Prospective home buyers can now access more timely and comprehensive information to help them in their house-hunting decisions, thanks to a new data service on uncompleted private residential projects and a new Home Buyers' Guide from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).

The new monthly data from URA provides the prices and number of units launched and sold by developers for new private residential projects. This will give prospective buyers access to information such as the median, highest and lowest prices of units sold in the month and current availability of units in various uncompleted private housing projects.

URA has also produced a Home Buyers' Guide, which walks potential home buyers through the property purchase process. It also helps home buyers understand real industry terms and procedures such as the Completion of Sale and the exercising of an Option to Purchase.

The new residential data service is available at www.ura.gov.sg/realEstateWeb/price.jsp while the Home Buyers' Guide is available at www.ura.gov.sg/lad/HBG.

A significant milestone was reached in marine conservation efforts to provide coral resource on a long-term basis, with the launch of the first coral nursery in Singapore.

The nursery was established by the National Parks Board (NParks) and its partners Keppel Group, National University of Singapore and National Environment Agency, at a site off Pulau Semakau. It is aimed at enhancing existing marine habitats by maximising the survival of naturally occurring corals.

The coral nursery located underwater at a site off Pulau Semakau is a two-year project that aims to grow as many hard coral fragments as possible. Suitable candidate species for propagation of coral colonies will be grown to sufficient size and transplanted to coral reefs off the southern coast of Singapore to enhance the ecological health of these coral reef habitats.

The National Medical Research Council (NMRC) of the Ministry of Health (MOH) has awarded a $25 million grant, over a period of five years, to a team of researchers to work on gastric cancer.

The Singapore Gastric Cancer Consortium, led by Associate Professor Yeoh Khay Guan from NUS, comprises of principal investigators from the four public hospitals, two universities and leading research institutes. The team is working to improve early detection and treatment for gastric cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide and is the fourth most common cancer in Singapore among males. Although it is curable at an early stage, it usually has a poor prognosis because of late detection. About 600 new patients with gastric cancer are diagnosed every year.

The award marks an important milestone in Singapore's push for biomedical sciences research and is aimed at strengthening Singapore's capability in translational and clinical research. Translational research bridges the gap between basic science and clinical application.