Imagine if water droplets couldn’t stick to your car, or sauces ran off your cooking pans solid objects. Well, it’s possible.

Researchers aided by the EU play a major role across the globe in developing valuable ideas, writes Máire Geoghegan-Quinn

An experimental gene-based diet helped a group of slimming volunteers increase their weight loss by a third, research has shown.

The spread of polio to countries previously considered free of the crippling disease represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organisation has said.

Europe must co-operate internationally if it is going to tackle society’s greatest challenges, according to the Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn.

World falls heavy on Barroso’s shoulders

Cleaners flush out gold hoard in toilets

Billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates has praised Ireland’s development and aid work.

Billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates has praised Ireland’s development and aid work.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore is due to meet Bill Gates in Dublin this morning.

TV naturalist David Attenborough has warned that human beings have become a “plague on the Earth”.

The richest man in the world is in Dublin today to meet with Tanaiste Eamonn Gilmore, President Michael D Higgins and Bono.

Ailing JJB Sports is to appoint administrators after calling time on its long-running battle to rescue the business.

Fears for the future for JJB Sports were fuelled today as it emerged one of the frontrunners to buy the ailing retailer failed to submit a bid.

Fears over the future of JJB Sports intensified yesterday after the retailer said it had failed to secure the funds needed to overhaul its stores.

Earlier this week, at the London Summit on Family Planning organised jointly by the British Government’s Department for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it was announced that the UK was doubling its efforts on family planning in the developing world to £180m per year, through direct and indirect support.

Aid charities have welcomed the UK’s involvement in a scheme to help poor African farmers to get access to cutting-edge agricultural technology.

Ailing retailer JJB Sports today said it had secured key support from its bank and major shareholders as it battles to stave off administration.

BILL GATES’ foundation and Abu Dhabi’s crown prince are donating $50 million (€37m) each to vaccinate children in Afghanistan and Pakistan against polio and other diseases.

Foreign countries including Saudi Arabia gave millions to former President Bill Clinton’s charity at a time when his wife Hillary was serving her first year as secretary of state, records released today show.

AN €8 million contract to design a new national children’s hospital has been awarded to a consortium of three architectural firms including the firm of designers of the new Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle.

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates today pledged $41m (€28.7m) to Irish aid agency Concern to help fight spiralling baby and mother death rates in developing countries.

SOME G8 nations made encouraging progress last year towards fulfilling the commitments they made at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit to fight extreme poverty in Africa.

SENSING the start of a personal computer revolution, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 to start Micro-Soft and pursue a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home.

THOUGH they have never been out of the limelight for long two of the world’s most influential individuals will be the focus of more than usual attention over the next few days.

MICROSOFT founder Bill Gates is to give about £150 million (€202m) towards green technology and farming methods hoping to lift millions of Africans and South Asians out of hunger and poverty.

IN a cavern under a remote Arctic mountain, Norway will soon begin squirrelling away the world’s crop seeds in case of disaster.

POPE Benedict joined other religious leaders, rock stars and financial institutions yesterday to buy into a $1 billion bond issue that will fund life-saving vaccines for children in poor countries.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropy organisation, announced yesterday that it would give $104m to a non-profit organisation that fights tuberculosis, a scourge in the developing world.

U2 frontman Bono and Microsoft billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates have been named People of the Year by US magazine Time.

U2 star Bono has been named as one of Time magazine’s persons of the year.

An international vaccine expert warned that it was only a matter of time before a deadly flu pandemic struck and that the world was ill-prepared to cope with a major outbreak of the disease.

U2 front man Bono is to become one of six managing directors of a $1 billion media and entertainment fund in the US.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced a $200m (€184m) grant today to help identify and solve the “grand challenges in global health” that the private sector has little financial incentive to tackle.