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According to tweet-counting website Gigatweet, Twitter is about to hit its five billionth tweet. At the time of writing the number of tweets stood at 4.9 billion and hurtling rapidly towards the magic milestone. Twitter is a free social-networking tool that allows users to ‘micro blog’ or ‘tweet’ in less than 140 characters. According to the GigaTweet counter, the world is hours away from its five billionth tweet. A new communications paradigmThe site has spawned not only a new form of messaging but a new form of openness that transcends media, politics, celebrity and much more. Twitter has also evolved into an impressive search engine that keeps users up to date…

One of the world’s leading scientific figures in the search for ways to harness the sun’s energy, Nobel prize winner Walter Kohn, will today open a new science lab to support the R&D; of new energy technologies at UCD. Using the facilities, scientists and industry will work together to develop nanotechnologies and products targeted at the global renewable energy market, worth an estimated €113bn by 2015. Nanotechnology involves the study and use of materials on an unimaginably small scale. Nano refers to a nanometre (nm). One nanometre is a millionth of a millimetre or about one eighty thousandth the width of a human hair. “At this scale, materials can behave…

The Government this morning announced its investment of more than €4m in the establishment of a new Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Strategic Research Cluster designed to create a centre of financial research excellence. The Financial Mathematics and Computation Cluster (FMC2) will bring together complementary expertise in financial mathematics, financial economics and computer science. Research at the new cluster, which will be led by Professor Anthony Brabazon of UCD, will initially focus on developing theory and methods for asset management to help enhance the development of the international financial services industry in Ireland and drive future employment in this area. Making the announcement, the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and…

Dublin-listed pharmaceutical company AGI Therapeutics has reported a pre-tax loss of US$9.28m for the first six months of the year. AGI made a loss per ordinary share of US$0.14 cents during the first half of 2009, compared to the loss per ordinary share of US$0.13 cents made in the same period in 2008. The company’s revenue in the six months to June remained flat, totalling US$0.3m, while spending on R&D was slightly down on 2008’s US$8.3m to US$7.8m. AGI said it had moved to cut costs to allow funding for future clinical programmes, and it said it should now have sufficient cash resources to last at least two years. The…

Over 30 of Ireland’s top food and drink brands – including Tayto, Ballygowan, Avonmore, Cadbury, Barry’s Tea and Batchelors – have come together to form Love Irish Food, an independent body that will promote Irish-manufactured food and drink products. Economist Jim Power has been named chair of the organization. According to the organization, consumers are currently confused as to what constitutes an Irish brand, and there is considerable support for a new logo to assist in identifying Irish products.  As a result, it has developed a distinctive Love Irish Food logo, which, it says, provides “an absolute assurance to consumers that the brand carrying this symbol is above all else,…

Budget airline Ryanair has said it will spend over €500,000 on a campaign urging a ‘Yes’ vote in the upcoming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty this October. “I believe it is vital that every Irish voter on 2 October next votes in the referendum and votes ‘Yes to Europe’. Ireland’s membership of the European Union and the euro has transformed our economy and the lives of millions of Irish people today,” said Ryanair’s chief executive Michael O’Leary (pictured). He described how that without Europe and the euro, the Irish economy would be “run by our incompetent politicians, our inept civil service and the greedy public sector trade union bosses, who through…