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…
Max Planck Institute
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…
Hydrodynamic Simulations Visualize the Large-Scale Structure of Galaxies
Astrophysicists from Heidelberg, Garching, and the USA present the thus far largest and most detailed calculations of the formation and evolution of galaxies. In their…
This Four Millimeter Long Millirobot Can Walk, Crawl and Roll Through Difficult Terrain
Tiny robots need not fear obstacle courses in the future: Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have developed a minuscule,…
Biologists Track Global Reductions in Terrestrial Mammalian Movements
Humans change entire landscapes – by building cities and roads, by farming land and by exploiting natural resources. What effects does this have on animals…
Children with Cochlear Implants Learn Words Faster Than Children With Normal Hearing
According to estimates by the Robert Koch Institute, up to two thousand hearing impaired children are born in Germany each year. For some of them…
Scientists Sequence Largest Genome to Date, the Axolotl Genome
A team of researchers led by scientists in Vienna, Dresden and Heidelberg has decoded the entire genetic information of the Mexican salamander axolotl. The axolotl…
Geneticists Fully Decode a New Genome for Regeneration Research
The planarian flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea is an extraordinary animal. Even when cut into tiny pieces, each piece can regenerate back into a complete and perfectly…
Scientists Reveal the Evolution of Modern Human Brain Shape
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, reveal how and when the typical globular brain shape of modern humans evolved….
New Technique Allows Scientists to Switch ATP Synthase On and Off Using UV Light
The enzyme complex ATP synthase is one of the most important molecular machines in the cell. It produces adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which serves as the…
New Insights Into Exactly How Bacteria Import DNA
Bacteria are consummate survivalists. They are aided in this by their ability to assimilate DNA from their surroundings, which allows them to constantly acquire new…