Videos

Have you ever heard of the mysterious "crazy root disease"? Sounds like something you'd rather not have in your garden or greenhouse, right? 🌱 Find out more about this bizarre plant disease and how the VIB and the KU Leuven are determined to get rid of it! 💡✨

What if we could predict whether a person with dementia is about to become agitated? That would help caregivers intervene in time and direct their attention to this person, so as to prevent agitation onset. That's what Hannah Davidoff (KU Leuven - Imec) hopes to achieve. Using wearables and other sensors, she builds algorithms to detect agitation.

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.

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.

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. 👏

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. 

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".

Roughly every 5 minutes someone on this planet dies of ALS, and the sad truth is that we still do not have an effective treatment to cure this disease. The problem lies in the fact that we do not fully understand what causes ALS in the first place. In his doctorate, Jimmy Beckers is trying to solve a piece of the puzzle. He is investigating whether a malfunction in our internal cellular recycling system might be linked to ALS.

The year is 2040. A drone just landed on your doorstep, delivering your favorite pizza, which you just ordered a few minutes ago. 🍕 😋 What a time to be alive right?! To make this scenario a reality, Adnan Albaba (Imec - VUB) is working on radar technology to make self-navigating drones.

Imagine that, instead of emitting harmful CO2 into the atmosphere, we could recycle it and use it to power your future laptop or smartphone. That's what Kevin Van Daele is researching. He is developing new catalysts to efficiently convert CO2 into formic acid, a valuable chemical that could one day power your future electronic devices. 

Everywhere in Flanders you can find beautiful historical buildings, such as belfries and castles. They have been there for hundreds of years, but keeping all this historical heritage healthy is no easy task. Think of moisture problems and mold growth. And what about climate change? Is our heritage protected against it? Bruno Vanderschelden finds out.

"Loneliness, that's just part of getting older, right?" This perception prevails in our society. Sociologist Haike Delafontaine wants to help dispel myths and stereotypes surrounding loneliness among seniors, thus lowering the threshold for talking about it. This is necessary, because did you know that loneliness increases the risk of dying prematurely by as much as 26%?