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…
Max Planck Institute
“Hoinga” Surprise – Debris of Stellar Explosion Found at Unusual Location
eROSITA space telescope finds largest supernova remnant ever discovered with X-rays. In the first all-sky survey by the eROSITA X-ray telescope onboard SRG, astronomers at…
Ancient Genetics Trace the Origin and Decline of the Legendary Scythians
Because of their interactions and conflicts with the major contemporaneous civilizations of Eurasia, the Scythians enjoy a legendary status in historiography and popular culture. The…
Unusual Material Features Spontaneous Superconducting Currents – Why It Superconducts at All Is Completely Unknown
Superconductivity is a complete loss of electrical resistance. Superconductors are not merely very good metals: it is a fundamentally different electronic state. In normal metals,…
Chimpanzees Without Borders: Researchers Uncover Recent Genetic Connectivity Between Chimpanzee Subspecies
A new large-scale study uncovers recent genetic connectivity between chimpanzee subspecies despite past isolation events. Researchers from the Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee (PanAf)…
New Low-Cost, Fast COVID-19 Coronavirus Test Developed – Doesn’t Need Unpleasant Nasal Swab
Researchers develop a low-cost and fast method to detect a COVID-19 infection from a pool of gargle lavage samples. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)…
Astronomers See Whirlwind of Dust and Pebbles Around Possible Exoplanet-in-the-Making
An international team of astronomers led by researchers from the Leiden University has discovered a whirlwind of dust and pebbles in orbit around a young…
“Unprecedented” New Form of Symbiosis Discovered
Energy-providing bacterial endosymbiont enables its unicellular eukaryotic host to breathe nitrate, demonstrating that unicellular eukaryotes may acquire endosymbionts to complement or replace functions of their…
See World’s First Video of a Space-Time Crystal
Periodic pattern consisting of magnons is formed at room temperature. A team of researchers has succeeded in creating a micrometer-sized space-time crystal consisting of magnons…
Archaeologists Discover Neanderthals and Homo sapiens Used Identical Nubian Technology
Long held in a private collection, the newly analyzed tooth of an approximately 9-year-old Neanderthal child marks the hominin’s southernmost known range. Analysis of the…
Climate Change – Not Overhunting by Humans – Likely Drove the Extinction of North America’s Largest Animals
New research suggests that overhunting by humans was not responsible for the extinction of mammoths, ground sloths, and other North American megafauna. A new study…
On the Origin of Our Species: Untangling Ancestry in the Evolution of Homo sapiens
Experts from the Natural History Museum, The Francis Crick Institute, and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Jena have joined together…
Some Sperms Poison Their Competitors: A Genetic Factor Helps Sperm Cells Outcompete Their Peers
Competition among sperm cells is fierce – they all want to reach the egg cell first to fertilize it. A research team from Berlin now…
Artificial Intelligence Generated Artwork Sells for $432,500 – Is AI a Simple Tool or Creative Genius?
Research Shows How Language Humanizes AI Intelligent algorithms are used to create paintings, write poems, and compose music. According to a study by an international…
The “Last Eden?” First Human Culture Lasted 20,000 Years Longer Than Thought
Some 11 thousand years ago, Africa’s furthest west harbored the last populations to preserve tool-making traditions first established by the earliest members of our species….
New Drug Starves Cancer Cells by Attacking Their “Power Plants”
Blocking gene expression in mitochondria in mice stops cancer cells from growing. A newly developed compound starves cancer cells by attacking their “power plants” –…
The Distances of the Stars: Resolving Long-standing Mysteries About the First Parallaxes in Astronomy
In 1838, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel won the race to measure the first distance to a star other than our Sun via the trigonometric parallax –…
Realistic Simulation of Plasma Edge Instabilities in Tokamak Fusion Reactors
Computer simulation of ELM crashes at the lower plasma edge of ASDEX Upgrade fusion device. The video shows the evolution of the plasma pressure over…