This time we look at European and comparative labour law with Luca Ratti, Associate Professor at the University of Luxembourg. Luca shares his journey of making labour law engaging for students and discusses his research on minimum wages and European social citizenship. Additionally, Luca provides insights into the right to disconnect, a topic that has gained prominence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

SHOW NOTES

About Luca Ratti: https://www.uni.lu/fdef-en/people/luca-ratti/

Students about Luca Ratti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tMNQQ5YDH8

Guiding Principles on Implementing Workers' Right to Disconnect: https://www.europeanlawinstitute.eu/projects-publications/publications/eli-guiding-principles-on-implementing-workers-right-to-disconnect/

European Law Institute: https://www.europeanlawinstitute.eu

Directive 2022 on Adequate Minimum Wages:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32022L2041

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This very special episode includes fragments of biology podcasts made by students at Lycée Aline Mayrisch during an FNR-funded project.

During the Project Week at school, the students visited the Musée de l’Homme in Paris where they got inspiration and information about one of the chosen subjects: brain development, feelings, neurological diseases and art.

We really couldn’t be prouder of the results and would like to thank Carol Lunkes, the biology teacher who coordinated the project as well as Judith Reicherzer who helped out at various stages – including a great presentation about journalism! Last but not least, big thanks to Mattia Rheim, our technician and our external reviewer.

USEFUL LINKS

Lycée Aline Mayrisch - https://www.laml.lu/en/
FNR - https://www.fnr.lu/

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Many factors can influence the way we feel the passage of time. And it seems we can also alter it using extended reality. Listen to Dr. Jean Botev and Sahar Niknam (University of Luxembourg) and Prof. Argiro Vatakis (Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences), the researchers who are developing VR/AR solutions to change our time perception. In this episode you will even get some tips on how to speed up or slow down your time perception - look for the answer to the pub quiz question.

SHOW NOTES

About the ChronoPilot project: https://www.chronopilot.eu/
VR/AR Lab at the University of Luxembourg: https://vrarlab.uni.lu/
About Prof. Argiro Vatakis and her lab: https://argirovatakis.com
More about FET Open projects: https://cordis.europa.eu/programme/id/H2020-EU.1.2.1.

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In our recent discussions with physicists we have often ended up discussing beauty.  Wikipedia says that beauty is a feature that makes objects pleasurable to perceive. And what does prof. Alex Tkatchenko think?

Prof. Alex Tkatchenko (University of Luxembourg), who is a chemical physicist, not only took the time to tell us what is beautiful in physics and chemistry, but also focused on his research interests such as dark energy, drug development and protein folding. A truly enjoyable episode for people who like science!

USEFUL LINKS

About Alex Tkatchenko - https://www.uni.lu/fstm-en/people/alexandre-tkatchenko/
Theoretical Chemical Group at the University of Luxembourg - https://www.uni.lu/fstm-en/research-groups/theoretical-chemical-physics/

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In this episode of SciLux, we talk about climate science and policy with Dr. Andrew Ferrone, a physical climatologist and the head of the Meteorological Department at the Administration of Technical Agricultural Services in Luxembourg. Andrew shares his expertise and insights into the evolving field of climatology, the significant role of greenhouse gases, and the critical importance of reaching net-zero CO2 emissions to stabilise our climate.

We explore the profound changes in climatology over the years and the increasing involvement of various disciplines in climate studies. Andrew also discusses the dramatic increase in extreme weather events and their attribution to climate change, highlighting recent examples such as the flooding in Dubai and Luxembourg.

USEFUL LINKS

Andrew Ferrone’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewferrone
World Meteorological Organisation: https://public.wmo.int/en
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: https://www.ipcc.ch/
European State of the Climate Report: https://climate.copernicus.eu/ESOTC

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Here's interdisciplinarity at its best - combining experitise in allergies and oncology we get a novel and special look at the interesting link between cancer cell growth and allergies. Listen to our guests, Dr. Aurelie Poli (LIH) and Dr. Heather Bax (King's College London) as they explain the bases of the field also touching upon new developments in the field of IgE antibodies.

