CORDIScovery – unearthing the hottest topics in EU science, research and innovation
By CORDIScovery
CORDIScovery – unearthing the hottest topics in EU science, research and innovation Sep 30, 2021
Premature birth
About 500 000 babies are born early in Europe every year, for some the condition is fatal. Complications relating to being born prematurely are the leading causes of death in the under-fives. Improving feeding, mitigating the impact on the brain and rethinking prevention – our three projects are doing what they can to push back these numbers.
Audrey van der Meer is co-director of the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory and professor of Neuropsychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. She is particularly interested in the infant brain, with its enormous plasticity and capacity to learn from day one.
Isabel Hoffmann is a deep-tech entrepreneur. By harnessing technology and connectivity, she is working to help create a world in which food contributes to health, not to societal diseases. Her company Tellspec is developing innovative ways of personalising nutrition to help premature babies thrive.
Julien Penders is co-founder of Bloomlife, a company designing wearable technologies and predictive analytics to promote prenatal health. Bloomlife has developed a device paired with data analytics to increase access to care, provide personalised feedback to mothers, and help doctors predict and manage pregnancy complications.
Food – a catalyst for change
Did the ability to feed babies porridge help to fuel the population explosion seen in the Neolithic period? Did people take to the seas far earlier than previously thought to chase whales and seals? What is the difference between a flourishing desert frontier fort and one that dwindles into dust? We take a look at three times when food was a catalyst for change.
Bettina Schulz Paulsson, an associate professor of Archaeology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, specialises in research related to the Stone Age. Her interests encompass seafaring, megaliths, prehistoric whaling and scientific dating and methods.
Associate professor of Egyptology at the Polytechnic of Milan, Corinna Rossi, focuses her research on the relationship between architecture and mathematics in ancient Egypt. Rossi has been exploring the antiquities of Egypt’s Western Desert for over 20 years.
Sofija Stefanović is professor of Physical Anthropology and Bioarchaeology in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. She is interested in the prehistoric patterns of fertility and the influence of the duration of breastfeeding on children’s health in the Neolithic period.
For more info the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!nFkxTW
Fisheries of the future
Pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss are all threatening our sustainable use of marine resources – at the same time we need seafood. It’s a conundrum! Could lights help by deterring the wrong fish from getting into nets? Can AI help zap the virulent sea lice that plague fish farmers? And how do zebra fish bridge the gap between aquaculture and medicine? Listen on to get some answers!
Rachel Tiller is a chief scientist and director of Biodiversity and Area Use, at SINTEF Ocean, Norway. She is interested in putting smart tools in the hands of the fishing community to help them catch what they are intending to catch.
Margaret Rae is the managing director of Konree Innovation, based in Ireland. The company aims to harness the latest technological approaches to improve the health and welfare of farmed fish.
Marc Muller , now retired, was a senior assistant professor at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), in the University of Liège. He studies skeleton formation in zebrafish, and the insights that gives us into human skeletal pathologies.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!RmVKTH
Celebrating women in science
What do a mathematician, a palaeontologist and a researcher considering the rehabilitation of multiple sclerosis patients have in common? All three are women who have carved themselves successful careers as scientific researchers.
In a change to our usual format, this episode of CORDIScovery invites three female researchers from completely unrelated areas to talk about their work, discuss their own experiences and offer insights into what helped, and hindered them, in the development of their careers.
Elena Ghezzo is a fellow of Ca’Foscari University of Venice. She is particularly interested in screening fossils using spectral imaging, and in the distribution and extinction patterns of large carnivores before the Holocene. She is joined by Camilla Pierella, an assistant professor at the University of Genova. She studies the neural control of movement, robots for rehabilitation and body-machine interfaces.
Erika Hausenblas is a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Leoben, in Austria. She studies how stochastic systems, characterised by randomness and uncertainty, impact the modelling of a wide range of phenomena, such as weather patterns, stock markets and biological systems.
For more info the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!QqDYJ3
Adapting to climate change in Europe
Climate change is here: so what are we doing to meet the challenges in Europe? Ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 28, we will be hearing from four cutting-edge researchers who are working to get us ready to deal with the coming changes in our environment.
