All posts tagged: centre

£50m UK centre to develop new inflammatory diseases treatments

£50m UK centre to develop new inflammatory diseases treatments

Published by Miika Tikkanen

The UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is investing up to £50m in a new research centre focused on chronic inflammatory diseases. Led by the University of Birmingham, the centre will bring together scientists, clinicians and patient research partners from the UK and Japan. The new MRC Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) in Restorative Immunology will investigate why immune-mediated diseases (IMIDs) develop and, crucially, why inflammation persists in some people. Researchers will use this knowledge to develop therapies designed to address the underlying causes of disease rather than simply controlling symptoms. Over a 14-year programme, the researchers aim to develop treatments that restore immune balance and repair damaged tissues. The long-term ambition is to achieve lasting freedom from disease and reduce the need for lifelong medication for people living with debilitating inflammatory conditions. Professor Adam P Croft, Arthritis UK Chair of Rheumatology and Director of the MRC CoRE in Restorative Immunology, emphasised the significance of the project: “While remarkable advances have been made in the treatment of immune-mediated inflammatory …

Gas from Uranus reveals it has an icy centre

Gas from Uranus reveals it has an icy centre

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Uranus appears to have far more water frozen as ice in its interior than astronomers thought, potentially settling a long-running mystery about whether it formed differently to its closest neighbour, Neptune. Ice giants like Uranus and Neptune have thick, gassy atmospheres. This makes it hard to know what is inside the planets’ interiors or how they formed. Scientists can, however, measure gases in their atmospheres, which they can then link to processes and elements deeper inside. Carbon monoxide in a planet’s atmosphere is often associated with its deepest parts being rich in water or ice, but while neighbouring Neptune has displayed abundant carbon monoxide suggestive of an ice-rich centre, Uranus has been lacking, which has led some astronomers to argue it instead has a rocky interior. If true, this would mean that Neptune and Uranus formed in very different ways and aren’t as similar as they appear. Now, Thibault Cavalié at the University of Bordeaux in France and his colleagues have found carbon monoxide in Uranus’s lower atmosphere for the first time, suggesting it is …

Someone Stole Cattelan’s Banana—And Centre Pompidou-Metz Is Not Happy

Someone Stole Cattelan’s Banana—And Centre Pompidou-Metz Is Not Happy

Published by Jenni Sidey

On Saturday, French museum Centre Pompidou-Metz sent out a curious media blast headed by two grainy images. The first depicted a ripe banana duct-taped to a blank white wall—unmistakably, Maurizio Cattelan’s viral artwork Comedian—and the second featuring just the duct-tape on the wall. The news: Cattelan’s banana had been stolen from the eastern French museum. In reality, little was lost in the scuffle over the conceptual work. Per the museum, Staff replaced the fruit “as quickly as possible” with a fresh banana and a strip of tape, as they usually do about every three days. The value of the controversial piece, a limited edition of which famously sold at auction for $6.24 million in 2024, lies entirely in its certificate of authenticity and in “the protocol governing its presentation rather than its perishable element,” explained the museum. As such, it said “no irreversible damage was observed” to the stolen, possibly eaten banana. Source link

Chanel and Centre Pompidou Renew Collaboration Amid Museum’s Closure

Chanel and Centre Pompidou Renew Collaboration Amid Museum’s Closure

Published by José Betancourt

Paris’s Centre Pompidou has announced another five-year partnership, this time with the iconic fashion house Chanel. (Last week, the Pompidou and M+ in Hong Kong announced their plan to lend artworks and collaborate on research projects and exhibitions.) Despite being closed until 2030 while undergoing an over $500 million renovation, the Pompidou has kept busy with new collaborations and satellite museums, including those in Seoul, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, and Brussels. The Pompidou and Chanel began working together in 2019, and in 2024 the luxury brand sponsored the museum’s acquisition of a cache of 21 artworks by 15 contemporary Chinese artists, among them Alice Chen, Chen Wei, Cui Jie, Hu Xioyuan, and Lu Yang. Chanel also supported the related exhibition “目 China: A New Generation of Artists.” Source link

M+ and Centre Pompidou Announce Plans for New Five-Year Partnership

M+ and Centre Pompidou Announce Plans for New Five-Year Partnership

Published by José Betancourt

Two high-profile museums—Hong Kong’s M+, a contemporary art museum that opened in 2021 in a building designed by Herzog & de Meuron facing Victoria Harbor, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, which closed last year for a long-planned renovation of its Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers building—have announced a five-year partnership, beginning next year. The plan was announced at M+ on May 15 and reported by the South China Morning Post. Representatives from both institutions were on hand, including M+ director Suhanya Raffel, Pompidou president Laurent Le Bon, and French Consul General Christile Drulhe. The following day, Le Bon and Raffel participated in a keynote lecture at the museum about the Pompidou’s history, plans for the refurbished building, and the nature of the museums’ newly announced collaboration. Source link

Romanian gang stole underground BT cables and nearly caused havoc in Birmingham city centre

