Europe’s leading researchers on human health and wildlife impacts of endocrine disrupters will be brought together under a new research “cluster” supported by DG Research which is to contribute €20 million. This cluster project will provide a critical mass for new and existing research on endocrine disrupters and their effect on human health and on the environment. Endocrine disrupters are suspected of causing problems for human health and wildlife. For instance, cases have been reported of fish, fro

ESO telescopes have detected a strange-looking object. Using the ESO 3.6-m New Technology Telescope and the Very Large Telescope (VLT), a team of astronomers [1] have discovered a dusty and opaque disk surrounding a young solar-type star in the outskirts of a dark cloud in the Milky Way.

It was found by chance during an unrelated research programme and provides a striking portrait of what our Solar System must have looked like when it was in its early infancy. Because of its unusual appeara

The problems and issues of sea lice infection in farmed salmon are a major and topical concern for the whole industry. A special issue of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) journal, Pest Management Science to be published in May 2002 reports on the prospect of developing an integrated pest management programme for sea lice control.

Presenting an up-to-date comprehensive view of the sea lice problem the twelve papers in this special issue provide overviews on veterinary medicines, biologi

Lepidopteran Tecia solanivora, an insect pest, is currently devastating potato crops in Latin and Central America. Equador is particularly badly hit. Known as the “Guatemala moth”, it spreads quickly. Indeed in 2000 the moth was found to have reached the Canary Islands. Since then it has been on the red list of the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO). The pest, if uncontrolled, is considered to be a major threat to potato crops throughout southern Europe. A research team f

Are our thoughts made of electricity? Not the familiar kind of electrical signals that travel up and down wires in our computer or nerves in our brain, but the distributed kind of electromagnetic field that permeates space and carries the broadcast signal to the TV or radio.

Professor Johnjoe McFadden from the School of Biomedical and Life Sciences at the University of Surrey believes our conscious mind could be an electromagnetic field. “The theory solves many previously intractable proble

PURAC and Greenomics™ (Plant Research International B.V.) announced the completion of the whole-genome sequencing of a production strain of PURAC that produces high amounts of lactic acid. Greenomics™ conducted the shotgun cloning and high quality sequencing of the genome up to a zero-gap situation. The closed genome is accompanied by an automated annotation and a functional classification of all the genes by bioinformatics tools.

The positive results obtained so far has encouraged PURAC to