UNI NOVA – Research Magazine of the University of Basel

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  Alumni

  A theologian in recruitment.

  Interview: Bettina Volz-Tobler / Gabriela Brahier Stark studied Reformed theology in Basel while she was still a Catholic. After training as a curate in a parish in Graubünden, she converted, serving as a Reformed pastor in Reinach, Basel-Landschaft. At the same time, she obtained her doctorate, with a thesis on ethics, and was awarded a post-doctoral grant. She then moved into the private sector, where she joined a recruitment company.

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  Alumni

  Ethnology establishes alumni group.

  Text: Bettina Volz-Tobler / Ethnology has existed as a discipline in Basel for over 100 years. An alumni organization for the subject has now been established.

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  Alumni

  Life as a nanoscience researcher in southern Sweden.

  Heidi Potts studied nanoscience in Basel and Toronto. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Lund in Sweden.

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  Column

  Against totalitarianism.

  Text: Manuel Battegay / “Life and Fate”, by Vasily Grossman: Against totalitarianism.

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  Dossier

  The challenge of old age.

  Text: Reto W. Kressig / We are not only getting older, but also increasingly doing so in good health. Aging can therefore be seen as both an opportunity and a challenge.

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  Dossier

  Progress in the gait lab.

  Text: Christoph Dieffenbacher / Discrete irregularities in gait can point to cognitive deficits later in life – even years in advance. The University Center for Medicine of Aging at the Felix Platter Hospital in Basel is involved in cutting-edge research in this area.

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  Dossier

  Old age underestimated.

  Interview: Iris Mickein / Psychologist Jana Nikitin has spent 15 years studying the ways in which people establish and maintain relationships. She recently concluded a number of studies on social approach and avoidance motivation across the life span, with an emphasis on old age.

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  Dossier

  With age comes knowledge.

  Text: Yvonne Vahlensieck / We learn new facts and concepts well into old age. Psychologists at Basel University are investigating how, over the course of our lives, our memory adapts to this expansion in knowledge.

• Dossier

  Older women and hormones.

  Text: Irène Dietschi / When it comes to women’s health, geriatric medicine has been focusing on reproductive organs and hormonal aspects for decades. Yet healthy aging is first and foremost a mental and psychological process, according to Professor of Gynecology Johannes Bitzer, former chief physician at the Women’s Health Clinic, University Hospital Basel.