Using the internet of things (IoT) to track mosquitoes that carry diseases more often associated with the global South; protecting our woodlands and forests from the impact of destructive beetles and other factors; examining the impact of extreme storms on our architecture and working out how to keep people safe from waves that are higher than ever, overtopping coastal defences that were designed in another era – this episode is on adapting to climate change in Europe.
Talking us through these and other ideas are: João Encarnação CEO of Irideon, who is particularly interested in the development of IoT sensors for insects with impact on public health, food safety and biodiversity. Along with Guillaume Marie, an independent researcher and part of the team of developers behind ORCHIDEE, the French land surface model used by the UN to predict climate change. They are joined by Marie Pia Repetto, professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Genoa, Italy whose main interest is in wind engineering, and Corrado Altomare. Altomare is a postdoc researcher at the Maritime Engineering Laboratory of Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona, and is actively involved in mounting Europe’s response to the problem of sea wave overtopping in coastal areas.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!RHTnb9
Portable power: batteries of the future
If you use a car, a phone or want to see more renewable energy sources in our electricity supply then listen on – this episode is for you.
We need storage devices that can balance out the intermittent power produced by renewable energy sources and our demand. We have to identify viable, novel materials to make a new generation of batteries in order to get around bottlenecks in lithium supply – set to get even worse as demand for electric vehicles takes off.
A whole new generation of cooling systems could speed up recharging time and prolong battery life. While paper-thin sheets of silicon with great conductive power could be a new boost to electric vehicle uptake. Explore these advances with our three guests:
Juan J. Vilatela leads a research group at IMDEA Materials, in Madrid. His scientific career is focused on methods for synthesis and assembly of 1D nanomaterials into macroscopic nanotextiles for energy and structural applications. Pekka Peljo is associate professor of Materials Engineering at the University of Turku, Finland. He is interested in developing electricity storage technologies for wind and solar power. Matthieu Desbois-Renaudin, president and one of the co-founders of WATTALPS, is interested in electrification, batteries and their optimisation, including the patented cooling technology.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!YYnKjc
The wonderful world of the gut microbiome
The diverse realm of microorganisms that plays a vital role in our digestion, interacts with our brain chemistry, and even influences our immune systems, is generating a lot of scientific interest. The question is, what else does it do, and how?
This episode explores the impact of the chemical signals sent out to our organs by our microbiome, in real time. We look at how they work on a ‘brain on a chip’.
And did you know our immune system interacts with the microbes we host , which seems to have an impact on a patient’s response to chemotherapy. Microbiome research has largely focused on humans and mice – but what about fish? We see what is going on inside a salmon.
Carmen Giordano, associate professor of Bioengineering at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan, has developed a tool to help researchers see what the signals coming out of bacteria in the microbiome do to the brain and other organs, in real time!
Nicola Gagliani heads a laboratory of the same name studying the mechanisms of T-cell biology at the University Medical Center, Hamburg-Eppendorf. He’s looking into how quickly our immune systems respond to our diets, via the microbiome.
Molecular and evolutionary biologist Morten Limborg is associate professor at the Globe Institute in Copenhagen. Morten is researching how to make farming more sustainable by fine-tuning animal feed in response to their microbiomes.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!pd3rGP
Pandemics: learning from the past – anticipating the future
We hit the ground running in the COVID pandemic: EU support for scientific research helped projects develop responses rapidly and effectively. Which may be just as well. Avian influenza is having a devastating impact on bird populations and has been passed onto mammal populations.
Getting funding to where it can be most effectively used, understanding the mechanisms behind public perception and behaviour, and gathering a living archive of viruses used by the scientific community across the world – this episode we are looking at the innovations which are ready to support responses to what might be coming next.
Marina Brito is a business strategic relations officer based at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal. Máire Connolly is professor of Global Health at the University of Galway’s College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. They are joined by professor of Health Biotechnology and Virology at Aix-Marseille University in France, Bruno Coutard, the coordinator of the European Virus Archive, which identifies, collects and distributes viruses and related, non-infectious materials for the scientific community.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!TP6BG9
Safety at sea
Energy, world grain supplies, consumer goods – so much more: ships transport a remarkable 90 per cent of the world’s commodities. As the UN’s Secretary-General António Guterres said: “Without ships and the women and men who work on them, economies would stall, and people would starve.”
Founded by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) back in 2011, the Day of the Seafarer is on the 25th of June – so this episode we are looking at how EU funding is working to make life at sea, safer – for passengers and for crew.
