We know nutrients interact with gut cells , which dispatch chemical messengers – hormones– to the brain to signal “stomach full.” This messaging from our food to gut to brain is now being decoded to fight obesity.

Managing research in Europe today requires a range of skills and abilities. Balancing aspects of scientific research, team management, logistics, dissemination and, sometimes, politics, is not an easy task.

EU legislation distinguishes between plant food supplements and traditional herbal medicinal products , but this categorisation can vary between countries. This can lead to consumer confusion and regulatory inconsistency across Europe.

Our attraction to foods bloated with energy has made excess body weight increasingly common, particularly in the West. Hence, people’s health has been affected.

Artificial noses have, until now, been used to detect diseases such as urinary tract infection, Helicobacter pylori, tuberculosis, ear, nose and throat conditions and even lung cancer.

New air pollutant emission targets have just been introduced in the EU. Chance of meeting these new targets has recently been tremendously improved by considerable progress on how emissions from different sources are measured and estimated.

It was developed under the €2.88 million EU funded Digital Environment Home Energy Management System ( DEHEMS ) project. A number of plug-in home energy monitoring meters are already available on the market.

If you have been left high and dry by your iPad battery and unable to recharge it, you see  the problem. High tech gadgets, electronic appliances and electric cars have a well-know downside: sooner or later, you need to look for a plug - and a power grid- to keep them alive.

Prof. Steve Tennison, MAST Carbon’s director, has recently decided to establish a spin out company to commercialize biomedical carbons to the market.

You and colleagues have done research suggesting different ways to lower CO2 emissions in the transport sector.  What are the greatest challenges? We made the point that you have to act across a number of policy areas, including vehicle technologies and also travel behaviours.

UK based MAST Carbon has received such service and its new biomedical carbons will soon reach the market through the EU-funded the ProNano project.

These molecules have a curious relationship with water. One part of the molecule is hydrophilic, so it attracts water molecules. The other part is hydrophobic, so it pushes them away.

Organisms, such as algae and barnacles, sticking to the lower structure of ships are increasing the required propulsive power. It is estimated that ships’ fuel consumption could be reduced by up to forty percent by removing those organisms.

A cantilever is a very thin single needle currently used for quality control at the nanoscale, but to improve and speed up the process scientists are developing an array of needles, a cantilever array, functioning simultaneously.

One of the brains behind the invisible cloak is Professor Sir John Pendry at Imperial College London. “The cloak design has been around since 2006 when David Smith and I published our paper, but the first implementations were for radar waves.

This is a breakthrough in the struggle against the increasingly resistant malaria parasite and the search for improved drugs and effective vaccines.

The new composite material contains double the volume of glass fibres compared to common composites and thus is extremely stabile.

There are 5 582 000 kilometres of road network in the European Union that have to be kept up. A never ending task regarding the damages caused annually. Repairing potholes, car ruts and cracks disturbs the flow of traffic.

Extremely hot or cold periods are a serious problem to road surfaces: many cracks, potholes and car ruts are the consequence.

The idea is that all vehicles and road infrastructure such as road signs, parking spaces or tolling stations will communicate with each other to create and share new kind of travel and traffic information.