German President Horst Köhler will award the German Future Prize for 2008 on 3 December in Berlin. Professor Axel Haverich, a heart surgeon and Leibniz prizewinner from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) Hannover Medical School (MHH), and his two colleagues Dr. Serghei Cebotari and Dr. Michael Harder are one of four teams who have made the final round of the President's award for engineering and innovation, worth 250,000 euros.

This autumn's banking panic will take a severe toll on world growth especially in developed economies. GDP growth in the OECD group of mainly rich countries will slow to 0.4 per cent in 2009, the weakest since 1982. Among the G7, the American and British economies will contract next year and the best performer among the other five countries will be Canada, with GDP growth of just 0.5 per cent. The key downside risk is that the bailout packages may not succeed, in which case financial turmoil will persist and the recession will be deeper and more prolonged than we are forecasting.

A new image released by ESO shows the amazing intricacies of a vast stellar nursery, which goes by the name of Gum 29. In the center, a small cluster of stars — called Westerlund 2 — has been found to be the he home of one of the most massive double star systems known to astronomers.

Gum 29 is a huge region of hydrogen gas that has been stripped of its electrons (ionized) by the intense radiation of the hot young stars located at its centre. Astronomers call this an HII (pronounced "H-two") region, and this particularly stunning example stretches out across space for over 200 light-years. The name stems from the fact that it is the 29th entry in the catalogue published by Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum in 1955.

Within the scope of an international rescue excavation project, a team of four archaeologists specialized in Middle Eastern affairs headed by Dr. Dirk Wicke (Institute of Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies) have unearthed parts of a Neo-Assyrian governor's palace dating back to the 9th to 7th cent. B.C. in a two-month excavation program amongst the ruins on Ziyaret Tepe.

BEIJING, October 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- Company sets new goals and greater expectations for environmental and social compliance, transparency and accountability

Today, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) took the next step in its sustainability journey by hosting an unprecedented gathering of more than 1,000 leading suppliers, Chinese officials and NGOs in Beijing, China. The company outlined a series of aggressive goals and expectations to build a more environmentally and socially responsible global supply chain.

CAMBRIDGE, England, October 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- Three in Five Patients Feel Depressed or Anxious as a Result of Their Pain

LEEDS, England, October 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- Immediate Steps are Required in the Meantime to Protect Patients

New research presented today shows that the information given to the volunteers of the disastrous Northwick Park Elephant Man trial would not have passed a 'readability' test. The research, presented at the international meeting of the Drug Information Association today, highlights an immediate need for all information provided to volunteers in clinical trials to be 'User Tested' before future trial protocols can be approved.

SARASOTA, Florida, October 21 /PRNewswire/ --

A team of world-renowned scientists today announced the launch of Archer Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a new company that will use modern technologies for the identification of novel treatments for Alzheimer's disease.

Archer Pharmaceuticals, Inc., led by Chief Executive Officer Michael Mullan, M.B.B.S., Ph.D. and Chief Technical Officer Fiona Crawford, Ph.D., was created based on the groundbreaking research that their team has been conducting in Florida for the past five years.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, October 20 /PRNewswire/ --

- The Initiative Has Been Shared With World Leaders and is Designed to Highlight the Importance of Developing Local, Sustainable Eco- Community Systems and to Promote New Socio-Economic Programs to Build and Rejuvenate Cities Around the World

- A New Millennium, the Birth of Global Philanthropical Capitalism

His Royal Highness Sheikh Nahyan bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Dhabian Holdings PLC and The World Trade Centers Association and the World Trade Centers Management Company have announced today a joint US$3.2billion initial capital proposal that has been sent to world leaders and will be known as 'The Triangle of Peace', which is described as 'a global peace initiative'.

TOKYO, October 20 /PRNewswire/ --

- Company unveils ACCESS family of Linux platforms, previewing ACCESS Linux Platform 3.0 and introducing ACCESS Linux Platform mini - Extends capabilities and functionality of ACCESS family of Linux solutions to meet the needs of customers across a broad range of products