Peppermint, lemon balm, wolf’s bane or chamomile are popular medicinal plants. They are used to soothe the symptoms of diseases in teas, but also in pharmaceuticals. But their cultivation is difficult. Even the smallest contamination by weeds can impair the effect of the medicinal plants. In the joint project Optimech, a team led by the University of Bonn is now investigating how medicinal plants can be cultivated in a way that is as soil-friendly as possible without having to use herbicides.

The mother-of-pearl inside a shell is not only beautiful to look at, it has also fascinated materials researchers for decades because of its exceptional toughness. It is considered one of the most resilient materials in the world. “Nacre is the prototypical supermaterial,” the researchers, including scientists from the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), write.

The search for new active ingredients for the production of antibiotics is going strong. A promising source is the sea. Many microorganisms that have the potential to produce antibiotics settle here. With the marine phylum Planctomycetes, an international team of researchers has now identified a new source of active substances. Initial analyses suggest that these microorganisms, which have so far received little attention, are actually able to produce antibiotics.

Bamboo products are considered to be resource-efficient and sustainable. Cups, plates, cutlery, crockery or drinking straws are already made from the plant's woody stem axes or fibers and are available on the market. Especially in view of the forthcoming Europe-wide ban on disposable plastics, alternatives to conventional plastics are becoming more and more important. "From a health risk point of view, however, these products are not always suitable for use as tableware," warns Andreas Hensel, President of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).

There are many environmental factors like drought and overfertilization that put plants under stress. In such cases, a complex signalling cascade is triggered inside the plant. This stress management apparatus works the same for all land plants - in moss just as in rye. An international research team led by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in which the University of Göttingen participated, wanted to know exactly how stress management works. The scientists therefore focused on a specific gene for the receptor in this signalling cascade.

The industry is relying more and more on natural substances and, with this, satisfying consumer demand for more biobased and sustainably produced products. Plant-based products and ingredients are particularly in demand in the cosmetics industry. Through a new strategic partnership with the French company Plant Advanced Technologies (PAT), the Swiss chemical group Clariant intends to expand its involvement in this business field.

On average, each German buys around 60 items of clothing a year - not counting underwear. Conventional production of one kilogram of cotton consumes up to 10,000 liters of water. The high water consumption is one of many reasons why the textile industry is considering a recycling economy. So far, however, with the exception of some synthetic fibers, textiles have been based exclusively on virgin fibers.

Carbon dioxide is rarely readily available in water. Some aquatic plants therefore find it difficult to meet their carbon requirements by photosynthesis using carbon dioxide - the normal method for land plants. They use hydrogen carbonate as a supplement or alternative for the photosynthesis reaction. Ecologists at the University of Duisburg-Essen have now discovered that the distribution of these two plant groups is changing in favor of hydrogen carbonate users.

All organisms that have been genetically modified fall under the regulations for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the European Union, according to the ruling of the European Court of Justice in 2018. This sounds plausible at first glance, but it is not that simple, as the Max Planck Society has already pointed out.

The bacterium Escherichia coli is one of the favourite organisms of microbiologists and biotechnologists. E. coli is easy to cultivate in the laboratory. It has been well researched and is well suited for the implementation of biotechnological processes. So far, however, the bacterium has used carbohydrates as a source of carbon both in nature and in industrial applications. An international research team led by the Weizman Institute in Israel has now succeeded in converting the diet of E. coli to carbon dioxide from the air.