Press Releases

A bigger volume of the world's oceans is seeping deeper into Earth's mantle than expected: That is the result of a study investigating the water-bearing mineral glaucophane, abundant in the oceanic crust, at DESY's X-ray source PETRA III. The international team headed by Yongjae Lee from Yonsei University in South Korea reports the results in the journal Nature Communications. The scientists estimate that in about 200 million years, an additional volume equal to the Arctic Ocean could seep deep into Earth's mantle this way.

The State of Baden-Württemberg Funds Junior Research Groups, a Professorship, International Exchange, and New Research and Innovation Projects

Thin films of molybdenum and sulfur belong to a class of materials that can be considered for use as photocatalysts. Inexpensive catalysts such as these are needed to produce hydrogen as a fuel using solar energy. However, they are still not very efficient as catalysts. A new instrument at the Helmholtz-Berlin Zentrums BESSY II now shows how a light pulse alters the surface properties of the thin film and activates the material as a catalyst.

HZG team develops new process for building ultralight materials

HZI bioinformaticians have developed a web resource that predicts the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants. CoVerage enables evaluation of epidemiological dynamics of different SARS-CoV-2 variants This is where the CoVerage web resource comes in. It can be used to identify particularly successful SARS-COV-2 lines and predict their further spread, taking epidemiological information into account. The evaluation provided by CoVerage also makes it possible to draw conclusions about country-specific ...

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are suitable for discovering the genes that underly complex and also rare genetic diseases. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), together with international partners, have studied genotype-phenotype relationships in iPSCs using data from approximately one thousand donors.

Umfangreiche Tests, schnellere Kontaktverfolgung und zügiges Impfen Grundlage für mögliche Öffnungen. Wolle die Politik zum Beispiel Kultur- und Dienstleistungsbranchen öffnen, sei es empfehlenswert, die Öffnungen an Antigen-Schnelltestkonzepte, angepasste Hygienekonzepte und digitale Datenerfassung zu knüpfen. Auf diese Weise ließen sich Ansteckungen vermeiden. Sie seien deshalb im eigenen Interesse der Kultur- und Dienstleistungsunternehmen. Tests gelte es bei kleinsten Symptomen, ...

The lists of Earth’s endangered animals and plants are getting increasingly longer. But in order to stop this trend, we require more information. It is often difficult to find out exactly where the individual species can be found and how their populations are developing. According to a new overview study published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution by Dr Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and her colleagues, specially trained detection dogs can be indispensable in such cases. With the help of these dogs, the species sought can usually be found faster and more effectively than with other methods.

HZI immunologist Jochen Hühn coordinates EU-funded doctoral programme. T cell precursors originate in the bone marrow and mature in the thymus. They then circulate through the bloodstream and secondary lymphoid tissues in search of foreign or altered proteins. Tissue-resident T cells are a subset of T lymphocytes that have left the bloodstream and settled in tissues. These immune cells can remain there for a long time. A new training network called the ...

Strengthening application-oriented cutting-edge research at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht: the new Institute of Coastal Environmental Chemistry and the Institute of Carbon Cycles