After his mother passed away, Aurèle De Vos decided to commemorate his mother by establishing a fund and donating to the Botanical Garden. Its purpose is to help the Botanical Garden protect rare and endangered plants.
Every day, professor Xavier Saelens and his team work on new and improved vaccines and medicines to counter flu and corona viruses. Recently, they’ve been doing their work in a new research facility. “Our primary goal: to help those suffering from diseases.”
Of all the plastic waste that we are currently sorting, too little is recycled properly (or even at all). As a Chemist at Ghent University, Sibel Ügdüler is developing methods for high-quality recycling, which in her opinion could resolve a serious recycling problem. The industry is watching with interest.
For researcher Moniek de Jong, the energy that we use every day isn’t just a basic necessity. She takes a deeper look at the invisible game that lies at its basis, whereby countries become tangled in dependency relationships. “Energy determines the contours of all geopolitics.”
Revolutionary: that’s the least you can say about Ghent University student Wannes Van Laerhoven’s invention. He designed a new type of tire: airless, sustainable and suitable for an infinite number of applications – from wheelchairs to electric kick scooters. No surprise, then, that he won 2 out of the 4 prizes handed out at the prestigious Circular Economy Challenge.
Physicists at Ghent University have succeeded in cooling several ten thousand atoms to just above absolute zero (about -273°C). In doing so, they created a so-called Bose–Einstein condensate: a state in which all atoms behave exactly the same, as was once predicted by physicists Einstein and Bose.
The last years’ drought has caused stress in trees. Some have stopped growing; others have shed their foliage. Sometimes entire forests have perished. The bioengineers at the Department of Environment (Faculty of Bioscience Engineering) are crossing national borders to try to find out the causes of the problems effecting trees globally and working on a type of forest that can cope with climate change.
Alumna Danaë Delbeke is developing a solution that can improve the lives of millions of people with diabetes. The entrepreneur raised 38 million euro last year with the UGent spin-off Indigo Diabetes. The goal: to put a workable product on the market by 2024.
How long should a holiday last in order to completely destress and disconnect from your work? How bad is it for your mental health if you sit on the beach reading your work mails rather than a thriller? Professor Els Clays teaches in the department of Public Health and Primary Care and is investigating the impact of work-related stress on human health.
Will we soon be wearing smart textiles that can adapt to the heat? Professor Lieva Van Langenhove of the Department of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Process Engineering explains how that could work.
Are we likely to face a greater number of intense storms in the summer, due to climate change? Yet why does it rain harder when the temperature rises? That seems counter-intuitive, but not at all, says Steven Caluwaerts, climatologist at Ghent University and the KMI (Royal Meteorological Institute).
“Summer lovin', had me a blast. Summer lovin', happened so fast.” Danny and Sandy felt it already in the classic film Grease: during the summer there is love in the air. But is there any truth in it? Do we fall in love more quickly in the summer?
