Alarming long-term effects of insecticides weaken ant colonies

This week, scientists of the Institute of Bee Health of the University of Bern have published an article in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Biology, which shows how even low doses of neonicotinoid insecticides, as ...

Deadly bacterial infection in pigs deciphered

The Clostridium perfringens bacterium is part of the large Clostridium genus which can cause various fatal illnesses in animals and humans. Clostridium infections are widespread. These bacteria are dangerous because they ...

How does an increase in nitrogen application affect grasslands?

The "PaNDiv" experiment, established by researchers of the University of Bern on a 3000 m2 field site, is the largest biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiment in Switzerland and aims to better understand how increases ...

CHEOPS space telescope ready for scientific operation

CHEOPS has reached its next milestone: Following extensive tests in Earth's orbit, some of which the mission team was forced to carry out from home due to the coronavirus crisis, the space telescope has been declared ready ...

CHEOPS space telescope takes its first pictures

The tension was high: In front of a large screen at the house near Madrid where members of the Consortium participating in the commissioning of the satellite live, as well as at the other institutes involved in CHEOPS, the ...

Cover of CHEOPS space telescope open

"Shortly after the launch on December 18, 2019, we tested the communication with the satellite. Then, on January 8, 2020, we started the commissioning, that is, we booted the computer, carried out tests, and started up all ...

Reducing the risk of blood clots in artificial heart valves

Most people are familiar with turbulence in aviation: certain wind conditions cause a bumpy passenger flight. But even within human blood vessels, blood flow can be turbulent. Turbulence can appear when blood flows along ...

Bark beetles control pathogenic fungi

Ants and honeybees share nests of hundreds or thousands of individuals in a very small space. Hence the risk is high that infectious diseases may spread rapidly. In order to reduce this risk, the animals have developed special ...

How nematodes outsmart the defenses of pests

The western corn rootworm, one of the world's most damaging maize pests, can use plant defense compounds to defend itself against its own natural enemies, so-called entomopathogenic nematodes. However, the nematodes can become ...

Liquifying a rocky exoplanet

Rocky exoplanets that are around Earth-size are comparatively small, which makes them incredibly difficult to detect and characterise using telescopes. What are the optimal conditions to find such small planets that linger ...

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