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05/29/2019 Through the research network ForDigitHealth, five Bavarian universities are jointly researching the stress that digitisation causes in humans. The Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts is funding this initiative with 3.35 million euros. With its permanent accessibility, increasing flood of information and constantly changing technologies that humans have to familiarise themselves with, digitisation is fundamentally changing society and individual lives.

05/23/2019 A great success for Würzburg's physics department: its Collaborative Research Centre was rated as excellent and is now entering its second funding phase. The German Research Foundation is providing 12 million euros for this purpose. In 2015, physicists at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany, succeeded in establishing a new Collaborative Research Centre in Würzburg.

05/14/2019 Getting an accurate picture of the real-time transcriptional activity of a cell: This is the goal of a new research project at the University of Würzburg which is funded by the European Research Council. If you paid attention during biology lessons, you may remember that genetic information in human cells is contained in the cell nucleus as a DNA double helix.

In collaboration with researchers from Harvard University, researchers from the University of Würzburg have made an important step on the road to topological quantum computers. Now, they present their findings in the renowned scientific journal Nature. Majorana particles are very peculiar members of the family of elementary particles.

04/26/2019 The leaves of date palms can heat up to temperatures around 50 degrees Celsius. They survive thanks to a unique wax mixture that is essential for the existence in the desert. In 1956, the Würzburg botanist Otto Ludwig Lange observed an unusual phenomenon in the Mauritanian desert in West Africa: he found plants whose leaves could heat up to 56 degrees Celsius.

Diversity beats monotony: a colourful patchwork of small, differently used plots can bring advantages to agriculture and nature. This is the result of a new study by the University of Würzburg. Hedges, flowering strips and other seminatural habitats provide food and nesting places for insects and birds in agricultural landscapes.

A new international research group aims to develop new approaches to prevent and treat cytomegalovirus infection. Lars Dölken, a virology expert from Würzburg, is the research unit's spokesman. "Cytomegalovirus, beware of this new research group!" This could be the motto of a new research unit recently approved by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

03/29/2019 Scientists at the University of Würzburg have discovered a new mechanism of gene transcription in tumor cells. Their study identifies novel strategies to develop innovative anti-Cancer drugs. The cells which make up our body vary significantly. A liver cell does not look like a muscle cell and each has a unique function.

03/28/2019 Land use in tropical mountain regions leads to considerable changes of biodiversity and ecological functions. The intensity of such changes is greatly affected by the climate. 2019 marks the 250 th anniversary of Alexander von Humboldt. He was one of the first naturalists to document the distribution and adaptation of species on tropical mountains in the 19 th century.

03/22/2019 Direct coupling of two molecules of nitrogen: chemists from Würzburg and Frankfurt have achieved what was thought to be impossible. This new reaction is reported and opens new possibilities for one of the most inert molecules on earth. Constituting over 78 % of the air we breathe, nitrogen is the element found the most often in its pure form on earth.

03/20/2019 Two proteins work hand in hand to ensure that the tumour cells of neuroblastoma can grow at full speed. In "Nature", a Würzburg research team shows how the proteins can do this. Anyone who has ever studied the molecular basis of breast cancer will probably have heard of the abbreviation BRCA1 - this is a protein that protects the cells of breast tissue against cancer.

02/25/2019 Icefish live in an environment that should be deadly for them. Scientists have now investigated how they still manage to exist there and what evolutionary adaptations they have had to undergo in order to do so. You really don't want to have to live there: In the Arctic Ocean around the South Pole, the water temperature is just below minus two degrees.

02/21/2019 Plants that can manage with less water could make agriculture more sustainable. This is why a research team at the University of Würzburg is investigating how plants control their water balance. Tiny pores on the leaves of plants, called stomata, have a huge influence on the state of our planet.

Under the influence of the drug fluconazole, the fungus Candida albicans can change its mode of reproduction and thus become even more resistant. Scientists at the University of Würzburg report this in the journal mBio. The yeast Candida albicans occurs in most healthy people as a harmless colonizer in the digestive tract.

01/30/2019 Researchers at the Rudolf Virchow Center of the University of Würzburg have unveiled the molecular effectiveness of artemisinins. The findings could lead to drugs for diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and epilepsy. Artemisinin is derived from the leaves and flowers of the annual mugwort (Artemisia annua) and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries.

Insects and mammals have special sensors for different light intensities. These sensors selectively influence the circadian clocks and thereby control daily activity patterns. Increasing sunlight intensity extends the sleep duration and results in a longer midday siesta which delays the resumption of activity to the evening.

/2018 Does expansion microscopy deliver true-to-life images of cellular structures' That was not sure yet. A new publication in "Nature Methods" shows for the first time that the method actually works reliably. Immersing deeper and deeper into cells with the microscope. Imaging the nucleus and other structures more and more accurately.

The plant hormone jasmonic acid also performs a function that was previously unknown. It ensures that the leaf pores close when leaves are injured. For the plant, this could be an emergency signal. Jasmonic acid is not just the aromatic odor of the plant Jasminum grandiflorum used in cosmetics and perfume industries.

Spider silk belongs to the toughest fibres in nature and has astounding properties. Scientists from the University of Würzburg discovered new molecular details of self-assembly of a spider silk fibre protein. They are lightweight, almost invisible, highly extensible and strong, and of course biodegradable: the threads spiders use to build their webs.

11/14/2018 For the first time, physicists from the University of Würzburg have successfully positioned an organic molecule on a substrate realizing two stable configurations. This may have application potential in molecular spintronics. It looks like a cross with four arms of equal length that have a central atom at their intersection.