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Using hydraulic fracturing or fracking, for short, the USA extract natural gas contained in claystone (shale gas) and thus were able to significantly decrease the price of gas. In Germany, fracking has sparked an intensive and, in part, highly emotional debate. How dangerous is fracking really? Prof. Dietrich Borchardt from the Helmholtz Centre...more

In order to arrive at scientific insights, researchers have to delve deeply into their respective areas of expertise. Equally exiting is also the investigation of hitherto unexplored fields on the margins between well-established scientific disciplines. Using such an interdisciplinary approach, the working group of Leibniz Prize awardee Prof....more

Both aim at an improved understanding of the brain in its entirety: the European "Human Brain Project" and the planned US-American "Brain Activity Map" project. Our overview illustrates how both approaches very well augment each other. Purpose Human Brain Project Detailed simulation of the human brain with all its component...more

Writing messages simply into the air instead of laboriously typing them in using a mobile phone's tiny keyboard – impossible? A development by Christoph Amma, doctoral candidate at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), soon could render this notion a reality. The air-writing glove allows to write in the air as if on an invisible blackboard...more

A research group around Dr Katja Henzler at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) has developed a new method of synthesis to create nano-particles at room temperature within a polymer network. The small titanium dioxide particles are used in everyday products such as wall paint, tooth paste and sun screen lotion. They reflect light or act as an...more