A swimming microrobot formed from liquid-crystal elastomers is driven by a light-induced peristaltic motion

24-Feb-2016

Ciliates can do amazing things: Being so tiny, the water in which they live is like thick honey to these microorganisms. In spite of this, however, they are able to self-propel through water by the synchronized movement of thousands of extremely thin filaments on their outer skin, called cilia. ...

more

Indications of light-induced lossless electricity transmission in fullerenes contribute to the search for superconducting materials

11-Feb-2016

Superconductors have long been confined to niche applications, due to the fact that the highest temperature at which even the best of these materials becomes resistance-free is minus 70 degrees Celsius. Nowadays they are mainly used in magnets for nuclear magnetic resonance tomographs, fusion ...

more

14-Jan-2016

Gold as an element is known and highly valued for more than 2500 years, and its popularity is based on its beautiful color and chemical inertness. It is well established that the golden color is, physically spoken, of relativistic origin. The surface of gold is unique, as it hosts states that ...

more

23-Nov-2015

In the past 20 years, the development of devices that exploit the laws of quantum physics has made impressive progress. New quantum technologies promise a variety of exciting applications, for example in the field of quantum information processing or for the safe encoding of data. Hence, the ...

more

Usage of plants as bio-factories

03-Nov-2015

Fruits and vegetables are healthy. This is something every child knows. However, we would need to consume high amounts of many plant products to achieve an efficient dose of helpful natural compounds, because those are often low-concentrated in plants. Scientists of Dr. Alisdair Fernie’s research ...

more

Complex life is only possible because proteins bind to each other, forming higher-order structures and signal pathways

23-Oct-2015

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich and at the MPI of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden have now drawn a detailed map of human protein interactions. Using a novel mass spectrometric quantification method, the researchers determined the ...

more

Long-lived sub-structures exist in liquid water as discovered using novel ultrafast vibrational spectroscopies

22-Sep-2015

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) in Mainz, Germany and FOM Institute AMOLF in the Netherlands have characterized the local structural dynamics of liquid water, i.e. how quickly water molecules change their binding state. Using innovative ultrafast ...

more

Innovative measuring device enables the water content of biological soil crusts to be measured for the first time

15-Sep-2015

Biological soil crusts comprising lichens, algae and mosses play an important role in the earth’s ecosystems. They fix carbon dioxide and nitrogen while giving off significant amounts of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Information on soil moisture is of vital importance to investigate their ...

more

Study shows how armed conflicts, political and economic crises and also environmental legislation impacts air quality

25-Aug-2015

Political and economic crises as well as international conflicts may have short-term, drastic impacts on society and also on pollutant emissions. That's what researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry have found in a study of the Middle East. Scientists analyzed nitrogen dioxide ...

more

21-Jul-2015

Drugs like antihistamines or beta-blockers in human bodies bind to G-protein coupled receptors. Tiny little molecules that exist on the surface of our cells relay a signal from the outside to the inside of the cell, which finally evokes a reaction within. Humans have several hundred different ...

more