Every pandemic is different. Nevertheless, certain commonalities can be identified across all pandemics. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS), together with an interdisciplinary team of experts, have compiled ten fundamental mechanisms that can be used to describe the development of pandemics. The study brings together insights from epidemiology, sociology, mathematics, physics, political science,…

Researchers from the U.S. National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory (NSF NSO), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, and the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) in the USA have made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of solar physics. New images of the Sun’s surface taken with the world’s largest solar telescope, the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, built and operated by the NSO in Hawaii, along…

One of the most famous and intriguing results of quantum mechanics is the finding that fundamental particles, such as electrons, cannot be pinned down to one single location. Instead, a particle is described by its “wavefunction”, which allows researchers to derive probability distributions – a sort of mathematical map that shows the possibilities – of fundamental properties such as its position and momentum. In particular, the electron…

Ebolaviruses are among the most dangerous known human pathogens. Three ebolavirus species have repeatedly caused major disease outbreaks on the African continent. Most outbreaks have been caused by Zaire ebolavirus. Vaccines and therapeutics are available for this virus species. In contrast, no therapeutics or vaccines are currently available against Bundibugyo ebolavirus, which is responsible for the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic…

Constantin Pape has been conducting research as a junior professor at the University of Göttingen since 2022, focusing on image processing methods in biology and medicine. He analyzes cells, tissues, organs, and entire organisms with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), using fluorescence and electron microscopy. With his new group at the MPI-NAT, Pape will expand his work to the molecular level and build a bridge between the University of…

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Prof. Dr. Laurent Gizon of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) and the Faculty of Physics at the University of Göttingen one of its prestigious ERC Advanced Grants. Over the next five years, the funding of 2.5 million euros will support the project INSIDE ("Mapping Magnetic Fields in the Solar Interior"), which seeks to answer one of the most important unresolved questions in…

Birgit Abels, Professor of Cultural Musicology at the University of Göttingen, has been awarded an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC has funded her project “Vibrant Environmentality: Sonic Agentivity in the Anthropocene” (VibE) with around 2.6 million euros over a period of five years. This award will allow Abels and her team to investigate how people co-create their world through interaction with sound and how making…

For his doctoral thesis, Alexander Rotsch investigated a molecular biological “criminal case”: the theft of mRNA caps by influenza viruses. Caps mark mRNAs as cell-derived molecules and thus as harmless. If a cap is missing, the immune system recognizes the mRNA as foreign and potentially harmful – and triggers an antiviral response that degrades the RNA. The caps are therefore essential for the protection of mRNA molecules. To camouflage itself…

Humans and other primates possess a highly developed and hierarchically organized visual processing system in the brain. The conscious processing of visual information begins in the primary visual cortex. Here, features such as edges, lines, motion, and color are detected and ultimately relayed to higher-level areas such as the lateral prefrontal cortex. This brain region plays a key role in working memory, which is also essential for processing…

Inside cells, certain functions are fulfilled by locally adjusting the molecular composition. This condensation of material results in the formation of dense droplets which can re-arrange dynamically. For this, particularly the interaction between such dense regions determines the shaping of condensates. Scientists from the department of Living Matter Physics at the MPI-DS recently developed a model that can describe such phase separation…