ERCs

Wen-Juan Ma, FROGWY, StG 2021

Evolutionary Genomics of Unconventional Sex Chromosomes in Frogs

Frogs are an ideal model system for the study of sex chromosome diversity and evolution. Unlike the highly degenerated Y chromosomes in humans, frogs exhibit mostly undifferentiated sex chromosomes, and frequent birth and death of sex chromosomes (turnovers). Notably, they exhibit both XY sex determination where Y determines the offspring sex and is only inherited from fathers to sons, and ZW sex determination where W determines the sex and is inherited from mothers to daughters. Conventional thought suggests that the Y/W genetically degenerates with time. Why are sex chromosomes in frogs not degenerated and with frequent turnovers? The ERC-funded FrogWY project will use robber frogs to study unconventional sex chromosome evolution, challenging the paradigm predicted by the canonical model of degenerate Y/W.

Cornelis J. Schilt, VERITRACE, StG 2022

Traces de la Verité: The reappropriation of ancient wisdom in early modern natural philosophy

Ancient wisdom writings were very popular during the early modern period and studied by early modern natural philosophers like Kepler, Bacon, Gassendi, Newton and Leibniz. These writings were considered part of a tradition that regarded them as containing universal truths about God, humanity and the cosmos. However, exactly how they informed these natural philosophers in their knowledge-making processes remains largely unknown. The VERITRACE project, funded by the European Research Council, aims to delve into the debates surrounding these texts and analyse how they were perceived during the early modern era in Europe. By customising existing techniques for distant reading, the project will scrutinise a large corpus of early modern printed works. Ultimately, it will deepen our understanding of how these writings, rediscovered in the Renaissance, informed the early modern foundations of modern science.

Benoît Henriet, FORAGENCY, StG 2022

Foraging, Fishing and Hunting as Agency in Colonial Central Africa (c. 1885 - c. 1960)

FORAGENCY offers a new take on indigenous agency in colonial Central Africa. It will study how local communities managed to counter, alleviate and/or minimize their encroachment by outside forces through the maintenance and adaptation of pre-existing uses of the environment. Inhabitants of Central Africa indeed mobilised foraging, fishing and hunting to avoid wage labour, cultural suppression and economic dependency in several ways. First, consuming, transforming and selling foraged or hunted products constituted sources of income outside of the networks of colonial capitalism. Second, these practices necessitated the maintenance and diffusion of knowledge fostered within vernacular social structures, which ran contrary to the colonial “civilizing mission”. Third, by trading and consuming such products, local communities circumvented the colonial market economy. The project addresses four questions: [1] Which techniques are mobilised for hunting, fishing and foraging? [2] Which strategies are used to trade and consume hunted and foraged products against colonial laws and values? [3] How are economic structures such as marketplaces and money mobilised outside of colonial capitalism? [4] Which knowledge is necessary to hunt, forage and transform natural products? They will be answered through four thematic sub-studies: on intoxicating substances; on hunted and foraged foodstuffs; on curative uses of nature; and on vernacular environmental agency. Each sub-study will consider the ecological interactions between four colonial cities and their hinterland: Léopoldville, Brazzaville, Stanleyville and Usumbura. FORAGENCY will combine archival data, material culture, oral testimonies and participatory observation. It will lead to the development of a new conceptual framework on indigenous ecologies, at the crossroads of decolonial and posthumanist studies, which will open new perspectives on the history of vernacular responses to colonialism and capitalism.

