Videos

Why do scientists sometimes call microalgae "the green gold"? Well, in addition to biofuels and astronaut food, you could use them to make sunscreen. These tiny algae contain substances that protect them from sunlight, which can also come in handy for humans. Unfortunately, they don't naturally produce enough of those substances. Elke Vereecke researches how to grow microalgae packed with those sunlight-protecting components.

"Top presentation yesterday! 👏 But that one slide with all those numbers could be slightly clearer." Feedback at work is crucial to your professional growth. But asking for it and giving it isn't always easy. Shana Mertens looks at how organizations can ensure that asking, giving, receiving, and using feedback becomes natural.

As many as 1 in 3 children struggle with being overweight. The solution seems simple: eat healthier and exercise. "Yet we find that this standard approach makes little difference in the long term," explains Kimberly De Windt. The key to helping these children may well lie in ... their stool 💩

Have you ever tried to unlearn an old habit, such as nail biting? That is easier said than done. This is also the case with bad oral habits, such as pushing your tongue against your teeth when swallowing. This can cause problems to your teeth, such as an upset position of your teeth. Charis Van der Straeten how a speech therapist can help children unlearn their bad mouth habits.

More than half of the older population has to take at least five medicines a day. This often leads to mistakes, for example medicines interacting badly, increasing the risk of falls, hospitalisation, or even death. The key is medication optimisation: doctors should review medication intake, but unfortunately, they just don't have the time to do this for every patient. That is why Cheima Amrouch is working on a different approach.

Do you have a lot of fast or rather slow muscle fibers? No worries if you don't know the answer. But for athletes, this is crucial info as it determines how best to train. Only there is one big problem, about 15 centimeters big to be precise .... That's how long the needle, used to remove a piece of muscle to find out someone's muscle fiber type, is. Sounds painful and it is. That's why Freek Van de Casteele is looking for new, reliable, and painless methods.

Some 300,000 people overcame cancer in Belgium in the past decade. Great news, but there is a downside: chemotherapy can cause permanent damage to the sense of hearing and balance, leading to hearing loss, tinnitus, or balance problems. To better identify the problem, Heleen Vander Biest (UGent) will test patients' ears just before starting, during, and after chemotherapy.

If you get a glioblastoma, you usually only have about 15 months to live.This malignant tumour spreads rapidly through the brain and unfortunately cannot be cured. Yanti De Visser is working on a personalised treatment to already slow down the brain tumour - with success. "The first results show that our approach has the potential to extend patients' lives by years, rather than months," she says.

Do you often eat fish? 🐟 Through fish, you get a lot of healthy #omega3 fatty acids. Yet we don't owe those omega-3 to the fish themselves. Marine biologist Jens Boyen tells you about the little heroes who provide the healthy omega-3.

Once in a while, a meteorite hits Earth, which then becomes world news. But did you know that there is a constant rain of micrometeorites falling on Earth? These are meteorites smaller than 2 mm, some of which, if you look closely, you can find on your flat roof. What makes micrometeorites so interesting that VUB researcher Flore Van Maldeghem even travels to remote Antarctica to find them? She tells us in this video.

Have you ever enjoyed a delicious smoothie? The way this tasty drink is made has similarities to how Alzheimer's disease research has been approached in the past decades. In this video, Lara De Deyn explains why she chooses a fruit salad approach in her research. A very nice metaphor to tell how Alzheimer's disease research is evolving.

Did you know that 20% of all healthcare expenses are 'waste'? "We are spending large sums of money on things that don't really improve patients' health, such as overtreatment, administrative efficiencies, and so on", says Joke Borzee. To treat our financially ill healthcare sector, she is working on a scoring model to assess the overall value of treatments. Watch her explain how this would work.