news 2024

A research team of scientists from Freie Universität Berlin and Princeton University provide insights into the origins of complete metamorphosis in insects More than sixty percent of all'animal species are insects. The majority of these species undergo complete metamorphosis, whereby the larva transforms into a pupa and then an adult.

A team of researchers from Jena and Ulm have developed an innovative approach to precisely influence the properties of light-absorbing materials, so-called chromophores. They focused on specific iron compounds, demonstrating that small changes in their chemical structure can control how these compounds react to light.

Dangerous mixtures: pesticides in combination can have unexpected effects on the development of honeybees. This is shown by a new study from the Biocenter. Honeybees are social insects. Their colony only survives as a community, and healthy new generations are very important. It is therefore not surprising that honeybees invest significant care and resources into their offspring: nurse bees feed the young larvae with a food juice made from nectar and pollen which they produce in a gland in their head.

Special features of the Arctic climate, such as the strong reflection of the sun's rays on the light-colored snow surface or the low position of the sun, intensify global warming in the Arctic. However, researchers are constantly faced with the challenge of mapping the climatic processes responsible for this in order to make reliable weather forecasts.

Satellite and street view images provide basis for more precise evaluation of the environmental conditions that favor the presence of Aedes aegypti The Aedes aegypti mosquito is responsible worldwide for the spread of infectious diseases such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. To combat the widely transmitted diseases affecting millions, detailed mosquito distribution maps with data on the spatial and temporal spread of populations are of major importance.

Researchers at Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen and Kobe University discovered populations of female brown algae that reproduce from unfertilised gamete s'and thrive without males. They used -Amazonalgae to shed light on the phenotypic and genetic consequences of shift from sexual to asexual reproduction.

It's not just us humans who suffer from heatwaves. Researchers at the University of Würzburg discovered that hot temperatures rob bumblebees of their sense of smell - and makes them struggle when searching for food. Climate change is affecting ecosystems in many different ways. One of its consequences are increasingly longer and more intense periods of heat, which affect essential natural processes - such as pollination.

Study by University of Bonn: Where measures against illegal deforestation are in force, the number of homicides falls In December 2007, the then Brazilian government passed a law to curb the illegal destruction of the rainforest. A study by researchers from the Insper Research Institute in São Paulo and the University of Bonn now shows an interesting side effect: where the measures were implemented, not only did deforestation decrease, but so did the number of homicides.

News from Terrestrial ecosystems become increasingly vulnerable to global change as the number of environmental stressors rises, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience.

A team of scientists from the Cluster of Excellence "Balance of the Microverse" has discovered a previously unknown rejuvenation mechanism in unicellular organisms. They studied unicellular microalgae, which serve as the basis of food chains in the oceans. Unicellular organisms, such as microalgae, also age when they can no longer divide due to a lack of nutrients.

Researchers confirm positive effects of organic farming and flower strips for bee colonies   Honey bees are valued both for their honey and their ability to pollinate crops. However, populations are suffering from the loss of areas of wild flowers in intensive farming, pesticide applications and from the influence of pathogens, so it is all the more important to understand what keeps them healthy.

Baby sea turtles respond even more to fluctuating precipitation than to changes in air temperature during their development in the egg. The effects of precipitation differ depending on the species - or even the population.

Using the largest dataset of human fossils from Ice Age Europe to date, an international research team shows how prehistoric hunter-gatherers coped with climate change in the period between 47,000 and 7,000 years ago.

We humans benefit from the oceans' tremendous capacity to absorb greenhouse gases. Due to the low temperature of the water, the Arctic Ocean absorbs an especially large amount of CO2 in relation to its size. Due in part to climate change, this effect will be less pronounced in the future. A new study released by Universität Hamburg's Cluster of Excellence CLICCS shows how much CO2 is released into the atmosphere in the Arctic Ocean by the erosion of coastal permafrost.

Aerobic methane-oxidizing bacteria are also permanently active in oxygen-free water Methane-oxidizing bacteria could play a greater role than previously thought in preventing the release of climate-damaging methane from lakes, researchers from Bremen report. They also show who is behind the process and how it works.

Geological studies of a drill core combined with computer models show that large ice sheets first formed only in East Antarctica The glaciation of the Antarctic began approximately 34 million years ago, but the initial phase of glaciation did not encompass the entire continent - as previously assumed.

Research team led by Göttingen University expands the applications of oxygen isotope measurements   Measuring temperatures from Earth's past is important for understanding the development of its climate. Ancient ocean temperatures are most commonly reconstructed by analysing the ratio of different oxygen atoms in the calcium carbonate remains of fossils.

HyFiT fuels can reduce the carbon footprint of heavy goods transport and cut harmful emissions Synthetic fuels could make heavy goods traffic climate-friendly in the future. A team from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, RWTH Aachen University, and ETH Zurich is now presenting a synthesis route that can be used to produce a fuel, known as HyFiT fuel, made from biomass or CO2 that can be used to refuel conventional combustion engines.

A research team at the University of Tübingen has found that most glyphosate that ends up in European rivers likely does not come from herbicides, as previously assumed; instead, it may be the result of additives to detergents. For the study, Professor Carolin Huhn of the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry and colleagues from the Geoand Environmental Center conducted a large meta-analysis on data from European and US water protection authorities.

A new study on climate communication has just been published in the journal "Frontiers in Climate" "Global warming," "greenhouse effect," and "climate catastrophe" are all terms we are familiar with from international public discourse on the looming effects of climate change. But these terms seem to be limited in their efficacy: "One of the key problems with climate communication is that it does not adequately convey the severity of the issue.