Cytomegalovirus (CMV) belongs to the large family of herpes viruses and is distributed worldwide. According to the Robert Koch Institute, around 70 percent of adults in Germany are CMV-positive. Like other herpes viruses, CMV remains in the body for a lifetime after initial infection. In immune-healthy individuals, the disease is unproblematic and manifests itself, if at all, only with cold symptoms. However, life-threatening complications can…

Approximately three months before embarking on its eight-year-long trek to the Jupiter system, ESA's spacecraft Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) faces a shorter - and much more terrestrial - journey in the coming weeks. In early February, the probe will set off from Toulouse (France) to its South American launch site in Kourou (French Guiana). Already today, JUICE was officially bid farewell at the Airbus premises in Toulouse - and with it the…

Structures made out of building blocks can shift their shape and autonomously self-organize to a new configuration. The physicists Saeed Osat and Ramin Golestanian from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) revealed this mechanism which may be used to actively manipulate molecular organization. A seed of the novel desired configuration is sufficient to trigger reorganization. This principle can be applied on to…

The "Nature Positive Universities" network was officially launched at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) in Montreal. More than 500 universities worldwide are involved in the network. Its partners want to systematically record and promote local biodiversity and implement resource-saving measures. The University of Göttingen is one of the founding members of the network, which is led by the United Nations Environment Programme…

Should I get another booster? And if so, which vaccine should be used? These questions are asked by many citizens who have received the basic immunization consisting of usually three individual vaccine doses. A team of researchers from the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Göttingen and Hannover Medical School studied antibody-mediated neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 variants following a fourth vaccination with…

Using observational data from the U.S. weather satellites GOES, a team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany has taken an important step toward unlocking one of the Sun’s most persevering secrets: How does our star launch the particles constituting the solar wind into space? The data provide a unique view of a key region in the solar corona to which researchers have had little access so far.…