Author: Tom Cassauwers

Hybrid cars are a regular sight on European roads today. Sitting between internal combustion engines and fully electric vehicles, they run on fuel for some of the journey and electricity for the rest. That concept might be about to shake up the aviation industry. Aviation accounts for around 2.5% of global carbon emissions, a share […]

Along a small stream in Spain, groups of teenagers are at work. One hovers around a black tarpaulin covered in wet pieces of plastic. Another stands on a small bridge, fishing with a net. Others sort small pieces of plastic, cigarette butts and various other things they’ve recovered from the stream. What looks like a […]

Stepping inside a supercomputer facility is usually an overwhelming experience. These vast machines contain hundreds of thousands of processors working together to perform calculations far beyond the reach of ordinary computers. They consume huge amounts of energy, generate intense heat and are often extremely noisy. So, when France Boillod-Cerneux from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic […]

From his bedroom desk in the Belgian town of Dendermonde, Gert Everaert used to watch the river Scheldt flow past. Barges and small boats drifted by. Birds fished. But the river also carried something less picturesque – a steady stream of litter and plastic waste. “Cars would stop and people threw rubbish straight into the water,” […]

A lecture hall explodes with sound as the electronic dance hit I Like to Move It by Reel 2 Real blasts through the speakers. A class of 11-year-olds in fluorescent vests bounce through their own version of jumping jacks, urged on by some of Europe’s leading researchers at the front of the room. The task […]

A ship with a crane floats in the Mediterranean sun at a marina in Marseille, France. The crane whirs as it hauls waste from the seabed and, when the wire breaks the surface, the gripper at the end is clutching a rubber tyre covered in algae. As the day advances, rusted metal ship parts, fences […]

When a bee leaves the nest, it already has its own version of a GPS in its head. By analysing patterns in the sky and its flying speed, a bee can keep track of its location and safely return home. Researchers are now taking their cue from this in the hope of transforming how computers […]

For Maurizio Murroni, associate professor of telecommunications at the University of Cagliari in Italy, Star Wars is much more than a science fiction film franchise – it is a source of inspiration for his work. “In the Star Wars universe, they regularly project holograms of people to have conversations across the galaxy,” Murroni said, explaining […]

When trucks filled with hydrogen arrive outside a Barcelona steel plant next year, most bystanders will barely register their arrival. But for Raquel Torruella Martínez, project manager at the Spanish steel company CELSA, their arrival will be a blessing. She is leading an EU-funded R&D initiative called TWINGHY that is developing hydrogen-powered burners for steel […]