Understanding epigenetics to preserve biodiversity
Do you know the rivulus? It is a small fish that lives in the Caribbean and has some amazing characteristics. It is indeed capable of self-fertilisation! But in this case, what happens to genetic diversity, which is essential for the evolution of a species? Welcome in the mangroves of Florida and Belize to find an answer.
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An ERC Starting Grant for F.R.S.-FNRS qualified researcher Vincent Jacquet!
In the summer 2022, we met Vincent Jacquet, a qualified researcher from UNamur, to obtain his FNRS qualified researcher mandate. Today, we meet him after the signature of an ERC Starting Grant for his project CITIZEN_IMPACT.
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Vincent Jacquet, the political scientist who scrutinises citizens' assemblies
In the summer of 2022, we set out to discover the UNamur Qualified researchers who were awarded funding by the FNRS in 2022. We met Vincent Jacquet, a member of the Department of Political Science and the Transitions Institute. His research focuses on citizen participation and its impact on solving the crisis of democracy.
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Arcadie, a new research centre in the ESPHIN institute
Arcadia is the name of an ideal society, a bucolic utopia. But it is also the name chosen by the members of a brand-new research centre at UNamur. This centre, created within the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and attached to the ESPHIN institute, questions three themes at the heart of our contemporaneity: the Anthropocene, history and utopias.
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"Better management of mineral resources around the world": a warning from geologist Johan Yans, new member of the Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer.
Designed to promote scientific knowledge in overseas countries, the Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences (RAOS) is an independent, multidisciplinary, national and international forum serving Science in overseas countries. Professor of geology at UNamur, Johan Yans has just been appointed as a new member of ARSOM.
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Belgium-Tunisia collaboration: geological and ecological challenges
On Thursday 29 September 2022, the Vice-Rector for International Relations, the International Relations Service and the Department of Geology received Professor Fakher Jamoussi (Tunisia) as part of the "Tunisia on the move - 2022" project. For more than twenty years, the teams of Professors Johan Yans and Fakher Jamoussi have been weaving scientific, didactic and human collaborations aiming at enhancing the fabulous subsoil of Tunisia.
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Common good must be saved!
Since the pandemic, this cry of alarm from the Nobel Prize in Economics, Jean Tirole, seems more relevant than ever. On 19 and 20 May 2022, the second Summit of the Common Good, organised in Toulouse, mobilised hundreds of thousands of internet users. On 24 May 2022, in Brussels, the Night of the Common Good raised over half a million euros in donations. And next year, the Our Lady of Peace Chair at UNamur will be dedicated to the common good. But what is this 'common good' that belongs to everyone and to no one? Four researchers from UNamur share their thoughts with us to stimulate our own.
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From the Namur snail to the Galapagos snail, there is only one step!
An international team of researchers, including Prof Frederik De Laender, from the University of Namur, publish in Nature Communications. The editor highlights that the authors use theoretical models and field data to show how eco-evolutionary processes can force species to develop more similar characteristic traits in more species-rich communities to avoid competition. Which goes against what we intuitively perceive.
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ERGA, a "European Reference Genome Atlas" to preserve biodiversity
At a time when around a fifth of Europe's 200,000 species are threatened with extinction, researchers from the University of Namur are taking part in a pan-European consortium to act fast and together to generate high-quality genome resources on a large scale.
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Biodiversity and the value of nature: geographer Nicolas Dendoncker co-authors a major international publication
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has just published a study in the prestigious journal Nature, listing and assessing the different values we place on nature. Nicolas Dendoncker, professor in the Department of Geography and member of the ILEE Institute at UNamur, is one of the co-authors.
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