CORDIScovery – unearthing the hottest topics in EU science, research and innovation

Are there as many swifts darting over your head as there have been in past summers? What about the swallows, are they coming back to the old buildings around you and are you tripping over sparrows on the pavements? Still being woken up by the dawn chorus – or is it quieter than it was a few years back?
Understanding and conservation go hand in hand and our three guests, with the help of EU research and innovation funding, are researching birds – their behaviours and how to help them survive.
David Wheatcroft is a behavioural ecologist and anassociate professor at Stockholm University’s Department of Zoology. He is keen to establish how vocal learning in birds leads to song differences across populations and species.
Damien Farine is associate professor at the Australian National University, and an affiliated scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. He is intrigued by the interplay between collective behaviour and the environment.
Nastasja Scholz is a geophysicist and senior scientist at LUP, an SME which specialises in landscape planning, nature conservation and environmental remote sensing. She is particularly interested in collaborating with dedicated people from various disciplines to explore ways to improve protection and restoration measures benefiting birds.

Many of us are looking around ourselves uneasily at the idea of the amount of nano and microplastics in our environment, so if you are asking yourself what the impact might be, listen on.
Talking to us today about the environmental impact of these particles and how they are interacting with our bodies at a cellular level, are our three guests, all of whom have been supported by the EU’s research and innovation funding:
Luca Nizzetto is chief scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research, in Oslo. He has coordinatedpioneering international research on plastic pollution in agricultural ecosystems, revealing the widespread occurrence of microplastics and their impact on soil fertility and crops.
Alba Hernández Bonilla is a professor of Genetics and the leader of the Mutagenesis Group at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is particularly interestedin how emerging contaminants may contribute to long-term human health effects.
Mark Morrison is a senior consultant with Optimat, in Glasgow. Morrison is interested in how the bacteria and other contaminants get into our bodies by riding on the outside of plastic micro(nano) particles, and what they get up to once they are there!

Spotting the difference between flour and cocaine – powerful new detectors are around the corner.
The volume of small packages coming into the EU has doubled every year since 2022. In 2024 alone, 4.6 billion small packages entered the EU market. Add in all shipping containers from all over the world and you can see what customs officials are up against.
Which is why the work being done by our three guests, supported by EU research and innovation funding, is more important than ever.
Siiri Salupere is a research fellow in Radiation Protection at the University of Tartu in Estonia where she focuses on ionising radiation and cosmic rays for security applications.
Tarvo Metspalu is a product development engineer at GScan in Estonia where he reviews hardware designs and machine learning data pipelines. He has been working on developing a more portable and efficient analysis and detection device for customs.
Marco Paleari is a research and innovation project manager at the ‘AI data for digital defence’ unit at ENG, Italy. Paleari has combined innovative approaches to develop highly sensitive scanners.

A good way to understand what’s coming is to look at what happened in the past – so what can prehistoric polar ice tell us about future sea level rise?
The highly uncertain behaviour of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets will dominate the future of sea level rise: land ice loss and ocean thermal expansion contribute equally. Our three guests, all of whom have received support from EU research and innovation funding, have been working on improving our understanding of these interactions.
Eric Wolff is an honorary fellow at the British Antarctic Survey, who studies past climate and environment, mainly from Antarctic and Greenland ice cores. He is a Royal Society research professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge.
Alessio Rovere, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics at Ca’Foscari University of Venice, is interested in palaeo climate and sea level changes.
A director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Gaël Durand specialises in the modelling of polar ice sheets and the dynamics of coastal glaciers, with a focus on their impact on sea level rise.
For more info, visit: Rising sea levels – more data for better modelling.

Obesity and being overweight is impacting children in the EU, and worldwide, at epidemic levels: in some countries nearly 40 % of children are affected. The International Diabetes Federation projects the number of people in the EU, with the condition, will rise to over 72 million by 2050.
How can we stem the tide? All three of our guests have beensupported by EU research and innovation funding. Here to share some of their findings are:
Knut-Inge Klepp, special advisor at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. He is interested in health promotion among children and adolescents, and how to engage with young people in a way that makes a difference.
Sharleen O’Reilly is professor of Human Nutrition at UniversityCollege Dublin, Ireland. Her research focuses on trying to improve women and children’s health by preventing chronic diseases, such as heart disease or diabetes, through behaviour change.
Jason Halford is a professor of Psychology at the University of Leeds. Jason is interested in obesity, eating behaviour and appetite. He is on the board of the European Coalition for People living with Obesity.
For more info, visit: Empowering people to ward off diabetes.