|
Dear readers of the YERUN newsletter, as many of you are already enjoying a much deserved summer break, we are dedicating our June news stories to some insightful research going on at YERUN universities. Interdisciplinarity being in our DNA, the topics presented are very varied: among other things, you might learn something new about drone navigation, extended reality, flash floods, 'singleness', fertility, the impact of people's mobility on the spreading of Covid, and on the meaning we give to the word "fragment". Enjoy your read and, if you feel like it, let us know what news resonated the most with your interests!
|
|
|
Research at YERUN universities
|
|
|
Can we fly this on Mars?
When NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) staff member Stephan Weiss demonstrated his drone navigation technology during a flight demonstration in 2013, Charles Elachi, head of JPL at the time, asked him: “Can we fly this on Mars?” This marked the beginning of a remarkable story, which culminated in the Mars Mission 2020 deployment of an adapted version of the drone flight technology developed by Weiss, who is now a professor at the University of Klagenfurt. Since GPS signals are not available on Mars, any robot exploring the alien planet from the ground or from the air needs to use an alternative navigation technology. The Mars helicopter “Ingenuity” uses camera-based navigation, which means that it is technically equipped with ‘eyes’ which it can use to orientate itself. The groundwork for this camera-based navigation was laid by research conducted by Stephan Weiss at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Click here to discover more!
|
|
|
Sustainability Challenge to tackle climate issues
A sustainability challenge taking place at University of Limerick is seeking to tackle climate challenges, empowering and encouraging students to contribute to sustainable development. The Challenge seeks ambitious proposals from undergraduate and postgraduate student teams at UL to tackle climate change, with ideas or proposals to be applicable to either the campus, the city or wider Mid-West region or even further afield. Five finalist teams will be selected by an independent expert panel comprising representatives from industry and academia. The five most promising project proposals will be shortlisted, each will receive support, and up to €10,000 to prepare and deliver a working pilot or demonstration of their proposal by March 2023. The outcome will be evaluated on the basis of targets, feasibility plan, societal impact and delivery. Click here to discover more!
|
|
Leading EU research into eXtended Reality (XR)
The University of South-Eastern Norway will be heading a new EU project where the aim is to prepare Europe for eXtended Reality (XR). XR4HUMAN was recently awarded EUR 2.5 million from Horizon Europe. Along with 11 partners, USN will assess the challenges and opportunities as a consequence of eXtended Reality being adopted in constantly new areas of society. In just a few years XR has gone from being the preserve of researchers in labs to becoming a common consumer product. There are many obvious benefits to this technology, but it also harbours new challenges and a new type of risk. “The European XR industry, consumers, legislators and academia need to be sufficiently aware of the opportunities, benefits and risks of XR technology. We will help Europe manage this technology in a good way,” say professors Rigmor Baraas and Rosemarie Bernabe, who will coordinate the project together. Click here to discover more!
|
|
|
Examining the hazards of flash floods for cities
In July 2021, there were devastating floods caused by heavy rainfall with 180 deaths and immense economic damages in Rhineland-Palatine and North-Rhine Westphalia, and to some extent also in Saxony and Bavaria. Such an extreme flood event is very rare but within the realm of possibility, as researchers of the working group Hydrology and Climatology led by Prof. Axel Bronstert (University of Potsdam) say. In principle, cities such as Berlin are also at risk. The team is researching what triggers pluvial floods and how to predict the hazards for inhabited areas. Click here to discover more!
|
|
How 3D technology can help rebuild disaster-hit communities
How 3D technology can help communities rebuild after a disaster is the focus of a new £1.5m project at the University of Essex. Leading the project is heritage expert Dr. Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco, who previously worked with the people of Senerchia in southern Italy on a project to help them rebuild their town and sense of community. Her co-produced film, 'Italia Terremotata', won a British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies award. Her new project 'REbuilding a sense of PLACE' (REPLACE) has been awarded as part of the UKRI Future Leadership Fellowship scheme which funds research to tackle global issues and commercialise innovations. It will include the first in-depth longitudinal study on the socio-cultural role of 3D technologies in building community resilience and helping communities prepare for, respond to and mitigate the social effects of natural disasters. Click here to discover more!
|
|
|
Why do people stay single?
