Laughter research is no laughing matter at the Numediart Institute of the University of Mons , in Belgium. Members of this research institute are involved in an EU-funded project, called ILHAIRE , due to be completed in 2014.

A major challenge in combatting malaria is to develop effective yet sustainable mosquito repellents.  Now, the ENAROMaTIC project, a European effort to reduce the spread of malaria completed in 2012, may have done just that.

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.

As smart phones are becoming ubiquitous, they increasingly serve as a link to social networks. Networks sharing of large concerts or sporting events with 3D imagery will soon be made possible thanks to a new technology developed under SceneNet , an EU funded project, due to be completed in 2016.

Health claims and symbols on food products could improve public health. At least, that is according to consumer researchers. But how they can best do that as effectively as possible is still a mystery.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC ) has produced a handbook detailing the scientific evidence on tobacco pricing and tobacco control entitled: Effectiveness of Tax and Price Policies for Tobacco Control .

Smoking is the largest single cause of preventable premature death and disease , accounting for some 650,000 premature deaths each year in the European Union, according to official EU statistics.

Robots are usually thought off as devices to alleviate the burden of certain repetitive or difficult tasks. Robots welding car bodies and painting them are a classic example.

Imagine that data could be transposed into a tactile experience. This is precisely what the CEEDs project, funded by the EU, promises. It uses integrated technologies to support human experience, when attempting to make sense of very large datasets.

In science fiction, robots acts like human beings. A close look at the state of the art robotics would tell us that the technology is not likely to emulate science fiction yet. But there has been much progress in the field.

The so-called hygiene hypothesis claims young children need to get in contact with a number of relatively benign pathogens to develop a robust immune system .

Are allergies and so-called autoimmune diseases, like type 1 diabetes, likely to be caused by a lack of exposure to relatively benign pathogens in early childhood? This theory is referred to as the hygiene hypothesis.

Andre Konstantin Geim is the only person who ever received both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel . He was born in 1958 in Russia, and is a Dutch-British physicist with German, Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian roots.

A technology relying on holography, that involves measuring mechanical deformations, as signature of artworks has previously been developed to address the protection of cultural heritage.

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

Multiple disasters can have a cumulative impact leading to great human and financial loss. The awareness of all possible risks is of fundamental importance.

When a coastal area is about to be hit by the waves of a tsunami, time is everything. The earlier we know where and when it is going to hit the coast, the more chances there are to evacuate the area.