facility:university of bern

The cometary zoo
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/29/the-cometary-zoo

The ROSINA instrument on Rosetta has been “sniffing” the environment of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for the past couple of years, obtaining unprecedented measurements of the gases found in a comet’s atmosphere. Besides the main component – water vapour – ROSINA detected a wide variety of chemical species, from simple atoms to increasingly complex molecules, including some ingredients that were crucial for the origin of life on Earth. In a humorous take on this “cometary zoo”, Kathrin Altwegg, ROSINA principal investigator from University of Bern and an enthusiast of animals, tells us more about the variety of bizarre “creatures” they’ve found at the comet. Let’s start from the volatile species, our beautiful butterflies, including CO, CO2, nitrogen, and the unexpected oxygen. Then, we (...)

#comet Landscapes and #maps of the #southern_hemisphere
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/29/comet-landscapes

During today’s #Science briefing at ESA’s ESOC, Mohamed El-Maarry (University of Bern) presented a series of highlights about the landscape of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Over the past two years, #Rosetta mapped the entire surface of the comet at high-resolution, resolving very small features and monitoring surface changes with time. The comet nucleus is indeed very dark (see our 2014 blog post NAVCAM’s shades of grey), reflecting only about 4% of the light that hits it. But why is it so dark? Measurements from both #rosetta and Philae report that most of the surface is dry (with the exception of icy boulders) and covered in organic material, most of which had never been detected on the surface of a comet (on this topic, see previous blog posts: Extremely dark, dry and rich in (...)

#Images #Instruments #images #morphology #osiris #regions

#Science #highlights briefing starting soon
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/29/science-highlights-briefing-starting-soon

The #Rosetta #science highlight briefing at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, will start shortly. Tune in from 14:30 14:45 to the livestream viewer at #rosetta.esa.int or via ▻https://livestream.com/ESA/rosettagrandfinale or ESA’s Facebook page to follow dedicated talks celebrating the scientific highlights of the mission. Programme overview Matt Taylor (ESA’s Rosetta Project Scientist): Introduction Mohamed El-Maarry (OSIRIS team, University of Bern): Landscapes of Chury Valerie Ciarletti (CONSERT team, Universités Paris-Saclay): Getting the ground truth about the nucleus Thurid Mannel (MIDAS team, University of Graz): Dust under the microscope Jean-Baptiste Vincent (OSIRIS team, Max-Planck Institute for Solar Physics, Göttingen): Cometary activity and (...)

#Comet_67P #Comets #Instruments #Philae #comet #consert #MIDAS #osiris #rosina #rpc

Large-Scale Land Acquisitions | Brill
▻http://www.brill.com/products/book/large-scale-land-acquisitions

Edited by Christophe Gironde, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies; Christophe Golay, Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights; Peter Messerli, University of Bern

Large-scale land acquisitions, or ‘land grabbing’, has become a key research topic among scholars interested in agrarian change, development, and the environment. The term ‘land acquisitions’ refers to a highly contested process in terms of governance and impacts on livelihoods and human rights. This book focuses on South-East Asia. A series of thematic and in-depth case studies put ‘land grabbing’ into specific historical and institutional contexts. The volume also offers a human rights analysis of the phenomenon, examining the potential and limits of human rights mechanisms aimed at preventing and mitigating land grabs’ negative consequences.

téléchargeable ici
▻http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004304758

#terres #accaparements

#merci @cdb_77

Is Facebook Luring You Into Being Depressed? - Issue 31: Stress
▻http://nautil.us/issue/31/stress/is-facebook-luring-you-into-being-depressed

http://static.nautil.us/7780_604616e4d592b744e14ec3ff33204dec.png

In his free time, Sven Laumer serves as a referee for Bavaria’s highest amateur football league. A few years ago, he noticed several footballers had quit Facebook, making it hard to organize events on the platform. He was annoyed, but as a professor who studies information systems, he was also intrigued. Why would the young men want to give up Facebook? Social scientists had been saying the social network was a good thing. “At the time, the main paradigm in social networking research was that Facebook is a positive place, it’s a place of happiness, it’s a place where you have fun, you get entertained, you talk to friends, you feel amused, accepted,” says Hanna Krasnova, an information systems researcher at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Influential studies had shown that the
social (...)

First detection of molecular oxygen at a #comet
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/10/28/first-detection-of-molecular-oxygen-at-a-comet

ESA’s #Rosetta spacecraft has made the first in situ detection of oxygen molecules outgassing from a comet, a surprising observation that suggests they were incorporated into the comet during its formation. This news story is mirrored from the main ESA web portal. #rosetta has been studying #Comet_67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for over a year and has detected an abundance of different gases pouring from its nucleus. #water vapour, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are the most prolific, with a rich array of other nitrogen-, sulphur- and carbon-bearing species, and even ‘noble gases’ also recorded. Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the Universe, but the simplest molecular version of the gas, O2, has proven surprisingly hard to track down, even in star-forming clouds, because it is highly (...)

#Comets #Instruments #Science #coma #instruments #science

Getting to know #Rosetta’s #comet: boundary conditions
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/15/getting-to-know-rosettas-comet-boundary-conditions

In January the first maps of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko were published, identifying 19 geomorphologically distinct regions on its surface. Six months on and much more work has been done on refining the boundaries between these regions. This blog post showcases some of the OSIRIS #Images acquired from close orbit and presented in a new paper that have enabled an in-depth study of the different regions and their boundaries. This post was prepared with inputs from lead author M. Ramy El-Maarry from the University of Bern, who introduces this post with an inside story on how some of the regional names were chosen: “Early on in the mapping phase, we decided on naming the regions of the comet using names of ancient Egyptian deities. We wanted to adhere to the ancient Egyptian theme of (...)

#Instruments #Science #ground-based_observations #rosetta #science

A possible alternative to antibiotics
▻http://phys.org/news/2014-11-alternative-antibiotics.html

A team of international scientists has tested a novel substance, which has been developed by Eduard Babiychuk and Annette Draeger from the Institute of Anatomy, University of Bern in Switzerland. This compound constitutes a novel approach for the treatment of bacterial infections: the scientists engineered artificial nanoparticles made of lipids, “#liposomes” that closely resemble the membrane of host cells. These liposomes act as decoys for bacterial toxins and so are able to sequester and neutralize them. Without toxins, the bacteria are rendered defenseless and can be eliminated by the cells of the host’s own immune system. The study will be published in Nature Biotechnology Nov 2.

Artificial bait for bacterial toxins
In clinical medicine, liposomes are used to deliver specific medication into the body of patients. Here, the Bernese scientists have created liposomes which attract bacterial toxins and so protect host cells from a dangerous toxin attack.

“We have made an irresistible bait for bacterial toxins. The toxins are fatally attracted to the liposomes, and once they are attached, they can be eliminated easily without danger for the host cells”, says Eduard Babiychuk who directed the study.

“Since the bacteria are not targeted directly, the liposomes do not promote the development of bacterial resistance”, adds Annette Draeger. Mice which were treated with the liposomes after experimental, fatal septicemia survived without additional antibiotic therapy.

#antibiotiques #résistance_aux_antibiotiques #bactéries #nanoparticules #santé