To what extent do emotions influence behaviour in different cultures? Psychologist Dominik Güss has searched four continents for the emotional blueprints of behaviour.

Academics are pioneers in their societies. What specifically the Humboldt Foundation’s alumni can do to encourage re-thinking and social change in the Middle East.

Bloodthirsty monsters and torture chambers feature just as prominently in films about the Middle Ages as knights in shining armour and fair damsels. Mediaevalist Bettina Bildhauer reveals just how much this image has been influenced by the perception of our own
times.

For generations of researchers into evolution, phylogenetic trees were an ideal way of presenting the relationships between species and how they developed. However, a new kind of genetic analysis has revealed that evolution is often far less linear than we had assumed. The phylogenetic tree is being supplanted by the network.

This year, the Nobel Prize for Economics has been awarded to two Humboldtians: Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson. Their work has yielded insights into why people and firms often behave rather differently from the way they are supposed to according to classic economic market theory. 

The main lecture hall at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg is bubbling with excitement. Students are thronging in the corridors and stairways, trying to bag one of the much sought-after seats in the hall. The chant “RUDI, RUDI, RUDI” echoes through the hall. The Magic Show’s audience want to see the star – and there are still 90 minutes to go before it
starts. 

Memory Studies examine how our self-image and our present are shaped not only by the past as such, but also by the way we remember it. Aleida Assmann and Karl Galinsky, pioneers of this still young discipline, received this year’s Max Planck Research Award.

In summer the temperatures at the warmest points in Antarctica hover around zero. For two to six months, one percent of the ground may be snow-free – not much time for the Argentine scientist, Cecilia Flocco, to collect the flowering plants, roots attached, that grow in this extreme environment. 

“I should like my research to change the world.” This is not exactly a modest statement. But if you look at the list of Robert Langer’s achievements, his awards and string of patents, you cannot help concluding that the 2008 Max Planck Research Award Winner takes his intentions seriously.

Eating and sex are controlled by the same regions of the brain, the neurobiologist and brand new Humboldt Professor Tamas Horvath has discovered. His research could help to combat diseases like Parkinson’s.

Hardly anyone knows them, but if there were a contest for beauty, versatility and evolutionary success in the insect kingdom, chalcid wasps would be up on the winners’ rostrum. And quite apart from this, they make an important contribution to conservation, too. 

How Islamic legal scholars deal with bioethics issues and what role medical scientists play in it all.

Back in the days of the Iron Curtain, joint research was hardly possible. Now, archaeologists like the Georgian Joni Apakidze work hand in hand with their colleagues in Germany.

Be it sage, yellow gentian or rosemary – Albania is an important player on the European medicinal herb and spice market. But as an Albanian-German research study shows, Europe’s poorest country could make much more of its green treasure.

Where do the emotions live and what happens when negative emotions like fear or stress find their own feet and stop being controllable? How do the emotions influence our supposedly rational decisions? Neuropsychiatrist Raymond Dolan finds the answers to these questions in the interaction between various regions of the human brain.

Since the 19th century, researchers have been allowed to use the Archives of the Fabric of St. Peter’s in Rome – and they certainly do use them. Yet, despite this, genuine treasures are still uncovered in the various archives at the Vatican and St. Peter’s. Just recently, art historian Vitale Zanchettin made a spectacular find.

A bee’s brain is about ten thousand times smaller than that of a human being and still accomplishes amazing things. The Australian bee researcher Adrian Dyer investigates how bees learn complex tasks and can even recognise human faces. The processes going on in the bee’s brain could become the model for computer systems for facial recognition, at airports for example.

Amina Saied and Jens Gebauer are the personification of the Humboldt Network, and both work for the same goals: utilising local resources, preserving biodiversity and guiding young researchers through the academic jungle.

In Nigeria it is supposed to prevent malnutrition, in Europe to help make indigenous fruit resistant to the consequences of climate change. Odunayo Adebooye is researching into the snake tomato.

For the last 150 years, science has been considering an issue which could save many lives today: is it possible to make a damaged heart regenerate itself? Many researchers have tried in vain to meet this challenge - cell biologist, Felix Engel, has managed: for his achievements in the field of heart cell regeneration he has been granted the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's Sofja Kovalevskaja Award.

Husband and wife researchers, Mary Mullins and Michael Granato, are a special example of a dual career. Both of them are as Humboldt Foundation research award winners guests at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg. Here, they are researching into the same laboratory animal, the zebrafish. The reasons why they don’t get in each other’s way were revealed during a visit to the lab.

What urges Russian junior scientists and scholars to go abroad.

How Estonian mathematician Tarmo Soomere became a popular hero in his country.

To Yamirka Rojas-Agramonte, grey lumps of rock are precious treasure. With their aid, the Cuban geologist is trying to fill in the blank spots on her country's geological map. A portrait.

The hour of the scientific policy advisors has come in the European Union's accession negotiations with Turkey. Two Humboldtians are among the experts being consulted.

The Georgian law scholar Lado Chanturia used to be Minister of Justice and Supreme Constitutional Court Judge of his country. But he swapped his career as a politician and democratic reformer in judge's robes for a research fellowship in Germany.

From Atlanta to Leipzig and almost, but really only almost, back again. How the American development psychologist Tricia Striano discovered her love of Leipzig, and why East German mothers are a stroke of luck for research.