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Frontier research

A complex system of clouds and aerosols forms over much of South Asia as part of the monsoon - the challenge was to find out what it contains. Image credit - Sparsh Karki/Pexels, licenced under CC0
environment | frontier research
19 November 2020

The mission to decipher a mysterious aerosol layer above Himalayan monsoon clouds

For Stephan Borrmann, a day of high altitude detective work begins early. He wakes at about 05:30am in a hotel in the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal. After a quick breakfast, he and his team are driven to the city’s airport. Their job is to prepare a converted Russian espionage plane so that it can investigate one of the biggest mysteries of the atmosphere.

Researchers are trying to determine if different song dialects in groups of S. bilineata bats is driving genetic change and ultimately to them becoming two different species. Image credit - Karin Schneeberger/Wikimedia, licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0
environment | frontier research
17 November 2020

Bats have different song cultures and chatter about food, sleep, sex and other bats

A slow drive in the dead of night through the forests of northwestern Costa Rica helped home in on the target. Dr Mirjam Knörnschild and her team had equipment with a microphone hooked to the top of their car to take recordings of bats.

Tropical thunderstorm clouds are unique because they self-organise even when the conditions below and above them are uniform, and do so with 'memories' of past formations. Image credit - NASA Johnson Space Center
environment | frontier research
09 November 2020

Cloud shapes and formations impact global warming – but we still don’t understand them

Above the Atlantic Ocean, puffy white clouds scud across the sky buffeted by invisible trade winds. They are not ‘particularly big, impressive or extended’, says Dr Sandrine Bony, a climatologist and research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. ‘But they are the most ubiquitous clouds on Earth.’

Clouds are important from a climate point of view for how they reflect and absorb sunlight, according to Professor Pier Siebesma, an atmospheric physicist. Image credit - Pier Siebesma
environment | frontier research | interview
04 November 2020

Q&A: Why clouds are still ‘one of the biggest uncertainties’ in climate change

They might be beautiful at times, but clouds are still one of the biggest sources of uncertainty in understanding how the climate will change due to global warming, explains Professor Pier Siebesma, an atmospheric physicist at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands.

Researchers in Europe are working on elastic membrane patches that mimic how the skin looks and feels and can collect information related to the wearer. Image credit - Aaron Lee/Unsplash
health | ict | frontier research
28 October 2020

Electronic skin patches could restore lost sensation and detect disease

Picture this: You’ve experienced no physical sensation beyond your wrists for years, then a doctor drapes a thin, flexible membrane over your hand and, like magic, you can feel the trickle of water through your fingers again.

Based on size alone, bats should live around four years but in fact they can reach the age of 40. Image credit - https://www.pikist.com/licenced under CC0
coronavirus outbreak | frontier research
26 October 2020

Five things you need to know about bats, disease and coronavirus

Bats are in the limelight these days because they are rumoured to be the source of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the coronavirus pandemic. But that is just part of their story. Bats turn out to be miraculous creatures. Their ability to age without decrepitude or cancer, as well as fight off a multitude of infections, are giving us clues about how to do the same for ourselves.

Wearable electronics powered by the user's own body heat could help tackle the issue of how to storage energy. Image credit - pxhere.com/licenced under CC0
industry | energy | frontier research
21 October 2020

Future wearable electronic clothing could be charged by our own body heat

Thanks to rapid computing developments in the last decade and the miniaturisation of electronic components, people can, for example, track their movements and monitor their health in real time by wearing tiny computers. Researchers are now looking at how best to power these devices by turning to the user’s own body heat and working with garments, polka dots and know-how from the textile industry.

Lightning strikes are not continuous but proceed in steps - but we don't yet know why this is. Image credit - Bernardo de Menezes Petrucci/Wikimedia, licenced under CC BY-SA 4.0
environment | frontier research
14 October 2020

We are starting to crack the mystery of how lightning and thunderstorms work

Imagine lying on a green hill watching the clouds go by on a beautiful day. The clouds you’re probably thinking of are cumulous clouds, the ones that resemble fluffy balls of cotton wool. They seem innocent enough. But they can grow into the more formidable cumulonimbus, the storm cloud. These are the monsters that produce thunder and lightning. They are powerful, destructive and intensely mysterious. They may also be getting a lot more common, which makes understanding their workings – and their effects on the human world, including how we construct buildings or power lines – more important than ever.

Organic electronics are flexible and already being used to make curved screens but future applications could include biosensors and bendable solar panels. Image credit - Maurizio Pesce/Wikimedia, licenced under CC BY 2.0
interview | frontier research
05 October 2020

Transparent electronic books and human-looking robots: the new field of ‘organic electronics’

Electronics made from carbon rather than silicon could lead to a new generation of medical devices, sensors and perhaps even robots, according to Professor Andreas Hirsch, chair of organic chemistry at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany.

The life that grows underfoot accounts for 80% of the biodiversity in a temperate forest. Image credit - www.pikist.com/licenced under CC0
environment | frontier research
01 October 2020

Forest darkness helps stave off effects of nitrogen pollution – but this is set to change

Europe’s forests are sitting on a pollution timebomb which could rewrite their ecology when it explodes, say researchers.

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