Press

During an emergency medical intervention, measuring vital parameters is not always possible. Victims are often uncooperative, spaces uncomfortable and the equipment one can carry very limited, just think of a helicopter rescue or the scene of a car accident. Eurac Research in collaboration with the companies Minnova Med and Kerr Srl has patented a space-saving, noninvasive and easy-to-use instrument that measures core temperature as well as oxygen saturation and heart rate. It looks like a headset for listening to music, uses sensors placed in the external ear canal and has been tested in the terraXcube extreme environment simulator, in temperatures ranging from -10 to 20 degrees.

We perceive highly processed fermented foods such as beer or cheese primarily as a hallmark of modern times. However historical texts do confirm that milk was fermented in ancient Egypt and, the world's oldest evidence for the actual consumption of blue cheese has now been revealed by a team of researchers. The evidence in question comes from Hallstatt salt mine in Austria in the form of exceptionally well-preserved fecal remains from the Bronze Age to the Baroque period which demonstrate the presence of two fungal species used in the production of blue cheese and beer. The combination of archaeological and molecular analysis has proven particularly fruitful, providing surprising insights both into prehistoric dietary habits and food production. The study results will be published today, October 13, in the renowned journal Current Biology.

Plaque – horrible stuff, right? Well yes, but not entirely: old tooth plaque also known as dental calculus samples provide a valuable source of information about our oral microbiota and its development. A team of researchers from Eurac Research and the University of Trento, examined the calculus of twenty human skeletal remains from South Tyrol and Trentino dating from the Neolithic period to the Early Middle Ages. The team discovered two previously unknown species of a common microorganism in our bodies called Methanobrevibacter. Thanks to the application of a bioinformatics method not yet established in mummy research, the research group was also able to reveal that on a temporal axis of 50,000 years, the diversity of this organism in our oral flora has declined sharply in recent centuries. The results of the study have now been published in the renowned journal "Microbiome".

For many people home renovations are stressful: they are expensive, involve noisy and time-consuming construction sites, and often having to choose from the extensive range of technological solutions on the market can be confusing. In the framework of the European project 4RinEU, a research team led by Eurac Research has developed different packages to improve energy efficiency and comfort. The packages can be chosen according to individual budget and the weather patterns where one lives and have been tested on several pilot sites in Europe.