Understanding how biodiversity is shaped by multiple forces is crucial to protect rare species and unique ecosystems. Now an international research team led by the University of Göttingen, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), together with the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, has found that biodiversity is higher on older islands than on younger ones. Furthermore,…

The International Doctoral School (IDS) is being developed in cooperation with the University of Göttingen at Ilia State University in Tbilisi. Motivated by existing close cooperation, the partners want to enable a long-term, internationally oriented, structured education for Georgian doctoral students in Tbilisi. The pro-gram is supported by funds from the Volkswagen Foundation in Germany and Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of…

Tropical rainforests store large quantities of carbon dioxide, produce oxygen and provide habitats for many animal and plant species. If these ecosystems, which are so important for the global climate and biodiversity, are destroyed, they will recover very slowly, if at all. Scientists from the German Primate Center (DPZ) – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, the University Estadual Paulista, Brazil, and the University of Marburg have…

Healthcare in low- and middle-income countries is poorly prepared for the increasing number of high blood pressure (ie hypertension) disorders. More than two-thirds of all people affected go without treatment. Researchers led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the University of Göttingen and the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg have discovered this. The study appeared in The Lancet. The research team analysed the healthcare of…

“Okay, are you ready? Let's go,” Peter Iltis speaks into the little microphone standing on the table in front of him. Shortly thereafter, the sounds of a brass instrument are broadcasted via the intercom. But the music does not come from a recording studio or a stage, but out of a large medical device – an MRI system located two rooms away. The US American is a professor of kinesiology at Gordon College Wenham in Massachusetts (United States)…

How does rain develop? Will rain fall from a cloud, does it pass without rain, or even disolve? To help solve these question a team of five researchers led by Eberhard Bodenschatz, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS), were conducting in cloud measurements in the mid-Atlantic. On their journey from Montevideo in Uruguay to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria on the German research vessel Maria S. Merian they took…

Future aircraft need to be lighter and hence more fuel-efficient. For this reason, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) in Göttingen has now tested two wing designs as part of an EU project. These types of wings have hitherto been impossible to manufacture. Alongside more fuel-efficient engines and higher-aspect-ratio wings, weight reduction is regarded as the most important way to reduce fuel consumption…

Do differences in performance have an impact on the appetite for risk-taking in decision-makers? Economists at the University of Göttingen have addressed this question. The result of their study is that people's willingness to take risks increases as soon as they get a lower return than other people with whom they compare themselves. At the same time, decision-makers take lower risks if they get a higher return than their peers. The study was…

The German postal service “Deutsche Post” has dedicated a stamp to ESA’s comet mission Rosetta. The stamp with a value of 60 cents is officially released today as part of a special series of stamps devoted to topics related to space and astrophysics. In addition to the Rosetta spacecraft, the motif shows part of the surface of Rosetta’s comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko captured by the onboard scientific camera system OSIRIS. “Seeing the Rosetta…