news

Scientific articles in the field of physics are mostly very short and deal with a very restricted topic. A remarkable exception to this is an article published recently by physicists from the Universities of Münster and Düsseldorf. The article is 127 pages long, cites a total of 1075 sources and deals with a wide range of branches of physics - from biophysics to quantum mechanics.

How can cells adhere to surfaces and move on them? This is a question which was investigated by an international team of researchers headed by Prof. Michael Hippler from the University of Münster and Prof. Kaiyao Huang from the Institute of Hydrobiology (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China).

Researchers of Münster University reveal mechanobiological function of muscle-specific adhesion protein / Study published in "Nature Communications" The ability of cells to sense and respond to their mechanical environment is critical for many cellular processes but the molecular mechanisms underlying cellular mechanosensitivity are still unclear.

During the corona crisis, neurotic people experience more negative emotions in their everyday lives, are more unstable emotionally and worry more about their health. These are the results of a study carried out by psychologists from the Universities of Münster and Bielefeld. The study has been published in the "Journal of Research in Personality'.

In a recent nature perspective, international experts in the field of optical neural networks, optical deep learning and photonic computing have put their expertise together to review the path from pathbreaking optical neural networks and optical computing realizations in the past fifty years and how they advanced to photonic artificial intelligence applications.

A great success for the University of Münster: the German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding two new Collaborative Research Centres (CRC). The two research alliances - entitled "inSight - Multiscale imaging of organ-specific inflammation? and "Intelligent matter: From responsive to adaptive nanosystems? - will together be receiving funding of more than 20 million euros.

Using modern nanotechnology, it is possible nowadays to produce structures which have a feature sizes of just a few nanometres. This world of the most minute particles - also known as quantum systems - makes possible a wide range of technological applications, in fields which include magnetic field sensing, information processing, secure communication or ultra-precise time keeping.

Archaeologists of the University of Münster have uncovered an early Christian basilica in south-eastern Turkey. The team of researchers led by Prof. Engelbert Winter spent eight weeks exposing richly ornamented mosaics with images of fish as well as painted marble reliefs. "These finds cast a new light on the development of church building in the Near East between the 4th and 7th centuries AD," explains Engelbert Winter, professor at the Minor Research Centre in the Department of Ancient History at the University of Münster.

This is an artist's impression of a young star surrounded by a protoplanetary disc in which planets are forming. Using ALMA's 15-kilometre baseline astronomers were able to make the first detailed image of a protoplanetary disc, which revealed the complex structure of the disc. Concentric rings of gas, with gaps indicating planet formation, are visible in this artist's impression and were predicted by computer simulations.

In order to escape predators, many fish - including insects, fish and birds - have developed strategies for rapidly transmitting information on threats to others of their species. This information is transmitted within a group of hundreds, or even thousands, of individuals in (escape) waves. This collective response is also, in the case of fish, known as shoal behaviour.

A long durability, low costs and high sustainability - the requirements for stationary energy storage systems, for example for wind or solar energy, are high. One promising perspective is the still young dual-ion technology. In a collaboration between Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the MEET Battery Research Center, scientists developed a new type of dual-ion battery.

Scientists worldwide have been working flat out on research into infectious diseases in the wake of the global outbreak of the COVID-19 disease, caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. This concerns not only virologists, but also physicists, who are developing mathematical models to describe the spread of epidemics.

The lithium-ion battery is currently state of the art, but has not yet realised its full potential. New electrode materials such as silicon instead of pure graphite in the anode offer a significantly increased electrochemical performance. Until now, this has been at the expense of the battery's lifespan.

The production of battery cells includes many consecutive process steps. There is mixing, stirring, coating, rolling, cutting and stacking. Scientists at ProZell work to improve the quality of the final product, make production more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. The competence cluster for battery cell production, in which MEET Battery Research Center of University of Münster and Helmholtz Institute Münster (HI MS) of Forschungszentrum Jülich participate, is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

In research, the results of studies must be precise and reproducible. For this reason, researchers carried out experiments under strictly standardized laboratory conditions. However, despite the high standards applied, results from individual studies cannot always be reproduced in practice. Especially in cases in which animals are used for research purposes and the original study cannot be repeated, this raises severe ethical questions.

It looks absolutely idyllic, watching the Heck cattle and Konik horses grazing in the meadows in the Emsaue wet meadows near the village of Vadrup. This pasture landscape, covering an area of 33 hectares and used all year round, lies in the Emsaue nature conservation area and was set up in 2004 as part of the implementation of the plan to protect the wet meadows by the River Ems.

It is only 120 millionths of a millimetre in size but can bring entire countries to a standstill: the Corona virus. Even if it were to disappear one day, viral infections will still be among the most frequent and difficult-to-treat diseases in humans. Even decades of research have only produced a few standardized vaccines and strategies for treatment to combat just a small number of viruses.

Much like a zipper, carbene molecules cooperate on a gold surface to join two rows of atoms into one row, resulting - step by step - in a new surface structure. The surface of metals plays a key role in many technologically relevant areas, such as catalysis, sensor technology and battery research. For example, the large-scale production of many chemical compounds takes place on metal surfaces, whose atomic structure determines if and how molecules react with one another.

As the developers of 2-n-way, Dr. Jürgen Schmitz, Dr. Liliya Doronina, Norbert Grundmann, Fengjun Zhang and Dr. Gennady Churakov (from left) are delighted at the publication of their project in the specialist press. Evolution leaves its traces in particular in genomes. Pinpointing its influence is a laborious process - but one in which Dr. Jürgen Schmitz and his team at the University of Münster are at home.

Immunofluorescence staining of the muscle tissue of a chronically diseased human heart under the confocal microscope. Two proteins in the sarcomeres, which give the tissue the characteristic striation pattern, were marked with antibodies and visualized by different fluorophore-conjugated antibodies: titin appears red and actinin green; the nuclei were stained blue.