nanoTalks - Explaining 2017's Nobel Prizes

First talk:

Maria Handey (UZH) is a post-doc in physics specialising in gravitational waves. Her talk's title is '100 years after Einstein - The Dawn of Gravitational Wave Astronomy'

For more than 100 years, Einstein's theory of general relativity has predicted the existence of gravitational waves: ripples in the fabric of space-time that are generated in violent cosmic events and travel through the universe at the speed of light. On September 14th 2015, the two instruments of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected the gravitational wave-signal GW150914 from the spiral and subsequent merger of two stellar-mass black holes, marking the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the very first observation of a binary black hole merger. In her talk, Handey will throw some light on these momentous discoveries and their impact on our understanding of the universe.

Second talk:

Prof. Steven Brown (UZH) will give a speech with the title 'A Nobel Prize for Circadian Clocks: from Mechanisms to Medicine'

The 2017 Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to three biologists studying daily “circadian clocks" in fruit flies. Brown will explain further explain this their discovery and its implications for physiology and medicine. He will grant you a glimpse into current research in Swiss labs that specialise in this topic.