Podcast

#AskDifferent 53 - Unser Erbgut verrät viel – auch, warum Menschen erkranken, welche Therapien anschlagen und wo Medizin an Grenzen stößt. Die Genommedizin, also die umfassende Analyse des menschlichen Erbguts, eröffnet hier neue Möglichkeiten: Der Humangenetiker und Einstein-Professor Malte Spielmann setzt Genomsequenzierung ein, um vor allem Patient:innen mit seltenen Erkrankungen schneller zur richtigen Diagnose und zu gezielteren Behandlungen zu führen. Was früher einer „diagnostischen Odyssee“ glich, kann heute oft in einem einzigen Test geklärt werden. Doch der Blick ins Genom bringt auch heikle Fragen mit sich: Wie geht man mit den gewonnenen Erkenntnissen um? Wer soll getestet werden – und wer nicht? Und wo verlaufen die roten Linien, wenn Techniken wie die „Genschere“ CRISPR-Cas Eingriffe bis hin zu ungeborenem Leben denkbar machen? Ein Gespräch über medizinische Chancen, historische Erfahrungen und die Zukunft einer verantwortungsvollen Genommedizin.

#AskDifferent 52 - What if we could build an internet that is fundamentally more secure, one where information is carried by light and cannot be secretly intercepted? This is the promise of quantum communication, but it requires a seemingly impossible technology: a way to store light. In this episode, Einstein Independent Researcher Mustafa Gündoğan from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin explains his work on quantum memory. He breaks down the central dilemma scientists face: the more efficiently you store quantum information, the faster it's lost. Discover his groundbreaking approach to solving this problem by using atom clouds in microgravity, a method that could extend storage time from one second to several minutes. Learn how this key technology could pave the way for a global network of interconnected quantum computers and revolutionize secure communication as we know it. *Please note: the informational insert is AI-generated*

#AskDifferent 51 - In this episode of AskDifferent, bioinformatician and Einstein Foundation Early Career Awardee Maximilian Sprang takes us into the hidden world of errors in genomic data. Why do sequencing studies sometimes produce impressive-looking results that later fail to replicate? What happens when tiny technical glitches masquerade as biological discoveries - and what does that mean for patients and precision medicine? Sprang explains how his team detects and even deliberately introduces errors to understand them better, improve software tools, and make genomic research more reliable without throwing "messy" data away. *Please note: the informational insert is AI-generated*

AskDifferent #26 – Are we alone in space? What could extraterrestrial life forms look it? And how do we find them? These questions are almost as old as mankind itself. Natural Scientist and former Einstein International Postdoctoral Fellow Riccardo Giovanni Urso tries to answer them every day. In this episode of #AskDifferent, he talks about his scientific journeys through space, basic ingredients for life, and why he would love to be onboard a mission to mars.

AskDifferent #25 – Preprints have been shared in the physics community since the early 1950s but mostly among well established professors. Physicist Paul Ginsparg, who received the first Einstein Foundation's Individual Award for Promoting Quality in Research in 2021, set out to democratize access to scientific results. Today, his preprint server arXiv.org has spread to many other fields - and made science progress more efficient and fairer. In this episode, he reflects on his motivation to create arXiv.org back in 1991, the ways it has changed and still changes scientific processes today and the fact that the availability of scientific information may attract young people to become scientists.

AskDifferent #24 – Mini-Organe aus der Petrischale: Die Biotechnologin Anna Löwa beschäftigt sich in ihrer Forschung mit sogenannten Organoiden, speziellen Zellkulturen beispielsweise des Gehirns oder der Lunge. Diese Organoide können die Strukturen und Funktionen einzelner Organe darstellen und damit einen Zugang zur Erforschung und Behandlung menschlicher Erkrankungen ermöglichen. Die junge Wissenschaftlerin ist Postdoc am Einstein-Zentrum 3R für alternative Methoden in der biomedizinischen Forschung. 

AskDifferent #23 – Can behavioral economics change the world? Yes, thinks Bertil Tungodden, the Centre for Experimental Research on Fairness, Inequality, and Rationality in Bergen and Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Humboldt University. His comparative studies aim at explaining why people have a different idea of when existing inequalities are actually unfair. In this episode, he gives insight into the experiments he designs to find out about the norms & values underlying decision making – and explains why, by the effects of his research, he can make a little difference. Photo: private.

