African swine fever , or ASF, is a viral disease that kills almost every pig it infects and is likened to Ebola . It gained a foothold in Georgia in 2007, when contaminated pig meat landed from a ship from South-East Africa and was fed to local pigs.

Flash floods in Central Europe in 2002 damaged hundreds of roads, caused electricity failures, contaminated clean water and cost an estimated €150 billion in damage .

Making buildings more energy efficient is part of the European strategy to combat climate change . One of the aims of the EU-funded project Direction —due to be completed by 2016—is to demonstrate that  very low energy buildings can actually be implemented in practice .

To tackle climate change, new buildings are required to consume as little energy as possible . That’s because, in Europe, buildings are responsible for about 40% of our energy consumption.

In Europe, the population is ageing . In 2010, about 17% of the population were 65 or older. This number is projected to increase to 30% of the population by 2060. New services are already available to meet their needs.

Toxic microalgae, viruses and chemical contaminants are floating in our waters. These hazardous materials pose a high risk to the livelihood of the sea dwellers. Especially the aquaculture is affected by this rising problem.

The marine aquaculture sector has grown continuously over the past years, according to the FAO’s world review of fisheries and aquaculture.

Ecosystem services are free, but often hidden. They include pollination and killing of crop pests by beneficial insects. Now, QuESSA , an EU-funded research project, due to be completed in 2017, will try and increase the visibility of such services.

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 .

Fourteen pairs of identical twins joined the EU funded medical project “ Fight-MG ”, to fight Myasthenia Gravis . This rare autoimmune disease leads to abnormal fatigability of various skeletal muscles.

Myasthenia Gravis (MG) is a rare auto-immune disease—whereby patients’ immune systems attack their own bodies— arising from a breakdown in communications between the nervous and muscular systems.

Collaboration between research groups is key in tackling rare diseases such as auto-immune disease Myasthenia Gravis (MG). Indeed, the rarity of the disease means that it can be difficult to collect enough samples of blood and tissues to perform quality research.

Global changes, such as climate warming and stratospheric ozone depletion, are increasingly noticeable. Therefore, there is a need for scientists to have reliable information about atmospheric and stratospheric processes .

Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is a much sought after delicacy. Due to huge fishing pressure, tuna stocks have decreased dramatically . There are now signs of recovery, according to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas .

Runny nose, watery eyes and cough; these are the symptoms associated with respiratory allergies. About 20% to 30% of Europeans suffer from some type of respiratory allergy , according to the European Federation of Allergy and Airway Diseases Patients Associations .

Quantum mechanics is about to fundamentally change the way we can transmit and sense information. The idea is that information—represented by physical quantities such as the spin or the polarisation of an individual photon—can be transmitted with the help of so-called quantum entanglement.

We age in two ways. There is the ageing we count by clock and calendar. And then there is biological ageing. The latter is written into our genes. But, it is also influenced by our lifestyle and history.

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 .

Scientists in Würzburg, in Germany, have created living bone material from human stem cells in their laboratory. The discipline is called tissue engineering and the aim of the scientists is to produce the perfect substitute for bone transplantation.

Bone is one of the most frequently transplanted tissues. And the demand is rising. Transplants treat large defects like those caused by trauma, complicated fractures, tumour resection or osteoporosis. ...