Sebastian Staacks

The nominating institution Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH on the breakthrough: Playing LEGO with molecules promises to be an appealing approach to facile fabrication of unusual nanostructures. Attractive quantum functionalities have been shown, but there is a problem: Molecules defy intuitive handling, their behaviour is hard to predict. To address this challenge,…

PRESENTED BY Tatiana Stella NOMINATED BY The University of Milano-Bicocca Tags: Contamination, Microbiology, Biological Reclamation

FutureLearn built a community of practice for educators who needed to transition rapidly to remote teaching during the coronavirus pandemic. We built the course with the aim of both supporting emergency remote teaching during COVID-19 and laying sustainable foundations for the longer-term shift to online education. Starting as an idea…

Following the 2008 discovery of the first images of Jupiter-like planets outside our Solar System, scientists have been pushing the technical boundaries toward imaging Earth-like planets. In collaboration with Dr. Christian Marois, a new generation of highly efficient coronagraphs (blocking the star but not planet light) has been invented, providing…

During COVID-19, artists in Ireland had their pipeline of work instantly dry up. We launched a round of experimental virtual residencies available for makers, creators, writers, artists and designers to collaborate with scientists over five weeks. For this virtual residency, each ‘resident’ got €1000 and was paired with two advisors.…

Johannes Stangl computes the systemic relevance of each company in production networks and compares this index with its emissions. High emissions and low systemic relevance indicate decarbonization leverage points.

The human brain is certainly the most complex known object in the universe. It is the control centre of our entire being, the seat of our consciousness, and yet we do not fully understand how it works. These mysteries are the essence of neuroscience: how does the human brain work?…

Discover the world of chemistry at home: Our digital chemistry workshops offer students of 10-18 years the chance to experiment with non-toxic chemicals in a safe environment. Under the guidance of chemistry students, their home is transformed into a laboratory. The participants assume the role of a chemist and are…

The nominating institution Chinese Academy of Sciences on the breakthrough: Exploitation of heterosis is one of the most important applications of genetics in agriculture. Dr. Bin Han used an integrated genomic and forward genetic approach to construct a genome map for elite hybrid rice varieties and revealed the genomic architecture…

Embelin, a paraffin gauze infused with a herbal extract from Embelia ribes and is known in folk medicine to assist in wound healing, can help treat chronic wounds.