Latest news with #HumboldtUniversity
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
How universities die
The University of Berlin, founded a century earlier, was the Harvard of its day. Every serious American university, from Hopkins to Chicago, to Harvard and Berkeley, was made or reformed according to the 'Berlin model.' Why else is the freedom to learn, across multiple disciplines. Although supported entirely by the state, universities themselves would decide who would teach and what would be taught. If university rankings had existed in 1910, eight of the top 10 in the world probably would have been German — with only Oxford and Cambridge joining them in that elite circle. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up As late as 1932, the University of Berlin remained the most famous of the world's universities. By 1934, it had been destroyed from without and within. Advertisement Germany's descent from a nation of 'poets and thinkers' ('Dichter und Denker') to one of 'judges and hangmen' ('Richter und Henker') ended its leadership in higher education. Advertisement The impact of the new National Socialist regime that came to power in January 1933 became clear on May 10 of that year, when the members of the German Student Union — among them many students from the University of Berlin — piled and burned books from public libraries on the streets of Berlin's Opernplatz, the square opposite the university's main building. A crowd of 70,000, including students, professors, and members of the SA and SS — the storm troopers for the National Socialist Party — watched as thousands of volumes were torched. Students and Nazi Party members at the book burning on the Opernplatz in Berlin, May 10, 1933. German Federal Archives via Wikimedia Commons The Nazi regime quickly purged universities of non-Aryan students and faculty and political dissidents. Leading scholars left Berlin in large numbers in a historic academic migration to the United States, Britain, and elsewhere. Universities lost any capacity for self-government. The University of Berlin abandoned its own traditions of teaching and research. Scholarship serving truth for truth's sake was jettisoned for scholarship in service of the 'Volk.' The Nazi period would be followed by East German Communist orthodoxy and finally, in 1990, by absorption into the German Federal Republic — with each change accompanied by a new purge of faculty. In 2010, at the celebration for the 200th anniversary of the university — now named Humboldt University — its president welcomed guests by saying: 'Today, nobody anywhere in the world is prepared to take this university as a model.' Indeed. No longer the leading university in the world, Humboldt University today is not the best in Germany — and not even the best in Berlin. Advertisement Beijing In the first half of the 20th century, China developed a remarkable set of colleges and universities: a small system, but pound for pound one of the best and most innovative in the world. Its institutions were Chinese and foreign, public and private. The system was composed of leading state universities — Peking University in Beijing and National Central University (modeled on the University of Berlin) in Nanjing. Its private institutions often had international partners. Peking Union Medical College, with Rockefeller Foundation funding, had a global reputation. Tsinghua University in Beijing began in 1911 as a prep school for students planning to enroll at universities in America. By the 1930s, it was China's leading research university, devoted to free and open inquiry. When the Japanese occupied Beijing in 1937, Tsinghua led the effort to relocate leading Chinese universities to China's southwest. Some of Tsinghua's most famous and innovative alumni, such as physicists C.N. Yang (Yang Zhenning) and C.T. Li (Li Zhengdao), who would become Nobel laureates in 1957, completed their studies during this time. Tsinghua's president and the leader of National Southwest University , Mei Yiqi, is still remembered today for his advocacy of liberal education, institutional autonomy, and academic freedom even in the darkest moments of the war. For that he is known as Tsinghua's 'eternal president.' In short, Tsinghua survived eight years of exile and war, and it stood firm by its academic values. What it could not so easily survive was the Communist conquest of China in 1949. Tsinghua's longstanding ties with the United States were severed, not to be joined again for three decades. Chinese universities were reordered along Stalinist lines and were rapidly Sovietized. A new Tsinghua campus arose next to the original one. Its 13-story main building, a brutal Stalinist complex of three structures, now dominated the campus. In 1952 Tsinghua became a polytechnic university to train engineers according to rigid state plans. The schools of sciences and humanities, agriculture, and law were all abolished, and their faculty members were scattered to other institutions. Faculty who would not or could not work under the new regime either fled abroad or were fired at home. Advertisement While Tsinghua began to train China's Communist technocracy, the relentless politicization of universities under Mao Zedong first weakened and then nearly destroyed the university. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the university became the site of bloody clashes and eventually shut down completely. The Cultural Revolution even destroyed Tsinghua's iconic gate, replaced for a time by a huge statue of Mao. Tsinghua resumed operations, but on a skeletal basis, only in 1978. It would take until the centenary of the university, in 2011, for Tsinghua to reclaim its position as a leading comprehensive research university. A Chinese politician, Wang Guangmei, was publicly humiliated at a denunciation rally at Tsinghua University in 1967. Wikimedia Commons Boston Harvard University began life in 1636 as a public institution. Its founder was not John Harvard but the General Court of Massachusetts. It was supported in the 17th century by taxes and other 'contributions' from as far south as New Haven, at times levied in corn, and by the revenues of the Charlestown ferry that connected Cambridge to Boston, paid in wampumpeag (the currency of the Massachusetts Bay Colony). Founded 140 years before the United States, Harvard was nonetheless central to the creation of our nation. After the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the Advertisement Harvard and the United States have been closely connected ever since. During World War II, the university