News from the Göttingen Campus

Research led by Göttingen University studies carbon sinks and land-use in a mangrove-fringed lagoon in Java
The identification of natural carbon sinks and understanding how they work is critical if humans are to mitigate global climate change. Tropical coastal wetlands are considered important but, so far, there is little data to show the benefits. This study, led by the University of Göttingen with the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research in Bremen, and the University of Bremen showed that mangrove ecosystems need to be conserved and restored…
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Decision-making is controlled by different nerve cells
A penalty shootout at the Soccer World Cup. All eyes are on the best striker of the team. He should take the decisive shot, preferably past the goalkeeper. The striker must decide whether to aim for the right or left corner of the goal. In his brain, he plans both options before making the decision. If the goalkeeper's posture indicates that he will jump to the right at the decisive moment, the striker will develop a temporary preference for…
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Professor Thomas Kaufmann receives the prestigious German Research Award
The theologian Professor Thomas Kaufmann from the University of Göttingen has been awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2020 by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The DFG thus honours Kaufmann as one of the “most important international Reformation researchers”, according to the jury. Kaufmann’s research on the church history of the Reformation and the Denominational Age has changed our understanding of Martin Luther, the complex world…
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Tissue samples from Parkinson's and multisystem atrophy patients provide new insights into the structure of alpha-synuclein aggregates
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry and the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) have, for the first time, analyzed the fine structure of clumped alpha-synuclein proteins amplified from tissue samples from patients. Up to now, only artificially aggregated proteins had been investigated. The results show that the protein structures of clinical samples differ from artificial ones and are…
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In his doctoral thesis, Sudip Mandal investigated how special pressure waves help maintain temperatures of several million degrees in the outermost solar atmosphere.
The Department of Plasma Physics of the Association of Asian Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) has awarded Dr. Sudip Mandal of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) this year's U30 award. The AAPPS thus honors Mandal's contributions to the understanding of magneto-hydrodynamic waves in the corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun. In his doctoral thesis, which Mandal wrote at the Indian Institute for Astrophysics in Bangalore,…
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New study by University of Göttingen shows reduction of child undernutrition through supermarkets in Kenya
Hunger and undernutrition are still widespread problems in Africa. At the same time, overweight, obesity, and related chronic diseases are also on the rise. Recent research suggested that the growth of supermarkets contributes to obesity in Africa, because supermarkets tend to sell more processed foods than traditional markets. However, previous studies only looked at data from adults. New research shows that supermarkets are not linked to…
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Göttingen innovative project receives research funds from Leibniz Association
We humans – as well as monkeys, our nearest relatives – belong to the species with the highest cognitive abilities. At the same time we are very social and live in complex groups. Whether and how the cognitive abilities of our brain, such as perception, attention, decision-making and movement planning, is related to social interactions will be investigated by a team of scientists from Göttingen. The neuroscientists will receive a total of almost…
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Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization shows how the transport of nutrients in blood vessels can be controlled
The cell tissue of animals and plants is traversed by a complex vascular network, the blood vessels. The vascular network supplies cells in a tissue with nutrients. Animals can dilate individual capillaries to distribute nutrients differently in the vascular network. How do the capillaries have to be dilated to transport more nutrients to a specific area of the cell tissue? Does the change in nutrient availability for a cell strongly depend on…
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Research team discovers three supermassive black holes at the core of one galaxy
An international research team led by scientists from Göttingen and Potsdam proved for the first time that the galaxy NGC 6240 contains three supermassive black holes. The unique observations, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, show the black holes close to each other in the core of the galaxy. The study points to simultaneous merging processes during the formation of the largest galaxies in the universe. Massive Galaxies like…
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Review article by DPZ researchers discuss vocal communication in primates
Can they, or can't they? The question of whether non-human primates are able to fundamentally change their vocal output in relation to social or acoustic experiences from their environment has been on scientists' minds for decades. This process, known as "vocal learning", is a key approach to better understanding the evolution of human language. It has long been known that the vocal structures of different primate species are very similar within…
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