news 2023

A remarkable archaeological breakthrough has been made with the excavation and restoration of rooms in the pyramid of Sahura. The discovered chambers are probably storage rooms intended to hold the royal burial objects. An Egyptian-German mission led by Egyptologist Dr. Mohamed Ismail Khaled of the Department of Egyptology at Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg (JMU) has made a significant discovery within Sahura's Pyramid.

Researchers at the University of Freiburg quantify the amount of material needed to enable people to live without poverty 1.2 billion people live in poverty. To lift them out of it, an average of about six tons of raw materials are needed per person and year - in particular minerals, fossil fuels, biomass and metal ores.

Study headed by Professor Timo Niedermeyer published in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" The cyanobacterium Aetokthonos hydrillicola produces not just one, but two highly potent toxins. In the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), an international team led by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and Freie Universität Berlin describes the second toxin, which had remained elusive until now.

Brain circuits for vision develop without any kind of input from the retina in zebrafish Animals possess specialized networks of neurons in the brain that receive signals about the outside world from the retina and respond by initiating appropriate behavior. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence studied a genetic mutation in zebrafish that eliminates all connections between retina and brain throughout development.

Organic dyes accelerate transport of buffered solar energy The sun sends enormous amounts of energy to the earth. Nevertheless, some of it is lost in solar cells. This is an obstacle in the use of organic solar cells, especially for those viable in innovative applications. A key factor in increasing their performance: Improved transport of the solar energy stored within the material.

Invasive animal and plant species are affecting biodiversity worldwide. To better understand the specific dispersal processes during a biological invasion, researchers from the University of Potsdam and Trinity College Dublin studied an acute invasion. More than 100 years ago, red-backed voles, a Eurasian vole species, were accidentally introduced to the west coast of Ireland and have been spreading continuously ever since.

Study on the connection between language and thinking by neuroscientists at Freie Universität Berlin published The influence of language on human thinking may be stronger than previously thought. This is the result of a new study by the language, cognition, and neuroscientist Friedemann Pulvermüller and his team from the Laboratory for Brain and Language Research at Freie Universität Berlin.

Something that is particularly important for the system is the role played by peroxisomes in fat metabolism. This is because they not only dismantle the fats, they also convert them into usable energy which itself is indispensable for a variety of processes in the body. Without peroxisomes, dangerous quantities of certain fats can accumulate, which would give rise to serious health problems.

Cognition and brain scientists at Freie Universität Berlin publish study on causal effects of language on thought The influence of language on human thinking could be stronger than previously assumed. This is the result of a new study by Professor Friedemann Pulvermüller and his team from the Brain Language Laboratory at Freie Universität Berlin.

Invasive animal and plant species are a challenge for biodiversity all over the world. To better understand the actual expansion processes during a biological invasion, researchers at the University of Potsdam and Trinity College Dublin investigated an ongoing invasion. Bank voles, a Eurasian vole species, were accidentally brought to the west coast of Ireland more than 100 years ago and have spread continuously since then.

For a long time, little attention was paid to ground temperatures because, in contrast to air temperatures near the surface, hardly any reliable data were available due to the significantly more complex measurement.

Scientists from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg have successfully developed nanomaterials using a so-called bottom-up approach. As reported in the scientific journal ACS Nano, they exploit the fact that crystals often grow in a specific direction during crystallisation.

The research units are aiming to reveal the potential of enzymatic catalysis and investigate the biological mechanisms that underlie bladder cancer. The German Research Foundation (DFG) has set up eight new research units. Two of them are at the University of Freiburg. Unlocking the potential of S -adenosylmethionine-dependent enzyme chemistry The research unit "Unlocking the Potential of S -adenosylmethionine-dependent Enzyme Chemistry" aims to develop the new potentials of enzymatic catalysis.

An excavation in Turkey has brought to light an unknown Indo-European language. Professor Daniel Schwemer, an expert for the ancient near east from Würzburg, is involved in investigating the discovery.

A new generation of cloud services is on the rise. It is based on the paradigm of "serverless computing", which is an active research topic at the Institute for Computer Science in Würzburg. In cloud computing, commercial providers make computing resources available on demand to their customers over the Internet.

Team of researchers including Göttingen University detect Magnus effect at microscopic level Whether you are familiar with the term -Magnus effect- or not, you have certainly seen it in action. It is when a spinning ball - for instance in football, cricket or baseball - bends away from its expected trajectory, often to the surprise of the opposing team.

Today, there exist only three elephant species, in Africa and Asia. Yet the diversity of proboscidean species and their distribution was significantly greater in the Earth's past. Researchers from the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, working at the Hammerschmiede site in southern Germany, have now described new fossils of early proboscidean species.

Plants are often attributed with abilities similar to those known in the animal or human world. Trees are said to have feelings and can therefore care for their offspring, like mothers. In an article in the review journal "Trends in Plant Science", 32 international plant and forest researchers followed up on such assertions.

Research team including Göttingen University reviews popular books on forests and criticises lack of scientific evidence Popular science books are all the rage. Their aim is to convey scientific topics to interested members of the general public as clearly and entertainingly as possible. To succeed, authors describe the science using accessible language and concepts that will be interesting to their audience.

Before the light comes on and a new star shines, enough gas and dust must accumulate in a very small space for a star's energy source, nuclear fusion, to ignite. This by no means happens at rest. Matter swirls around, and before the star sees the light of day, violent birth labour is not uncommon. The new James Webb Space Telescope has turned its lens on such a spectacle, which reveals itself in unprecedented detail.