Harry Zekollari, Ice cubed, StG 2023 

ICE³ : Modelling the global multi-century evolution of glacier ICE in 3D

Glaciers are key contributors to sea-level rise and are critical water resources that supply fresh water to hundreds of millions of people around the world. It is therefore of paramount importance to accurately simulate the future evolution of these precious ice bodies. Despite recent progress in modelling the global evolution of glaciers, existing simulations suffer from vast uncertainties related to (i) model input, (ii) a simplified representation of glacier processes, and (iii) an important mismatch between the timescales over which models are calibrated (multi-annual to decadal) and those over which the future glacier projections occur (century timescale). ICE³ will revolutionise the regional- to global-scale modelling of glaciers, by (i) strongly reducing uncertainties in model input through innovative inversion of climatic information, (ii) developing new approaches to model glacier processes in 3D, and (iii) for the first time simulating past glacier evolution globally over centennial time scales with an ice-dynamic model. These improvements will culminate in new global glacier evolution projections under a range of future emission scenarios, which will in turn inform the next generation of sea-level rise and water availability projections. While redefining the landscape of large-scale glacier modelling, ICE³ will also ensure that the novelties it produces are incorporated in climate change impact models to guide policymakers and practitioners in adapting to a changing environment

Ulrike Pirker, MERLIT, CoG 2022 

Meritocracy and Literature: Transcultural Approaches to Hegemonic Forms

MERLIT is the first systematic, diachronic and comparative investigation of meritocratic narratives in literature. Meritocratic thinking manifests itself in powerful narratives across the globe, from the constitutionally embedded “pursuit of happiness” to neoliberal narratives of self-enhancement. MERLIT investigates forms of these narratives, which are embraced for their seemingly empowering and universalist appeal, but also criticised for their enmeshment with structures of domination and privilege. MERLIT explores how meritocratic narratives are written, how they are written into cultures, but also how they are written back to in text forms that have shaped the zeitgeist of particular moments respectively. Although research into meritocratic thinking is a vibrant interdisciplinary field, it is characterised (1) by a lack of investigations into the formal principles underpinning – or challenging – meritocratic articulations, (2) by a narrow focus on (white) Western contexts and (3) by a concentration on recent developments. To counter these gaps, (1) MERLIT explores in six work packages how practices of writing have played, and continue to play, crucial roles in shaping meritocratic articulations but also critiques thereof; (2) MERLIT expands the contextual focus of existing scholarship by engaging with radical writing practices from the Global South and a range of transculturally entangled anglophone contexts; eventually, (3) MERLIT challenges perceptions of meritocratic thinking and its critiques as recent phenomena by engaging with changing forms of articulating value, merit and success from the 17th century to the present. Situated at the intersections of literary history, new formalist theory and cultural translation, MERLIT not only offers a literary history of meritocratic thought, but significantly advances our understanding of the workings of a set of hegemonic forms in and through writing, and of the formative, worldmaking role of literature.

Wim De Malsche, VORTEX SENSOR, PoC 2022 (start project 1/03/24)

Vortex microflow inducer that enables detection of ultra-low concentrations of species in sensors

According to WHO, in 2018, more than 100,000 chemicals were released into the global environment due to their production, use, and disposal. In this regard, water is the key element for their effective transport in the food chain and since remediation can be extremely difficult, such pollution is leading to acute or chronic toxicity in aquatic organisms, loss of habitats and biodiversity as well as human diseases. But, industrial wastewater flows contain hazardous and toxic species that are not easy to process, and treatment installations need extremely reliable and sensitive sensing solutions to continuously monitor the efficiency of the side stream treatment processes. At the same time, the world population is increasingly depending on aquaculture for nutritious food. Frequent analysis of the water quality is essential and needs to be performed at point-of-testing, not in remote laboratories. The common challenges in environmental control, wastewater management and aquaculture are that, in small sample sizes, species need to be detected that are present in very low concentrations, with a technique that can be performed at point-of-testing, at low cost and in a minimum of time. In the last decade, new sensor technologies have emerged that can meet these challenges. These sensors however require the sample to flow over the sensor surface and, importantly, detection is only possible if the target species in flow makes contact with the sensor surface. This is one of the key technological hurdles that today’s microfluidics sensors have not overcome yet. In VORTEX SENSOR vortices will be induced in the flow channel with acoustic streaming, an approach which was developed in ERC Starting Grant EVODIS. This will enable long range transport of compounds towards the sensor surface. In VORTEX SENSOR a prototype of the very first biosensor with vortex microflow inducer will be built and its performance will be validated with two relevant pathogens for aquaculture of salmon.