Human language and communication skills are unique in the animal kingdom. How they developed in the course of evolution is being researched, among other things, using the alarm call system of vervet monkeys. East African vervet monkeys warn their conspecifics against predators with special alarm calls that mean "leopard", "eagle" or "snake". In a recently published study, scientists from the German Primate Center (DPZ) - Leibniz Institute for…

More and more processes are being automated and digitised. Self-driving delivery vehicles, such as forklifts, are finding their way into many areas - and companies are reporting potential time and cost savings. However, an interdisciplinary research team from the universities of Göttingen, Duisburg-Essen and Trier has observed that cooperation between humans and machines can work much better than just human or just robot teams alone. The results…

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), the Georg August University of Göttingen, and the Sonneberg Observatory have discovered 18 Earth-sized planets beyond the solar system. The worlds are so small that previous surveys had overlooked them. One of them is one of the smallest known so far; another one could offer conditions friendly to life. The researchers re-analyzed a part of the data from NASA's Kepler Space…

Virtual Reality and the virtual world are taking over more and more areas of our lives. This means that it is really important that virtual worlds are user-friendly and offer a high usability. Up until now, the only way to check this was to conduct manual tests with volunteers. This can be both time-consuming and cost-intensive. Dr Patrick Harms from the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Göttingen has developed a technology that…

Tropical forests are being deforested at an alarming rate to make way for agriculture and pastureland; the good news is that they can regrow naturally when the fields are abandoned. An international research team including participation from the University of Göttingen has found that regenerating wet and dry forests actually show opposite pathways. This implies a fundamental change in our understanding of how tropical forests change over time,…

Approximately every two Earth years, when it is summer on the southern hemisphere of Mars, a window opens: only there and only in this season can water vapor efficiently rise from the lower into the upper atmosphere. There, winds carry the rare gas to the North Pole. While part of the water vapor decays and escapes into space, the rest sinks back down near the poles. Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Max…

Similar to farm animals such as cattle or sheep, wild red deer grazing in open landscapes can also contribute to the conservation of protected habitats. This was demonstrated by a research team from the University of Göttingen and the Institute for Wildlife Biology of Göttingen and Dresden. The results were published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. The interdisciplinary research team, which involved the Divisions of Grassland Science and…

As part of the "Forum Wissen", Director Ramin Golestanian guided a group of 20 interested guests through the historic city cemetery in Göttingen. His theme: "Göttingen giants on whose shoulders we stand" - mathematicians and physicists whose science continues to influence research and teaching to this day. The tour begins with two real giants, Wilhelm Weber, one of the Göttingen Seven, and together with Carl-Friedrich Gauss the developers of one…

Animal health is essential for scientific research with nonhuman primates. Viral infections can threaten the health of these animals. In addition, some viruses that infect nonhuman primates also pose a threat to humans who come into contact with these animals. Similarly, some viruses that circulate in humans may also cause disease in nonhuman primates. In order to prevent viruses from spreading in the monkey colonies at DPZ, it is essential to…

Graphene is celebrated as an extraordinary material. It consists of pure carbon, only a single atomic layer thick. Nevertheless, it is extremely stable, strong, and even conductive. For electronics, however, graphene still has crucial disadvantages. It cannot be used as a semiconductor, since it has no bandgap. By sticking hydrogen atoms to graphene such a bandgap can be formed. Now researchers from Göttingen and Pasadena (USA) have produced an…