Franz Evegren, is director of the Fire Safe Transport Department at the Research Institutes of Sweden. Franz focuses ways to reduce the number of fires on board roll-on/roll-off car ferries. Luis Sanchez-Heres, is also at the Research Institutes of Sweden where he is working on harnessing the power of Ai and machine learning to improve location pin pointing. Lazaros Karagiannidis is concentrating on how smart applications and wearables can make ship evacuations faster and safer. Lazaros is based at the National Technical University of Athens.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!qD7RNV
Biofuels: from waste to energy
The United Nations report, published in March 2023, is very clear, it says: “ (…) keeping warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels requires deep, rapid and sustained greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors.”
In this episode we look at how biofuels can help us meet these imperatives. Using biomass as a source of energy is particularly elegant: you take waste that is all too often part of the problem when it comes to disposal, and you break it down to get gas which is then used as fuel.
Our guests are: Yeray Asensio, based at the Spanish water management company, Aqualia is interested in ways of making sewage sludge treatment to produce biogas, easier and cheaper for smaller communities. Cristina González is head of the Biotechnology Unit of the Madrid Institute for Advanced Study. She is particularly interested in recovering carbon from waste to produce biochemicals and biofuels within the idea of the circular economy. Petteri Salonen is the CEO of Finrenes, a Finnish company that has developed a new way to turn wood and plant fibre waste into biomethane and fuel pellets, widening the range of fibres that can be used. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!qJHW36
Soil quality and food security
From satellites observing Earth, to roots and the microbes that surround them: Today we are looking at soil and how our food security depends on its health. Our ‘crop’ of guests, all of whom have been funded by the Horizon 2020 programme, are here to help us understand how waste, fertiliser, soil protection and remote monitoring all interconnect:
A researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Tania Galindo-Castañeda’s focus is on how the root anatomy and architecture of maize affect the impact microbes in the soil have on the plant. Frank Rogalla is director of innovation at Aqualia, a private provider of water services supplying 45 million people in 17 countries. His focus is on not wasting one drop of water, to which end he fuels his car with waste water. Frank is interested in recovering fertilisers to grow food and avoid pollution. Juan Suarez is looking at how to make the most of Earth observation technologies, such as satellite imagery, to improve food security and sustainable development. Juan is a senior manager at the Spanish company GMV.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!BBMgjg
Water: quality and supply
22 March is United Nations World Water Day, so this episode of CORDIScovery is on water: its quality and security of supply. We will travel from the high Himalayas, and delve into the secret lives of freshwater snails to explore water cycles and the latest techniques for monitoring pollution.
Walter Immerzeel, professor of Mountain Hydrology at Utrecht University, led the CAT project, which looked at the interface between climate change, glaciology and hydrology.
Research scientist at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture of the Spanish National Research Council, José A. Gómez combines a Background in agronomy and soil science. He helped coordinate the SHui project which bridged the gap between research findings and on-the-ground innovations in China and Europe.
Didier Neuzeret is the CEO of ViewPoint, a French company that has been involved in environmental research and animal behaviour analysis for 30 years. ViewPoint hosted ToxMate, which video-tracked the behaviours of certain invertebrates to check pollution levels in wastewater.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!WpV7xG
Advances in forensics
New technologies, existing technologies applied to new challenges, understanding the role of cross-cultural influences in eyewitnesses’ examinations; all ways in which EU projects are helping to make evidence more accessible. This episode of CORDIScovery investigates.
Rape is a global scourge. Millions of unsolved rape cases fail in the absence of evidence found. Current technical barriers to the identification and analysis of sperm traces are one key reason. The Themis project has developed a new technique that can find traces which would be missed by conventional methods and analyses them more quickly and effectively.
What happens when you take green screens, gaming technology, lidar and other cutting-edge imaging techniques and apply them to evidence long buried? The Dig-For-Arch project has developed ways these tools can clarify crime scenes that might currently be hard to interpret.
Our globalised world means cultures are interrelating more than ever – what happens when eyewitnesses give evidence in cross-cultural contexts? How do we unravel information through a cultural filter? The WEIRD WITNESSES project has some interesting findings to share.
This episode of CORDIScovery features three guests who are ideally placed to tell us about the latest advances that are helping to refine criminal investigations. Their projects have all been supported by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.
