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….
Max Planck Institute
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….
Scientists Predict the Structure and Morphology of the Primordial Magnetic Field
In the first fractions of a second after the birth of our universe, not only elementary particles and radiation, but also magnetic fields were generated….
New Linguistic Analyses Dates Dravidian Language Family
The origin of the Dravidian language family, consisting of about 80 varieties spoken by 220 million people across southern and central India and surrounding countries,…
New Dating Techniques Show Germany Was Covered by Glaciers 450,000 Years Ago
Using state-of-the-art dating techniques researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have obtained new chronological data for the timing of…
How Helicobacter Pylori Generates An Immune System Blind Spot
The gastric bacterium H. pylori colonizes the stomachs of around half the human population and can lead to the development of gastric cancer. It is…
Study Shows 300,000-Year-Old South African Hominin Ate a Lot of Dust
Homo naledi’s relatively taller and more wear resistant molars enabled it to have a much more abrasive diet than other South African hominins. This is…
This Unique Design Prevents Plant Cells from Bursting
Plant cells are under tremendous pressure. To prevent themselves from bursting, plants had to come up with something unique: According to scientists from the Max…
New Production Process Could Help Eradicate Malaria Related Deaths
The most important active ingredient against malaria can now be produced in a considerably more efficient and environmentally friendly way. Researchers at the Max Planck…
Ancient DNA Study Reveals the Genomic History of Southeastern Europe
In an ancient DNA study published this week in the journal Nature, scientists and archaeologists from over 80 different institutions lift the veil on the…
Biologists Give New Life to Museum Plant Collections
Using a hitchhiking weed, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen reveal for the first time the mutation rate of a…
Scientists Reveal the Complex Story Behind the Beaker Phenomenon
In the largest study of ancient DNA ever conducted, an international team of scientists has revealed the complex story behind one of the defining periods…
Neanderthals Produced Symbolic Objects More than 115,000 Years Ago
At least 70,000 years ago Homo sapiens used perforated marine shells and colour pigments. From around 40,000 years ago he created decorative items, jewellery and…
Physicists Confirm the Existence of a New Superionic Form of Water
An original state, both solid and liquid at the same time: this is the latest news on a substance -water- so familiar to everyone but…
Global Demand for Natural Resources Causes Dramatic Decline of Bornean Orangutans
Nearly 50 years of conservation efforts have been unable to prevent orangutan numbers on Borneo from plummeting. The latest data published by a team from…
New Technique Enables Biologists to Control Motion Within Living Cells
Simple motion inside biological cells, such as the streaming of cytoplasm – the liquid cell interior – is widely believed to be essential for cells…