MaxPlanckResearch 1/2023

To combat climate change, we need to do more than just stop burning coal, oil, and gas. We also need a change in other areas, such as our diet. Eating meat also harms the climate, yet most politicians are hesitant to intervene here. Lawyer Saskia Stucki explains why food is a taboo and how the state could effectively intervene.

Hannah Pool, Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, became acquainted with Afghan migrants as a student in Iran and assisted refugees during the migration summer of 2015 before she turned the subject of life on refugee routes into her field of research. Crossing borders is both an academic and a personal matter for her.

Since its foundation in 1948, the Max Planck Society has not only established itself as a globally recognized research organization, but has also become an influential part of contemporary German and European history. Historian Jürgen Kocka demonstrated this at a ceremony to mark its 75th anniversary in Munich. Here is an abridged version of his lecture.

Feel hungry, grab a pudding, enjoy it, and have another. Many different electrical and chemical signals ensure that the body and the brain cooperate in the area of nutrition. Marc Tittgemeyer and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne are studying the implications of such coordination.

Self-learning algorithms are turning our society upside down. But all too frequently, even their developers do not fully understand how they work. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences want to remedy the situation with fundamental theories of machine learning.

The galaxies we see around us have had a turbulent past, full of collisions, plentiful gas flows, and bursts of increased star formation. Our home galaxy is no exception. A team led by Hans-Walter Rix at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy is reconstructing the Milky Way’s history in a process that resembles archaeological research.

Lena Heins from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz crossed the Atlantic aboard the research sailing yacht S/Y Eugen Seibold. During the voyage from Cape Verde to the Caribbean Island of Grenada, she collected samples for various climate projects. Here, the scientist offers an insight into her work on the ship and tells us about dolphins, flying fish, and a climate archive on the ocean floor.