News from the Göttingen Campus

Research team led by Göttingen University questions link to warmblood fragile foal syndrome
Warmblood fragile foal syndrome is a severe, usually fatal, genetic disease that manifests itself after birth in affected horses. Due to the defect, the connective tissue is unstable. Under force, for instance, the skin tears from the tissue underneath and the joints can suffer dislocation. A research team from the Universities of Göttingen and Halle has now been able to prove that the disease did not stem from the English thoroughbred stallion…
The doping agent erythropoietin could attenuate severe progression of COVID-19
At the end of March, a patient with severe Covid-19 symptoms was admitted to an Iranian hospital. Because the patient also had poor blood values, the doctors prescribed the haematopoietic growth factor Epo. Seven days after the start of treatment, the patient was able to leave the hospital. Another indication of the protective role of Epo in the case of Covid-19 comes from South America, where severe illness is rarer in higher-lying regions than…
Research team led by University of Göttingen investigates flower strips, organic farming and small crop fields
Sowing strips of wildflowers along conventional cereal fields and the increased density of flowers in organic farming encourage bumblebees as well as solitary wild bees and hoverflies. Bumblebee colonies benefit from flower strips along small fields, but in organic farming, they benefit from large fields. This research was carried out by agroecologists from the University of Göttingen in a comparison of different farming systems and landscape…
University of Göttingen research team investigates the influence of insect and microalgae feeds on meat quality
Worldwide there is a growing demand for animal products for human nutrition, despite vegan and vegetarian diets becoming more popular in Western countries. Changing diets necessitate a substantial amount of protein as an input for animal production. Future protein feedstuffs will need to become independent of arable land in order to avoid further land use changes, such as deforestation. The cultivation of insects as well as microalgae are…
A research team headed by Gražvydas Lukinavičius at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen has now succeeded to improve fluorescent dyes for research. By combining the new dyes with 3D STED microscopy, the scientists achieved to resolve tiny structures in living cells such as microtubules with a diameter of about 23 nanometers.
Many scientific studies rely on fluorescent probes for highlighting specific structures in cells. For a long time, immunofluorescence of fixed cells and tissues dominated the field of fluorescence microscopy leading to the development of compatible fluorescent dyes. Recently, however, more attention is directed towards imaging of living cells. This imposes new restrictions on fluorescent dyes – they have to be cell-permeable and should not…
In the convection zone of the star, the plasma currents make a huge turnover that lasts about 22 years
Solar activity fluctuates in a rhythm of about eleven years, which is reflected among other things in the frequency of sunspots. A complete magnetic period lasts 22 years. Scientists have long been puzzling over what causes this cycle. It must be related to the conditions beneath the "skin" of our star: A layer of hot plasma - electrically-conductive gas - extends from the surface to 200,000 kilometers below. The plasma within this convection…
International researchers led by University of Göttingen find multiple planet system orbiting Gliese 887
The nearest exoplanets to us provide the best opportunities for detailed study, including searching for evidence of life outside the Solar System. In research led by the University of Göttingen, the RedDots team of astronomers has detected a system of super-Earth planets orbiting the nearby star Gliese 887, the brightest1 red dwarf star in the sky. Super-Earths are planets which have a mass higher than the Earth’s but substantially below those of…
The Japanese solar mission is scheduled to launch into space in the mid-2020s. MPS has contributed decisively to the design of the mission.
The Japanese space agency JAXA has officially approved the space mission Solar-C. The research satellite is scheduled to lift off in the mid-2020s and study the Sun with a high-resolution spectrometer, which analyzes extremely energetic ultraviolet light. In this way, Solar-C will provide the most accurate measurement data from the hot, outer layers of the Sun to date. The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany has been…
Karl Bertram and Chun So of the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry and Fabian Jan Schwarzendahl at the MPI for Dynamics and Self-Organization were awarded the prestigious Otto Hahn Medal. Chun So also receives the Otto Hahn Award. (in German)
Research team with Göttingen participation develops concepts to promote biodiversity
Forests, especially in the tropics, are home to the world's greatest biodiversity, but are threatened by increasing land use. An international research team with participation of the University of Göttingen has investigated how high the proportion of forest in cultivated landscapes must be in order to protect the greatest number of animal and plant species that depend on this habitat. The proportion of forest must be at least 40 percent: around…