Helen Massy-Beresford 

Horizon Magazine • 21st February 2023

Electric cars dangle the promise of earning money for their drivers

While drivers considering an electric vehicle (EV) might imagine the main benefit being less air pollution from their own journeys, EV batteries could also make money for car owners – and help countries stabilise their power grids.

Food Matters Live • 17th February 2023

How is urban farming taking root in European city streets?

Paris, the most densely populated city in Europe, is going green – or greener at least – thanks to urban farming. Across the French capital’s twenty arrondissements, tomatoes and herbs are growing on bright rooftops, mushrooms are sprouting in shady abandoned underground car parks and hops are winding their way up walls.

Discover Cleantech • 14th February 2023

AI, 3D-modelling, and orange-peel fabrics - could technology ease fashion’s environmental conscience?

From piles of fabric offcuts wasted during the manufacturing process to a massive wastewater production and heavy carbon footprint, fashion has a sustainability problem.

Food Matters Live • 12th January 2023

Is the baguette under threat? How UNESCO could save the popular bread

“Two hundred and fifty grams of magic and perfection in our daily lives” – that’s how French President Emmanuel Macron summed up the baguette, as it took its place on UNESCO’s list of world intangible cultural heritage last November, after a years-long campaign led by France’s politicians and bakers.

The French delegates in the room at the UNESCO meeting in Rabat, Morocco, cheered and waved baguettes in celebration, and back home, (most) bakers have welcomed the decision, but the good news come

The Local France • 7th January 2023

Crèche to cafés: How to make friends with other parents in France

I have often read descriptions of new arrivals in France struggling to break down the reserve of chilly French neighbours and colleagues or finding the parents at their children’s schools snobbish and even hostile. Perhaps I have just been very lucky, but this hasn’t been my experience at all.

There are plenty of opportunities to connect and make friends – both for you and for your children – but when you’re newly arrived it can be hard to know where to start.

The early weeks and months of a n

Discover Cleantech • 10th June 2022

How zero emission technologies are taking flight | Discover CleanTech

Modern air travel has expanded the world and its possibilities – but, it has come at a cost. Before the pandemic, the global aviation industry accounted for about two to three per cent of man-made CO2 emissions; fortunately, industry leaders are hard at work to reduce emissions. Aviation specialist Helen Massy-Beresford investigates the possible future of zero emission flight.

After two years of unprecedented crisis, the aviation sector is enjoying its recovery: holidaymakers and business trave

Discover Cleantech • 7th April 2022

Paris: The City of Light is going green

Often referred to as the world’s fashion capital, gastronomic capital or cultural capital, Paris now has big plans to become known as its sustainable tourism capital too. From more efficient and more accessible public transport to restaurants serving locally sourced food, the entire tourist sector – and beyond – is involved in working towards that ambitious green goal.

As France works towards its long-term sustainability target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, the tourism sector of one o

Al Jazeera • 22nd May 2020

Fashion turns to technology to tailor sustainable solutions

At the cutting edge of fashion and science, innovators are setting a new trend with a circular model of consumption.

Paris, France – Highlighting the growth of fast fashion – at least in the form of increasing volumes of cheap and disposable clothing – TRAID’s warehouse in London was receiving around 3,000 tonnes of donated clothes every year before coronavirus hit.

“We’re sorting through more volume and finding less that can go into our shops than a few years ago,” said Leigh McAlea, head of

The Independent • 7th May 2020

Opinion: How can France lift the lockdown when it's only just discovered its coronavirus case was in December?

As France prepares to lift its strict lockdown, the discovery that a patient at a hospital near Paris had Covid-19 in late December, almost a month before France’s first officially confirmed cases, highlights how little is still known about the disease.

Al Jazeera • 5th December 2019

Urban farmers reap harvests in Paris

From underground car-parks to the rooftops of the famous skyline, an agricultural revolution is taking place in the French capital. Parisian mushrooms are reclaiming their dark spaces under the City of Light.

The Independent • 16th April 2019

Opinion: Macron will have to do more than rebuild the Notre Dame if he hopes to unite France

“Notre Drame” – our drama – screamed the front page of French newspaper Libération this morning and it pretty much summed it up.

BBC.com • 23rd August 2018

The Goutte d'Or – emerging design hub

Just a few minutes’ walk from the tourist-choked cobbles and souvenir shops of Montmartre the Goutte d'Or, a burgeoning creative hub, could be a different world.

