The enforced "social distancing" in Corona times reminds us of the role social life plays for us. The same applies to our closest relatives, the non-human primates. But how do primates control their social relationships? What do they pay attention to, what significance do emotions have, which brain processes control interactions, and how are social decisions made? Since 2015, the Leibniz-WissenschaftsCampus Primate Cognition has been addressing…

Researchers at the University of Göttingen conducted a consumer survey across Germany starting in mid-April to find out how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting shopping, eating and cooking behaviour and just how crisis-proof people think the food system is. The survey responses from the first phase of collection show that the fear of rising food prices was high at the beginning of the pandemic. In addition, people shopped less frequently and…

Since the beginning of March, public life in Germany has been severely restricted due to the corona pandemic. Following the encouraging decline in the number of new cases of COVID-19, the debate on the effectiveness of interventions taken to date and on further relaxation of the restrictions is meanwhile gaining momentum. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS) and the University of Göttingen have now…

Proteins, the microscopic “workhorses” that perform all the functions essential to life, are team players: in order to do their job, they often need to assemble into precise structures called protein complexes. These complexes, however, can be dynamic and short-lived, with proteins coming together but disbanding soon after. In a new paper published in PNAS, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen,…

A team of researchers at the University of Göttingen has developed an innovative software program for the simulation of breeding programmes. The "Modular Breeding Program Simulator" (MoBPS) enables the simulation of highly complex breeding programmes in animal and plant breeding and is designed to assist breeders in their everyday decisions. Furthermore, the program is intended to be a cornerstone for further studies in breeding research in…

When we find something particularly beautiful or impressive, we literally get big eyes: Our pupils dilate. The pupil controls how much light enters the eye and falls on the retina. When there is a lot of light, the pupil contracts; when there is little light, it opens again. Neuroscientists from the German Primate Center (DPZ) - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research and the European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen have now found out in a study…

Einen Handlungspfad zur Früherkennung und Behandlung von schweren Verläufen bei COVID-19 Infektionen hat ein Expertenteam der Universitätsmedizin Göttingen (UMG) entwickelt. Ein einfacher Urintest soll dem ärztlichen Fachpersonal helfen, schon früher Warnzeichen für einen bevorstehenden schweren Verlauf der COVID-19 Erkrankung zu erkennen. Anhand weniger Parameter kann so, noch Tage, bevor Lunge und andere Organe schwer versagen, mit der…

Germany is looking for a way out of the Covid-19 epidemic. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the Helmholtz Association, the Leibniz Association, and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft have jointly published a statement outlining various paths through the corona epidemic based on model calculations. Viola Priesemann, who heads a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, is co-author of this position paper. Her team has…

The SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infects lung cells and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The viral spike protein mediates entry of the virus into host cells and harbors an unusual activation sequence. The Infection Biology Unit of the German Primate Center (DPZ) - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research has now shown that this sequence is cleaved by the cellular enzyme furin and that the cleavage is important for the infection of lung…