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.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

What has been the biggest challenge during the apple genome sequencing and mapping? The real problem in our case was that the variety, Golden Delicious, we had chosen is heterozygous.

His aim was to develop a system that could capture the oil right at its source, before it disperses on the surface of the ocean.

Oil is less dense than water and therefore the oil escaping the sea bed travels up to the water surface. Dr. Fivos Andritsos and his colleagues from the Joint Research Center in Ispra, Italy have now developed a reservoir which can be applied on top of the leakage.

It does look like a resounding, spectacular success. During this year’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing in Italy hardly a bee colony has been lost, bar a suspicious case where some leftover seed from last year may have been used.

As president of UNAAPI, the Italian Beekeepers Association, Francesco Panella is one of the most impassionate opposers of neonicotinoids and other synthetic pesticides, whether they are used as seed coating or sprayed on groves, as he blames them for weakening the bees’ immune system.

Dr. Moreno Greatti, from the Department of Plant Biology and Protection at the University of Udine in Italy, is the author of a pivotal study on the dispersion of seed coating particles containing neonicotinoids into the air and along field borders during maize sowing.

Tens of thousands of them don’t even manage to get back to their apiary. Disoriented, they lose the way home and die.

The local government of the Piedmont region listened carefully to the beekeepers’ complaints, says Giacomo Michelatti, head of the region’s agrochemical control department.