Artificial intelligence (AI) has become omnipresent and significantly influences the state, society and individuals. It is essential for coping with pandemics, changes the healthcare sector, and individual healthcare. It is indispensable for traffic control and for partially regulating economics, such as through labour market administration or job recruitment. It is used for combating crime and in many other areas of our lives, even for steering individual behaviour. The resulting opportunities are enormous as are the threats and risks…
Established under U.S. leadership after World War II, the global liberal world order was thought to prevail worldwide after the end of the Cold War. Today it is in a state of fundamental crisis. And just a few years ago, the so-called “revisionists” in the system – i.e., states that demanded more influence due to their increased economic power – were seen as the greatest threat to the global liberal world order…
The field of epigenetics encompasses hereditary changes in gene expression that are not caused by changes (mutations) in the DNA sequence. Enzymatic modifications of DNA and chromatin (proteins for packaging DNA) determine the structure and activity of our genome and pass it on to the next generation of cells. Environmental influences may alter these processes, thereby triggering diseases. The effect of epigenetic changes is particularly well researched in cancer. In addition, therapies that target epigenetic enzymes are already in clinical use.
In the last few years, research gained considerable knowledge of epigenetic processes and increased our understanding of these mechanisms as pathways of environmental influences on the development of living organisms and their health…
