Die EU-Kommission hat den Zustand der österreichischen Staatsfinanzen gelobt. "Zum ersten Mal, seit es das Europäische Semester gibt, sehen wir, dass im Großen und Ganzen alles passt", sagte Kommissionsvertreter Marc Fähndrich am Donnerstag bei der Vorstellung der jährlichen Kommissionsempfehlungen in Wien. Darum werde es keine Budgetempfehlung geben.
Paris (AFP) June 4, 2019
France's prime minister on Tuesday announced a crackdown on the destruction of unsold or returned consumer products, a move that will affect online retailers such as Amazon and luxury goods brands.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that a ban on destroying non-food goods - such as clothes, electrical items, hygiene products and cosmetics - would come into force within the next four year
Paris (AFP) June 5, 2019
Western countries must increasingly deal with hard to dispose of plastics because China and many southeastern Asian countries no longer want them.
Incinerators or landfills are two quick fixes since Beijing shut the door in January 2018 to some foreign refuse, but specialists say longer term solutions should involve better recycling or better yet, less junk to start with.
So far, the glo
Dispur, India (AFP) June 5, 2019
One school in northeast India has taken a novel approach to addressing the scourge of plastic waste by making its collection a condition of free attendance.
Every week the 110 pupils at the Akshar Forum school outside Dispur in Assam state must bring up to 20 items of plastic gathered from their homes and the local area.
"The use of plastics is rampant across Assam," said Parmita Sarma,
Washington (UPI) Jun 4, 2019
Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a faster way to purify elements. The breakthrough could help researchers discover new elements, reprocess nuclear fuel more efficiently and isolate actinium-225, an isotope with promise as a cancer treatment.
The involved chemists described their new process this week in the Nature Communications.
"Our propose
Cullman AL (SPX) Jun 06, 2019
Auburn University's National Poultry Technology Center (NPTC), a leader in poultry housing and associated technologies for more than a decade, and Tyson Foods Inc. has announced the opening of the largest stand-alone solar powered poultry house to be operated completely off the grid.
The 54-foot by 500-foot poultry house is located in Cullman County, Alabama, and capable of housing 36,000
Berlin (AFP) June 5, 2019
German high-end car giant BMW and British group Jaguar Land Rover announced Wednesday they are teaming up to develop a new generation of electric motors.
A joint team will be based in Munich and tasked with developing the "next generation electric drive units" which BMW will launch together with JLR.
"Cooperation between car manufacturers to share know-how and resources is important" as
Beijing (AFP) June 5, 2019
China on Wednesday imposed a $23.6 million fine on US auto giant Ford's joint venture with Changan Automobile for "price fixing" in the latest incident of Beijing targeting an American company amid a festering trade war.
The fine, amounting to four percent of Changan Ford Automobile's sales in the southwestern city of Chongqing, was levied over violations of China's anti-monopoly laws.
C
Beijing (AFP) June 5, 2019
The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday said it was lowering China's economic growth forecast for 2019 and 2020, citing "uncertainty" over the trade war between Beijing and Washington.
The world's second-largest economy is expected to grow by 6.2 percent this year and 6.0 percent in the next, the IMF said, down from previous forecasts of 6.3 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively.
"E
Some taxi players, like Ola, have previously tried to operate electric cars in the country, but with little success given inadequate infrastructure and high costs.
Basel, Switzerland (SPX(SPX) Jun 03, 2019
Physicists at the University of Basel are able to show for the first time how a single electron looks in an artificial atom. A newly developed method enables them to show the probability of an electron being present in a space.
This allows improved control of electron spins, which could serve as the smallest information unit in a future quantum computer. The experiments were published in P
New York NY (SPX(SPX) Jun 03, 2019
New research from the laboratory of Ozgur Sahin, associate professor of biological sciences and physics at Columbia University, shows that materials can be fabricated to create soft actuators - devices that convert energy into physical motion - that are strong and flexible, and, most important, resistant to water damage.
"There's a growing trend of making anything we interact with and touc
Herndon VA (SPX) Jun 04, 2019
BlackSky, a leading provider of geospatial intelligence, satellite imaging, and global monitoring services, announced it has been awarded a Study Contract through the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to provide commercial satellite imagery.
