Arqus Knowledge Pills

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 Re...

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...

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 bu...

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 ho...

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 w...

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...

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...

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 inter...

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 lo...

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 experienc...

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 tha...

Olfaction is of great importance for our psychological well-being. Psychologist Anna Oleszkiewicz from the University of Wroc ł aw 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...

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 cre...

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 M...

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 t...

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 des...

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 ep...

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 outsi...

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 alway...

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 i...

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 Pharmac...

The European Research Council (ERC) is one of the biggest institutions in Europe providing funding to carry out basic research. Receiving an ERC grant is a prestigious accolade for any researcher. Recently, the ERC faced the imminent danger of losing a big part of its budget. As a consequence, 19 leading international scientists and universities from 8 different countries formed the “ Friends of t...

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 y...

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 –...