Search Results for: Research

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IF there is one undeniable fact about global warming, then it is that the last significant heating of the Earth’s surface had nothing to do with traffic jams, aerosols and power stations, because…well…they did not exist.

Think back to the time of woolly mammoths, sabre toothed tigers and Neanderthals, and consider why their snowy frigid homelands in northern Europe became the green, pleasant and temperate lands that we know and love.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ANOTHER Briton has been appointed head of a key EU environmental health organisation. This time, Professor Jacqueline McGlade, an environmental scientist, will become the next Executive Director of the European Environment Agency. Prof. McGlade, 47, is currently Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Professorial Fellow in Environmental Informatics and Mathematics at University College, London.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCERN has been raised by the European Commission about a fall in European investment into biotechnology, which has matched the declining confidence of EU consumers in genetically modified products in general. Brussels’ first progress report on its action plan for European life sciences says that “urgent action” is needed to reverse this trend, especially as EU legislation has now been agreed regulating the development of GM technology and its potential adverse effects.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in Nottingham
INTRODUCTION

REPETITIVE Strain Injury (RSI) is still by and large an unacknowledged problem for many employers. The complaint is formally defined as “work-related upper limb disorders” and its most common symptoms are pain, fatigue and weakness, most often associated these days with sitting a long time in front of a computer screen.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE RECENTLY established database created by the European Clinical Trials Directive (EUDRACT) has come under fire from the European Science Foundation (ESF), which claims that its information is too tightly controlled to allow effective debate.

Although the EUDRACT database was set up to provide European Union (EU) Member States with information on the safety of medicines used in clinical trials, data security standards set by the European Commission prevent independent non-regulatory organisations from accessing it.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN EU-FUNDED research project has discovered a gene that regulates the yield, protein and fat content of milk in cows. MTT Agrifood Research, Finland, and the University of Liège, Belgium, say isolating the gene will help Ayrshire, Holstein and Jersey breeders.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A TINY wire antenna and a computer chip the size of a piece of glitter will be imbedded into most retail product materials in the next few years, if all goes as

planned by those currently involved in developing a revolutionary tracking system.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A US government scientist has found a way to make hair gel more environmentally friendly and less expensive to produce. Styling agents currently on the market have costly synthetic polymers to thank for their ability to keep hair in place.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A SMALL private college in upstate New York, USA, has lost a patent case against

two pharmaceutical heavy-hitters. Three years ago the University of

Rochester sued Pharmacia and Pfizer, seeking royalties on the popular

painkiller, Celebrex. The university cited its own patent that treated pain

and inflammation by inhibiting the Cox-2 enzyme.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to lend around Euro 130 million to Austrian speciality steel company Böhler-Uddeholm AG. The money would help fund an investment programme aimed at expanding and modernising production lines for special high grade steels at its Austrian and Swedish plants.…