Gases that are harmful to health and the climate are produced wherever livestock are kept. Although there are various ways of supposedly reducing these emissions, it is often impossible to say with any certainty how effective they are. This is because recording precise levels of harmful gases has so far been a laborious, costly and time-consuming process. A Germany-wide joint project is now setting out to change that with the help of more than €10,5 million in funding from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The official funding certificate has been presented yesterday by Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir at a ceremony in Potsdam. Among other things, the methods being developed are intended to identify particularly efficient ways of reducing emissions.
At the RoboCup World Championship in the French city of Bordeaux, the University of Bonn’s Team NimbRo won the soccer tournament in the Humanoid AdultSize category and thus successfully defended their title. The humanlike soccer-playing robots had been developed by the Autonomous Intelligent Systems lab at the Institute for Computer Science. They competed with improved software and were able to win numerous duels and dribble the ball quickly into the goal.
This year’s Universitätsfest at the University of Bonn was a truly record-breaking event: never before had the University of Excellence bid a fond farewell to so many graduates, with just shy of 1,700 participants signing up for the celebrations. They were joined on the Hofgartenwiese by some 4,000 guests to enjoy a lively party accompanied by glorious sunshine and temperatures to match.
The Belgian research vessel RV Belgica is currently underway in the waters of Iceland. Two researchers from the University of Bonn are also on board. The goal of the mission is to better understand a natural thermostat of the Earth: the weathering of rocks at the bottom of the sea. This process binds carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It may also be possible to use it in the fight against climate change.
Prof. Dr. Klaus Mølmer from the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen is to receive a research prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The €60,000 award, which is presented in Germany to researchers from abroad, is considered a major honor. Prof. Mølmer has been collaborating with the working group led by Prof. Dieter Meschede and Prof. Sebastian Hofferberth at the University of Bonn’s Institute of Applied Physics (IAP) for many years now. In fact, it was Meschede and Hofferberth who had put their Danish colleague’s name forward for the accolade. The prize money will now enable them to step up their cooperation.
On Monday, the European Commission announced its chosen recipients for the second round of funding in the European Universities initiative. NeurotechEU—the European University of Brain and Technology, which the University of Bonn is part of, is among the alliances to have secured a further four years of funding. Led by Radboud University in Nijmegen, eight other universities are involved in NeurotechEU alongside the University of Bonn. They are joined by over 250 partners from industry, academia and civil society. The aim is to build an innovative, trans-European network of excellence for brain research and brain technologies.
The contracts for a visiting professorship scheme designed to support outstanding Brazilian researchers were signed during an online event held last Friday. Participants included Prof. Dr. Mercedes Bustamante, President of the CAPES Foundation (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, or Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel), as well as the Rector of the University of Bonn and its Vice Rector for International Affairs.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Schultz from the Institute for Computer Science II at the University of Bonn and Priv.-Doz. Dr. Theodor Rüber from the Clinic and Polyclinic for Epileptology at the University Hospital Bonn are the first winners of the “Modelling for Life and Health” Transdisciplinary Research Prize, which is presented by the Modelling and Life & Health Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) at the University of Bonn. The €120,000 award funds highly innovative research projects at the interface between mathematics or computer science on the one hand and the topics covered by the TRA Life & Health on the other.