Science

Mass evictions, daily power outages, and pitch-black streets at night: the challenges that people in the Global South face remain largely overlooked. How can satellite imagery uncover the hidden realities of urbanisation? Prof. Dr. Monika Kuffer’s research strives to spotlight urban inequalities and prompt policymakers to take action.

The switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy is going to need some nifty technology that depends on chemical elements that we have not used much before, and most of these come from minerals in rocks in the Earth’s crust. Five of these minerals stand out as Earth’s potential lifesavers.

Ensuring access to specialist care at peak periods is challenging, especially in sparsely populated areas with fewer available healthcare specialists. Project BRIDGE tries to tackle this issue in an unconventional way: hospitals in the German-Dutch border region are joining forces to share healthcare personnel. As simple as this sounds, is it so in practice?

The province of Overijssel is known for its robust agricultural and animal-farming activities. But the bustling livestock farms come with a cost. The animals produce an overwhelming amount of manure, leading to water pollution and harmful emissions. But what if this ‘waste’ could become a source of energy?

We are living in the Plastic Age, such is the ubiquity of plastics in our lives. The plastic waste in water ecosystems alone is expected to nearly triple from 11 million tonnes in 2016 to 29 million tonnes in 2040*. Biodegradable materials, such as polylactic acid, are seen as an alternative for use in packaging, agriculture, and medical devices. But how biodegradable are these materials in reality? Could they be the plastics of the future?