Other February News in Brief
Post-doc from CP3-Origins: Dark matter of the universe might not exist after all
According to models developed by post-doc Juri Smirnov, from the Center of Excellence CP3-Origins, and others, dark matter might not exist at all. For nearly a century, but without luck, researchers around the world have searched for the universe’s dark matter because it is believed that dark matter is necessary to explain why galaxies don’t seem to obey the fundamental laws of physics. However, the understanding of galaxies’ strange behavior, according to Smirnov and a number of other researchers, can be approached through other types of research. The results of this new study have been published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics,
Read more about the study at The Conversation here.
DNRF head of center Ian D. Hickson receives 15 million DKK from the Novo Nordisk Foundation
Professor Ian D. Hickson, head of the Center of Excellence Center for Chromosome Stability, University of Copenhagen, has received 15 million DKK from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for his research in molecular medicine with the project ChromoCapture. With this research project, Professor Hickson’s ambition is to develop new procedures for an improved and faster way to examine defective and ill chromosomes. With the help of so-called optic tweezers and lasers, Hickson’s aim is to create a platform on which better examinations and manipulations of our cells can be made and thus give doctors more and improved diagnostic tools for the examination and treatment of diseases.
Read more about ChromoCapture here
Further information can be found at Uniavisen here (in Danish)
Morten Kringelbach from MIB is part of a study published in Nature Communications
Professor Morten Kringelbach, from the DNRF’s Center for Music in the Brain (MIB), along with an international research team, is behind a new study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. In the study, Professor Kringelbach and the research team show how the human brain has a fundamental timescale of around 200 ms when information is optimally sent across brain regions. The study thus presents an improved framework for understanding relevant timescales according to dynamics and activities in the whole brain.
Read the scientific article in Nature Communications here
More information can be found at MIB here
Head of center Jørgen Kjems and three previous heads of center are among the finalists for EU’s Flagships 2021
Six research projects have been selected as finalists for the EU’s three new research Flagships 2021. Counted among the six selected projects are several Danish participants, and one current and three previous DNRF heads of center are among the leading forces behind two of the selected projects. One is the energy project ENERGY-X, led by previous head of center Jens Kehlet Nørskov (CAMP) and Ib Chorkendorff (CINF), that focuses on the conversion of solar energy to chemical energy with the help of catalysis. The second project is LifeTime, with the participation of head of center Jørgen Kjems (CellPAT) and previous head of center Kristian Helin (Center for Epigenetics). LifeTime focuses on the development of personal medicine. The six selected projects will each receive one million euro to submit a final application during 2019.
Read more about the finalists and their projects in Nature here
New detailed map of the ancient city of Gerasa published under a Creative Commons license
On February 18, an article was published by Rubina Raja, head of the DNRF center UrbNet, Aarhus University; Achim Lichtenberger, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster; and David Stott, MOMU. The article is about a new, accurate map of the ancient city of Gerasa, also known as Jerash. The article was published under a so-called Creative Commons license, which means that the map is available in accordance with the open access FAIR Guiding Principles for data management and data sharing. The article is part of the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Project, which is partly funded by the DNRF and is led by Professor Raja and Achim Lichtenberger.
In 2017, Raja contributed to the DNRF publication Open Access – It’s not that simple. The publication laid the foundation for the DNRF’s Annual Meeting 2017, which you can read more about here.
More information about the new article and the map of Gerasa can be found at UrbNet here
Post-doc Jakob Søgaard, from CEBI, is interviewed about the wealthiest Danes
Jakob Egholt Søgaard, a post-doc at the Center of Excellence CEBI and the man behind the delivery of data about inequality among Danes to the Piketty database, has been interviewed in Berlingske about the wealthiest Danes. (The database is named for Thomas Piketty, the author behind the economics bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century.) In a historical perspective, Søgaard introduces the development of income for the highest earning percentage, which, today, earns 8.7 percent of the collective income. Historically speaking, this is not particularly high, yet “the richest percentage have nonetheless doubled their share of Denmark’s collective income during the past 25 years,” Søgaard explained to Berlingske.
Read the interview here (in Danish)
More information can be found in The Engineer here
Eske Willerslev receives the highest degree awarded by the University of Cambridge
The head of the DNRF’s Center for GeoGenetics, Professor Eske Willerslev, can now call himself Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) at the University of Cambridge. On Saturday, February 23, Professor Willerslev was awarded the degree during a ceremony at the University of Cambridge. The Sc.D. is the highest degree awarded by the university, and only a handful of researchers receive the degree annually for distinguished research in science. Besides being the head of the DNRF’s Center for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, Willerslev also holds the prestigious Prince Phillip Professorship at the University of Cambridge and a Lundbeck Foundation Professorship.