After the great success of our first hike in the Mullerthal, two more followed soon after. On 6 May, a nice trip was made to Bourscheid in the Ardennes, and the Moselle valley was explored on the 5th of June.
On 18 March, 13 LuxDoc members braved the elements and set out for a hike in the Muellerthal in spite of forecasted rain. They hiked an amazing 21 km on the Muellerthal Trail 2 from Echternach to Hersberg. To be continued soon!
Please join our next LuxDoc ScienceCafé! The concept? Listen to current aspects of research, on a topic you might know already or not. All in a café, with discussions and drink!
Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1348823465139802/
Location: Coppers, 1 Avenue du Swing, Esch/Alzette
Topic of the day:
Nano-particles: their scope, toxicity and behavior
Abstract: Due to their unique properties, nano-particles have gained huge interest in science and industry in the recent years. Since 1995, the amount of published papers on nano-particles has increased nearly exponentially, as well as their applications in industry and our daily life. For instance, in nearly every white wall-paint titan dioxide nano-particles are found, but also in toothpaste and sunscreen. Titan dioxide is just a common example, there is a huge variety in differed materials, which are used in our daily life. In general, the word “nano” seems to be a great word for advertising products in the recent years. But on the other side, medical studies were not as fast to analyse the danger of nano-particles. The large variety of different materials leads to big challenges in analytics and risk assessment. So until today only little is known about the properties of nano-particles and their behavior in our body. It is known, however, that nano-particles are able to penetrate the skin and get easy access to our body. From there they are completely free to move in our body, because of their size. Not even the cell membrane or the blood–brain barrier is capable to withstand the nano-particles.
The size of the nano-particles also leads to different re-activities and properties, which transforms harmless bulk material to potentially dangerous nano-material. During the Science Café. we would like to discuss the general views on nano-particles and answer the question why nano-particles behave so differently from bulk material. We will also talk about the possible analytics for nano-particles and about the possible dangers for the environment and the human body.
The speaker: Martin Kaergell MSc
Martin is currently performing his PhD training at University of Potsdam at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin in the group of Prof. Tauber. The topic of his work is: “Layerformation of Perovskite Nanoparticles with tunable optical and electronical properties”. This out-standing research is partly financed by a Scholarship of the Graduated School “HyPerCell”. He performed his undergraduate studies at university of Potsdam and grooved with a long-term stay in Strasbourg as visiting Scientist in the group of Prof. Douce from IPCMS institute, the french leading research center for material sciences. His high-level experience with nano-particles is only equaled by his enthusiasm for science.