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Light pollution is more serious than expected: Moths not only lose their orientation directly under street lamps. Their flight behaviour is also disturbed outside the cone of light. The increasing use of artificial light at night is one of the most dramatic man-made changes on earth. Streetlights and illuminated buildings are significantly changing the environment for nocturnal animals.

Plants can extract even the smallest traces of the important nutrient potassium from the soil. A team led by Würzburg biophysicist Rainer Hedrich describes how they achieve this in 'Nature Communications'. Potassium is one of the nutrients that plants need in large quantities. However, the amount of potassium in the soil can vary greatly: potassium-poor soils can contain up to a thousand times less of this nutrient than potassium-rich soils.

Genome instability can cause numerous diseases. Cells have effective DNA repair mechanisms at their disposal. A research team at the University of Würzburg has now gained new insights into the DNA damage response. Whenever cells divide, there is a high risk of damage to the genetic material. After all, the cell has to duplicate its entire genetic material and copy billions of genetic letters before it divides.

The study of metabolism in living plants poses challenges for science. A research team from Leipzig and Würzburg has now developed a technique that changes this in some areas. The "omics" technologies - genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics - are at the forefront of discovery in modern plant science and systems biology.

Together with Egyptian restorers, a team from the University of Würzburg has discovered traces of gold leaf, remnants of the colorful paintings and handwritten testimonies of the priests in the temple of Edfu.

Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat have developed a method to model a central theory of quantum gravity in the laboratory. Their goal: to decipher previously unexplained phenomena in the quantum world. Gravity is no longer a mystery to physicists - at least when it comes to large distances: thanks to science, we can calculate the orbits of planets, predict tides, and send rockets into space with precision.

Physicists from Würzburg present a nanometre-sized light antenna with electrically modulated surface properties - a breakthrough that could pave the way for faster computer chips. Today's computers reach their physical limits when it comes to speed. Semiconductor components usually operate at a maximum usable frequency of a few gigahertz - which corresponds to several billion computing operations per second.

Dangerous mixtures: pesticides in combination can have unexpected effects on the development of honeybees. This is shown by a new study from the Biocenter. Honeybees are social insects. Their colony only survives as a community, and healthy new generations are very important. It is therefore not surprising that honeybees invest significant care and resources into their offspring: nurse bees feed the young larvae with a food juice made from nectar and pollen which they produce in a gland in their head.

Numerous studies have shown that the older the father, the higher the risk of disease for the offspring. Human geneticists at the University of Würzburg have now taken a closer look at the processes responsible for this. SPIEGEL writes about "Old fathers being a risk factor", "Late fathers have more sick children" is the headline in WELT.

It's not just us humans who suffer from heatwaves. Researchers at the University of Würzburg discovered that hot temperatures rob bumblebees of their sense of smell - and makes them struggle when searching for food. Climate change is affecting ecosystems in many different ways. One of its consequences are increasingly longer and more intense periods of heat, which affect essential natural processes - such as pollination.

Researchers from Würzburg and Berlin present a new molecule for visualising the sphingomyelin metabolism. This offers prospects for innovative therapeutic approaches in infection research. At the end of the 19th century, the German pathologist Ludwig Thudichum isolated previously unknown fatty substances (lipids) from the brain.

Using newly generated "optogenetic" tobacco plants, research teams from the University of Würzburg's Departments of Plant Physiology and Neurophysiology have investigated how plants process external signals. When it comes to survival, plants have a huge disadvantage compared to many other living organisms: they cannot simply change their location if predators or pathogens attack them or the environmental conditions change to their disadvantage.

Superconductivity theory proposed by Würzburg physics team validated in international experiment: Cooper pairs display wave-like distribution in Kagome metals, enabling new technological applications like superconducting diodes. For about fifteen years, Kagome materials with their star-shaped structure reminiscent of a Japanese basketry pattern have captivated global research.

Chlamydiae are sexually transmitted pathogens that can apparently survive in the human gut for a long time. Researchers from Würzburg and Berlin report this in the journal PLOS Pathogens. People who are infected with chlamydia can transmit these bacteria to other people during unprotected sex. The pathogens usually cause no or only mild symptoms at first, such as itching in the vagina, penis or anus.

A new highly effective thrombosis inhibitor is in sight: Würzburg scientists present promising inhibitor EMA601 for efficient prevention and treatment of arterial thrombosis and inflammatory reactions without increased bleeding risk. An unhealthy lifestyle, diseases or injuries, genetic predisposition, and increased coagulation tendency can promote the formation of thrombi in blood vessels.

An international research team has sequenced the largest genomes of all'animals - those of lungfish. The data will help to find out how the ancestors of land vertebrates managed to conquer the mainland. Let's travel back through time to the late Devonian period, around 380 to 360 million years in the past.

People trust medical advice less if they suspect that an artificial intelligence is involved in its creation. This is the key finding of a study by psychologists from the University of Würzburg. People used to ask Dr. Google if they wanted to know whether their symptoms indicate a mild stomach upset or terminal cancer; today, they are increasingly turning to ChatGPT.

A team at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Würzburg, Germany, led by RNA expert Chase Beisel, has developed a new technology for the precise detection of RNA using DNA-cutting Cas12 nucleases. CRISPR-Cas systems, defense systems in bacteria, have become a plentiful source of technologies for molecular diagnostics.

Artificial intelligence can detect lies much better than humans. This also has an impact on social interaction, as a recently published study shows. Humans are bad at recognizing lies. As studies consistently demonstrate, their judgments are barely better than chance. This inability could be one of the reasons why most people refrain from accusing others of dishonesty.

Parents and upbringing play a major role in determining how often children lie. This behavior can be positively influenced with simple measures. This is shown by a new study by economists from Würzburg, Bonn and Oxford. Everyone lies - some more, some less. Children are no different. An international team of economists has now investigated the influence of the parental home and upbringing.