Constructed wetlands are human-made wastewater treatment systems which are gaining in popularity due to their acceptance as being economical, green, and efficient and which require relatively little maintenance and monitoring compared with the more conventional alternative. They have several advantages in comparison with the latter. Requiring lower operation and maintenance costs They are a sustainable, green system requiring lower operation and maintenance costs. In addition, the ...

From a young age, Tom Parsons had an interest in all things STEM: whether it was science, technology, engineering or maths. “I studied engineering at Sligo IT [BSc in civil engineering] and, when I graduated from there in 2010, I went on to DIT to do a master's degree [in Energy Management (MSc)]," he says. "I was always interested in construction, construction management and engineering. Any part-time job I had as a kid was in construction." Following graduation in 2012, Parsons had to ...

NUI Galway PHD student Ilaria Cinelli explains the unique challenges of engineering solutions for space missions. Cinelli was selected as commander of Crew 172 in 2016 and Crew 185 in 2017 of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) and also won the Emerging Space Leader Scholarship by MDRS. During a four-week mission in Utah she collected data-based research on the crew’s behavioural patterns throughout the mission and tested emerging technology. During the mission there were numerous ...

The ENERGISE project, funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme for three years (2016-2019) and led by Dr Frances Fahy from National University of Ireland, Galway, is a pan-European initiative that aims to reduce energy usage in households and communities across Europe and contribute to European policy-making on energy. ENERGISE develops, tests and assesses options for a bottom-up transformation of energy use in households and communities across Europe. It stands for the European Network ...

During the design and validation phase, medical devices undergo rigorous and extensive testing to establish both the biocompatibility and mechanical stability of the device before obtaining regulatory approval and being implanted into patients as treatments for disease and injury. However, the human body is highly adaptive and cells and tissues can change their composition, structure and function in response to biophysical stimuli – in particular, those imposed by these medical devices ...

Dr Manus Biggs, lecturer within the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Investigator at CÚRAM, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research in Medical Devices at NUI Galway, has just published two separate research papers on the role of nanomechanical cues in cell biology in top-tier international journals, one in the Nature journal Nature Biomedical Engineering and another in the ...