Across Europe, town and city councils are becoming increasingly interested in energy decentralisation , i.e. in producing power closer to where it is consumed.

There are three ways a crowdfunding project can be financed. Lending: the entrepreneurs borrow money and pay interest; equity: investors in the project become its shareholders; donations: no reward is to be expected (there is a fourth way, a mix of equity and lending called “hybrid”).

In January 2005, a severe storm swept across Northern Europe, from Ireland to Russia. More than 500,000 homes were left without power, with Denmark and Southern Sweden being particularly hard-hit.

Traditionally our electricity grids were designed to move power from large nuclear and fossil fuel power plants to consumers, but renewable energy will see changes to allow smaller power generation from wind and solar to be hooked up to the grid.

The European grid already faces transmission challenges, as the alternative current (AC) infrastructure has almost reached its transport capacity.

Making a city or district energy smart is, first and foremost, an exercise in good planning . However, such green planning tools are still in their infancy. The trouble is that every city is different, every district unique.

Nordic countries have achieved a great independence from fossils because of their widespread district heating systems. District heating is a smart way to avoid using fossil fuels to heat buildings .

Cities have started to join forces to become more energy efficient . This trends stems from the findings of the first climate assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 1990, which was quite alarming.

Pines are long-lived; between 100 and 1,000 years. And they are a tree species, of high commercial importance. Indeed, they are valued for their timber and wood pulp.

Plastic products made of PVC, Polystyrene and other prominent plastics are flooding the market. They are a growing threat to the environment, as they are found in the sea or dumped in land fills .

When a ship runs aground, or two vessels crash into each other, the damaged one may lose its stability, or worse, sink. But imagine if after a ship accident, balloons popped up like car airbags to keep the disabled vessel upright and afloat .

In 2012, about 8.2 million people died of cancer making the disease a major cause of death worldwide. According to the WHO World Cancer Report 2014 , this figure is expected to rise within the next two decades.

The World Health Organisation, WHO, recently published its first Global Report on Antimicrobial Resistance . This publication demonstrates that resistance against antibiotics is a serious threat to global public health.

European scientists set up new therapeutic approaches to tackle specific Lysosomal Storage Disorders: a new drug combination and enzyme replacement therapy against Pompe disease and gene therapy against MPS V I (Mucopolysaccharidosis VI).

One of the biggest challenges today is to understand the human brain and we never have been closer to realize it. More than 130 institutes are taking part in  one of Europe´s largest research projects , funded with 1.

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.

Understanding the neurobiology of decision-making is a scientific challenge. The EU-funded project Select-and-Act , completed in 2012, used experimental and modelling approaches to better understand how the brain selects different patterns of motor behaviour.

The children of prisoners are one of the largest vulnerable groups of children in Europe. They carry the stigma of their parents’ deeds. And some of them are exposed to social exclusion.

It is estimated that 800,000 children throughout the European Union have an imprisoned parent. The real number is not known, because in no country do prisons systematically record data about the children of offenders.

Nowadays, people do not expect to die as a result of a common infection like bacterial pneumonia. However, many do. Indeed, some bacteria have become resistant to all available antibiotics, due to overuse .