Life Sciences: Seeign in the dark, hearing rasps in the grass

Bavaria has participated in diplomatic relations with the rest of Europe since the 16th century, and these contacts eventually gave rise to an astonishingly extensive international network. The historian Professor Ferdinand Kramer and his colleagues have been studying diverse aspects of Bavaria’s external relations during the modern period. A new database being assembled by his staff now greatly facilitates the often arduous task of evaluating the relevant documentary material.

Bullies are school kids who make life hell for other kids using physical or psychological aggression. Developmental psychologist Dr. Mechthild Schäfer has conducted several studies that explain important characteristics and mechanisms of mobbing at schools and demonstrate what is typical for perpetrators and victims. She also tackles the question as to whether or not they remain in these roles throughout their schooldays.

Some animal species produce – at great energetic cost – sperm cells that are longer than the male organism itself. It is not known how old, in evolutionary terms, this phenomenon is. Using a newly developed high-tech approach, it has become possible to investigate the internal organs of exceptionally well preserved fossils. In cooperation with an international team of scientists, the palaeontologist Dr. Renate Matzke-Karasz recently succeeded in demonstrating that tiny ostracods (mussel shrimps) already used giant sperm for reproduction some 100 million years ago.

For the past ten years researchers at LMU Munich have been engaged in intensive research on the fundamental social structural transformations which Western industrial societies are currently undergoing. The guiding question of their research was whether 21 societies can still be understood in terms of the concepts of the 19th and 20th centuries. The results of the Collaborative Research Centre “Reflexive Modernisation” are now available.

There are only three ingredients for evolutionary success: find enough to eat, avoid being eaten and − above all − reproduce. In its restless search for ways to achieve these goals, evolution also acts to sharpen the discriminatory capacities of sensory organs. Two research groups at LMU Munich have now exposed some of the tricks exploited by different species for this purpose.

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How can the needs of today’s generation be satisfied while simultaneously not unjustly restricting the developmental prospects for future generations? That is the core question of all deliberations that can be aggregated under the collective concept of “Sustainability”. Catholic theologian Professor Markus Vogt is convinced that problems such as climate change can only be translated into practical principles of behavior in close dialog between the natural sciences and social sciences. In particular, he sees a need for churches to undertake key ethical initiatives in politics and society.

Organometallic compounds are used in the production of plastics, fertilizers and even drugs. Chemists working with Professor Paul Knochel have now developed a new method that allows even highly sensitive functional groups to be combined with nontoxic metals such as magnesium. This promises wide applications in the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries.

One of the most important tasks of the immune system is to identify what is foreign and what is self. If the body starts to attack its own cells or tissues instead of pathogens, then the result could be a dangerous autoimmune disease. Immunologists Professor Ludger Klein, Professor Thomas Brocker and PD Dr. David Vöhringer have detected new mechanisms that prevent the immune defenses from going off the rails.

Airports are worlds unto themselves, worlds where a beginner can easily get lost. Most passengers rush to their departure gate as quickly as possible, only to sit there for hours waiting for their flights to be called. To make for more efficient airport stays, a team of LMU computer scientists working with Professor Claudia Linnhoff-Popien has developed a system that can guide passengers through the vast airport environment and send them quickly and surely to their departure gate while also giving some freedoms along the way.