once again devoted itself to the war effort. Soldiers were housed on Harvard's campus. Harvard faculty developed advanced torpedoes for submarine warfare and the napalm used in the firebombing of enemy cities, and they assisted in creating the first atom bomb. They also provided intelligence. Numerous Harvard scholars joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. Their collective work at OSS, organized in regional departments, formed the foundation of postwar 'area studies' at Harvard and across the United States, supported by the Department of Defense. In the aftermath of the war, Harvard created a curriculum focused on 'General Education for a Free Society' to give students 'a common understanding of the society which they will possess in common,' a concept that would be adopted nationwide. The Vietnam War led, in contrast, to a Harvard sharply divided over the justness of that cause. But even so, in its wake, Harvard created the Kennedy School of Government to prepare students for careers in public service — a leading center for the study and practice of government. For nearly four centuries, the decisions and actions of Harvard have set the tone for American higher education. Today Harvard has become the leading research university in the world, with a reputation equal to, if not greater than, that of the University of Berlin in the 19th century. As it rose to national prominence in the 20th century, universities across the United States vied to be the 'Harvard of the South' (Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice), the 'Harvard of the Midwest' (Michigan, Northwestern, Chicago, Washington University), and the 'Harvard of the West' (Stanford). Advertisement Yet today Harvard is an institution that may be more admired abroad than at home, in an era of public (and politicized) critique of American higher education. At least 43 US states have cut back on their investments in higher education since 2008, according to research I gathered for my book 'Empires of Ideas.' Leading public and private universities, including Harvard, have become lightning rods in the political and culture wars of the day. Although the Trump administration's multifront assault on Harvard may be less violent (for now, at least) than the authoritarian takeovers of the University of Berlin and Tsinghua University, it is no less dangerous. It is an attempt to destroy the academic freedoms and institutional autonomy that have been hallmarks of every great modern university. Fortunately, the United States is not (yet) Berlin in 1933 or Beijing in 1950. It retains an independent judiciary and rule of law, and it has, in Harvard, a university with the history, will, and resources to resist. In its resistance, Harvard has reaffirmed its leadership in American higher education as nothing else could. Should it fail, we shall witness the destruction of the one industry, higher education, in which this country is still the global leader. We shall destroy our capacity to recruit talent from all shores. We will decline. For history shows that universities can die, and nations will decay. If American universities remain the envy of the world in 2025, the question must be: for how long?
Al Etihad
25-05-2025
- Al Etihad
10 dead in Colombia university outing bus accident
25 May 2025 09:19 BOGOTA (AFP) A field trip by students and their professors ended in tragedy Saturday when their bus crashed in western Colombia, killing at least 10 people and injuring 11, their university bus driver lost control of the vehicle as it carried 26 passengers from Tolima to Quindio, according to a preliminary people were thrown from the bus when it slammed into the barrier on the side of the Helicoil Bridge in the Quindio region, police commander Luis Fernando Atuesta said."Several passengers were ejected and fell into the abyss," the officer said, adding that investigations were underway to "establish the conditions of this unfortunate accident." Humboldt University in the Colombian city of Armenia said in a statement that it was declaring two days of mourning after "the painful loss of several of our colleagues, students, professors, and administrators" in the bus was carrying "22 students, two teachers and a communications officer," university director Diego Fernando Jaramillo Lopez said in a video. Road accidents are one of the main causes of death in Colombia, which averaged 22 traffic deaths per day in 2024, according to the national highway authority.
Time of India
25-05-2025
- Time of India
10 dead in Colombia university outing bus accident
Representative Image (AI) BOGATA: A field trip by students and their professors ended in tragedy Saturday when their bus crashed in western Colombia, killing at least 10 people and injuring 11, their university said. The bus driver lost control of the vehicle as it carried 26 passengers from Tolima to Quindio, according to a preliminary investigation. Several people were thrown from the bus when it slammed into the barrier on the side of the Helicoil Bridge in the Quindio region, police commander Luis Fernando Atuesta said. "Several passengers were ejected and fell into the abyss," the officer said, adding that investigations were underway to "establish the conditions of this unfortunate accident." Humboldt University in the Colombian city of Armenia said in a statement that it was declaring two days of mourning after "the painful loss of several of our colleagues, students, professors and administrators" in the accident. The bus was carrying "22 students, two teachers and a communications officer," university director Diego Fernando Jaramillo Lopez said in a video. Road accidents are one of the main causes of death in Colombia, which averaged 22 traffic deaths per day in 2024, according to the national highway authority.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Solid-state revolution: 100x power battery tech may soon run at room temp
