Technology Spain  MADRID 25/02/2022

Enabling 6G: from low-power technologies for communication to machine learning analytics for privacy preservation

IMDEA Networks has recently been awarded the coordinated project ENABLE-6G of the national call UNICO 5G

IMDEA Networks has recently been awarded the coordinated project ENABLE-6G of the national call UNICO 5G. The project consists of two sub-projects, RISC-6G and MAP-6G, and it will be developed by a group of researchers led by Dr. Domenico Giustiniano and Dr. Joerg Widmer. This grant will allow the Institute to continue to do pioneering research in the field of networks and contribute to the development of the next generation of 6G technology.

 
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Health Portugal  PORTUGAL 18/02/2022

Tell me what you eat and I will tell you how your microbiota evolves

New study reveals how gut bacteria adapt and affect health in response to diet

New research reveals that diet can change the evolutionary path of bacteria in the gut, within host-relevant timescales. The study, published in Cell Host & Microbe, demonstrates how quickly Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron (B. theta), a prevalent bacterium in the human gut, acquires adaptive mutations in response to dietary changes. These findings show that acquisition of genetic changes can explain the observed microbiota-mediated negative effects that unbalanced diets have on host health.

 

 
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 15/02/2022

Eyes in the Sky: drones help solve tropical tree mortality mysteries

Understanding when and where trees die in vast tropical forests is a challenging first step toward understanding carbon dynamics and climate change

Imagine trying to understand how climate change affects vast tropical forests by determining how many trees die each year. Clouds get in the way of satellite views and on-the-ground estimates are expensive and impractical in remote areas. But researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) are excited by a new analysis that explains variation in tree mortality based on drone images of 1500 hectares of the most-studied tropical forest, Barro Colorado Island, in Panama.

 
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Social Sciences El Salvador  EL SALVADOR 15/02/2022

A genetic database to identify missing persons in El Salvador

The Central American country’s powerful database is essential to be able to identify victims and missing persons resulting from the civil war and also emigrants who lose their lives every year trying to cross the border between Mexico and the US

El Salvador, like other Central American countries, has suffered repression and human rights violations ever since colonial times. Indeed, social injustice in the country persisted and was a major trigger of the 1980-1992 armed conflict.

 

 
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Technology Spain  MADRID 11/02/2022

New computer vision system designed to analyse cells in microscopy videos

Analysis of biomedical videos captured automatically by microscopy

Researchers at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have developed a system based on computer vision techniques that allows automatic analysis of biomedical videos captured by microscopy in order to characterise and describe the behaviour of the cells that appear in the images.

 
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Health Portugal  PORTUGAL 10/02/2022

Identified the first patients with new rare disease caused by defects in cell division

Collaborative study between clinicians and researchers unravels mutations in the BUB1 gene responsible for developmental problems

A new study published in Science Advances described the first two patients known to have mutations in both copies of BUB1, a critical gene for cell division. Contrary to previous thoughts, these mutations are compatible with life albeit associated with developmental problems. The identification and clinical/molecular characterization of such mutations could improve the diagnosis of this rare neurodevelopmental disorder and the understanding of syndromes with similar features.

 

 
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Health Spain  ESPAÑA 04/02/2022

A mathematical model may help explain how blood circulates in the brain

UC3M research analyses the appearance of oscillations in flow networks

Research carried out by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) may help us better understand oscillations in blood flow that occur in the cerebrovascular network, thanks to a theoretical model that allows the flow and accumulation of fluid (in this case, blood) to be taken into account.

 
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Technology Spain  MADRID 31/01/2022

The AEPD awards its third consecutive data protection prize to IMDEA Networks researchers

The winning article is "50 Ways to Leak Your Data: An Exploration of Apps' Circumvention of the Android Permissions System"

The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has awarded the “Emilio Aced Research and Personal Data Protection Award” for the third consecutive time to a study conducted by IMDEA Networks’ Internet Analytics Group (IAG) led by Dr. Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez.

 

 
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 31/01/2022

'Squatina mapama', first report of an angel shark from the Central American Caribbean

Genetic analyses helped identify a new cryptic species of the genus Squatina from the Western Atlantic Ocean

Between 2010 and 2011, two research expeditions sponsored by the Spanish government exploring the biodiversity of benthic organisms —those living on the ocean floor— on Central America’s Pacific and Caribbean coasts, came across a new shark species. The Squatina mapama n. sp., collected off the Caribbean coast of Panama became the first record of an angel shark from the Central American Caribbean. A new paper co-authored by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute staff scientist, D. Ross Robertson, described and named it.

 

 
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Health Spain  MADRID 28/01/2022

Promotion of the reuse of scientific health data has been investigated

The UC3M is participating in the European FAIR4Health project

Facilitating and promoting that scientific health data is guided by the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). This is the objective of FAIR4Health, the European scientific project in which researchers from the UC3M have participated, with the aim of demonstrating the potential impact that such a strategy may have on improving various scientific results.

 
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Social Sciences Spain  MADRID 20/01/2022

A new digital gap in internet usage between rich and poor people has been detected

Social networks are used more often in poor neighbourhoods than in affluent neighbourhoods, while the latter tend to consume more information from traditional online media

Social networks are used more often in poor neighbourhoods than in affluent neighbourhoods, while the latter tend to consume more information from traditional online media. This is one of the conclusions of a scientific study undertaken by researchers at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), the IMDEA Networks Institute, and Orange Innovation which analyses the relationship between internet usage and variables such as education, income, or inequality in a specific area.