Annelies Vredeveldt is an associate professor at the Faculty of Law at VU Amsterdam. She investigates psychology in the courtroom, from how eyewitnesses remember crimes to detecting lies in suspects’ statements. Dante Abate is an associate researcher at the Cyprus Institute. His various areas of interest include the application of digital and non-destructive technologies for the identification and documentation of historic crime scenes. Benjamin Corgier is currently the research and development director at AXO Science, a biotech company specialising in molecular biology and innovative technologies for forensics.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!Mrn7k8
Citizen science - engagement and empowerment
Enthusiasts, people with hobbies, with spare time or concerned about their environment – you and me: all of us are potential collectors of data and information that can add a dimension to research projects. How can participation empower volunteers? And what’s the benefit for scientists? Listen on to find out!
Xavier Basagaña is associate research professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. Basagaña’s CitieS-Health project was interested in evaluating the health impacts of urban living. The project set out to encourage collaboration between researchers and volunteers, to generate solid, unbiased scientific evidence.
Professor of Environmental History at the University of Stavanger in Norway, Finn Arne Jørgensen is the coordinator of the EnviroCitizen project. The team wanted to understand the ways in which citizen science projects can be used to cultivate new ways of thinking and acting in all aspects of life, to promote environmental, rather than national, citizenship.
Kris Vanherle is a transport policy researcher, working at Transport & Mobility Leuven, a spin-off of the University of Leuven, Belgium. Vanherle was the coordinator of WeCount, which wanted to give people the tools they needed to monitor traffic, and to co-design solutions to tackle a variety of road transport challenges.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!fvVNMg
Magic tricks for crows: how animals experience the world
Perform a magic trick for a member of the crow family and it will show how startled it is by the unexpected. Crows are known for being the Einsteins of the avian world, but what about the animals that feed us, clothe us, entertain us – what is the nature of their intelligence? Will our growing realisation that animals may be experiencing the world around them in ways that would surprise us, reframe our understanding of animal welfare? Tune in for some ideas.
Jonathan Birch is an associate professor at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. In 2021, the review he led into the sentience of invertebrates resulted in the amendment of the British government’s Animal Welfare Bill to include octopuses, crabs and lobsters.
Associate professor at the University of Leuven’s Animal and Human Health Engineering Unit, Tomas Norton leads research on sustainable precision livestock farming and is particularly interested in the interface between animal health, welfare and productivity.
Nicola Clayton is a fellow of the Royal Society and professor of Comparative Cognition in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Nicola is particularly interested in the processes of thinking with and without words, comparing the cognitive capacities of corvids, cephalopods and children.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!BFNQ97
Smart textiles – engineering by design
Wearables have become ‘must have’ fashion – how can we make assistive technology as desirable? The most sophisticated device is useless if it is uncomfortable or unattractive. This episode, we are looking at the interface between design and engineering, and how the next generation of smart textiles could make assistive tech invisible.
Today’s episode brings together guests from EU-supported projects working on user-focused design, the metallisation and conductivity of fabric and graphene antennas embedded in textiles which could help people with Alzheimer’s.
Professor of Health Design and Human Factors at Coventry University, Louise Moody brought her background in psychology and user centric approach to design to the Maturolife project.
Andrew Cobley is a Professor of Electrochemical Deposition and leads the Functional Materials and Chemistry Group at Coventry University. His expertise in the electrochemical metallisation of non-conductive materials was behind the production of Maturolife prototypes.
Elif Ozden Yenigun is a Senior Lecturer in Textiles at the Royal College of Art. Her research concentrates on molecular materials design and innovative approaches to textile manufacturing, which she explored in her GFSMART project.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!hn6NJb
Cutting Waste
Recycling targets across the EU have been increased, the aim is now 55 % by weight from 2025, and 65 % for packaging waste. The target climbs every 5 years after that. Can we reach that goal? Repurposing, repairing, recycling – our three guests are doing their bit to get there.
Tim Gent is the managing director of Recresco, the British glass recycling company behind the OMR project. The company is using X-ray fluorescence, shape recognition and machine learning to make recycling more efficient. Tim’s interest is in how to make the circular economy more of a reality.
The commercial managing director of the Spanish company, Plastic Repair Systems, Alfredo Neila worked on the PRS project, which repairs industrial plastic objects, such as crates and pallets, making repair more financially viable than throwing them away.
