Bacteria and other unicellular organisms developed sophisticated ways to actively navigate their way, despite being comparably simple structures. To reveal these mechanisms, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) used oil droplets as a model for biological microswimmers. Corinna Maass, group leader at the MPI-DS and Associate Professor at the University of Twente, together with her colleagues,…

The Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP), a panel of the International Science Council (ICS), has honored Dr. Theodosios Chatzistergos of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) with this year's Distinguished Young Scientist Award. With this award, the Committee recognizes the young researcher's contributions to the reconstruction of past solar activity and variability. Among other things, Dr. Chatzistergos…

Researchers from the University of Göttingen are among the first in the world to have analysed rock samples from the asteroid Ryugu. Asteroids are remnants from the very beginnings of our solar system and, at around 4.6 billion years old, are about as old as the solar system itself.  This means they provide a unique insight into the origins of the planets. The data from the Göttingen team show that Ryugu belongs to a special class of asteroids –…

Close friendships among males are rare in the animal kingdom, as males usually compete for rank and access to females. However, male friendships can also be beneficial for male reproduction, as friends can provide support in climbing the rank ladder or defending females from other males. Scientists from the German Primate Center (DPZ) - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research - investigated the benefits of male friendships in wild Guinea baboons…

The 15th Gerhard Ertl Lecture Award goes to Prof. Dr. Alec M. Wodtke, Director at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences and Professor at the Institute for Physical Chemistry at the University of Göttingen. The Award Committee, comprised of jurors Prof. Dr. Joachim Sauer (HU Berlin), Prof. Dr. Matthias Drieß (TU Berlin), Prof. Dr. Eckart Rühl (FU Berlin), as well as the Fritz-Haber-Institut’s Board of Directors and Gerhard…

Prof. Dr. med. Tobias Moser, Direktor des Instituts für Auditorische Neurowissenschaften der Universitätsmedizin Göttingen (UMG), hat einen weiteren Advanced Grant des Europäischen Forschungsrats (ERC) erhalten. Der ERC fördert sein Forschungsvorhaben zur Entschlüsselung der Lautstärke-Verarbeitung in der Hörschnecke („DynaHear“) für fünf Jahre mit insgesamt 2,5 Millionen Euro. „‘DynaHear‘ verspricht, unser Verständnis zur neuronalen Kodierung…

According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) more than five percent of the world's population is affected by hearing loss and deafness, which is mostly caused by loss of hair cells in the ear. For future treatment, researchers are focusing on optogenetics, a genetic engineering method that they hope will make auditory nerve cells in patients sensitive to light. The optical cochlear implants developed at the Göttingen Campus,…

The Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the world. It has also revealed many new questions. The fact that a vaccine can be developed, produced and distributed already during a global health crisis is a completely new phenomenon. But what principles should be used to distribute that vaccine? Insufficient production and inadequate distribution capacities around the world have pushed this question to the fore. A research team from the…

Tropical peatlands are one of the most efficient carbon sinks. The flipside is that they can become massive emitters of carbon if they are damaged, for instance by land use change, degradation or fire. This can lead to faster climate warming. In research led by the University of Göttingen, researchers show how peatland in the coastal areas in Sumatra and Borneo in Indonesia developed over thousands of years and how climate and sea level…

After two years in space, ESA's spacecraft Solar Orbiter, to which NASA is also contributing, is heading for the best vantage point of its flight path so far. Next Saturday, March 26, only about 48 million kilometers will separate the probe from the Sun. That is less than a third of the distance between Earth and Sun. In the days around the so-called perihelion passage, the space probe is expected to record its most valuable data to date; the…