 

 
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 18/01/2022

A group of high school students describe how 'Azteca alfari' ants respond to damage to their host plant

Fortuitous discovery: accidental tree wound reveals novel symbiotic behavior

One afternoon, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Panama, a bored teenager with a slingshot and a clay ball accidentally shot entry and exit holes in a Cecropia tree trunk. These are “ant-plant” trees, which famously cooperate with fierce Azteca ants; the trees provide shelter and food to the ants, and in exchange the ants defend their leaves against herbivores. The next morning, to his surprise, the Azteca alfari ants living within the Cecropia trunk had patched up the wound.

 
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Space Chile  ATACAMA 17/01/2022

ALMA catches “intruder” redhanded in rarely detected stellar flyby event

While such intruder-based flyby events have previously been witnessed with some regularity in computer simulations of star formation, few convincing direct observations have ever been made

Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) made a rare detection of a likely stellar flyby event in the Z Canis Majoris (Z CMa) star system. An intruder—not bound to the system—object came in close proximity to and interacted with the environment surrounding the binary protostar, causing the formation of chaotic, stretched-out streams of dust and gas in the disk surrounding it.

 

 
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Technology Spain  MADRID 13/01/2022

A new biochip that reduces the cost of manufacturing in vitro skin has been developed

A device simplifies the process of manufacturing in vitro skin in the laboratory and other complex multi-layer tissues

Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and other entities have designed a new biochip, a device that simplifies the process of manufacturing in vitro skin in the laboratory and other complex multi-layer tissues. Human skin modelled using this device could be used in medicine and cosmetic testing, which would reduce the cost of these preclinical trials.

 
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 22/12/2021

Engineering drought-resistant plants may be more difficult than it seems

The adaptation of certain plants to drought and high temperatures involves a fundamental reprogramming of their metabolism, not just a simple adjustment that can be made by regular plants

Drought and high temperatures often cause significant yield losses in valuable food crops. As climate change increases the frequency of weather extremes, interest has been growing in bioengineering crop plants with the same drought-tolerance mechanisms present in plant species from very hot areas. But is it really possible to achieve this? Understanding the evolution of plants’ abilities to survive these extremes is part of a new study by Klaus Winter, senior staff scientist at Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and J. Andrew C. Smith at the University of Oxford. Their findings indicate that bioengineering drought-resistant plants may not be as easy as some scientists have proposed.

 

 
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Health Spain  MADRID 22/12/2021

An aptasensor has been designed to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in saliva

This sensor is more sensitive that antigen-based sensors and detects the virus more quickly and cheaply than PCR tests

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Technology Spain  MADRID 21/12/2021

Narseo Vallina-Rodríguez and Guillermo Suárez-Tangil, awarded Ramón y Cajal research grants

Two researchers from IMDEA Networks Institute receive grants from the most competitive call for proposals to attract talent from experienced researchers at the national level

IMDEA Networks researchers Narseo Vallina-Rodríguez, Research Associate Professor, and Guillermo Suárez-Tangil, Research Assistant Professor, have been awarded Ramón y Cajal grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. These grants promote the incorporation of national and foreign researchers with an outstanding career in R&D centers. They are grants for employment contracts, for the creation of permanent jobs, and their subsequent incorporation into the agents of the Spanish Science, Technology and Innovation System who are beneficiaries of these grants. This is a recognition of the work of technology transfer and the practical impact on society of institutions such as IMDEA Networks.

 

 
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Health Portugal  PORTUGAL 21/12/2021

Unfolding the blindness proteins through fly eyes

IGC and ITQB NOVA researchers identify a new production mechanism for a critical protein for vision in Drosophila fruit flies

Every 6 minutes someone is told they’re going blind. One of the major causes of human blindness is a disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), which causes progressive degeneration of the retina and vision loss. Approximately one-tenth of Retinitis Pigmentosa cases worldwide are caused by mutations in the rhodopsin gene. Researchers from ITQB NOVA and Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência had now identified a crucial mechanism for the production of Rhodopsin, the light-sensitive protein of photoreceptors, using fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) and human cells as models.

 

 
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Technology Spain  MADRID 15/12/2021

A study involving IMDEA Networks detects cheating in video games

Researchers have observed how the hackers have built a very active online community where they share knowledge and trade products and services

Cheats in video games occur frequently. However, in recent times the techniques for creating them have been perfected, acting in a similar way to malware, which makes the work of companies creating anti-cheat mechanisms more difficult. A group of international researchers, including IMDEA Networks professor Guillermo Suárez-Tangil, has conducted a study that helps game developers and the anti-cheat industry to identify attack vectors more quickly.

 

 
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 10/12/2021

Secondary forests restore fresh water sources in degraded landscapes

Analyses of microbial communities in streams across different land use types suggests that passive reforestation rapidly restores water quality in lowland tropical watersheds

New research, published in Scientific Reports by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) postdoctoral fellow Karina Chavarria and colleagues, shows that bacterial communities in streams adjacent to young secondary forests recover to resemble those of mature forest streams in as little as a decade after cattle has been removed from the land, and that these communities are robust throughout the year.

 

 
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