Urban and Country Living
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UNI NOVA University of Basel Research Magazine — N°131 / May 2018 Dossier Urban and country living. In conversation Debate Album Essay Law and reality. Will hard currency Identifying When others become obsolete? new plant extracts. exclude us. Frick und Frack Nov. 1946, © Gabriel Moulin Studios, San Francisco / Peter Fischli / David Weiss Dr. Hofmann auf dem ersten LSD-Trip I, 1981/ 2013, aus der Serie «Plötzlich diese Übersicht», Emanuel Hoffmann-Stiftung, Geschenk von Peter Fischli 2015, Depositum in der Öffentlichen Kunstsammlung Basel, Foto: Tom Bisig, Basel / Giorgio de Chirico L’énigme de la fatalité, 1914, Emanuel Hoffmann-Stiftung, Geschenk der Stifterin Maja Sacher-Stehlin 1953, Depositum in der Öffentlichen Kunstsammlung Basel, Foto: Bisig & Bayer, Basel, © 2017, ProLitteris, Zurich STORIES SHORT BASEL TO IRIS TO VON ROTEN FROM ERASMUS 21.05.18 10. 02. Editorial Team Contributors to this issue Living and working together. Is it still possible to distinguish between life in the city and life in the countryside? Unlike in previous centuries, people in many parts of the world no longer live in clearly 1 2 demarcated areas, but mainly in agglomerations. Here, between homes, industrial buildings, warehouses and highways, the differences between heavily built-up city centers and sparsely populated rural areas have begun to disappear. There are more people living in high-rise apartments on the outskirts than within the former city walls. Increasingly, people are living and working in differ- 34 ent places. More and more people move between city centers and suburbs on a daily basis, commuting in one d irection or the other. The two are becoming less distinct. In the dossier for this issue, we look at questions relating to how people live together, with a particular focus on examples from the Basel region. How was the area settled? 1 Manuel Herz is an architect and profes- What path did economic development take? How do we sor of architectural, urban and territo- shape our social relationships, both among ourselves and rial design at the University of Basel. In as compared with neighbors and newcomers? Are there his thematic introduction to this issue new forms of co-existence? What is the situation in local of UNI NOVA, he describes new forms neighborhoods? We profi le researchers and academic of urbanization citing examples from Basel and Switzerland as well as cities in projects that are grappling with these questions, covering Africa. Pages 16 – 17 subjects such as urban studies, history, geography, sociology and cultural studies. The dossier looks at earlier 2 Beatrice Hofmann-Wiggenhauser has pro- periods as well as at current and future developments. duced a list of place and fi eld names in Northwestern Switzerland for our dossier, We hope that you will fi nd it illuminating! which are connected with certain social situations or interactions. As a postdoc- toral research associate in linguistics at Christoph Dieffenbacher the University of Basel, she is currently Editorial team, UNI NOVA working on the Solothurn place name and fi eld name book. Pages 14 – 31 3, 4 Matthias Hamburger and Olivier Potterat from the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences are working to identify plant extracts as an alternative to copper for use in organic agriculture. We’ve docu- mented the individual steps of their re- search project in this issue’s Album. Pages 38 – 47 UNI NOVA 131 / 2018 3 Contents Inheritance law touches on sensitive issues: Modern societies are increasingly becoming agglomerations – Roland Fankhauser in conversation, page 8 city and countryside are no longer essentially different. Dossier 6 Kaleidoscope Urban and 8 In conversation While the draft bill for reform of the country living. inheritance law in Switzerland takes account of new family struc- tures, it does not go far enough in some respects, according to law 16 On urban and rural life. 27 City districts: shifting spaces. professor Roland Fankhauser. We remain a long way from world- Cities are structured into districts wide complete urbanization. with diff erent characteristics. 12 News Ophthalmology research, strategy, 18 Field names. 28 Neighborhoods 2.0 and new master’s programs. Linguists investigate landscape In an individualized and increasingly names in Northwestern Switzerland. mobile society, neighborhoods are changing in form. 20 Basel, its population and the city walls. 30 A critical take on sedentarism. How the spatial development The expectation that “migrants” of Basel since the Middle Ages has should become actively involved in aff ected social life in the city – their local community is often at and vice versa. odds with their daily lives. 23 New housing for social change. 