Today’s computer processors are pretty fast. Under optimal conditions, a desktop can come close to teraflop speeds, which is a million million operations per second .

Biomimicry , also called bionics, uses structures found in nature to solve everyday problems. A well-known example is the Velcro strip , which a Swiss engineer, Georges de Mestral copied from the burdocks that stuck to his dog and clothes on a walk through the fields.

For most of us, any concerns about computing speed or data storage are usually to make it go faster while storing more. We hardly ever think about the enormous amounts of energy already required to power Internet servers or charge the increasing number of devices we own.

“When I grab something hard, then I can feel it in the fingertips, which is strange, as I don’t have them anymore. It’s amazing,” said Robin af Ekenstam , who lost his hand when an aggressive tumour was discovered on his right wrist.

Remember the cassette Walkman? With streaming services, even MP3 players like the iPod look distinctly  passé . Car Sat-Navs used to drop jaws in amazement, but now driverless cars and flying drone taxis are on the horizon.

In the early 1990s, a series of initiatives were set about fighting organised crime on a European level. However, the killing of “ndrangheta” members in the German city of Duisburg in 2007 acted as a wake-up call.

How would you like a fancy Christmas garment embedded with sensors to measure your body movements? Or a reindeer hat that moves its horns when your heart beats faster? Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of winter festivities, because the technology behind the next generation of smart clothes is for everyone and can be woven into anything we wear.

When Justin Bieber made his way to Stockholm in September 2016, city officials hardly expected the tween heartthrob to pave the way for sustainable urban policy .

Plastic toys are everywhere and with good reason: plastic is great for making toys. It is cheap and durable, and can be moulded into pretty much any shape.

In 1961, the physicist Rolf Landauer formulated a principle that any transformation of information that takes place in a computer requires energy, thus making zero-power computing a pipe dream.

A book of learning experiences, in which every chapter is explained through a piece of art. The theme: the transformation of CO 2 into something useful, using man-made diamonds.

Time is “what we read from a clock located at the same point at which an event occurs”, said Albert Einstein . American theoretical physicist John A.

The pioneering city of Stuttgart, Germany, was one the first to apply an innovative financing scheme back in 1995 and since then it has been bearing its fruit: energy-efficiency funding has reduced the city’s CO 2 emissions by tens of thousands of tonnes.

The quantum world is something that many talk about but no-one sees. There must be something special if it exerts its fascination well beyond the circles of what many imagine as a mainly male community of rather eccentric scientists, to the point of attracting the attention of provocative artists and spiritual leaders.

The artistic partnership of Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand started in 1996 in New York when they were in their early twenties. They were both born in the Soviet Union, Belarus and Russia respectively, and their paths crossed in the US city.

Investors look for a number of things before betting on a company or product in the bioeconomy sector: prestigious and experienced team, economic sustainability, competitive advantage, and potential users.

Quantum mechanics is about to fundamentally change the way we can transmit and sense information. The idea is that information—represented by physical quantities such as the spin or the polarisation of an individual photon—can be transmitted with the help of so-called quantum entanglement.

Around the world more and more babies are born preterm, according to a WHO report from 2012. Despite medical advances, very small preterm infants may suffer from various complications and diseases, or even die .

Talking or reading. Texting a message or listening. The dilemma of choosing between various tasks is not an invention of the modern information age. Humans and all vertebrates have to prioritise their actions.

The children of prisoners are one of the largest vulnerable groups of children in Europe. They carry the stigma of their parents’ deeds. And some of them are exposed to social exclusion.