At the Las Matas train station in the town of Las Rozas, just north of the Spanish capital Madrid, life is going on as usual. The sound of a highway can be heard in the background as a train pulls in. On the roundabout in front of the station, a churros vendor is
Red, white, or rosé, sparkling or still, dry or fruity, wine is deeply embedded in European culture. But so are attempts to counterfeit good wines. Except that researchers have now created a smart system that could put an end to such transgressions. Countering the counterfeits Counterfeiting spirits and wine costs European businesses €1.3 billion
Central Macedonia, a region on the northern mainland of Greece, is an important producer of food. It generates a quarter of the country’s agricultural output and is the source of much of Greece’s table olives, peaches, wine and dairy products. But this productivity also results in large amounts of agricultural waste. EU-funded researchers
In 1998, in a small park in Zurich, Switzerland, one bug woke up in a new world. The bricks on the roof of a local garden, imported from China, had brought with them a hidden guest: a brown marmorated stink bug. Fast forward to 2024, and the species – Halyomorpha halys – has
On a Sunday evening in June 2022, a patient walked into a hospital in Rio de Janeiro. “I remember it very clearly,” says Mayara Secco, the doctor responsible for handling emergency cases that night. “The patient just returned from Europe and had a single lesion on his body. He didn’t have fever or
For Zoe Lefkofridi, a professor of politics and gender at the University of Salzburg in Austria, there cannot be real democracy without gender equality. But past progress cannot be taken for granted. Despite significant steps in Europe towards gender equality, opposition seems to be on the rise. “The EU has been a pioneer
EU-funded researchers are advancing new technology that allows them to monitor brain activity as the patient moves. Their work should pave the way for early detection of Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders affecting millions worldwide. Until recently, it was impossible to observe what is happening in the brain during movement. Standard brain
Dr Niels Rochow is a researcher and neonatologist at Klinikum Nürnberg, in Nürnberg, Germany, one of the largest municipal hospitals in Europe. His work, looking after newborns born early or with medical problems, keeps him very close to the topic of his research. He recalls a tense battle over the weekend to save a
From risottos to sauces, mushrooms have long been a staple in the kitchen. Now fungi are showing the potential to serve up more than just flavour – as a sustainable, bendy material for the fashion industry. Researchers are using the web-like structure of the mushroom’s root system – the mycelium – as an
Researchers in the education sphere benefit from collaboration and idea-sharing. cgstock/Shutterstock Mpho-Entle Puleng Modise, University of South Africa and Maureen Robinson, Stellenbosch University South Africa has for many years been a strong player in several areas of world-class research. Some of the country’s researchers have made major contributions in areas like the biomedical