Science

(ANSA) - Rome, November 4 - The solar wind that gives comets their tails and creates the Northern Lights is expanding like a bubble around the solar system, researchers with the Cassini-Huygens space mission announced Wednesday.

Based on data captured by the spacecraft's Italian-made antenna, the new study shatters a long-held theory about the solar wind whipping around the solar system like a comet, scientists said.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 4 - An Italian scientist has invented an environmentally friendly gel for restoring frescos.

The so-called 'eco-gel' is 97% water with only a tiny amount of oil-based solvent that gets deeper than conventional cleaners, Florence University chemistry professor Piero Baglioni says.

''It's particularly good on frescos because it penetrates deep inside their pores,'' Baglioni says in the current edition of Angewandte Chemie, the journal of the German Chemical Society.

What's more, Baglioni says, his gel doesn't emit fumes.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 3 - There is no cause for alarm over the H1N1 flu virus according to Junior Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio who said other European countries are being hit worse.

In an Italian TV interview Tuesday, Fazio said ''we have had 18 deaths in Italy from the virus so far compared to 44 in France, 63 in Spain and 137 in the UK''.

Fazio compared the death toll to the 8,000 Italians who died last year of seasonal influenza as proof that ''this is not a dangerous virus''.

(ANSA) - Rome, Novembe 3 - The death toll from the H1N1 flu virus in Italy climbed to 18 on Tuesday with another death near the city of Naples.

Doctors said Fernando Lettieri, a 37-year-old jazz musician on dialysis following a kidney transplant died of pneumonia compounded by a flu virus infection.

Lettieri is the ninth person to die of flu related causes in the Campania region around Naples after two women, 45 and 72, who died there on Monday.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 2 - Junior Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio appealed to Italians on Monday not to go to the hospital if they think they have the H1N1 flu virus.

Fazio warned that a wave of patients in Italy's emergency rooms would risk ''clogging'' the system and said people with the flu should stay home and call their doctors instead.

The junior minister also responded to fears over the rising number of victims saying that ''Italy's death toll is half the the European Average''.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 2 - The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on Monday urged the government to take another look at a shipwreck originally thought to contain toxic waste but now claimed to be a World War I passenger vessel.

An open letter by WWF Italia President Stefano Leoni highlighted discrepancies in an investigation into the wreck, which has been at the centre of a media storm for weeks after a mafia turncoat alleged it had been sunk deliberately to conceal radioactive waste.

(ANSA) - Naples, November 2 - A 72-year-old Naples woman became Italy's 14th victim of the H1N1 flu virus on Monday, according to local health officials.

The woman is the eighth person to die in Naples of the flu so far after a 45-year-old woman with pneumonia died on the same morning.

Of the eight, seven have died since last Tuesday.

All but one also suffered from serious pre-existing conditions: Emiliana D'Auria, a 12-year-old girl from the suburb of Pompei who died on Saturday.

(ANSA) - Geneva, October 30 - A UEFA spokesperson warned Friday that the Ukrainian government could call off the November 4 Champions League match between Inter Milan and Dinamo Kiev over fears of the H1N1 flu virus.

According to Robert Faulkner, ''as long as teams have enough players in the reserve squads to put eleven of them on the field, Champions League games will go ahead''.

(ANSA) - Capri, October 30 - Some 700 residents of Capri tied up road and pedestrian traffic on the idyllic island to protest against a main power plant which they claim has been polluting the tourist resort for years.

The protestors had been authorised to stage a demonstration in the port town of Marina Grande, where the plant is located, but instead they headed up to the main town of Capri and attempted to enter a hotel which is hosting the annual meeting of the industrial employers association Confindustria.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Six in ten Italians are not afraid of contracting the H1N1 flu virus, a study by socioeconomic think-tank Censis revealed Friday.

Over 61.4% of those questioned said they were unconcerned about the virus, which has killed 11 people in Italy since September, five of whom died this week.

Residents in the northeast of the country were the least fearful, with 25% saying they were concerned about the virus compared to 49% of participants in the south.

(ANSA) - Rimini, October 30 - A paraplegic was arrested in Rimini Friday after police found his garage had been converted to grow marijuana.

Police ignored the man's claim that he needed the drug for medical reasons.

Some 15 plants, 1.7m high and ready to be harvested, were confiscated along with dried marijuana and hashish.

A second man was caught helping tend the plants and was also arrested.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Italian soccer doesn't need vaccinations against the HINI flu, Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) chief Gianni Petrucci said Friday.

''There is no danger for soccer or any other sport,'' Petrucci said after the news that the 350-strong Winter Olympics teams would be vaccinated ahead of Vancouver 2010.

''There's no need to spark pointless alarmism,'' he said.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - The Italian team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver will be vaccinated for the H1N1 flu, Junior Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio said Friday.

''Naturally, we don't want Italy's representatives to be decimated and so we've decided to vaccinate them all,'' he said.

The Italian Olympic Committee asked for the vaccinations amid concern sports events might be more vulnerable to the new flu, which is also called Influenza A or swine flu.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 29 - A wreck at the centre of a media furore for weeks over fears it contained toxic waste is actually a passenger vessel from World War I, Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said Thursday.

Discussing the results of an investigation into the site during a press conference, the minister said the wreck off the Calabrian coast was not the remains of a ship sunk deliberately in order to conceal radioactive waste, as alleged by a mafia turncoat.

(ANSA) - Rimini, October 29 - Italy's death toll from the H1N1 flu rose to 11 Thursday evening when a 43-year-old woman died in a Rimini hospital.

Like the other ten, the patient had ''pre-existing risk factors,'' the hospital said.