AskDifferent #22 – Mancherorts ist der Wasserstand der langsam fließenden Spree so niedrig, dass sie gar ihre Laufrichtung ändert: ein Beispiel, anhand dessen die Ökologin Britta Tietjen erklärt, wie es um die Ressource Wasser in Berlin-Brandenburg steht. Als Sprecherin der Einstein Research Unit "Climate and Water Under Change (CliWaC)" modelliert Tietjen mögliche Zukunftsszenarien von regionalen Ökosystemen. Foto: Privat.

AskDifferent #21 – Everyone is familiar with globalization, its problems and discontents. But how to correspond to it politically? Andrew Hurrell is Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and has spent much time studying liberal ideas about globalization: how it has evolved in modern times as well as its current challenges like populism, pandemics, climate change, and war. As an Einstein Visiting Fellow, Andrew Hurrell seeks to understand why adopting truly internationalist policies is so difficult today. Please note: The interview was recorded in 2021, months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: Andrew Hurrell/Oxford University

AskDifferent #20 – Chris Sander, Professor for Cell Biology from Harvard Medical School and one of the founders of bioinformatics, works to understand the "labyrinth" of cancer growth. The aim of his current research as an Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Berlin Institute of Health is to find out how to block the side doors through which aggressive cancer types manage to escape medical blockage during a treatment. Starting his career as a physicist, it took him some turns to get where he is today. His advice for young researchers: stick with science, look for mentors - and ask the right questions. Photo: Chris Sander/ Sanderlab.org

AskDifferent #19 – Careful work and self-criticism is not rewarded enough in today's accelerated research culture, Dorothy Bishop thinks. A jury member of the 2021 Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research, the Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at the University of Oxford advocates for evidence-driven, open science practices and a new incentive structure. In the interview, the experienced teacher and mentor shares her ideas how to increase public trust in science and encourages every scholar who encounters systemic problems to try and change them. Photo: Dorothy Bishop

AskDifferent #18 – As a social neuroscientist, Vittorio Gallese has a unique understanding of how we live together. Until recently, he headed a research group at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain focusing on the development of socio-cultural identities. Back in Italy, the Professor of Psychobiology from Università di Parma, who is widely known for his discovery of mirror neurons, continues to explore the cognitive structures of empathy and sympathy. An episode about the lockdown experience, the ambivalences of digital media, and the role of effort and coincidence in scientific breakthroughs. Photo: Florian Büttner

AskDifferent #17 – Inwiefern sind Sportvereine, Cafés, Shisha-Bars und Fußballstadien für das Verständnis der Gesellschaft interessant? Das erklärt in dieser Folge die Stadtsoziologin Talja Blokland von der Humboldt-Universität. Im Einstein-Zirkel "Large-Scale Organisation" hat sie Begegnungsorte unter die Lupe genommen um herauszufinden, wie der urbane Raum strukturiert ist und wie sich Ungleichheit verstetigt. Dass auch Zufall, Nachbarschaftsklatsch und neue Kontakte für unser Zusammenleben wichtig sind, erklärt Blokland am Problem der Gentrifizierung. Foto: HU Berlin/Falk Weiß

AskDifferent #16 – Viola Vogel, Bioingenieurin an der ETH Zürich, erforscht als Einstein Visiting Fellow an der Charité, wie mechanische Kräfte auf Zellen einwirken und so Wachstum und Bewegung steuern. Das bessere Verständnis von Zellprozessen auf Nanoebene könnte neue Therapien ermöglichen, die gezielt die Heilung von beschädigtem Gewebe anregen, ob nach einer Lungenentzündung durch Covid-19 oder einer Krebserkrankung. Im Podcast teilt Vogel neben ihrer Freude am Forschen auch ihre Erfahrung im Dialog von Wissenschaft und Politik.

AskDifferent #15 – Ist auf das Gedächtnis Verlass? Inwieweit sind Erinnerungen konstruiert? Lässt sich nach einer hirnschädigenden Erkrankung verlorenes Wissen wiederherstellen? Die Forschung des Neurologen Carsten Finke von der Charité – Universitätsmedizin und der Berlin School of Mind and Brain berührt kognitive wie philosophische Fragen. Im Podcast berichtet er von  verblüffenden Studien und macht einmal mehr deutlich, wie anpassungsfähig das menschliche Gehirn ist.