Some of that may already have come from the Max Planck Society, which runs many of Germany's best research campuses and had ResearchGate build it a private network.

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"If there is a supernova in our vicinity during the next couple of months, our chances of detecting and measuring the resulting gravitational waves are good, " said Professor Karsten Danzmann, head of the International Centre for Gravitational Physics, which is jointly run by the Max Planck Society and the University of Hanover.

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One of the groups behind the declaration, Germany's Max Planck Society, is now changing its employment contracts to require staff to return the copyright of their work to the society.

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Dr Sanz worked on the paper with Josep Call, also from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, and David Morgan from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo.

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