The traditional life cycle of getting married and having children is mistakenly still looked upon as ‘the standard’. Research shows that by 2060, half of Europe’s population will be single, partly due to the ageing population, partly to the fact that many young people choose to remain single, or have problems finding the right partner. How do young adults in industrialized countries enter relationships today? That’s the Singleton project’s topic, led by sociologist Dimitri Mortelmans (University of Antwerp) who received a prestigious grant from the European Research Council to research ‘singleness’ in young adults. Click here to discover more!
|
|
“Green“ Synthesis of Hybrid Materials
Hybrid materials consist of at least two fundamentally different components that are connected at the molecular level. They are particularly interesting for materials science because they have the potential to combine the positive properties of completely different substances or to have properties that none of the individual components possesses. Miriam Unterlass, professor of solid state chemistry at the University of Konstanz, and her team have now succeeded in producing such hybrid materials from a combination of organic and inorganic components, using nothing but hot water as a solvent. Click here to discover more!
|
|
Generating green hydrogen by mimicking nature
Everyone knows the importance of solar radiation as a climate-friendly energy source. But long before major initiatives such as Europe’s Green Deal or Germany’s National Hydrogen Strategy, the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre ‘CataLight’ had begun developing molecular systems that can function as solar radiation converters. For the researchers at the Universities of Ulm and Jena – the lead institutions in the CataLight consortium – the most important model for solar energy conversion is natural photosynthesis. Following four successful years, the German Research Foundation (DFG) continues to fund the project with EUR 12 million. Click here to discover more!
|
|
Paracetamol and plastics fertility risk
A toxic cocktail of chemical pollutants measured in people’s bodies has been linked by new research to male infertility. Sperm counts have more than halved in the last 40 years. One culprit is daily exposure to a mix of hormone-disrupting chemicals - with the cocktail effect being way more dangerous than any single substance. Chemicals found in everyday things such as milk cartons, tinned tuna, till receipts and the painkiller, paracetamol reach the body, damaging sperm. Toxicologists analysed levels of mixtures of bisphenols, dioxins, phthalates, and paracetamol in urine from Danish men aged between 18 and 30. The study conducted at Brunel University London found every single man tested had levels higher than considered safe. Some even were 100 times higher than safe levels. And because key steps in male sexual development start in pregnancy, developing babies are most at risk. Click here to discover more!
|
|
Analysing the link between people’s reduced movement and the spread of coronavirus
A new study at the University of Eastern Finland analysing the link between people’s reduced movement and the spread of coronavirus in 2020 shows that in some countries, the virus spread more rapidly when people stayed at home. In addition, restricting people’s mobility to some extent appeared, retrospectively, to be better at minimising the spread of SARS-CoV-2 than extreme mobility restrictions, in many countries. “Over two years mark the start of the pandemic which changed the lives of many of us in various ways. The current development of the SARS-CoV-2 spread suggests that this chapter of history entitled COVID-19 might, hopefully, be fading to its end. There is, however, still a lot to learn about it. Reflecting on how we have reacted to the pandemic could help us draw useful lessons on how to minimize the damage of similar challenges, especially now that infectious diseases appear to be a re-emerging threat,” researchers Mounir Ould Setti and Sylvain Tollis point out. Click here to discover more!
|
|
Subverting "The Logic of the Fragment"
In terms of creation, standardised discourse conceives the fragment as a residue of totality and understands totality (of an artistic work, for example) as closure, the conclusion, the truth. In the book La lógica del fragmento. Arte y subversión (The Logic of the Fragment. Art and subversion), Pilar Carrera, professor at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, analyses the fragment as a space for the emergence of meaning and significance. This analysis breaks away from the idea that the fragment is part of a totality and places it as an autonomous discursive structure, not only from an aesthetic dimension, but also from a theoretical and political one: “Standardised discourse on the fragment, which morally rejects it as a residue of totality, comes from the belief in the truth as conclusiveness”, the book notes. However, “in contrast to the reassuring closure, the fragment points to absence understood as a space where meaning unfolds, not to memory or mourning for a ruined totality. Absence is the substratum that allows us to undertake this operation of meaning that the fragment conveys”. Click here to discover more!
|
|
A Small Tower Doing Big Things
You can see the big one, it has become a landmark of the city – we are talking about the University of Bremen’s Drop Tower. Now, a smaller version nestles up against it, and it also has a lot going for it. While only three flights a day are possible in the large drop tower, the new, faster drop tower can theoretically be used almost a thousand times in the same period. Click here to know more!
|
|
|
New developments and trans-disciplinary opportunities at CMAM
The Center for Micro-Analysis of Materials (CMAM) is a research facility of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) based on the usage of an ion accelerator providing beams in the MeV regime as a trans-disciplinary science tool suitable for analysis and modification of materials at the nanoscale. CMAM was founded in the early 2000s and has ever since been contributing to the science community at UAM and beyond. CMAM has been recently awarded the status of Scientific-technical singular infrastructures (ICTS). The ICTS network structures the largest and most relevant Spanish scientific facilities as a coherent national effort to provide the best possible tools to the scientific and industrial communities. Much in the spirit of other roadmapping efforts, such as ESFRI at the European scale, the ICTS network is intended to coordinate and forward-plan the facility capabilities and needs at the national scale. Click here to discover more!
|
|
Join the YERUN Community! |
|
|
|
|
