Spotted without their laptops at the Festive Dinner in the Museum for Communication, Berlin: (L-R): Luca De Biase (@lucadebiase), Beatrice Lugger (@BLugger), Bahar Golipour (@Alterwired), Maria Daly (@maria_daly), Frank Swain (@SciencePunk) and Hillary Rosner (@hillaryrosner)

by Frank Swain Professor of chemistry Paul Chirik is on a mission to turn lead into gold. Or, to be more precise, to make lead act like gold. Precious metals are instrumental to some of the most widespread and important chemical processes in our world, such as the osmium needed to synthesise fertiliser (so valuable that [...]

by Beatrice Lugger What a the chance to listen to Paul Chirik who is one of the world’s pre-eminent inorganic chemists at the intersection of the traditional disciplines of organic and inorganic chemistry focused on sustainability. Paul Chirik from Princeton University, USA, is known as the guy who is breaking some of the toughest chemical [...]

by Maria Daly Ingrid Daubechies talked about how current computation does not capture reality well. Her work includes improving functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) which is used in brain scanning. Daubechies showed us that individual brains do not fold identically. This causes a problem to neuroscientists who are trying to study brain function. Typically, data is taken [...]

by Maria Daly Extremely innovative talk by Ferenc Krausz about how attophysics captures the fastest phenomena of the microcosm. It included a demonstration on capturing fast motion using a drill & flashing light: Twitter: @maria_daly

by Hillary Rosner I’ve watched a lot of climate models run, but never before had I seen one set to live musical accompaniment. Until now, that is–thanks to Alejandro Litovsky of Earth Security Initiative, a UK-based group that’s calling attention to the link between environmental crises and security risks. Litovsky brought along his friend Anders Scherp, [...]

by Frank Swain Let’s face it, having “messes” listed as a research specialism on your business card is pretty neat.  But Horn is exactly that, a man who studies messes, or more accurately “inter-related sets of problems”, particularly because business and government strategies are often hatched in the midst of messes.  Starting out with the war [...]

by Luca De Biase The session dedicated to economics is hosted by Dennis Snower, Professor of Economics, Chair of Economic Theory, University of Kiel, President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy , Germany. He chooses a big question: what are the economic walls that prevent us from co-operating in solving global problems? «Fortunately [...]

by Frank Swain Robert Schlögl is Director of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, discussing our reliance on fossil fuels. The problem isn’t simply that they are a fast-diminishing resource, but that fossil fuels still represent the world’s best energy storage system. We need to find new ways of generating energy, but just [...]