In his office in the Netherlands, Professor Han Wösten holds up a hard sponge-like block for show. It is a material he made in 2012 using the intricate rooting network of fungi. He has bold predictions about the potential of this stuff. “Ten years from now, we should have the first fungal buildings,” said Wösten, a professor […]
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In a potential game-changer for heavy industry, a magnesium-oxide mine in Greece received seven special containers in November 2024 with equipment designed to capture CO₂ and transform it into a valuable chemical, right there on site. Long blamed for driving up the planet’s temperature, CO2 could now be converted into jet fuel for passenger aircraft […]
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How do you outsmart a computer that could soon eclipse anything we have ever built? That is the challenge facing researchers who are working to build up our defences against the coming age of quantum computing. Quantum computers promise a giant leap in computational power, but they will also bring risks. Their code-breaking capabilities could […]
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Batteries are one of the biggest speed bumps on the road to mass electric vehicle (EV) adoption. But what if they could not only last longer, but also repair themselves? That is the vision driving researchers such as Johannes Ziegler and Liu Sufu, who are working to make this a reality. EV sales in Europe […]
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Giulia Acconcia grew up in the picturesque, historic town of Spoleto, nestled in the foothills of Italy’s Apennine Mountains. Already in secondary school, she became fascinated with modern technology – a passion that would shape her future. Her love of electronics led her to the Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy, where she now finds herself […]
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With nearly 30 years of experience in human nutrition research and teaching, Professor Kevin Cashman has dished out his fair share of nutritional advice to individuals, the media and government. Now Chair of Food and Health at University College Cork, Ireland, Cashman is coordinating a wide-ranging EU-funded research initiative called Zero_Hidden Hunger_EU along with his colleague […]
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On 1 June 2024, a spacecraft touched down on the Moon as part of a Chinese space mission called Chang’e 6. Its goal was to study the dark side of the Moon and return lunar samples from there for the first time. Edouard Lepape, managing director of NanoXplore, a French company that develops advanced microchips […]
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Whoever thinks research is not exciting might be in for a surprise. In 2025, we could witness genetic decoding of the human brain, collect solar energy in space, and walk across a bridge built of electronically controlled fungi. Cracking the brain’s genetics with AI’s help Detailed maps of the human brain drawn up by the […]
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Sometimes a seemingly minor discovery in science can snowball into something huge. So it was with Professor Michael Hall’s investigations into a compound called rapamycin, originally discovered in a handful of soil from Easter Island in the southern Pacific. In 2024, he was awarded the Balzan Prize for “groundbreaking contributions” to our understanding of the molecular […]
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Dr Inge Asselberghs has been closely involved in advanced graphene research over the past decade. Today, she’s at the forefront of EU-funded efforts to bring this “miracle material” out of the lab and into society. Asselberghs is part of an international team of researchers that set up a prototype manufacturing facility for graphene and other […]
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