Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
You’re banned! With the help of CRISPR/Cas systems, bacteria protect their genome from mutations or destruction caused by pathogens. Biotechnology has adopted the mechanism of the bacterial defence system – also known as genetic scissors – using it to specifically modify the genome by deleting or inserting certain DNA sequences.
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Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
Being faster and more reliable than humans, artificial intelligence is usually used to evaluate huge volumes of data and identify patterns in them. But what happens when there isn’t enough data, and you have to work with uncertainties? In this case, thanks to millions of years of evolution, nature easily has the upper hand.
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Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
What links music with plastic waste, emissions or oil leakages? The Nigerian Olusegun Stephen Titus explores just how protest songs can trigger re-thinking and help to achieve ecological sustainability.
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Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
It is one of the complications of operations like organ or stem cell transplantations that everyone dreads: a simultaneous infection by various pathogens, such as bacteria, viruses and fungi, known as a “co-infection”. A patient’s weakened immune system is often unable to fight back.
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Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
When I went to Germany in 1988 to do my dissertation, that was totally unusual for a woman from Ethiopia.
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Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
Stars, dust and baby planets are the orbit of astrophysicist Paola Pinilla’s research. With the help of high-performance telescopes on Earth, she regularly visits delivery rooms in the cosmos, observing protoplanetary discs of gas and dust that rotate around young stars.
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Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
They travel the world unnoticed on ships or lorries, hidden in the earth in a flowerpot or in a crate full of fruit. The spread of invasive ant species is almost impossible to prevent.
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Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
Suddenly, your fingers start to cramp up while playing or your facial muscles stop doing the things they have done thousands of times before. Dystonia is a neurological disorder which usually expresses itself in muscle cramps and uncontrollable movements.
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Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
According to the UN, the practice affects more than 200 million women worldwide: young girls are subject to genital mutilation at the hands of their parents or relatives – a violent ritual.
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Magazine Humboldt Kosmos
In the digital world, artificial intelligence often has the effect of reinforcing opinions. It creates filter bubbles, promotes radical tendencies and influences elections. Jose Renato Laranjeira de Pereira investigates these dark sides of AI.
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