Research News
Partnerships for the Future
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) - pictured here is the KALLA liquid metal laboratory - is regarded as a model for the merger of a university and a research centre. Photo: KIT/ M. LoberIn the coming years, German research policy is set to face important decisions: In 2017, the Excellence Initiative will come to an end. Moreover, the question remains unresolved as to how the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation and the Higher Education Pact are to be continued. These funding instruments constitute fundamental elements in the budgets of research organisations and many universities and therefore exert considerable influence on our research landscape.more
Alien as a Cost Factor
Like the coypu or the Asian tiger mosquito, the Common Ragweed is not indigenous to Europe, but an alien invader. It looks quite harmless, however, its flowers are very potent: the pollen of the Common Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) causes allergies and prolongs the affliction season for people allergic to plant pollen. The health system has to...more
A Medication Taxi
No, what we see here is not sweet corn. It is a microscopically small transport vehicle that was developed by researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research and the Saarland University. With this prototype of an "active agent taxi", they intend to test the transport of pharmaceutical drugs within lung cells. For this...more
Protection for People on Mars
The NASA plans to send people to Mars within the next 20 years. Because cosmic radiation causes cancer, the astronauts will have to protect themselves during their long sojourn in space. Upon commission by the European Space Agency ESA, the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research GmbH investigates whether rock from the Moon or Mars could be...more
Monte Carlo Workshop
From 19 to 21 February 2013 in Hamburg, the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) hosts the international workshop “Monte Carlo-Methods in Natural Sciences, Engineering and Economics”. Monte Carlo-methods are mathematical algorithms that are widely used in a very broad range of disparate disciplines.more
Technology Transfer 10/2012
In 2011, the Helmholtz Association centres were again able to successfully transfer their research results to be applied in the broader context of society at large, politics and the industry. We report on the Helmholtz-Siemens Energy Workshop and furthermore on the Helmholtz-Roche Research Day and the Innovation Days coming up in November 2012. more
