Scientists Reveal Homo Sapiens’ Secret of Success
A new study argues that the greatest defining feature of our species is not ‘symbolism’ or dramatic cognitive change, but rather its unique ecological position…
Max Planck Institute
Like a Huge Spiral, the Milky Way Floats in Space
For thousands of years, people have been puzzling over the milky strip that extends across the entire firmament. In the modern era, Galileo Galilei discovered…
Researchers Discover Self-Healing Mechanism in Seed Pods
An international team of researchers including members of the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces has discovered a self-sealing mechanism in the seed pods…
VLT Captures First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet PDS 70b
SPHERE, a planet-hunting instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, has captured the first confirmed image of a planet caught in the act of forming in…
Air Pollution Significantly Increases Mortality in Low-Income Countries
In 2015, around 4.5 million people died prematurely from diseases attributed to ambient air pollution, including 237,000 children under the age of five from respiratory…
Astronomers Investigate Supermassive Black Hole Radio Jet In Unprecedented Detail
In the centre of the galaxy OJ 287, there is one active, super-mass-rich black hole. An international research team led by Silke Britzen of the…
Scientists Are On The Path To Making An Artificial Cell
With the integration of a rudimentary metabolic function into a tiny droplet, a step has been made towards advancing the borders of life. It is…
Scientists Discover Why People Love Foods Rich in Fats and Carbohydrates
French fries, cream cake, chips and candy bars make you fat and unhealthy. Still, we cannot keep our hands off it. Scientists at the Max…
Researchers Reveal Diabetes Results From Breakdown of Epigenetic Control
Diabetes affects more than 400 million individuals worldwide. In what is becoming a paradigm shift, researchers have begun to find that the disease may result…
Hepatitis B Was Circulating in Europe 7,000 Years Ago
An international team of scientists led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Kiel has…
Scientists Discover Gigantic Solar Rossby Waves on the Sun
A team of scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the University of Göttingen has discovered gigantic swirls on the…
Cave Site Reveals 78,000-Year-Old Record of Stone Age Innovation
The first substantial cave record from coastal Kenya ranges from the Middle Stone Age to the Iron Age, showing gradual changes in cultural, technological and…
Bacterium Thioglobus Perditus Gains Energy from Sulfur
SUP05 bacteria are often found in places where there is really no basis for life for them. Researchers in Bremen have now discovered that they…
Turtle and Lizard Brains Shed Light on Human Brain Evolution
Our cerebral cortex, a sheet of neurons, connections and circuits, comprises “ancient” regions such as the hippocampus and “new” areas such as the six-layered “neocortex”,…
Scientists Discover Oldest Directly Dated Homo Sapiens Fossil Outside of Africa
The first Homo sapiens fossil discovery from Saudi Arabia dates to 90,000 years ago during a time when the region’s deserts were replaced by grasslands….
Scientists Demonstrate Light Controlled Current Transport by Charged Atoms
Light controlled current transport by charged atoms, now demonstrated for the first time, makes new applications conceivable. Light makes some materials conductive in a previously…
The Culturally Co-opted Brain: How Reading Changes the Way We Think
From a research perspective, reading and writing is a fascinating phenomenon. After all, the first writing systems date back less than 6,000 years – the…
Stabilized Supralinear Network – Software with Smarts
A computer-aided network shows how ion channels in the membrane of neurons are able to control such wide-ranging abilities as short-term memory and brain waves….