Scientific deficiencies february march
In the university library you can visit an exhibition on mathematics, the withdrawal of a VUB Ph.D.
Mathematics Gallery at the Central Library
You can still do this until March 26th Fantasy Gallery Visit the KU Leuven University Library. This exhibition on mathematics is an initiative of Platform Wiskunde Vlaanderen and several Flemish universities.
Using posters, 3D objects, puzzles, and interactive touchscreens, you’ll learn about the impact of mathematics on all kinds of aspects of the universe and our existence. There are also some old books by physicist Isaac Newton and cosmologist Gemma Frisius, among others. These come from the university’s own library collection.
Students and staff at KU Leuven can visit the gallery for free every day of the week from 10 am to 5 pm. IMAGINARY is Mobile exhibitionShe previously performed in Ghent and Kortrijk, among others. You can find the exhibition in Brussels from April 15th. At the same time, a similar exhibition will also visit Dutch university cities.
A science park with a focus on nutrition and health opens in Roeselare
On Wednesday, March 1, the doors to the first research building opened Food Innovation Park in Roeselare. The purpose of the Science Park is to support research into nutrition in healthcare.
For example, a modern commercial kitchen with an industrial microwave oven is available for research in preparing, storing, and heating meals. In addition, the research building also houses laboratories for research into food safety and flavor improvement, an experimental fitness room and tasting booths to test meals for taste and smell. Plants and trees are grown in one search garden on the roof of the building.
This first building is just the beginning of the Food Innovation Park, a collaboration between VIVES College, POM West-Vlaanderen and Flanders’ FOOD. Food companies will have to establish themselves in the science park of the future.
VUB withdraws the doctoral title of the Egyptian professor of gynecology
the Free University of Brussels In early February, the VUB decided to withdraw the doctorate from Abu Hatem Hashim. He was awarded in 2013 for a thesis on Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS).
The Scientific Integrity Committee of VUB was actually established in 2021 after a complaint that there were serious breaches of scientific integrity in Hashem’s dissertation. He then went to the Flemish Committee for Scientific Integrity (VCWI) for a second tip, but V.E a report Published December 2022 VUB results.
Evidence was found that Hashim falsified statistical tests for his medical experiments. The VCWI report even called the results “statistical nonsense.” The data on which the thesis is based are likely wholly or largely fabricated.
The VUB is now submitting requests to withdraw papers based on erroneous statements from Hashem’s dissertation. The university is also taking measures to better control statistical data in the future.
Same color pattern, but different genetics?
Two different species of Heliconius butterfly from Central and South America show the same color pattern on their wings, even though their evolutionary paths were separated by 11 million years. This pattern is supposed to deter birds, these butterflies’ natural predator.
The fact that animals develop the same characteristics, despite different species, is a phenomenon long known as convergent evolution. KU Leuven Professor of Evolutionary Biology Stephen van Belleghem recently investigated the butterflies with his international colleagues to see if the essential genes also match.
from the investigation He shows that the genetic mechanism behind the color patterns actually differs between the two butterfly species. The “butterfly” genes involved in the patterning of their wings are regulated differently and have different mutations. It’s as if they’ve arrived at the same body 11 million years later, but under the hood is a completely different engine that drives the whole process, van Belleghem says. So it appears that evolution is less predictable than previously thought.
