This white paper examines the current challenges for clean energy infrastructure and identifies solutions that industrial clusters, transport and logistics industries, and the wider clean energy value chain can jointly explore in order to accelerate its deployment. Thirteen new industrial clusters from Australia, Brazil, Colombia, India, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, …
A REPORT presented in mid-July by the Institute for Environment and Health (mii), Leicester, United Kingdom, has hit hard especially those living in the northern hemisphere. It makes a startling statement that 60,000 human-made chemicals are likely to be causing not only impotency among men and wildlife, but might actually …
SCIENTISTS have now found a way to render "killer" malaria viruses impotent. Researchers based in the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University and other research bodies in the us have identified a family of genes which are thought to be responsible for people dying from the disease. There are …
GENETIC information is extremely precious and insurance companies should not be allowed a free-hand with them: this is the opinion of mps who form the Science and Technology Committee in UK's House of Commons. So far, the insurance firms have been treating the issue of genetic testing with "undue complacency", …
BIOTECHNOLOGY firms in Britain are extremely sore with the ministry of health. The statement issued by the new secretary of state for health, Stephen Dorrell, criticising the biotech companies' efforts to secure special tax treatment, has broken the morale of the cash- strapped research organisations and has left them high …
THERE is good news for heart patients requiring bypass surgery on the aorta, the main artery which carries oxygenated blood from the heart to the rest of the body. British researchers have recently developed a technique that uses plastic tubes, called catheters, to insert synthetic grafts into the blood vessel, …
It is normal for people in many countries to build their own houses, especially among the poor. Now, a British architect, Walter Segal, has developed a timber-frame building system based on off-the-shelf materials, with a minimum of cutting, and a simple sequence of step by step operations (Appropriate Technology, Vol …
SLIM figures are in vogue. Flab is consid- ered ugly aesthetically and unhealthy scientifically. Recently, researchers at the London-based Hammersmith Hospital developed a state-of-the-art technique for mapping fat deposits in the body through Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that leaves no place for fat to hide (New Scientist, Vol 146, No …
TAKING a cue from the traditional method of using moldy bread to treat wounds, scientists have developed dressings that employ fungi to provide the healing touch. Researchers have established that myceliurn (filaments) of fungi can be harnessed to enhance natural healing by promoting activities of cells to repair the damaged …
NEW advances in dna sequence research are likely to perk up the bottomlines of medical technology firms in Britain and the us. A boost too, is expected to the worldwide Human Genome Project that seeks to unravel the exact order of the 3 billion molecules comprising the human dna. In …
BAD roads make for unsafe driving. Now, researchers at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK think that they can relieve the problem of worn- out roads by using a longer-lasting surface made of concrete instead of asphalt (New Scientist, Vol 146, No 1980). Each time a heavy …
Taking inspiration from Darwin's theory of evolution, scientists from the Sussex University, UK, have developed a technique for evolving designs for neural network controlled robots with greater self-sufficiency. The approach is similar to the concept of natural selection - here computer programmes which allow a degree of 'free choice' in …
BRITISH scientists claim to have unravelled the mystery that enables corals, sea urchins and other marine invertebrates to build complicated crystalline structures from calcium carbonate dissolved in sea water, and are now using the trick to develop their own weirdly shaped crystals. The researchers say that this could be a …
British scientists have developed an artificial hand that is as deft at handling objects as a real one. Homer Rahnejat and Russel Speight of the Bradford University in northern England, in association with Medi Mehdian of the Greenwich University, London, have constructed a prototype hand that has 16 degrees of …
IN DISHEVELLED Second World War buildings in the countryside west of Birmingham, UK, Bernard Hooper is working through the problems of developing a new diesel engine for small cars for the 21st century. He is trying to develop a 2-stroke engine with a stepped piston design which would achieve low …
ENVIRONMENTALISTS in Britain are up in arms against what they perceive as a plan to turn the country into a "nuclear dustbin." Their alarm is rooted in a government decision to accept the British Nuclear Fuel Limited's (BNFL) proposal for "substitution" of high level nuclear waste for low level waste. …
More accurate measurement of ultraviolet rays may now be possible with the development in Britain of a new photodiode detector. UV radiation is the most energetic form of optical radiation and exposure to it is potentially hazardous. Accurate measurement of the LTV radiations from the sun has been made difficult …
In an effort to save the world's dwinilling stock of fish, pharmaceutical and nufritign products industry are turning towards algae-derived polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Two firmis - Scotia Pharmaceuticals from Britain and Heliosynthese Research and Development from France - will harvest the PUFAs from microalgae grown in specially created photo-bioreacton …
Coriander, used only for culinary purposes till recently, can now be used as a source of industrial nylon. Scientists of the John Innes Institute in Norwich, United Kingdom, have found out that coriander seeds contain per-roselinic acid, which can be broken down to yield adipic acid, used in the production …
For people who have always been fascinated by tattoos but have never braved them, a combination of 2 quick and painless methods of tattooing has been devised by the UK-based Dreadco. The spray immuniser method fires a shot of vaccine at the skin, making the dye penetrate the skin surface. …
AS the disused Brent Spar oil platform makes its slow journey towards its disposal site in the Atlantic, irate protests to bring it to a stop have reached a crescendo, particularly in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, neighbouring the North Sea. Facing the barrage are the United Kingdom and …
