The project ‘Stelutis Alpinis. The Cosmos from the mountains of Carnia’, named after the Friulan word for the alpine star-shaped flower Edelweiss, is nearing its conclusion. The initiative has been promoted by the University of Trieste to bring public engagement in science together with the enhancement of the mountainous region. Until 19th October, the initiative will offer activities for schools and a public conference at the observatory in Zuglio (Udine), bringing the project’s rich programme of events and achievements to a close.

The project has actively involved the local community and engaged a number of participants, demonstrating how science can contribute to revitalising an area, both culturally and in terms of tourism. Coupled with the ‘Celestial Lights/Terrestrial Roots’ festival, it has offered a varied programme, with art installations, shows and specially designed stargazing routes, enriching the visitors' experience.

During the week of 14th to 18th October, local schools will be the focus of activities. Classes IV and V of the ‘Linussio – Matiz’ Comprehensive Institute of Arta Terme and Paluzza will take part in the creation of an ‘Almanac of the New Poetic Astrophysical School’, under the guidance of artists from the L'Amalgama Collective, with a special contribution from the poet Bruno Tognolini.

The project will culminate on Saturday 19th October with a lecture by the professor of astrophysics at the University of Trieste and scientific lead of the project, Prof. Alexandro Saro, followed by an observational astronomy event which is open to the public.

‘Stelutis Alpinis’ was realised thanks to the support of the University of Trieste, with the Physics Department as lead partner, within the framework of the call for public and social engagement.

The paper ‘The potential of histories as a form of counter-accounting’, published in 2023, has won the prestigious ‘Best 2023 International Scientific Paper’ award by the Italian Society of Professors of Accounting and Business Economics (Società Italiana dei Docenti di Ragioneria e di Economia Aziendale – SIDREA). It was written by Eleonora Masiero, Lecturer and Researcher in Business Economics at UniTS, and Riccardo Stacchezzini and Alessandro Lai, Full Professors at the University of Verona.

This study explores the unconventional accounting activity carried out by the director and accountant of a late 19th-century children's home. The activity challenged dominant discourses and highlighted their weaknesses. The study thus contributes to critical accounting research by revealing the potential of genealogical enquiry as an alternative and meaningful tool for analysing and questioning prevailing assumptions, shedding light on the historical and discursive foundations of controversial issues.

Read the full paper 

Only a few days until the #100UniTS Corsa dei Castelli! The race is scheduled for Sunday 20 October along the beautiful route linking the Miramare Castle and San Giusto Castle.

As announced at the Municipality of Trieste, this year’s running event is dedicated to the UniTS Centenary. Over 2000 runners are set to participate including more than 800 students, teaching staff and administrative technicians from the University.

Organised by Asd Promorun, the event is designed not only for running enthusiasts but also for those who want to enjoy the extraordinary route by taking part in the ‘Non-competitive Ten’ and the ‘8 km Family Run’.

Participants come from all over the world: Albania, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, France, Ghana, Ireland, Israel, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Hungary and the USA.

As many as 45% of the participants are women.

Registration for the non-competitive races is still open:

Thursday 10 October, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Registration Point in Piazza della Borsa

Friday 11 and Saturday 12 October, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at the Registration Point in Piazza della Borsa

Sunday 13 October, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Registration Point in Piazza della Borsa

From Thursday 17 to Saturday 19 October, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Registration Point in Piazza Unità d'Italia

Registration for the #100 UniTS Corsa dei Castelli is still open from Friday 18 to Saturday 19 October, from 10am to 7pm at the Registration Point in Piazza Unità d'Italia.

University of Trieste Vice Rector Valter Sergo has been awarded a prestigious academic honour by the University of Panama: the Faculty of Business Sciences conferred him an honorary professorship during the Congreso Internacional en Investigación y Ciencias Empresariales, which took place a few days ago in Panama City.

Prof. Sergo received the professorship ‘in recognition of his personal merit, his role as a researcher and his valuable contribution in the field of research and technology transfer, which supported the development of the Italian entrepreneurial ecosystem’.

Sergo, a chemist and lecturer in Chemical Foundations of Technologies at the Department of Engineering and Architecture, works in the field of spectroscopy and was awarded one of the very first industry-funded university chairs in Italy.

In addition, by appointment of the regional council he was the president of BIC incubatori FVG, and vice-president of the board of directors of Rachael, a technology consultancy company in the field of Big Data, in which UniTS, SISSA and SWG own a share.

On the day of the awards ceremony, Prof. Sergo delivered a lectio magistralis focused on the role of science in the decision-making processes and strategic management of companies.

‘This recognition,’ commented Pro-rector Sergo, ’transcends the individual, and is in fact the result of the University of Trieste’s long and dedicated commitment to the field of Science Diplomacy. It is no coincidence that the role of UniTS has been recognised and has been made to grow and mature, first and foremost by the Italian ambassador of Panama, Fabrizio Nicoletti, whose previous post was head of science diplomacy at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI).’

