Press releases

In the event of a natural disaster occurring, the following experts are willing to be contacted by the media for comments. The experts listed cover earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, floods, droughts as well as general issues around natural disasters such as disaster resilience, rebuilding, early warning systems and the role of climate change.

In the year 2050, it is projected that 9 billion people will inhabit our planet and the food we get from the sea will have dwindled to almost nothing. But less fish in our oceans doesn’t necessarily mean less fish on our tables.

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change will identify what policy changes and actions are needed to help the world achieve sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change.

KUCHING: To further equip the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts to a higher level, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and Aizo Digitalworks at the university.

Providing clean water for everyone is a global concern. But nowhere is this more challenging than in developing countries where one in five people has no access to safe drinking water.

Africa is on the move. Populations are growing, economies are improving – and conflict is declining. Can all this be connected?

Last August, 18 families from the community of San Lucas, located northwest of El Salvador’s capital, celebrated their first harvest of indigo under fair and sustainable conditions.

Science Without Borders was the theme of this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Held in Washington, the meeting provided an opportunity for IDRC to showcase some of the research it supports and to engage with renowned leaders in scientific research.

A recent visit to Malawi and Rwanda by IDRC President David Malone provided an opportunity to further strengthen ties between IDRC and East African institutions and to see some of the region’s IDRC-supported research in action.

IDRC’s Federico Burone testified before Canada’s Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade in early February about the essential role of research in Brazil’s economic and political development.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Climate science: Carbon cycle changes during global warming; Physics: Towards a silicon quantum memory; Physics: Stripes and the hour-glass magnetic spectrum in high-Tc superconductors; Earth science: Quartz control in continental deformation; And finally… Should I stay or should I go and forage?

Leading international experts on healthcare communication are meeting in Hong Kong to examine ways of improving communication between doctors and patients, particularly in hospitals.

It is hoped that the Hamzah Sendut Library (PHS) Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) will be a unique repository and centre for dissemination of knowledge, second to none in Malaysia.

On Friday 18 March, Professor C. H. Woo will give a seminar on 'The Fukushima Nuclear Mishap' at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Professor Tadashi Otsuka charts the nascent field of environmental law in Japan.

Now, a few days after the Great Tohoku Earthquake that occurred off the North East Coast of Honshu Island, Japan, the damage estimates are emerging. The effectiveness of the warning systems in place and the lessons to learn from the disaster can begin to be seen.

Singapore, 16 March 2011 – The China Wireless Personal Area Network (CWPAN) standards meeting, that has traditionally been held within China for the past five years, will be held in Singapore for the first time.

The Foresight Institute in the United States recently announced the award of the Feynman Prize for 2010 to Dr. Masakazu Aono, Director-General of International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) of the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS).

Dr. Hideki Hirayama has won an Achievement Award in the 43rd Ichimura Science Awards for his work on the development of high-quality AlGaN-based semiconductor crystals and advanced research on deep-UV LEDs. Dr. Hirayama is the leader of the Terahertz Quantum Device Team at RIKEN Advanced Science Insitute (ASI).

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are highly regarded for their ability to give rise to the full range of cellular lineages found in the adult body, but left to their own devices ESCs tend to differentiate into neural lineages. Researchers from RIKEN have revealed how the nuclear protein Zfp521 is key to the default neural fate.

Computational search algorithms take the guesswork out of understanding complex, multi-molecule transformations

A common industrial magnet exhibits rare and potentially useful qualities when its composition is slightly altered

Two genes that affect Caucasians and a variant of the inflammatory gene interleukin-6 affect the abundance of a marker of systemic inflammation in the Japanese

Postgraduate, postdoctoral, visiting scholar and advanced research fellowships available to scientists from developing countries.

Summaries of newsworthy papers: Drought worsens dilemma for African maize

Summaries of newsworthy papers- Methods: A wearable PET scanner; Medicine: Understanding resistance to therapy in cancer; Geoscience: Progressive continental breakup in Ethiopia; Genetics: Exome sequencing acute monocytic leukemia

First reports indicate that the early warning systems worked and the years of training citizens to respond appropriately yielded results. Yet the losses of life in Sendai, the city most affected by the local tsunami, indicate that more can be done.

The following experts have made themselves available for comment. For each expert, their specific research fields and areas of expertise are given.

Researchers at the RIKEN Plant Science Center (PSC) and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have identified a novel transcription factor controlling how plants dedifferentiate cells in response to wounding.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Comment: Vaccinate for the next H2N2 pandemic now; Palaeoclimate: El Niño variability in the Pliocene warm period; Neuroscience: Making sense of function and connection; Physics: The strongly coupled beat of a quantum drum; And finally… How the penis lost its spines