News

The coronavirus pandemic created an entirely new set of challenges for university-level teaching. A special study by the Centre of Higher Education (CHE) shows that FAU overcame these challenges with great success.

Which is the most effective approach to driving a sustainable energy reform: subsidising renewable energy or putting a price on carbon emissions? What effect will increased use of renewable energy have on the system as a whole? Researchers Dr. Adhurim Haxhimusa, Prof. Dr. Mario Liebensteiner and Fabian Naumann have conducted a study investigating the role of pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations.

In 2020, FAU once more invites school pupils to attend the open days. Under the motto ‘Fit for the future’, the University will showcase the range of subjects on offer from 23 to 25 September, with the difference that this year, the event will be held online.

Roughly 200 participants from business and industry met during the first ‘Global Market Leaders Innovation Day’ run by WirtschaftsWoche and FAU to discuss innovations in the area of energy and climate. FAU President Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger presented FAU’s strengths in innovation.

Are office jobs therefore particularly under threat from technological change? A recent study by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) and FAU takes a detailed look at changes in office jobs since the 1980s and comes to the conclusion that employees are well prepared for technical change thanks to their training in these occupations.

Speaking and understanding language is one of the most complex abilities of the human brain. Researchers have been trying to better understand these processes by observing what changes take place in the brain when people speak, read or hear language. A team of researchers at FAU has now taken an important step: They measured the brain activity of participants whilst they were listening to an audio book.

Binary stars are well known to astrophysicists. One stellar double-act in particular has drawn their attention, as part of the X-ray radiation that binary star systems usually emit is missing, and the x-rays it did emit seemed to have strange properties. A research team led by FAU observed a binary star system using X-ray satellites to find some answers.

A team of researchers at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen and FAU has demonstrated that anti-tumour mechanisms can also be activated by sport therapy in cancer patients at advanced stages of the disease.

In an interview, Prof. Dr. Peter Dabrock explains the work of the German Ethics Council and the challenges he faced during his time as chairman.

Organisms often react to extreme environmental conditions with defence mechanisms which allow them to survive. In a work recently published in the journal Aging Cell, a team of researchers from FAU, the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden and the TU Dresden together with the Max Planck Centre for Physics and Medicine (MPZPM) in Erlangen discovered that alcohol can double the lifespan of nematode larvae.