After the conference and this prestigious award, the Vice Rector's trip to Panama is continuing through meetings with academic authorities, professors, researchers and students of the University of Panama, with the aim of further strengthening the ties between Italy and Panama and promoting new academic collaborations.

Subsequently, from 23rd to 25th October, also in Panama, Valter Sergo, Rodolfo Taccani (Fluid Machinery) and Giovanni Comelli (Experimental Physics of Matter and Applications) will take part in the 9th International Conference on Engineering, Science and Technology (IESTEC), which will be preceded by a visit to the Technological University of Panama, organiser of the event, on 22nd October. 

Panama is of central importance in Italy's scientific and technological cooperation programmes, and Italy will be the invited country of honour at the IESTEC Conference. The role of the University of Trieste therefore aims to consolidate relations with the Central American country, strengthening the exchange of knowledge and the promotion of Italian excellence in research and innovation. 

The collaboration process was launched last February, through the agreement signed between the University of Trieste and the University of Panama.

On the 19th and 20th October 2024 the University of Trieste will open the Rectorate Art Gallery's doors on the occasion of the 13th edition of the FAI Autumn Days, an event promoted by the National Trust for Italy (Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano - FAI). The visits, available only by reservation, will be in three sessions, at 11:00, at 12:00 and at 16:00, offering the public the opportunity to explore a hidden art treasure.

Through a route winding between the two foyers, the Cammarata Hall, the Rectiorate’s corridor and the Bachelet Hall, visitors will be able to discover the Pinacoteca's rich collection. The works, acquired following the Esposizione Nazionale di Pittura Italiana Contemporanea (National Exhibition of Contemporary Italian Painting), held in the University's Main Hall in December 1953, reflect the various Italian art movements of the post-war period, with paintings by artists such as Giuseppe Santomaso, Afro Basaldella and Nino Perizi. Today, the Pinacoteca houses a total of 37 works, representing an important testimony to the richness and variety of 20th century Italian painting trends.

Info and bookings trieste@faigiovani.fondoambiente.it.

The 10th October marks the 33rd World Mental Health Day, promoted by the World Federation for Mental Health. The theme of the 2024 edition, ‘It is Time to Prioritise Mental Health in the Workplace’, highlights the importance of promoting mental wellbeing in professional settings, a priority supported by the scientific community and activists in the field.

People with mental health problems and psychosocial disabilities also face reduced life expectancy compared to the general population, often due to issues with their physical health. A study conducted by the Psychiatric Clinic at the University of Trieste and lead by Prof. Umberto Albert, President of the Italian Society of Psychiatry (FVG section), revealed that a significant proportion of patients from Trieste’s Mental Health Centres do not regularly participate in regional cancer screening programmes, risking late diagnosis and serious consequences.

Stigma remains a significant obstacle, limiting access to essential care and negatively affecting its quality. Discrimination and harmful stereotypes within families, schools and workplaces can prevent people from forming healthy relationships, hinder social interaction and block inclusive environments necessary for the well-being of every member of society.

It is crucial that the right to optimal mental health is recognised as a basic human right and that all countries commit to ensuring universal access to mental health services. Additionally, access to better living conditions, safety, food and shelter are necessary for people's mental health and a universal right for all citizens of the world.

The University of Trieste participates in World Mental Health Day by lighting the façade of the Central Building in green, the symbolic colour of good mental health. This initiative is part of a nationwide network of solidarity and awareness-raising that will see the illumination of monuments and important public buildings across Italy, many of them institutional headquarters, thanks to the mobilisation launched throughout the country by the Italian Society of Psychiatry.

The University of Trieste is proud to be a part of the international research team that has discovered a mechanism that could open up new avenues for the treatment of glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive brain tumour. The study, conducted in collaboration between SISSA, IOM-CNR, the University of Trieste, the University Hospital of Udine and GlioGuard S.r.l. and recently published in the journal Molecular Cancer Research, highlights the importance of chloride ion fluxes in the proliferation of tumour cells.

Specifically, the research identified that so-called ‘calcium-dependent chloride channels’ are involved in the regulation of chloride ion fluxes in and out of the cancer cell. These channels act as ‘gates’ and directly influence the division of tumour cells, promoting their proliferation. By using specific substances to block these fluxes, the researchers were able to stop the replication of lab-grown cancer cells, thus identifying a potential target for future therapies.

As part of this project, the group led by Prof. Fabrizia Cesca of the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste studied the effect of specific inhibitors of chlorine channels, such as niflumic acid and carbenoxolone, on cancer cell replication. Experiments have shown that these substances can significantly slow down cell division, paving the way for new therapeutic possibilities for the treatment of glioblastoma.

This research therefore suggests that ionic currents could be an effective target for the development of innovative drugs against glioblastoma. However, given the complexity and heterogeneity of this tumour type, further studies will be needed to verify the effectiveness of such therapies in patients.

The full article is available on the AACR Journals site here.

The University of Trieste ranks once again in the 501-600 range among the world’s top universities according to the prestigious THE 2025 ranking published by Times Higher Education.

The ranking evaluates universities based on five main indicators, each with a specific weight: teaching quality (29.5%), research environment (29%), research quality (30%), knowledge transfer to industry (4%), and international outlook (7.5%).

