Videos

Who collects your waste, ensures that water comes out of your tap and that your lamp lights up? Precisely: an inter-municipal company - a collaboration between cities and municipalities in a special company form. The most important rules for this type of 'public company' date from a law that is now almost 100 years old and is beginning to show some major cracks. This is why Marie DeCock (University of Hasselt - University of Ghent) wants to update the legislation.

Did you know that there are already more than 15 medications for multiple sclerosis? Yet the more than 1 million progressive MS patients do not benefit from them, because these drugs only work in the early stages of the disease. Assia Tiane wants to help unravel the disease in order to improve the quality of life of progressive MS patients.

Pieter Verding wants to make your life easier. His goal: to make sure you no longer have to clean your windows or glasses. How? Well, by developing self-cleaning coatings 👇 🎥

Cracking codes, it's a thing in escape rooms. But it is also what Bénedith Oben tries, albeit in the laboratory. In this way, she hopes to find the key to better understand the development of multiple myeloma, a common blood cancer.

Melanoma is a very common and lethal type of skin cancer. Melanoma cells have a strange, yet effective defence mechanism called autophagy: they can manage to survive by eating parts of themselves. Monica Vara Perez tries to figure out this self-cannibalism mechanism in order to help defeat melanoma.

Last year, scientists discovered bacteria in the mud of the North Sea that can conduct electricity. Robin Bonné (Hasselt University - FWO) is investigating whether we can use these 'cable bacteria' to create biodegradable electronic wires.

Have you ever noticed how seeds are omnipresent? You find them in our daily bread, they are used in medicines, cosmetics, and even jewelry. This has always been the case, throughout the history of mankind. Archaeobotanist Sidonie Preiss dives into archaeological wells, granaries, and even latrines to recover seeds and reconstruct the shared history of plants and mankind.

It’s always thought that evolution happens by slow and gradual changes. But can evolution also happen fast? Oh, yes - as Zoë de Corte's research on beetles shows.

In 2006 Marine biologist Anton Van de Putte went on a 3-month- expedition to Antarctica. Unfortunately, he only managed to collect 400 samples, which were often no bigger than this little fish. Thanks to a simple but brilliant idea, he now has more than 2 million samples at his disposal...

When you swallow seawater, you actually ingest thousands of particles (mud, clay, phytoplankton, ...) that are barely visible for the naked eye. Michael Fettweis enlightens you about this universe of particles in a sip of seawater.

Mice that follow a low-calorie diet appear to be protected against the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Charysse Vandendriessche is investigating why this is the case to gather more insight in the underlying disease mechanism. This information could into the future contribute to the development of a treatment against this devastating disease.

Once upon a time there were two types of cephalopods: the nautiluses and the ammonites. Although the ammonites were much better adapted, they became extinct. And the nautiluses? They're still swimming around today. Stijn Goolaerts studies fossils of these fascinating creatures and draws a wise lesson for mankind from the sad fate of the ammonites.