When the premises of the American Civil War forced the textile mills of Mississippi to a virtual stop, and the Russian Empire started seeking new cotton suppliers for its huge domestic market, Ludwig Knoop had a brilliant idea.

Tourism has rebounded strongly after Covid, with international arrivals to Europe in January-July 2022 up 190% on the year before, getting close to 2019 levels (74% of that year, according to the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer ).

Buildings and the construction sector are responsible for over one-third of global final energy consumption and nearly 40% of total direct and indirect CO 2 emissions .

Surfing has a dirty secret: surfboard production techniques are often at odds with the sport’s eco-conscious image. Most modern surfboards are a sandwich-like construction: a polyurethane foam core – known as a blank – coated in a fibre-reinforced composite.

“When I grab something hard, then I can feel it in the fingertips, which is strange, as I don’t have them anymore. It’s amazing,” said Robin af Ekenstam , who lost his hand when an aggressive tumour was discovered on his right wrist.

A significant proportion of food waste is dairy. WRAP, a UK charity that helps individuals and organisations reduce waste, says that 20% of the estimated 1.

Smart society is one of these complex but promising concepts that remain poorly understood. This futuristic language sounds like a science fiction, but smarter societies are already slowly emerging all around us.

How would you like a fancy Christmas garment embedded with sensors to measure your body movements? Or a reindeer hat that moves its horns when your heart beats faster? Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of winter festivities, because the technology behind the next generation of smart clothes is for everyone and can be woven into anything we wear.

Around 700,000 people are killed by antibiotic resistant infections in the world every year, estimates say. Antimicrobials are increasingly overused and misused, while some organisms are becoming more resistant to antibiotics.

Time is “what we read from a clock located at the same point at which an event occurs”, said Albert Einstein . American theoretical physicist John A.

Islamic finance abides by the Sharia law. It demands socially responsible investment, with a real impact on the community.

Our computers, even the fastest ones, seem today unable to withstand the needs of the enormous quantity of data we have to deal with in our technological society.

Creating a piece of art inspired by a scientific discovery. That is a challenge embraced by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, a UK artist duo called Semiconductor , who spent a period of time in Finland to collaborate with the Turku Quantum Technology group led by Professor Sabrina Maniscalco.

The quantum world is something that many talk about but no-one sees. There must be something special if it exerts its fascination well beyond the circles of what many imagine as a mainly male community of rather eccentric scientists, to the point of attracting the attention of provocative artists and spiritual leaders.

The artistic partnership of Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand started in 1996 in New York when they were in their early twenties. They were both born in the Soviet Union, Belarus and Russia respectively, and their paths crossed in the US city.

Would you dive into a body of water populated by about 150 robots? That’s what could happen if you were to fall off a “gondola” in the Venice lagoon, where scientists from an initiative of seven European research institutes, are giving birth to the world’s largest population of autonomous robots .

The coming tech disruptions and revolutions have at times been predicted to fix all manner of societal and environmental ills, so at first glance Susan Etlinger’s warning to exercise caution and restraint can seem odd.

Can mathematics be expressed poetically through computational technologies? Visual artists Vicky Isley and Paul Smith believe it can be and are collaborating with the Artificial Life Lab of the University of Graz, in Austria, on the Subcultron project (Submarine Cultures Perform Long-Term Exploration of Unconventional Environmental Niches).

Investors look for a number of things before betting on a company or product in the bioeconomy sector: prestigious and experienced team, economic sustainability, competitive advantage, and potential users.

For innovation managers and startup advisors it is clear: scientists and researchers are not business people . "Much is dependent on the personality of the founder. A pure scientist will not be able to proceed.