Research and Study at the University of Excellence in Bonn

The Fossil of the Year is a skeleton of a small pterosaur which Georg August Goldfuß discovered in 1831, descriptively naming it Scaphognathus crassirostris. The drawing he made of it marked the inception of ‘paleo art’— defined as any artistic work that attempts to depict dinosaurs or other prehistoric life on the basis of scientific evidence—which remains highly popular today. An article from forsch 2021/01.

Face-to-face versus lockdown: a tension affecting day-to-day academic life at the University of Bonn for well over a year now. “We had to abruptly switch modes and take all formerly face-to-face events digital,” recalls Professor Karin Holm-Müller, who was Vice Rector for Teaching and Student Affairs until May of this year. “It is rare indeed to see one’s everyday reality so dramatically altered in such a short time. It has demanded incredible effort for everyone at the University.” An article from forsch 2021/01.

In the past, many discoveries have been made because better, more accurate measurement methods have become available, making it possible to obtain data from previously unexplored phenomena. For example, high-resolution microscopy has begun to dramatically change our perspectives of cell function and dynamics. Researchers at the ImmunoSensation2 Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn, the University Hospital and the research center caesar have now develop a method that allows using multi-focal images to reconstruct the movement of fast biological processes in 3D. The study has been recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Physicians, nursing staff, medical technical assistants, and pastoral workers in hospitals: they have all been placed under severe strain by the Covid-19 pandemic. A study by the University of Bonn is now highlighting which protective factors can help people cope with this strain. It is based on a large joint online survey at the University Hospitals Bonn, Erlangen, Ulm, Dresden, and Cologne, which also involves many other hospitals in Germany. Perceived coherence was found to be particularly important – in simple terms: the feeling that life has meaning and challenges can be classified in an understandable way. The results are being published in the journal PLOS ONE.