news 2023

Can plant-derived nutrients alter gut bacteria to affect brain function? Scientists from the University of Leipzig Medical Center, the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research investigated this question in a study of overweight adults.

People living in poverty often struggle from payday to payday. Those who receive government assistance, such as welfare or pensions, must manage scarce resources to make ends meet until the next payment. Researchers from Kobe University, the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Toyo University, and Simon Fraser University have studied how people's willingness to take risks changes before and after payday.

Five high-performance microscopes at the University of Münster Many people are as fascinated by the microworld and the nanoworld as others are by the cosmos or the deep seas. These worlds seem to be inaccessible, apparently hidden from human eyes. However, across a wide range of disciplines, microscopes make it possible to take ever deeper and more precise looks at the smallest of details, and in ever higher resolutions - right down to atomic structures.

Snakebites cause around 100,000 deaths worldwide every year. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have investigated how the toxin emerged between 50 and 120 million years ago through the modification of a gene that also occurs in mammals and other reptiles. The results could help with the development of better snakebite treatments and lead to new knowledge for the treatment of illnesses such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

Physicists investigate 2D materials with very special properties Postdoc Dr. Nihit Saigal, a member of Prof. Ursula Wurstbauer's team at Münster University's Institute of Physics, has got everything ready in the laboratory to produce an ultra-thin, two-dimensional material - a silver-coloured crystal of molybdenum disulphide, a viscoelastic polymer film.

Neuroscientist Professor Sonja Bröer from Freie Universität Berlin is involved in the development of an innovative treatment option for therapy-resistant epilepsy Together with colleagues, veterinarian and neuroscientist Sonja Bröer has researched how regenerative cell therapies can contribute to curing or alleviating epilepsy.

How SARS-CoV-2 initiates its replication process during infection is not yet fully understood. Researchers from the Helmholtz Institute Würzburg have now published unexpected findings. SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the disease COVID-19 with nearly seven million deaths worldwide to date, has a characteristic genetic makeup made entirely of ribonucleic acid (RNA).

Researchers around the world are working on more efficient methods for producing hydrogen. Hydrogen could make a decisive contribution to reducing the consumption of fossil raw materials, especially if it is produced using renewable energies. Existing technologies for producing climate-neutral hydrogen are still too inefficient or too expensive for broader application.

How can we improve cognitive abilities and feelings of wellbeing in virtual worlds? An international team, led by the Department of Informatics at Universität Hamburg made up of members from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, has found that the presence of plants in virtual office spaces can improve intellectual productivity, memory, and feelings of well-being.

Water is a major driving force in the formation of separate reaction compartments within cells. In order to fulfil their function, biological cells need to be divided into separate reaction compartments. This is sometimes done with membranes, and sometimes without them: the spontaneous segregation of certain types of biomolecules leads to the formation of so-called condensates.

New research findings on Aiptasia sea anemones point to early evolutionary events in multicellular organisms Were the first animals predators or filter feeders like the sponges living in today's oceans? And what role did symbiosis with algae play, as with reef-building corals? Surprising findings by a research group led by Thomas W. Holstein of Heidelberg University on the development of sea anemones suggest that a predatory lifestyle moulded their evolution and had a significant impact on the origin of their nervous system.

A European research team led by the Department of Chemistry at Universität Hamburg presents a study showing high-resolution structures of 17 distinct antibiotic ribosomal compounds. The knowledge could pave the way for the development of new antibiotics to combat multidrug-resistant bacteria. The results were published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

Research team led by Göttingen University investigates nitrous oxide emissions in Jambi The rapid spread of oil palm plantations and associated high use of fertilizer raises concerns about the emission of nitrous oxide (N2O), a powerful greenhouse gas. A new study by an international research team led by the University of Göttingen shows that oil palms- photosynthesis and their response to meteorological and soil conditions play an important but still widely unexplored role in the amount of N2O produced by oil palm plantations.

Interview with Prof. Robert Wille on quantum computing software Most of us use software applications on a daily basis, for example when writing emails or surfing the internet. But how will future programs look like when new technologies such as quantum computers arrive on the scene? Prof. Robert Wille and his team are already developing the software of tomorrow today.

A new study has provided the first clear picture of where language processes are located in the brain. The findings may be useful in clinical trials involving language recovery after brain injury. Dr Sabrina Turker, Dr Philipp Kuhnke and Professor Gesa Hartwigsen from the Wilhelm Wundt Institute of Psychology at Leipzig University and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences conducted the meta-analysis in collaboration with researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich.

A study carried out in Tübingen and Bonn finds evidence of two separate processing mechanisms When two, three or four apples are placed in front of us, we are able to recognize the number of apples very quickly. However, we need significantly more time if there are five or more apples and we often also guess the wrong number.

They were formed on the Moon more than three billion years ago, brought back to the Earth about 50 years ago, and recently arrived on the campus of the University of Bayreuth: samples of Moon rocks collected by NASA Apollo missions 16 and 17. The US national space agency has made them available to the Bavarian Research Institute of Experimental Geochemistry and Geophysics (BGI) of the University of Bayreuth for scientific investigations.

Freiburg researchers show that transcription factors can enhance or inhibit each other, depending on the DNA sequence During the first hours of an embryo's development, specialised molecules called pioneer transcription factors unravel parts of its DNA to activate the encoded genes. Which gene is activated and when has to follow a set schedule so that genes that are only needed at later stages of development are not activated too early - such as those that trigger the differentiation of specialised cell types.

Research team including biologists from Freie Universität Berlin publishes study warning against the unknown long-term consequences of microplastic particles in soil Plastic is everywhere in the environment, and while earlier research efforts dealt predominantly with the ocean and aquatic systems, more recently the soil has increasingly come into focus, especially soils in agricultural ecosystems, where we grow our food.

Combinations of unfavourable weather conditions over several years can cause a decline in insect biomass. This is shown by a study published in "Nature" by a team led by Professor Jörg Müller. Insects react sensitively when temperature and precipitation deviate from the long-term average. In an unusually dry and warm winter, their survival probabilities are reduced; in a wet and cold spring, hatching success is impaired.