Not all countries are equal in the face of floods. To provide support for the variety of scenarios encountered, the RAMWASS research project developed a tool for gauging and managing the dangers of floods in specific river zones.

Imagine that a hundred years ago it was possible to take the ‘digital fingerprint’ of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and store it in an international database.

One way communication does not work. No better proof is that previous attempts to increase public awareness of healthily eating have failed. Despite numerous campaigns, no significant change occurred in patterns of food purchase and consumption.

Woodchips are one of the renewable sources of energy used in domestic and district-level heating systems. They can come from wood waste from construction, agriculture, landscaping, logging and sawmills.

Now European researchers of the projects NanoBioTact and NanoBioTouch delve deep into the mysteries of touch and have developed the first sensitive artificial finger .

An artificial finger could benefit patients with a missing finger in many ways. The most obvious, would be to add sensory feedback to their prosthesis . In addition, remote surgery could also benefit from a well-functioning artificial finger.

A new Directive, dubbed the energy performance of buildings Directive (EPBD), brings the new concept of net -zero energy buildings (NZEB) meaning buildings with a zero energy balance that have a better level of energy performance than the standard energy efficiency requirements in current building codes.

The biomass found in forests represents an abundant, renewable, and low cost resource that does not compete with food production. It can play an alternative role to petroleum derived-resources and thus reduce oil dependence.

Each season the fashion industry surprises with new fabrics in a myriad of colours. Producing multi-coloured textile, however, has an environmental cost. Indeed, heavy polluting dyes find their way to the textile industry’s waste water .

In the MULTIFLEXIOXIDES project scientist have developed new cost-efficient, long lasting, light, flexible and transparent devices which can display information directly on the windscreen.

The process was developed by the Water Research Institute (WRI) of the Italian National Research Council and tested and scaled-up as part the EU-funded Innowatech project We know that biological processes offer the cheapest way to treat industrial wastewater.

Going from modern energy efficient houses to historic buildings must have been a big leap for you.

Window refurbishments stand out as a viable approach to dramatically reduce energy loss. As their first case of study, the project’s researchers chose to upgrade the windows of the ‘Waaghaus’ (Public Weighing House), a building located in Bolzano, Italy, that is over seven-century-old.

These are key insights from two EC funded initiatives, ProNano and Nanocom , which are joining their forces to tackle the issue of barriers to the commercialisation of European nanotechnologies .

Rebuilding bones out of wood, or cartilage out of algae and chitosan is the most spectacular aspect of this particular bioinspiration field.

You have just turned 89. What is the biggest satisfaction you have had until now? I don’t know what to say since I have had so many satisfactions with my job.

Dr. Mario Conte from the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, is Coordinator of the EU research project ILHYPOS.

In the 21st century several countries have suffered great losses after terrorist attacks. Although the risk of bioterrorist attacks or accidental contamination of our water supply network is low, the consequences could be fatal.

The technology uses several nano-biological sensors to monitor the presence of several bioterrorism agents in drinking water.

The search for a new clean energy increases worldwide as the sources of natural energy diminish. The transport sector is especially vulnerable, by the decline in oil reserves, at the time when number of cars on our roads steadily increases.