Pablo Martínez is one of the brains behind Smartmushroom which has come up with a new way of treating the waste produced by the mushroom growing sector, transforming it from environmentally challenging by-product to valuable resource.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!tX7t4W
Bio-inspired innovation
100 000 starlings move in unison against an autumn sky – not one collides; fireflies light up a wood in Borneo flashing in perfect synchronicity; bacteria communicate around a plant’s roots once the population reaches a certain number while, up in the air, the wings of an eastern amberwing dragonfly have 3 000 sensory neurons, including flow sensors to prevent a stall.
What can we learn from these marvels?
Currently at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Nico Bruns leads the Sustainable Functional Polymers Research Group. The team is using bio-inspired approaches to design, engineer and develop materials, and nano-systems, with unprecedented new functions. Nico is particularly interested in the properties of the polymer composites making up plant cuticles, which he explored during the Horizon 2020 project, PlaMatSu.
Massimo Trotta is based at the Italian National Research Council, in Bari. He is interested in the environmental applications of photosynthetic organisms. Massimo coordinated the EU’s HyPhOE project.
Lucia Beccai is a senior researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, and head of the Soft Bio Robotics Perception Lab. She is interested in tactile sensing and versatile grasping for soft robotics and is particularly focused on what we can learn from elephant trunks, which was the basis of her EU-funded PROBOSCIS project.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!gFVK9d
Fighting the spread of Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is preventable and curable, and yet 9 900 000 people fell ill with the disease in 2020 and 1.5 million died. This episode is looking at what the EU is doing to curb the spread and improve our understanding of the nature of the illness.
This episode of CORDIScovery hears from three researchers who have all been at the forefront of controlling the spread of the disease. New, cheap and non-invasive tests; drilling down into the pathogen’s genome to get a clearer understanding of how it spreads; work done at a molecular level to establish how the bacteria switch from latent to active infection – all vital if we are to get a handle on controlling and preventing outbreaks.
Hossam Haick is dean at the Israel Institute of Technology, the Technion. His work developing A-Patch, a skin patch test that is effective, cheap and can transmit infection data to healthcare workers remotely, was supported by both the EU and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Teresa Cortes is based at the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia, part of the Spanish National Research Council. She is interested in understanding how the bacteria that cause TB in humans infect, survive, cause disease and develop antibiotic resistance. Teresa was involved in the MtbTransReg project.
Iñaki Comas, who explains the findings of his project TB-ACCELERATE, is also a researcher at the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia. He is working on unravelling the intricacy of TB’s genomics to understand the evolution and epidemiology of infectious diseases. His lab is particularly focused on TB, but also works on other diseases, like COVID-19.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!b8GT4x
Bees – from evolution to artificial intelligence
Does a bee’s gut influence its sociability? Can a plant deter pests and attract pollinators at the same time? And with bee populations under threat, can artificial intelligence keep colonies safe? The EU estimates pollinators such as honeybees contribute at least EUR 22 billion each year to the European agricultural industry. They are so important that the United Nations has designated the 20th of May as World Bee Day, so this episode of CORDIScovery looks at bees!
Hallel Schreier focuses on the intersection between software, artificial intelligence, hardware and biology. His company BeeWise has created the world’s first robotic beehive!
He is joined by Stuart Campbell, who is based at the University of Sheffield where he leads a research laboratory in the area of chemical ecology and evolution of insect-plant interactions.
And:
Joanito Liberti who is an evolutionary molecular ecologist based at the University of Lausanne. Joanito is currently studying how the gut/brain axis manifests itself through the social behaviour of honeybees.
For info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!v3hmHq
Drones in industry: technical challenges, practical benefits
What do turbine blades high above the ocean and the bowels of a cargo ship have in common? The inspection vital to keeping both safe and functioning can often be hazardous, the sites frequently inaccessible, and the operation always complex. So how can drones help?
Technicians rappelling down vast blades on the open seas, checking the parts bit by bit; engineers crawling through cramped spaces where air is poor; ships losing time in dock while cranes are used to get engineers to the top of masts: these have been the traditional ways of checking for wear and tear on wind turbines and in ships. But robots provide a new way of approaching the problem.
