Danish brewer Carlsberg has an extra 43% of Serbia's third largest brewery Pivara Celarevo, to add to its 51% holding. The total cost 52 million euros.

Researchers at the University of Toledo have discovered that adding a little red wine to amorphous silicon solar cells can restore the functioning of dead spots, increasing its efficiency in converting sunlight into electricity.

British food companies were awarded prizes for contributions to their communities at the Community Partnership Awards in London last night. Winners Tate & Lyle; R Mathiesons and Sons; and The United Co-operatives (golds), Nestlé, Quest International and Siro UK (silvers), and Unilever UK and Unilever R&D Colworth (bronzes).

Nastech Pharmaceutical will present data on the development of its first obesity formulation, Peptide YY3-36 (PYY) nasal spray, at the European Congress on Obesity, 26-29 May, in Prague, Czech Republic. PYY is a high-affinity Y2 receptor agonist.

Healthier lifestyles prompted by the low-carb diet and obesity hype has driven sales of sports and energy drinks in the US $3.1 billion in 2003, beverages accounted for 63% of sales, according to a new report from Packaged Facts.

Sales of consumer packaged goods rose by up to 12% when supported by on-line advertising, according to research by Microsoft. It also showed that on-line advertising was up to 30% more cost-effective than traditional adspend. The figures were presented to a Microsoft consortium that includes Nestle SA, Kraft Foods Inc. and Procter & Gamble, each of which submitted brands and campaigns for evaluation as part of the project.

Cadbury-Schweppes’s beverage subsidiary Snapple is running a competition to grow the biggest watermelon to tie in with the launch of its latest brand, What-A-Melon juice. There’s $25,000 and a year's supply of What-A-Melon for breaking the current world record for the world's largest watermelon 119kg or 262 pounds.

Roman Boutellier, the chief executive of Swiss beverage packaging equipment maker SIG, is to become professor of innovation and technology management at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. Rolf-Dieter Rademacher, who presently heads SIG Combibloc, becomes SIG’s new boss.

The European Commission is spending 8.33 million euro on research into semantically enabled knowledge technologies (SEKT) that aims to revolutionise the way information is stored and accessed.

A raspberry and cranberry oat sponge pudding from Tilquhillie Puddings of Banchory, Scotland is this year’s winner of the Rowett Institute Award for a healthy eating food product. 

The pudding contains natural fruits, berries and oats and has been specially formulated to be suitable for people who are wheat intolerant. 

Japanese cosmetic manufacturer Noevir says it has discovered that interrupted fern (Thelypteridaceae interrupta)-derived extract helps stimulate collagen production as well as cell activation, and also protect cells from ultraviolet radiation.

German chemicals maker Henkel is to buy the US’s third-biggest soaps and suds maker Dial for $28.75 per share. The deal will double Henkel’s US business and create a firm with combined sales worth $2.74bn.

The number of Americans thought to be allergic to foodstuffs has risen from around 1% to 4%, according to a new study presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. About 11 million, roughly one in 25, may suffer life-threatening reactions, or anaphylaxis, says the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), a co-investigator of the nationwide survey. Seafood and peanuts top the list of danger foods. Others are milk, egg, wheat, and soy.

Nemo save swimmers
Burning spirit of sparkling vodka
Absolut friends
War-war or jaw-jaw (or even jaw-war)
Fatties shoulder the blame for their obesity
J&J’s R&D goes green and saves $1m/y
Going up
Screw pump promises sterile liquids

Innovation

Nemo save swimmers

A patented concoction that mimics the defensive mechanism of the clown fish, Safe Sea sunblock lotion, is said to shield the skin against the stinging cells of jellyfish, sea nettles, sea lice, sea anemones, hydroids, coral and the other 13,000 stinging marine organisms.

The clown fish secretion and chemical layer that neutralises the sea anemone's tentacle stings is the scientific basis for Safe Sea's protection.

Over ten years of extensive biotechnology research went into creating the lotion. Safe Sea's protection against the stings of jellyfish and other marine stingers has been clinically tested by doctors on human subjects at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Bert Fish Medical Center, as well as in independent studies performed by medical researchers in Okinawa, Japan.

Safe Sea is available without SPF protection as well as with SPF 15, 30, 30+ for Kids, and 50. For more information go to www.safesealotion.com.

NPD

Burning spirit of sparkling vodka

International English Distillers’ new Vodka O2 is the world's first 80 proof sparkling vodka. It took 18 months to develop the process that puts oxygen bubbles into the smooth tasting vodka to leave a lightly effervescent texture that gently tingles on the tongue.

This unique British vodka is produced predominately from wheat and a small amount of malted barley. Distilled and filtered three times in 100-year-old copper pot stills, for exceptional purity and smoothness.

The makers have created a range of over 20 original vodka-based cocktails they call Tapastini, inspired by Spanish tapas.  The classic vodka Martini is served with tasters of complimentary foods either presented on a cocktail stick or placed in the vodka, for example a Caviartini or Sushitini and for the sweeter tooth Jellybinis and Truffletini. 

CRM

Absolut friends

In a sign that the market is getting tighter, Absolut Vodka has launched a consumer relationship marketing programme, Absolut Access, on its global website www.absolut.com. Consumers have access to personalised cocktail recipe books, special club listings and guest list privileges, recipes text messaged directly to their cell phones and exclusive stories, ad previews and much more.

Trade

War-war or jaw-jaw (or even jaw-war)

Peace is war conducted by other means, someone once said. Now comes research to back up the statement.

