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The mRNA vaccine era is just starting, according to Dr Özlem Türeci and Dr Uğur Şahin, the co-founders of Germany’s BioNTech. Image credit - BioNTech SE 2020, all rights reserved
coronavirus outbreak | interview | health | frontier research
08 April 2021

Q&A: BioNTech vaccine is only ‘mRNA 1.0’. This is just the beginning, say co-founders

The successful development of mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 is ‘transformational’ and opens the doors to new types of vaccines for other infectious diseases as well as cancer, according to Dr Özlem Türeci and Dr Uğur Şahin, the co-founders of Germany’s BioNTech.

‘People are worried about insects, and like insects now, but still they turn their gardens into stone deserts and they don’t see the connection,’ says Prof. Kleijn who leads the SHOWCASE project. Image credit - Krzysztof Niewolny / Pixabay
environment | frontier research
23 March 2021

People have started to care about insects. Now we need action, say experts

‘If you had asked me this question four years ago, I would have given you a totally different answer.’

Scientists are studying the scents our bodies produce when we’re happy or afraid to see how these can influence other people’s emotional states. Image credit - Ken Douglas/Flickr, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
health | frontier research
16 March 2021

Bottling the smell of happiness to help treat depression

It may sound like something out of a fantasy movie, but scientists hope to be able to bottle the smell of happiness so it can be used to help people with phobias or depression.

Europa, one of Jupiter’s large moons, is considered to be the best candidate for habitability because scientists think its sub-surface ocean is in contact with rock, meaning minerals can leach into the ocean and enrich it. Image credit - NASA/JPL
space | frontier research
15 March 2021

Could there be life on Jupiter’s moons?

The search for life outside of Earth has taken many forms. Mars, our neighbouring world, looks like it was once habitable. Perhaps too Venus, despite its current hellish conditions. But in recent years, scientists’ gazes have been drawn elsewhere. What about the moons of Jupiter?

Smart windows that darken or lighten according to temperature to control the amount of heat entering a building could reduce the need for energy-intensive air conditioners. Image credit - Isaac Benhesed / Unsplash
energy | environment | frontier research
11 March 2021

Smart windows could reduce the need for energy-hungry air conditioners

Smart windows that control the amount of heat that enters or leaves a building can reduce the need for energy-intensive air conditioning units and help efforts to retrofit Europe’s buildings to make them more energy efficient.  

There is still limited scientific knowledge about how animals feel pain, or whether they all do. Image credit - Christoph Polatzky/Unsplash
environment | frontier research
16 February 2021

How does it feel to be a bee? The quest to understand animal sentience

What is it like to be a bee? Or a spider? Does a crab feel pleasure or pain? Behavioural and welfare science have moved on considerably in the past 20 years, but there is still a huge amount we don’t know about how animals actually feel – or, indeed, whether they all do.

European demand for goods and services creates environmental impacts outside the borders of the EU, which has implications for the EU's climate goals. Image credit - Hugh Nelson/Wikimedia, licensed under CC 3.0
environment | frontier research
08 February 2021

To confront climate change, we need to understand the environmental footprint of global supply chains

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic upended international trade. Countries shut their borders, breaking the webs of supply chains that crisscross the globe. These systems of people, organisations and companies work to supply consumers with products, such as mobile phones, or services, like transportation. While some supply chains have since returned to a semblance of normality, understanding their extent – and how they interact – may be vital if humanity wants to confront its other great challenge: climate change.

Researchers found that high-salt diets reduce the amount of good bacteria found in the gut and affect our immune system. Image credit - Daria Shevtsova/Unsplash
health | frontier research
02 February 2021

Why gut bacteria are becoming key suspects in autoimmune diseases

The human immune system is powerful and complex. It must be on guard at all times and be able to distinguish friend from foe. Unfortunately, it does not always get it right and sometimes attacks the body’s own cells, causing hundreds of ‘autoimmune’ diseases, from multiple sclerosis (MS) to rheumatoid arthritis.

By triggering original fear memories, a researcher hopes to weaken them to help treat phobias. Image credit - Islander Images/Unsplash
health | frontier research
26 January 2021

Triggering original fear memories could treat phobias and PTSD

In a lab in Amsterdam, arachnophobes have volunteered to encounter their eight-legged nemeses to help researchers hoping to conjure and obliterate fear memories. These studies, as well as new understanding of overlooked brain regions, are revealing how fears linked to PTSD or phobias work, and how they may be treated.

Better predictions of volcanic eruptions would help protect the lives of those living close to them. Image credit - Jorge Nava - Navart/Wikimedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
security | environment | frontier research
20 January 2021

Unravelling the when, where and how of volcanic eruptions

There are about 1,500 potentially active volcanoes worldwide and about 50 eruptions occur each year. But it’s still difficult to predict when and how these eruptions will happen or how they’ll unfold. Now, new insight into the physical processes inside volcanoes are giving scientists a better understanding of their behaviour, which could help protect the 1 billion people who live close to volcanoes.

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