32 The lives of cross-border Co-operative living is back commuters. en vogue. What is the potential of Ever since there were borders, there such housing projects? have been cross-border commuters. In Switzerland, their numbers have 24 Where the life sciences more than doubled since 2000. are concentrated. Cover photo Chiara from Bretzwil is a The Basel region is one of the world’s passionate longboarder and surfer leading locations for life sciences – in her free time – here be- and home to a cluster of companies tween Arboldswil and Titterten, shortly after sunrise, spotted and organizations. by photographer Florian Moritz. 4 UNI NOVA 131 / 2018 Contents Imprint UNI NOVA, University of Basel Research Magazine. Published by the University of Basel, Communi- cations & Marketing (Head: Matthias Geering). UNI NOVA is published twice a year; the next edition will be published in November 2018. Subscriptions are free of charge and can be orde- red by email via [email protected]. Free copies are available at several locations throughout the University of Basel and at other institutions in the Basel region. CONCEPT: Matthias Geering, Reto Caluori, Urs Hafner EDITORS: Reto Caluori, Christoph Dieff enbacher ADDRESS: University of Basel, Communications & Marketing, PO Box, 4001 Basel, Switzerland. Tel. + 41 61 207 30 17 Email: [email protected] UNI NOVA ONLINE: unibas.ch/uninova, issuu.com/unibasel DESIGN CONCEPT AND LAYOUT: New Identity Ltd., Basel TRANSLATION: Sheila Regan and team, UNIWORKS (uni-works.org) PICTURES: Page 6: Florian Moritz; Page 7: Key- stone/Pascal Bloch; Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, The organic farming industry has to move away from using copper – Hö D 1241; Page 17: Basel-Stadt State Archives, BILD_1_291; Page 21: Basel-Stadt State Archives, testing plant-derived alternatives, page 38 AL 45, 7-2-8; Page 25: University of Basel, Human Geography. Survey of life sciences com- panies in the Basel region by T. Vogel, 2015. Adaptation/presentation: T. Vogel, 2017; Page 40: Alex Espinosa, CIFLORPAN, Panama; Page 49: DESKTOP – Jacob Burckhardt Digital; Page 50: Patrick Tschopp, Evolutionary Biology, University of Basel; Page 53: Biozentrum/Swiss Nanosci- 34 My workspace 54 Research ence Institute; Page 55: Christian Flierl; Page 56: Institut Lumière, Lyon; Brigitte Braschler, Sec- tion of Conservation Biology, University of Basel; Researchers are building barriers in More effi cient cancer diagnostics. Page 67: Mediachef/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). a swimming tunnel allowing native The stiff ness of tumor cells gives ILLUSTRATION: Studio Nippoldt, Berlin PROOFREADING: Birgit Althaler, Basel (German fi sh species to pass. an indication of how a patient’s cancer edition), Lesley Paganetti, Basel (English Edition). will develop. A start-up company is PRINT: Birkhäuser+GBC AG, Reinach BL ADVERTISING: University of Basel, Head of 36 Debate using an atomic force microscope to Marketing & Event, Email: [email protected] UNI NOVA is a member of the Swiss Science Pool The future of money. probe cancerous tissue. (swiss-science-pool.com) The money economy is changing PRINT RUN: 14,000 copies (German), 1,200 copies (English) rapidly due to digitization. 56 Research All rights reserved. Copies and reproduction of Economist Aleksander Berentsen Hodler on the silver screen. any kind require the permission of the editor. ISSN 1661-3147 (German print edition) and sociologist Axel Paul share Fungus-ridden ants. ISSN 1661-3155 (German online edition) ISSN 1664-5669 (English print edition) their assessments. ISSN 1664-5677 (English online edition) 57 Books facebook.com/unibasel instagram.com/unibasel 38 Album Latest publications by researchers at twitter.com/unibasel_en Plant extracts against fungi. the University of Basel. 48 Research 58 Essay 200 years of Jacob Burckhardt. Left out and excluded. A 3D installation at the Basel Histori- It is painful when other people exclude cal Museum is bringing to life the you. Especially when you don’t know ideas of Basel’s great cultural histo- why. rian. 60 Profile 50 Research Research for the benefi t Never more than fi ve fi ngers. of the patient. Vertebrates have no more than fi ve Professor of Medicine Viviane Hess fi ngers or toes on each limb – why is is Head of Clinical Cancer Research at this? University Hospital Basel. She is not UNI NOVA afraid to criticize the system in which is also available in German and online. 52 Research she has pursued her career. issuu.com/unibasel Living in the human body. unibas.ch/uninova Bacteria, fungi and viruses live in our 62 Alumni bodies. Most of them go unnoticed 66 My book but infl uence us throughout our lives. 67 Events UNI NOVA 131 / 2018 5 Kaleidoscope ExoMars 2020 Mission to Mars. Is there life on Mars? In 2020, the European Space scape for in tensive camera tests – for example, how far Agency (ESA) will send a rover into space to look for away from the surface does the camera need to be, signs of life on the surface of the red planet. The and how long does it take to photograph the surface of rover will also carry a camera that can take close-up a rock in detail? The camera, which is being developed color images of rocks, sediment, and drill core and built in Switzerland, will then be optimized to samples in high resolution.