To tackle climate change, new buildings are required to consume as little energy as possible . That’s because, in Europe, buildings are responsible for about 40% of our energy consumption.

In Europe, the population is ageing . In 2010, about 17% of the population were 65 or older. This number is projected to increase to 30% of the population by 2060. New services are already available to meet their needs.

There are two main types of bread , wholemeal, or brown, and white. But most people in Europe prefer white bread. That is a problem because white bread contains very little fibres.

Cuatro de Marzo is a district in the southern part of the Spanish city of Valladolid. It is a dense residential area with 190 privately-owned dwellings, developed in 1955.

Imagine living in an inner city and buying your vegetables and fruit just moments after they’ve been harvested. Imagine waking up to the rustic sound of a cock crowing.

Scientists in Northern Italy are experimenting with unusual and totally eco-friendly sound and odor devices to fight off insects from their cultivated fields .

Ecosystem services are free, but often hidden. They include pollination and killing of crop pests by beneficial insects. Now, QuESSA , an EU-funded research project, due to be completed in 2017, will try and increase the visibility of such services.

Human civilization is responsible for large traces of non-organic materials in the oceans, namely crude oil and plastics. Two European research projects are now investigating how microbes can help to eliminate these substances in the sea .

Plastic products made of PVC, Polystyrene and other prominent plastics are flooding the market. They are a growing threat to the environment, as they are found in the sea or dumped in land fills .

Fourteen pairs of identical twins joined the EU funded medical project “ Fight-MG ”, to fight Myasthenia Gravis . This rare autoimmune disease leads to abnormal fatigability of various skeletal muscles.

Myasthenia Gravis (MG) is a rare auto-immune disease—whereby patients’ immune systems attack their own bodies— arising from a breakdown in communications between the nervous and muscular systems.

Collaboration between research groups is key in tackling rare diseases such as auto-immune disease Myasthenia Gravis (MG). Indeed, the rarity of the disease means that it can be difficult to collect enough samples of blood and tissues to perform quality research.

Personalised medicine is one of the new developments that is deemed to revolutionise health care. A key component is the detection of biomarkers, proteins in blood or saliva, for example, whose presence or abnormal concentration is caused by a disease.

Until now, few biosensors have had the required sensitivity to detect single molecules. A novel approach for improved biosensor sensitivity has opened new avenues for developing new kinds of biosensors.

Between 30 and 40 million people in Europe suffer from rare diseases —many of them children. As most of these diseases have genetic origins, gene therapy is a major hope for their future cure .

Viruses often get bad press. Likened to Trojan horses they are often associated with disease. But, i t is precisely because of their infectious nature that they can potentially be used as gene vectors - which are vehicles loaded with good copies of malfunctioning genes - and delivered to cells.

How do you express the bliss felt in a concert? Why is the execution of a piece of music better than another? Is an ensemble of musicians engaging an audience? Antonio Camurri , professor of human ...

Cities substantially contribute to European air pollution as they are the source of about 36% of the total CO 2 emissions. Modern cities therefore raise sustainability concerns.

Imagine a city could halve its energy consumption, costs and greenhouse gas emissions. This would get closer to levels that would ensure sustainability of resources.

Those who live in low-energy buildings are not experts. But energy professionals have been aware of the importance of meeting their needs, right from conception stage.