Health

Survival rates for cancer are improving, but it is still the leading cause of death by disease for those over one year of age in the European Union (EU). Could exercise hold one of the keys to combatting cancer?  And if so, how much physical activity is needed to show real benefits in both children and adults?

This month’s Horizon Magazine takes a look beneath our feet at the fascinating world of soils, a critical resource that is often overlooked, in every sense of the word. We speak to soil science expert Professor Claire Chenu on raising public awareness of the crucial role soils play in growing our food and maintaining life on the planet.  

Scientists believe they have cracked the question of how the malaria parasite keeps a low profile in infected people during the dry season in Africa in order to avoid immune attention and trigger outbreaks when the rains and mosquitoes return. The knowledge could open up new ways to combat the disease, which killed 409,000 people, mostly children, in 2019 alone.

The idea of cryogenically freezing a person to preserve their body until many years into the future has long been a staple of science fiction stories. However, the need to reliably store biological materials such as cells or tissue is a common concern for scientific research and, increasingly, for society too.

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are killing more people each year, but scientists are turning to their natural virus predators to treat infections, as well as new vaccines to prevent disease.

The current pandemic caught the world off guard but there are more to come, and we need to work out how to better prepare for and respond to future crises before they occur, an audience at the European Commission’s annual Research and Innovation Days conference has heard.

Viruses like Covid-19 make no distinction between those they infect. They should in theory cause disease in the rich just as they do the poor and pay no heed to social status or cultural background. But in practice the pandemic has widened the gulf between vulnerable groups and other populations in Europe rather than helping to level out inequalities in society, researchers warn.

Harmful bacteria found in chickens that can cause food poisoning outbreaks and devastate poultry flocks could be better controlled with innovative new solutions being developed by researchers.

Tiny nano-sized robots and vehicles that can navigate through blood vessels to reach the site of a disease could be used to deliver drugs to tumours that are otherwise difficult to treat.

Finding new viruses is easy – the hard part is understanding which ones cause disease, says Dr Lia van der Hoek, a virologist from the Amsterdam UMC, the Netherlands, who discovered a human coronavirus called NL63, in 2003.