SHOW NOTES

About Aurélie Poli's work - https://researchportal.lih.lu/en/persons/aur%C3%A9lie-poli
AllergoOncology Working Group - https://eaaci.org/working-group/allergooncology/
About Heather Bax - https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/heather-bax
More about MOv18 IgE - https://epsilogen.com/mov18-ige/

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Sometimes science is about going very deep, but it pays off to also cross disciplines and try to apply your knowledge to other fields - this is exactly what my guests try to do in their statistical research. Listen to Prof. Masanobu Taniguichi and Sophia Loizidou as they explain complex statistical concepts, but also take the time to clarify what for example distribution is.

USEFUL LINKS

About Prof. Taniguchi - https://w-rdb.waseda.jp/html/100000713_en.html
Prof. Taniguchi's lecture at the Luxembourg - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKgOocsQUUw
Team MIDAS - https://math.uni.lu/midas/
About Sophia Loizidou - https://math.uni.lu/midas/people/dp/?sophialoizidou

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It is time to design policies that will combat poverty without relying on economic growth. In the latest episode, two experts in child poverty, Dr. Anne-Catherine Guio (LISER) and Prof. Olivier De Schutter (Université catholique de Louvain) have shared their findings. 

Olivier De Schutter is also UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights and together with Anne-Catherine, Eric Marlier and Hugh Fraser he co-authored a book called ‘Escape from Poverty: Breaking the Vicious Cycles Perpetuating Disadvantage’.

USEFUL LINKS

"Escape from Poverty: Breaking the Vicious Cycles Perpetuating Disadvantage" - https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-escape-from-poverty
Olivier De Schutter - Report on non-take-up of rights: https://www.srpoverty.org/ntu/
Conference "The lives of people in precarious situations in Luxembourg and the use of aid": https://www.liser.lu/?type=news&id=2450
Chambre Des Députés conference "Challenges of the youth in Luxembourg" https://www.chd.lu/en/conference_youth

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In oncology the treatment is very diversified right now – there’s surgery, chemotherapy, radiology, but also immunotherapy and targeted therapy. In this episode of SciLux we focus on the last two combined with some studies on gut microbiome and going back to genetics 101. Our guests, Patrick Dang who is Resident in oncology at CHL and doctoral student at LCSB/University of Luxembourg and Michael Dang, Resident in Oncology - Translational Medical Oncology at NCT Heidelberg are very good at explaining basics of their fields so you can count on an episode full of knowledge presented in a very approachable way.

SHOW NOTES

CHL - https://www.chl.lu/fr
LCSB - https://www.uni.lu/lcsb-en/
NCT Heidelberg - https://www.nct-heidelberg.de/en/index.html
More about Patrick's research project - https://www.cancer.lu/fr/projet-de-recherche-ImMi-Tx
The Bright Foundation co-founded by Patrick - https://brightfoundation.eu/

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Talking to Dr. Dagny Aurich from Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB, University of Luxembourg) turned to be a brilliant travel through many of our previous episodes and we referred a lot to our discussion about unknown chemicals with Prof. Emma Schymanski, Dagny's supervisor.

Dagny, who looked into historical exposomics with C2DH researchers through the IAS-funded Luxembourg Time Machine project, currently focuses more on cheminformatics tools. Prepare for a discussion about all of the above and quite a lot on interdisciplinary approach!

USEFUL LINKS

LCSB - https://www.uni.lu/lcsb-en/
Luxembourg Time Machine - https://luxtimemachine.uni.lu/
EU Time Machine - https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/820323
PubChem - https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Chemical Stripes - https://gitlab.lcsb.uni.lu/eci/chemicalstripes

SciLux Episodes related to this one:

Prof. Emma Schymanski on Unknown Chemicals - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1412332/10331298
Aida Horaniet Ibanez on Data Visualisation - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1412332/10172586
Dr. Archibold Mposhi on Epigenetics - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1412332/14549769

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