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Plants can extract even the smallest traces of the important nutrient potassium from the soil. A team led by Würzburg biophysicist Rainer Hedrich describes how they achieve this in 'Nature Communications'. Potassium is one of the nutrients that plants need in large quantities. However, the amount of potassium in the soil can vary greatly: potassium-poor soils can contain up to a thousand times less of this nutrient than potassium-rich soils.

Researchers are breeding protein-rich rice varieties that cause minimal increase in blood sugar levels Rice is a staple food for over four billion people. By nature, it contains a lot of carbohydrates but very little protein. A team of researchers from the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, Germany, has now identified the genes that control the carbohydrate composition and protein content of rice.

Researchers from Bonn and Aachen elucidate the role of individual brain neurons in human odor perception We often only realize how important our sense of smell is when it is no longer there: food hardly tastes good, or we no longer react to dangers such as the smell of smoke. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the University of Bonn and the University of Aachen have investigated the neuronal mechanisms of human odor perception for the first time.

Thanks to these results, researchers now better understand how α-latrotoxin works. "The toxin mimics the function of the calcium channels of the presynaptic membrane in a highly complex way," explains Christos Gatsogiannis.

A new study reveals groundbreaking findings on visual navigation in the brain of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster An international research team from Freie Universität Berlin and the University of California Santa Barbara has conducted the first systematic analysis of all synaptic connections in the brain of an adult animal in a groundbreaking study.

Genome instability can cause numerous diseases. Cells have effective DNA repair mechanisms at their disposal. A research team at the University of Würzburg has now gained new insights into the DNA damage response. Whenever cells divide, there is a high risk of damage to the genetic material. After all, the cell has to duplicate its entire genetic material and copy billions of genetic letters before it divides.

On the early Earth, the atmosphere did not yet contain oxygen; nevertheless, the iron dissolved in the oceans was oxidized in gigantic quantities and deposited as rock, for example as banded iron ore in South Africa. Various bacteria excrete insoluble iron via their own metabolic reactions: Some, the phototrophic iron oxidizers, gain energy by oxidizing the iron with the help of sunlight, and others by converting the iron with nitrate as an oxidizing agent.

Study by researchers from Freie Universität Berlin and the University of California, Santa Barbara published in "Nature" delivers new insights into how fruit flies process visual information and use it to navigate the world around them An international team comprised of researchers from Freie Universität Berlin and the University of California, Santa Barbara have carried out the first-ever systematic analysis of all synaptic connections in the brain of an adult animal.

Bonn researchers reclassify leading gene variants, a large proportion of them as benign The genetic confirmation of a suspected diagnosis of "hereditary colorectal cancer" is of great importance for the medical care of affected families. However, many of the variants identified in the known genes cannot yet be reliably classified in terms of their causal role in tumor formation.

In a recent study, researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena have shown how they can investigate the growth and interactions of the green algae "Ulva" and its bacterial community non-invasively and non-destructively using Raman spectroscopy.

The study of metabolism in living plants poses challenges for science. A research team from Leipzig and Würzburg has now developed a technique that changes this in some areas. The "omics" technologies - genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics - are at the forefront of discovery in modern plant science and systems biology.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin (MPIMG) and the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna have discovered a potential "pause button" in the earliest stages of human development. Whether humans can control the timing of their development has long been debated.

Bonn researchers use nanobodies to elucidate pore formation by gasdermin D in cell membranes The formation of pores by a particular protein, gasdermin D, plays a key role in inflammatory reactions. During its activation, an inhibitory part is split off. More than 30 of the remaining protein fragments then combine to form large pores in the cell membrane, which allow the release of inflammatory messengers.

Transferring knowledge from animal experiments to humans remains a key challenge in medical research. This 'translational gap' is often an obstacle to the successful translation of promising preclinical findings into clinical applications. In a joint research project between Leipzig University and Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, scientists have used artificial intelligence to develop an approach that compares the molecular mechanisms of COVID-19 disease in humans and animals.

Heidelberg researchers identify biological mechanism that protects against, but can also trigger, errors in the genome Certain developmental signals shape not only the human embryo but also play a significant role in maintaining our genetic blueprints. They prevent alterations in the genome, known as mosaicism.

Researchers from Bonn and Tübingen clarify the neuronal basis of the mathematical concept of "zero" Despite its importance for mathematics, the neuronal basis of the number zero in the human brain was previously unknown. Now researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the University of Bonn and the University of Tübingen have discovered that individual nerve cells in the medial temporal lobe recognize zero as a numerical value and not as a separate category "nothing".

Artificial light at night changes the behavior of fish, even into the next generation Scientists have shown that light pollution-especially light in the blue spectrum-can alter the behavior of fish after only a few nights, and have knock-on effects for their offspring. The team studied how female zebrafish responded after being exposed to artificial light at night, which is considered to be the main source of the world's light pollution.

A circuit between the brain and gut influences the gut flora and thus regulates the immune system A study has uncovered a critical brain-gut connection that links psychological states to changes in the gut microbiome, with profound implications for immune function and stress-related health conditions.

A serotonin specific receptor can determine how important visual stimuli are perceived. This explains the effects of certain drugs and could help in understanding psychiatric diseases. Signals in our brain are not always processed in the same way: Certain receptors modulate these mechanisms, influencing our mood, perception, and behavior in various ways.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, in collaboration with the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Switzerland and the University of Vienna in Austria, investigated how young golden eagles improve their flight skills as they age. Their results, published in eLife, show that as golden eagles improve their flying skills, they become able to explore a broader area within their range in the central European Alps.