Less than one percent of scientific literature on primates evaluates the effectiveness of interventions for the conservation of primates. This is the result of a new study compiled by a team of world-renowned experts from 21 countries, including researchers from the German Primate Centre (DPZ) in Göttingen, led by researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary…

Antibiotics are among the most important discoveries of modern medicine and have saved millions of lives since the discovery of penicillin almost 100 years ago. Many diseases caused by bacterial infections – such as pneumonia, meningitis or septicaemia – are successfully treated with antibiotics. However, bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics which then leaves doctors struggling to find effective treatments. Particularly problematic are…

Germany’s Scientific Advisory Board for Agricultural Policy, Food and Consumer Health Protection (WBAE), an interdisciplinary body that advises the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture on a voluntary basis about policy development, today presents its new report “Promoting more sustainable food consumption: Developing an integrated food policy and creating fair food environments” to Federal Minister Julia Klöckner in Bonn. In it, the WBAE…

Physicists at the University of Göttingen, together with pathologists and lung specialists at the Medical University of Hannover, have developed a three-dimensional imaging technique that enables high resolution and three-dimensional representation of damaged lung tissue following severe Covid-19. Using a special X-ray microscopy technique, they were able to image changes caused by the coronavirus in the structure of alveoli (the tiny air sacs in…

Prof. Dr. Hui Tian, who leads a partner group of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) at Peking University in China, has received this year's Karen Harvey Prize of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). The AAS thus honors Tian's contributions to the understanding of small-scale and dynamic processes in the solar atmosphere. Processes of this kind may hold the key to understanding how the Sun…

The sensor JEI (Jovian Electron and Ion Sensor), which will from 2029 onwards study the distribution of high-energetic electrons and ions in the Jovian system on board ESA's JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer) spacecraft, has been completed. JUICE is scheduled to be launched in 2022, but JEI's journey has already begun. Yesterday, the sensor, which has been developed, built, and tested at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in…

In an initial application of this powerful technique to cell biology, researchers led by Stefan Hell and Stefan Jakobs have now optically dissected the distribution of individual proteins in a ~ 20-nanometer-sized protein cluster within a cellular organelle in 3D using multiple colors. MINFLUX nanoscopy thus proves to be an extremely powerful tool to find out if and how proteins group inside the cell, at the length scale of the proteins…

Until a million years ago, dwarf planet Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt, was the scene of cryovolcanic eruptions: below the Occator Crater, subsurface brine pushed upward; the water evaporated, leaving behind bright, salty deposits. This process is probably still ongoing. A team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany comes to these conclusions after evaluating high-resolution camera…

When several hundred thousand refugees came to Germany within a short period of time five years ago, the responsible local administrations were put to the test. That meant a challenge for the state with its social systems and the administration, but by no means excessive demands. Rather, the local administration basically demonstrated its efficiency in 2015/16. However, in the course of admission by the municipalities, those seeking protection…

A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen has simulated possible courses of the corona pandemic. The calculations show that regional measures can keep the epidemic under control with substantially fewer restrictions than nationally imposed lockdowns if the number of cross-regional infections is low enough. However, regional thresholds for local restrictions should be lower than those…