Elephant trunk inspires the universal robot gripper

Professor Christian Keysers first saw the film Dr. No as a teenager. Watching the scene where James Bond wakes up to discover a large, hairy, poisonous spider crawling up his arm, he thought he could almost feel the spider on his own skin.

Economist and author Mariana Mazzucato argues that for innovation to flourish in Europe, its governments must become more entrepreneurial and invest in technologies that private investors consider too risky.

Across the Atlantic, scientists are also making use of open access journals. In Canada, the national medical association started publishing a totally new, fully ‘open’ journal in January.

While more and more women are reaching senior levels in science and engineering, the aspiration of reaching gender equality is not yet fulfilled. Data from the She Figures 2012 report, a major EU publication that presents Europe-wide data on women in science from tertiary education through to the job market, show that there are nowhere near enough women at the top levels of science and research.

Diabetes is on the rise all around the world. In the EU alone, there are 33 million people diagnosed with diabetes. They include people of all ages and from all walks of life. The two main forms are insulin-dependent Type-1 diabetes and non-insulin-dependent Type-2 diabetes. Type-1 diabetes, which develops mainly in children and adolescents, is more aggressive. However the disease is not a tragedy, as three ‘Type-1’ patients explain. 

How do you encourage civil servants to take a long, hard look at what they do so as to improve public services for citizens? And how do you kick-start new thinking to address society’s plague of problems? For a start, you need to discover users’ thoughts about basic design problems in the services they use, according to Danish political scientist Christian Bason.

They can burn and blister your skin, stop you from getting a mortgage, and even kill you.Plants and animals carried around the world by tourists and trade are costing the European Union over EUR 12 billion per year. Even these estimates are conservative as the data relates mostly to land-based invasive species.

‘You will never become a scientist!’ For his teachers, a science career for John Gurdon, was no more than hypothetical. But the British professor who won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Medicine has only one piece of advice for aspiring researchers: ‘Don’t give up!’

Ash dieback is an invasive fungus that threatens to decimate stocks of European ash.

Africans and Asians who migrate to Europe have a higher risk of diabetes than indigenous people as they adjust to a different diet and lifestyle. By looking at the development of diabetes in these groups, researchers hope to find out more about the disease and how to combat it both in Europe and worldwide.

Eat well and exercise. That is the simple message that could help reverse the spread of one of Europe’s most troubling epidemics – Type 2 diabetes.

Professor Pratibha Gai’s modified electron microscope is helping scientists develop new medicines and energy sources.

Vehicles without drivers can go far, very far. Such as the ones from the VIAC project, led by Professor Broggi from VisLab at the University of Parma, Italy. Its vans drove from Parma to Shanghai, China in three months, without much human intervention.

The industrial revolution made the world wealthy through a simple idea: to replace the physical labour of humans and animals with energy from fossil fuels. Two-and-a-half centuries after the revolution started, however, it is in trouble. The oil that powers much of the world’s economy is running out, and the greenhouse gases given off by the fuels are harming the planet. 

In the six years since the launch of the European Research Council (ERC), its grants have become the most sought-after funding for top researchers in Europe. The biggest reason: the freedom they give scientists to pursue projects in the way they think best. 

The ‘Innovation Union’ is one of Europe’s antidotes to the financial crisis. It is a way of creating jobs and growth through research and innovation.

Among the vineyards and wheat fields of north-eastern France, a revolution in chemical manufacturing is quietly gathering momentum. Here, biomass is turned into valuable components and energy.

It is about two in the morning and while most Europeans are tucked up in bed, the sleep-deprived crew members of the Pegasos Zeppelin are preparing for take-off. Weather conditions are perfect so they load the airship with their state-of-the-art equipment and get ready to start their day’s work.

When Tim Gowers, a maths professor at the University of Cambridge in the UK, wrote a blog post criticising the high price charged by academic journals to access research, he did not expect to start a revolution.

It all started with the chance discovery of a country lane full of wild orchids by an inquisitive young girl in rural England. That young girl, Frances Ashcroft, would go on to become one of Europe’s leading diabetes researchers.