The Rectorate has appointed Prof. Georg Rauter and Prof. Azhar Zam new assistant professors at the Faculty of Medicine. They will strengthen the team of project MIRACLE at the Department of Biomedical Engineering in Allschwil. The project is being funded by the Werner Siemens Foundation with 15.2 million Swiss Francs over the course of five years. The principal aim is to develop a robot-assisted laser that can cut bones very precisely and without any direct contact.
Forest trees use carbon not only for themselves; they also trade large quantities of it with their neighbours. The extensive carbon trade among trees – even among different species – is conducted via symbiotic fungi in the soil.
The globally increasing light pollution has negative effects on organisms and entire ecosystems. The consequences are especially hard on nocturnal insects, since their attraction to artificial light sources generally ends fatal. A new study by Swiss zoologists from the Universities of Basel and Zurich now shows that urban moths have learned to avoid light.
How can the International Federation of Association Football FIFA be reformed? Former FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter and Luis Moreno Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, will discuss this question at the University of Basel. The public panel will be held on Friday, 15 April at the Center for Teaching and Research.
Researchers of the University of Basel and Empa have gotten a step closer to engineering artificial muscles: they have developed a method to generate nanometer-thin silicone films.
The University of Basel is launching a new teaching award in five categories. Students and teachers are asked to nominate candidates for the Teaching Excellence Awards 2016.
Both the EU and the US regularly find themselves grappling with the issue of data protection. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) recently declared the Safe Harbor data protection agreement invalid, as US companies did not sufficiently protect data transferred from Europe. Fundamentally, the legal situation around data and data traffic is unclear, and there are very few internationally valid regulations on the matter.
Natural products from bacteria and fungi are an important source of current and novel drugs, such as antibiotics. They are produced in the microorganisms by giant protein complexes that resemble industrial assembly lines. In the future, engineered assembly line proteins may help to produce a variety of drug candidates.
Spiders are known to be the classic example of insectivorous predators. Zoologists from the University of Basel, the US and UK have now been able to show that their diet is more diverse than expected. Their findings show that spiders like to spice up their menu with the occasional vegetarian meal.
