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Biological communities in Europe are responding to climate change in markedly different ways, with clear contrasts between ecosystems, according to a new study published in Nature. Cold-adapted plant species in mountain regions are declining especially quickly, while plant communities in forests and grasslands are changing more slowly.

Researchers at Leipzig University have achieved a success in microrobotics. They were able to show for the first time that tiny, synthetic microswimmers perceive their environment directly via their own body shape and adapt autonomously in strongly changing fluid currents. The work now published in Science Advances thus establishes a new paradigm for autonomous microsystems whose control functions in difficult environments where conventional sensors fail.

Researchers at Leipzig University have achieved a breakthrough in microrobotics. For the first time, they have shown that tiny synthetic microswimmers can perceive their surroundings directly through their own body shape and autonomously adapt to rapidly changing fluid flows. The study, now published in Science Advances, establishes a new paradigm for autonomous microsystems whose control functions reliably in challenging environments where conventional sensors fail.

Researchers have produced exceptionally long chains of an electrically conductive polymer known as poly(p-phenylene) (PPP). The longest of these chains measure almost one micrometre in length - roughly one thousandth of a millimetre. This makes them nearly ten times longer than chains previously achieved.

News from At Leipzig University Medicine, scientists are researching how bodies, organs, cells and microbes talk to each other. In an article in the newspaper "Die WELT", Dr. Rima Chakaroun and Veronica Witte, among others, show how close laboratory and life, molecules and people, stomach and brain really are - and what all this reveals about our health and the possibility of personalized therapies.

Particles in the atmosphere, known as aerosols, cool the climate by acting as cloud condensation nuclei. The more cloud droplets form around these particles, the less sunlight penetrates a cloud. This cools the climate, although this process is outweighed by the much stronger greenhouse effect. Until now, it has been difficult to provide a reliable global assessment of this impact on the climate and to measure the number of cloud condensation nuclei.

Adhesion G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are implicated in numerous human diseases. However, to date, no medicinal product has been approved that specifically targets these signalling molecules. Researchers at Leipzig University and Shandong University have summarised the therapeutic potential of these receptors in a high-profile study.

A team of scientists led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), and Leipzig University has developed a new method to track the Earth's greenness - a key indicator of vegetation health and activity - by calculating its centre of mass.

In a global study, researchers have discovered the conditions under which non-native plants thrive particularly well in the world's many arid regions and what inhibits their spread. Using data from 98 study areas in 25 countries on six continents, they showed that these plants usually grow faster than native species and are particularly successful where soils are heavily grazed and richer in nutrients.

A global study has revealed the conditions under which non-native plants thrive in the world's many dryland regions and the factors that limit their spread. Using data from 98 study sites across 25 countries on six continents, researchers found that non-native plants often grow faster than native species and are particularly successful in areas with intensive grazing and nutrient-rich soils.

Researchers at Leipzig University and TU Dresden have succeeded in developing biological switches that can selectively turn ion channels on and off using light pulses. Initial applications show that it is possible, for example, to stimulate nerve cells in the brain or to control the release of adrenaline from cells of the adrenal gland and the movement of the small intestine using light stimuli.

Researchers from the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1423 have, for the first time, investigated directly in living cells how a key membrane receptor - which, among other functions, helps regulate heart activity - interacts with its signalling partners. Depending on the drug applied, this receptor adopts different conformations and operates at different speeds, which in turn influences which signals are passed on within the cell.

An interdisciplinary research team from Leipzig has discovered strong evidence of a Black Death mass grave near the deserted medieval village of Neuses, outside Erfurt. It represents the first systematically identified burial site associated with plague burials in Europe. The study, conducted primarily by Leipzig University, the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), has just been published in the scientific journal PLOS One.

Recurring high-energy flood events are not the exception in the Ahr valley, but the rule - over periods of centuries to millennia. This is shown by a study just published in the scientific journal "Earth Surface Processes and Landforms" under the leadership of the University of Leipzig. The river sediments examined document the summer flood of 2021 as well as at least three other flood events in the past 1,500 years, which - measured by sedimentological parameters - were of comparable magnitude.

Do animals think and feel? How this question is answered has a direct bearing on how empathetically and considerately people treat animals.

Researchers at Leipzig University's Carl Ludwig Institute for Physiology, working in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University in the US, have achieved an important breakthrough in brain research. The so-called zap-and-freeze technique, which allows processes of signal transmission between nerve cells to be visualised within milliseconds, has now been successfully applied for the first time to acute brain slices from both mice and humans.

Researchers at the Institute for Meteorology at Leipzig University have, for the first time, determined the climatic impact of contrails that form within natural cirrus clouds. Contrails account for the largest share of aviation's climate impact beyond carbon dioxide emissions. The Leipzig researchers have now shown that "hidden" contrails - previously not factored into such assessments - contribute up to ten per cent of the warming effect of normal, freely visible contrails.

Droughts are having a major impact on Europe's forests - and climate change could make them even more frequent. But diversity helps: a new study led by the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University shows that forests are more resistant to drought when trees employ different strategies for using water.

Over time, non-native plant species increasingly integrate into native food webs. Their region of origin or relatedness to native plants plays only a minor role. Far more decisive is how widely they have spread and how long they have been growing in Europe. The longer they have been established and the wider their distribution range, the more they are used by microherbivores such as leaf miners, gall midges and aphids - leading to similarly diverse interactions as with native plants.

A global research effort involving 170 researchers across six continents shows that extreme, years-long drought conditions significantly reduce the long-term health of grasslands and shrublands - ecosystems that cover nearly half the planet's landmass and store over 30% of global carbon. Until now, due to the historic rarity of extreme droughts, researchers have struggled to estimate the actual consequences of these conditions in both the near and long-term.