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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.

For scientists, packing up their lab coats and microscopes and heading to foreign laboratories can really pay dividends. Thanks to initiatives like Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships, women are benefiting more and more from making a move abroad.

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.

Grants should only be given to research organisations who have received an award for female-friendly policies, according to a UK scientist who was overlooked for a Nobel Prize on pulsars even though she did much of the work.

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.

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

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. 

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.

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.

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.