Molds are not only a health risk. They are also important microbial cell factories in biotechnology. The first process of this kind was the fermentation of citric acid more than 100 years ago. In the present, numerous other acids, enzymes and pharmaceutically active molecules have been added. How productive these manufacturing processes are also depends on the spatial structure of the fungal tangles in the bioreactor. A German research team has now succeeded in analyzing these structures.

"In 1923, the world's first commercial methanol plant was built in Leuna. We now build on this success story by completely reinventing the process of methanol production at the same site exactly 100 years later." This is how Christoph Zehe from the climate tech start-up C1 describes the Leuna100 project that has just been launched, in which those involved want to develop a process for producing green methanol that is suitable for industrial use. The German Federal Ministry of Transport is funding the project with 10.4 million euros over three years.

Invertebrates such as flying insects play a key role in the freshwater ecosystem: they filter water, transport nutrients and break down organic material. These abilities have long made them an indicator of water quality. In a long-term study, an international team of researchers has investigated how species diversity has developed in European rivers.

Microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts or molds are masters of material conversion and have always been an important tool in biotechnology. With their help, materials can be produced that are naturally biobased and biodegradable - bioplastics, for example. But not all bacteria of interest to biotechnology work as desired, because they are difficult to "tame." Researchers at the Institute of Microbiology and Molecular Biology at Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU) have now found a way to achieve this by controlling their gene expression.

Even in remote parts of the world, such as the Arctic, researchers now find microplastic particles. But the tiny plastic particles don't just float in the water and harm marine animals and ecosystems. The particles also enter the atmosphere via wind and waves, as a study by a German-Norwegian research team shows.

Photosynthesis is by far the most important metabolic process on earth. Without it, there would be no life. With the help of sunlight, plants, algae and also some bacteria can convert water and carbon dioxide (CO2) into sugar and oxygen. Plants need CO2 to generate the necessary energy and thus biomass for their growth. As a result of increasingly frequent droughts, however, the photosynthetic behavior of plants has changed within the day, as an international study by researchers from South Korea, the USA and Germany shows.

Leaf fleas are a horror for fruit growers. The so-called psyllids sting the plant with their sucking mouthparts and suck out the plant sap. In this way, the parasitic leaf fleas sometimes cause high crop losses. Until now, fruit growers have tried to control the pest with the help of synthetic chemical pesticides. An international team of researchers with the participation of the Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) has now, by chance, found a suitable antagonist in a parasitic fungus to eliminate the leaf flea in fruit growing in a natural way.

It has been seven years since chemists at the University of Konstanz presented a completely new class of plastics that resemble biomaterials in structure. The so-called mineral plastic was a hydrogel consisting of nanoparticles of calcium carbonate (lime) crosslinked with polyacrylic acid in water. Hardly any energy is consumed in its production, as room temperature is sufficient. It also has self-healing properties and is easily recyclable. But the mineral plastic had a crucial flaw: due to its chemical components, it was not biodegradable.

Every year, fungal diseases cause major yield losses in cereals worldwide. At the molecular biological level, there is a constant arms race between plants and their pathogens. Fungi use certain molecules, known as effectors, to trick the plant's immune system. The plant, in turn, learns to recognize these effectors and still activate its defenses. The fungi then change their effectors, and the plant must again develop immune receptors to recognize them. And so the game goes on and on.