WIWES contributed by Nicholas John
The idea of a group mind, or hive mind, is popular in science fiction, and refers to the ability of a group of discrete individuals to communicate – either telepathically or through hardware. This means that each individual k...
Outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD)
A new strain of FMD crosses into Europe from a neighbouring country and decimates cattle herds
The nuclear fusion facility ITER is destroyed either by a natural disaster (earthquake? fire?) or in a terrorist attack, setting back European nuclear fusion research by decades
Alternative centres of excellence
India or China emerge as the global centre for scientific excellence (i.e., ERA becomes irrelevant)
The west disavows all responsibility for the problems of the world’s weaker countries, focusing its resources only on European countries
An energy crisis makes air travel prohibitively expensive thus preventing researchers from European and third countries from travelling for research purposes
Cold War style blocs of countries emerge with Iron Curtains between them thereby halting and even reversing trends to global integration
Clean, green machines: The advent of the carbon-lite economy
Breakthroughs in alternative energy sources may end fossil fuel dependence. Likely candidates to replace fossil fuel include nuclear (fusion and fission), hydrogen, biomass and other renewables and increased energy efficiency.
Active Biomaterials for Regenerative Medicine
Research on active biomaterials for implantation in the human body leads to in-situ repair and regeneration of damaged tissue
After decades of growing life expectancy, it starts to come down. Given that Europe's long-term planning is predicated on an ageing society, this would have a huge impact throughout the EU and the world.
Life expectancy doubled in small mammals
Scientists succeed in doubling the life expectancy of small mammals. It is a precursor for scientific possibilities vis-a-vis humans.
The FP6 DustCart project is aimed at designing, developing and testing a system for improving the management of urban hygiene based on a network of autonomous and cooperating robots, embedded in an Ambient Intelligence infrastr...
Scientists finds a way for controlling the weather
Some scientists contend that influencing the weather may be possible if we can sufficiently improve our current ability to observe, predict, and make changes to the atmosphere. There has been some theoretical research on the we...
Nano-electrodes are shaped as needles which can be coated with various materials/poisons as anti-human weapons
