Five proposals for Clusters of Excellence win funding in the German federal competition / Clusters in the fields of aging research, astrophysics, plant sciences, quantum research and economics will receive funding

A black fungus that can tolerate extreme salinity and intense radiation in a Mars-like environment provides insights into planet habitability and beyond.

In 2022 a team led by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry discovered that high levels of OH radicals can be generated indoors, simply due to the presence of people and ozone. This means: People generate their own oxidation field and change the indoor air chemistry around them within their own personal space. Now, in a follow-up study again in cooperation with an international research team, they found that commonly applied personal care products substantially suppress a human’s production of OH radicals. These findings have implications for the indoor chemistry, the air quality of occupied spaces, and human health, since many of the chemicals in our immediate vicinity are transformed by this field.