INSIGHTS. Magazine

INSIGHTS reports on research at LMU — the latest findings and current debates — online, and in a printed edition that appears twice a year. The latest issue focuses on the topic "Sticking together - The value of cooperation".

Portrait of Prof. Dr. Olivia Merkel

A matter of perseverance

Since the start of her career, Olivia Merkel has been researching methods for transporting therapeutic RNA segments precisely to their target location in the lungs. A portrait

A matter of perseverance

Cohesion or division

LMU social psychologist Mario Gollwitzer looks at what pushes people apart and what binds societies together.

Cohesion or division

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Structures in the fog

AI tools such as the Stable Diffusion model developed by Björn Ommer are teaching computers how to see and paint. A portrait

Structures in the fog

"Like a stage, platform by platform”

Railway stations symbolize the onset of modernity. They stand for connections and encounters. We join Margit Dirscherl, a Germanist who studies the fascination that railway stations have held for writers, on a whistle-stop tour through literary history.

"Like a stage, platform by platform”

FOCUS: Call of the wild - What nature asks of us

Climate crisis and species extinction have become ever-present threats, not only for humans. They endanger non-human nature in our environment as well as outside the engineered world - in the wilderness. But what do we see in this term anyway? An analysis.

Portrait of Prof. Dr. Joris Peters
Long process of taming

The path to the livestock we know today from their wild ancestors was a long one. Paleoanatomist Joris Peters studies the rich and varied relationship between human and animals, that shaped both. A portrait

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Childhood in the jungle

Do children who grow up surrounded by untamed wilds develop a different concept of nature to Western urban kids? Anthropologist Francesca Mezzenzana is exploring what the consequences are.

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The first dropout

Living in and with the wilderness: Literary scholar Klaus Benesch on the brilliant author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau and his influence on today’s world-weary generation

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The strange world of the ocean deep

Life exists even miles under the sea, where microorganisms create peculiar ecosystems. Geobiologist William Orsi explores this fascinating wilderness in the remote depths, a place where time has another meaning.

The strange world of the ocean deep

A new world order

Historian Kiran Klaus Patel and international law expert Christian Walter talk about what Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means for the coexistence of nations and international norms.

A new world order

Unpacking luck in the genetic lottery

Certain genes can be more active in some people and less in others, which influences our immune system. Human geneticist Sarah Kim-Hellmuth wants to understand these connections better and develop personalized therapies.

Unpacking luck in the genetic lottery

Conversations with:

Lukas Rudolph on "Food Waste"

About the fight against food waste: What policies do people in their everyday lives support and are they ready to accept costs?

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Viorela Dan on "Deepfakes"

Modern technology is revolutionizing the ways in which pictures and videos can be faked. The consequences can be serious.

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Inga Koerte
Inga Koerte on "concussions"

Can heading the ball in soccer matches have a deleterious effect on the brain?

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A massive use of force

“There were great similarities between the empires”: The historian Tom Menger about colonial warfare and takes a close look at German colonial history in Africa.

A massive use of force
Rescue vessels work at the site of the stuck container ship Ever Given on the Suez Canal, Egypt

Strategies to counter the domino effect

If replenishment falters at a single point only, complex global supply chains are in danger of collapsing. Economist Lisandra Flach explores how these production chains can be made more resilient.

Strategies to counter the domino effect

THE INTERPRETER

Some scientific terms manage to make their way into everyday speech. Here, we ask LMU researchers to tell us what they mean – to define them, and to outline how they became popular.

Olivia Merkel on "nanocarriers"

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Jörg Häßler on "microtargeting"

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Thomas Seidl on "machine learning"

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More than a question of origin

In the grand interview from EINSICHTEN magazine, Antoinette Maget Dominicé, Uta Werlich, and Philipp Schorch talk about how anthropological museums can tell stories about the world in the future, against the backdrop of the restitution debate.

More than a question of origin

Molecular gastronomy

Origin of life: What was the recipe for the "Ursuppe" from which life emerged? LMU chemists Thomas Carell and Oliver Trapp, and physicist Dieter Braun, discuss the early steps in the evolution of life some four billion years ago.

Molecular gastronomy

A trial by fire for democracy

LMU political scientist Karsten Fischer examines how well liberal societies still stand for progress when populism rules everywhere - from the new issue of the research magazine INSIGHTS.

A Best-practice model

The power of chance

Life is constantly evolving, and yet “progress” is not the right word for this process of organismal change, says evolutionary geneticist Jochen Wolf. From the INSIGTHS focus on "Patterns of progress - what brings us ahead"

The power of chance

The knowledge of others

Intercultural universities are cultivating an unusual crossover of knowledge traditions. Anna Meiser examines what can be learned from this.

The knowledge of others

Beyond the limit

Smaller than light allows: Physicist Ralf Jungmann can also visualize individual proteins using conventional microscopes, bringing a new transparency to the nanoworld.

Beyond the limit

Hikikomori: Disappearing quietly

Alone in the room: There are hundreds of thousands of them, people who withdraw from the world at a young age. Japanologist Evelyn Schulz on a phenomenon of social withdrawal

Disappearing quietly

"Releasing Pressure"

Back to life: An interview about a youth in lockdown and what children and young people need now

Back to Life
Prof. Dr. Daniel Gruen

Algorithms to peek into the universe

Astrophysicist Daniel Grün uses artificial intelligence to explore the influence of dark matter and dark energy on the Universe.

Algorithms to peek into the universe

Tandem actions in the particle world

Hopes are high that quantum theory could yield revolutionary applications. Physicist Jasmin Meinecke is working on the physical foundations of particle systems and studying the central phenomenon of entanglement, which is still a mystery to science.

Tandem actions in the particle world
Tim van Leent

On the path to secure communication

An international team led by LMU physicists has successfully implemented an advanced form of quantum cryptography for the first time. Encryption is more secure against hacking attempts.

Quantum cryptography: on the path to secure communication

Living in the face of doom

“The society was constantly in motion": Ancient historian Martin Zimmermann on the spirit of optimism and sense of crisis in the Greek polis

Living in the face of doom

Keeping the memory alive

How to talk about the horror? An interview about the culture of remembrance and the role of first-hand witnesses of the Holocaust.

Keeping the memory alive

Modeling the Universe with data

Space and time encoded in 320 million Megabytes: LMU astrophysicist Klaus Dolag uses simulations to study how the cosmos evolved.

Modeling the Universe with data

Molecular tuning: Evolution in fast forward

Biologists led by Dario Leister want to give photosynthesis a helping hand. With the goal of increasing crop yields, they are using algae to accelerate the genetic adaptation of crop plants to changing environmental conditions.

Prof. Dario Leister - a portrait

Tracing tangled threads through time

Paleogenomics: When and where did wolves become dogs? LMU geneticist Laurent Frantz uses modern genome sequencing methods to trace the process of animal domestication.

Paleogenomics: Tracing tangled threads through time
Portrait von Bärbel Stecher.

The community within us

The most densely populated ecosystem does not belong to the human environment, but to its inner world, says Bärbel Stecher. She studies the microbiome and its complex metabolic network. What makes this community of microorganisms so important for health?

A portrait of Prof. Bärbel Stecher

By the numbers

0.000277778 degrees = 1 arc-second. This number equals the precision with which the uniquely sensitive ring laser ROMY can measure changes in the orientation of the Earth’s axis.

ROMY (Rotational Motions in Seismology)

INSIGHTS. LMU’s Research Magazine: The print edition

INSIGHTS. Two times per year.

Insights shows what makes LMU so renowned: With exciting stories, research features, and interviews, experienced science journalists provide insights into cutting-edge research.

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