Proteins actually need water to perform their function. Looking more closely with neutrons, researchers have observed that it can also be done without water and how the oxygen-transporting muscle protein myoglobin moves in that case. Their results have now been published in the renowned journal Physical Review Letters.

When a rocket is launched, the weld seams on the enormous fuel tanks must withstand immense forces. To produce joints with the necessary strength, a process known as “friction stir welding” is used. Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are working to make this process more efficient. They are using positrons generated by the Research Neutron Source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) to precisely localize “atomic holes” in the material.

Today, the namesake of the research neutron source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) and the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ) would have turned 110 years old. As the “father of the atomic egg” in Garching and founder of the international research institute Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, Heinz Maier-Leibnitz shaped modern neutron research like no one else.