New boost for excellent research at the University of Bonn: The German Research Foundation (DFG) is establishing two new Collaborative Research Centres (CRC). In the CRC 1502 "Regional Climate Change: The Role of Land Use and Water Management", researchers are investigating the hypothesis that human-induced land use change and intensified water management influence the regional climate. The speaker of the consortium is Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kusche. In the Transregio-CRC 333 "Brown and Beige Fat Organ Crosstalk, Signaling and Energetics ( BATenergy)", the research teams are looking at different types of adipose tissue and their role in metabolic diseases. The network is a collaboration of the Universities of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn, the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Helmholtz Zentrum München. The speaker is Prof. Dr. Alexander Pfeifer.
The University of Bonn has every reason to celebrate, as it has now been entitled to call itself a “Fairtrade University” for a whole year. The honor is given to universities that are committed to fair and sustainable trade and consumption practices. For instance, the Studierendenwerk Bonn sells fair-trade coffee, tea and chocolate, while the student initiative organizes events such as a goal wall challenge in the Hofgarten. During the “Sustainable September” campaign month, this drew the attention of passersby and University members to the poor conditions under which some sporting goods are produced and the human rights abuses committed in the countries where they are made.
On November 25 the Bonn Sustainable AI Lab at the University of Bonn will have its official launch event. A wide range of highly regarded speakers like Katja Dörner, Mayor of Bonn, Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, Dr. Enno Aufderheide, Secretary General of the Humboldt Foundation and Jan Kleijssen, Council of Europe, will address the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on society and express the urgency to conduct more research and experiments on AI to get a grip on its rapid development. The Rector of the University of Bonn, Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Michael Hoch, and the co-director of the Institute of Science and Ethics (IWE) and head of the Sustainable AI Lab, Prof. Dr. Aimee van Wynsberghe, will perform the opening ceremony. Journalists can attend the event after registration. The start is at 16:00.
It is probably the biggest Advent wreath in town: The University of Bonn will - starting on Sunday, November 28th - illuminate the towers of its main building like candles on an Advent wreath in the evening and morning hours.
Mathematics as an entertaining evening program - from the comfort of your home. This is what the digital "Maths Night from Bonn and Münster" offers, and all interested parties are invited to participate on Friday, November 26th. During workshops and lectures which will take place from 3 p.m. to midnight, scientists from the two clusters of excellence "Hausdorff Center for Mathematics" (HCM) at the University of Bonn and "Mathematics Münster" at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster will be showing how diverse and fascinating mathematics is. The event takes place via Zoom video conference and is free of charge.
Physicists of the university of Bonn have found out why beer mats don't fly flat like a frisbee disk and published a scientific study in July 2021. This joint achievement by Johann Ostmeyer, Christoph Schürmann and Prof. Dr. Carsten Urbach from University of Bonn has received the Pinneapple Science Award in the physics category.
After the natural warming that followed the last Ice Age, there were repeated periods when masses of icebergs broke off from Antarctica into the Southern Ocean. A new data-model study led by the University of Bonn now shows that it took only a decade to initiate this tipping point in the climate system, and that ice mass loss then continued for many centuries. Accompanying modeling studies suggest that today's accelerating Antarctic ice mass loss also represents such a tipping point, which could lead to irreversible and long-lasting ice retreat and global sea level rise. The study has now been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Umeå University, and the University of Bonn have identified a new group of molecules that have an antibacterial effect against many antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Since the properties of the molecules can easily be altered chemically, the hope is to develop new, effective antibiotics with few side effects. The findings have been published in the journal PNAS.