Press releases
News and views on research at the Helmholtz Association - this is the place to look for all the press releases issued by the Helmholtz Association Research Centres. A comfortable search function helps you to view specific news items from the Helmholtz Research Centres in chronological order beginning with 2010. Older press releases since 2003 can be found in our archive or on the website of the relevant Helmholtz Research Centre.
At present only a selection of press releases is available in English - switch to the German version with the topmost navigation bar for a complete overview.
| 25. June 2010 | German Aerospace Center (DLR) |
TanDEM-X sends its first images in record time
Already, with its first image acquisitions, TanDEM-X has surpassed its twin satellite, TerraSAR-X. On 24 June 2010, only 3 days and 14 hours into the mission, the satellite sent its first image data back to Earth. The transmission was received by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) ground station at Neustrelitz and processed to produce images. TanDEM-X looked down from an altitude of more than 500 kilometres above northern Madagascar, Ukraine and Moscow.
| 25. June 2010 | Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research |
Higher wetland methane emissions caused by climate warming 40,000 years ago
40,000 years ago rapid warming led to an increase in methane concentration. The culprit for this increase has now been identified. Mainly wetlands in high northern lati-tudes caused the methane increase, as discovered by a research team from the University of Bern and the German Alfred Wegener Institute.
Higher wetland methane emissions caused by climate warming 40,000 years ago
| 24. June 2010 | Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ |
Pleasing to the eye
In a breeding experiment with Houbara Bustards ‒ a North African bird species with a very distinctive courtship behaviour, scientists have concluded that visual stimulation from attractive males of the same species positively affects brooding females, improving offspring growth. Females that observed highly displaying male birds in the experiment were more fertile and had a greater breeding success due to an increased allocation of testosterone into their eggs, leading to an increase in the growth rate in chicks.
| 23. June 2010 | Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences |
Radar Satellite Mission TanDEM-X: how high is the Earth's surface?
From the spaceport Baikonur (Kazakhstan) the German Earth Observation Satellite, TanDEM-X, was brought into orbit at a height of 514 km on 21 June at 04:14:02 MESZ. On board: the navigational instrument TOR, developed by scientists at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. TanDEM-X will record data on the elevation of the Earth's surface with a dissolution unattained to date – thus, the TOR instrument is the technical basis, without which the mission would not be possible.
Radar Satellite Mission TanDEM-X: how high is the Earth's surface?
| 23. June 2010 | Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research |
Sea ice in the Arctic does not recover
A critical minimum for Arctic sea ice can also be expected for late summer 2010. Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute and from KlimaCampus of the University of Hamburg have now published data in this context in the annual issue of Sea Ice Outlook.
