Researchers of FAU have developed special iron oxide nanoparticles they call “smart rust” that actually makes water cleaner. Smart rust can attract many substances, including oil, nano- and microplastics, as well as the herbicide glyphosate, depending on the particles’ coating. And because the nanoparticles are magnetic, they can easily be removed from water with a magnet along with the pollutants.
Earlier this year, the project “LOMOBI” was launched at FAPS: FAU researchers will develop a system within the next two years that is able to navigate visually impaired people over different surfaces and through unfamiliar situations. The final trial run should be approximately two kilometers long and guide test persons from the Institute to a bakery.
A team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Anne Koelewijn and researchers from Universität Innsbruck are using the analysis system FAME to investigate: Why are special training programs so effective in protecting the anterior cruciate ligament? The answer to this question could help athletes prepare for competitions and reduce the number of injuries.
The aim is to gain a considerably better understanding of the underlying disease mechanisms in neurological RASopathies, and subsequently use this to create guidelines for improved diagnosis and effective, preferably non-invasive, treatments.
The Shanghai Ranking 2023 has been published and FAU has cause for celebration: Coming in at number 17, FAU retains its place among the top 20 universities in Germany. Internationally, FAU is among the top 10 percent of all universities included in the survey.
Forest fires are no longer only restricted to southern European regions, they are now increasingly also a problem in Germany. The interdisciplinary project Evolonic from FAU and the Fraunhofer IISB is focusing on developing effective solutions for the early detection of forest fires. Together with the fire services in Erlangen and Nuremberg, they are conducting trials on using long-distance drones for the autonomous surveillance of wooded areas.
The donors Jutta Blumenau-Niesel and Dr. Hans-Joachim Niesel decided in 2022 to establish a trust foundation in honor of the life and work of Dr. Hermann Bruno Otto Blumenau at FAU in Erlangen. On behalf of the university, FAU President Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger expressed his pleasure about the new foundation, the ‘Blumenau-Niesel-Stifting’.
FAU has received a distinguished professorship from the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts: As part of the High-Tech Agenda Bavaria, Prof. Dr. Bastian Etzold, Chair of Power-to-X Technologies, has been awarded five million euros in funding.
Since June 2023, Prof. Dr. Roland Nagy has been head of the flagship Institute of Applied Quantum Technologies at the Faculty of Engineering at FAU. In our interview, he gives a brief insight into his research.
The communication of the future is to become more secure with the help of light particles. This is the goal of the QuNET initiative by the BMBF. The initiative's partners have now taken an important step toward quantum-safe networks: With a key experiment.
