South Korea's animal quarantine agency said Sunday that is has acquired know-how to make its own bird flu vaccines.The Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency said that it has developed candidate vaccine materials for its "antigen bank" that targets the H5N6 and H5N1 strains of avian influenza. It said actual tests have already be carried out on chickens and that the results showed the materials met standards set by the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health.The creation of candidate vaccin

South Korea's animal quarantine agency said Sunday that its has developed the world's first diagnosis kit that can simultaneously check three different types of foot-and-mouth disease strains.The kit is able to detect the O, A and Asia 1 serum types of the highly contagious disease that affects all cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, pigs, deer, goats, Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency said. It said the latest kit can tell if an animal has been infected within 15 minutes. FMD is classified as

President Moon Jae-in's newly appointed senior science innovation official said Thursday that she will not step down from the post amid growing calls for her resignation due to her involvement in a stem cell research fraud scandal 11 years ago.Park Ky-young, a biology professor at Sunchon National University, served as a senior advisor to former President Roh Moo-hyun for some two years until 2006 when she resigned over a shocking revelation that Hwang Woo-suk, the country's leading stem cell sc

Opposition parties on Wednesday ratcheted up pressure on President Moon Jae-in to cancel his appointment of a senior science innovation official who was mired in a 2005 stem cell research fraud scandal.On Monday, Moon appointed Park Ky-young to lead the Science, Technology and Innovation Office at the Ministry of Science and ICT, triggering searing criticism from scientists, politicians and civic groups that called her unfit for the post billed as a science policy control tower.Park, a biology p

South Korea is seeking to focus on safety over economic development while pushing for its nuclear policy, the ICT ministry said Tuesday, amid its move to phase out commercial atomic energy generation.The long-term road map on research and development for the nuclear sector was announced by the Ministry of Science and ICT. Details of the plan will be finalized after receiving opinions from frontline experts."R&D projects in the nuclear sector for the past 20 years have been pushed forward without

 JECHEON  -- The city of Jecheon, central South Korea, will play host to an international exhibition focused on the Korean medicine and biotech industry in September in a bid to develop the Korean herbal medicine-based biotech industry into a future growth engine, organizers said Thursday. This image, released by the organizing committee of the 2017 World Korean Medicine-Bio Industry Expo on Aug. 3, 2017, shows a structure of the Sept. 22-Oct. 10 fair that the Jecheon municipality will play host

South Korea's new chief ICT policymaker made a visit to the state-run science laboratory on Tuesday, stressing that both the government and researchers should push forward reform to face various challenges under the fourth industrial revolution. You Young-min, who took office earlier this month, made his first official visit to the Korea Institute of Science and Technology located in northern Seoul. (Yonhap)"I will make visits as much as possible to communicate more with field researchers," Yoo

A group of scientists have greatly improved the capacity and performance of lithium ion batteries based on the Nobel Prize-winning concept called "mechanical bond," the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said Friday.The team led by Choi Jang-wook and Ali Coskun integrated molecular pulleys, called polyrotaxanes, into the battery -- a breakthrough in battery technology -- South Korea's top engineering and technology university said.In 2016, Fraser Stoddart of Northwestern Universi

Scientists are divided over the new government's energy policy that aims to increase electricity output with clean, renewable energy, a survey showed Thursday.The Moon Jae-in government earlier announced that it plans to generate 20 percent of its electricity with clean, renewable energy by 2030, while reducing its reliance on fossil fuel and nuclear power plants.According to the survey conducted by the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies on 2,029 scientists in different majors

Rival parties decided Thursday to change the name of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning four years after the agency was created.According to the agreement made by the vice floor leaders of the ruling Democratic Party, the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, the People's Party and the Bareun Party, the ministry will be given the new name roughly translated as the Ministry of Science, Technology and ICT.  You Young-min (Yonhap)The ministry said the exact English name and the abbrevi

A group of South Korean scientists have developed a method to differentiate the gambling tendencies of different rats, the science ministry said Tuesday, a finding that may contribute to studies of gambling addiction in humans.The team led by Kim Jung-hoon of Yonsei Medical University said that by observing rats they found a method to find traits and environmental factors that affect decision-making, core problems in psychiatric disorders such as pathological gambling and substance abuse, the Mi

South Korean teenagers ranked sixth in an international chemistry competition for youth, winning two gold and two silver medals, the government said Monday.The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said the achievement was made during the 49th International Chemistry Olympiad held in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, from July 6-15. This photo provided by the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity shows student representatives posing for a photo at its building in Gwacheon, 1

A team of South Korean scientists announced Monday it has developed a material that can be utilized to collect precious metals from sea water, which can help recycle industrial waste.The team from Pohang University of Science and Technology said the material, which took a cue from sea squirts, successfully collected 99 percent of gold liquefied in sea water, while filtering out chrome, which is considered a hazardous material. Sea squirts are categorized as "filter feeders," which consume food p

A group of South Korean scientists will launch a venture company to commercialize their technology to more effectively manufacture microfluidic devices that can be used to detect pathogens very quickly and precisely, the ICT ministry said Sunday.The team led by Yoo Yeong-eun of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials has developed a new technology to design microfluidic device, an instrument that uses very small amounts of fluid to do certain laboratory tests. (Photo courtesy of the Minis

A group of South Korean scientists have developed high-strength and high-entropy alloys that can withstand temperatures as low as minus 196 degrees Celsius, the ICT ministry said Wednesday, a finding that can have various industrial applications.The team led by Kim Hyung-seob at Pohang University of Science and Technology developed the world's first such alloys by improving the cryogenic tensile properties, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said."Here, we induced twinning at room