LONDON, March 13 /PRNewswire/ --

The 13 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) pumped an average 32.33 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in February, an 80,000 b/d increase on January levels, according to a Platts (http://www.platts.com/) survey of OPEC and oil industry officials just released.

However, production from the 12 countries, excluding Iraq, bound by output allocations fell to 29.93 million b/d in February from 29.96 million b/d in January, the survey showed.

North American buildings release more than 2,200 megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere - 35 percent of the continent’s total - according to a new report issued by the trinational Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). The report says rapid market uptake of energy-saving technologies could result in over 1,700 fewer megatons of CO2 emissions by 2030 - a cut nearly equal to the CO2 emitted by the entire US transportation sector in 2000.

Promoting the green design, construction, renovation and operation of advanced energy-saving buildings could cut North American greenhouse gas emissions more deeply and cheaply than any other available measure, the report advises.

LEUVEN, Belgium, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- ThromboGenics NV (Euronext Brussels: THR), a biotechnology company focused on vascular diseases, today announces a business update and its financial results for the twelve month period ending 31 December 2007. During this period, ThromboGenics has raised additional funds to invest in its development pipeline and has continued to make good progress with its clinical programs.

Highlights

Scientists are fond of placing great value on what they call skepticism: Not taking things on faith. Science versus religion, is the point. In practice this means wondering about the evidence behind this or that statement, rather than believing it because an authority figure said it. A better term for this attitude would be: Value data.

Due to a recent whirlwind bout of touring, I was excited to do nothing but plunk on my couch with the dog and watch many, many hours of pro sports. Ski videos would be nice, but really what I was looking for was a good cricket match — completely incomprehensible and hopefully extending across multiple days. Contract bridge and international chess competed for close-second.

This has happened before but, if you have small children and/or a pregnant spouse, you know your ability to sink into a vegetative stupor is tempered by relationship politics. This, I think, is not an issue relevant to me alone.

LONDON, March 13 /PRNewswire/ --

Silence Therapeutics plc (AIM: SLN) today announces a collaboration with AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN), focused on the development of a range of novel approaches for the delivery of siRNA molecules. The deal builds on Silence Therapeutics' leading expertise in the delivery of siRNA molecules, in particular its success with the functional systemic delivery of siRNA in vivo using its proprietary AtuPLEX technology. The financial details of this collaboration, in which both parties will contribute expertise and know-how, have not been disclosed.

This new deal is independent of the parties' three-year collaboration signed in July 2007, whose aim is to develop novel siRNA therapeutics against specific targets exclusive to AstraZeneca.

BRADFORD, England, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Health researchers at the University of Bradford have welcomed the GBP500,000 donation announced by best-selling author Terry Pratchett today (Thursday 13 March 2008).

Mr Pratchett was diagnosed with a rare early-onset form of Alzheimer's disease in December last year. He will announce a pledge of around GBP494,000 at the Alzheimer's Research Trust annual conference.

Currently there are around 15,000 people in the UK with early-onset dementia, which strikes under the age of 65.

BRACKNELL, England, March 13 /PRNewswire/ --

- Play the Pros and Win PowerLine HomePlug Networking Hardware

BRACKNELL, England, March 13 /PRNewswire/ --

ZyXEL, sponsors of professional gaming outfit Team Dignitas, is offering gamers the opportunity to play the professionals during i33 (Newbury, March 21/22nd). The player who manages to achieve the most 'kills' against one of the Dignitas professionals in Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) on each day will be rewarded with a pair of ZyXEL PowerLine HomePlug adapters, that will help turn players' home electrical circuits into a high speed broadband network, with access points in any room.

Everyone knows computer chips have increased in speed and shrunk in size over the past few decades and their interconnects, the copper wires that transport signals around the chip and to other chips, have shrunk also. As interconnects get smaller, the copper’s resistance increases and its ability to conduct electricity degrades. This means fewer electrons are able to pass through the copper successfully, and any lingering electrons are expressed as heat. This heat can have negative effects on both a computer chip’s speed and performance.

The $260 billion semiconductor industry won't get too excited just yet but they have to take notice of a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute study comparing the performance of copper nanowires and carbon nanotube bundles for interconnects. It is the first study to examine copper nanowire using quantum mechanics rather than empirical laws.

Amino acids are organic molecules that are the backbone of the proteins that build many of the structures and drive many of the chemical reactions inside living cells. The production of proteins is believed to constitute one of the first steps in the emergence of life. Amino acids are truly the 'building blocks' of life on Earth but the presence of these compounds in meteorites has led some researchers to look to space as a source.

Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have discovered concentrations of amino acids in two meteorites that are more than ten times higher than levels previously measured in other similar meteorites. This result suggests that the early solar system was far richer in the organic building blocks of life than scientists had thought, and that fallout from space may have spiked Earth’s primordial broth.