Despite significant advances, heart and lung diseases remain the leading causes of death worldwide. In addition, the success of current therapies combined with improved long-term survival and an aging society, has changed the course of disease and created new challenges that need innovative solutions. The development of targeted therapies requires deep understanding of the complex metabolic, (epi-)genomic and proteomic changes underlying cardiopulmonary diseases and a collaborative effort to translate discoveries.

A key driver of the climate crisis is the man-made imbalance in the carbon cycle. Microorganisms play a key role in the biological carbon cycle because they invented the conversion of CO2 billions of years ago and made our planet a life-friendly world. Today, they convert about as much CO2 globally as plants do.

Energiewende – the energy transition that forms a fundamental tenet of our global economy – faces challenges from limited material availability, extinction of European mining industries, geopolitical threats, and price fluctuations. This is particularly relevant for electrochemical energy storage (EES), a key technology for enabling the use of renewable energy. Alternative EES technologies are needed, which requires coordinated, fundamental research aiming for high-performance, safe, affordable and sustainable solutions. These must be based on diverse and abundant raw materials, enhancing energy security and sovereignty and ensuring a resilient and sustainable energy future.

Over the past decade, deep learning (DL) has driven groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence (AI). However, current DL-based AI systems are unreasonable in many ways: (1) They are developed and deployed in unreasonable ways, requiring overly large models, vast amounts of data and computational power, and extensive infrastructure. This has led to a monopoly held by a few large companies with the necessary resources. (2) They struggle with reasoning, handling unfamiliar situations, and nuanced context. They lack commonsense understanding and abstraction capabilities. (3) They do not improve continuously, learn through interactions, or adapt quickly. Instead, they require frequent retraining, resulting in high economic and environmental costs. Such unreasonable learning makes them brittle.

The central vision of the Cluster of Excellence SCALE (Subcellular Architecture of Life) is to understand the molecular principles that govern the internal organization of cells. SCALE investigates how cellular structures are formed, how they dynamically change, and how they communicate with one another in health, stress, and disease.

The goal of The Adaptive Mind is to transform our scientific understanding of how humans adapt to changing conditions. Our results will not only answer one of the deepest questions in the sciences of the mind, but also open new avenues for individualised approaches to mental health, and the creation of robust, human-aligned artificial intelligence systems. Adaptability is possibly the most remarkable feature of the human mind.