Birch trees remove microplastics from the soil

With the help of trees, microplastic-polluted soils could be remediated

23-Feb-2022 - For the first time, researchers at IGB have shown that birch trees absorb microplastics through their roots during the growth phase. Good news, because soils are many times more polluted with microplastics than oceans are. So far, little is known about how microplastics interact with higher-order ...

Fluorescence microscopy at highest spatial and temporal resolution

Researchers simplify the MINFLUX microscope and have succeeded in differentiating molecules that are extremely close together and tracking their dynamics.

21-Jan-2021 - Only a few years ago, an ostensibly fundamental resolution limit in optical microscopy was superseded - a breakthrough which in 2014 led to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for super-resolution microscopy. Since then, there has been another quantum leap in this area, which has further reduced the ...

Testing chemicals without animal testing on rodents

Replacement method with locusts to test whether chemicals cause neurological developmental disorders in children

11-Jul-2019 - In recent years, the number of neurological developmental disorders in children has increased. Epidemiological data suggest that lifestyle factors and chemicals used in our environment contribute to this. Scientists from the Institute of Physiology and Cell Biology at the University of Veterinary ...

Piecework at the nano assembly line

Fast computer control for molecular machines

22-Jan-2018 - Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a novel electric propulsion technology for nanorobots. It allows molecular machines to move a hundred thousand times faster than with the biochemical processes used to date. This makes nanobots fast enough to do assembly line ...

Fewer animal experiments thanks to nanosensors

12-Jan-2012 - Countless mice, rats and rabbits die every year in the name of science – and the situation is getting worse. While German laboratories used some 2.41 million animals for scientific research in 2005, by 2009 this number had grown to 2.79 million. One third were destined for fundamental biology ...

The 2011 Körber Prize goes to Stefan Hell

With a groundbreaking idea the physicist has overcome the diffraction resolution barrier in optical microscopy

08-Jul-2011 - Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Stefan Hell of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen is to receive the 2011 Körber European Science Prize endowed with 750,000 euros for his pioneering discoveries in the field of optics. Every year, the Körber Prize is awarded to an outstanding ...