Romanian gang stole underground BT cables and nearly caused havoc in Birmingham city centre

Published by Sam Flores

Three men have been jailed after stealing underground BT cabling and risking havoc in Birmingham city centre. Altafin Poenaru, aged 49, Marian Agarlita, 37, and Sorin Condrache, 45, were caught red-handed by armed police at a manhole on Great Charles Queensway at the junction with Newhall Street on January 20 this year. They had cut seven live cables which contained nearly 8,000 phone and internet lines serving the area, which includes countless businesses as well as government departments. READ MORE: Mum-of-six jailed for cruel £25,000 Birmingham raid to pensioner who offered her free food One of the risks was that alarm systems would have been disabled causing safety hazards for anyone trapped in a lift or a building fire. BT Openreach, which maintains telecommunications infrastructure, stated the incident involved a complex and dangerous repair operation requiring weeks to put right and costing them more than £96,000. The three men, all Romanian nationals, arrived in a white van wearing high-visibility jackets, boots and hard helmets with torches while they blocked off the manhole with red barriers. …

Abandoned UK shopping centre bulldozed after all 30 shops closed in one hour | UK | News

Abandoned UK shopping centre bulldozed after all 30 shops closed in one hour | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

The demolition of a former shopping centre has begun after 30 shops were purportedly given just an hour’s notice to shut down. Priory Square, on Priory Queensway in Birmingham, once housed hair salons, B&M, restaurants and the renowned Oasis Market. However, traders were forced to close indefinitely back in March 2025, with the site left empty. A spokesperson for Hammerson, the real estate firm that owns the centre, at the time said that the decision was made with the health and safety of tenants and the public in mind. The closure followed an annual fire risk assessment that found issues requiring significant improvements, including upgrades to the electrical system. Hammerson has now confirmed that demolition has begun. Former shop fronts have been ripped out, and staff in high-visibility jackets have been seen at the site alongside construction equipment, reports BirminghamLive. In a statement, a Hammerson spokesperson said: “Since closing Priory Square last year, we have secured the site and have started the demolition works. “We remain in dialogue with Birmingham City Council on next steps …

Designer of Logo for Centre Pompidou Dies at 96

Designer of Logo for Centre Pompidou Dies at 96

Published by José Betancourt

Jean Widmer, a French-Swiss graphic designer whose minimalist aesthetic manifested a striking logo for Centre Pompidou upon its opening in 1977, died on February 2 at the age of 96. His death was announced by Centre Pompidou, which said, “Since that day in 1977, Widmer’s logo has travelled the world, weathering the decades without ever losing its graphic force.” The logo—featuring a series of black lines bisected by a zig-zagging diagonal channel connecting the top and bottom at opposite corners—evokes the architecture that continues to make the Pompidou one of the most recognizable buildings in the world. The building was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, but Widmer helped distill it into a form that could be applied to countless contexts. Source link

At Centre Pompidou-Metz, the late resurrection of sculptor Louise Nevelson

At Centre Pompidou-Metz, the late resurrection of sculptor Louise Nevelson

Published by Sam Flores

“Rain Forest Wall” (1967), by Louise Nevelson. TOM HAARTSEN/ARS/NY/ADAGP/MUSEUM BOIJMANS VAN BEUNINGEN By taking the risk of staging a retrospective of Louise Nevelson (1899-1988), the Centre Pompidou-Metz once again proves itself to be one of the few French museums where artistic curiosity still thrives. Why a risk? First, because while the artist and her work were internationally recognized from the 1960s to the early 1980s, her fame subsequently collapsed. A legal dispute among heirs prevented exhibitions for nearly 20 years, and when they resumed, it was slowly and modestly, in the United States and Europe. That is the first challenge. The second difficulty lies in the physical nature of Nevelson’s most remarkable works. These are environments made from assembled wooden volumes, most often painted black, to which the artist frequently added irregular columns and sorts of altars or chests. Created for the American Pavilion at the 1962 Venice Biennale or for exhibitions at New York’s Whitney Museum and MoMA, these installations were monumental and rarely preserved intact – especially since Nevelson did not hesitate to …

Organisers rush to complete Milano-Cortina sliding centre, hockey venue

Organisers rush to complete Milano-Cortina sliding centre, hockey venue

Published by Sam Flores

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Jan 21 : The Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics sliding centre and the ice hockey stadium are almost complete but some work is still necessary so they can be delivered for the Games in 16 days’ time, the International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday. The sliding centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo was under intense pressure after Italy decided less than three years ago to build a new venue instead of using an existing one in a neighbouring country to keep costs down and speed up preparations. That decision – opposed by the IOC before being grudgingly accepted – meant Italian organisers had their backs to the wall from the start of the project. Milan’s Santagiulia ice hockey venue had an equally tight construction schedule. “The sliding centre. Is there still some work to be done? Yes, a lot,” the IOC’s Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi told a press conference. “But what I have been told is it’s not complex work. Everything that has to do with systems, track refrigeration, scoring, cameras, all is in place,” Dubi, …