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B56133 The Science Magazine of the Max Planck Society 4.2018 Digital Society POLITICAL SCIENCE ASTRONOMY BIOMEDICINE LEARNING PSYCHOLOGY Democracy in The oddballs of A grain The nature of decline in Africa the solar system of brain children’s curiosity SCHLESWIG- Research Establishments HOLSTEIN Rostock Plön Greifswald MECKLENBURG- WESTERN POMERANIA Institute / research center Hamburg Sub-institute / external branch Other research establishments Associated research organizations Bremen BRANDENBURG LOWER SAXONY The Netherlands Nijmegen Berlin Italy Hanover Potsdam Rome Florence Magdeburg USA Münster SAXONY-ANHALT Jupiter, Florida NORTH RHINE-WESTPHALIA Brazil Dortmund Halle Manaus Mülheim Göttingen Leipzig Luxembourg Düsseldorf Luxembourg Cologne SAXONY DanielDaniel Hincapié, Hincapié, Bonn Jena Dresden ResearchResearch Engineer Engineer at at Marburg THURINGIA FraunhoferFraunhofer Institute, Institute, Bad Münstereifel HESSE MunichMunich RHINELAND Bad Nauheim PALATINATE Mainz Frankfurt Kaiserslautern SAARLAND Erlangen “Germany,“Germany, AustriaAustria andand SwitzerlandSwitzerland areare knownknown Saarbrücken Heidelberg BAVARIA Stuttgart Tübingen Garching forfor theirtheir outstandingoutstanding researchresearch opportunities.opportunities. BADEN- Munich WÜRTTEMBERG Martinsried Freiburg Seewiesen AndAnd academics.comacademics.com isis mymy go-togo-to portalportal forfor jobjob Radolfzell postings.”postings.” Publisher‘s Information MaxPlanckResearch is published by the Science Translation MaxPlanckResearch seeks to keep partners and friends of the and Corporate Communication Office of the Proverb oHG Max Planck Society up to date on the latest research conducted at Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. Marktplatz 12 the Max Planck Institutes. Four editions of the magazine are pub- Legal headquarters of the Association: Berlin. 70173 Stuttgart lished in German each year, all of which are translated into English. ISSN 1616-4172 Tel. +49 711 164090-0 At present, the English version has a circulation of 10,000 copies JobsJobs for for bight bight minds minds e-mail: [email protected] ( : 85,000 copies). It is free of charge. 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MaxPlanckResearch is printed using FSC®-certified and other controlled materials. 4 | 18 MaxPlanckResearch 83 ON LOCATION Spacewalk for research The International Space Station (ISS) orbits the Earth around 16 times a day from an altitude of approximately 400 kilometers; each orbit takes a good 90 minutes. The ISS, which is about the size of a football field and has been manned continually since November 2000, is constantly being converted and expanded – also in the services of science. On August 15, 2018, during an outboard mission that took almost eight hours, the two Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Oleg Artemyev installed the antenna for the Icarus system on the outside of the ISS. Now all the Icarus components on board are complete and the test phase, which will last several months, can begin. Icarus (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) – a joint project involving the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, the Russian space agency Roskosmos, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Space Administration – is intended to provide a new, improved understanding of animal migration worldwide. Even small animals such as songbirds can be fitted with the Icarus transmitters without altering their behavior. Although they weigh less than five grams, these so-called tags not only record the animal’s location but also collect data on acceleration, ambient temperature, and orientation relative to the Earth‘s magnetic field. When the ISS passes overhead, the tags send the recorded data to the space station. The space antenna can simultaneously record data on many hundreds of animals – in other words, whole flocks. The goal is to find out more about the lives of animals on Earth: the conditions in which they live and their migra- tory routes. Even more than a hundred years after the first birds were ringed for scientific purposes, surprisingly little is known about this in detail. The findings will not only serve the purposes of behavioral research and species protection, but will also facilitate research about the spread of infectious diseases, the effects of ecological phenomena such as climate change and ultimately, could even be used to predict natural disasters. Photo: NASA https://youtu.be/4g12a3cmXNs (in German) 4 | 18 MaxPlanckResearch 3 Contents No democracy: most African states are 20 DIGITAL SOCIETY 12 ruled by dictators. 20 Early alert system for fake news PERSPECTIVES Controlling fake news in social media more efficiently and precisely – this is the goal of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems. 06 An important visitor in Vancouver For this purpose, they are combining artificial intelligence processes with and Ottawa the evaluation of signals that reflect human judgment. 06 Fields Medal for Peter Scholze 26 Photo without a face 07 “Our limit value is unacceptably high” 08 Award for pioneering achievements We have hardly any control over where information about us, or even in paleogenetics photos with our likeness, are made public. However, in future we may at least be able to prevent photos of us being published on other 08 A journey through time in Dahlem people’s Facebook pages when we are not involved. The technology for 09 Award for an animal-friendly technique this purpose was developed by researchers at the Max Planck Institute 10 Max Planck Day for Software Systems in Saarbruecken. 11 The heads of the first Dioscuri Centers 32 Rules for robots 11 On the net Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly – literally as well as figuratively: robotic nurses could soon be moving into our homes. However, their VIEWPOINT behavior is still open to negotiation. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich are investigating 12 The decline of democracy in Africa how legal means can ensure that artificial intelligence adheres to Africa is a continent of dictators. human values. Elections are manipulated, the opposition suppressed. According to our author, Europe and the U.S. turn a blind eye far too often. ON THE COVER The digitalization of our society is advancing ever more rapidly – and FOCUS requires brand new security strategies: how can we effectively control fake news in social media, for example? How can we ensure that robotic nurses equipped with 20 Early alert system for fake news artificial intelligence will act as intended by the inventor? And what about photos of us that appear on platforms such as Facebook? Max Planck researchers are looking 26 Photo without a face to find solutions to these problems. 32 Rules for robots Cover: shutterstock; photos on this page: Aly Song/Reuters (large image), Commonwealth Secretariat (small image) 4 MaxPlanckResearch 4 | 18 No category: No