Scienceonline

London, 31 March 2009 – Responding to an invitation made at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos by Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 52 companies have joined forces with 34 experts and organizations to create an unprecedented low-carbon prosperity Task Force.

The global financial crisis is challenging governments committed to implementing international agreements to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. At the High-level Meeting on Transport, Health and Environment in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, policy-makers from ministries of transport, health and the environment across Europe are examining how innovative transport policies can create employment and economic opportunities for a healthier society. Hosted by the Government of the Netherlands, the High-level Meeting is taking place on 22–23 January 2009 and was organized by the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

In recent decades, the rapid growth of road transport in the European Region, while supporting economic development and integration, has harmed health and the environment through congestion, road traffic crashes, air and noise pollution, and contributing to sedentary lifestyles and emissions of greenhouse gases. The health and environmental consequences of transport affect most of the population, not just transport users.

This field of physics was originally identified as Solid State Physics. Later P.W. Anderson coined the term Condensed Matter Physics and more recently it has merged with Statistical Physics to lead to the Physics of Complex Systems.

Veronica Rocco

On the 23rd of October 2007 international researchers, politicians and entrepreneurs coming from United States, Canada, Korea, India and New Zealand were all gathered in Miki, a small Japanese town that houses the National Research Institute of Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, the most important anti-seismic laboratory, where a seven-storey building – 23.5 meters of height – survived Kobe’s earthquake simulation. For the first time since 1995, when a devastating earthquake, known as “Great Haushin-Awaji”, shaked an entire village in Kobe and caused nearly six thousand victims, a wooden structure successfully survived such a blast.