Hydroelectric power provides 16 per cent of Europe’s electricity, but most of the plants and their turbines were designed many years ago. By redesigning the runner – the propeller-like component that transfers energy from the water to the drive shaft in the turbine – EUREKA project FLINDT enables operators to harness more power from their turbines.

According to Professor François Avellan, Director of the Swiss main project partner, Laboratoire de Machines Hydrauliques de l’ EPFL, Ecole poly

An advanced technique for analysing radar images shows tremendous promise for scientists studying forests, agriculture, ice and other terrain types, but experts at a recent ESA workshop cautioned that research work is needed before practical applications can be developed.

More than 120 scientists and researchers from 20 countries gathered recently at ESA’s ESRIN facility in Frascati, Italy, for a three-day workshop to share the latest results on scientific tests and potential applications of

Mayo Clinic researchers have proven for the first time that cells produced by the bone marrow can form new heart-muscle cells in adults, providing an important boost to research that could enable the body to replace heart muscle damaged by heart attack. The findings are now available online and will be published tomorrow in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

“Until recently, the heart has been seen as an organ that cannot be healed,” says Noel Caplice, M.D., the Mayo Cli

North Carolina State University poultry scientists have developed a powerful new tool to aid the understanding of how chicken embryos develop.

The research of Dr. Paul Mozdziak, assistant professor of poultry science, and Dr. James Petitte, professor of poultry science, resulted in successfully transferring a gene into a chicken and establishing a line of chickens carrying that specific marker gene.

Currently, the chick embryo is often used as a model to understand normal a

Study shows life-threatening reactions from accidental ingestion can be avoided

A new medication could help most people with peanut allergies avoid life-threatening allergic reactions, according to a report in the March 14 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. A research team led by Donald Leung, M.D., Ph.D. of National Jewish Medical and Research Center, and Hugh Sampson, M.D. of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, found that treatment with an anti-IgE antibody raised the average

Even with aggressive research, the hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle will not be better than the diesel hybrid (a vehicle powered by a conventional engine supplemented by an electric motor) in terms of total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, says a study recently released by the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (LFEE).

And while hybrid vehicles are already appearing on the roads, adoption of the hydrogen-based vehicle will require major infrastructure changes to make compres