Forces that are exerted by a living cell or a microorganism are tiny and often not larger than a few nanonewtons. For comparison, one nanonewton is the weight of one part in a billion of a typical chocolate bar. Yet, for biological cells and microbes, these forces are enough to allow cells to stick to a surface or microbes to propel themselves towards nutrients. Scientists from Finland and Germany now present a highly adaptable technique, called…

The agricultural scientist Professor Matin Qaim from the University of Göttingen was recently elected Fellow of the American Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA). The fellowship is the highest US American recognition in agricultural economics for outstanding and continuous scientific achievements. The AAEA has been honouring fellows since 1957. Qaim is the first German agricultural economist to receive this award. The AAEA honours…

Three innovative 20-metre-long rotor blades that were developed within the context of the SmartBlades2 project will be assessed under natural weather and wind conditions in Boulder, Colorado (USA) over the next four months. For this purpose, the rotor blades, which were designed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems (IWES) and built by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), have been…

The Göttingen scientists Professor Ayelet Shachar from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and Dr Melina Schuh from the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry have been awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2019 - the most important research award in Germany. We congratulate them on this great success. More information