Basic, or ‘frontier’, research that expands the boundaries of our knowledge can help address some of the most important challenges of our time – and it’s important that more people become aware of this, according to Prof. Maria Leptin who has today been appointed president of the EU’s frontier research funding body, the European Research Council (ERC). … Read more
In desert regions and sandy coastal areas, windblown sand can bury infrastructure such as railways, and cause problems such as train derailment, grinding down rails or wheels and wearing down coatings on the nose of high-speed locomotives. But knowing how best to protect tracks and trains from sand is tricky because there has been no reliable way of … Read more
Antibiotic resistant bacteria are killing more people each year, but scientists are turning to their natural virus predators to treat infections, as well as new vaccines to prevent disease. In December 1945, during his Nobel Prize lecture for the discovery of penicillin, Dr Alexander Fleming warned that bacteria could become resistant to the drug if exposed to … Read more
Care homes that let people age with integrity, green kindergartens and community centres that bring together people of all ages were some of the visions for how to build a better Europe presented by citizens from Estonia, Bulgaria and Poland on 24 June at the European Commission’s annual flagship research conference. Speakers at a panel … Read more
The current pandemic caught the world off guard but there are more to come, and we need to work out how to better prepare for and respond to future crises before they occur, an audience at the European Commission’s annual Research and Innovation Days conference has heard. ‘It is likely that we are entering an age of … Read more
Sometimes it can seem like we’ve uploaded our whole lives to the internet: bank accounts, social media posts, dating profiles, work emails – it’s all out there in that nebulous cloud of digital information that is the world wide web. The problems with this new digital way of life are well known. Social media is … Read more