Integrated Calendar

For many decades, the neurobiological basis of language has been dominated by a conceptually dichotomous model in which speech perception is supported by Wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe and speech production is supported by Broca’s area in the frontal lobe. This model has been challenged by lesion and neuroimaging studies suggesting a more complex network of cortical structures supporting language. Many of the questions remaining in the field require a fine-grained temporal resolution together with spatial specificity in order to assay the dynamics of speech. Here I will introduce a series of studies employing direct electrocorticographic (ECoG) recordings in humans, illuminating the dynamics and cascade of neural events from perception to production of speech.

Currently, more than 40 gigatonnes of CO2 are released annually into the atmosphere as a result of fossil fuel combustion, causing ocean acidification and climate unpredictability. Anthropogenic CO2 emission is seemingly hard to diminish in the near future and, therefore, CO2 -capture and sequestration or CO2 -functionalization can be viable solutions to address this issue. To use CO2 as a chemical feedstock, namely as a C1 building block, it is essential to equip the process with a nucleophilic catalyst or a highly active reagent, as exemplified by Grignard carboxylation reactions and some recent progress in metal-catalyzed reactions. In this seminar, I will display how we can utilize CO2 not only as a chemical feedstock and a catalyst but also as a stimulus for a desalination process. The obtained knowledge in CO2 activation and desalination will be beneficial in supramolecular chemistry, biology, CO2functionalization catalysis and CO2 sequestration processes.