Archive – Science

Oil rig owner holds closed-door AGM

This content was published on May 14, 2010 Steven Newman ignored questions from reporters as he arrived and left the Park Hotel in Zug, a few kilometres from the company’s headquarters. The Transocean annual general meeting (AGM) came just days after Newman appeared before the United States Congress to explain his company’s involvement in the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The Deepwater…

Miserable weather casts cloud over holiday

This content was published on May 13, 2010 May this year has been exceptionally cold and wet, and even before the month is half way through, some places in southern Switzerland have already had more rain than the average for the entire month. In the space of 12 hours on Thursday 60 litres of rain per square metre fell in the area around…

Transocean, BP and Halliburton pass the buck

This content was published on May 12, 2010 Top representatives of three major players in the oil sector – the Swiss-based drilling contractor Transocean, BP and Halliburton – appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Tuesday, and each cast blame on the other. The three companies are no strangers to behind-the-scenes lobbying in Washington, but it was a new…

Photographer reveals the secret life of pollen

This content was published on May 5, 2010 Delving into the miniscule world of pollen, the “micronaut” shows that the grains are in fact very varied and very beautiful – and that they go to great lengths to have sex. His work recently featured in National Geographic, which devoted a whole article to the topic of pollen, along with an Oeggerli gallery. He…

Informal climate meeting proposed for Geneva

This content was published on May 4, 2010 Swiss Environment Minister Moritz Leuenberger, who was attending a climate dialogue in Bonn, informed his Mexican counterpart, Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada, of Switzerland’s willingness on Tuesday. Leuenberger said the meeting in Geneva would focus on the financial aspects of climate protection and speedy financial help for developing countries. These are central questions if confidence is…

How a piece of Africa came to be in Ticino

This content was published on May 4, 2010 The mountain is regarded as the best place for studying fossil marine life from the mid-Triassic period and is believed to have once been part of Africa. It has been a Unesco World Heritage site since 2003. More than a thousand metres above sea level, Monte San Giorgio rises like a pyramid on the southern…

Stress in pregnancy could produce bigger babies

This content was published on May 4, 2010 The results, published in the American Psychosomatic Society journal, are the first to tie common stress factors experienced by pregnant women, such as money worries or relationship problems, to greater growth in babies. Similar studies in the past have looked at the impact of severe stress, such as natural disasters or the death of a…

Swiss doping expert outlines new concerns

This content was published on May 2, 2010 The Lausanne lab works closely with Anti-doping Swiss, the independent national anti-doping agency, which is getting into its stride after a slow start in July 2008. The agency last week held its second annual news conference at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. At the end of last year the government granted an additional SFr1 million…

BP to face severe consequences, says Swiss expert

This content was published on Apr 30, 2010 A Swiss-Dutch geologist tells swissinfo.ch the disaster could severely affect multinationals like BP. On Friday, the oil industry got a taste of the way things could go when Washington put a hold on any new offshore oil projects. Stefan M. Luthi is professor of production geology and head of the department of Geotechnology at the…

Mickey Mouse comes to Zurich

This content was published on Apr 30, 2010 The newly created Disney Research Zurich (DRZ) is working in partnership with the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ). DRZ is drawing on the institute’s expertise in computer graphics, and especially the use of 3-D in animated films and facial animation. The results of the research will be used not only in cinema and television…

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