Visitors to Utrecht’s Wilhelmina Park in the summer of 2023 may have come across an unusual sight: volunteers on stationary exercise bikes, cycling for science. The bikes were set up in different parts of the park – in its centre, beside a busy road and at a traffic junction where cars constantly stopped and started. […]
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A school in Madrid is now powered by solar panels on its roof thanks to investments from local residents. People could put in as little as €20, yet together they raised almost €150 000. The crowdfunding campaign for the Palomeras school was part of AURORA, an EU-funded initiative that uses a simple smartphone app to help citizens […]
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What if training a robot to handle dirty, dangerous work on the factory floor was as simple as showing it how? Czech startup RoboTwin is doing exactly that, helping factory workers teach robots new skills by demonstration. Instead of writing complex code, workers perform the job once and RoboTwin’s technology turns those movements into a […]
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As science continues to push boundaries, the coming years could surprise us with self‑healing cities, robots that care and smarter defences against future pandemics. Here are five outlooks from some of Europe’s leading researchers. Bio‑architecture – a return to nature Imagine a city where buildings are alive – structures that absorb pollution as people walk […]
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Modern surgery has gone from long incisions to tiny cuts guided by robots and AI. In the process, however, surgeons have lost something vital: the chance to feel inside the body directly. Without palpation, it becomes harder to detect tissue abnormalities during an operation. A group of surgeons and engineers across Europe is now trying […]
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What if tomorrow’s super-fast, super-connected digital world could be shaped by public values – right from the start? Dr Monique Calisti, an Italian engineer, entrepreneur and researcher, is a leading voice in the drive to keep people at the centre of digital transformation. “I have three teenage daughters and I feel a big responsibility to […]
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In his office in the Netherlands, Professor Han Wösten holds up a hard sponge-like block for show. It is a material he made in 2012 using the intricate rooting network of fungi. He has bold predictions about the potential of this stuff. “Ten years from now, we should have the first fungal buildings,” said Wösten, a professor […]
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In a potential game-changer for heavy industry, a magnesium-oxide mine in Greece received seven special containers in November 2024 with equipment designed to capture CO₂ and transform it into a valuable chemical, right there on site. Long blamed for driving up the planet’s temperature, CO2 could now be converted into jet fuel for passenger aircraft […]
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How do you outsmart a computer that could soon eclipse anything we have ever built? That is the challenge facing researchers who are working to build up our defences against the coming age of quantum computing. Quantum computers promise a giant leap in computational power, but they will also bring risks. Their code-breaking capabilities could […]
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Batteries are one of the biggest speed bumps on the road to mass electric vehicle (EV) adoption. But what if they could not only last longer, but also repair themselves? That is the vision driving researchers such as Johannes Ziegler and Liu Sufu, who are working to make this a reality. EV sales in Europe […]
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