Skip to main content

News from the University of Potsdam

Subjects
Selected Subject:

show all

White storks in the field | Photo: Guillermo Fandos-Guzman

Flexible individuals - Seasonal climatic niche tracking in White Storks only emerges at population level

Individual migratory birds rather track short-term weather conditions, while a population adapts its migratory movements seasonally to both weather …
Bioreactor for cultivating microorganisms in the innoFSPEC lab | Photo: Ernst Kazcysnki

Not Without Alternatives – Bioplastic made from waste replaces conventional plastics

Plastic is a part of our everyday life. It has been made from oil, natural gas, and coal for over 100 years. The negative consequences of this flood …
In the embryonic zebrafish heart, the endocardium that is forming cardiac valve leaflets is divided into two subpopulations (here, cyan and yellow). | Photo: Federica Fontana

Strong evidence – Essential regulatory gene for the formation of heart valves discovered

By studying zebrafish embryos, the animal physiologist Prof. Salim Seyfried and his team have identified a new blood flow-regulated gene (Vegfr3/Flt4) …
Schematic representation of a bacterium with two motility modes, push and wrap, swimming towards the source of an attractant. | Image: Dr. Robert Großmann

Freestyle – The combination of swim modes facilitates movement of bacteria

One of the prime challenges of swimming bacteria is to purposefully navigate to find food or flee from poisons. This process, called chemotaxis, …
In the laboratory. | Photo: Thomas Roese

When Plants Sound the Alarm – How genes and molecules protect plants from heat

Isabel Bäurle is a biologist who researches the heat stress memory of plants at the molecular level. Her findings could give fresh impetus to the …
Bank vole | Photo: Thomas Roese

Animal ecologists in the home office – What can be done when researchers cannot experiment?

On the corona pandemic – contributions from the University of Potsdam

Dr. Karin Schneeberger just published the latest findings on the behavior of Norway rats in the open access journal PLOS Biology. Now, the biologist, …
Rabbit | Photo: S. Kriesten

Rural exodus among rabbits – behavioral biology study documents migration of rabbits into cities

It is not only humans that drift to the cities, but also wild animals. Researchers have now succeeded in proving that wild rabbits have migrated from …
Mascarene paradise flycatcher. | Photo: Christophe Thebaud

Island birds – biologists develop model to explain bird diversity on islands

Biologists from the University of Potsdam are part of an international research team which succeeded in developing a model to explain the species …
Video microscopy of a cell division by protein waves in a 0.05x0.06 millimetre image section. The protein waves are stained green, the cell nuclei red. The waves move in the direction of the arrows, thereby dividing the cell into two daughter cells.

Wave power – Biophysicists discover new form of cell division driven by protein waves

The Biological Physics group led by Professor Carsten Beta at the University of Potsdam has, in cooperation with Spanish scientists, discovered a new …
Datenassimilation findet in vielen Gebieten Anwendung – mit am längsten eingesetzt wird sie in der Meteorologie. Grafik: Andreas Töpfer.

The Best of Both Worlds - The Connection between the Weather, Amoebae, and the Human Gaze

Data is all the rage. Satellite images make the entire world available - in detail and around the clock. Humans, too, are being captured down to the …