Monday, July 27, 2009

Fraunhofer podcast - German science podcast

The Fraunhofer Institute is a research institute for applied science. It has a very informative podcast that reports about the various research projects that are going on for the institute. In around 5 minutes you are updated with interviews featuring the researchers themselves.

For example, two researchers of the institute have developed an artificial liver for medicine testing. The liver not only replaces the need for animal testing, but it is also a closer representative of the human liver. Where normally the track for introducing new medicines to the users will take about 10 years, the researchers expect that with a fully developed artificial liver, this can be shortened by several years. Other products that are being developed are particle filters for diesel engines in larger vehicles such as trains, shovels and buses. And engraving methods to be used for identifying genuine products from counterfeits.

The podcast episodes are in German (feed), but the English site of Fraunhofer contains a series of English audio files that are not syndicated.

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