Horizon Magazine • 19th July 2018

Non-invasive tests to provide quicker diagnosis of endometriosis

Non-surgical ways of detecting endometriosis, such as blood tests, could reduce the time taken for a diagnosis, and researchers hope it will have a significant impact on the quality of life of women who live with the complex and painful condition.

Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting an estimated 10% of women of reproductive age in which pieces of endometrium – the lining of the uterus – grow elsewhere in the pelvis. This can cause pelvic and period pain, painful sexual int

Connexion France • 24th January 2018

Meet Paris’s first cheese maker

Paris's first cheese maker has big plans for organic, local and affordable specialities

Horizon Magazine • 3rd November 2017

Smart autopilot promises to keep flying safe

Intelligent autopilot and cockpits designed by virtual reality could ease the burden on pilots and make flying safer for Europe’s airline passengers.

Figures show that 918 million passengers travelled by air in the EU in 2015 – a 4.7% increase on the previous year – and passenger numbers are still growing.

Flight safety is a key priority and now researchers have developed a digital co-pilot that can help to analyse risks and offer in-flight advice to the human pilots on board, while also monit

Horizon Magazine • 4th September 2017

Miniature implant hopes to bypass heart failure

A miniaturised heart implant is one of the most promising ways in which scientists are hoping to tackle cardiovascular disease, the world’s biggest killer, which claims the lives of almost 2 million people every year in the EU alone.

Horizon Magazine • 19th January 2017

Half of dementia risk down to lifestyle

Eating well and going for walks in middle age can contribute to cutting your risk of dementia in half, say researchers who are working on ways to tackle the disease through lifestyle choices.

‘Dementia is the number one fear of ageing and yet people don’t know that 50 % of our cognitive health is in our own hands,’ said Dr Kate Irving, of Dublin City University, Ireland.

the Guardian • 18th November 2015

Where is the fastest growing city in the world?

The fastest growing city in the world is Batam in Indonesia … or Niamey in Niger … or maybe Xiamen in China. It all depends on who you ask.

the Guardian • 26th August 2015

What's the world's most expensive city?

Where is the world’s most expensive city? London, where garages can sell for half a million pounds? Or Paris, where hotels, restaurants and boutiques cater to almost 50 million tourists a year in the world’s most visited city?

The Observer • 23rd November 2014

What’s next for the world’s 5 million IVF babies?

When in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) began in 1978, some scientists were worried that the babies born as a result of it might suffer birth defects and health problems.

Intensive research in the early years, and a thriving population that has now grown to more than 5 million IVF children worldwide, have reassured scientists, but they have not stopped studying and trying to improve the process.

the Guardian • 30th October 2014

British food winning over the French

“You can’t trust people whose cuisine is so bad.” It was 2005 when France’s president Jacques Chirac made his infamous put-down of his British neighbours.

But almost 10 years on, British food is flying off French shelves – so much so that posh crisps from companies such as Tyrrells are known as “English crisps” and Marks & Spencer’s bestselling ready meal in Paris is that British classic, chicken tikka masala.

Express.co.uk • 3rd August 2014

Magical allure of fairytale France: Discover the beauty of Carcassonne

A visit to the walled, hilltop city of Carcassonne is unforgettable. Perched above the River Aude, its medieval turrets are visible for miles around.


The citadel and castle date from the Middle Ages but were restored in the 19th century, leaving a fairytale skyscape of slate-roofed turrets that has attracted numerous filmmakers including Kevin Costner whose Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves was made here.


A visit to the Chateau Comtal gives an insight into the bloody, turbulent history of this

The Observer • 26th April 2014

How we all could benefit from synaesthesia

Sitting in a small, computer-lined room trying to remember a succession of different-coloured words scrolling past on a screen doesn't sound like the cutting edge of scientific research. However, academics at the University of East London are using word tests to assess the impact synaesthesia can have on memory – and the potential it might have to ward off the decline in cognitive function that can affect the elderly.

Synaesthesia, the neurological condition that causes a blending of the senses

the Guardian • 16th April 2014

Cadbury crunch: chocolatier wraps up Easter egg quality at high-tech lab

There are no Oompa-Loompas in evidence on this Reading University campus, but one laboratory tucked away on the site is doing work that would be sure to set Willy Wonka's pulse racing.

Inside, researchers working for the owner of Cadbury are testing the crispiness of biscuits, analysing the molecular structure of chocolatey aromas and calibrating the crackability of Easter eggs.

Chocolate eggs are being peered into through electron microscopes that, through a haze of liquid nitrogen, reveal th