Videos

Sara
Feijoo Moreira
KU Leuven

Treating wastewater: how to remove microcontaminants?

Have you ever seen wastewater from a factory? This usually looks very clean, thanks to wastewater treatment. Yet it may still contain many traces of drugs, pesticides, or cleaning agents. These so-called microcontaminants end up in rivers and cause damage to the environment. In the lab, Sara Feijoo Moreira and her colleagues developed a method that uses electrochemistry to remove these micropollutants from wastewater.
Emilie
Bartsoen
KU Leuven

Laughing rats help better understand autism spectrum disorder

Rats are our best friends. Or at least Emilie Bartsoen's. She only has to listen to her rats to know how they feel. By observing the social behaviour of rats, she also wants to help people with autism. How? She explains that to you in this video!
Elisabeth
Heremans
FWO
KU Leuven

The AI that will help you sleep

Do you ever wake up feeling like you have been run over by a truck? You are not alone. As many as 1 in 5 adults suffer from a sleep disorder, ranging from sleep apnoea to insomnia. With a compact, wearable device and AI, Elisabeth Heremans wants to analyse sleep problems in patients from the comfort of their own bed, instead of having them spend the night in a sleep clinic attached to a bunch of wires.
Margot
Geerinck
KU Leuven

Fighting the southern green stink bug

We are facing a little green problem: the southern green stink bug, an insect from Ethiopia, is on the rise in our country. And that's bad news for our vegetable growers. Fortunately, Margot Geerinck is working on a solution. The protagonists: ichneumon wasps & fungi!
Melissa
Schuring
KU Leuven

Showtime! Stereotypes about English loanwords in children

'Yow', 'Peace', 'Man'. Those English loanwords fly around joyfully when Melissa Schuring asks children for her research to briefly imitate a rapper. Very different, in fact, from when she has them play a farmer or a minister. Experiments like this teach her more about the development of linguistic stereotypes in children. In her video, she tells you more about her research.
Bin
Luo
imec
KU Leuven

Let's cover our cars with solar panels

Do you own an electric car? Then you know how difficult it can be to find available charging spots. But what if we cover electric cars with solar panels so that they can charge themselves with the power of the sun? Well, that's not easy because conventional solar panels used on roofs can't be integrated into our cars. Electrical engineer Bin Luo is looking at new solar panels suitable for our cars.
Annemarie
Stiekema

Why is social contact so difficult after a brain injury?

People who suffer a brain injury, after an accident or stroke, often face social problems. They lose friends, face problems at work and their relationships fall apart more often. But what makes social contact so difficult after a brain injury? Neuropsychologist Annemarie Stiekema lists the main insights from research for you.
Ignace
Decroix
UGent
Vlerick

Do you trust Artificial Intelligence?

Did you know that AI can help doctors detect breast cancer? Or that it can be used to predict sepsis, a life-threatening condition, in premature babies? AI seems to be a great advancement in many ways, yet many people fear or don't trust the technology. Ignace Decroix wants to identify what exactly causes people to have more or less trust in AI.
Valentijn
Prové
KU Leuven

Do we simplify our language in conversations with non-native speakers?

"Hebt gij Pieter toevallig nie gezien vandaag?"

This trivial Dutch question illustrates how, in our daily lives, we often use a more informal language, than the one we learn at school. This makes it challenging for non-native speakers to learn our language. In his research, Valentijn Prové studied conversations of Dutch native speakers with non-native speakers. He thus offers us an insight into how we adapt our language when we think someone will not understand us.
Jose Maria
Cuevas
imec
KU Leuven

More solar power for a more sustainable future

Producing renewable, low-cost energy in a robust way remains a challenge. Jose Maria Cuevas (Imec - KU Leuven - Energyville) is looking at a new sort of solar cell that might help do the trick: the *take a breath* 3 Terminal Tandem Bifacial Solar Cell 😅 Say what ⁉️ Jose breaks it down and makes it crystal clear for you in this video. 👏
Max
Minne
UGent
VIB

Understanding how plants grow

Why is it that some plants like moss stay very small, while others grow to become large trees? 🌳 "There's still a lot that we don't know about how plants grow exactly", says Max Minne (VIB - UGent). To find out more Max uses an innovative technique that allows him to look at every single cell in the plant and unravel how the hormone cytokinin, responsible for plant growth, impacts each one of them. 
Pauline
Bardet
FWO
VIB
VUB

We ignore some lung cancer cells. Is that smart?

Up to 25% of the cells present in lung cancer tumours are currently ignored. As such, we don't know what the role of these so-called B cells is. "It is crucial to figure that out because we cannot efficiently fight something we do not fully understand," says Pauline Bardet (VUB - VIB - FWO).

In her PhD, she wants to get to the bottom of those B cells and thus find out whether those cells are "good guys" or "bad guys".