Tomorrow Today

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The oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has given researcher Antje Boetius a unique opportunity: the microbiologist from Bremen is studying a special kind of oil-eating bacteria that live on the sea bed and consume the crude oil that lands there.Boetius is trying to find out how these bacteria break down the oil - and whether she can increase their appetite. She hopes to use her research to clean bodies of water contaminated by man-made spills.

Ingolf Baur: Joining us in the studio is Dr. Birger-Gottfried Lühr from the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam. He is an expert on earthquake risk assessment and early warning systems.

Berlin-based photographer Peter Badge has captured the likenesses of all the living Nobel Prize-winners. The result is a series of black and white portraits made for the Deutsches Museum in Munich and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. Badge's photographs are showing the personalities behind the famous names. Tomorrow Today caught up with the photographer and his Nobel model.

Research on the brain is one of the scientific fields considered likely to earn Nobel Prizes in the near future. A promising area is the theme of brain-computer interfaces. Many research groups around the world are competing to find a way to that goal. John-Dylan Haynes of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin tells us why brain research is so exciting.

Every summer, the town of Lindau on Lake Constance becomes the scientific navel of the world. This year's Nobel Laureate Meeting brings together 59 science Nobel Prize winners and 650 young researchers from around the world. For the up-and-coming scientists it's a unique opportunity to experience the gathering of prominent figures from the fields of physics, chemistry and medicine.

That biggest difference therefore seems to be that humans are only better at working together and learning from one another. An expert from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development is here to tell us more.

Center of Neurology, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Tübingen

Is it possible to mitigate the effects of Parkinson's disease? Neurologist Daniela Berg and her research team in Tübingen are trying to answer that question.They are using a method involving ultrasound to detect the disease in its early stages and pinpoint the loss of nerve cells in parts of the brain. It's hoped that this procedure will enable doctors to use drugs to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease as well, ultimately making it possible to prevent degenerative brain diseases.

Scientists have developed a device that could help keep astronauts fit while they are in space. Studies show that living in the gravity-free conditions of space causes muscle and bone loss.Now a new vibration table could help prevent that. The astronaut's feet would be strapped to a vibrating plate, which has been shown to stimulate the muscles and bones. To assess the vibration table's suitability for use in space, the device was tested on board an aircraft whose parabolic flight-path briefly simulates micro-gravity. Join DW-TV reporter Cornelia Borrmann, who was on the flight.

A journey through the depths of space - is it just the stuff of science fiction, or could it ever come true? Researchers are exploring new concepts for the space ships of the future.A journey through space could take months or even years, and a ship could never carry enough conventional fuel to power it. New propulsion systems will be required, with an energy supply to last through the journey. When do the laws of physics reach their limits? Tomorrow Today reports on space travel research in Europe.

Report by Patrick Benning Gene therapies, cancer treatment, personalized medicine: more than 100 partners from the research, medical and business sectors have joined forces a research cluster centered in the central German city of Heidelberg.The BioRN Cluster hopes to speed up the transformation of biomedical research into marketable products. Over the next five years the plan is to bring out 70 new medications that may offer new hope to patients.

Avatars are everywhere. Whether in computer games, in GPS systems or on home pages, virtual agents are there to make life in the digital world easier for humans. Computer scientists in Augsburg are now imbuing the computer figures with feelings to make them more human.An example is Alfred the Avatar. He can laugh, frown and even get really angry. This may sound like a technical game, but it has important applications. If an avatar appears to show feelings, users are more likely to accept it and develop an interest in the far from soulless technology.

How will climate change affect individual regions or cities? Researchers at the KlimaCampus Cluster of Excellence in Hamburg are looking for ways of making those kinds of predictions.The cluster brings together academics from 17 institutes in the sciences, social science and the humanities. Supported by one of the world's largest supercomputers they want to help politicians and urban planners prepare their regions for the effects of the climate of the future.

Heidelberg researcher Andreas Trumpp and his team want to find out why some types of cancer are so resistant to chemotherapy. They hope to find an answer in what are known as cancer stem cells.These are stem cells that may form the germ cells for a tumor. They defy treatment by medication and can therefore cause relapses many years later. Until a few years ago these cancer stem cells were unknown. Today they are considered a new hope in cancer research.

One of the researchers at the Universe excellence cluster is Andreas Burkert. He studied physics and astronomy in Munich and is today one of the cluster's two directors. He and his team develop computer programs that replicate the growth of entire galaxies - a process that in reality takes billions of years.But his work is more than about just number juggling; what also fascinates him is trying to understand the beauty of the universe.