Here to chat about the industrial use of drones and robots are:
The CEO of BladeInsight, the company behind the Windrone Zenith project, André Croft de Moura. André is interested in robotics and data solutions applied to renewable energy generation. He is joined by Alessandro Maccari, whose background is in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. Alessandro is Research and Development director at RINA Services in Italy. He coordinated the ROBINS project and has been applying his expertise to the challenges posed by the use of autonomous vehicles in ship inspections.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!Vr8qxg
Violence – triggers and perspectives
From the domestic to the international, how can we anticipate, mitigate, and come to terms with violence? This episode of CORDIScovery looks at how victims of domestic violence can be better served. We ask what role violence plays in distracting communities from preparing for climate change. And we explore how the perception of historic violence plays into a culture’s notion of ‘self’.
Catharina Vogt’s project IMPRODOVA, set out to train responders to help the victims of domestic violence more effectively. The team developed tools that are now being used across the board by the police in France, resulting in more charges being pressed than before.
Halvard Buhaug, lead writer on a chapter of the IPPC's latest climate change report, ran the CLIMSEC project. He tells us that the relationship between climate change and violence might not be what we imagine.
Senior lecturer in political theory at the University of Edinburgh, and the co-director of the Centre for Ethics and Critical Thought, Mihaela Mihai’s research focuses on political memory, art and politics, theories of oppression and political emotions. Her GREYZONE project considered how the perception of historic violence plays into cultural identity.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!rnKqRQ
Volcanoes – Nature’s architects
Let’s talk volcanoes! Are we close to being able to monitor and predict volcanic activity in real time? In this episode of CORDIScovery we take a look at what crystals in magma can tell us, hear what it takes to make lava flow in a lab, and find out about the well-named ‘extremophile’ bacteria that thrive in some of the world’s most challenging environments.
When not monitoring volcanic activity in the field, Stephan Kolzenburg, who took part in the DYNAVOLC project, is recreating lava flow in his lab to model and predict how lava and magma will behave during an eruption.
Jane Scarrow is also working on ways to predict eruptions and how they will evolve. Her VESPER project looked at processes in magmatic reservoirs beneath active volcanoes, and she has also been involved in the response to the Palma eruption.
What can bacteria that live in some of the world’s most inhospitable environments reveal about how methane is fixed in our atmosphere? Huub Op den Camp worked on the VOLCANO project, the findings of which could improve our climate models.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!qmNhC8
ICT: exploring the benefits
Finding missing children with real-time input and geofencing, helping a visually impaired person navigate a challenge that crops up in their daily lives, fake news: sorting the wheat from the chaff – this episode we are looking at the bright side of our use of technology.
Christian Erfurt launched his first healthcare start-up while still in high school. He is behind the BEMYEYES app that’s available in 150 countries and has almost 5 million volunteers supporting 313 000 users with visual impairment.
We have all seen missing children flyers. But how best to move from paper notices to digital tools? Christos Ntanos tells us how the ChildRescue project, a collective awareness platform, is being used to find and rescue missing children.
The internet is like rocket fuel when it comes to the spread of misinformation. Francesco Saverio Nucci’s project FANDANGO is using AI to turn the tables, helping news agencies identify what looks suspicious.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!Wk9QmR
The medical arms race: overcoming microbial resistance
The antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, organisms are developing, and our bid to counter that with new ways of controlling them, is like an arms race – one we stand a better chance of winning if we use the antimicrobials that are still effective, more carefully. This special episode of CORDIScovery, timed to coincide with the WHO’s annual World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, invites three guests to share the work they are doing to win the race between the resistance microbes develop, and the ways we have to control them.
Fredrik Almqvist, co-founder of QureTech Bio AB, explains the work the QTB4AMR project is doing to change the chemical relationship between an antibiotic and its target bacteria. The weird and wonderful world of soil microbes and the ways in which they communicate could give rise to a new generation of biopesticides. Ana Bejarano explains how her RhizoTalk project will help.
How did farming become so systemically dependent on antibiotics and is it too late to turn that around? Nicolas Fortané, who coordinates the ROADMAP project, shares his findings.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!QpB9CM
Cloth, glass and stone: Innovation and cultural connections in the middle ages
The past is shadowy but the objects that mattered to the societies that came before us illuminate those who produced and used them. So, in this episode we are considering cloth, glass and stone, and what they reveal about innovation and cultural connections in the Middle Ages.
