The distinguished recipients from Portugal are Giulia Ghedini and Ilana Gabanyi from the Gulbenkian Science Institute (IGC) and Carlos Minutti of the Champalimaud Foundation. The principal investigators will be granted between €1.5-1.9M each to develop their research proposals over the next five years.

But this doesn’t mean these two areas are totally distinct. In fact, epidemiology also deals with the causes of disease. But while epidemiology involves the study of determinants and distribution of disease, aetiology attempts to confirm the causes.

Why Adult Plasticity Matters

Much like young children who swiftly acquire languages in their early years, our visual system also has a “critical period” during the first few years of life where rapid development occurs. After this time, changes become more difficult, following the old adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. Indeed, many treatments aimed at restoring vision, such as those addressing congenital cataracts or “lazy eye”, are only effective before the age of 7.

That said, this definition has been widening throughout the years to include potential chemopreventive substances that are not necessarily drugs. So-called “nutraceuticals”, such as dietary fiber, prebiotics, probiotics, polyunsaturated fatty acids, antioxidants (such as vitamins) and different types of herbal or natural foods (dietary supplements) are also being studied for cancer chemoprevention. However, to date, the efficacy of these substances has not been confirmed.

From Aristotle’s musings on the nature of time to Einstein’s theory of relativity, humanity has long pondered: how do we perceive and understand time? The theory of relativity posits that time can stretch and contract, a phenomenon known as time dilation. Just as the cosmos warps time, our neural circuits can stretch and compress our subjective experience of time. As Einstein famously quipped, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute”.