Latest Max Planck Society Stories

ZURICH, April 30, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Olaf von Maydell has been appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Jacobs Foundation, effective May 1, 2013. A tax consultant who holds a PhD in agricultural economics, Dr. von Maydell is a partner in the Schomerus & Partner tax consulting firm in Berlin. He served as General Manager of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin from 2006 to 2011, and from 2001 to 2006 he was Head of Finance for Doctors Without...

According to the thesis by PhD holder Claudia Loaiza-Escutia, written up in the UVP/EHU’s Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, European scientists have difficulty connecting with the general public and journalists. The causes of these difficulties are, above all, the lack of institutional support, pressures of work, and not having any training in communication. The study by Claudia Loaiza stands out because not only does it include quantitative information on scientists’...

National program creates opportunities to support the Max Planck Florida Institute's neural circuit research focused on Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Epilepsy and other brain disorders JUPITER, Fla., April 3, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Obama administration formally announced its plan to fund the development of a comprehensive map of the brain's activity with a project called Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN), starting with an initial investment...

The advanced center for neuroscience not only offers events for local residents -- the next is March 14, 2013 -- but also draws new homeowners to the area. JUPITER, Fla. (PRWEB) March 08, 2013 Whether it’s the free community lecture coming up March 14, the bountiful employment opportunities or the prestige of a name synonymous with the study of science, the Max Planck Florida Institute is a boon for Jupiter and the municipalities that surround it. Less than one year after the...

Enid Burns for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The light that emanates from cities may be causing birds to mate earlier. That's according to a study conducted by Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany. The study found that nighttime light in urban areas causes birds and other animals to develop their reproductive systems earlier. In the study researchers at the Max Planck Institute studied European blackbirds (Turdus merula), to see how they develop in urban...

The 100,000-square-foot neuroscience institute celebrates its grand opening, which was four years in the making. JUPITER, Fla. (PRWEB) December 08, 2012 The Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience will cap a week’s worth of coverage by the national and international media, important visits by local and state dignitaries, and its official grand-opening celebration with an all-day community event Dec. 8. All eyes have been on Jupiter since Dec. 3, when the esteemed center for brain...

Skeletal remains in an island cave in Favignana, Italy, reveal that modern humans first settled in Sicily around the time of the last ice age and despite living on Mediterranean islands, ate little seafood. The research is published November 28 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Marcello Mannino and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany. Genetic analysis of the bones discovered in caves on the Egadi islands provides some of the first...

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft The genome encodes the complete information needed by an organism, including that required for protein production. Viruses, which are up to a thousand times smaller than human cells, have considerably smaller genomes. Using a type of herpesvirus as a model system, the scientists of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich and their collaboration partners at the University of California in San Francisco have shown that the genome of this...

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Listening abilities depend on rhythms in the brain Naturally, our brain activity waxes and wanes. When listening, this oscillation synchronizes to the sounds we are hearing. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences have found that this influences the way we listen. Hearing abilities also oscillate and depend on the exact timing of one’s brain rhythms. This discovery that sound, brain, and behavior are so intimately coupled...

For the first time, Lawrence Livermore researchers and international collaborators have peered into the makeup of complex airborne particulate matter so small that it can be transported into human lungs -- usually without a trace. The structure of micron-size particulate matter is important in a wide range of fields from toxicology to climate science (tobacco smoke and oil smoke particles are typically one micron in size). However, its properties are surprisingly difficult to measure in...