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Bioreactor for cultivating microorganisms in the innoFSPEC lab | Photo: Ernst Kazcysnki

Not Without Alternatives – Bioplastic made from waste replaces conventional plastics

Plastic is a part of our everyday life. It has been made from oil, natural gas, and coal for over 100 years. The negative consequences of this flood …
In the embryonic zebrafish heart, the endocardium that is forming cardiac valve leaflets is divided into two subpopulations (here, cyan and yellow). | Photo: Federica Fontana

Strong evidence – Essential regulatory gene for the formation of heart valves discovered

By studying zebrafish embryos, the animal physiologist Prof. Salim Seyfried and his team have identified a new blood flow-regulated gene (Vegfr3/Flt4) …
Prof. Dr. Safa Shoaee | Photo: Karla Fritze

New Paths to Solar Energy – Looking for the best material for novel solar cells

The solar cells of the future are made of organic material as they can be produced very inexpensively using printing technologies. Physicists at the …
Point cloud image of the Golm Campus | Photo: Prof. Dr. Bodo Bookhagen

View from Above – Geoscientist Bodo Bookhagen relies on drones for geological remote sensing

One of the most popular gifts for Christmas: unmanned aerial vehicles, colloquially known as drones. They are widely used in the hobby sector today. …
The Founders: Christian Zimmermann and Stella Strüfing | Photo: Nongin

Sparkling and tasty – Start-up “Noa Drinks” develops non-alcoholic gin

Sparkling or non-sparkling wine without alcohol often has an insipid flavor: either watery or just sweet. In any case, these alternatives are hardly …
Schematic representation of a bacterium with two motility modes, push and wrap, swimming towards the source of an attractant. | Image: Dr. Robert Großmann

Freestyle – The combination of swim modes facilitates movement of bacteria

One of the prime challenges of swimming bacteria is to purposefully navigate to find food or flee from poisons. This process, called chemotaxis, …
An artist’s impression of the two merging central stars inside the planetary nebula Henize 2-428 | Image Credit: Nicole Reindl

All-clear in space – Cuddling inside a nebula does not have to end in a catastrophe

Contrary to results published previously, a careful re-analysis of the merging stars inside the planetary nebula Henize 2-428 shows that no supernova …
The Olorgesailie Basin in the Kenya Rift Valley, part of the Eastern Branch of the East African Rift System. In the background the high topography of the Rift’s border faults. | Photo: Corinna Kalich, University of Potsdam

Calculated – Why a whole region is rotating in the middle of Africa

For the first time ever, the causes for the strange motion of a tectionic plate have been identified by using three dimensional computer models. The …
Sea smoke in Antarctica is illuminated by the setting sun. | Photo: Winkelmann/Reese

Into the Eternal Ice – Ricarda Winkelmann is a climate researcher and junior professor at the University of Potsdam and the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research

Very few people have been here at all, to one of the world’s most inhospitable regions, where the temperature is below the freezing point even in …
Turbulence modes identified in the Cygnus X region plotted over the Fermi-LAT gamma-ray map. The color code for signatures: Green - alfvenic; Red - magnetosonic; and Blue - isotropic turbulence. The distance of the object is 1.4 kiloparsec. The radius of the eddy is ~ 15 parsec (1 parsec = 3.26 light years). | Image credit: Zhang et al. 2020 Nature Astronomy

Important new insights into plasma physics and astrophysical phenomena

The role of turbulence in various physical processes is a current hot topic of research. Prof. Dr. Huirong Yan and her team from the Institute of …