From microbes to Weißwurscht

Microorganisms are responsible for shaping our world as we know it today, maintaining our health, and the health of ecosystems. Despite their importance, surprisingly little is known about how diverse microbial life is and how microbes carry out their important functions. This presentation will highlight contributions of microbes to the functioning of ecosystems, the evolution of life, and the chemical evolution of the oceans and atmosphere since the origin of life some 3.5 billion years ago.

Food and environment represent the foundation of the anthropocene - both as we know it and as we could shape it to be in the future. In the past decades, the research and public discourse on food and environment has been drastically changing - from essentials for sustaining and supporting life towards settings of two major global challenges. Now, instead of food and environment, the complex syndemic of malnutrition and climate change is the item on the global agenda. What does this mean? And what can be done about it? This talk will offer a Public Health perspective on the problem.