The Revd. Canon Professor Mark D. Chapman, Professor of the History of Modern Theology at the University of Oxford, has received an honorary doctorate in recognition of his exceptional academic achievements, his commitment to ecumenism and his outstanding services to relations between Oxford University’s Faculty of Theology and Religion and the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Bonn. Dean Prof. Dr. Cornelia Richter presented the honor last Friday during a ceremony in the University’s main auditorium.

While there is a growing number of research publications directed towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the Sustainable Development Goals, there is little research addressing, the often hidden, environmental costs of AI. The Sustainable AI Lab of the University of Bonn (Germany) addresses this topic and is present at COP26 with a unique artwork to remind people of what nature is doing and that AI is getting in the way of this. The head of the Lab, Prof. Aimee van Wynsberghe, will speak at the conference on November 10th at 11:00.

The University of Bonn's University Election Assembly has elected Provost Holger Gottschalk for another six-year term. Holger Gottschalk had taken office at the University of Bonn at the beginning of 2017. His second term will begin on January 1, 2023.

All proteins in a cell are assembled by complicated molecular machines. The precursors of these ribosomes are produced in the cell nucleus and then enter the cell through the so-called nuclear pores. Researchers at the University of Bonn and ETH Zurich have now filmed this fundamental process in living cells for the first time. Their experiments improve the understanding of how ribosomes are created. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

This year’s ceremonial opening of the academic year 2021/2022 focused on “Excellence in Science and Research” as well as on “Climate Change and Disaster Management”. In an emphatic keynote address, Prof. Dr. Martin Stratmann, President of the Max Planck Society, drew a connection between the successful cooperation with Bonn’s University of Excellence, the importance of foundational research for Germany as a research hub and the challenges regarding future innovation in German academia.

A leap into the future: the goal of the ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition is to develop robotic systems that can transmit a human's senses, actions and presence to a remote location in real time. Through these avatars they can perform a variety of handling tasks and can interact with humans – from audio and video transmission to direct physical contact. Team NimbRo from the University of Bonn qualified in Miami (USA) for the finals and is to receive 133,333 US dollars. The prize purse for the finals is eight million US dollars.

The skin bacterium Staphylococcus aureus often develops antibiotic resistance. It can then cause infections that are difficult to treat. Researchers at the University of Bonn have uncovered an ingenious way in which a certain strain of Staphylococcus aureus protects itself against the important antibiotic vancomycin. The results have now been published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum.