Cosmic Mass Monsters Clear the Way: Black Holes Help With Star Birth
The cosmic mass monsters clear the way for the formation of new suns in satellite galaxies. Research combining systematic observations with cosmological simulations has found…
Max Planck Institute
Surprise Discovery of African “Climate Seesaw” Changes View of Human Evolution
While it is widely accepted that climate change drove the evolution of our species in Africa, the exact character of that climate change and its…
Tiny Marine “Snowflakes” Play a Big Role in the Sea
New findings from scientists of Bremen will aid in the further development of biogeochemical models that include the marine nitrogen cycle. In the deep waters…
Roots of Animal Domestication in Central Asia Stretch Back at Least 8,000 Years
Early Dispersal of Neolithic Domesticated Sheep Into the Heart of Central Asia Along the Tian Shan and Alay mountain ranges of Central Asia, sheep and…
New Research Shows Face Masks Effectively Limit COVID-19 Transmission
New study shows how face masks reduce the effective reproduction number of COVID-19, and why their efficacy varies between different environments under virus-limited and virus-rich…
Clocking Electron Movements Inside an Atom – Shutter Speed of a Millionth of a Billionth of a Second
Scientists dramatically enhance the achievable resolution at free-electron lasers with a new technique. Hard X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) have delivered intense, ultrashort X-ray pulses for…
Strange Isotopes: Scientists Explain a Mysterious Methane Isotope Paradox of the Seafloor
Why methane carbon isotopes in the deep sea behave so differently than expected. Deep down in the seafloor anaerobic microbes consume large amounts of methane,…
Horseradish Flea Beetle: Protected With the Chemical Weapons of Its Food Plant
Researchers elucidate how the insect regulates the accumulation of plant toxins via special transporters. When horseradish flea beetles feed on their host plants, they…
Awake Next-Generation Acceleration Particle Experiment Brings Proton Bunches Into Sync
Important milestone for next-generation acceleration experiment. The future of particle acceleration has begun. Awake is a promising concept for a completely new method with which…
Africa’s Oldest Human Burial Site Uncovered: 78,000-Year-Old Remains Reveal How Stone Age Populations Interacted With the Dead
Dating to 78,000 years ago, the burial was found by archaeologists in Panga ya Saidi, a cave site on the Kenyan coast. Despite being home…
Toward Improved Solar Cells With Active Learning
How can I prepare myself for something I do not yet know? Scientists from the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin and from the Technical University…
Nuclear DNA From Cave Sediments Helps Unlock Ancient Human History
For the first time, scientists have succeeded in extracting and analyzing Neandertal chromosomal DNA preserved in cave sediments. The field of ancient DNA has revealed…
Mammals Evolved Big Brains After Big Disasters (Mass Extinction and Climate Change)
Largest study of its kind reveals the way relative brain size of mammals changed over the last 150 million years. Scientists from Stony Brook University…
Long Live Superconductivity! Short Flashes of Laser Light With Sustaining Impact
Superconductivity – the ability of a material to transmit an electric current without loss – is a quantum effect that, despite years of research, is…
Corona Inhibitors: X-ray Screening Identifies Promising Drugs for Treatment of COVID-19
Extensive X-ray screening reveals binding to key virus protein. A team of researchers, including scientists from the MPSD, has identified several candidates for drugs against…
Oldest Modern Human Genome Reconstructed Using DNA From 45,000-Year-Old Skull
The fossil skull of a woman in Czechia has provided the oldest modern human genome yet reconstructed, representing a population that formed before the ancestors…
Chest-Beating Gorillas Don’t Bluff: Honest Signal of True Body Size
The chest beats given by adult male gorillas reliably indicate their body size. Gorillas usually stand bipedally and rapidly beat their chests with cupped hands…
Asdex Upgrade: Paving the Way for a Fusion Power Plant
On March 21, 1991, the Asdex Upgrade experimental facility at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching generated the first plasma. For 30…