Thanks to efforts from China and improved EU policing, fewer toxic toys and skin-irritating textiles are making it onto Europe’s supermarket shelves, the European Union executive said Thursday.

The number of unsafe products banned, withdrawn or recalled from consumers last year, rose 13 percent to 2,244 products against the previous year, the European Commission announced. Chinese goods accounted for 58 percent of those products, down from 60 percent of unsafe products in 2009. “The Chinese government attaches great importance to consumer product safety,” said Beijing’s Minister Zhi Shuping of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ). “We will strive to improve the quality and safety of Chinese products.”

Here you can find (and download) workshop presentations and lectures classified by lecturers. 1. Workshop theme: PROTECTIVE…

A new fabric that can selectively trap gases is being developed at Cornell University, in a breakthrough that promises to help protect soldiers and first responders from exposure to toxic chemicals. The garments use “metal organic framework molecules” and cellulose fibers that were assembled in Fiber Science Professor Juan Hinestroza’s lab to create the special cloth. Metal organic framework molecules, or MOFs, are clustered crystalline compounds that can be manipulated at the nanolevel – as small as one millionth of a millimeter – to create “cages” that are the exact same size as the gas they are trying to capture.

Researchers in Singapore have discovered a method through which they could cause the silkworms to produce coloured…

On 9th February 2011, the European Commission presented a Green Paper which proposes major changes to EU research and innovation funding to make participation easier, increase scientific and economic impact and provide better value for money. The changes, to be introduced in the next EU budget after 2013, would bring together the current Framework Programme for research, the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.

University of Delaware researchers Tsu-Wei Chou and Erik Thostenson continue to advance understanding of hybrid micro- and nano-composites as part of a collaborative research partnership between UD’s Center for Composite Materials (UD-CCM) and the Korean Institute of Materials (KIMS) on nanotechnology.

First initiated in 2007, the nine-year research grant totaling $5 million is funded under the Global Research Laboratory (GRL) program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF). The GRL program, established by the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST), is now in its second three-year phase. Chou, Pierre S. du Pont Chair of Engineering in UD’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, is the foreign principal investigator for the grant. Thostenson, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, serves as UD co-principal investigator.

A revolutionary new concept in textile production has led to the creation of the world’s first “air purifying” dress. And if the prototype is anything to go by it proves that, in the future, this genre of environmentally responsible fashion can be bang on trend without sacrificing style. The floor length gown is part of the Catalytic Clothing project, a collaboration between experts from the University of Ulster, University of Sheffield and London College of Fashion. They set out to produce a fabric which could eliminate pollutants, making the air around us cleaner and leading to improved respiratory health. The end result is the stunning, textile-sculptured dress entitled “herself” and it’s no ordinary catwalk creation – in fact, at this stage it can’t even be worn, as this prototype is constructed from pliable concrete and textile.