Nadine Schibille’s GlassRoutes project looked at the geopolitical, sociocultural and artistic dimensions of glass in the first millennium CE. She is joined by Maria Mossakowska-Gaubert whose project, MONTEX, examined the culture surrounding textile use and production in Egypt, from the Ptolemaic to the early Arab period.
Saša Čaval’s project, SOLMUS, considered the medieval burial stones in the Western Balkans, locally called stećci. Who were the people who carved these monoliths and how did their traditions evolve?
As with all interesting science, we have more questions than answers! For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!wx7X7h
Philosophy of science: the energy and excitement of curiosity
From rabbits plucked out of hats to dark matter, how do we comprehend the inexplicable or the unobservable? What do particle physicists and a magician’s audience have in common? Do we enjoy being baffled? If so, why? What pushes us to seek to understand? Is objectivity so vital in scientific observation and is subjectivity really its negation – or is the relationship between the two more subtle?
As one of our guests puts it: “The energy that drives inquiry is not the pleasure we take in final explanations, but the energy and excitement of curiosity itself.”
From the importance of the communities that foster scientific discoveries to whether objectivity is all it’s cracked up to be, we hear from Jason Leddington, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, whose book on the philosophy of magic and other arts of impossibility is under contract with MIT Press.
He’s joined by Michela Massimi. Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh, and Jan Sprenger, a professor at the Centre for Logic, Language and Cognition at the University of Turin. Michela is the author of Perspectival Realism which will come out in January 2022, published by Oxford University Press, and Jan’s area of interest is the relationship between scientific inference, public trust and the role of objectivity.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!ThwRg3
Another small step: A new age of Solar System exploration
What can distant planets and their satellite moons tell us about the origins of life on Earth? Is there enough water on the moon to support longer, manned missions? Are there lunar sources of oxygen that could make the moon a gateway to our Solar system?
And beyond the moon: can we look to Titan to better understand our own origins? And how can we build on what we know about the Earth’s geology to better understand Mars, and other planets?
Jeremi Gancet is responsible for the Technologies, Applications and Research Division at Space Applications Services in Belgium. His project is designing a new, lunar rover and sensors – what are they hoping to find? Nathalie Carrasco, professor in planetary science at the University of Paris-Saclay, is mimicking the atmosphere of Titan to trace the origins of life on Earth, what has her work revealed? And Stephanie Werner, professor of geophysics and planetary science at the University of Oslo, has almost completed a database of the composition of rocks on Earth which will be used to profile rocks on other planets, Was Mars ever habitable? Its geology can provide a clue.
For more info on the projects featured: visit: https://europa.eu/!nMNgnd
Ready Player... You? Welcome to the Virtual Reality revolution
Virtual reality – just another bone of contention between screen-addicted adolescents and their frazzled parents? Or can the inherent characteristics of VR, communicating at a distance but in a space that feels intimate, be harnessed to really revolutionise the way we interact?
Can avatars, digital representations of ourselves, foster empathy or are they yet another medium providing a cloak of anonymity that can be abused? And are deep fakes about to go 3D?
Dr Salvador Alvidrez, Marie Curie Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast is interested in the socio-psychological effects of communication technologies. He is looking at VR and its role in tackling prejudice. Can we use VR to walk around in someone else’s shoes? Fancy a digital twin? Dr Verónica Orvalho’s company Didmo has patented technology to generate digital humans. Her inventions have been used by Microsoft, Universal and Sony and others. But how can the general public make the most of VR? I2CAT is making the tech cheaper and more immersive. Sergi Ferandez explains how.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!YtfHQf
EU researchers tackle pollution
In many areas the pandemic has reduced our impact on the natural environment, but what happens when we emerge from the restrictions and fire up our economies again? Will we also be firing up our production of pollution?
From oil spills that threaten our seas, to the stinks that ruin our day, pollution touches us at all levels.
How can citizen scientists help? What can we do to keep the air around us free of viruses and particulate pollution? Can we really make the polluter pay for oil and waste-water spills in our seas and oceans? Our guests today are all leading researchers who have been using support from the EU to get some answers.
Rosa Arias is a chemical engineer with a background in odour pollution. Her particular focus is on citizen science and science communication, and how that supports responsible research and innovation. Rosa is involved in D-Noses project that gives people the tools they need to record data from one of the most sensitive sensors we have, our noses!
