ResearchPod

The actions of humans are typically influenced by societal norms and mainstream trends that are passed down from generation to generation, shaping our life choices and behavioural patterns. 

Jean-Paul Close, founder of the STIR Foundation and AiREAS, experienced the breaking of heritage and the revival of core human values first-hand, after he chose to resign from an international executive job at a multinational company to stay close to his children. In his recent publications, he reflects on the voluntary shift towards ethical choices and sustainable development, using his personal experience and the transformation of a European city as examples.

Read the original article:  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41606-4_4

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Joint manipulation, applying a manipulation force to the spine to improve joint mobility and reduce pain, often comes with an audible pop. Patients and some practitioners often regard this audible sound as a sign of a successful treatment, but is that necessarily true?

Dr Rob Sillevis at Florida Gulf Coast University conducted a comprehensive investigation to find out whether this audible pop has a clinical significance and an actual or perceived benefit on the body. 

Read the original article: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.17622

Read more in Research Outreach

We increasingly rely on electronic communications across society. You may have heard privacy protection methods for those messages, such as end-to-end encryption. However, can that protection be guaranteed against governments, industries or bad actors?

How can we ensure privacy, but at the same time have the means to enforce laws and prevent malicious behaviour, and how do we develop cryptography law?

Professor Moti Yung and colleagues at the Privacy, Security, and Safety Research Group at Google LLC and at Columbia University, USA, have conceptualised ‘anamorphic’ cryptography,  and have also been recognised for their contributions to the so-called ‘Crypto Wars’ debate,

Read the original article: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_2

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Helium nanodroplets are fascinating objects that can be used as microscopic laboratories to form new types of nanomaterials.

Researchers in COSY COST Action’s Working Group 4 , which recently celebrated its second anniversary, combine quantum, semiclassical and classical methods to investigate the physico-chemical properties of these droplets under extremely well-controlled conditions

Visit their site: https://cost-cosy.eu/

Read the original research:

• https://doi.org/10.1039/D3CP00489A
• https://doi.org/10.1039/D3CP01303K
• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2024.07.425
• https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.013019

A nanoparticle is a tiny particle typically in the size range of one to one hundred nanometres. Nano-scale systems can exhibit unique quantum mechanical properties due to their size. 

The European Association for Cooperation in Science and Technology, which recently celebrated its second anniversary, focuses on the science of confined molecular systems. In this episode, we hear about their works to uncover the properties and behaviours of metal nanoparticles and clusters.

Visit their site: https://cost-cosy.eu/

Read the original research:

https://doi.org/10.1002/sstr.202400147

https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/chem.202301517

 https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/cp/d2cp05843j

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acscatal.3c02592

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021951723000842

https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c03923

On most days, a weather forecast is a convenient answer to simple questions, like : do I need an umbrella? How windy will it be?  

For high stakes questions around landslide hazards, how do we deal with slope failure forecast? And are there any new tools improving our capabilities without waiting to learn from another disaster?

Andrea Manconi, research scientist at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF joins us to discuss new satellite dataand methods to get ahead of the next slope collapse.

Read the original paper: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3833-2024

Osteoarthritis is the most common disease in the world, characterised by the progressive degeneration of cartilage in the joints.

Dr Torbjörn Ogéus from the Stockholms led- & smärtspecialist clinic in Sweden, who is pioneering regenerative medicine approaches to treating osteoarthritis using patients’ stem cells. These treatments show significant improvements in pain and joint function, with possible cartilage regeneration, offering a potential cure and vast improvement in the quality of life for millions of people.

Read the original research: https://doi.org/10.26502/josm.511500152

Find out more in Research Outreach

Transportation is a key part of our life, either travelling ourselves or in transporting goods. Fossil fuels are still the most widely applied fuel for transportation purposes, given that the vast majority of engines are traditional combustion engines. The harmful emissions from these engines are well researched, and their direct or indirect contributions to climate change are well documented.

Alternative fuels from renewable sources such as biomass can be part of the solution. Dr Ruoyang Yuan and Dr Abdallah Abu Saleh at the University of Sheffield, UK, have been assessing emissions by alternative fuels. The team measured the production of oxides and soot from dimethyl ether and isopentanol, with promising results.

Read the original research: https://doi.org/10.3389/ffuel.2023.1296502

Find more in Research Features

For millennia, humans and horses have enjoyed a special relationship. Recent research shows that working with horses can improve human mental health and wellbeing.

Professor Ann Hemingway is part of a multidisciplinary team that has demonstrated that equine-assisted services can improve outcomes for families impacted by domestic abuse and mitigate the conditions that fuel it, and believes that the benefits of such an intervention could be delivered through virtual reality technology.

Read the original research : https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9060303

Read more in Research Outreach

We humans share over 99% of our DNA with each other. This means personalised therapies for diseases such as cancer or neurodegenerative conditions have to be tailored to the most minute differences between us - or even between our own cells. 

Professor Mark Ebbert of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky leads a lab focusing on isoforms of RNA - tiny, short lived molecules - that could open whole new avenues for detection, diagnosis, and treatments of otherwise incurable diseases.

Read the original research: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.06.552162

Find more at The Ebbert Lab