According to a team of plant researchers, mitochondria provide unexpected help for cells in a crisis by respiring away harmful substances. The current study produced by the Institute of Biology and Biotechnology of Plants (IBBP) at the University of Münster and the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn has been published in the journal Plant Cell.

Investors often decide how to invest based on past stock prices. In fact, however, future and past returns do not depend on each other. If investors are made aware of this error, they change their investment behavior. This is shown in a study by the team of economist Prof. Dr. Christine Laudenbach, member of the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy at the University of Bonn. The study was published in advance as an "ECONtribute Discussion Paper".

University of Bonn physicist Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888), famous for postulating the second law of thermodynamics and introducing the concept of entropy—a vital theorem of the natural sciences—was born in January 200 years ago. Surprisingly little is known about the life of this extraordinarily talented scientist, comparable in stature to Helmholtz, despite his great achievements in the field of physics, and the fact that he remained fully active in research on up into his later years. The last installment of the lecture series entitled “The Motive Force of Heat” was devoted to shedding more light on his research work for the lay public in an experiential way.

Smartphones, tablets and wearables that measure step counts or calorie consumption, for example, have become an integral part of many people's everyday lives. All these devices are part of the Internet of Things - a socio-technological reality that is increasingly becoming the focus of legislation. In a new project, researchers from the Universities of Bonn, Osnabrück, Stirling and Warwick (both UK) investigate how consumers can be better protected when using smart devices. The project, which has been described by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as "world leading", is scheduled to run for three years and has a total funding volume of around 650,000 euros.

The Mathematics Department of the University of Bonn has awarded the Hausdorff Memorial Prize to former doctoral student Florian Schweiger for the best PhD thesis in mathematics in the past academic year. The honor, which took place virtually, was held by the chair of the Department, Prof. Dr. Anton Bovier, subsequent to the Hausdorff Colloquium.

Watch our latest video on the “Resources of Power” Exhibition to find out how objects talk about dependency and slavery. Researchers at the 'Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies' (BCDSS), the only Excellence Cluster in the field of humanities and social sciences at Bonn University, are keen to show the impact that material culture had and still has.

Two members of the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), the Excellence Cluster in the field of humanities and social sciences at the University of Bonn, have been recognized for their outstanding academic work. Prof. Dr. Béla Bodó, Principal Investigator at the BCDSS, received the Hungarian Studies Association Book Prize for a monograph on anti-Semitism and political violence in Hungary between 1919 and 1921. Dr Eva Marie Lehner, BCDSS postdoctoral fellow, was awarded the Dissertation Prize of the Working Group on Historical Women and Gender Studies. Her dissertation examines the index of personal data in early modern church registers in southern German parishes.

Mitochondria are known as energy suppliers for our cells, but they also play an important role in the defense against pathogens. They can initiate immune responses, and deprive pathogens of the nutrients they need to grow. A research team led the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne has now shown that pathogens can turn off mitochondrial defense mechanisms by hijacking a normal cellular response to stress. Scientists from the University of Bonn were also involved in the study, which was published in the journal Science.