The German company Sono Motors which makes electric cars with solar panels on the roof saw the bottom of the greenhouse come into view last year. More money had to be put on the table, but the founders were not in the mood for another round of private equity financing. The company therefore opted...
In the battle against breast cancer, the Department of Radiology at the University of Cambridge has developed a new type of MRI scan that allows doctors to see more accurately which parts of a tumour are active and which are not. It is called carbon-13 hyperpolarised imaging. A contrast dye...
Researchers from TU Eindhoven and TU Twente published a study in the Nature journal about the first building block for a new kind of self-learning system or computer which is inspired by the brain. That’s what the two universities announced on their website on Wednesday. One of the great...
Earthworms, polar bears, bees and buttercups. Which animals and plants are best equipped for climate change? Which species can adapt or migrate and which ones will simply disappear? This is a question that researchers at the Senckenberg und LOEWE-Zentrum für Translationale Biodiversitätsgenomik...
Germany is split on the subject of electromobility. On the one hand, “green scientists” are in a hurry to make the transition from combustion to electric motors. This is the only way to become CO2 neutral and the only way for the automotive industry to survive. On the other hand, there...
Australian and German researchers have applied for a patent for a new type of lithium-sulfur battery that is much lighter, cleaner and more powerful than the currently standard lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars and mobile phones. The universities involved are Monash from Australia, the...
A group of German scientists headed by the Leibniz-Institut DSMZ from Braunschweig succeeded for the first time in isolating the cucumber virus CABYV (Cucurbit Aphid-borne Yellows Virus). They hope to be able to take a step forward in controlling this very harmful disease that affects the cucumber...
This is the third article in a series about measures that Poland is taking against environmental pollution and global warming. Parts 1 and 2 appeared on the 29th and 30th of November. Poland is not exactly at the forefront when it comes to electric cars. In August of this year there were 6,672...
Most people wouldn’t have guessed it, but there is no other European country where electric buses for public transport are as popular as they are in Poland. An important reason for this is that Poland is itself a large manufacturer of electric buses. It is estimated that about a third of all...
This is the first part of a series about the measures that Poland is taking against environmental pollution and global warming. Tomorrow, part two will be devoted to the transition to electric buses in public transport. The sight of the Belchatów brown coal power station is both forbidding and...
Four school friends went off to Valencia for a study trip in April this year. They all jumped on an electric scooter for the first time in their lives and think: “Wow, this is fun. That’s what we need in the Netherlands too.” Half a year later they are the ones who break the...
The first presentation of the Alexander Dennis Enviro200 bus back in March already attracted a great deal of interest. Several videos of this autonomous bus were circulated on the internet. It is not the size of a slow moving minibus, but that of a real full-size city bus. The accelerator can be...
“Gas is sexy!” With these rather remarkable words, the German Minister of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier opened a meeting in Berlin last week intended to mark the culmination of months of dialogue between the Ministry and industry on the future of natural gas. Natural gas you say?...
Anyone who has entered the keywords “Bäume” and “sterben” (trees & dying) on the internet over the past few days will undoubtedly have been shocked to the core. Gluttonous beetles, fungi, caterpillars, forest fires, storms and drought have had a disastrous effect on the...
Innovation Origins will be joined by a new columnist this weekend: Floris Beemster (43) is an expert in the field of urban innovation and Germany. Beemster is working together with colleague Sophie Vaessen for the Dutch consultancy firm APPM in Berlin towards “a more beautiful...
It was cynicism that prevailed in recent days during the debate on the German climate deal (see summary of the deal below). It is striking that it is not only the usual suspects, such as environmental organizations and activists, who are labeling the agreement too soft. This criticism has also...
Herbi Clean has already got the local environment on its side. The Polish start-up is located in Bialystok, near the border with Belarus and the Białowieża National Park with one of the few and oldest low-altitude forests in Europe. The perfect spot for a manufacturer of cleaning products which...
“A ray of hope for German industry”, the German business newspaper Handelsblatt wrote last Tuesday when the German office for statistics announced that more orders had been placed than had been lost as of June 0.1%. However, this is by no means sufficient reason for celebration, says...
I’m sure it hasn’t eluded many people in the last few weeks. Germany is in danger of ending up in recession, and the government in Berlin is not doing enough to prevent it. According to the critics, there is too much fixation on reducing the government’s debt, while in the...
The road is more or less made for it: one long straight stretch measuring 600 meters, with a green strip in the middle of the first few hundred meters which neatly separates the traffic to and from the harbor. Many cars do not drive there on the ‘Am Tegeler Hafen’ road as it is. It is...
At Innovation Origins you are used to receiving the latest news about all kinds of technological innovations, discoveries and successful startups, especially in Europe. Macroeconomic forecasts tend to play a less important role. Nevertheless, economic conditions in a country, region or city are of...
Lower costs have always led to major breakthroughs in the automobile industry.Think about the T Ford for instance, the first car for a wider public; the Volkswagen Beetle; or the Citroën 2CV (deux chevaux). A lot of people become overjoyed when they get to drive a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, but in...
“Don’t talk too loudly or move too fast”, whispers Professor Tim Landgraf from the Freie Universtät Berlin. “Otherwise the fish will freak out.” He has just pulled up a large curtain which is surrounding a big tank with four small fish. Well, there are three of them,...
It is a problem that sailors are all too familiar with. Every few years their boat needs to be taken out of the water because the cargo area is covered in algae, mussels and other underwater creatures that slow down and damage the ship. Nothing but scratching, burning, sanding and re-applying the...
MBraun’s representative looks pleased as he watches his “Glove Box” being used in practice. It has large glass cabinets with rubber arms to allow the employees of the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB) to work in a sterile environment. A young researcher is mirroring two solar cells...