120 million people worldwide suffer from depression. An EU-funded research project launched recently will help to uncover the genetic factors linked to depression to develop new drug treatments. The Integrated Project, named NEWMOOD, has received €7.2 million in funding from the EU’s Sixth Research Framework Programme (FP6) and aims to identify genes involved in triggering depression. This will help researchers to develop new drugs over the next five years to treat it and improve understanding of
Viruses’ growing resistance to drugs means diseases such as hepatitis B and C are increasingly difficult to treat. New pandemics may arise with unforeseeable consequences. The EU is therefore contributing € 9 million to the “Vigilance against Viral Resistance” (VIRGIL) project, to be launched today in Lyon (France). It will start by addressing drug resistance in viral hepatitis and influenza, but will broaden its scope to other viruses. The network will be based on research and technological platfo
One of the largest environmental research centres in Europe opens in Lancaster this week. The £25 million Lancaster Environment Centre brings together around 300 researchers and lecturers, all working to find solutions to major environmental problems.
This joint venture between the Natural Environment Research Council’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the University of Lancaster is housed in a state-of-the-art laboratory on the University campus. It provides cutting-edge equipme
Jeffrey Kirwan, associate professor of forestry and Extension specialist at Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources, has been advising students and teachers at Ocean View Elementary School in Norfolk, Va., to save what appears to be the last mature dune in Norfolk on the southern shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
The dune, which has an elevation of 70 to 85 feet, has historic significance. Some of the trees on the site were present at the time of the Sarah Constant landfall in 1607 and are
Dust-sized wireless communications nodes, pinhead-size cameras, and other sensors; contact-lens video displays and wearable computers controlled by subvocal speech and other muscle movements; and the ability to google anything, anywhere–we will soon be able to know almost everything about everyone. Explosive advances in the technologies of sensing and data mining demand that we ask: is privacy a fundamental right or a passing phenomenon?
Privacy is mentioned in neither the U.S. Constitution
A new approach that is one of the first to successfully store carbon dioxide underground may have huge implications for global warming and the oil industry, says a University of Alberta researcher. Dr. Ben Rostron is part of an extensive team working on the $28 million International Energy Agency Weyburn CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project—the largest of its kind—that has safely buried the greenhouse gas and reduced emissions from entering the atmosphere.
“It’s one thing to say that undergrou
Wins Kaye Prize for Hebrew University PH.D. Student
A method for applying drugs directly to mucousal surfaces in the intestinal system has won a coveted prize for a graduate student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The method has potential for providing better treatment for such diseases as ulcerative colitis and colon cancer.
The student is Tareq Jubeh, 30, of Jerusalem, who is working on his Ph.D. in the Department of Pharmaceutics at the Hebrew University School o
No one likes a back-seat driver. But imagine having a silent “co-pilot” in your car that isn’t a pest but can save your life, as well as those of your passengers and those in the path of your vehicle.
That’s what EyeQ, a computer chip developed by MobilEye — a company founded by Prof. Amnon Shashua, chairman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s School of Engineering and Computer Science — is capable of doing.
The chip operates in conjunction with a video camera that is mount
The discovery of what is believed to be the oldest evidence yet found of a human hereditary genetic disorder has been announced by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The researchers are Dr. Uri Zilberman and Patricia Smith, the Joel Wilbush Professor of Medical Anthropology, both of the Faculty of Dental Medicine of the Hebrew University and Dr. Silvana Condemi a senior researcher at the French Research Institute in Jerusalem. They are among the authors of an article in the
The new Smart Forfour sets new standards for its vehicle class, for example by introducing the use of new materials in the cockpit and an innovative way of…
A single genetic test that is capable of detecting all mutations involved in the development of cystic fibrosis could be just a few years away, the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology heard today (Monday 28 June).
Researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have discovered that recently developed microarray (or “gene chip”) technology* can be used successfully to detect one of the commonest cystic fibrosis (CF) g
A chemical that occurs naturally in the leaves of an African plant could boost men’s fertility, researchers told the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology on Monday 28 June.
Khat (Catha edulis) is a plant that has been cultivated for centuries in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Chewing the leaves of the plant releases cathinone, a stimulant that produces feelings of euphoria. Cathinone is not very stable and is broken down into cat
Current legislation on preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in Germany is out of step with the attitudes of Germans and should be changed, researchers told a news briefing at the 20th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology on Monday 28 June).
At present PGD is forbidden in Germany, but in one of the first large study of attitudes to PGD amongst the general population and infertile couples in Germany, the researchers found that the majority of Ge
A ‘Noah’s Ark’ of historic buildings and monuments at risk from climate change is launched this month.
The three-year project brings together experts from 10 European countries including the UK, Italy, Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain and Norway to investigate the effects of climate change and pollution on Europe’s historic built environment over the next 100 years. Representing the UK are the University of East Anglia, University College London and the Ecclesiastical Insuran
51 countries with R&D Programs and Fundings in Nanotechnologies in 2004.The race is on.
Total R&D spending are up to 12 billion US$ worldwide. High increase in defence and security projects. Public awareness under 15 percent. Markets up 180 billion US$.
hkc22.com is monitoring the world markets for nanotechnologies since more than 3 years and reporting every 6 month. The latest results show a strong increase in investments with more than 25 percent to 12 billion US $ for R&
The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) celebrated its 40th anniversary this weekend. Leading scientists from all over Europe, amongst them 5 Nobel Laureates and Senior Vice President of Discovery Research at GlaxoSmithKline, flew in to take part in the celebrations; all of them honoured EMBO members. Many more sent messages of congratulations.
Set high on the hill above Heidelberg, its home since 1973, EMBO has come a long way since its foundation in 1964. EMBO, the leading lif
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