Twenty five years ago, the German chemist Michael Braungart developed a new approach to recycling, now called "Cradle to Cradle" or "C2C" after the book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, which he and the American architect William McDonough published in 2002.

The life that inhabits the world’s oceans has almost infinite variety. It remains an untapped source of diversity.

The scientific community now widely recognises that salt, sugar and fat in excess in food lead to health issues . Among these are obesity, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.

The barely explored marine environment has already thrown-up a vast treasure-trove of high-value biomolecules .

For 700 million people in Africa and the Far-East, yams and cassava represent important crops for food security and as a source of income.

More than one third of the total plastic production in Europe—about 14 million tonnes per year—are polyolefins, also known as polyalkenes.

Christophe Heyndrickx is bio engineer in environmental and agricultural economics at research consultancy Transport and Mobility, in Leuven, Belgium.  He specialises in modelling regional and national economic policy.

Algae are an interesting natural resource because they proliferate quickly. They are not impinging on food production. And they need nothing but sunlight and a bit of waste water to grow on.

Energy efficiency has become a key objective in the current context of increasing energy demand, decreasing resources and global warming. Key to efficient energy savings, however, are users' awareness and behaviour.

Most of the animal proteins found in the meat industry waste have, until now, been underutilised. The challenge is to transform such waste into food of higher functionality and added value .

Livestock produces a lot of waste. One solution is to turn such agricultural waste into biogas to generate energy .  It requires using so-called anaerobic digestion, which consists in breaking down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen.

Riots, political instability and a spike in malnourishment cases blighted the years 2007 and 2008, particularly in developing countries.

We are used to the idea of vulnerable environments and species. We are also familiar with cultural vulnerability. For example when traditional peoples meet seductive modern ways of life.

Europe's tyre waste production is 3 million tonnes per year. Currently 65% to 70% of used tyres end up in landfills. Not only are they causing environmental damage, but a loss of added value in the form of new products that recycling can generate .

The level of interest for the US standard Smart Logging , designed to ensure the sustainable use of the forests, has now been tested in Europe.

Wim Symens and his team pioneered the development of the first robot ever to play badminton. But this robot is only a guinea pig to test a software application designed to optimise energy efficiency in machine design.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are set to become an important material for the future. That’s because they are light, robust, and highly conductive, both electrically and thermally whilst still being chemically stable.

If you wear glasses, you are probably reading this article by looking through a tiny, transparent layer of nanomaterial.

The new label-free detection kit  has been developed by the Spanish BIOD (Bio-Optical Detection) company, recently established.

UK based MAST Carbon has received such service and its new biomedical carbons will soon reach the market through the EU-funded the ProNano project.