European Union News - Research & Innovation

European researchers have created a driver-assistance system which gives cars the 'intelligence' they need to respond to their surroundings and differentiate between fog and darkness. The envelope aims to develop an inexpensive optical sensor system for the wind-shields of small and medium-sized cars which, according the researchers, will help reduce the number of accidents on the roads.

With the help of European funds, a team of German and Italian scientists has developed a new research with peptides that act by a novel inhibitory mechanism and curb cancer cell growth in drug resistant ovarian cancer cells. The scientists point their research will go a long way to helping the some 200,000 women who are diagnosed annually worldwide with ovarian cancer.

A team of EU-funded scientists from Spain and France has developed a new method of magnetic data writing. This study proposes to eliminates the need for cumbersome magnetic fields and provides extremely simple and reversible writing of memory elements, by injecting an electric current parallel to the plane of a magnetic bit. The researchers team outline how their method could help tackle problems for physicists and engineers as well as meet changing market requirements.

A new European study shows how an organism has the capacity to create a biological memory of a variable factor like temperature or nutrition. According to the research team, the environment of an individual can actually affect the biology of physiology of their offspring but there is no change to the genome sequence.

An EU-funded study is working to analyse whether robots and computers have the capacity to do the same thing and then, to develop sophisticated computer vision systems capable of recognising facial expressions. Progressing on recognising facial expressions by computers will serve to develop the next generation of life-changing software and robots and there will be the opportunity to create socially aware companion robots and graphical characters.

The European Commission wants to encourage the participation of women in innovative enterprises. With the EU Prize for Women Innovators, three women innovators will be rewarded for their hard work and success on Europe's research scene, developing, managing and commercialising the results. The condition to apply is that at some point during their careers women were or have been beneficiaries of EU funding for projects under the RTD Framework Programme (FP) or the Competitive and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).

New research shows that the Foxp2 gene, which is known for its involvement in speech and language in humans, helps control the brain's neural wiring. The findings help elucidate how the gene directs particular features of the development of the nervous system, helping bridge the gap between genes and complex aspects of brain function. The current study provides the most thorough characterisation of Foxp2 target pathways to date. It offers a number of compelling new candidate genes that could be investigated in people with language problems.

The ITFOM ('IT [information technology] future of medicine') project works in developing an innovative European network for personalised health care which could revolutionise health care. In addition, it could suppose a save on the health-care costs.

According to the outcome of the Virobathe research, in almost 40% of more than 1,400 bathing water samples collected from coastal and inland areas in nine European countries, there were viruses discovered. While the concentrations are low, the research suggested that the presence of infectious adenoviruses and noroviruses in water samples could pose a risk to health.

Among the projects launched under the FP7 2012 call for proposals, the European Commission has opened a call for open access to primary environmental data. The aim of this study is to explore in a comparative manner across environmental science disciplines, the main barriers and opportunities related to open access (free of charge online access) to primary environmental data, notably from EU-funded projects but also taking into account national and local data.