Global warming could be in reverse by 2050 if we take action now – Chad Frischmann

Project Drawdown's research director says the paradigm around global warming needs to change into one of possibility and opportunity.

We could get to the stage where atmospheric greenhouse gases are in decline – a point known as drawdown – and begin to reverse global warming before 2050, but it will require us adopting solutions at an aggressive rate, according to Chad Frischmann, vice-president and research director of Project Drawdown. Project Drawdown is a worldwide … Read more

Plasma is the ‘hidden champion’ of industrial innovation – Prof. Christian Oehr

Plasma is the most common form of matter in the universe.

Plasma technologies are everywhere — and could soon be rendering hospital wastewater harmless, scrubbing toxins out of gas in factory smokestacks and stopping dangerous ice formation on aeroplanes and electrical infrastructure, according to Professor Christian Oehr, head of the interfacial engineering and materials science department at Fraunhofer IGB in Stuttgart, Germany. Can you help us … Read more

Smart containers to reward people for recycling properly

Europe's waste plastic represents more than €10 billion in lost resources each year.

Smart recycling containers that reward people for proper use could help drive up the rate of plastic recycling, reducing the amount of plastic that goes into oceans and landfill, and creating business opportunities out of the challenge to cut back on waste. It’s part of a wave of innovations aiming to keep plastic circulating in the … Read more

Construction waste to be turned into gas masks and sports equipment

MDF is widely used in the walls of buildings and has so far proven hard to recycle.

Huge volumes of waste building materials that are discarded every year could be recycled into new products such as gas masks and sports equipment following research being conducted by scientists and recycling firms. Dr Kenny Vanreppelen, a renewable product researcher and founder of Belgian start-up Act&Sorb, set up the FibreCarb project to recycle waste fibreboard … Read more

EU launches venture capital mega-fund to attract heavy-hitting investors

Six venture capital funds will share the task of raising €2.1 billion of private investment for European companies.

Heavy-hitting institutional investors will soon have their chance to back European technology innovation, according to fund managers involved in Europe’s new €410 million venture capital fund of funds. VentureEU is the pan-European venture capital (VC) fund of funds programme which debuted on 10 April. Six VC funds are set to share in EU seed funding … Read more

Putting people at the heart of big data

Big data could not only benefit large companies, but also provide knowledge about a society’s health, for example. Image credit - Pxhere/876718, licensed under CC0

Big data has given scientists – and companies – a treasure trove of new information for analysing, understanding and predicting human behaviour, but it’s also thrown up a raft of questions about privacy and ownership. Our smartphone societies are inundated with new services, which sees us donating data in ways we seldom consider, with privacy … Read more