News

New molecules with many branches will help unleash potential of nanotechnology

Materials science and the pharmaceutical industry could soon be revolutionized by emerging nanotechnologies based on designer molecules with long complex tree-and branch structures. Such molecules offer almost limitless scope for design of bespoke compounds for specific applications in disease...

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Europe moves to strengthen its science and engineering labour base

The number of science graduates has been declining over most of Europe but there are no short-term solutions to reverse a trend that threatens the continent’s longer term prosperity and competitiveness. This established drain away from science and engineering taking place both at university level...

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European researchers harness unique properties of boron to develop new drugs and diagnostics

Researchers are on the verge of unleashing the power of the element boron in a new generation of drugs and therapies, as decades of research begins to bear fruit. Boron has to date far been one of biology’s best kept secrets, but is now attracting fast growing research interest and investment from...

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Cryopreservation techniques bring hopes to cancer victims and endangered species

Emerging cryopreservation techniques are increasing hope of restoring fertility for women after diseases such as ovarian cancer that lead to destruction of reproductive tissue. The same techniques can also be used to maintain stocks of farm animals, and protect against extinction of endangered...

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European group aims to make maths teaching more rigorous and inspiring

An attempt to re-energise mathematics teaching in Europe is being made in a new project examining a range of factors thought to influence achievement. Mathematics teaching is as vital as ever both in support of key fields such as life sciences, alternative energy development, or information...

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Unravelling the “Inconvenient Truth” of glacier movement

Predicting climate change depends on many factors not properly included in current forecasting models, such as how the major polar ice caps will move in the event of melting around their edges. This in turn requires greater understanding of the processes at work when ice is under stress,...

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Finding out what the big bang and ink jets have in common

ESF workshop tackles the mathematics of singularities

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European light research opens door for optical storage and computing

The goal of replacing electronics with optics for processing data in computers is coming closer through cutting edge European research into the mysterious properties of “fast and slow” light. The long term aim is to boost processing speeds and data storage densities by several orders of magnitude...

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Computation and experiment combine to unravel how genes are regulated and shed light on how cells become different

A closer alliance between computational and experimental researchers is needed to make progress towards one of biology’s most challenging goals, understanding how epigenetic marks contribute to regulation of gene expression. This emerged from a recent workshop organised by the European Science...

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Europe develops new technologies to boost health of livestock

A range of new technologies including genetic modification (GM) and RNA Interference are being deployed to improve the health of farm animals in a series of European and global initiatives. The ground was laid for a European platform to develop new treatments that exploit these technologies at a...

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