Short items

  • Chemistry World has been shortlisted for the Periodical Publishers Association magazine of the year awards, in the best monthly business and professional magazine category. Winners will be announced on 
    3 May.
  • The Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowships for 2006 have been awarded to 18 environmental researchers from the US. Fellows receive intensive communication and leadership training to help them deliver scientific information more effectively to policymakers, the media, business leaders and the public.   
  • A ?61 million project exploring the links between genes, the environment and common diseases has begun in the northwest of England. The  Biobank project aims to gather health and lifestyle information from over half a million volunteers over the next 20 years. It will store information relating to the progress of conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.  
  • The University of Manchester, UK, has won a ?1 million grant to develop a device that detects pathogenic bacteria in the air. The device is being designed to work as a non-invasive wound monitor to treat patients with severe burns, skin ulcers or gaping wounds. The device would signal the first signs of infection. It would mark an improvement on current methods, which rely on medical staff taking swabs from a wound and testing them in a lab, which can take several days. 
  • The UK’s eight research councils have begun a project to assess the efficiency and value for money of their  grant peer review process. The peer review project will examine the full cost of the grant peer review system, including the cost to institutions of researchers and administrators writing proposals, academics acting as referees and panel members. The project will analyse the time of staff and cost of operations within the councils themselves.