Synapses, the communication sites between nerve cells, are key to the function of the neural system and have been extensively studied over the last decades. Especially synaptic vesicles, which store, transport and release messenger substances (neurotransmitters) and are thus crucial to synaptic transmission, have been described in great detail. During information transmission between nerve cells, synaptic vesicles release neurotransmitter by…

The Max Planck Institutes (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry and for Experimental Medicine will merge. The decision-making bodies of the Max Planck Society (MPS) approved the plan submitted by the two institutes on March 12. Formally, both institutions will be closed and a new MPI will be founded, keeping the existing Göttingen sites in Hermann-Rein-Straße and at Faßberg. The future institute will bring together natural science and basic medical…

Corporate strategies should be as unique as possible, in fact highly specific to each individual company. This enables companies to compete successfully in the long term. However, the capital market and others, including analysts, often react negatively to the idea of unique strategies. The reason is that deviating from typical industry standards makes them more complex to evaluate. This regularly discourages companies from focusing on unique…

For their outstanding doctoral theses in the fields of infection research and primate biology, the two young scientists Prerna Arora and Delphine De Moor have received the PhD Thesis Award of 500 euros each from the Sponsorship Society of the German Primate Center ("Förderkreis des Deutschen Primatenzentrums e.V.). Prerna Arora, who completed her doctorate in the Infection Biology Unit at the DPZ, was honored for developing a new therapeutic…

How much do people have to pay for a travel permit to another country? A research team from Göttingen, Paris, Pisa and Florence has investigated the costs around the world. What they found revealed a picture of great inequality. People from poorer countries often pay many times what Europeans would pay. The results have been published in the journal Political Geography. Dr Emanuel Deutschmann from the Institute of Sociology at the University of…

If travel to distant stars within an individual’s lifetime is going to be possible, a means of faster-than-light propulsion will have to be found. To date, even recent research about superluminal (faster-than-light) transport based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity would require vast amounts of hypothetical particles and states of matter that have “exotic” physical properties such as negative energy density. This type of matter either…

In the past two and a half decades, astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets made of gas, ice and rock. Only a few of them are Earth-like. Studying their atmospheres with the instruments currently available is a major challenge. The CARMENES consortium with participation of the University of Göttingen has now discovered a hot super-Earth orbiting the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 486. Despite its short distance from the parent star, the…

There are no therapeutics available that have been developed for COVID-19 treatment. Repurposing of already available medication for COVID-19 therapy is an attractive option to shorten the road to treatment development. The drug Camostat could be suitable. Camostat exerts antiviral activity by blocking the protease TMPRSS2, which is used by SARS-CoV-2 for entry into cells. However, it was previously unknown whether SARS-CoV-2 can use…

Understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying brain “plasticity”(how the brain can learn, develop and reorganise itself) is crucial for explaining many illnesses and conditions. Neurocientists from the University of Göttingen and University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) have now managed to repeatedly image synapses, the tiny contact sites between neurons, in awake adult mice. They are the first to discover that adult neurons in…

It is generally accepted that the earliest life forms used small organic molecules as building materials and energy sources. However, the existence of such components in early habitats on Earth had not been proven to date. Research at the University of Göttingen has now detected organic molecules and gases trapped in 3.5 billion-year-old rocks. It is likely that solutions from archaic hydrothermal vents contained essential components that formed…