Stepping inside a supercomputer facility is usually an overwhelming experience. These vast machines contain hundreds of thousands of processors working together to perform calculations far beyond the reach of ordinary computers. They consume huge amounts of energy, generate intense heat and are often extremely noisy. So, when France Boillod-Cerneux from the French Alternative Energies
Ph. Severe flooding hit the town of Czechowice-Dziedzice, Southern Poland, in September 2024. Ela73/Shutterstock Clotilde Cerdan Amiard, IE University As climate change makes extreme weather events more intense and frequent, “uninsurable areas” are becoming increasingly common. They are a clear demonstration that insurance – the mechanism through which modern societies deal with all
Soils feed us, filter our water and support most of the food chain on Earth. But they are also among Europe’s most neglected resources –quietly degrading beneath our feet while we look elsewhere. Andrés Rodríguez Seijo from the University of Vigo in Spain is one of the researchers working to change that. He
If you have ever seen the Milky Way in the night sky, you probably noticed that it looks cloudy. That is because towards the centre of our galaxy, and of most galaxies, there are vast amounts of dust that make it hard to see what is going on. That means a big swathe
Mandy Fransz was working a nine‑to‑five office job in Dublin for a big American tech firm when she made a life‑changing switch. In 2018, the Dutch tech worker quit her office job to try remote work in search of a better quality of life. She travelled to Bali, southeast Asia, for a month
Richard Youngs, University of Warwick Compounding the alarm triggered by Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the erratic unpredictability of the second Trump administration has made the need for European security autonomy obvious. On a number of occasions over the past year, Donald Trump has loosely intimated that he might leave the Nato
Pier Luigi Parcu, European University Institute Europe has spent years building effective tools to measure media pluralism within its member states. This made sense because newspapers, broadcasters, regulators, ownership structures and public service media were organised within national borders. But the media environment is changing. News is now distributed through global digital platforms,
Ph. PM Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have reset the UK-EU relationship – but UK alignment would take things a step further. Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock Ursula F Ott, Nottingham Trent University It is now almost a decade since the UK voted for Brexit and since the tariffs of US president
Many people expect a raging wildfire to leave a blackened, lifeless landscape in its wake. But after a blaze swept through Las Hurdes in Extremadura, Spain, in 2009, the scene was quite different. In the midst of the scorched earth were patches of green where healthy trees remained standing and unscathed. From a
From his bedroom desk in the Belgian town of Dendermonde, Gert Everaert used to watch the river Scheldt flow past. Barges and small boats drifted by. Birds fished. But the river also carried something less picturesque – a steady stream of litter and plastic waste. “Cars would stop and people threw rubbish straight into