Important Innovations Collection

Magawa Service Rat Gets UK Gold Medal Service Award                                             Source: PDSA & Magawa Cambodia: Rat Detects 39 Landmines & Saves Countless Lives  This is one of the most remarkable animal service stories to date. A trained rat, called Magawa, has detected 39 unexploded landmines in Cambodia, along with 28 unexploded ordinances, and has saved countless lives.  This incredible service animal was trained in Belgium by the charity APOPO. The organization trains rats to detect the scent of explosives and alert their human handlers.  Very Smart Animal Magawa is an African Giant Pouched Rat. The species is very intelligent and easy to train.  Every day for the past seven years, Magawa has been on landmine patrol in Cambodia, which has millions of unexploded landmines.  Magawa has cleared a lot of ...

Big Innovation Coming from Europe                             Source:  Energy Observer Hydrogen Vessel Zero Emissions Passenger and Cargo Vessels Big changes are ahead for the passenger and cargo ship industries. To meet United Nations targets for the shipping industry's carbon footprint, the first net zero, green ships will have to enter the global fleet by 2030.  Experts say that ships powered by hydrogen will be the key part of the mix . But, because hydrogen requires more fuel storage capacity than other fuels, the first hydrogen powered ships will be vessels on short voyages.  Europe is leading the way in the innovation of new, hydrogen powered vessels. European Innovation Wave Switzerland based technology group ABB believes that passenger and shipping vessels will be the first users of hydrogen fuel cell systems.  ABB is currently working on a fuel cell based power and propulsi...

Innovative Environmental Cleanup Technology                                            Source:  Galgeschon Preserve Cleaning 7.5 Million Tons of Plastic From Nature Preserve  In Belgium, a team of engineers have built a giant, smart vacuum to remove millions of pieces of plastic - too small to be removed by hand - from a Belgium nature preserve and bird sanctuary.  The Galgeschon Preserve is located in Antwerp.  It is home to endangered bird species.  Over the years the salt marches and mud flats in the preserve were inundated with plastic particles from towns and industries along the river Scheldt. Intense Competition Port Authority officials launched a competition to design technology solutions to de-contaminate the site.  The winner is a huge vacuum called the "Nul-o-Plastic" developed by Envisan, which is the environmental di...

Human Testing Starts in July Source:  Vaccine shot stock image Glimmer of Hope Johnson and Johnson just announced its accelerating human trials of its potential COVID19 vaccine by months to July.  The trials will take place in the US and Belgium.  More than 1000 volunteers aged 18 to 55, plus another group over 65, will be involved. One Billion Doses J&J says it will test a placebo against the vaccine to determine the immunity results and its safety.  The company has signed an agreement with the US government to create enough manufacturing capacity to produce 1 billion doses of the vaccine through 2021.  J&J Chief Scientific Officer Paul Stoffels told Reuters:  "Based on the strength of the preclinical data and interactions with regulatory authorities, we've been able to further accelerate the clinical development" of the vaccine. Ten Vaccine Candidates In all, there are ten COVID vaccine candidates that have entered the human trials p...