Have you ever wondered why our world is green? For decades, the most accepted answer has been that predators control herbivores, allowing plants to flourish. But is that really so? ERC grantee Katerina Sam at the Biology Centre of the Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic is testing novel aspects of this ‘green world hypothesis’ to get a more realistic answer. Her work has important implications for protecting our planet’s biodiversity.
Chemical reactions are at the core of industrial processes. They are provoked to produce new molecules that will confer the desired properties to products from medicine, to cleaning agents or to fuel. With ERC funding, Prof. Jana Roithova has developed a powerful instrument for chemical analysis that could, in the long run, bring completely new ideas or design for chemical production processes.
Significant changes in woodland vegetation pose a long-term threat to native flora and fauna. To understand the functioning of current ecosystems, we need detailed knowledge on management history and on the driving forces of historical forest changes. Portrait: © Martin Rychlik, LN Image: © Radim Hédl
Toxic spills can be devastating to humans, animals and to the ecosystem The ERC-funded project CHOBOTIX has successfully created the first prototypes of chemical robots that could serve for "Intelligent Cleaning". These tiny robots could have applications in various fields, from seeking out a source of contamination and neutralise it in toxic waters to treating patients in a more efficient way by delivering them the exact amount of drug without dosing the whole body of patients.
