Top Research News of 2024
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In 2024, readers of the Research Achievements published on the University of Ljubljana website were most impressed by the news articles “A New Discovery Important for Research and Treatment of Dementia and ALS” and “Harnessing the Low Temperatures of Space for Environmentally Friendly Cooling of Buildings and Devices in Remote Locations.”
In the news article “A New Discovery Important for Research and Treatment of Dementia and ALS,” we present the success of Slovenian researchers led by Prof. Dr. Boris Rogelj from the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology at the University of Ljubljana and from the Department of Biotechnology at the Jožef Stefan Institute. They discovered new mechanisms related to a mutation in the C9orf72 gene. The research is important because it further reveals the causes of two diseases—amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD)—and consequently increases the potential for developing new forms of treatment for these two conditions. The news can be read here.
The article “Harnessing the Low Temperatures of Space for Environmentally Friendly Cooling of Buildings and Devices in Remote Locations” presents a concentrator based on the AsymSkyCool method, which enables cooling of buildings and devices completely without the use of electricity. The concentrator uses the “cold of space”—the extremely low temperatures of deep space—where such a device can achieve up to minus 15 °C relative to the surrounding environment—and concentrates and directs it toward a heat source using a special method. By using space as a source of cooling, it enables environmentally friendly, efficient, and sustainable cooling of energy-intensive devices such as LED lights, batteries, and electric motors. It was developed by Assist. Prof. Primož Poredoš in collaboration with colleagues from the Laboratory for Environmental Technologies in Buildings at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, and researchers from the ITEWA innovation team at Shanghai University. The news is available here.
The selection for the most interesting research news is published at the end of each calendar year, and the readers of Research Achievements choose the winner through voting on Facebook and LinkedIn. The University of Ljubljana, as the largest research institution in Slovenia, aims to share the outstanding research results of its researchers in this way.