Integrated Calendar

In the last decade advances in Next Generation Sequencing and bioinformatics enabled the unraveling of global RNA modifications and editing. The evolving field of epitranscriptomics proved to be important in cell fate decisions, normal development and disease.
The lecture will deal with A to I editing-based mechanisms relevant to cancer and with the emerging role
of m6A methylation in the precise regulation of early embryonic development.

Several ways to search for time-reversal-violation in beta decay of trapped nuclei will be reviewed. The newly upgraded TRINAT trap system will be described showing the high sensitivity required for such a search. The experimental plans for such experiments will be described.

Photoionization models calculate the energy transfer from the
ionizing radiation to the gas. The associated momentum transfer
is not always included. This radiation pressure will set the density
structure within the photoionized gas, in particular if the gas is
not radially accelerating. I will present the results of such
calculations for photoionized gas in Active Galactic Nuclei, which
provide a simple explanation for a range of properties observed.

Bats have a unique view of the world: ‘seeing’ their environment with their ears through echolocation. They use this active sensing system to master their predominantly dark world, e.g. for detecting and targeting of small insect prey, navigating through complex vegetation or interaction with other individuals. Over the last decades we have developed a solid understanding of how bats apply echolocation to achieve this. However, many questions are still unsolved, e.g. assessment of larger objects like trees or even whole habitats. In my talk, I will show how bats recognize and deal with water surfaces. My results demonstrate that a recognition pattern can be very simple: for bats any smooth surface is perceived as a water surface. Likely through a long evolutionary consolidation without any contradicting experiences, this is phylogenetically wide spread among bats, extremely hardwired and even innate. In addition I will talk about the integration of varying sensory input, the role of spatial memory and potential evolutionarytraps that may arise from this.
Echolocation is a rather short-ranged sensing system, which leaves the intriguing question of how bats orientate and navigate over long distances. They face this challenge not only during daily foraging trips but also on migration routes which can be over 1,000 kilometers long. Recent evidence has shown that bats can, for example, make use of the Earth’s magnetic field. However, the exact functional mechanism of this ability is as yet largely unknown. In this context, I will present data showing that our tested bat species recognizes the sky’s polarization pattern at dusk and uses it as a calibrating system for its magnetic compass. This is the only known case so far for a mammal to use this sensory light cue.

Since the discovery that electrons in graphene behave as massless Dirac fermions, the single-atom-thick material has become a fertile playground for testing exotic predictions of quantum electrodynamics, such as Klein tunneling and the fractional quantum Hall effect. Now add to that list atomic collapse, the spontaneous formation of electrons and positrons in the electrostatic field of a superheavy atomic nucleus. The atomic collapse was predicted to manifest itself in quasistationary states which have complex-valued energies and which decay rapidly. However, the atoms created artificially in laboratory have nuclear charge only up to Z = 118, which falls short of the predicted threshold for collapse. Interest in this problem has been revived with the advent of graphene, where because of a large fine structure constant the collapse is expected for Z of order unity. In this talk we will discuss the symmetry aspects of atomic collapse, in particular the anomalous breaking of scale invariance. We will also describe recent experiments that use scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to probe atomic collapse near STM-controled artificial compound nuclei.