Arqus Knowledge Pills

For this 27th episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills “Should artificial intelligence decide over human intellect?”, we invited Matthias Wendland, professor at the Institute of Corporate and International Business Law at the University of Graz and holder of the Chair of Business Law, Artificial Intelligence Law and Data Protection Law. In this episode, he provides insightful perspectives on the role of artificial intelligence in decision-making processes, offering valuable insights into the intersection of law, ethics, and technological advancements.

How does motherhood impact mothers’ lives? What are the main challenges that migrant mothers face in their daily lives, and how can we get a better understanding of this complex experience? These are the questions at the heart of Eglė Kačkutė’s research on motherhood studies, which looks into the stereotypical but still relevant care chains, into who is caring for the very young and the elderly, under which circumstances and their sustainability in the future.

In this episode, we dive into the importance of bioplastics in mitigating the plastic pollution crisis.

Are bioplastics a more sustainable option than traditional plastics? Is there a way to manage them in an environmentally and economically viable manner? These are the questions at the heart of Dominique Rocher's research project, which was selected for COP28 in Dubai and has recently won the EDHE Awards 2023 in South Africa.

Learn more about Dominique Rocher:

Dominique Rocher is dedicated to addressing one of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time. With a background in environmental science, biotechnology and entrepreneurship, she is currently pursuing a PhD at Stellenbosch University and the University of Padua, with one of the prestigious Arqus Talent Fund scholarships. Her journey is driven by a belief in the necessity of tackling the plastic pollution crisis on a worldwide scale. She is also the co-founder of the startup Urobo Biotech, together with Wessel Myburgh. This company is actively contributing to the broader goal of decarbonization and sustainability.

Are love duration and happiness predictable? Is there a mathematical model to predict the evolution of a relationship and plan a happy long-lasting one? Discover the quest for a mathematical relationship model in the latest Arqus podcast.

For this 24th episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills “Can love be explained through maths?”, we invited Professor Laurent Pujo-Menjouet, Associate Professor and Researcher at the Camille Jordan Institute from the University of Lyon 1, where we dive into the correlation between love and maths, and how love psychology can be explained through mathematical parameters and models.

Laurent Pujo-Menjouet is Associate Professor and Researcher at the Camille Jordan Institute of the University of Lyon 1. His research areas encompass a wide range of topics, from blood-related pathologies (such as leukemia and dialysis), neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s, Creutzfeldt-Jakob), to other themes including radiobiology, bone formation, epidemiology (HIV), endangered language dynamics, dietary patterns, and love dynamics. He is the author of the book “Le jeu de l’amour sans le hasard: Mathématiques du couple” (Éditions des Équateurs / Humensis, 2019).

Last 27th October, Arqus participated in the Leipzig Science Festival Globe 2023 with a special live podcast episode of the “Arqus Knowledge Pills”: Bologna 2.0.? How European Higher Education Alliances are Changing Research and Studies?

The Leipzig Science Festival Globe23 was aimed at finding answers to relevant questions, creating orientation and designing new questions. To this end, it created creative spaces for unusual encounters between research, art, civil society and politics. With young and old, the festival celebrated critical curiosity and scientific knowledge as well as cross-border dialogues on and about “Life in Transition”, the theme of this year’s festival, at the Paulinum building of the Leipzig University and other venues in the city.

In the framework of this festival, Arqus participated in the Globe Forum about transformation processes in the European Higher Education landscape with this special 1-hour podcast.

The participants of this podcast are:

Claudia Wendt, PhD student in the Research Training Group “Science Management and Science Communication (WiMaKo)” at the Institute for Higher Education Research. She is writing her doctoral thesis on the conditions for success in international university cooperation, using the example of the European University Alliances.

Dr. Harvey Charles, Vice Provost for International Affairs at the University of Minnesota. In this role, he leads the Global Programs and Strategy Alliance and advances the University as a global leader in international teaching, research and outreach.

Fernando Galán, Arqus Consortium Manager with more than 10 years of experience working on European Higher Education policies.

We suggest you listen to this 22nd episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills while going for a walk or a run - it will make you want to exercise!

This time, we welcome Francisco B. Ortega, Professor at the Faculty of Sport Sciences at the University of Granada, to discuss a really important topic for our overall health: sports. In this episode, we dive into the importance of exercising for everybody but more specifically for children. The professor explains the link between physical activity and cognitive development and tells us about a fascinating survey he conducted in Granada. To end the podcast, he gives really easy and practical advice to add more physical activity to our daily lives.