In Trade Threats, Trade Wars Arkansas professor Ka Zeng explores the forces driving trade disputes, how the US has forced open markets in some of its trading partners rather than others, and why trade wars take place more often between two democratic trading partners rather than between a democratic partner and an authoritarian one.

“Actually democracies are more likely to be involved in trade wars,” says Zeng. This is because competitive trade partners, produce a similar range of commodities, but in a complementary trade relationship each partner produces different commodities.

Support from domestic interests affects the outcome of a sanctions threat. The degree of support is determined by whether the relationship is competitive or complementary.

In a competitive trade relationship, both export-seeking and import-competing interests are likely to support trade sanctions. If sanction threats succeed in opening the target market, then export-seeking interests win by gaining increased market access to the target country. If threats fail and sanctions are imposed, then import-competing interests win by capturing the rents generated by trade protection.

The unified support of both export-seeking and import-competing interests strengthens pressure for brinksmanship and raises the risk of trade retaliation by America’s competitive trading partners. Since competitive partners are mostly democracies, democratic trade war results. In a complementary trade relationship domestic support comes only from the export-seeking interests.

“Without sufficient domestic support, US attempts to open the market via aggressive market-opening tactics would be less effective and less credible with America’s complementary trade partners,” Zeng said. “This would result in fewer retaliations against these countries.”

Obesity

Fatties shoulder the blame for their obesity

People who think of themselves as obese are happy to blame themselves and their eating habits for their condition, says new research from Euro RSCG. But skinnies do.

People who do not consider themselves significantly overweight said it really turns them off to see how fat some people let themselves get (49% agreed with this statement vs just 20% of those who are significantly overweight). Furthermore, a much higher proportion of people who aren't significantly overweight think that in general overweight people have no sense of self-control (33% vs 15% obese), and they resent having to sit next to someone who is really overweight on a plane or in a public area (27% vs. 11% obese).

The 1,162 respondents were more likely to blame lack of exercise rather than overeating or poor food choices for their excess bulk. Some 44% attributed their weight problem to lack of exercise, 23% cited the quantity of food they eat, 17% cited poor nutritional habits, and 16% blamed their weight issues on genes and heredity.

The obese eat fast food more often (11 times a month vs 7 times for the non-obese), spend more time preparing and eating (156 minutes vs 133 minutes), will skip one or two main meals a day and eat on the run (65% vs 59%), "really enjoy food" (80% vs 74%), and feed their families takeout (76% vs 68%), and are more likely to eat high calorie food in fast-food restaurants.

"People who are obese recognise that they make poor food choices in both quantity and quality," said Marian Salzman, chief strategy officer of Euro RSCG Worldwide.

But with kids it’s different. Girls, and a growing number of boys are starving themselves at younger and younger ages. On the other, the token fat kid is a growing minority of fat kids.

Sustainability

J&J’s R&D goes green and saves $1m/y

The research and development arm of US drug maker Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical has opened a new 2.2 megawatt combined heat and power (CHP) cogeneration system, as part of a major expansion at its La Jolla, California facility.

It will produce 15,000,000 KWh/y of electricity plus 360,000 therms of heat and 1,600,000 ton-hr/yr of chilled water. This is more than 90% of the facility's electric power and much of its heating and cooling needs, and cut CO2 emissions by over 1500 tons. It will also make the R&D facility independent of California's electrical grid, if necessary, and save $1m/y in energy costs.

The La Jolla facility is Johnson & Johnson’s centre of excellence for genomics.

Nanotech

Going up

Chemists at the University of California, Los Angeles have designed and built the world's smallest lift, a molecular platform on three legs that can be raised or lowered on command.

The device is about two and a half nanometers high, and the platform moves less than a nanometer. Built by Dr J Fraser Stoddart, a professor of organic chemistry, and colleagues, the lift is more complex and organised than other molecular machines. Stoddart said it might someday serve as a valve, opening and closing a tiny cavity to allow a few drug molecules to reach a cell.

Food safety

Screw pump promises sterile liquids

Engineers and scientists at University at Buffalo and Synergena have invented a pump that may revolutionise the decontamination and purification of water, juices and other liquids.

The screw pump, used with photonics, eradicates dangerous bacteria, viruses and other contaminants, such as E. coli, salmonella and anthrax in minutes.

The Synergistic Isogenous Active Decontamination (SIAD), method was developed by Synergena, which may license UB’s screw-pump to make the SIAD ER N-T Pasteurizer (Equidistributed Radiant energy Non-Thermal Pasteurizer).

“The system is suitable for municipal/wastewater purification, decontamination of ballast from ocean vessels and commercial processing of edible liquids such as orange juice and apple cider," says Synergena CEO Robert Duthie. Duthie claims the SIAD process outperforms chlorination, heat pasteurisation, filtration and single-spectrum UV radiation by a wide margin.

With the rotating screw at its centre, the pasteuriser continuously pumps fluid in and out of a chamber to allow a high-energy lamp to uniformly penetrate the fluid, even dense fluids, increasing a microorganism's exposure to the lamp and improving the killing efficiency of the SIAD process.

In lab tests the SIAD process took two to 30 minutes to totally eradicated trillions of E. coli, salmonella and B. cereus (an anthrax surrogate) microorganisms contained in seven gallons of water, apple juice and orange juice, respectively, without altering the liquids' taste or nutritional components. It was also effective on phenol in industrial waste water.