An eco-friendly method of preventing corrosion in major infrastructure could help reduce environmental pollution, protect maintenance workers and save Europe billions of euro in repairs.
Innovative machine tool ‘joints’ developed in the EU-funded PoPJim project can tune-out the vibrations that cause material and productivity losses. Manufacturers can expect a long-sought competitive edge as the technology moves towards commercialisation in the coming years. Testing has already shown a two to three-fold productivity boost for certain tooling jobs.
If you’ve ever been stuck on the motorway in a tailback of polluting heavy goods vehicles, then you’ll welcome this EU-funded project to reduce the burden of freight on the roads by moving it to rail with a new loading system. The method, which also saves rail freight companies both time and money, is already being introduced in one Italian port.
The world's oceans are veritable power houses. If we could harness the forces of their waves and tides on a large scale, they could provide a considerable amount of sustainable electric power. An innovative offshore test facility developed with EU funding and already on the market is taking us one step closer to that goal.
The findings of one of the largest ever EU-funded social research projects will help key decision-makers design effective employment policies and ensure Europe’s workforce is equipped to meet 21st century labour demands.
An EU-funded project shows that alternative propulsion systems and new hull designs could improve the efficiency of ships and barges by at least 15%. More efficient vessels will help to keep prices – and emissions – down.
An EU-funded project has developed the first terahertz scanners for non-destructive testing of aeroplane parts. Outperforming existing technologies, these systems detect small defects on and deep within composite materials – improving safety in the air and helping manufacturers and airline operators optimise maintenance and lower costs.
If you live or work in a city centre, you will know how stressful constant traffic noise can be. But adaptations to roads, tyres, vehicles and urban planning could reduce traffic noise to less than one-tenth current levels in towns and cities, say EU researchers. They have paved the way by developing an approach – along with new designs for road surfaces and tyres – to turn the volume down.
One quarter of breast cancer cases belong to two subtypes that are difficult to treat. EU-funded researchers are identifying new therapeutic targets for these patient groups. The research has already led to new diagnostic tools, while patients are already being enrolled for clinical trials.
Researchers are blazing a trail towards personalised medicine in cancer care. This will mean the provision of new immunotherapy treatments targeting some of the most complicated conditions. In line with this approach an EU-funded project is developing new technologies to help doctors provide targeted, individual treatments. It has so far conducted clinical trials involving eight melanoma patients to demonstrate the potential of this approach.
How can we make predictions of people’s activities based on internet links? What can we learn from patterns of usage on the internet? The EU’s NADINE project is establishing algorithms and methods of analysing activities online that will shine a light on relationships between subjects, countries and even trading commodities.
The melt rate of Europe’s snowy peaks and glacial lakes can have a huge impact on both daily activities and planning in many countries. EU-funded researchers have developed applications that use satellite data to tell them just that, in close to real time.
Donated organs are a rare and precious gift — but, unfortunately, some can’t actually be used because they don’t offer much hope of a successful transplant. An EU-funded research project focusing on kidneys and livers has set out to improve the odds.
Diamonds – highly desirable lumps of carbon. But while their use to jewellers is well known, their hidden secrets are being revealed by the DIADEMS project. By modifying the structure of a diamond crystal, the project creates a new material that could be used in applications, from the creation of smart medicines to the next generation computers. The EU project is helping Europe stay at the forefront of research into atomic scale sensors.
The Antilope project's final conference and handover workshop took place on 29 January 2015 in Ghent in front of a packed and engaged audience. There was good feedback, lively discussions and an agreement on the required next steps to take Antilope's work on European eHealth interoperability forward.
Solar eruptions release huge amounts of energetic particle radiation. While most of these events will only affect satellites and other spacecraft, particularly large eruptions will also make themselves felt on Earth – in aviation and radio communication, for example. The EU-funded SEPServer project has developed a web-based tool to help scientists investigate solar energetic particles (SEP) and their origin.
The challenges affecting a regional sea cannot be tackled effectively by individual countries acting alone. Nor can they be addressed without a thorough understanding of the relevant facts and processes. The states bordering the Baltic Sea are cooperating in a joint research programme to provide policy-makers with the information they need to achieve greater sustainability.
Technology capable of quickly detecting the tiniest of flaws in automotive parts could help reduce production stoppages and costly vehicle recalls. The next step is to create new opportunities for SMEs by bringing this innovation to market.
Tales of invincible ‘super rats’ sweeping across towns and cities are no longer so far from the truth. There are around 60 billion rats on the planet – eight rats for every human! One pair can produce 3 650 young in a year, and each new generation is more resistant than the last to every pest controller’s most powerful weapon: rat poison.
European researchers report a breakthrough technique paving the way for the first-ever stem cell-derived brain cell transplantations in people with Parkinson’s disease. Meanwhile, research on brain cell reprogramming is moving towards potential application for Huntington’s disease.
