Science Round-Up: Danish universities form giant green-food collab

Denmark’s 8 universities – DTU, the College of Copenhagen, Aarhus University, the IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Company Faculty, Aalborg University, the College of Southern Denmark and Roskilde College – have joined forces on a distinctive new task concerning the environmentally friendly transition in food.

A facility for interdisciplinary work primarily based at Aarhus College referred to as the Commence Heart for Sustainable Agrifood Methods will be set up to reinforce collaboration in organic sciences, social sciences and humanities. 

“It’s extraordinary that all 8 Danish universities have arrive together to sort a widespread front at an interdisciplinary degree. Agriculture and the food items of the future is a precedence of Danish study,” commented Christine Nellemann from the DTU Food stuff Institute.

Nellemann is the very first chair of Get started. The place will be reassigned each 6 months to a representative from a single of the 8 universities.

An international point of view
“Working with business, politicians and international companions, the investigate collaboration in Start out will generate a sturdy basis for improvements that will have a decisive outcome on our weather and natural environment and guarantee prolonged-phrase answers in the food region,” explained Eskild Holm Nielsen, the dean of the Faculty of Complex Sciences at Aarhus University.

“The goal is for Denmark to be a European living lab that can display the planned changeover of European food stuff units,” she stated.

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Denmark’s Pioneer Heart for Synthetic Intelligence opens
The new Pioneer Center for Artificial Intelligence, where by research will focus on AI options to “society’s major challenges”, has opened at the College of Copenhagen Observatory. It is Denmark’s largest analysis centre for synthetic intelligence to day, bringing together partners from Aalborg College, Aarhus University, DTU, the IT University of Copenhagen and the University of Copenhagen. Its sights are established on propelling Denmark to the forefront of the world AI science race. Projects will seek to reward the well being and biotech industries, energy and infrastructure, and local weather and biodiversity. 

Can a venomous sea snail swap morphine?
Poison from the sea snail species Conus magus has an analgesic effect on humans akin to morphine, but with fewer facet-effects. It is at this time out there to take care of back again accidents or cancer but is pricey and cumbersome to administer. Now, a new research from the College of Copenhagen has discovered a second sea snail, Conus rolani – discovered in the Pacific Ocean about the Philippines – whose venom acts as an even extra potent painkiller in mice but has none of the addictive attributes of morphine. It’s hoped it could pave the way for alternate analgesic solutions in the future.

Flight passengers will chip in for environmentally friendly-gasoline fund
A collection of meetings amongst DTU, Copenhagen Airports, Dansk Industri and SAS has kicked off, aiming to establish the technology behind environmentally friendly aviation fuels in line with PM Mette Frederiksberg’s guarantee that all Danish domestic flight routes will be green by 2025. To build an R&D fund of 750 million kroner, Copenhagen Airports will draw a little contribution from each and every passenger. According to DTU, the most significant obstacle is driving down the price tag of eco-friendly fuels so that they can compete with fossil fuels, as current inexperienced know-how is neither “mature nor scalable”.

Younger DTU learners grow to be 3D-printing pioneers
In their try to mimic a novel American 3D printing method called Volumetric Additive Producing, two DTU learners have built an even much more powerful printer that can print 3D features in minutes alternatively of several hours. Fairly than including layers upon layers as in traditional 3D printing, a UV-delicate photopolymer mix is made use of to variety all geometries in their total volume at after – like the way dental casts are fashioned. While more rapidly, it’s unclear nevertheless no matter if the printer delivers the identical, or an even higher, geometric precision than other methods.

Eelgrass planting scheme pays off
Given that 1900, up to 90 percent of Denmark’s eelgrass beds found on shorelines and in fjords have been shed. Fish and other animals depend on the habitat established by the eelgrass, although the grass by itself captures and retailers carbon. Now, the College of Southern Denmark has succeeded in re-creating the marine beds in Horsens Fjord by planting eelgrass shoots. Soon after two decades, the density of new advancement is 70 instances bigger.

Tremendous-sensitive MRI scanner trialled at Arhus University
A new MRI scanning system 10,000 moments much more sensitive than existing approaches is remaining researched at Aarhus College. The new strategy may possibly be capable to establish kidney condition earlier in diabetic individuals, which could lead to superior therapy choices.

Bjarke Ingels Team to create brain-shaped neuroscience centre
Aarhus University Clinic and Aarhus College are world-renowned for their prognosis and remedy of mind conditions. Now, a new facility referred to as the Danish Neuroscience Heart, developed by Bjarke Ingels Team, is in the operates to combine psychiatry with neuroscience beneath the similar roof. The 250 million kroner, 19,000 sqm building will be funded by The Salling Basis and be done in 2026. It will residence some 500 brain scientists with an emphasis on neurology and psychiatry. The architecture is encouraged by the folds of the brain, performing as a “network place that creates new connections, contexts and typical understanding”. 

Keyhole bypass surgical procedure may turn into the norm
More than the previous four months, surgeons at Rigshospitalet have performed 15 coronary bypass surgical procedures by way of an incision amongst the ribs, somewhat than by sawing open the sternum. It’s a more demanding course of action for the surgeons, but reduces the recovery discomfort, require for rehabilitation, an infection chance and hospitalisation time.

Huge Copenhagen well being examine demonstrates mental-overall health decrease
In just about all parameters for effectively-getting, well being and illness, in the Health Profile 2021 – a massive well being study of the population in the Capital Region – citizens with a short education execute even worse than citizens with a extended schooling. Other observations: since 2017, weak mental health has been on the rise – significantly amongst females in the 16-25 age-team. One in 4 women aged 16-25 is lonely and 50 % sense pressured. Meanwhile, the range of day by day people who smoke has fallen from 16 percent in 2017 to 13 per cent in 2021.

Ice-age vegetation tailored to CO2 concentrations
By learning 800,000-12 months-aged air bubbles trapped in ice, local weather experts from the College of Copenhagen have located that prehistoric plant lifestyle elevated their oxygen creation in response to raising carbon degrees in the ambiance. The system does not avert international warming but dampens the increasing trend. The new information will advise foreseeable future local climate designs.

Historic volcanic eruptions might revolutionise local weather types
Ice drilling in Antarctica and Greenland has disclosed the traces of gigantic volcanic eruptions all through the last Ice Age. Some 69 of them are larger than the Tambora eruption in Indonesia in 1815 – the biggest eruption recorded in current periods. Tambora introduced so a great deal sulphuric acid into the stratosphere that it blocked the solar, leading to world temperatures to drop for 5-10 yrs, as effectively as tsunamis, drought, famine and at the very least 80,000 deaths. Physicists from the College of Copenhagen hope the effects of volcanism may well drop light-weight on the climactic reaction when the radiation harmony in the ambiance changes – be it through amplified CO2 levels or a blanket of sulphur particles.

Tectonic-plate discovery will assist predict future earthquakes
The motion of the earth’s tectonic plates, which shift around on the liquid main of the earth, is what triggers earthquakes. But researchers at the University of Copenhagen have identified that the earthquakes by themselves induce tectonic plates to behave differently in their aftermath. The conclusions necessitate a rethink of the types made use of to assess the statistical hazard of foreseeable future earthquakes in ‘hotspots’.