CORDIScovery – unearthing the hottest topics in EU science, research and innovation
Episodes
1. It’s not waste until it’s wasted!
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This special episode of CORDIScovery comes to you from the EU’s Researchand Innovation Days. Moving from a linear model to a circular economy can le...
Pushing back the boundaries of research with AI
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence: are we heading for a dystopic future, or one in which a labour force is relieved from menial tasks?Machine learning is second...
When it comes to dinosaurs, was Orwell right?
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In his novel Animal Farm, Orwell’s character claims: “Four legsgood, two legs bad.” Would the tyrannosaurs agree? Or did bipedalism give them an...
Turning to nature for urban solutions
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
About three quarters of the population in the EU are urbanites. Are you living in an inclusive area, with parks and public spaces you and the other lo...
Knowledge, capital and labour – networks of exchange
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From early economic activity along the Silk Road to modern-day Brazil, what are the unexpected impacts of the movement of labour and the flow of capit...
Meeting the challenges of cyber disinformation
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Remember when you could wander around the internet, fairly confident that what you were looking at was probably reliable? Over the years it seems that...
Cricket burgers – shaking up the protein supply chain
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melted cheese over a burger – is your stomach rumbling? How about making that cheese from plant protein and the burger from insects? We need to dev...
Fires, asteroids and chemical agents – new tools to keep us safer
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What can surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy tell us about the presence of novichok? How can we improve our understanding of how asteroids respond to ...
Turning back the tide of biodiversity loss
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What can we do to save species under threat from climate change and human encroachment? From the oceans to the forests, today we look at how vital evi...
New horizons in robotics
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Assistive tech, preventing injury at work and biomimetics feeding into the design of future robotic systems – listen on to find out more about the r...
Saving lives by tackling malaria
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why is it so hard to find a vaccine that works well against placental malaria? Ever thought about the challenges of irradiating 300 mosquitoes a secon...
Hidden interactions
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Leafcutter ants assiduously farming fungus, bumblebees picking up tiny amounts of electricity given off by flowers – all part of an invisible tapest...
Mind-reading
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When you play paper rock scissors, do you try and second-guess your opponent’s next move? This episode looks at mind-reading, and we also have some ...
Space: delving into our dynamic universe
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Could the swirling dust storms on Mars impact on space exploration? Could a theory on the origins of life on Earth reveal if there has ever been life ...
Culture: the past gives up its secrets
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We see cultural artefacts, hear music composed centuries ago and, if we are lucky, get to handle pieces that were created by long-forgotten makers. Bu...
A new age of personalised treatment for prostate cancer
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Computational power, AI, genomics: the treatment and diagnosis of prostate cancer is advancing rapidly. This episode finds out how. A leap forward i...
21st century solutions for the construction sector
07 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Printed buildings, energy from atmospheric humidity, earthquake resilience – some of the novel ideas taking age-old construction techniques and maki...
Democracy, a right worth defending
06 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Democracy is a collective achievement and 2024 has been called its biggest year. Europeans go to the polls in June, to vote for their representatives ...
Premature birth
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
About 500 000 babies are born early in Europe every year, for some the condition is fatal. Complications relating to being born prematurely are the l...
Food – a catalyst for change
08 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Did the ability to feed babies porridge help to fuel the population explosion seen in the Neolithic period? Did people take to the seas far earlier th...
Fisheries of the future
19 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss are all threatening our sustainable use of marine resources – at the same time we need seafood. It’...
Celebrating women in science
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What do a mathematician, a palaeontologist and a researcher considering the rehabilitation of multiple sclerosis patients have in common? All three ar...
Adapting to climate change in Europe
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Climate change is here: so what are we doing to meet the challenges in Europe? Ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 28, we will ...
Portable power: batteries of the future
20 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you use a car, a phone or want to see more renewable energy sources in our electricity supply then listen on – this episode is for you. We need s...
The wonderful world of the gut microbiome
25 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The diverse realm of microorganisms that plays a vital role in our digestion, interacts with our brain chemistry, and even influences our immune syste...
Pandemics: learning from the past – anticipating the future
26 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We hit the ground running in the COVID pandemic: EU support for scientific research helped projects develop responses rapidly and effectively. Which m...
