insightLMU - 2015

LMU medical student Sagar Dhital grew up in a small village in Nepal. "I had to walk barefoot for four hours to school every day," he says. His parents cannot even imagine the life he now leads in Munich. He phones his father every two weeks, "and he often asks me if I have enough firewood to boil my rice," Sagar remarks. There is no internet in his village, no paved roads and no local health center. In insightLMU, Sagar tells us how he set about realizing his dearest wish - to help improve the

LMU philosophers Christof Rapp and Monika Betzler discuss with economist Martin Kocher what characterizes a morally good life, and confront moral philosophy with behavioral science. • The Care for Rare Foundation, which was set up by LMU pediatrician Professor Christoph Klein, is dedicated to furthering research into the etiology and treatment of rare diseases. • A campus with students from various countries working towards various degrees isn’t unique, but it is if the campus is shared by

Early forms of social technology, shrewd political maneuvers and elements of absolutism in the Neo-Assyrian Empire some 3000 years ago are some of the themes that interest Karin Radner. In the current issue of insightLMU, LMU's new Humboldt Professor outlines the story of the birth of the world's first empire on the banks of the Tigris. • The work of Ralf Bender and Viatcheslav Mukhanov's probes a far more distant epoch - that of the birth of Time itself, and what came next: In insightLMU, the two

Welcome to the first issue of insightLMU in 2015!Whither human evolution? Who were our ancestors, where did they come from and how did we as a species acquire language? In the current issue of insightLMU, anthropologist Gisela Grupe and population geneticist Wolfgang Stephan highlight crucial stages in the evolution of our species Homo sapiens. • To learn how species diverge and new species evolve, LMU geobiologist Gert Wörheide travels to the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea to collect and