Authorities in Europe have ramped up counterterrorism efforts, making hundreds of arrests. Dutch police in November arrested members of the Hofstad Islamist group.

A sliver of good news from across the Atlantic: things could be much worse. Since the 2004 bombings in Madrid, authorities across the Continent have ramped up counterterrorism efforts, making hundreds of arrests and foiling several large-scale plots. Here’s a rundown of some notable successes.

1) BRITAIN

British authorities charged…

In the NL., home to 1 million Muslims, a spokesman for the Dutch intelligence service says it believes as many as 20 different hard-line Islamic groups may be operating in the country.

The last time Myriam Cherif saw her son Peter, 23, was in May 2004, when the two of them stood at the elevator on the fifth floor of the gritty public-housing project where they lived, just north of Paris. Myriam, 48, was born in Tunisia, moved to France when she…

iCat, is a new invention of Philips Research of Eindhoven. The notion of robot as home companion is nothing new, but iCat adds a human dimension to the job: an expressive face.

Follow the Leader
Inventor: Toshiba Corp
Availability: Prototype only
To Learn More: www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/ 2005_05/pr2001.htm
Robots may not invade anytime soon, but there’s no denying that they’re getting smarter. The ball-shaped ApriAlpha uses advanced voice-recognition technology to distinguish between voices coming from different locations. When Alpha hears a voice, it…

Jaap Goudsmit, chief scientific officer for Netherlands-based Crucell, which supplies cell-culture technology, expects to test the first cell-based avian-flu vaccine as early as next spring.

More than half of the $7.1 billion that President Bush wants to spend preparing for a flu pandemic is dedicated to finding better ways to make antiviral drugs and vaccines, an investment that scientists say is long overdue. Flu vaccines were being grown in chicken eggs more than 50 years…

“Don’t think of me as a 14-year-old, since all these troubles have made me older,” said Anne Frank, in a 1944 letter to her father that was released last week.

Our answer to those who are angry about Iran obtaining the full nuclear cycle is one phrase. We say: Be angry, and die of this anger.”

MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, President of Iran, following his announcement that Iran had successfully enriched uranium

“From an Islamic point of view, we have to be…

Dutch scientists report that populations of a migratory species called the pied flycatcher have plummeted an astonishing 90% over the past two decades because of climate change.

Even after an unusually mild winter, the return of spring to North America feels like a blessing. Parents are dragging their toddlers to the park. Students are dusting off their Frisbees. And bird watchers, armed with binoculars and guidebooks, are heading out to search for their favorite species.

But…

By 2010 New Orleans will (probably) be flooded only once every 100 years. The NL. has a system designed to protect populated areas against anything but a 1-in-10,000-years flood.

Every July the country’s leading disaster scientists and emergency planners gather in Boulder, Colo., for an invitation-only workshop. Picture 440 people obsessed with the tragic and the safe, people who get excited about earthquake “shake maps” and righteous about flood insurance. It’s a spirited but wonky crowd that is…

Neuromarketing, coined by a marketing professor at Erasmus University, is the use of neuroscience to better understand how our brain reacts to advertising, brands and products.

On a recent Wednesday night, Eleanor Phipp spent and hour watching commercial television. Nothing unusual about that–except that Phipp, 30, was in a dark room at a South London medical center, lying inside a loudly whirring functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner that mapped her brain as video…

Swiss furnituremaker Vitra, introduces Dutch designer Hella Jongerius’ Polder, a couch that mimics the Netherlands’ flat landscapes, upholstered in six fabrics. Windmills not included.

A

Animal Prints

It started on the runway several seasons ago when Miuccia Prada sent out some savage leopard-print cloth coats complete with fur trim. Almost every other designer has since tapped into this favorite classic—whether that means leopard-print clutches à la Roger Vivier or a full-on animal-print platform…

An exhibit of Monet reveals the formative influence of Japanese art. Biographers offer varying accounts of that first Japanese print he bought: it was in Amsterdam, or Delft or Zaandam.

One day in 1871, legend has it, a French artist named Claude Monet walked into a food shop in Amsterdam, where he had gone to escape the Prussian siege of Paris. There he spotted some Japanese prints being used as wrapping paper. He was so taken by the engravings that…

The University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands discovered insight into the mechanisms by which humans communicate their innermost desires and feelings.

For 20 minutes Andrea McColl, a research assistant at the University of Southern California, has been repeating the same string of nonsense syllables, changing her intonation on cue. When a smiling cartoon face pops up on the screen in front of her, she tries to sound happy. When a…

The world’s most vulnerable coastal communities are taking action against rising oceans and more severe floods. The Dutch are radically revising traditional flood-management thinking.

With his curly, salt-and-pepper hair and thoughtful demeanor, Chris West looks like just another mid-career professor as he crosses the streets of Oxford University. But West, trained as a zoologist, is more an activist than an academic these days. From his cramped office around the corner from Balliol College, he…

In what would be the largest financial-services merger ever, Britain’s Barclays PLC bid for the NLs’ largest bank, ABN Amro NV, for $91.16 billion. The result: a worldwide banking giant.

Working your way up is overrated. Companies are increasingly just buying their way to the top of global markets.

BABY FOOD TASTES SWEET

In an all-cash, $5.5 billion deal, Nestlé will buy the Gerber baby-food business from Swiss pharma giant Novartis. The purchase catapults Nestlé to the top of the…

Countries don’t always set aside enough money to pay for the pensions they promise. One country appears to have found a better way: The NL, “the globe’s No. 1 pensions country.”

In early June, the Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)–the club of the world’s wealthy and almost wealthy nations–released a 208-page document perversely titled Pensions at a Glance. Inside is a rundown of how generous OECD members are to their burgeoning ranks of retirees.

The U.S. is…

The recent organ donor hoax in the NL. was an effort to draw attention to the problem of organ donation. In the U.S. another solution is Nashville-based nonprofit Lifesharers network.

Americans love a square deal. The idea of the quid pro quo, the something for something, lies at the heart of our very sense of fairness. But there’s one area in which something for nothing is much closer to the rule, and it’s a transaction on which people’s very lives…