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Interview

The last time a human set foot on the moon was in 1972. Image credit - Pexels, licensed under CC0
interview | space
05 February 2019

‘The moon is a history museum and we’ve only visited the gift shop’

Humans have not set foot on the moon since 1972, when the last Apollo mission came back to Earth. That could all change in the coming years, however, as entities like the European Space Agency (ESA) are preparing not just to return, but to build a permanent base on the surface.

This video covers three days and shows brain tumour cells breaking off and invading a lab-grown mini-brain. Video credit - Wenjing Zhou
interview | health
04 February 2019

In a picture: Hunting down guerrilla tumour cells – Prof. Rolf Bjerkvig

Professor Rolf Bjerkvig, a specialist in brain cancer research, tells us why guerrilla cells make the disease so hard to treat. 

A lot of people are unaware that drones need to stay at least 1km away from an airport, says Dan Hermansen. Image credit - MyDefense
interview | security | transport
11 January 2019

Drone jamming system to protect European airports, public spaces

Airports could be equipped with technology capable of detecting and bringing down drones that stray into their air space, according to Dan Hermansen, chief technology officer of Danish anti-drone firm MyDefence.The company has developed a drone alarm and protection system that is being installed at a number of prominent sites around Europe, including an airport. It has the potential to prevent the kind of costly disruption that hit London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports recently.

Professor Luke O’Neill, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
interview | health | frontier research
09 January 2019

Understanding immune system switches will spark new drugs

Identifying the chemical switches that turn different parts of our immune system on and off is opening up new avenues for treating diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis – and potential new uses for discarded drugs, according to Professor Luke O’Neill, an immunologist at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Parents should not leave it up to kids to decide whether to learn a minority language, says Prof. Anneli Sarhimaa. Image credit - Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
interview | social sciences
03 January 2019

The internet is helping to revive minority languages

Europe’s minority languages have been squeezed by nation-building, urbanisation and the ‘lingua francas’ of the internet, according to Professor Anneli Sarhimaa, specialist in Northern European and Baltic languages and cultures at the University of Mainz, Germany. But one lesson she has learned from researching the fate of the Finnic language Karelian, spoken in Finland and north-western Russia, is that digital media can also help revitalise them.

Prof. Damien Ernst says current emissions-cutting activities are not working and it's time to consider new strategies. Image credit - University of Liège
interview | energy | environment
11 December 2018

Governments at COP24 should focus on building a global electricity grid – Prof. Damien Ernst

Governments at the COP24 climate change conference in Katowice, Poland, which ends on 14 December, should tackle fossil-fuel reliance by building a global energy grid that connects renewable energy from all around the world - and the best place to start is with a giant wind farm in Greenland, says Professor Damien Ernst, an energy scientist from the University of Liège, Belgium.

Chemical contaminants can end up in the Arctic and add to the pressure on ecosystems, according to Marianne Kroglund. Image credit - Annette Ekin
interview | environment
03 December 2018

The Arctic faces substantial changes even if we meet climate targets – Marianne Kroglund

Melting sea ice, plastic waste, biodiversity loss – the Arctic is facing unprecedented environmental pressure and will continue to change until 2050 even if we meet targets to limit global warming, according to Marianne Kroglund from the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum addressing the challenges faced by Arctic governments and indigenous peoples.

The first step to improving something is measuring it, says Alicia Asín, co-founder of Spanish technology company Libelium. Image credit - Alicia Asin Perez
interview | ict
08 November 2018

How do we feed the world? The internet of things can help

Connecting objects and devices through the Internet of Things (IoT) can help solve the greatest challenges of our time, from cutting emissions to feeding a growing population, believes Alicia Asín, CEO and co-founder of Spanish technology company Libelium which makes IoT hardware. Asín was the second-place winner of the 2018 EU Prize for Women Innovators.

Through a project called CEMCAP, Kristin Jordal and her colleagues found that when it comes to cement production, 90% carbon capture is a realistic target. Image credit - Kristin Jordal
interview | environment
07 November 2018

To slash emissions, industries must capture carbon and store it

The technology to help limit global warming to 1.5˚C already exists, but there needs to be the will to use it, according to Kristin Jordal, an engineer and senior research scientist at the Norwegian research organisation Sintef.

Prof. Phil Howard says that bots and algorithms magnify the distribution of political propaganda. Image credit - Prof Howard
interview | ict
25 October 2018

Facebook and Twitter need a redesign to fight junk news

As the use of social media to spread misinformation soars, it’s time for companies such as Facebook and Twitter to redesign their platforms, says Professor Philip Howard, head of the Oxford Internet Institute, UK.

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