Project Synopsis:

The PEOPLE project involves the monitoring of ambient outdoor and indoor levels of air pollutants as well as measuring population exposure in European capitals. With the selection of benzene as a first pollutant to be measured, EC directive 2000/69/EC is also supported. Benzene is a carcinogenic pollutant to which exposure is associated with the risk of the development of leukaemia.

Brussels and Lisbon have been selected as the first cities for the PEOPLE

Folic acid is not only a safeguard against spina bifida and other birth defects in babies – it can also prevent heart disease and strokes, two of Northern Ireland’s biggest killers, according to research from the University of Ulster.

Research at the University has shown and folic acid and three other related B-vitamins can prevent the accumulation of a high blood level of homocysteine, a risk factor in heart disease and strokes.

The risk of high homocysteine is similar to the risk

Changes in the brain’s white matter may play a major role in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, whose baffling origin has traditionally been blamed on the gray matter. The new findings could provide a fresh direction for Alzheimer’s research in this neglected part of the brain, offering the potential for early diagnosis and enhanced therapies.

The results are reported in the Sept. 17 print edition of Biochemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the w

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have used fossilised leaves to determine the effect of greenhouse gases on the end of the Ice Age 300m years ago, according to an article published in PNAS.

The study, led by Professor David Beerling, examined fossilised leaves to determine how much carbon dioxide was in the air at various periods during the ice age.

Leaves have pores on their surface called stomata that act as “air holes” and open and close depending on the levels of carbo

Budding computer experts from around the world will this week begin their own tests of the latest software developed by the European DataGrid Project. Students attending the 2002 CERN School of Computing in Vico Equense, Italy, will be submitting jobs that can run anywhere on the Project’s current Grid, which is based at 10 computer centres throughout Europe. This is the first in a series of important tests using software from the DataGrid Project that will take place throughout the autumn, and which

If people were computers, Srinidhi Varadarajan of Virginia Tech’s Department of Computer Science could enable them to go back to their youth to correct mistakes they made, adapt a jet engine to run a car, or change a part from one SUV engine to another as both vehicles sped down a highway side by side.

Of course, people aren’t computers and don’t need to do those things, but computers need to do equivalent processes. Varadarajan has come up with a computer technology he calls “Weaves” that