Last December, when it was announced that Vladimir Putin’s party had won the elections in Russia, thousands took to the streets in protest. The demonstrations, organized via online platforms and social networks such as Facebook, expressed the younger generation’s resentment over election fraud and the repressive political climate in the country. Russian journalist Anna Litvinenko, who holds a doctorate in communication studies, is working on the relationship between the media and politics as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at Freie Universität.

It’s like on any well-organized construction site: Wherever things have to get done, the first step is to set up scaffolding. Larger construction projects need complex scaffolds that stand for a longer time, while smaller ones are equipped with simple, easily dismantled structures. The process is basically the same on and in cells, but instead of steel supports and pipes, it is proteins that build the scaffolding at the cell membrane. They help, for example, to constrict tiny bubbles in the membrane that then either release their contents outward or move into the interior of the cell. This is how the cell communicates with others via messenger substances, such as in the case of nerve cells.