max planck institute
Planet formation in action?
Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope an international team of astronomers has been able to study the short-lived disc of material around a young star that is in the early stages of making a planetary system. For the first time a smaller companion …
Partnership of genes affects the brain’s development
The human brain consists of approximately one hundred billion nerve cells. Each of these cells needs to connect to specific other cells during the brain’s development in order to form a fully functional organism. Yet how does a nerve cell know w…
Expectations speed up conscious perception
The human brain works incredibly fast. However, visual impressions are so complex that their processing takes several hundred milliseconds before they enter our consciousness. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt …
Cancer drug aids the regeneration of spinal cord injuries
After a spinal cord injury a number of factors impede the regeneration of nerve cells. Two of the most important of these factors are the destabilization of the cytoskeleton and the development of scar tissue. While the former prevents regrowt…
Hormones dictate breeding success in birds
Some animals produce more offspring than others do. Hormones like prolactin and corticosterone can exercise a crucial influence on the behaviour of birds in the breeding season and therefore on their reproductive success. Scientists from the Max…
The production of plant pollen is regulated by several signaling pathways
Plants producing flower pollen must not leave anything to chance. The model plant thale cress (Arabidopsis), for instance, uses three signalling pathways in concert with partially overlapping functions. The yield becomes the greatest when all th…
War, plague no match for deforestation in driving CO2 buildup
Stanford, CA — Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes had an impact on the global carbon cycle as big as today’s annual demand for gasoline. The Black Death, on the other hand, came and went too quickly for it to cause much of a blip in the global car…
Different sources, same result
Numerous patients suffering from chronic liver diseases are currently receiving inadequate treatment due to the lack of organs donated for transplantation. However, hepatocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) could offer an…
Genome of extinct Siberian cave-dweller linked to modern-day humans
Researchers have discovered evidence of a distinct group of “archaic” humans existing outside of Africa more than 30,000 years ago at a time when Neanderthals are thought to have dominated Europe and Asia. But genetic testing shows that members of t…
Light dawns on dark gamma-ray bursts
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), fleeting events that last from less than a second to several minutes, are detected by orbiting observatories that can pick up their high energy radiation. Thirteen years ago, however, astronomers discovered a longer-last…
Study probes link between magnetism, superconductivity
HOUSTON — (Dec. 13, 2010) — European and U.S. physicists this week are offering up the strongest evidence yet that magnetism is the driving force behind unconventional superconductivity. The findings by researchers from Rice University, the Max Pl…