Press Releases - July 2006
Archive
31 July 2006 - EMBL
EMBL-EBI and collaborators win bid to run UK PubMed Central
Scientists will be able to access a vast collection of biomedical research at the touch of a button thanks to a major new initiative that aims to promote the free transfer of ideas in a bid to speed up scientific discovery. Based on a model currently used in the United States, UK PubMed Central [UKPMC] will provide free access to an online digital archive of peer-reviewed research papers in the medical and life sciences.
28 July 2006 - ESA
ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter's 3 August spacewalk from the International Space Station
On 3 August at 15:55 hours CEST, ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter will step out of the International Space Station to begin a 6½ hour spacewalk (extra-vehicular activity). During this time, he and fellow NASA crew member Jeff Williams will install items of hardware in preparation for future ISS assembly work and will also set up for deployment a number of instruments and experiments mounted on the outside of the Station. This will be Reiter's third EVA, having already carried out two spacewalks on his EuroMir 95 mission in 1995.
26 July 2006 - ESO
Island Universes with a Twist
If life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you will get - the Universe, with its immensely large variety of galaxies, must be a real candy store! ESO's Very Large Telescope has taken images of three different 'Island Universes', each amazing in their own way, whose curious shapes testify of a troubled past, and for one, of a foreseeable doomed future.
26 July 2006 - CERN
LHC experiments at CERN on track with cosmic rays
The giant CMS particle detector at CERN has been sealed and switched on to collect data for an important series of tests using cosmic ray particles. The CMS 'cosmic challenge' will be carried out with segments of the full set of sub-detectors including a tracking detector composed of 2 m2 of silicon sensors. This is larger than any used in CERN's previous generation of experiments, but only about 1% of the final detector that will be installed in CMS when CERN's new flagship particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), starts up next year.
21 July 2006 - ESO
Looking Deep with Infrared Eyes
Today, British astronomers are releasing the first data from the largest and most sensitive survey of the heavens in infrared light to the ESO user community. The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) has completed the first of seven years of data collection, studying objects that are too faint to see at visible wavelengths, such as very distant or very cool objects. New data on young galaxies is already challenging current thinking on galaxy formation, revealing galaxies that are massive at a much earlier stage of development than expected.
20 July 2006 - ESA
ESA astronaut Hans Schlegel assigned to European Columbus laboratory mission to the ISS
ESA astronaut Hans Schlegel of Germany has been named today to fly on the Space Shuttle mission that will deliver the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station in September/October 2007. ESA's Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain announced the assignment on the occasion of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel's official visit to ESA's Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.
18 July 2006 - ESO
Towards a European Extremely Large Telescope
ESO, the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, is taking an important step towards the realisation of a new, giant telescope for Europe's astronomers, by creating the ESO Extremely Large Telescope Project Office. It will be headed by Jason Spyromilio, formerly La Silla Paranal Observatory Director.
18 July 2006 - ESA
German Chancellor Angela Merkel to hold live in-flight call with ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter on board the ISS
On Thursday, 20 July, German Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel and the Prime Minister of Germany's Hesse region, Roland Koch, will address ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, currently on board the International Space Station (ISS), from ESA's operations centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.
13 July 2006 - CERN
Putting your computer to work to fight against malaria in Africa
While you are sending an email or surfing the web, your computer could be helping to tackle one of Africa's major humanitarian challenges, malaria. Africa@home, a project conceived and coordinated by CERN, was launched publicly this week. It is recruiting volunteer computers in homes and offices to run a computer-intensive simulation program called MalariaControl.net, developed by researchers at the Swiss Tropical Institute (STI).
13 July 2006 - ESO
Sub-millimetre Astronomy in Full Swing on Southern Skies
The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) 12-m sub-millimetre telescope lives up to the ambitions of the scientists by providing access to the "Cold Universe" with unprecedented sensitivity and image quality. As a demonstration, no less than 26 articles based on early science with APEX are published this week in the research journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Among the many new findings, most in the field of star formation and astrochemistry, are the discovery of a new interstellar molecule, and the detection of light emitted at 0.2 mm from CO molecules, as well as light coming from a charged molecule composed of two forms of Hydrogen.
11 July 2006 - EMBL
Mapping the protein world
In the early days of X-ray crystallography obtaining a three-dimensional model of a protein required wire models, screws, bolts and years of tedious calculations by hand. Today macromolecular models are built by computers - thanks to sophisticated software and in particular a package called ARP/wARP.
10 July 2006 - ESA
Europe to launch its first polar-orbiting weather satellite
MetOp-A, the first member of a new family of European satellites designed to monitor the Earth's atmosphere from low Earth orbit, is to be launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on 17 July. It will complement Europe's already highly successful Meteosat satellites in geostationary orbit and form part of an integrated system to be run with the USA to provide better weather and climate information.
6 July 2006 - ESA
ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter reports for duty onboard the ISS
Thanks to the resumption of Space Shuttle flights, the permanent crew of the International Space Station is now back up to three. Joining Russian commander Pavel Vinogradov and NASA flight engineer Jeffrey Williams onboard is ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter.
6 July 2006 - ESA
A journey of space discovery at the Farnborough International Air Show
The European Space Agency (ESA), together with the British National Space Centre (BNSC) and UK space industry, will exhibit in the International Space Pavilion at Farnborough International Air Show from 17 to 23 July.
4 July 2006 - ESA
ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter on his way to his new home in space
As the Shuttle returns to flight and prepares the way for the resumption of International Space Station assembly, a European astronaut is - for the first time ever - heading for the orbital outpost to take up duty as a member of its permanent crew. His mission, dubbed Astrolab, is planned to last through to the end of the year.
3 July 2006 - ESO
Falling Onto the Dark
ESO's VLT has helped scientists to discover a large primordial 'blob', more than 10 billion light-years away. The most likely scenario to account for its existence and properties is that it represents the early stage in the formation of a galaxy, when gas falls onto a large clump of dark matter.