Some 900 Irish jobs will be created in 53 start-ups companies
More than 900 jobs will be created over the next three years in 53 new start-up companies.
Jobs Minister Richard Bruton announced the positions will open by 2014 as the new firms set up shop across the country, following a Government and Enterprise Ireland initiative to support start-ups.
“What we must also do if we are to create the jobs we need is to create a base of indigenous companies that match that level of success,” said Mr Bruton.
“As I have said before, our aim is not only to attract the next Google or Microsoft to Ireland, but to make it possible for the next Google or Microsoft to start-up in Ireland.”
The 53 companies delivering the jobs come from different sectors including financial services, ICT, digital games, medical devices and pharmaceuticals.
Among them is games developer Digit Games Studio Ltd, which will create 47 jobs, and digital marketing company Digital Marketing Institute, which will open 39 positions. Both companies have bases in Dublin.
Others include financial services software firm Nomoseire, which will create 14 positions in Cork, and abrasives manufacturers Kerry Abrasives, opening nine jobs in Listowel, Co Kerry.
The firms were given support during the first six months of the year under Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-Ups (HPSU) programme. The idea was to invest in indigenous businesses that have strong export potential.
“The new Government has already delivered a series of measures aimed at better supporting indigenous companies to succeed in export markets,” said Mr Bruton. “We have established a new potential exporters division in Enterprise Ireland to provide new supports for exporters. We have delivered new mentoring and management support programmes to help companies improve their performance.”
Head of HPSU and scaling at Enterprise Ireland Greg Treston said the organisation’s aim was to meet the needs of fledgling companies to help them grow.
Four out of every 10 Irish people 15 to 25 years old are without work
Four IN ten young people under the age of 25 were unemployed at the time of the 2011 census, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office yesterday.
The latest CSO data, which concentrates on people at work, shows that more than 82,000 people between 15 and 24 were not working in April 2011.
The rate of youth unemployment rose by 74 per cent between the 2006 and 2011 censuses, with 39 per cent of those aged 15-24 recorded as being without work in April last year.
Unemployment among men in this age category almost doubled in that period to 50,440 from 26,448, meaning the unemployment rate among young males stood at 45 per cent last April.
Among women in the same age group, unemployment increased from 20,674 in 2006 to 31,713 – yielding an unemployment rate of 32 per cent.
Limerick city and Co Donegal had the highest levels of youth unemployment, with rates of 50 and 49 per cent respectively, while the jobless rate in Co Wexford stood at 47 per cent.
Almost 70,000 of those 15-24-year-olds out of work had finished their education. However, there was significant variation in unemployment levels depending on the level of education completed.
For the 4,732 people who were educated to primary level only, the unemployment rate was 70 per cent. For those who had completed lower secondary level (Junior Cert), the rate stood at 65 per cent. Those with an upper secondary education had an unemployment rate of 39 per cent, while the rate for the 7,534 people with third-level qualifications was significantly lower at 18 per cent.
The lowest youth unemployment rate, 27 per cent, was recorded in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, while Fingal, Cork county and Galway city were also at the lower end of the spectrum.
A total of 34,166 people were looking for their first regular job in April 2011, more than 60 per cent of whom were 15-24. Of the 8,622 15-19 year olds in this category, 5,424 were male.
Just over a quarter of first-time jobseekers were foreign nationals, the majority from Eastern Europe, while British, Nigerians, Brazilians and Indians also featured.
Of the 6,941 people with a third-level qualification looking for their first job, almost one in five had a qualification in business and administration. A further 9 per cent had an arts qualification. Almost 400 people with a third-level qualification in architecture were looking for their first regular job.
The wider census results show that, although the labour force grew by 5.8 per cent in the past five years, the numbers at work declined by over 6 per cent to 1,807,369 in the same period.
The number of people unemployed increased dramatically from 150,084 to 390,677 between 2006 and 2011. Combined with people looking for their first job, the total number out of work stood at 424,843 in April 2011.
The unemployment rate jumped from 8.5 per cent in 2006 to 19 per cent in 2011.
The rate of unemployment among foreign nationals in 2011 stood at 22 per cent compared with an unemployment rate of 18.5 per cent among Irish people.
The census pointed to a much higher employment rate among people who spoke English well or very well than those who had inferior English-language abilities; almost one-third of the 67,531 people who either could not speak English well or could not speak English at all were unemployed.
Of the more than 35,000 people in employment who did not speak English well or at all, the largest group (4,149 people) were cleaners, followed by 6 per cent who worked as kitchen or catering assistants. A similar cohort worked as food, drink or tobacco operatives.
New ‘wonder drug’ JD5037 to tackle obesity
A new drug that combats “the munchies” could provide a long-lasting solution to weight loss, researchers have claimed.
The drug, known only as JD5037, increases sensitivity to a natural hormone in the body that suppresses appetite.
It acts by blocking the same brain pathways responsible for feelings of hunger after taking cannabis. But, crucially, it does not penetrate far enough into the brain to cause psychiatric problems.
A similar anti-obesity drug, rimonabant, had to be withdrawn after it was linked to anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.
JD5037 affects the way the body reacts to leptin, a hormone that promotes feelings of satiety, or “fullness”.
Attempts to boost leptin levels have failed because the body becomes desensitised to the hormone and stops responding to it. JD5037 does not increase levels of leptin, but enhances its effect.
“By sensitising the body to naturally occurring leptin, the new drug could not only promote weight loss, but also help to maintain it,” said lead scientist Dr George Kunos, from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in the United States.
“This finding bodes well for the development of a new class of compounds for the treatment of obesity and its metabolic consequences.”
