MoA Highlighted in Many Different News Outlets
Read about MoA in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung, the Purpose Magazine, The Praxis Journal and Tagesspiegel
We are very happy that »Matters of Activity« has been highlighted by many different (international) news outlets lately. Next to beautiful biofilm pictures and information from Regine Hengge, Cluster Members Wolfgang Schäffner and Maxime Le Calvé have been interviewed by Purpose Magazine and the Argentinian Praxis Journal. Wolfgang Schäffner has also been interviewed in connection to the BUA initiative »BUA Calling« by Tagesspiegel Berlin. With our involvement in the Berlin Science Week news about MoA will also travel fast in the upcoming weeks.
Leben im Schleim. Copyright: FASZ
»Leben im Schleim« (Life in Mucus)
Everyone following »Matters of Activity« knows that »biofilms are complex and diverse communities of myriad bacterial species«. »They often attract attention only as disease germs, yet they accomplish amazing things.« »Scientists have high hopes for the study of the biofilm matrix, and materials scientists are also investigating the structure-forming fibers of the extracellular matrix. Microbiologist Regine Hengge, project leader in the »Matters of Activity« Cluster of Excellence, is now working with architects and designers to use bacterially produced cellulose fibers as a sustainable alternative to the material generally derived from wood. Coliform bacteria, indigenous to the intestine, can produce pure cellulose in considerable quantities. It is extremely tear-resistant yet very elastic and well tolerated by the human body. Initial application tests range from using cellulose fibers in cardiovascular implants such as stents to their use as leather substitutes. Bacteria could also replace chemical processes in the future. For example, those that have been used to modify cellulose to make it water-repellent or water-soluble.«
Read the full article on biofilms and life in mucus via the download link below the text.
Screenshot Purpose Magazine, 17.10.2022. Copyright: Purpose Magazine
The Future of Natural Building Materials
In Purpose Magazine, Antoinette Schmelter-Kaiser writes about our extraordinary interdisciplinary constellation of »Matters of Activity« and the use of intelligent properties of materials. »Wood, for example, not only binds carbon dioxide, but also reacts to moisture and heat, so it is a building block, storage unit, sensor and motor all at once. Used in a targeted manner, these intelligent properties are already being exploited so that, among other things, blinds made of natural material close when there is too much light and heat, and open when both become less. Fungal threads from tinder sponges growing on trees can be used to grow building material in brick form.«
The full interview with Wolfgang Schäffner and Maxime Le Calvé can be read in German here:
https://www.purpose-magazin.de/zukunft-der-naturbaustoffe/
Screenshot of »The Praxis Journal«, 17 October 2022. Copyright: The Praxis Journal
»Nuevos Paradigmas – Matters of Activity: Los Alcances del Diseño Prospectivo« (New Paradigms – Matters of Activity: The Scope of Prospective Design)
Vivian Urfeig interviewed MoA Director Wolfgang Schäffner for the Argentinian »The Praxis Journal«. If your Spanish is up for it, read the full article via the link below.
https://thepraxisjournal.com/matters-of-activity-los-alcances-del-diseno-prospectivo/
Screenshot Tagesspiegel »Berlins Unis werben um Zivilgesellschaft: Jugendliche Forschungs-Scouts«, 17 October 2022. Copyright: Tagesspiegel
Berlin's Universities Recruit Civil Society: Young Research Scouts (Berlins Unis werben um Zivilgesellschaft : Jugendliche Forschungs-Scouts)
»What should Berlin's universities research together in the future, and what is relevant for the future? Researchers usually discuss these questions among themselves. But on this afternoon in the Humboldt Forum, some forty young people are also thinking about this. Two of them are Marie and Moritz, and they already have an idea: ›Mushrooms!‹«
»›We want the original ideas of the young people.‹ Thanks to the BUA funds, it was possible for the first time to set up such a participation process in an ›ideal-typical‹ way. Wolfgang Schäffner, professor of the Cultural History of Knowledge at the HU and responsible for scientific exchange at BUA, thinks so, too,«. Berlin should be just as active as materials.