Plants need water to grow. The supply of liquid is provided by the roots. How much water is absorbed is determined by a hydraulic system that works similar to machines. A negative pressure ensures that plants suck the water out of the soil. The suction power is based on the negative pressure in the plant supply channels, which is created by the evaporation of water on the cell walls of the leaves. But the pressure in this network is usually limited to minus 100 bar for plants. Until now it was unclear why this is so.

The Zuse-Gemeinschaft, an association of private sector research institutions, intends to focus more on applied bioeconomic research. To accomplish this, the industrial research community has now founded the Bioeconomy Cluster, which initially includes 15 of the 75 institutes.

What do Germans think about technology? This is what the TechnikRadar from acatech and the Körber Stiftung has been investigating since 2018. The third issue of the magazine focused on the bioeconomy for the first time.

Nature offers a wide range of active ingredients that play an increasingly important role in medicine, the pharmaceutical and food industries. Natural substances that are not very popular are gradually coming into the spotlight. Ferulic acid is one of these candidates. It is contained in many plants such as rice, dill or roseroot and has health promoting ingredients as well as flavours which are relevant for the production of aromas such as vanillin and the typical wheat beer taste.

Every year the chemical industry produces around 100 million tonnes of methanol. However, the production of this important basic chemical is based on fossil raw materials and causes high CO₂ emissions. The exact opposite would be conceivable: Methanol can also be produced from green hydrogen and carbon dioxide. But process requirements for producing green methanol on an industrial scale have been little researched to date. The project "Power-to-Methanol - Grünes Methanol", funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics, wants to change this.

"The decline of biodiversity and intact ecosystems in Germany is alarming." With these words, Federal Research Minister Anja Karliczek summed up a development that the Federal Ministry of Education and Research is counteracting with an initiative for the conservation of species diversity. On the occasion of the International Day of Biological Diversity, the ministry is now providing a further 25 million euros for research projects aimed at protecting biodiversity.

Not just changing individual genes but replacing entire chromosome pieces - a German team of plant researchers has taken the application possibilities of the CRISPR-Cas9 molecular scissors to a new level.

In the Corona pandemic, protective masks have become an everyday item.

For many years, medicine has been looking at many molecules from nature, but usually these compounds are so complex that it is difficult to chemically replicate them. If they do succeed, the basis for this is ultimately petroleum-based chemistry. In nature, by contrast, enzymes produce these complex molecules. One of these enzymes is the enzyme AmbDH3, which a team led by Frank Hahn has now investigated in greater detail. This enzyme is involved in the formation of Ambruticin, a suspected fungicide in bacteria.

Scientists at Bielefeld University have succeeded for the first time in enzymatically producing 12-oxophytodienoic acid (12-OPDA), a central precursor of the plant hormone jasmonic acid. The jasmonates are derived from the acidity, by means of which plants react to injuries, warn each other of pests or also control fruit ripening: "For example, jasmonic acid can trigger the release of toxic substances such as nicotine in the leaves, which harm the attackers", explains biologist Karl-Josef Dietz.