Europe

The official definition of a kilogram may be redefined this week. After years of debate and discussion, scientists from around the world are meeting in Paris on Friday to vote on whether the kilogram, the mole, the ampere and the kelvin should be changed to more stable and reliable definitions.

To help prepare astronauts for a longer return trip to the Moon, the European Space Agency (ESA) has outlined a new facility that will recreate the lunar surface as accurately as possible.

More than 30 years after the worst nuclear disaster in history, the Chernobyl area is once again producing power. From the (somewhat literal) ashes of the Nuclear Power Plant springs the Chernobyl Solar Power Plant, which was officially launched with an opening ceremony on Friday.

Ötzi the 5,300-year old Iceman has taught us a lot about the Copper Age world he came from. The newest lesson comes from an analysis of his stomach contents, indicating an unexpectedly high-fat diet of meat interspersed with cereals and strangely, toxic bracken.

Aarchaeologists excavating a new site in Pompeii have uncovered a new victim of the disaster, who has quite a story to tell. The skeleton was found with its head crushed beneath a huge stone block that was thrown by the force of the volcanic cloud.

The EU is moving to put the brakes on the problem of plastic pollution. Under proposed new rules that would apply to the entire bloc, it has taken aim at the plastic products most commonly found on its beaches and seas, which together account for 70 percent of the continent’s marine litter.

Ford has reinvented the Fiesta as the all-new Fiesta Active, which the company says is the first in a family of “Active crossover” models. Inspired by sport utility crossovers, the Fiesta Active jumps into the active sport activity vehicle market popularized in Europe by BMW.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa has stood at a precarious angle for more than 600 years, surviving numerous large earthquakes without damage. Now, a team of engineers has identified how it managed that feat.

Researchers from the Netherlands have managed to grow model mouse embryos by combining stem cells. The technique can help us better understand the early days of life, and may lead to more effective ways to treat infertility or genetic diseases.

Neonicotinoids are bad news for bees and we've known it for a while. But the situation regarding bee populations and the world's most widely used pesticide has now become so dire that the EU has placed a complete ban on their outdoor use, and it's expected to take effect by the end of the year.

The Swedish Transport Administration has just opened a 2-km (1.2-mi) stretch of electrified road that works like slot cars. The project, dubbed eRoadArlanda, involves embedding electric rails into the road surface to power electric vehicles through a contact arm hanging down from under the car.

The dinosaur Archaeopteryx is widely regarded as one of the earliest ancestors of modern birds, but the question of whether or not it could actively fly has been debated for decades. Now, scientists have taken X-ray scans of fossil specimens, and concluded that the answer is yes – sort of.