Do natural scientists write differently than humanities scholars? Are women better readers? What makes for good writing? On the occasion of the University’s «Writing Day» on 29 November 2018, four professors explain why writing matters for themselves and their disciplines.
T3 Pharma, a biotech start-up company of the University of Basel with a focus on immuno-oncology, has been named “2018 Science Start-Up of the Year” by Falling Walls Venture. The award honors the scientist-entrepreneurs for their breakthrough business model in bacterial cancer therapy.
The University of Basel has accepted the challenges of the 2018 to 2021 performance period and defined the necessary measures. On the one hand, payments into the real estate fund will be reduced and reserves will be released. At the same time, the budgets of the faculties and departments will be reduced by an average of 2.5 percent. The implementation of these measures will ensure that the University of Basel can continue to develop in strategically important areas during this performance period, despite a decline in its global contribution.
Today, the European Commission launched its flagship initiative on quantum technologies. Three research groups from the Department of Physics at the University of Basel are involved. The aim of the 1 billion euro research and technology funding program is to develop radically new and powerful quantum technologies by exploiting various quantum effects.
Air pollution and transportation noise are both associated with an increased risk of heart attacks. Studies on air pollution, which do not take into account traffic noise, tend to overestimate the long-term effect of air pollution on heart attacks.
The European Research Council has awarded one of the prestigious ERC Synergy Grants to a joint research project of the University of Basel, the University Hospital of Basel and the Friedrich Miescher Institute. The interdisciplinary team wants to find out whether nasal cartilage cells can be used for the regeneration of intervertebral discs. The funding amounts to 5.3 million euros.
For years, scientists have been trying to determine the climate of the past in order to make better predictions about future climate conditions. Now, there has been a breakthrough in the methodology of climate reconstruction based on microbial molecular fossils. Researchers under the direction of the University of Basel analyzed sediment samples collected from more than 30 Swiss lakes. Their findings can be applied to lakes worldwide, as the scientists report in PNAS.
Scientists at the University of Basel have found a way to change the spatial arrangement of bipyridine molecules on a surface. These potential components of dye-sensitized solar cells form complexes with metals and thereby alter their chemical conformation.
How is it possible that so many different and highly specific neurons arise in the brain? A mathematic model developed by researchers from the University of Basel’s Biozentrum demonstrates that different variants of genes enable such a random diversity. The scientists describe in “Cell Reports” that despite countless numbers of newly formed neurons, the genetic variants equip neurons individually and precisely for their specific function.
