news 2018

A trip into space impacts the brain of a space traveller, according to new international research, led by the University of Antwerp. "Changes occur in the grey and white matter and cerebrospinal fluid," says Dr Angelique Van Ombergen (UAntwerp) . "And some of those changes remain detectable even seven months after the mission has ended." An international team of scientists conducted a unique study on Russian cosmonauts.

Belgian research groups from the UCLouvain and WELBIO, VIB and Ghent University, and the biotechnology company argenx elucidated the three-dimensional structure of an assembly of proteins operating on cells that dampen immune responses. They also discovered how an antibody can block this assembly and the immunosuppression it induces downstream.

Do people with suicidal thoughts see potentially life-saving information when they go online? It may depend on the language they're using, research shows. Sebastian Scherr, an assistant professor at KU Leuven's School for Mass Communication Research, has discovered that when it comes to online searches not all languages are created equal.

Inleiding: Leonardo Villafuerte and Alberto Pecoraro both started their PhD at the Law and Development Research Group. The Law and Development Research Group welcomes two new researchers starting up their PhD. Leonardo D. Villafuerte Philippsborn is a full-time lecturer at the Universidad Católica Boliviana "San Pablo" (UCB), and he is editor of its peer-reviewed law journal (UCB Law Review).

VUB thesis exposes power dynamic in doctor-patient relations The internet as a source of information about health is no panacea for creating patient empowerment. That's the conclusion reached by Edgard Eeckman in the doctoral thesis he defended at VUB's Communication Science faculty. He researched the power balance in the doctor-patient relationship and the influence of online and offline information about health, in a study that reveals the power dynamics associated with being ill.

( 28-09-2018 ) During the next few years, the faculties at Ghent University will closely collaborate with each other in the realisation of ten interdisciplinary projects of major social impact. Ghent University is creating 21 new professorships which they will begin to fill as of this autumn. The announcement in 2017 that Ghent University intended to invest in a project of interdisciplinary research generated a great deal of interest within the institution.

Television programmes about cooking, famous chefs and their dishes are very popular among both young and old. Research conducted at the universities of Antwerp and Leuven has now shown that cooking programmes aimed specifically at children often feature unhealthy dishes. But the study also found that seeing good examples on screen encourages children to eat more healthily.

Cobalt mining comes at a great cost to public health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. New research reveals that children are particularly vulnerable: their urine and blood samples contain high concentrations of cobalt and other metals. In past years, the demand for cobalt has been on the increase due to its many applications.

If getting to the gym seems like a struggle, researchers want you to know this: the struggle is real, and it's happening inside your brain. The brain is where Matthieu Boisgontier (KU Leuven / UBC) and his colleagues went looking for answers to what they call the "exercise paradox": for decades, society has encouraged people to be more physically active, yet statistics show that, despite our best intentions, we are actually becoming less active.

KU Leuven researchers have discovered a novel mechanism that prevents oxidative stress and therefore provides protection against joint, brain and bone diseases. When the cells in our body have a normal metabolism, this results in the production of chemically reactive molecules that contain oxygen, also called reactive oxygen species.

A team of researchers at COSIC, an imec research group at the University of Leuven, has uncovered serious security flaws in the Passive Keyless Entry and Start (PKES) system used by some luxury vehicles. The study shows that the key fob (the unlocking device) used by the Tesla Model S is using out-dated and inadequate cryptography.

Conditions in developing countries often make it difficult to properly diagnose people. That's why a simple yet accurate technology is needed that can be used on the spot. Researchers at KU Leuven are developing a flexible chip that is able to detect infections and viruses in the blood. The project was awarded funding through the Grand Challenges Explorations initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Macrophages are specialised immune cells that destroy bacteria and other harmful organisms. KU Leuven scientists have come to the surprising conclusion that some macrophages in the intestines of mice can survive for quite some time. Most importantly, these long-lived macrophages are vital for the survival of the nerve cells of the gastrointestinal tract.

Introduction: Jan Wynen, Wouter Van Dooren, Jan Mattijs and Carl Deschamps investigated the optimal rate of turnover for organizational performance and the role for process conformance. The article 'Linking turnover to organizational performance: the role of process conformance' is published Open Access.

Clusters of silver atoms captured in zeolites, a porous material with small channels and voids, have remarkable light emitting properties. For instance, they can be used for more efficient lighting applications as a substitute for LED and TL lamps. Until recently, scientists did not know exactly how and why these small particles emit light.

( 14-08-2018 ) Ironically, most of a tree's biomass is actually not alive. It is formed by persistent cell corpses collectively called wood. The formation of wood is one of the many programmed cell death processes important for plant growth & development. The lab of Prof. Moritz Nowack (VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology) investigates the regulation of these plant cell death processes in the model plant Arabidopsis.

Technology giant Intel has been including an innovative security method in its processors for a number of years. This method works as a vault for your personal data. However, KU Leuven researchers have shown that the system can, in fact, be hacked using the Foreshadow attack. What's more, information processed in cloud systems also seems to be vulnerable to this kind of attack.

A group of researchers found that our learning capabilities are limited during slow wave sleep. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), they showed that while our brain is still able to perceive sounds during sleep, it is unable to group these sounds according to their organisation in a sequence. Hypnopedia, or the ability to learn during sleep, was popularized in the '60s, with for example the dystopia Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, in which individuals are conditioned to their future tasks during sleep.

Far too often, cancer cells manage to become resistant to doctors' treatments. Researchers at KU Leuven have now discovered a new mechanism that makes cancer cells more resistant to therapy. Fortunately, they also came up with a way to by-pass this problem. Their research was published Communications.

Introduction: Dutch and Flemish researchers studied the colonisation by coastal vegetation Coastal vegetation interacts with water flow and the transport of sand and sediment: this interaction plays a key role in the rise of characteristic landscape forms in coastal habitats. Scientists from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and University of Antwerp ( Global Change Ecology Centre , Research Group Ecosystem Management ) provide more insight in this interaction in their new paper that appeared recently.