news 2021

Interactive online platform uses satellite images to display status of European forests. The output is based on the greenness of trees. With the latest functionality, users can also view and download data for individual countries and selected time ranges to learn more about the condition of forests.

The skin is the largest organ of the human body. But what if the skin "disintegrates" at just the slightest touch? This is exactly what happens with Epidermolysis bullosa (EB), sometimes also known by the name 'butterfly disease'. This skin disease is based on genetic defects and, because there is no cure, it can be fatal, often even in young patients.

What was previously identified as a gas and dust cloud at the centre of our galaxy actually consists of three very young stars. That is the result of a new study led by scientists from the University of Cologne's Institute of Astrophysics. The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) - a telescope with mirror diameters of 8.20 metres on the summit of Cerro Paranal in Chile - provided the data for the study, which has appeared in The Astrophysical Journal .

Göttingen researchers investigate the effect of certain enzymes in the healthy and diseased brain The brain is a remarkably complex and adaptable organ. However, adaptability decreases with age: as new connections between nerve cells in the brain form less easily, the brain's plasticity decreases. If there is an injury to the central nervous system such as after a stroke, the brain needs to compensate for this by reorganising itself.

While all atomic nuclei except hydrogen are composed of protons and neutrons, physicists have been searching for a particle consisting of two, three or four neutrons for over half a century. Experiments by a team of physicists of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) at the accelerator laboratory on the Garching research campus now indicate that a particle comprising four bound neutrons may well exist.

Researchers aim at decoding tumour development in hereditary colon cancer using mathematical modelling of medical data A new interdisciplinary research project aims to uncover information that can help decode hereditary colon cancer with the aid of mathematical models. Mathematicians and tumour biologists of Heidelberg University, the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Heidelberg University Hospital, and the German Cancer Research Center are collaborating on the project.

A Cologne-based research team has discovered that the metabolism of mitochondria, the energy suppliers of cells, in macrophages coordinate wound healing to a significant degree. Macrophages belong to the white blood cells and are also known as scavenger cells.Sabine Eming and her collaborators and colleagues at the CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research at the University of Cologne showed that wound macrophages undergo different metabolic programs during tissue repair, which are required to support the successive phases for skin reconstruction after injury.

Study led by Göttingen and Syiah Kuala Universities finds Safe Childbirth Checklist contributes to improved maternal and neonatal healthcare Every year, 295,000 maternal deaths, 2 million stillbirths, and 2.5 million neonatal deaths occur worldwide. Improved quality of care could prevent the majority of those deaths.

Researchers at the University of Göttingen examine the effect of providing information Despite shifts towards vegan and vegetarian diets in Western cultures, demand for animal protein persists. Alternative protein sources are required to nourish the growing world population without compromising on sustainability.

Phobias are often irrational by nature - especially in the case of spiders, as these creatures are usually more afraid of humans than vice-versa. But: some species are a force to be reckoned with - for example, the Latrodectus spider, more commonly known as the Black Widow. It catches its prey by using venom - to be precise, latrotoxins (LaTXs), a subclass of neurotoxins, or nerve poisons.

A new algorithm has been designed to help discover previously unknown material compounds. It was developed by a team from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Lund University in Sweden. The researchers designed a form of artificial intelligence (AI) based on machine learning that can perform complex calculations within a very short space of time.

Heidelberg researchers are working on a rapid process for 3D imaging of cells Viral pathogens like the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus change the interior structure of the cells they infect. These changes occur at the level of individual cell components - the organelles - and can provide information on how viral diseases develop.

Researchers study cosmic expansion using methods from many-body physics / Article published in -Physical Review Letters- It is almost always assumed in cosmological calculations that there is a even distribution of matter in the universe. This is because the calculations would be much too complicated if the position of every single star were to be included.

While the number of qubits and the stability of quantum states are still limiting current quantum computing devices, there are questions where these processors are already able to leverage their enormous computing power. In collaboration with the Google Quantum AI team scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Nottingham used a quantum processor to simulate the ground state of a so-called toric code Hamiltonian - an archetypical model system in modern condensed matter physics, which was originally proposed in the context of quantum error correction.

A team of biologists has identified that the pathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae , responsible for wilt disease in many crops, secretes an 'effector' molecule to target the microbiome of plants to promote infection. The research was performed by the team of Alexander von Humboldt Professor Dr Bart Thomma at the University of Cologne (UoC) within the framework of the Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS) in collaboration with the team of Dr Michael Seidl at the Theoretical Biology & Bioinformatics group of Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Food supplements are available in a lot of places - in drugstores, health food shops, pharmacies and on the Internet - and the market is booming. Many of these products contain plant extracts whose ingredients are supposed to have healthy benefits - provided they do actually contain what they claim. Because nowhere near all of these so-called botanicals deliver what they promise.

International research team led by Göttingen University develops novel sampling method for bats How can we understand the activity of wild bats? Mostly soundless, flying in the dark, bats feed at night and evade our senses. Many bats can use echolocation to hunt and can avoid the traditional nets used to capture them; those that do not "echolocate" cannot be detected by ultrasound bat detectors.

Research team led by Göttingen University use genomic data to discover five species hidden in rare alga All land plants originated from a single evolutionary event when freshwater algae got a foothold on land, giving rise to an astonishing biodiversity of plants on earth. However, the group of algae that would later give rise to land plants had already been living and evolving in both freshwater and terrestrial habitats for over one billion years.

11/29/2021 The cells of a certain tumour type, called neuroblastoma, divide very rapidly. This rapid division can have potentially fatal consequences for them. A new study shows how neuroblastoma cells deal with this dilemma. Neuroblastomas occur predominantly in children. A specific subset of these tumours is very aggressive and difficult to treat.

Team from Göttingen University and University Medical Center identifies changes in nerve tissue in Alzheimer's What changes occur in parts of the brain affected by neurodegenerative disease? How does the structure of the neurons change? Some pathological changes in the tissue are easy to identify using standard microscopy.