Latest Science and technology in Europe Stories

On March 31, a crew of six, including a French pilot and a German engineer, will embark on a 105-day simulated Mars mission. They will enter a special facility at the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow, to emerge only three months later.Their mission will help in understanding the psychological and medical aspects of long-duration spaceflight. Media representatives are invited to meet the participants just before they enter the isolation facility.Over two days, there will be...

ESA has announced three candidate Earth Explorer mission concepts to progress to the next phase of consolidation. This selection is part of the user-driven process that will lead to the launch of the Agency's seventh Earth Explorer satellite in the 2016 time frame.Last week ESA's Programme Board for Earth Observation decided on three Earth Explorer missions that will undergo Feasibility Studies. The decision was based on recommendations made by ESA's Earth Science Advisory Committee (ESAC)...

Future medical research will focus increasingly on electronic data, with less need both for laboratory animals and tissue samples. This long term trend emerged at a recent conference on biobanking organized by the European Science Foundation (ESF), which dealt with the challenges posed by the growing scale and complexity of research in the life sciences.But in the more immediate future biological specimens will be required in ever greater quantities, with higher quality, for a wide variety of...

The European Space Agency (ESA) Director General met with reporters on Wednesday to outline a number of major events planned for 2009.Jean-Jacques Dordain began the annual press briefing at ESA headquarters by reviewing the ESA's achievements in 2008, such as the docking of the Columbus science lab with the International Space Station"Last year was really an outstanding vintage," he told reporters. "But there'll be no breathing space going forward."Dordain continued by...

Public confidence in the honesty of scientists is being harmed by a small minority of researchers who behave badly, a conference heard last week. European research organisations agreed to work more closely to tackle the problem of fraud and other misconduct in science.The meeting in Madrid on 17-18 November was organised by the newly formed Research Integrity Forum of the European Science Foundation (ESF) in collaboration with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). It continued work...

European science ministers are gathered at The Hague this week to determine which policies and programs they will approve for the next three years. The 18 member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) have over 9 billion euros ($12 billion) at their disposal, and will discuss how to best allocate the funds. The agenda of the Council Meeting at Ministerial Level was established ahead of the talks, where science ministers will approve ESA's plans and set budget limits on major program...

Europe's shape is in a constant change: The Mediterranean basin is shrinking, the Alps are rising and pushing North, and Scandinavia is still rebounding after having been crushed by the weight of a thick and huge ice sheet in the ice ages. But what did Europe look like in the past, what are the processes controlling all these changes and what has the future in store for us? And how does the topography influence the climate of Europe on geological time scales?The EUROCORES programme...

Three leading scientists are making a last-minute appeal to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to support Europe's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) project. The 2bn-euro project is a joint venture between the European Union and European Space Agency, and would establish a comprehensive view of the planet's condition from both satellite and ground-based data.  So far, Britain has only shown tepid support for the venture, despite claims the nation is a world leader in...

A historic event took place at ESA sites across Europe November 14 - the flag of the Czech Republic was hoisted alongside those of ESA's other Member States, officially symbolizing the country becoming ESA's 18th Member State.The Agreement on the Czech Republic's accession to the ESA Convention was signed on 8 July in Prague, by Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of ESA, and Mirek Topolánek, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic.Following this signing, the process of ratification...

ESA is launching its own YouTube site in a new initiative to communicate even more widely with the general public by using the latest social media channels.Officially launched on 7 November, the ESA YouTube channel is part of a new communications strategy that will give a more "˜human' face to the work done at ESA. The growing popularity of internet-based social media and networking channels, such as YouTube, is enabling ESA to reach important new target audiences and engage the public using...