Press Releases - January 2007
Archive
23 January 2007 - ESA
International Space Station Heads of Agencies meet at ESA
The heads of the International Space Station partners, space agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States, met at European Space Agency Headquarters in Paris, France, on January 23, 2007, to review ISS cooperation.
22 January 2007 - EMBL
EMBL coordinates new Marie Curie Research Training Network "Chromatin Plasticity"
The European Commission has awarded 3.7 Million Euro under the European Union Framework 6 Programme over the next four years to a new Marie Curie Research Training Network, coordinated by Dr. Andreas Ladurner at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL].
19 January 2007 - ESO
The Great Cometary Show
Comet McNaught, the Great Comet of 2007, is no more visible for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. It does put an impressive show in the South, however, and observers in Chile, in particular at the Paranal Observatory, were able to capture amazing images, including a display reminiscent of an aurora!
17 January 2007 - ESA
Heads of space agencies meet in Paris
On 23 January, ESA's Headquarters in Paris will host an "ISS Heads of Agency meeting" at which Heads of space agencies involved in the International Space Station programme (ESA for Europe, NASA for the USA, CSA for Canada, JAXA for Japan and Roskosmos for Russia) will take stock of the status of the ISS and look at the follow-on activities.
17 January 2007 - ESO
Big Red Eye is Ready
The world's biggest infrared camera for Europe's newest telescope left the UK today for Chile. The 67 million pixel camera will equip VISTA - a UK provided survey telescope being constructed in Chile for ESO. VISTA will map the infrared sky faster than any previous telescope, studying areas of the Universe that are hard to see in the visible due to either their cool temperature, surrounding dust or high redshift.
16 January 2007 - ILL
The ILL prepares to celebrate its 40th anniversary
Located in Grenoble , the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), the world's leading neutron research centre, is getting ready to celebrate its 40th anniversary! It was founded on 19 January 1967 by the signing of a convention between the governments of the French Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany with the aim of creating an extremely intense source of neutrons dedicated exclusively to fundamental research.
At the age of 40, the Institute is now in its prime and is looking resolutely to the future with an ambitious programme to upgrade its scientific instruments. This should allow it to remain at the forefront of neutron science for the next twenty years.
16 January 2007 - ESA
Planck satellite to be presented to media
By the end of February, integration of Planck, the ESA spacecraft due to study relic radiation from the Big Bang, will have been completed - and so too will a major step towards launch. ESA and Alcatel Alenia Space (AAS) are jointly inviting the media to a press conference to be held at the AAS facilities in Cannes, France, on 1 February to hear about the mission's technological achievements and scientific objectives and to view the spacecraft in all its splendour.
11 January 2007 - ESO
Tim de Zeeuw to Become the Next Director General of ESO
The ESO Council has just appointed Tim de Zeeuw, 50, as the next Director General of ESO, effective as of 1 September 2007, when the current Director General, Catherine Cesarsky will complete her mandate.
9 January 2007 - ILL
Extremely slow cell water in a Dead sea organism
Experiments carried out at the Institut Laue Langevin ( ILL ), in Grenoble , have led to the discovery of a new type of water behaviour within the cells of ancient organisms that live in the saturated salt waters of the Dead Sea . These "salt-loving" cells , named halophiles, are a class of extremophiles, i.e. organisms which require extreme conditions in order to thrive. The study of such extremophiles can teach us a great deal about the properties of certain bio-organisms and their enzymes and the ability of living organisms to adapt to extreme conditions on earth. It may even help us in our search for signs of life on another planet.
8 January 2007 - EMBL
UK PubMed Central launched
From today scientists will be able to access a vast collection of biomedical research and to submit their own published results for inclusion in a new online resource. Based on a model currently used by the US National Institute of Health, UK PubMed Central [UKPMC] will provide free access to a permanent online archive of peer-reviewed research papers in the medical and life sciences.
8 January 2007 - EMBL
Getting to the bottom of memory
Phone numbers, the way to work, granny's birthday - our brain with its finite number of nerve cells can store incredible amounts of information. At the bottom of memory lies a complex network of molecules. To understand how this network brings about one of the most remarkable capacities of our brain we need to identify its components and their interactions. Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's [EMBL] Mouse Biology Unit in Monterotondo, Italy, and the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Sevilla, Spain, now for the first time investigate the molecular basis of memory in living mice. The study, which appears in the current issue of Learning and Memory, identified a molecule that is crucially involved in learning and singled out the signaling pathway through which it affects memory.
8 January 2007 - ESO
It Is No Mirage!
Using ESO's Very Large Telescope and the W.M. Keck Observatory, astronomers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and the California Institute of Technology, USA, have discovered what appears to be the first known triplet of quasars. This close trio of supermassive black holes lies about 10.5 billion light-years away towards the Virgo (The Virgin) constellation.
5 January 2007 - ESA
Press conference with ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter after his mission to the International Space Station
On Thursday 18 January, a press conference will take place at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany to give media a chance to meet the ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, of Germany, after completion of his mission following the landing of Space Shuttle Discovery on 22 December.
4 January 2007 - ESA
ESA Director General meets the Press
On Wednesday 17 January, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain will meet the Press at ESA Headquarters in Paris. Starting at 08:30 with breakfast, the gathering will be followed at 09:00 by a press briefing to take stock of the Agency's activities in 2006 and announce the main events for 2007.
4 January 2007 - ESA
Overview of ESA communication activities in 2007 relevant to the media
2007 will be a highly symbolic year for the space sector worldwide (50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, marking the start of the space age) and for Europe in particular (50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome establishing the European Community). Under the motto "Discovery, competitiveness and European identity", ESA Communication will strive to promote ESA's missions in its main areas of activity: Science, Earth observation, Navigation, Telecommunication, Human spaceflight and Exploration, and Launchers. Watch out for press conferences, exhibitions, political rendezvous, launch events and much more.