For the 22nd episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills, we talked to Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa from the University of Wrocław. She is a Professor at and head of the Department of Pathogen Biology and Immunology at the Faculty of Biological Sciences.

In this episode, she helps us understand what phage-derived enzymes are. They can be used as an alternative to antibiotics in fighting illnesses and represent hope against antibiotic resistance. Zuzanna explains how the enzymes work and gives us examples of their application in current medicine.

We are celebrating this month's milestone with the 20th episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills. Thank you for listening and a special thanks to all the participants so far!

Our guest in this episode is José Manuel González Méijome, Professor of Optometry and Vision Sciences at the University of Minho. He introduces us to myopia, a very common disease that currently affects more than 20% of the world's population - a number that is on the rise! By 2050, this visual impairment could affect 50% of the population. The professor explains what it is and how it can be treated. We also study the effects of screen work and blue light on myopia and Professor Méijome gives us some advice to see better for longer.

For the 19th episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills, we welcomed an expert on “social tipping”, Jordan Everall. He is a member of the research group “Social Complexity & System Transformation” at the University of Graz. 

Social tipping processes describe how social, political, economic or technological systems can move rapidly into a new system state if cascading positive feedback mechanisms are triggered.

During the episode, we discuss his research on rapid social change and its connection to climate change. Jordan explains also how to quantify inequality and how these topics are all connected before he answers the tricky question: "Is it still possible to save the Earth?”

In the 18th episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills, we go underwater! Professor of Veterinary Pathology at the University of Padua, Sandro Mazzariol, explains the human impact on Cetaceans. He takes us through a marine mammal rescue and declares his favourite species of whale as alien.

Sandro graduated in Veterinary Medicine at the University of Padova in 2002. His main research fields are the study of marine mammals pathology and, in general, of free-ranging and captive wildlife, focusing on anthropic impaction and related diseases. In particular, he studies forensic diagnostic techniques to confirm any human-induced injuries or mortality and the existing relationships between pollutants and tissue changes. 

For this 17th episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills podcast, we head to the planet Mars! The professor Cathy Quantin-Nataf, specialist in space exploration at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, takes us along on her exciting Mars expeditions with both the American and the European Space Agencies, NASA and ESA respectively. In her podcast "Is there life on Mars?", she explains the interest of exploring this planet, the difficulties it involves and tells us about her role in these missions as a professor and researcher.

In the 16th episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills, we explore the topic of romantic love together with Victor de Munck, Professor of Sociocultural, Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Vilnius University. Victor addresses the question “Can romantic love end?” and gives us an overview of how the traditional model of monogamous romantic love has been challenged by contemporary lifestyles. Is love a constraint to our freedom? Could polyamory be the modern-day solution? Discover what his research conducted him to answer!

Philosophy is one of the oldest academic disciplines, its origins dating back more than two thousand years. In the 15th episode of the series Arqus Knowledge Pills “Is philosophy relevant nowadays?”, Sebastian Rödl, Professor for Practical Philosophy at Leipzig University, talks about the relevance it still has today and why we should not look for its “usefulness”.

Sebastian shares his experience working in this field, describing it as a rollercoaster ride between moments of pure joy as well as deep frustration. And he explains what it takes to study philosophy – the most important prerequisite being an unquenchable thirst for complete understanding.

In this episode, Alberto Fernández, from the University of Granada, explains how to foster creativity in Artificial Intelligence, what amazing things they are already capable of and how we should deal with the enormous possibilities that Artificial Intelligence offers today, and in the near future. In the podcast, Alberto also talks about his interests in reading a novel or listening to a song that was not devised by a human being, and whether his research work has made him more creative in his everyday life.

Olfaction is of great importance for our psychological well-being. Psychologist Anna Oleszkiewicz from the University of Wrocław explains in this episode how our sense of smell and our state of mind are connected. Anna investigates how olfactory input influences our ability to function socially and psychologically. Also, she works on improving the so-called “Sniffin’ Sticks” tests, which are an essential tool in the field of olfactory training: approximately 5 % of the general population has a dysfunctional sense of smell and a further 20 % has a severe olfactory impairment. Anna’s goal is to bring medical knowledge on human olfactory processing and psychological science closer together.

