Research News
Anniversary in the Far North
Aerial view of the science site Ny-Ålesund on the western coast of Spitsbergen. Photo: Joe Haschek, AWIParty time at the northernmost research site in the world: On 26 April, the Arctic station AWIPEV on Spitsbergen celebrated the ten-year anniversary of the German-French co-operation between the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the Institut Polaire Paul Emile Victor (IPEV). The celebrations were topped off with the AWIPEV being the worldwide first station to receive the GRUAN seal of quality for standardised atmospheric measurements.more
New Large-scale Projects
Six Helmholtz Association centres are involved in planning the three large-scale research projects the implementation of which was rated as particularly urgent by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) upon recommendation by the German Council of Science and Humanities. After their acceptance into the "Roadmap for Research...more
Raw Materials from Mobile Phones
Rare metals are used in many hightech products such as mobile phones. Since only small amounts are required while at the same time being of particular importance, these are called also strategic metals. Their reclamation from discarded products is often quite difficult. They are well hidden and their extraction requires a lot of effort. The...more
Our Blood Reveals the Right Treatment
These days, a given disease is usually treated with a standard method; for example, tumours are treated either with radiotherapy or chemotherapy. However, the same disease tends to manifest itself differently in each individual and everyone reacts differently to a given form of treatment. The reasons for this lie in the genetic material, the...more
Book Recommendation: "Die Klimafalle" (The Climate Trap)
The climate debate is gridlocked: the goal of limiting temperature increase to two degrees Celsius is scientifically controversial; the quarrel between sceptics and admonishers stifles the debate and renders political action difficult. The climate researcher Hans von Storch and the ethnologist Werner Krauß state: "We are stuck in a climate...more
International
Roskosmos and ESA are planning joint missions to Mars the Helmholtz Moscow Office reports. Furthermore Russia will create jobs for young researchers and aims to strenghten the universities. This year the Brussels office launched a series of workshops on "Future Technologies" and committed in May its annual event under the slogan "Big Science". Our...more
