Many animals – such as crabs, octopuses and salamanders – have the ability to regenerate parts of their body that are severely injured or amputated. Just as we are able to replace a broken part of our car, these animals can replace lost limbs by new ones with the same form and function. Contrary to cars, animals do not possess spare parts and cannot suspend their functions in order to be repaired; they generate their new limbs in situ, while going about in their normal lives.

Controlling the propagation of high-intensity light beams as they travel through transparent media is a challenging task, but IESL scientists have now shown that a relatively new type of light beam called a ring-Airy beam can self-focus into intense light bullets that propagate over extended distances. These highly focused, high-intensity ring-Airy beam light bullets offer a very unique level of control that cannot be achieved with equivalent Gaussian beams, making them ideal for a variety of optical applications ranging from precision materials processing and nanosurgery to attosecond pulse drivers.

Thousands of proteins are produced inside our cells. More than a third of these proteins can fulfill their function only after migrating to the outside of the cell, becoming anchored to the cell membrane or being targeted to specific subcellular compartments. How cells regulate trafficking of their proteins is a fundamental problem in biology andis essential for life. Examples of migrating proteins are insulin (whose absence leads to diabetes), antibodies (that combat infections), membrane channels (essential amongst other for neuronal cell function) and toxin-proteins secreted by pathogenic microorganisms.

Research carried out at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology-FORTH and published today in Cell Metabolism reveals that intrinsic DNA damage triggers a chronic auto-inflammatory response leading to fat depletion.

“Creative Crete” is a unique installation of pioneering interactive technologies located at Heraklion international airport “Nikos Kazantzakis”, realized by the Institute of Computer Science of FORTH under the initiative of the Region of Crete.

A USA-Greece collaboration of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory & Iowa State University and at the University of Crete & the Foundation for Research & Technology - Hellas (FORTH) in Greece have found a new way to create small magnets by using short laser light pulses. In this way, they were able to switch magnetism at least 1000 times faster than in current magnetic devices. Magnetic switching is used to encode information in hard drives, magnetic memories, and other computing devices. The discovery reported in the April 4 issue of Nature opens the door to terahertz (1012 hertz) memory speeds and moves magnetic switching to the fast lane.

In the context of the 38th meeting of the European Network of Computer Emergency Response Teams, which was held in Lisbon, Portugal on 28-30 January 2013, the Computer Emergency Response Team of FORTH (FORTHcert) was awarded the TERENA Trusted Introducer certification

The European Commission has chosen Graphene as one of Europe’s first 10-year, 1,000 million euro FET flagships. The mission of Graphene is to take graphene and related layered materials from academic laboratories to society, revolutionize multiple industries and create economic growth and new jobs in Europe.

Craniosynistosis is a bone condition that can inhibit brain growth in children and affects 1 in 2200 births. Work published in the premier scientific journal Nature Genetics, identifies ERF haploinsufficiency as the genetic cause of a syndromic form of craniosynostosis, the ERF-associated craniosynostosis