Spherical pyrite from black smokers puts Tübingen and Göttingen researchers on the trail of the first microbes that lived billions of years ago. A team of researchers at the Universities of Tübingen and Göttingen has found that certain minerals with characteristic shapes could indicate the activity of bacteria in hydrothermal vents – or black smokers – in the deep ocean several billion years ago. This represents a major step in our understanding of the origin of life. The study, led…
International research team cracks a hard physics problem. Strongly interacting systems play an important role in quantum physics and quantum chemistry. Stochastic methods such as Monte Carlo simulations are a proven method for investigating such systems. However, these methods reach their limits when so-called sign oscillations occur. This problem has now been solved by an international team of researchers from Germany, Turkey, the USA, China, South Korea and France using the new method of wavefunction matching. As an example, the…
MHH study investigates the effect of thymus removal on the immune system in children after heart surgery and aims to create a data basis for new therapy and prevention strategies. Many children with congenital heart defects often require heart surgery in the neonatal or infant period. A good overview and safe access are extremely important for a successful operation in view of the small size of the body and organs. The tissue between the heart and the sternum is therefore…
New possibilities for cell therapies and personalized medicine. How do tumors react to a certain therapeutic approach? Knowing this before the start of a therapy would be of enormous value for people suffering from cancer as well as for the doctors treating them. Researchers at the NMI and the University Hospitals of Tübingen and Würzburg have now made this very observation possible for the CAR-T cell therapy. “This allows us to individually investigate how exactly these tumor cells react to…
If black skin cancer (melanoma) spreads, there are various therapies that can be used. However, there is still insufficient research into who responds to which therapy and whether resistance may develop over time. In a new study, Dr Simon Fietz, assistant physician at the Clinic for Dermatooncology & Phlebology at the Centre for Skin Diseases at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and PD Dr Dimo Dietrich, scientist at the Clinic and Polyclinic for Otorhinolaryngology at the UKB, have discovered that…
HIPS researchers discover new family of bacteria with high pharmaceutical potential. Most antibiotics used in human medicine originate from natural products derived from bacteria and other microbes. Novel microorganisms are therefore a promising source of new active compounds – also for the treatment of diseases such as cancer or viral infections. A team from the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) has now been able to isolate a completely new family of bacteria that has particularly high potential for…
Looking like a glittering cosmic geode, a trio of dazzling stars blaze from the hollowed-out cavity of a reflection nebula in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The triple-star system is made up of the variable star HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3. HP Tau is known as a T Tauri star, a type of young variable star that hasn’t begun nuclear fusion yet but is beginning to evolve into a hydrogen-fueled star similar to…
A new paper published in Nature Nanotechnology outlines a way to create dozens of new “colors” to multiplex single-molecule measurements. Researchers often study biomolecules such as proteins or amino acids by chemically attaching a “fluorophore,” a sensitive molecule that absorbs and re-emits energy from light. When activated by a laser and imaged through a high-powered microscope, these fluorophore tags or labels explode in a rainbow of color and information. They provide a wealth of insight that can, for example, help…
The production of cement, metals and many chemical commodities requires extremely high temperatures of over a thousand degrees Celsius. At present, this heat is usually obtained by combusting fossil fuels: coal or natural gas, which emit large amounts of greenhouse gases. Heating with renewable electricity is not an alternative, as this would be inefficient at these high temperatures. Although much of our economy and society will need to become carbon neutral in the coming decades, these industrial processes are likely…
First neuromorphic vision and control of a flying drone. A team of researchers at Delft University of Technology has developed a drone that flies autonomously using neuromorphic image processing and control based on the workings of animal brains. Animal brains use less data and energy compared to current deep neural networks running on GPUs (graphic chips). Neuromorphic processors are therefore very suitable for small drones because they don’t need heavy and large hardware and batteries. The results are extraordinary: during…
New cryopreservation procedure established at University Hospital Bonn to preserve fertility before cancer treatment. The team led by Prof. Nicole Sänger, Director of the Department of Reproductive Medicine at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), has succeeded in establishing a modern method of cryopreserving ovarian tissue known as vitrification. It is used to preserve fertility before cancer therapy. For the first time in Europe, the team has now reported a successful delivery after retransplantation of flash-frozen, stored and thawed ovarian tissue….
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in millions of deaths. Despite an unparalleled collaborative research effort that led to effective vaccines and therapies being produced in record-breaking time, a complete understanding of the structure and lifecycle of the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 is still lacking. Scientists used the biolabs and the SPB/SFX instrument at the European XFEL to study the main protease, or Mpro, of the virus to understand how it protects itself from oxidative damage. The results add key knowledge to…
Humboldt Professor Dieter Schmalstieg does research at the University of Stuttgart. Dieter Schmalstieg, Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Visual Computing at the University of Stuttgart, has been awarded the Humboldt Professorship. Germany’s most prestigious international research award was awarded to top researchers who have chosen to join German universities from abroad. Schmalstieg is working on augmented reality projects – with the aim of making people’s lives easier. “The Humboldt Professorship is a great honor and source of motivation,” says computer…
In the battle against climate change, mangroves are important allies – they store up to five times more carbon dioxide than other trees. A recently developed method from researchers in the member institutes of the U Bremen Research Alliance now provides more detailed information about the population of mangrove forests, which can help to protect these. Forest inventory with drone and ai. Photo: Jens Lehmkühler / U Bremen Research Alliance Dr. Arjun Chennu views mangroves as “super trees” because they…
How Bitter Food Constituents Influence Gastric Acid Production. In the stomach, so-called parietal cells are responsible for acid production. They react not only to the body’s own messenger molecules, but also to bitter-tasting food constituents such as caffeine. A research team from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has now carried out a study on a human gastric cell line. Their results help to clarify the molecular regulatory mechanisms by which bitter substances…
Semiconductors are the foundation of all modern electronics. Now, researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have developed a new method where organic semiconductors can become more conductive with the help of air as a dopant. The study, published in the journal Nature, is a significant step towards future cheap and sustainable organic semiconductors. “We believe this method could significantly influence the way we dope organic semiconductors. All components are affordable, easily accessible, and potentially environmentally friendly, which is a prerequisite for…
Feedback
