The atmosphere of Mars - and the question whether life might have been possible there once - has been a burning issue in science for many years. While the existence of large bodies of water on early Mars is undisputed, it is still unclear whether life there was ever possible. In particular, the prevalent pH value in earlier times has yet to be researched. The pH value is an important factor that describes the amount of acid and alkali in a…

Vegetable oil biofuels are increasingly being used as an alternative to fossil fuels despite the growing controversy regarding their sustainability. In a new study led by the University of Göttingen, researchers investigated the effect of palm-oil biodiesel on greenhouse gases for the entire life cycle. The researchers found that using palm oil from first rotation plantations where forests had been cleared to make way for palms actually leads to…

Our physical and psychological condition is decisive for our well-being. Humans who have a stable network of friends and relatives are therefor generally happier and healthier than others. Monkeys consolidate their relationships by social grooming. This physical contact strengthens social bonds and minimizes stress and conflict. The downside: Physical contact is the ideal basis for the spread of pathogens. One strategy to stop their transmission…

In the first ten months since starting its scientific operations in February 2019, InSight’s seismometer SEIS has detected a total of 174 probable Martian quakes, on average a bit more than one quake every two days. The data published today by researchers including the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany provide the first comprehensive proof that Mars, like Earth and Moon, is seismically active. In terms of the quakes’…

The magnetotactic bacterium Magnetococcus marinus swims with the help of two bundles of flagella, which are thread-like structures. The bacterial cells also possess a sort of intracellular “compass needle”, meaning that their movements can be controlled using a magnetic field. This means they can be used as a biological model for microrobots. An international team from the University of Göttingen, the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and…

A new magnetic resonance method can make specific areas of molecules visible while suppressing disturbing background signals during the measurement. The method, developed by Stefan Glöggler and his team at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry, shall in future also be used for medical diagnostics using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Nuclear magnetic resonance (short: NMR) has a massive impact on our today’s world. MRI, for…

In a brand-new paper that appeared in Nature Physics, a collaboration of the group of David Zwicker at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen and the group of Eric Dufresne at ETH Zürich demonstrate some surprising effects of polymer networks on droplet growth. This work may provide new avenues for manufacturing micropatterns and it may shed light on how membrane-less organelles are controlled inside cells. In…

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft has been successfully launched on its journey to the Sun. At 5.03 a.m. Central European Time, the probe took off today from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral (USA) on board an Atlas V 411 rocket. A little over an hour later, at about 6.25 a.m., the decisive signal was received: the two solar panels were successfully unfolded; the expedition to the Sun has begun. Over the course of the next seven years, Solar…

On 10 February, the Solar Orbiter solar mission is scheduled to launch into space. Equipped with 10 scientific instruments, the probe of the European Space Agency (ESA) will in the coming years venture to a distance of only 42 million km from the Sun. This is only a little more than one quarter of the distance between the Sun and the Earth. Solar Orbiter will also leave the orbital plane of the Earth and investigate the poles of the Sun for the…

Johannes Geiss began his unprecedented scientific career at the University of Göttingen, where he received his doctorate in the early 1950s as a student of the later Nobel laureate Wolfgang Paul. After research stays at the University of Bern, the University of Chicago, and the University of Miami, he accepted a call to the University of Bern in 1960, where he established a laboratory for extraterrestrial research and operated it until his…