South Asian heritage citizens most likely to choose UK COVID vaccination

While it is important for students to work in groups during their studies, that is not enough for them to acquire many of the transversal skills needed in the professional world. A recent EPFL study highlights the need for engineering courses to explicitly address professional skills through a combination of theory and feedback.

University of Göttingen research team investigate microtubules Just as the skeleton and muscles move the human body and hold its shape, all the cells of the body are stabilised and moved by a cellular skeleton.

Properties of materials are often defined by imperfections in their atomic structure, especially when the material itself is just one atom thick, such as graphene. Researchers at the University of Vienna have now developed a method for controlled creation of such imperfections into graphene at length scales approaching the macroscopic world. These results, confirmed by atomically resolved microscope images and published in the journal Nano Letters, serve as an essential starting point both for tailoring graphene for applications and for the development of new materials.

EPFL engineers have developed a neural interface that disappears harmlessly in the body after several months and allows natural tissue to grow back. What's more, it can be implanted in a patient's blood vessel rather than inside the brain, thereby avoiding the need for invasive surgery.

Air levels of pollen and mold spores in the San Francisco Bay Area are elevated for about two more months per year than in past decades, and higher temperatures are to blame, a study has found. Bay Area allergy sufferers take note: Climate change has lengthened the local pollen and mold season by eight to nine weeks per year during the past two decades, according to a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

It could be a milestone on the path to detecting life on other planets: Scientists under the leadership of the University of Bern and of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS detect a key molecular property of all living organisms from a helicopter flying several kilometers above ground. The measurement technology could also open up opportunities for remote sensing of the Earth.

Once of interest only to enthusiasts, ETH Zurich's Entomological Collection now offers researchers a treasure trove of hidden knowledge.  

An earlier onset of disease and ageing in the most deprived could be linked to gut health and poor diet. A new, first-of-its-kind-study, led by the University of Glasgow and published in Scientific Reports, analysed the composition of microbes in the body and found that there was a higher amount of pathogenic - disease-causing - bacteria in those who were most biologically aged.