The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is spreading at an alarming rate. It could soon replace the Delta variant, which at present dominates globally. However, little is known about whether currently available vaccines and drugs will be effective against the Omicron variant. To assess the efficiency of vaccines and therapeutic antibodies, a research team led by Stefan Pöhlmann and Markus Hoffmann from the German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for…

Earth and Mars were formed from material that largely originated in the inner Solar System; only a few percent of the building blocks of these two planets originated beyond Jupiter's orbit. A group of researchers led by the University of Münster (Germany) reports these findings today in the journal “Science Advances”. They present the most comprehensive comparison to date of the isotopic composition of Earth, Mars, and pristine building material…

An interdisciplinary research team from the University of Göttingen and Hannover Medical School (MHH) has detected significant changes in the heart muscle tissue of people who died from Covid-19. Damage to lung tissue has been the research focus in this area for some time and has now been thoroughly investigated. The current study underpins the involvement of the heart in Covid-19 at the microscopic level for the first time by imaging and…

The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Göttingen (Germany) has a new director. Cosmochemist and meteorite researcher Prof. Dr. Thorsten Kleine will continue the institute’s long tradition of planetary, cometary, and asteroid research and its contributions to international space missions, but will also add new research methods. He will carry out high-precision laboratory studies of meteorites as well as terrestrial and lunar…

Since 2014, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS) in Göttingen have been studying the behavior of tiny cloud droplets at the Schneefernerhaus Environmental Research Station (UFS). Their aim is to significantly improve the prediction of precipitation. The ‘Seesaw’ - a device equipped with the latest technology that records the drops three-dimensionally – was installed for this purpose. The results of the…

Three metres are not enough to ensure protection. Even at that distance, it takes less than five minutes for an unvaccinated person standing in the breath of a person with Covid-19 to become infected with almost 100 percent certainty. That's the bad news. The good news is that if both are wearing well-fitting medical or, even better, FFP2 masks, the risk drops dramatically. In a comprehensive study, a team from the Max Planck Institute for…

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. There is a tiny group of these algae still living that are most distantly related to land plants. A…

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has funded a new Collaborative Research Centre for the University of Göttingen and its partners at the Göttingen Campus. The title is "Cognition of Interaction" and the award is worth around 12.5 million euros. Twenty-four scientists from the fields of neuroscience, behavioral and cognitive biology, psychology and data science will investigate the special demands that social interactions place on our cognitive…

After its first orbits around the Sun, ESA's Solar Orbiter spacecraft returns to within just 460 kilometers of Earth next Saturday, November 27. The flyby will change the spacecraft's trajectory and velocity allowing Solar Orbiter to fly within a distance of only 50 million kilometers of the Sun during its next orbit. The maneuver also marks an important mission milestone: the commissioning of the scientific instruments is complete; now the…

Armita Nourmohammad, Max Planck Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS) and Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Washington received the Early Career Award from the American Physical Society (APS), Division of Biological Physics. The annual award recognizes outstanding and sustained contributions by an early-career researcher to biological physics. In choosing Armita Nourmohammad…