Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC)

Portland General Electric and NEC have joined forces to declare North America’s first public-use, quick-charge station for electric vehicles open for business. Heralded as a tipping point for the roll-out of electric vehicles in the U.S., the Takasago Rapid Charging Station is said to provide batteries with up to 80 per cent full strength in

Neuropixels probes represent a significant advance in measurement technology and will allow for the most precise understanding yet of how large networks of nerve cells coordinate to give rise to behavior and cognition. Neuroscientists who want to follow the nervous system’s cellular conversations will soon have access to easy-to-use technology that simultaneously monitors neural activity

It has very low running costs and operates without the use of consumables   A Hydro-Electric Power Worldwide project by Joe Spiteri Sargent of Fgura has won the National Energy Globe Award for Malta for 2012. The award will be presented to Mr Spiteri Sargent on 5 June to coincide with World Environment Day. The

In the quest to harvest light for electronics, the focal point is the moment when photons — light particles — encounter electrons, those negatively-charged subatomic particles that form the basis of our modern electronic lives. If conditions are right when electrons and photons meet, an exchange of energy can occur. Maximizing that transfer of energy

Research conducted at Leiden has established that guts-on-chips respond in the same way to aspirin as real human organs do. This is a sign that these model organs are good predictors of the effect of medical drugs on the human body. Publication in Nature Communications on 15 August. A method to test medical drugs for

The quadrotors are small surveillance robots AS THE violins soar, a lone dancer lopes gracefully across the stage of the Joyce Theatre in New York. But this is no solo. Two UFOs playfully chase him and swoop through the air around him. Modern dance and robotics may seem an unlikely combination, but this summer a

As the Greek economy maintains its slide towards default and the global climate continues to change for the worse, one organisation, writing in Biotropica, has come up with some novel answers to both problems. Reforest the country to offset historic deforestation and reintroduce long extinct animals such as lions, boosting the economy through eco-tourism. The

Adding probiotics to bees’ food helps make them more resistant to nosemosis, a fungal infection associated with colony collapse disorder that has been observed in Europe and North America over the past 20 years. Probiotics can decrease the mortality rate of this infection in bees by up to 40%, report researchers at Université Laval in the