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More than half the space in some European cities is devoted to cars, which are parked 90% of the time, says Dr Chaix. Image credit - Wikimedia/Lionel Allorge
interview | health | transport | frontier research
06 July 2020

Q&A: What lockdown air pollution reductions mean for the future of urban transport

People in cities experienced cleaner air during lockdowns, but a permanent shift to greener modes of transport and habits is ‘extremely complex to achieve’ given how much space is devoted to cars and the groups resisting change, says Dr Basile Chaix, who studies the health trade-offs we make as we travel.

The conditions on early Mars were habitable, says Dr Alberto Fairén. Image credit - NASA
space | frontier research
02 July 2020

How life on Earth could help us find life on Mars

In our continuing search for other life in the universe, one place has always looked promising – Mars. It is a rocky planet like Earth, orbiting the same star, and at a distance where water could have been present on the planet.

E.coli can cause disease but it also lives in our gut and has a range of toxins that helps keep the populations of the various bacteria in balance. Image credit - NIAID/Wikimedia commons, licenced under CC BY 2.0
health | frontier research
23 June 2020

Bacteria are always at war. Understanding their use of weapons may lead to antibiotic alternatives

A small glimmer of light passes from one bacterium to another. Under the microscope it might not look like much, but there’s a deadly battle underway: the second cell has just been hit by a poisoned spear.

People are very bad at assessing their own sense of smell and often don't realise how important it is until it's gone, say scientists. Image credit - Pixabay/Engin Akyurt, licenced under Pixabay licence
coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
18 June 2020

Why does coronavirus make people lose their sense of smell?

To begin with, it was just anecdotal reports. Ear, nose and throat specialists from around the world were sharing their experiences on online message boards – they were all seeing a spike in patients experiencing anosmia, a loss of smell.

The immune system is changing all the time and Dr Aleksandra Walczak wants to distinguish between genuine responses and random fluctuations. Image credit - B. Eymann - Académie des sciences
interview | coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
16 June 2020

Q&A: How physics could explain why people respond differently to coronavirus infection

Some people’s immune systems contain pre-existing protection against coronavirus, indicating that they have encountered a similar infection to Covid-19 before, according to Dr Aleksandra Walczak, a physicist at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France.

Researchers are using virtual reality to test participants’ reactions to threats such as dogs or falling rocks to understand more about the brain mechanisms linked to anxiety. Image credit - needpix.com, public domain
health | frontier research
15 June 2020

By recreating phobias and panic attacks, neuroscientists aim to improve anxiety therapies

Tracking the brain’s reaction to virtual-reality-simulated threats such as falling rocks and an under-researched fear reduction strategy may provide better ways of treating anxiety disorders and preventing relapses.

Covid-19 has shown us that countries that we thought were well prepared for something like coronavirus, were not, says Prof. McInnes. Image credit - Aberystwyth University
interview | coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
04 June 2020

Q&A: Coronavirus has shown the need for a global health system – but revealed its weaknesses too

We are seeing a failure of global health governance in response to Covid-19 because there are too many agencies with different interests, according Professor Colin McInnes, pro-vice chancellor at Aberystwyth University in Wales, UK, who says global institutions such as the World Health Organization and World Bank should stand together in crises.

Using the fossil record to estimate the levels of biodiversity is still a challenge given that we have more fossils from the recent past and as we go back deeper in time, none have been found for entire continents. Image credit - James St. John/Flickr, licenced under CC BY 2.0
environment | frontier research
20 May 2020

The evolution of biodiversity: ever-increasing or did it hit a ceiling?

Preserving biodiversity is one of the key debates of our time – but another subject of hot debate in recent decades among evolutionary experts is how biodiversity has changed over the past few hundred million years. New findings are challenging the conventional view on this.

If researchers could find the most effective antibody against coronavirus, it could act as both a cure and temporary vaccine. Image credit - NIH Image Gallery, Public Domain Mark 1.0
coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
14 May 2020

‘The aim is to find the monoclonal’: the hunt for the antibody to treat Covid-19

Transfusing antibodies from Covid-19 survivors into seriously ill patients could provide a quick treatment win, but a more selective approach may both treat and prevent the disease. A single, highly-effective antibody that is mass-produced like a drug could combine the benefits of antivirals and a vaccine for at-risk individuals such as health workers.

Professor Cecilia Mascolo at the University of Cambridge, UK, hopes her coronavirus sounds app could provide the data needed to build a quick and cheap Covid-19 screening test in the future. Image credit - Salvatore Scellato
interview | health | coronavirus outbreak | ict | frontier research
30 April 2020

Q&A: The sound of your voice could help fight Covid-19

A recording of a cough, the noise of a person’s breathing or even the sound of their voice could be used to help diagnose patients with Covid-19 in the future, according to Professor Cecilia Mascolo, an expert in mobile health at data analysis at the University of Cambridge, UK.

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