Millions of people undergo surgery each year. Many of them suffer from moderate to severe pain afterwards. This post-operative pain may impede recovery or even lead on into chronic pain .

Modern information technologies allow medical researchers to draw on a huge pool of patient data. These are routinely assessed in hospital settings or through health care systems.

Talking or reading. Texting a message or listening. The dilemma of choosing between various tasks is not an invention of the modern information age. Humans and all vertebrates have to prioritise their actions.

Renewable energy sources play an important role in securing future energy supply and mitigating climate change.

With a drop of blood and some laboratory analyses, doctors have been able to tell patients whether they suffer from diabetes or some sort of cancer.

A well-accepted measure for climate protection involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions . And buildings have the greatest energy saving potential, according to the official EU Energy Efficiency Plan 2011 .

Climate change influences water cycles. Particularly, it has an effect on the natural and socio-economic processes of river basins. Major rivers of the world have their origin in alpine-style mountains.

Paul Lukowicz is head of the embedded intelligence research group at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence in Kaiserslautern.

The term fertigation is used in agriculture to refer to the combination of irrigation and fertilisation, in one step.

Clean freshwater faces various threats such as increasing demand by population growth, pollution and changes in the hydrological cycle due to climate change.

Many diseases occurring in industrial countries, such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, stroke or certain cancers are linked to malnutrition. The trouble is that one in two people in Europe is overweight or obese .

Jorge Marx Gómez is professor and chair of business information systems at the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg , Germany. He was the scientific manager of the EU-funded project OEPI , completed in 2012.

The NuOffice in Munich is an office building and one of the showcases of the EU-funded project DIRECTION . The first building phase was completed in 2012, the second and third will be completed in 2014 and 2015.

Many people in Europe are critical of genetically modified (GM) food, due to safety concerns. A Eurobarometer survey, published in 2010, revealed that the European public tends to be worried on a “mediate level” about GM food , with people in Austria being particularly concerned.

Making food and drink production for more than 500 million people more eco-friendly is a key policy in Europe. About 99% of all agro-food companies in the European Union are small and medium size enterprises (SME).

Silver has been used as biocide for medical purposes since the 1930s. Today nanometric size silver particles are used to prevent unpleasant odour caused by bacteria in sport shirts or socks .

With climate change, flora and fauna shift their seasonal inner clock.  For example, fruit tree blossom earlier than previous years.