Royal start for isotope laboratory
Britain's Prince Andrew, The Duke of York, has officially opened a new laboratory at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
The isotope geochemistry laboratory is being used to carry out groundbreaking research into fields as varied as the origins of the sun and planets, the development of life and the history of climate change.
It is also being used to study the birthplace and subsequent migration of Ötzi, the Neolithic iceman, whose 5,300-year-old mummified remains emerged from a melting glacier in the Alps in 1991.
The new laboratory is one of the best equipped of its kind in the world.
The Duke of York is opening the laboratory in his capacity as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, supporting British companies which trade internationally.
A British company, Nu Instruments, has supplied the laboratory’s unique new plasma mass spectrometer, which is worth SFr3.3 million.
During his visit to Switzerland, Prince Andrew also opened a British-Swiss technology partnership event at Technopark in Zurich.
The event, called IntelliMetrics, has brought together companies interested in electronic and light technologies with biomedical and environmental applications.
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