The NRO is responsible for providing the defense and intelligence communities with access to high-resolution commercial imagery to support homeland
Charlottesville VA (SPX) Jun 06, 2019
Through decades of study, astronomers have developed a clearer picture of the chaotic and crowded neighborhood surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Our galactic center is approximately 26,000 light-years from Earth and the supermassive black hole there, known as Sagittarius A* (A "star"), is 4 million times the mass of our Sun.
We now know that this regio
Lincoln UK (SPX) Jun 06, 2019
Moons orbiting planets outside our solar system could offer another clue about the pool of worlds that may be home to extra-terrestrial life, according to an astrophysicist at the University of Lincoln.
Exoplanets are planets outside our solar system and up to this point nearly 4,000 have been discovered. Only a small proportion of these are likely to be able to sustain life, existing in w
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 06, 2019
Scientists and engineers have a new plan for getting NASA InSight's heat probe, also known as the "mole," digging again on Mars. Part of an instrument called the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), the mole is a self-hammering spike designed to dig as much as 16 feet (5 meters) below the surface and record temperature.
But the mole hasn't been able to dig deeper than about 12
Cleveland OH (SPX) Jun 06, 2019
After seven successful years, and more than 4,200 hours of testing, NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Testbed was decommissioned June 3 as it burned up in the trunk of SpaceX CRS-17 upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere.
Launched in 2012, after being designed and built at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, the testbed was installed aboard the International Space Stat
Ann Arbor MI (SPX) Jun 06, 2019
It's one of the greatest and longest-running mysteries surrounding, quite literally, our Sun - why is its outer atmosphere hotter than its fiery surface? University of Michigan researchers believe they have the answer, and hope to prove it with help from NASA's Parker Solar Probe.
In roughly two years, the probe will be the first man-made craft to enter the zone surrounding the Sun where h
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 06, 2019
When the first humans stepped onto the Moon a half-century ago on July 20, 1969, they knew they were venturing into the unknown. Some had feared their lander would be swallowed up by bottomless layers of dust as almost nothing was known about the Moon's surface at the time. But they knew it wouldn't, thanks in large part to groundbreaking research being performed at the University of Arizona's t
Washington DC (SPX) Jun 06, 2019
SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft carrying 4,200 pounds of scientific experiments and other cargo back to Earth departed the International Space Station at 12:01 p.m. EDT Monday, and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 5:48 p.m. (2:48 p.m. PDT).
Flight controllers at mission control in Houston used the space station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach Dragon from the Earth-facing side of the
Devon UK (SPX) Jun 06, 2019
The government is ensuring the UK plays a leading role in the New Space Age as part of its modern Industrial Strategy, with new support for domestic satellite launch capability and space weather forecasting, as well as a new National Space Council to improve UK space strategy.
There are significant opportunities for the growing UK space sector as commercial space activity increases globall
Kourou, French Guiana (ESA) Jun 06, 2019
ESA is working with industry towards the maiden flight of Europe's new Vega-C launch vehicle in 2020 for more launches, with increased performance, to more orbits.
Since the previous update on the status of Vega-C in December, the project has moved into the qualification phase following a successful critical design review in March.
Final tests in this phase will verify the design and
Stanford CA (SPX) Jun 06, 2019
A decade ago, while still a PhD student at Cornell University, Zac Manchester imagined building chip-scale satellites that might work together to study Earth or explore space. On June 3, as NASA Ames Research Center announces the successful deployment of the largest swarm of ChipSats in history, Manchester, now an assistant professor at Stanford, is already envisioning the future of this technol
Its all about the Benjamin's. Historian Peter Kuznick joins Paul Jay to discuss the role of Ford, GM, and other industrialists in rearming Germany and supporting Hitler's rise to power
ENGLAND are in Portugal looking to win the inaugural Uefa Nations League. The tournament is new for the 2018/19 season and has already proved popular as it replaces meaningless friendlies with competitive fixtures. Does the Uefa Nations League winner qualify for Euro 2020? GARETH SOUTHGATE’s side will be keen to build on their fantastic efforts […]