Rinsing the air around us to extract viruses and pollution is something Fabio Galatioto has been working on. ISCLEANAIR has come up with disruptive technology to shake up our approach to air purifiers at home, work and on our streets.
Drones come into their own when it comes to spotting oil spills and unmanned vehicles can take the samples that can point the finger at the polluter quickly and safely. Ioannis Dontas, a physicist whose focus is on material and surface sciences, tells us more about how the IMRESSIVE project is using of earth observation data to protect the environment.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!7QD9yj
Innovations in European healthcare in the wake of COVID-19
Healthcare professionals working flat out for a year, living through experiences nothing could really prepare them for; health systems stressed to breaking point; a population facing fear, insecurity and grief without the human contact to make these bearable – the pandemic will cast a long shadow. Dr Hans Kluge, the World Health Organisation’s Europe Director warns we are facing a growing mental health crisis the impact of which is likely to be long-term and far-reaching.
Lars Montelius is the Director–General of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, and a professor in Nanotechnology at Lund University, Sweden. He is exploring the interface between nano technology and life sciences. What will the next gen sensors look like? How is nano tech going to change how we do things?
Professor of Human Computer Interaction and Digital Health in the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University, Corina Sas is interested in mental health technologies and refining how humans can convey emotions to computers. Do devices have a role to play in helping us deal with mental health challenges?
However sophisticated the digital solutions are, will people always prefer face to face contact with a psychiatrist? Dr Elena Phillips, based at the Hamburg Centre for Health Economics has some answers.
Pity the public health authorities charged with working out what cutting-edge tech to fund. Can that decision be simplified? Check out what the President of Italian Health Economics Association, Aleksandra Torbica, is working on.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!yNXdqV
The new synergies of shopping
Shopping: can robot assistants woo shoppers back to the post-pandemic high street? A cashless society – the term resonates more than ever as people grow more reliant on contactless payments and online transactions. But is that a green light for fraudsters and, if so, could a biometric credit card be around the corner? However we go about paying for it, buying more online means more returns. One EU funded project is doing great work to make the process greener and less expensive for retailers and consumers.
Frank Sandeloev, CEO of CardLab Innovation, has extensive experience in the development of electronic biometric systems. He’s particularly interested in cybersecurity, fraud prevention and their intersection with privacy. Will a credit card that reads your thumbprint and creates a one-time only token when you use it be in your wallet anytime soon?
Between sizes and feeling guilty about all those jeans you’ve bought online and returned?
Daphne Pijnappel might make you feel better – she’s working on finding an efficient way to put returned goods back on the market.
Online shopping is what we are becoming accustomed to, but what about the future of high streets and malls? Is there a role for robots? The prototype developed by the MuMMER project may be able to help. Mary Ellen Foster, is a Senior Lecturer in Human-Robot Interaction at the University of Glasgow, tells us more.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!H93c7p
The future of aviation
The pros and contrails of flight – The aviation sector is indispensable, but how can we reduce its environmental impact? This episode talks to three researchers whose work on making flying cleaner, more efficient and less invasive for those living under flightpaths, may offer some answers.
Dr Andrew Rolt, of Cranfield University is working to make hydrogen powered flight a reality – is that feasible? Dr Vittorio Cipolla, based at the University of Pisa, is hoping to bring a radically redesigned wing to market – will companies embrace disruptive tech? Laurent Leylekian at the French aerospace lab, ONERA, has an ear out for the public’s perception of noise pollution. Is my definition of noise nuisance the same as yours? Listen on to find out.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!6Wpk7B
Biodiversity
Welcome to the very first episode of CORDIScovery, where we’re taking an in-depth look at the drive to maintain healthy ecosystems and biodiversity preservation, introducing you to three EU-funded scientists who are making valuable contributions to this cause.
In our first episode, Abigail introduces you to three EU-funded scientists working to protect the world’s biodiversity in the face of increasing levels of human intrusion and climate change. How does biodiversity depend on geography? What impact is the illegal trade in wildlife having on the communities that are involved, and on targeted species? What can be done to preserve areas? Do ‘protected areas’ protect? Answering these and other key questions are Pedro Cardoso of the Finnish Museum of Natural History, Rosaleen Duffy of the University of Sheffield, and Jonas Geldmann of the University of Copenhagen.
For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!YtJQHX