Department of Trade and Industry’s Strategic Industrial Projects budget, with a potential subsidy being worth as much as Rand 480 million, (US$59.45 million).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union report has encouraged local authorities to take more environmental considerations into account in their public procurement programmes – especially for energy – claiming that if every EU public body switched to renewable sources, they would meet 18 per cent of Europe’s Kyoto Protocol obligations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS AMERICAN and British military forces secure control of Iraq from the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein using the latest military technology, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has released a cautionary report confirming for the first time that depleted uranium shells can and have contaminated drinking water.…