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A long-term warm water body that continues to warm has now been discovered by a team from the CLICCS Cluster of Excellence at the University of Hamburg. It is three million square kilometers in size, is due to the human-induced increase in greenhouse gases, and favors extreme heat waves in the Northeast Pacific.

To study valuable manuscripts and other written artefacts around the world, the Understanding Written Artefacts cluster of excellence at Universität Hamburg has developed a mobile laboratory. The first mobile unit has now been delivered. In the fall, it will be sent to India so that researchers there can study palm-leaf manuscripts that belong to the world's document heritage.

Changes in the brain caused by early childhood experiences are not entirely irreversible. This is the conclusion reached in a recent study by researchers at Universität Hamburg, led by the psychologist and neuroscientist Brigitte Röder. Earlier neuroscientific studies have revealed that unfavorable experiences in the first few months and years of life, for example blindness or poverty, can adversely affect the structural development of the human brain.

For 7 years, an international research team that included the Hamburg Observatory of Universität Hamburg gathered data for a new sky map depicting 4.4 million galaxies. Previously, these galaxies were unknown. The map has now been published in the journal "Astronomy & Astrophysics". This discovery was possible by the largest-ever radio telescope LOFAR (Low Frequency Array), which has receiving stations in 7 European countries.

How should profits from music streaming services be paid out to artists? The discussion is never-ending because with the current model, users also pay for music they don't listen to. A new study by marketing experts at Universität Hamburg and the Kühne Logistic University has now calculated the impact.

Current calls for blood donations highlight the urgent need for blood. A new study at Universität Hamburg shows that the willingness to donate blood has dramatically decreased throughout the pandemic. The findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE. Even before the corona pandemic, there were repeated blood drives to meet urgent needs.

Volcanic eruptions in Siberia caused massive climate change 252 million years ago. Approximately 75 percent of all land organisms and 90 percent of all ocean organisms perished. The paleontologist Dr. William Foster at the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) has now decoded the causes of this mass extinction in the oceans.

Global warming is causing permafrost in the Arctic to thaw and sea ice to melt. As a result, coasts are less protected and are being eroded, while carbon stored in the soil and carbon dioxide are being released into the ocean and atmosphere. In a first, researchers at Universität Hamburg have now calculated the future scale of these processes for the entire Arctic.

When developing environmentally friendly chemicals or innovative material, you must be able to make exceptionally high-resolution images of processes in molecules and nanoparticles. Tais Gorkhover from Universität Hamburg is researching new image-producing procedures as part of her HIGH-Q project and is now receiving funding from the European Research Council.

Fighting the coronavirus has changed the way the international scientific community works together and intensified collaboration. Dr. Andrea Thorn leads an international research group at Universität Hamburg that is improving molecular models from across the world to enable the development of pharmaceuticals.

In the study "Continuity and Change of Schools in Times of Crisis" (Kontinuität und Wandel der Schule in Krisenzeiten - KWiK), school principals were asked how they are mastering the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Initial results from the study paint a positive picture but reveal the need for some catching up as well.

The coronavirus has led to a worldwide crisis for over a year. In a new study, nanoscientist Roland Wiesendanger illuminates the origins of the virus. His findings conclude there are a number of quality sources indicating a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the cause of the current pandemic.

A family of Welwitschia already inhabited Earth 112 million years ago. A research team in the Department of Biology at Universität Hamburg has now used short DNA sequences to discover that the only still-living species of Weltwitschia mirabilis has different subspecies. The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

In some regions the Planaxis sulcatus sea snail produces larvae while in others they produce further-developed offspring. A research team headed by Benedikt Wiggering and Matthias Glaubrecht from the Center of Natural History (CeNak) at Universität Hamburg have now proven for the first time that the animals in question are indeed one and the same species and have thus adapted brilliantly to living conditions.

One major consequence of global warming is the rising sea level. A study conducted at Universität Hamburg's Cluster of Excellence for climate research CLICCS now shows: if we assume that sea-level rise is the most critical effect of climate change, then it is not only more sensible, but also less expensive, to set a maximum limit for sea-level rise that corresponds to the two-degree target, rather than a temperature-based target.

Romanization and Islamication in Late Antiquity Fourth DFG center for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences for Universität Hamburg The German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) has authorized funding for a new DFG center for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences at Universität Hamburg: Romanization and Islamication in Late Antiquity-Transcultural Processes on the Iberian Peninsula and in North Africa.

How do our senses, like vision, hearing, and touch, work together to create the perception of the world around us' A new study by scientists at Universität Hamburg finds that commonly found associations between shapes and sounds might rely on childhood vision. The results were published in the journal Psychological Science.

Astronomers from the Observatory of the University of Hamburg were involved in the discovery of a new planet. As part of an international research team led by the Institut de Ciències de l'Espai (ICE, CSIC), they have found a planet in orbit of Barnard's star. Barnard's star is a so-called red dwarf and after the Alpha-Centauri triple stellar system the second closest star to the Sun.

About 66 million years ago, a meteorite hit the Earth of the Yucatan Peninsula in what is now Mexico. This event triggered a mass extinction that eradicated approximately 75 percent of all species and ended the era of dinosaurs. Like Ulrich Riller of the Institute of Geology of the University of Hamburg and co-workers report in "Nature", the hitherto mysterious formation of the crater and its mountaneous peak ring.

When we put water in a freezer, water molecules crystallize and form ice. This change from one phase of matter to another is called a phase transition. While this transition, and countless others that occur in nature, typically takes place at the same fixed conditions, such as the freezing point, one can ask how it can be influenced in a controlled way.