Joana Azeredo is an Associate Professor at the University of Minho Department of Biological Engineering (Portugal). In this podcast episode, Joana explains how and why she researches a special kind of virus that can kill potentially dangerous bacteria. These viruses are of great therapeutic interest and can be used to control infectious diseases. Joana Azeredo's team recently also stood out by creating a “virus bank” to treat diseases caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, one of the biggest health problems worldwide.

Teaching and learning are two fundamental concepts for those who do research and work at the university. But how is it possible to improve them, taking into account the differences in the fields of study? One of the tools available is the "Challenge-based learning program", a working method that allows you to analyze a subject from different perspectives, thanks to different expertise. Klaudijus Melys, from the University of Vilnius, tells us about it.

For nineteen months, Norwegian tall ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl will sail over 55 000 nautical miles and visit 36 ports worldwide. The aim of the “One Ocean Expedition” is to share and spread knowledge about the crucial role of the ocean for sustainable development from a global perspective. Katja Enberg, professor at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Bergen, will be part of the crew. Shortly before her departure, she explains how students benefit from this unique teaching environment and how she personally expects to grow and change during this journey.

In this episode we chat with Francesco Bettella, a researcher at the University of Padua and a Paralympic swimmer who already won several medals. He tells us how he prepares for a swimming race, what feelings he experiences during the tournament and how all of his know-how pours into his research about exoskeletons. Also, he reveals to us his next objectives both in sports and in academia, and describes how both fields are sometimes quite similar.

Migrants are often more active as entrepreneurs than the natives of their host countries – even though they undoubtedly face several challenges during and after their move. What inspires them to become self-employed in spite of all the hardships that come along, how can we collaboratively facilitate their entrepreneurial process and why is this actually boosting host and home economies? In this episode of “Arqus Knowledge Pills”, we talk with Eunice Cascant of iae School of Management at Magellan Laboratory (Université Jean Moulin, Lyon) about these questions.

A PhD degree offers a broader variety of career opportunities than just the classic academic path. But how can young researchers succeed in the private business sector? How can they find their own start-up based on their scientific findings? Students from all Arqus universities recently came to Graz to dive deeper into this topic. Listen to the participants of the “Arqus PhD Week for Careers outside Academia” and find out more.

The young generation is hungry for science!”, says Dominik Becher. He is in charge of the Children’s University at the University of Leipzig – a very important way to introduce children to the world of research and academia. He describes how he goes about planning the programme, why this kind of work is particularly rewarding and how researchers should prepare themselves for an audience that always asks the right questions. 

This will be the last episode of Arqus Knowledge Pills before the summer break. Stay tuned, we’ll catch up with you in autumn.

In the fifth episode of the "Arqus Knowledge Pills", we talk to Valentina Dagienė, a professor of informatics at Vilnius University. She is one of the founders of the “Bebras Project”, a worldwide network that strives to kindle enthusiasm for Computer Science in children, teenagers and teachers. Valentina tells us how the challenges are organized in the partner countries around the world, why it is so important to foster computational thinking and also why a beaver is the mascot of this project. Find more information also on https://www.bebras.org.

In the fourth episode of the Arqus podcast, we tackle yet again basic research. This time our topic is the design and development of drug delivery nanosystems, namely nanomedicines, for cancer therapy. A promising approach in this field is to engineer nanomedicines to stimulate a specific immune response against cancers. Giovanna Lollo from the Laboratory of Automatic Control, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering of the Université de Lyon explains this approach to us.

Note: The vaccines Giovanna refers to are the ones developed by Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer. In the time that has passed between the recording and the publication of this podcast, those two have gained international recognition as they were among the first authorized vaccines against SARS-CoV-2
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The second episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills invited Francesca Helm and Claudia Padovani to talk about researchers who are working under precarious circumstances. These indeed include even life-threatening conditions, as the recent example of Ahmadreza Djalali, who is currently imprisoned in Iran, shows. Francesca and Claudia explain why it can be dangerous to be a researcher and tell you how you can be of support. Both women teach and conduct research at the University of Padua and are actively engaged in the Italian section of Scholars at Risk, a non-profit organisation dedicated to ensuring a harm-free environment to scientists worldwide.

In the first episode of the Arqus Knowledge Pills, the pharmacist Andreas Kungl, professor at the University of Graz, will talk about his research project “Stop Covid-19”. In the frame of this research project, Prof. Kungl and his team are investigating how the coronavirus can be stopped from entering human cells. This research project is accompanied by a fundraising initiative open for everyone – a novelty in Austria.