Graphene has extraordinary mechanical and electronic properties, but no magnetic properties. This can be made up for with the help of the lightest element: hydrogen, which transfers its magnetic moment on coming into contact with graphene. This has been demonstrated by a team of European scientists coordinated by the physicist Iván Brihuega from the Autonomous University of Madrid.

Graphene is starring the largest European research initiative to date, Graphene Flagship, but within this megaproject are also being promoted studies of other two-dimensional materials, such as TMD. Their interesting properties can be applied in electronics, spintronics and a third field: valleytronics, as the physicist Dr. Lucian Covaci of the University of Antwerp explains in this interview.

The two main pitfalls of robots which imitate the human body are their control and the difficulty encountered when manufacturing them in a cost-effective manner. Researchers from the MoCoTi European project have designed the prototype of an android which learns how to actuate its own limbs and can be easily duplicated. The device, formed of an artificial brain which controls a tendon-driven robotic arm, might be the first step towards low cost humanoid robotics.

In the future, the exceptional properties of graphene will make car seats and aircraft antenna protection enclosures lighter, which will reduce fuel consumption. These are just two examples of the uses of this revolutionary material exhibited during the last week of September in Athens, where companies and research centres presented their latest results for producing it at an industrial level.