news 2019

As the saying goes, nothing lasts forever. The laws of physics confirm this: on our planet, all processes increase entropy, thus molecular disorder. For example, a broken glass would never put itself back together again. Theoretical physicists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems have discovered that things which seem inconceivable in the everyday world are possible on a microscopic level.

Although Bitcoin is a virtual currency, the energy consumption associated with its use is very real. For a Bitcoin transfer to be executed and validated, a mathematical puzzle must be solved by an arbitrary computer in the global Bitcoin network. The network, which anyone can join, rewards the puzzle solvers in Bitcoin.

The negative effects of sugary drinks have prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to call on politicians, business leaders and society as a whole to design and implement effective ways to wean consumers off their predilection for soft drinks and to support healthier beverage choices. But what measures are most likely to reduce soft-drink consumption? In collaboration with the Cochrane Network, researchers based at TUM and LMU set out to answer this question.

International Research Project Studies Social Significance of Health Resorts No 169/2019 from Jun 12, 2019 A team of researchers from the universities of Amsterdam and Lund, Queen Mary University in London, and Freie Universität Berlin is starting a research project on health resorts as a location of transnational encounter and debate.

It seems that new scientific institutions and research projects are all about "interdisciplinarity". Is it all hype? It is not all hype, not at all. We are increasingly encountering issues that cannot be resolved using the methods of any one discipline. As a matter of fact, interdisciplinarity was already enabling major leaps forward even before it was intentionally promoted: After the Second World War, several physicists transferred to biology in the wake of the atomic bomb shock.

Infections with HBV are a global health problem. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than 260 million people worldwide are chronically infected with the virus. Vaccination prevents new HBV infections, but for people who are chronic carriers of the virus, a cure has not yet been found.

An international research team solves the mystery of how the mountain Ahuna Mons on Ceres was probably formed / Study in "Nature Geoscience" The scientists could hardly believe their eyes when they first saw this formation on the images acquired by their Framing Camera on board the Dawn space probe: a symmetrical mountain over 4000 metres tall and with steep, smooth sides rising over the crater-strewn surface of.

Are children, teenagers and adults who spend a lot of time playing video games really more obese? A meta study conducted with the University of Würzburg has looked into this question. The cliché is true - but only for adults. A chubby teen lolling on the sofa for hours on end, the game controller in one hand, a bag of crisps at his side and a bottle of coke on the coffee table.

New findings on the Earth's magnetic field: researchers show that the iron oxide hematite remains magnetic deep within the Earth's mantle / Study published in "Nature" journal The huge magnetic field which surrounds the Earth, protecting it from radiation and charged particles from space - and which many animals even use for orientation purposes - is changing constantly, which is why geoscientists keep it constantly under surveillance.

Particle accelerator unlocks the secrets of parasite larva Computer-generated image of the larvae of a Strepsiptera (side view) enclosed in a Baltic amber of only about five millimeters. Image: Hans Pohl/FSU When biologist PD Dr Hans Pohl from Friedrich Schiller University Jena discovered an insect fossil encased in amber on eBay, he was thrilled with what he'd found: a 50-million-year-old larva of the order Strepsiptera.

05/29/2019 Through the research network ForDigitHealth, five Bavarian universities are jointly researching the stress that digitisation causes in humans. The Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts is funding this initiative with 3.35 million euros. With its permanent accessibility, increasing flood of information and constantly changing technologies that humans have to familiarise themselves with, digitisation is fundamentally changing society and individual lives.

Ecologist Ulrich Brose develops a new method to predict the vulnerability of ecosystems. Predators play a key role. Life Natural ecosystems are as vulnerable as they are diverse. Environmental changes such as climate change, pollution or the spread of alien species can easily throw an ecosystem off balance.

On June 4, 2019, the Dahlem Center for Machine Learning and Robotics (DCMLR) at Freie Universität Berlin will open its doors to journalists who wish to learn more about cutting-edge German research on artificial intelligence and robotics. For thirty years now, new technologies such as robotic fish or quadrocopters have been developed at Freie Universität, and research has been conducted on machine learning, which enables autonomous driving.

05/23/2019 A great success for Würzburg's physics department: its Collaborative Research Centre was rated as excellent and is now entering its second funding phase. The German Research Foundation is providing 12 million euros for this purpose. In 2015, physicists at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany, succeeded in establishing a new Collaborative Research Centre in Würzburg.

Researchers study the dynamics of living together and the scaffolding of membranes No 146/2019 from May 23, 2019 The German Research Foundation (DFG) has extended the funding for two Collaborative Research Centers (CRC) at Freie Universität. One is CRC 958, where scientists study the molecular mechanisms by which dynamically organized protein-protein assemblies scaffold cellular membranes.

Young stars heat molecular clouds and drive hot interstellar gas bubbles throughout galaxies Star formation within interstellar clouds of gas and dust, so-called molecular clouds, proceeds very rapidly yet highly "inefficiently". Most of the gas is dispersed by stellar radiation, revealing galaxies to be highly dynamic systems, like "cosmic cauldrons", consisting of components that constantly change their appearance.

Refugees who are more willing to take risks, who tend to reciprocate friendliness, and who are more strongly convinced than others are that they are in control of their lives integrate into society faster. This is the result of a study undertaken on the basis of the "IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in Germany" which researchers from the University of Münster, Saarland University and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW) devised.

A New Study from Freie Universität Berlin in Cooperation with the University of Virginia No 139/2019 from May 21, 2019 In a recent study, biologists from Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Virginia (USA) examine ideas about closed ecological systems and how to further develop them. The goal of the study is to establish concepts that will make it possible to conduct experiments with self-sustaining ecosystems.

The Earth is unique in our solar system: It is the only terrestrial planet with a large amount of water and a relatively large moon, which stabilizes the Earth's axis. Both were essential for Earth to develop life. Planetologists at the University of Münster have now been able to show, for the first time, that water came to Earth with the formation of the Moon some 4.4 billion years ago.

Science historians explain Ernst Haeckel's definition of ecology " By ecology, we understand the whole science of the organism's relationship with the surrounding outside world, which includes in a broader sense all 'existential conditions'. These are partly organic and partly inorganic in nature; both the former and the latter are, as we have previously shown, of utmost importance for the form of the organisms, because they force them to adapt to them.