The research, reported in the journal Cell Metabolism, was conducted on overfed obese mice.
Scientists found that giving the mice the drug caused weight loss and improved metabolic health. The animals showed no signs of anxiety or other behavioural side-effects.
Satellites reveal sudden Greenland ice melt
The first image shows Greenland’s ice sheet on 8 July, the second, taken four days later, shows the area where ice has melted at the surface
The surface of Greenland’s massive ice sheet has melted this month over an unusually large area, Nasa has said.
Scientists said the “unprecedented” melting took place over a larger area than has been detected in three decades of satellite observation.
Melting even occurred at Greenland’s coldest and highest place, Summit station.
The thawed ice area jumped from 40% of the ice sheet to 97% in just four days from 8 July.
Melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time”
Although about half of Greenland’s ice sheet normally sees surface melting over the summer months, the speed and scale of this year’s thaw surprised scientists, who described the phenomenon as “extraordinary”.
Nasa said that nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its centre, which is 3km (two miles) thick, experienced some degree of melting at its surface.
Until now, the most extensive melting seen by satellites in the past three decades was about 55% of the area.
According to ice core records, such pronounced melting at Summit station and across the ice sheet has not occurred since 1889.
“When we see melt in places that we haven’t seen before, at least in a long period of time, it makes you sit up and ask what’s happening,” Nasa chief scientist Waleed Abdalati said.
“It’s a big signal, the meaning of which we’re going to sort out for years to come.”
Watch this space
He said that, because this Greenland-wide melting has happened before – in 1889 – scientists are not yet able to determine whether this is a natural but rare event, or if it has been sparked by man-made climate change.
The observation is in my view much more important than the recently reported break up of a large iceberg from Petermann Glacier”
“Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” said Lora Koenig, a glaciologist from Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and a member of the research team analysing the satellite data.
“But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome.”
Prof Eric Wolff, from the British Antarctic Survey (Bas) told BBC News: “There have clearly been some very warm days in Greenland this month. As a result, the surface snow has melted across the whole ice sheet.
“This is confirmed by some of my international colleagues who are on the ground at the NEEM ice core drilling site in north Greenland – they are reporting several days with temperatures above zero, and ice layers forming in the snow.
“While this is very unusual, as always we cannot attribute any individual extreme event to climate change: We will have to wait and see if more such events occur in the next few years to understand its significance for both the climate and the health of the ice sheet.”
Dr Poul Christoffersen, a glaciologist and engineer at the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge, told BBC News: “The melting seen in the satellite data is unprecedented, as it extends all the way across the ice sheet including the summit, which is located 3,200 m above sea level. Melting is usually limited to less than 2000m elevation.”
The news comes just days after Nasa satellite imagery revealed that a massive iceberg, twice the size of Manhattan, had broken off the Petermann Glacier in Greenland.
“The observation [from Greenland] is in my view much more important than the recently reported break up of a large iceberg from Petermann Glacier,” Dr Christofferson added.
Nasa’s Tom Wagner said: “This event, combined with other natural but uncommon phenomena, such as the large calving event last week on Petermann Glacier, are part of a complex story.”
Scientists said they believed that much of Greenland’s ice was already freezing again.
Shift work has link to ‘increased risk of heart problems’
Working night shifts can disrupt the body’s clock and lead to health problems
Shift workers are slightly more at risk of having a heart attack or stroke than day workers, research suggests.
An analysis of studies involving more than 2m workers in the British Medical Journal said shift work can disrupt the body clock and have an adverse effect on lifestyle.
It has previously been linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure and diabetes.
Limiting night shifts would help workers cope, experts said.
The team of researchers from Canada and Norway analysed 34 studies.
In total, there were 17,359 coronary events of some kind, including cardiac arrests, 6,598 heart attacks and 1,854 strokes caused by lack of blood to the brain.
These events were more common in shift workers than in other people.
The BMJ study calculated that shift work was linked to a 23% increased risk of heart attack, 24% increased risk of coronary event and 5% increased risk of stroke.
But they also said shift work was not linked to increased mortality rates from heart problems and that the relative risks associated with heart problems were “modest”.
Ensuring workers have a minimum of two full nights sleep between day and night shifts can help people to cope with shift work.”
The researchers took the socioeconomics status of the workers, their diet and general health into account in their findings.
No rest
Dan Hackam, associate professor at Western University, London Ontario in Canada, said shift workers were more prone to sleeping and eating badly.
“Night shift workers are up all the time and they don’t have a defined rest period. They are in a state of perpetual nervous system activation which is bad for things like obesity and cholesterol,” he said.
The authors say that screening programmes could help identify and treat risk factors for shift workers, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
They add that shift workers could also be educated about what symptoms to look our for, which might indicate early heart problems.
Jane White, research and information services manager at the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, said there are complex issues surrounding shift work.
“It can result in disturbed appetite and digestion, reliance on sedatives and, or stimulants, as well as social and domestic problems.
“These can affect performance, increase the likelihood of errors and accidents at work, and even have a negative effect on health.
She said the effects of shift work needed to be well-managed.
“Avoiding permanent night shifts, limiting shifts to a maximum of 12 hours and ensuring workers have a minimum of two full nights sleep between day and night shifts are simple, practical solutions that can help people to cope with shift work.”
Ellen Mason, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said the increased risk to an individual shift worker “was relatively small”.
“But many Brits don’t work nine to five and so these findings becomes much more significant. “Whether you work nights, evenings or regular office hours, eating healthily, getting active and quitting smoking can make a big difference to your heart health.”
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