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.

Plastic toys are everywhere and with good reason: plastic is great for making toys. It is cheap and durable, and can be moulded into pretty much any shape.

There is growing interest in crowdfunding as an alternative way to support projects focused on renewables. This comes at a time when the green energy sector is feeling the purse strings tighten in many European countries.

Only when they are accepted, or better even embraced by the people, they can be implemented swiftly without any  major delays.

This year’s EU Green Week is clear in its focus: “green jobs for a greener future.” It’s highlighting how environmental policies are helping to create new work opportunities and a demand for new types of competences.

The pioneering city of Stuttgart, Germany, was one the first to apply an innovative financing scheme back in 1995 and since then it has been bearing its fruit: energy-efficiency funding has reduced the city’s CO 2 emissions by tens of thousands of tonnes.

For David Bollier, cities are at a crossroads. As smart city initiatives and data collection increases, it’s essential that citizens use the ideas of the commons to retain control of the services that matter to them, and to ensure these work for the people of the city, not just for business or bureaucracy, he argues.

From pollution levels and the number of traffic accidents to safer public spaces and more efficient heating in buildings:  to what extent can the smartness of a city be quantified?  And  is it possible to measure the quality of life  for an urban area through numerical parameters? It’s all about collecting data that is reliable and making sense of the numbers afterwards.

Richard Stallman , 62 years, is that kind of man who you could just think is a genuine down-to-earth dreamer.

Sharing emotions is a central part of human communication. Moreover, the internet is becoming an important medium to share them. And this has given rise to collective emotions in online groups.

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.

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.

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.

How can policymakers change the way people think? This is what the InContext project, funded by the EU, hopes to answer. Leading European research institutions in the fields of transition, behaviour and sustainable development are trying to create a manual for change.

Landslides and floods are increasingly occurring natural events . They continue to damage infrastructures and farmland across the EU. Meanwhile, they are also putting people’s life at risk.