Latest Science and technology in Europe Stories

The International Space Station partner agencies met Thursday, Feb. 3, by videoconference to discuss coordinating the increased use of the space station as a research laboratory. The agencies want to continue using the station as a test-bed for exploration and find innovative ways to reduce costs while increasing use. The Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) meeting included senior representatives from NASA; the Canadian Space Agency (CSA); the European Space Agency (ESA); the Russian...

The bright galaxy NGC 3621, captured here using the Wide Field Imager on the 2.2-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile, appears to be a fine example of a classical spiral. But it is in fact rather unusual: it does not have a central bulge and is therefore described as a pure-disc galaxy.NGC 3621 is a spiral galaxy about 22 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Sea Snake). It is comparatively bright and can be seen well in moderate-sized telescopes. This...

The crew of a simulated mission to Mars have entered virtual orbit around the planet in what BBC News reporters are calling a "key milestone" for the project, which intends to study the physical and mental effect that a real-life Mars mission might have on astronauts.The Mars500 mission, which is being conducted by the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Russia with cooperation from the European Space Agency (ESA), features six men who have been sealed inside steel containers...

The sight of a researcher sitting at a microscope for hours, painstakingly searching for the right cells, may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to new software created by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. Presented today in Nature Methods, the novel computer programme can rapidly learn what the scientist is looking for and then takes over this laborious and time-consuming task, automatically performing complex microscopy experiments when...

Romania took a step further in its relations with ESA by signing the Accession Agreement to the ESA Convention on 20 January 2011, to become the 19th ESA Member State.The signing ceremony took place at the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest, with the participation of Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General, Teodor Baconschi, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marius-Ioan Piso, President and CEO of the Romanian Space Agency, and cosmonaut Dumitru Dorin Prunariu, Chairman of the...

AMSTERDAM, January 20, 2011 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- - Funding Body Will Use Publications and Citations Data to Track Success of Funded Projects Elsevier's SciVerse Scopus (http://www.info.sciverse.com/scopus/) database was selected by the European Research Council (ERC) to assist in the tracking and awarding of funding opportunities for researchers throughout the world. The ERC, the European funding body managing the 'Ideas Programme of the European Commission's Seventh...

NOORDWIJK, The Netherlands, December 22, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- What if monitoring your heart rate were as easy as listening to music while you jog? Thanks to advances in space technology, an iPhone will soon be able to do double duty: keep you in tune with your favourite artists and your vital signs. With the support of ESA's Technology Transfer Programme (ESA TTP), Swiss company CSEM created the final prototype for their Pulsear device this year. A tiny unit embedded in a regular...

Gamma-ray bursts are among the most energetic events in the Universe, but some appear curiously faint in visible light. The biggest study to date of these so-called dark gamma-ray bursts, using the GROND instrument on the 2.2-meter MPG/ESO telescope at La Silla in Chile, has found that these gigantic explosions don't require exotic explanations. Their faintness is now fully explained by a combination of causes, the most important of which is the presence of dust between the Earth and the...

Europe needs new particle accelerators and major upgrades to existing facilities over the next ten years to stay at the forefront of nuclear physics, according to the European Science Foundation (ESF), which launches its 'Long Range Plan 2010' for nuclear physics today.Nuclear physicists are working to understand the origin, evolution and nature of matter that constitutes nearly 100 per cent of visible matter in the universe. As the home of GANIL, GSI, CERN and a wide network of closely...

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of Portugal joining ESA as a Member State, José Mariano Gago, Portuguese Minister of Science and Higher Education, and Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA's Director General, met today at Pavilhão do Conhecimento, Lisbon.For Portugal, becoming a Member State has been essential to foster the development of new cluster of activity. Around 30 companies, many of them start-ups, have been created with a focus on space technologies. Over one thousand projects in the...