Safety at sea
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Energy, world grain supplies, consumer goods – so much more: ships transport a remarkable 90 per cent of the world’s commodities. As the UN’s Se...
Biofuels: from waste to energy
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The United Nations report, published in March 2023, is very clear, it says: “ (…) keeping warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels requires d...
Soil quality and food security
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From satellites observing Earth, to roots and the microbes that surround them: Today we are looking at soil and how our food security depends on its h...
Water: quality and supply
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
22 March is United Nations World Water Day, so this episode of CORDIScovery is on water: its quality and security of supply. We will travel from the h...
Advances in forensics
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
New technologies, existing technologies applied to new challenges, understanding the role of cross-cultural influences in eyewitnesses’ examinations...
Citizen science - engagement and empowerment
16 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Enthusiasts, people with hobbies, with spare time or concerned about their environment – you and me: all of us are potential collectors of data and ...
Magic tricks for crows: how animals experience the world
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Perform a magic trick for a member of the crow family and it will show how startled it is by the unexpected. Crows are known for being the Einsteins o...
Smart textiles – engineering by design
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Wearables have become ‘must have’ fashion – how can we make assistive technology as desirable? The most sophisticated device is useless if it is...
Cutting Waste
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Recycling targets across the EU have been increased, the aim is now 55 % by weight from 2025, and 65 % for packaging waste. The target climbs every 5 ...
Bio-inspired innovation
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
100 000 starlings move in unison against an autumn sky – not one collides; fireflies light up a wood in Borneo flashing in perfect synchronicity; ba...
Fighting the spread of Tuberculosis
14 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tuberculosis (TB) is preventable and curable, and yet 9 900 000 people fell ill with the disease in 2020 and 1.5 million died. This episode is looking...
Bees – from evolution to artificial intelligence
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Does a bee’s gut influence its sociability? Can a plant deter pests and attract pollinators at the same time? And with bee populations under threat,...
Drones in industry: technical challenges, practical benefits
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What do turbine blades high above the ocean and the bowels of a cargo ship have in common? The inspection vital to keeping both safe and functioning c...
Violence – triggers and perspectives
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From the domestic to the international, how can we anticipate, mitigate, and come to terms with violence? This episode of CORDIScovery looks at how vi...
Volcanoes – Nature’s architects
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Let’s talk volcanoes! Are we close to being able to monitor and predict volcanic activity in real time? In this episode of CORDIScovery we take a lo...
ICT: exploring the benefits
17 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Finding missing children with real-time input and geofencing, helping a visually impaired person navigate a challenge that crops up in their daily liv...
The medical arms race: overcoming microbial resistance
18 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, organisms are developing, and our bid to counter that with new ways of controlling them, is like an arms race –...
Cloth, glass and stone: Innovation and cultural connections in the middle ages
25 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The past is shadowy but the objects that mattered to the societies that came before us illuminate those who produced and used them. So, in this episod...
Philosophy of science: the energy and excitement of curiosity
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From rabbits plucked out of hats to dark matter, how do we comprehend the inexplicable or the unobservable? What do particle physicists and a magician...
Another small step: A new age of Solar System exploration
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What can distant planets and their satellite moons tell us about the origins of life on Earth? Is there enough water on the moon to support longer, ma...
Ready Player... You? Welcome to the Virtual Reality revolution
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Virtual reality – just another bone of contention between screen-addicted adolescents and their frazzled parents? Or can the inherent characterist...
EU researchers tackle pollution
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In many areas the pandemic has reduced our impact on the natural environment, but what happens when we emerge from the restrictions and fire up our ec...
Innovations in European healthcare in the wake of COVID-19
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Healthcare professionals working flat out for a year, living through experiences nothing could really prepare them for; health systems stressed to bre...
The new synergies of shopping
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Shopping: can robot assistants woo shoppers back to the post-pandemic high street? A cashless society – the term resonates more than ever as people ...
The future of aviation
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The pros and contrails of flight – The aviation sector is indispensable, but how can we reduce its environmental impact? This episode talks to three...
Biodiversity
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the very first episode of CORDIScovery, where we’re taking an in-depth look at the drive to maintain healthy ecosystems and biodiversity ...