Schedule
Schedule
Hendrik Heuer, Josephine Schmitt
Trotz intensiver Forschung hinken wir aktuellen Entwicklungen im Bereich Desinformation oft hinterher. In diesem Vortrag erklären wir, warum der Umgang mit Desinformation so herausfordernd ist und welche konkreten Lösungsansätze es gibt.
Knud Jahnke
„Euclid" ist seit 2023 das neue Weltraumteleskop der Europäischen Weltraumbehörde mit Beteiligungen eines Wissenschaftskonsortiums aus vierzehn europäischen Ländern, den USA, Kanada und Japan. Gestartet vor knapp eineinhalb Jahren, läuft jetzt seit gut 9 Monaten die wissenschaftliche Himmeldurchmusterung. Auf dem 37C3 konnte ich die ersten fünf "Early Release Observation" Bilder vorstellen, seitdem ist viel passiert. Vor allem läuft nach ein paar Anlaufschwierigkeiten die Mission richtig gut und viele hundert Quadratgrad des Himmels sind bereits fertig kartiert - die Datenbearbeitung und Auswertung läuft. Ich werde weitere Bilder und einen kleinen Blick hinter die Kulissen zeigen.
Enrico Sandro Colizzi, Renske Vroomans
Biological evolution is a great inventor. Over 4 billion years, it has generated an astonishing diversity of lifeforms, from the tiniest bacteria to the tallest trees. Each new organism inherits a genetic program from its parents - a set of instructions to “build” the organism itself. Random mutations in this program can alter the organism’s traits, affecting its ability to survive in its environment. But how do these small changes combine over thousands of generations to yield the vast complexity we see in present-day lifeforms? In this talk, we discuss examples from our research, using computer simulations to model the early evolution of animals, from single-celled microbes to complex multicellular organisms. We show that evolution behaves a bit like a hacker, repurposing the programs it previously built in unexpected ways to create new functions and structures. Understanding how evolution continually innovates is one of biology’s grand challenges. We also hope that uncovering these processes in biological systems will provide new perspectives on current debates about the generative and creative capabilities of AI.
Christian Wessel
What are we, and where do we come from? - Searching for flavour in beauty Nowadays the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is the best known high energy physics research facility. However, there are other facilities around the world performing cutting edge high energy physics research. Some of these are the so called flavour factories which have a long tradition in high energy physics. Two of these are currently in operation: BES III in China and Belle II in Japan. Collecting huge amounts of data, the goal of these experiments is to measure free parameters of the standard model of particle physics with very high precision to find deviations from predictions by theory. Such deviations can hint to new physics, and physicists are still searching for the reasons of our very existence as by our best knowledge nothing but light should have remained after the big bang. But testing the standard model is challenging. Huge data sets in the order of tera bytes need to be analysed requiring advanced analysis software and techniques. By now these analyses usually employ machine learning and artificial intelligence in various kinds, while using custom hardware and software, and a world spanning computing infrastructure. All of this is only possible with more than 1000 people working together in a collaboration. Part of the work in high energy physics nowadays would not be possible anymore without the groundbreaking research by this year's Nobel laureates for physics. In this talk I will present what flavour physics is, the reasons why flavour physics is interesting and why it matters, and which challenges we are facing, using the Belle II experiment as an example. Most of the challenges are not unique to Belle II but to high energy physics in general, so I will also set this into the bigger context and take a look to what is ahead of us in the field of high energy physics.
Margret Engelhard
Have you always wanted to build an egg-laying woolly milk sow or bring the legendary dodo back to life? The dream of some biologists to not only understand organisms, but also to redesign, build or bring living beings back to life is accelerating towards reality with the convergence of synthetic biology and generative AI in ‘generative biology’. For example, large language models are now being used to write genes and proteins, while complex laboratory tests are being replaced by machine vision and automation. The pace of these developments is so fast that they are barely noticed by the public, politicians or related experts such as environmental scientists. Questions about the reliability and safety of these new biodigital methods and applications are not yet being asked and research into risk assessment methods is not keeping pace. At the same time, this shift of generative AI systems from generating text and images to generating protein, bacteria, viruses and organisms could transform many areas of life, from medicine and the environment to bioweapons. So let's talk about it and discuss it.
Kirsten Krüger
Der Harz wurde von Borkenkäfern gefressen, nur jeder vierte Baum in Deutschland gilt als gesund und in Russland sowie Nordamerika brennen die Wälder in einem enormen Ausmaß. Gleichzeitig gelten Wälder als eine der Lösungen in der Klimakrise, als CO2-Speicher und Produzent von nachhaltigen, nachwachsenden Rohstoffen. Sind Wälder in Gefahr auf Grund von Dürre, Borkenkäfer und Feuer? Und können wir mit Wiederaufforstungen der Klimakrise was entgegensetzten? Kirsten Krüger forscht an der Technischen Universität München zu Störungsdynamiken in Wäldern und erklärt in ihrem Vortrag, was Wälder eigentlich alles für uns leisten, warum Störungen ein natürlicher Bestandteil von Wäldern sind und Bäume pflanzen allein keine akkurate Antwort auf die Klimakrise ist.
Moritz Schaefer
AI methods are advancing biological research in diverse directions. In this talk, you will learn how we decode the fundamental building blocks of life with AI, and how it will help us to hack cells to cure diseases and beyond.