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THE BIOCENTER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WÜRZBURG

Archive

Aphids puncture the phloem vessels of plants. They can be used as biosensors for measuring electrical signals.

Do plants have some kind of nervous system? This is difficult to establish as there are no suitable measurement methods around. Plant researchers from Würzburg used aphids for this purpose – and discovered that plants respond differently to different kinds of damage.

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Unique: Nine different cell structures were fluorescence labelled at once to become distinguishable under the microscope.

Advance in biomedical imaging: The University of Würzburg's Biocenter has enhanced fluorescence microscopy to label and visualise up to nine different cell structures simultaneously.

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Bedbugs and their offspring.

An international team of scientists has managed to sequence the genome of the bedbug. Among them are neurogeneticists from the University of Würzburg's Biocenter. They studied genes that control the circadian clock, secretion and moulting processes.

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Plants can do maths

01/21/2016
Insect on a Venus flytrap – it has not snapped shut yet.

The carnivorous Venus flytrap carefully plans its meals: It can count how often it is touched by an insect to calculate the digestive effort. This discovery has been made by plant scientists of the University of Würzburg.

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Three parasitic species of cuckoo wasps at the same time have targeted the food provisions in the nests of mason wasps.

A special camouflage allows parasitic wasps to raid the nests of host species. The affected hosts seem to have responded to that in the course of evolution as Würzburg biologists report.

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Section through the mammary gland of a mouse. The regions in which the stems cells are located are stained red.

Researchers from the University of Würzburg have revealed a metabolic pathway that seems to make breast tumors more aggressive. The study will also identify possible targets for new cancers drugs. It has appeared in the renowned journal Cancer Cell.

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A circadian clock is not mandatory for living beings to adapt their activities to a day-night cycle – at least under certain conditions. Other mechanisms are capable of compensating for the loss of the molecular clock as researchers from the University of Würzburg have now shown.

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Fields of rapeseed crop are growing continuously in Germany. As a consequence, more insecticides are being put out on fields to fight animal pests such as the pollen beetle. Scientists from the University of Würzburg have now discovered a simple alternative to chemicals.

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[Translate to Englisch:] Der Doktorand Joel Ltilitan Bargul erforscht die Tsetse-Fliege, den Überträger der Schlafkrankheit (Foto: Markus Engstler)

Ein Afrikaner, in einer Nomadenfamilie groß geworden, hat erfolgreich seinen Weg in die Wissenschaft gemacht: Er ist jetzt Doktorand der Biologie und kommt Ende Juni zu einem internationalen Alumni-Treffen an die Universität Würzburg.

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Flies, too, remember the time of day, as scientists from the University of Würzburg found out in a series of experiments. However, several requirements have to be satisfied in order for the flies to form a memory. And under certain circumstances this mechanism does not work at all.

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Schlafkrankheit, Lassa-Fieber und andere Infektionen: Rund 100 Wissenschaftler aus Afrika und Deutschland präsentieren an der Uni Würzburg ihre gemeinsamen Forschungsprojekte im Bereich der Infektiologie – bei einer Tagung vom 10. bis 13. Juni im Biozentrum.

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Tumours of the nervous system: This is what a new project of the Würzburg cancer researcher Martin Eilers is about. The European Research Council has awarded him an “Advanced Grant” of about 2.5 million euros for this purpose.

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What genes enable plants to catch animals and digest them? Three genes have now been described for the Venus flytrap. They are responsible for the fact that the plant can use the vital potassium from its prey highly efficiently.

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When plants notice harmful bacteria, they respond very quickly: They close the pores on their leaves which serve as loophole for the pathogens. A Würzburg research team has analysed this process.

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In a new Collaborative Research Centre scientists from Würzburg and Jena are examining the function of membrane receptors with the most modern light microscopy. The objective is to gain new findings about how these receptors work and to develop the high-performance light microscopy further.

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