As conventional lithium-ion batteries near their performance limits, scientists are exploring alternative technologies that promise higher energy density, faster charging, and greater sustainability. Traditional lithium-ion batteries, while foundational to modern electronics and electric vehicles, face limitations such as safety concerns, limited energy storage capacity, and reliance on scarce materials. Solid-state batteries, which replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid one, offer a promising solution—enabling the use of cheaper, more sustainable materials that could boost energy density by up to 40%. However, they present their own set of challenges as performance hinge on solid electrolytes that can maintain stable contact with solid anodes. When voids or contact losses appear at the interface, the battery can fail entirely. Researchers at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) are addressing this challenge by developing a novel solid electrolyte based on sodium super ionic conductors (NASICON) to make solid-state batteries more powerful and suitable for everyday use. This novel solid electrolyte offer high ionic conductivity at room temperature and are more sustainable solution conventional lithium-ion batteries. They are chemically stable when paired with potassium In fact, these liquid anodes are already showing energy performance 100 times greater than graphite, but they currently require 250°C to function. 'In a study, we were able to show that a liquid alkali metal anode is a hundred times more powerful than conventional graphite anodes,' Gustav Graeber, battery material expert at Humboldt University in Berlin and guest researcher at BAM, said in a release. 'However, this technology can currently only be used at 250 degrees Celsius. Our goal is to transfer its advantages to room temperature.' This is significant because potassium is being tested as an additive to lower the melting point of liquid alkali metal anodes, making it possible to harness their exceptional performance without requiring extreme heat. However, most conventional solid electrolytes break down when exposed to potassium, posing a challenge for researchers. NASICON material is currently stabilized with hafnium, a rare and expensive element. BAM's research team, led by guest scientist Gustav Graeber, is now searching for alternative dopants that are just as effective but more sustainable and widely available. If successful, their work could help scale up sodium-based solid-state batteries that are safer, cheaper, and far more efficient, paving the way for a new class of energy storage systems for mobile devices, electric vehicles, and the grid. The most promising candidates are being tested directly in sodium batteries. 'Our research project is a decisive step toward high-performance batteries that are more sustainable, cheaper, and more efficient,' says Graeber. 'Sodium solid-state batteries could drastically reduce charging times and significantly improve the performance of mobile and stationary energy storage systems—an important contribution to decarbonization.'
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
The Speed of Your Eyes Could Hide Objects in Plain Sight
A gently lobbed baseball is easy to see. The same ball, however, can seem to vanish from the hand of a skilled pitcher, whizzing invisibly into the catcher's mitt. Given enough acceleration, moving objects become too fast to see. Yet this visual speed limit isn't universal – some people are apparently better at seeing in high-speed. According to a new study, the secret may lie in subtle eye movements known as saccades. These rapid motions of the eyes shift our focus between various points of interest, and are regarded as the most frequent movement the human body makes. By some calculations they occur two to three times every second, adding up to around 10,000 times every waking hour. Saccades take place naturally constantly without our thought or even awareness, but they don't occur at the same speed in everybody. The quickness of each person's saccades may determine their visual speed limit, the authors report, enabling those with faster saccades to perceive faster motion. The findings seem to demonstrate how our perception depends not just on the sensory limits of our eyes, but also on how our eyes behave as they observe. From bow hunters to baseball players, those with exceptional skills in fast visual tasks might be unwittingly capitalizing on speedy saccades. "What parts of the physical world we can sense depends fundamentally on how good our sensors are," says lead author Martin Rolfs, a vision scientist at Humboldt University of Berlin. Human eyes aren't sensitive to infrared light, for example, so we can't see it. This is an in-built limitation, illustrating how the mechanics of our sensory organs dictate our perception. "In this paper, however, we show that the limits of seeing are not just defined by these biophysical constraints, but also by the actions and movements that impose changes on the sensory system," Rolfs says. As we scan a scene or read text, our eyes naturally dart around to different focal points, briefly pausing on each before flitting to the next. While this helps our vision cover more territory, it risks disrupting the entire retinal image, effectively blinding our perception for fractions of a second at a time. Fortunately our brain's visual system edits out this disrupted motion in real-time, providing us with a seamless visual input by selectively excluding the careening effect of saccades. "Even though visual processing remains operational during saccades, this saccade-induced retinal motion is subjectively invisible during natural vision – a phenomenon referred to as saccadic omission," the researchers write. Saccades occur with incredible speed, outpacing most ordinary moving stimuli. Yet when we do encounter unusually fast objects, those similar enough to our own saccade motions may be edited from our perception. In the new study, Rolfs and his colleagues used high-speed video projections to display fast-moving objects that either matched or deviated from the motion of saccades. For each stimulus, observers performed perceptual tasks that were only possible if they'd seen the trajectory of motion. Stimuli following the specific movement patterns of saccades became invisible to observers, the study found. "So we are basically suggesting that the kinematics of our actions (here, saccades) fundamentally constrain a sensory system's access to the physical world around us," Rolfs says. Considering how active our eyes are, this highlights the importance of factoring that movement into our understanding of the broader visual system. "In simple terms, the properties of a sensory system such as the human visual system are best understood in the context of the kinematics of actions that drive its input," Rolfs says. "Our visual system and motor system are finely tuned to each other, but this has long been ignored." The study was published in Nature Communications. Tales of Viking Pregnancy Reveal The Fierce Side of Norse Mothers Song And Dance May Not Be Universal Human Behaviors, Study Shows TikTok Trend Has Men Shaving Their Eyelashes – Here's Why You Shouldn't
