The ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’ of 367 CE was one of the most severe threats to Rome’s hold on Britain since the Boudiccan revolt three centuries earlier. Contemporary sources indicate that components of the garrison on Hadrian’s wall rebelled and allowed the Picts to attack the Roman province by land and sea. Simultaneously, the Scotti from modern-day Ireland invaded broadly in the west, and Saxons from the continent landed in the south. Senior Roman commanders were captured or killed, and some soldiers…
Many bird species are monogamous. However, genetic studies have shown that the social partner is often not the genetic father of all offspring. Some studies found biased sex ratios: more males than females among extra-pair fledglings. This has been interpreted as evidence of adaptive sex allocation by females: if an extra-pair mate is of high quality and this quality has a genetic basis, fitness can be optimized if offspring with the extra-pair mate’s “good” genes are predominantly male. However, there…
In the global carbon cycle microorganisms have evolved a variety of methods for fixing carbon. Researchers from Bremen and Taiwan have investigated the methods that are utilized at extremely hot, acidic and sulfur-rich hydrothermal vents in shallow waters off the island of Kueishantao, Taiwan. A team working with first author Joely Maak of MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen has now published their study in the professional journal Biogeosciences. Extremely harsh conditions can be…
Power inverters are the beating heart in the drive train of modern electric cars. They turn the electrical energy from the batteries into something that engines can actually use. Fraunhofer IZM has now redefined what this key component is possible of doing: Using the newest developments in power electronics, the „Dauerpower“ inverter was born that can handle enormous amounts of power with low inductance and in a tiny body – with peak efficiency measured at 98.7%. Let’s roll! Modern electric…
Data could inform federal, state and private employer policies regarding GLP-1 drugs and others A large majority of older Americans feel that health insurance – including Medicare – should cover anti-obesity medications, according to a new University of Michigan study. And more than half of older adults who meet criteria for obesity say they’re interested in trying one of these drugs to manage their weight. Current law prevents Medicare from covering medications to treat obesity, and most private plans don’t…
The human brain can learn through experience to filter out disturbing and distracting stimuli – such as a glaring roadside billboard or a flashing banner on the internet. Scientists at Leipzig University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam have used electroencephalography (EEG) to show that early visual processing in humans changes with repeated exposure. Their joint study has just been published in The Journal of Neuroscience. Distractions are often easier to ignore after we have encountered them multiple times. This learned suppression…
Researchers at the HIPS decipher novel mode of action of natural product antibiotic The development and spread of antibiotic resistance represents one of the greatest threats to global health. To overcome these resistances, drugs with novel mode of action are urgently needed. Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) have now uncovered the mode of action of a promising class of natural products – the chlorotonils. These molecules simultaneously target the bacterial cell membrane and the bacteria’s…
The EFRE project G.O.A.L. (1.6-14) “Gallium Oxide Application Laboratory for Power Electronics”, which was launched in September 2024, completes the value chain created at the IKZ in the field of gallium oxide technology development. In addition to the existing Cz volume crystal growing and wafering sections, the epitaxy module in the form of a 3×2” MOVPE from AIXTRON has now been added. This expansion creates the prerequisite for establishing IKZ in the EU as the only supplier of 2 inch…
The ‘Oscars of science’ goes to team probing the origins of the universe to reveal its most fundamental constituents and their interactions Scientists from UMass Amherst are among the researchers worldwide honored with the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, awarded to the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) alongside its sister experiments ALICE, CMS and LHCb. Among the laureates are 36 scientists from the UMass Amherst research team, including 14 Ph.D. students, who produced results based on…
In two commentaries, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine say combining modeling methods—and ethically sharing health data—could transform treatment With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), predictive medicine is becoming an important part of healthcare, especially in cancer treatment. Predictive medicine uses algorithms and data to help doctors understand how a cancer might continue to grow or react to specific drugs—making it easier to target precision treatment for individual patients. While AI is important in this work,…
New study published in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies A new study from University Hospitals Connor Whole Health found that it was feasible to conduct a hybrid music therapy intervention for patients with heart failure and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Participants reported positive effects on their mental health, and the pilot uncovered solutions to improve future research with this population. The findings from this study were recently published in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies. Patients with chronic…
New study uses modern molecular and evolutionary techniques to reassess a foundational, 67-year-old study in warblers A spat between birds at your backyard birdfeeder highlights the sometimes fierce competition for resources that animals face in the natural world, but some ecologically similar species appear to coexist peacefully. A classic study in songbirds by Robert MacArthur, one of the founders of modern ecology, suggested that similar wood warblers — insect-eating, colorful forest songbirds — can live in the same trees because…
An international team led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has discovered the most distant spiral galaxy candidate known to date. This ultra-massive system existed just one billion years after the Big Bang and already shows a remarkably mature structure, with a central old bulge, a large star-forming disk, and well-defined spiral arms. The discovery was made using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and offers important insights into how galaxies can form and evolve so rapidly in…
Psychology: Publication in PNASAre there areas of the brain, which regulate prosocial, altruistic behaviour? Together with colleagues from the universities in Lausanne, Utrecht and Cape Town, researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have studied a very special group of patients and established that the “basolateral amygdala” (part of the limbic system) plays an important role in this. In the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they describe that this region calibrates social behaviour. Prosocial behaviour,…
Neural networks are one typical structure on which artificial intelligence can be based. The term ›neural‹ describes their learning ability, which to some extent mimics the functioning of neurons in our brains. To be able to work, several key ingredients are required: one of them is an activation function which introduces nonlinearity into the structure. A photonic activation function has important advantages for the implementation of optical neural networks based on light propagation. Researchers in the Stiller Research Group at…
A new study by neuroscientists at the German Primate Center (DPZ) – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Göttingen shows that our brain deals with different forms of visual uncertainty during movements in distinct ways. Depending on the type of uncertainty, planning and execution of movements in the brain are affected differently. These findings could help to optimize brain-computer interfaces that, for example, help people with paralysis to control prostheses or computers with their thoughts alone (Nature Communications). Imagine waking…
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