Science Education & Policy

LONDON, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Earlier this year the Author's Licensing & Collecting Society (ALCS) signed a three year deal with CILIP to support the dedicated awards website until 2010. "We are delighted to be working with CILIP to support these highly respected awards," says Barbara Hayes, ALCS' Deputy CEO. "Through the awards 'shadowing' scheme we have a great opportunity to engage a wider audience of students on the subject of intellectual property and copyright. It is vital that young people understand the importance of their own rights, as well as respecting those of others and…

BIRMINGHAM, England, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- - Revenues up 17%, Freelite(TM) Revenues up 34% The Binding Site Limited ("The Binding Site" or the "Company"), a privately owned specialist UK diagnostics company, today announces its results for the six months ending 31st March 2008. Financial Highlights: 6 months ended 6 months % Increase 31 March 2008 ended 31 March 2007 GBPMillion GBPMillion Revenue 18.1 15.5 17% FreeliteTM 5.5 4.1 34% sales EBITDA 3.8 3.5 10% - Revenue growth of 17%, with sales of Freelite(TM) up 34% - North American sales up 20% - Significant targeted investment in sales…

A survey of 17 countries has found that the United States has the highest levels of illegal cocaine and cannabis use. The study, by Louisa Degenhardt (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia) and colleagues, is based on the World Health Organization's Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) and is published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The authors found that 16.2% of people in the United States had used cocaine in their lifetime, a level much higher than any other country surveyed (the second highest level of cocaine use was in New Zealand, where 4.3% of people reported…

LONDON, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- LONDON, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- A new technique that effectively delivers drugs to the eyes, using microscopic needles, could offer hope to the millions of patients worldwide suffering from common eye diseases that threaten vision such as glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University in America will present this research, entitled "Microneedles for Ocular Drug Delivery," to international experts at the Ophthalmic Drug Delivery symposium being held at the Royal Pharmaceutical…

Astronomers recently announced that they have found a novel explanation for a rare type of super-luminous stellar explosion that may have produced a new type of object known as a quark star. Three exceptionally luminous supernovae explosions have been observed in recent years. One of them was first observed using a robotic telescope at the California Institute of Technology's (Caltech) Palomar Observatory. Data collected with Palomar's Samuel Oschin Telescope was transmitted from the remote mountain site in southern California to astronomers via the High-Performance Wireless Research and…

Research by two Kansas State University scientists could help with the large-scale cultivation and manufacturing of oil-rich algae in the oceans. Algae are a diverse and simple group of organisms that live in or near water. Certain algal species are high in oil content that could be converted into such fuels as biodiesel, according to Pei and Yuan. Algae also have several environmentally-friendly advantages over corn or other plants used for biofuels, including not needing soil or fresh water to grow. Zhijian "Z.J." Pei, associate professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering…

A Low Carbon Society (LCS) is defined by proponents as one that will make an equitable contribution to the global effort of reducing greenhouse gases to a safe level, combining both a high level of energy efficiency and security. They say the results of modelling activities and workshops have demonstrated that reducing global carbon emissions by 50% is technologically and economically feasible. Energy efficiency, consumer responses and the choice of technologies for electricity generation play crucial roles in cutting CO2 levels. Thus they say the LCS is not a utopian vision, but is both…

How do we get kids excited about math? In this age of high tech video games why would a kid want to be excited about math they have to do in their mind or with pencil and paper? Maybe I am just too old, I remember the days before television and video games, I did get excited about math puzzles. Perhaps one of you video whiz kids can create a game series that uses the old math puzzles to allow players to advance from level to level. Until then, those of us who do care about math and math education have a responsibility to get kids excited about math - these will be the math innovators of the…

WASHINGTON, June 27 /PRNewswire/ -- - ICANN Solution to Domain Tasting is a Half Measure that Will do Little To Eliminate Tasting or Offer Protections to Internet Users The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), a coalition comprised of 11 globally recognized brand-name companies, would like to recognize ICANN's solution to the problem of "tasting" as a partial success. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070724/DCTU006LOGO ) ICANN recently put forth a proposal to address tasting due in large part to CADNA's championing of this issue and because of objective research and…

TALLINN, Estonia and COPENHAGEN, June 27 /PRNewswire/ -- - New Charter Brings Equity, Performance and Accountability to Health Sector Ministers of health from 53 countries (1), which make the WHO European Region, today signed a new charter on health systems, committing themselves to concrete and measurable action on strengthening health systems that will allow both their own people and the international community to hold them to account. Observing that all countries have pockets of people who miss out on quality health care, the charter stresses that strong health systems must be put in…