Categorie archief: English

Blogs posts written in English by and for our international community.

Beam me up, Scotty! How to build a quantum teleportation device

BY PIETER THYSSEN. Imagine a world without traffic jams or airport security lines. A world where you could have a morning cup of (Arabica) coffee in Paris, an afternoon walk in the Brazilian rainforest, and a dinner on top of an Egyptian pyramid. Now wouldn’t that be cool? Well, all you’d need is a teleportation device such that, at the flick of a switch, you could beam yourself across space to whatever destination you’d like, without physically crossing the space in between.

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Out of the comfort zone and into a world of possibilities

BY ROOS AERTS. You start to feel the sun on your skin again here in Leuven and people begin to talk about their summer plans. When they do, I long back to my days as a volunteer in Cambodia. I dream about the bike rides to the school, where the children gratefully waited for the teacher to arrive. But I daydream about a lot more. Volunteering had always been on my bucket list, so when I got the opportunity to go abroad with AIESEC Leuven, I took that chance. And what an experience it was! Lees verder →

6 secrets of good science communication

BY JACK MCMARTIN | Every year in February, thousands of scientists, journalists and press officers from around the world converge in one place (this year, deep-frozen Chicago) for the mother of all science conferences: the AAAS General Meeting. I was lucky enough to join in this celebration of science, discovery and nerdom. Here’s what I learned.

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Science and Religion: Has the Conflict Model Won the Popularity Vote?

BY TOM UYTTERHOEVEN. This morning my wife posted a picture on my Facebook wall. It shows two Post It notes on a wall in a community center in a Belgian town. The center had organized a cultural activity for kids: children were invited to write down who their hero was. So one kid posted: “God, because He made us and the Earth.” A second kid (the person who originally posted the picture on Facebook doubted whether it really was a child) replied with: “Charles Darwin, because he wrote the Origin of Species and proved the Post It above to be wrong.” The picture is an example of how the assumption that religion and science are in conflict has gained influence, not only in your local Bible Belt area, but as part of popular culture. And that has its consequences.

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A long goodnight kiss to Belgium

BY SHEILA PHAM. I arrived in Belgium four months ago and somehow it’s almost time to go already. Before coming here I had few expectations and certainly no idea that I’d end up being so enamoured with a country that didn’t seem too exciting compared to the other two in my Erasmus Mundus Master of Bioethics program (ie. The Netherlands and Italy). But I embrace every chance I get to travel so I set myself a few goals for Belgium: to know Brussels better and visit the French-speaking half which I’d never been to before, despite having visited Belgium on numerous occasions. Ticking those things off the list was a piece of cake…but of course, the best kind of travel is more than a list-ticking exercise.

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