Professor Lutz Ackermann from the University of Göttingen has been awarded a prize in the "Project of the Century" competition of the Werner Siemens Foundation (WSS). Ackermann's team and five others receive a prize of over one million euros each for their ideas. The award ceremony took place on Friday 16 June 2023 in Lucerne. In addition, the six teams will get the opportunity to apply to be a WSS research centre which would enable them to…

The Sun’s strong, dynamic magnetic field can catapult huge jets of plasma known as coronal mass ejections out into the Solar System. Sometimes these hit Earth, where they can knock out power grids and damage satellites. Scientists don’t fully understand how magnetic fields are generated and amplified inside the Sun, but a study recently published in Nature Astronomy by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany…

Researchers from 24 countries have analyzed the genomes of 809 individuals from 233 primate species, generating the most complete catalog of genomic information about our closest relatives to date. The project, which consists of a series of studies in which researchers from the German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research (DPZ) were also involved, provides new insights into the evolution of primates, including humans, and their…

Ruminants like cows have developed an unusual way of digesting their food: they ingest plants, give them a rough chewing and then swallow the half-chewed mash before regurgitating it repeatedly and continuing to chew. This has clear advantages, as a research team including the University of Göttingen has shown: the regurgitated mushy food contains much less hard grit, sand and dust than the food that they first ingested. This protects the teeth…

The Sponsorship Association of the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research awards the PhD Prize to outstanding doctoral theses in which studies on monkeys play a central role. The prize is endowed with 1000 euros and is supported by the MacLean-Erkelenz Foundation. This year's winner is neuroscientist Zurna Ahmed. She is investigating how movements are planned in the brain. For her project, she developed a novel…

Stars that contain comparatively large amounts of heavy elements provide less favorable conditions for the emergence of complex life than metal-poor stars, as scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Solar System Research and for Chemistry as well as from the University of Göttingen have now found. The team showed how the metallicity of a star is connected to the ability of its planets to surround themselves with a protective ozone layer.…

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Prof. Dr. Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) one of the prestigious ERC Advanced Grants. Over the next five years, the funding, totaling 2.5 million euros, will make it possible to fundamentally advance and complete our picture of the Sun's magnetic field. To this end, Solanki is relying on a new generation of space missions and solar observatories that are…

The first brains in the world of animals marked a decisive step in evolution. Living beings could now process information and identify opportunities as well as dangers. But how did the first brains evolve and what form did they take? Fred Wolf from the University of Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization together with Pawel Burkhardt from the Michael Sars Centre at the University of Bergen, Norway, will receive…

Branching marine worms are extremely rare: bizarre creatures with one head but a body that branches repeatedly into multiple posterior ends. Only three such species are known, and one of these worm species has just been awarded a place in the top-ten marine species from 2022 by the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). Named Ramisyllis kingghidorahi after King Ghidorah, Godzilla’s monster enemy, the new species was first described by an…

Drama or comedy? Couples who want to spend Sunday evenings together in front of the TV but like different movie genres face this question again every weekend. Do they agree on a movie and watch it together? Or does each one watch "their" favorite movie alone? And when they watch TV together, do they take turns picking? Researchers at the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Göttingen have studied how monkeys and…