Compared to the previous year, the University of Trieste achieved higher scores in teaching quality and research environment, two key areas that together represent 60% of the overall evaluation. Specifically, the teaching quality score rose from 31.9 to 33, while the research environment score increased from 25.1 to 26.4.

This achievement reflects the university's strength in the global academic landscape, placing it in the top 28% of the world’s best universities ranked by THE, which reviews only 2,092 institutions among over 20,000 worldwide.

Researchers from the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste, in collaboration with the Sapienza University of Rome, have discovered that the preference of animal species, both human and non-human, for consonant sounds would be partly physiologically determined. The hypothesis at the origin of the study, conducted on one hundred and thirty hatchling chicks, is that the constituent elements of musical abilities - of humans and animals - have a biological root, shared between species that are also phylogenetically distant, and do not depend solely on culture and musical experience.

‘Previous research by the University of Trieste had already led to the discovery that chicks, like other species, prefer so-called consonant musical intervals. The latter, in fact, are those that most resemble the sound produced by living beings, while the dissonant ones recall the lesser harmony of environmental sounds,’ explains Andrea Ravignani, professor of general psychology at the Department of Human Neuroscience at the Sapienza University of Rome. ‘At the time, we did not know the reasons for this; today, however, we know – thanks to studies conducted together, the University of Trieste and the Sapienza University of Rome - that consonant intervals are produced in acoustic social signals.’

The research was carried out on one hundred and thirty hatchling chicks; once hatched, the chicks – which do not require any parental care, neither to develop their vocal repertoire nor to walk – were reared for four days, in pairs, in rectangular cages at controlled room temperature. 

The following calls were recorded for each chick in soundproof pens: contact calls emitted by the chick when it feels discomfort because, for example, it is separated from the hen, brooding calls emitted in pleasant situations and food calls emitted when the chick identifies a profitable food source. These calls are part of a complex vocal code that chicks develop from hatching to adulthood to communicate their needs to other conspecifics and to express the positive or negative nature of a situation they are experiencing. 

The researchers stimulated the production of each type of call by the chicks by gradually recreating the natural situation associated with each one. Specifically, they recorded: contact calls, leaving the chicks alone in the empty pen after separating them from their rearing mate and the imprinting object; brood calls, placing an imprinting object in the centre of the pen after initial isolation; food calls, placing a dish of food in the centre of the pen after removing the imprinting object.

After analysing the minimum and maximum peaks of the fundamental frequencies and calculating their ratio, the study revealed a prevalence of perfect consonance in all types of calls, confirming the idea that consonant sounds are intrinsically present in animal communication. The only recorded dissonances were found in situations of particular distress, such as isolation contexts.

‘This research could open up promising applications: a chick that emits a sound with a certain frequency is probably indicating a certain type of situation, and we now know that the most harmonious calls are those emitted in the most pleasant situations,’ explains Cinzia Chiandetti, associate professor of psychobiology at the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste. ‘Depending on the dominance of consonances or dissonances, we will be able to understand the emotional status of the animal associated with the context in which it finds itself: we are not so far from being able to imagine devices capable of recording the calls and returning the level of comfort or stress of the animal in front of us, even of chickens that, as the writer Andrew Lawler would say, are the birds that have nurtured civilisation’ concludes the expert.

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Full study published in Biology Letters

Chicks produce consonant, sometimes jazzy, sounds

Gianmarco Maldarelli1,2, Andrea Dissegna1, Andrea Ravignani3,4,5 and Cinzia Chiandetti1

1Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

2Department of Biopsychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr-Universitat

Bochum, Bochum, Germany

3Comparative Bioacoustics Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

4Center for Music in the Brain, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

5Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Recent observations using the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed a surprisingly large number of black holes in the early universe. This research, led by Professor Matthew Hayes of Stockholm University and published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, also involved PhD student Vieri Cammelli of the University of Trieste.

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope launched in 1990 by NASA and the ESA, which continues to provide extraordinary images of the cosmos. One of its most iconic observations, and one of the deepest ever collected in the visible light spectrum, was the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), an image of the universe showing galaxies formed not long after the Big Bang.

Twelve years later, the team of researchers again observed this same area of the universe to identify so-called active galactic nuclei, signs of the presence of accreting black holes. Using variations in the brightness of galaxies, numerous black holes housed within them were discovered, many of which formed during the early stages of the universe.

The discovery aligns with results from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a new instrument that continues to push the boundaries of astronomical observations. The JWST, launched in 2021, is capable of observing even more distant objects and providing new information on the birth and growth of black holes.

Vieri Cammelli, a PhD student at the University of Trieste and co-funded by Chalmers University in Gothenburg, played a key role in the analysis of the data: his research, which will form part of his PhD thesis, represents a significant contribution to the understanding of how supermassive black holes formed in the early stages of cosmic evolution.

To learn more about the research results, you can read Glimmers in the Cosmic Dawn: A Census of the Youngest Supermassive Black Holes by Photometric Variability in The Astrophysical Journal Letters