They are very tiny, but they are a key source of information when it comes to the earth’s evolutionary history: pollen grains are usually no larger than 20 micrometres, or 0.02 millimetres. Using these tiny particles, a research team at Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) and the University of Bonn has managed to pinpoint the earliest emergence of flowering plants, so-called angiosperms, much more precisely. Eudicotyledonous flowering plants, the eudicots, appeared at least two million years earlier than previously known.

The University of Bonn invites you to “Forever Uni Bonn”—the special 20th anniversary of the Universitätsfest. The anniversary party will be held on the Hofgarten lawn on Saturday, July 5, 2025, immediately after this year’s graduation ceremony, aka the Universitätsfest, starting at 4 pm (doors open at 3:30 pm). Special guest: the Cologne pop band Cat Ballou. Admission is free and everyone is welcome to attend!

For a two day visit at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bonn welcomed 14 medical students accompanied by the deputy director of the teaching office of the Shanghai East International Medical Centre and a research associate from Tongji University in Shanghai. During a varied program, the guests from China were given an insight into studies and research at the Faculty of Medicine Bonn. The aim of the visit was to discuss specialist topics and future exchange opportunities.

How do insects perceive mechanical stress? This is a question of interest in many different fields including comparative morphology, neurobiology and robotics. A team led by Dr. Brian Saltin of the Bonn Institute of Organismic Biology has developed a computer model to study the fruit fly Drosophila, focusing on the creature’s tiny sensory organs for perceiving mechanical stress located near its leg joints. Using this newly developed model, the researchers have been able to study how the position, orientation and material properties of these sensors influence their function. Simulations run have shown how in normal forward walking these sensory organs appear not to be activated solely through the force of footfall. The findings have now been published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

The North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts has welcomed 12 high-caliber researchers and artists into its ranks in 2025, including Professor Frank Bradke from the University of Bonn and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE).

Dr. Katharina C. Cramer, Nicolas Rüffin, and Dr. Kristofer Rolf Söderström have successfully made the transition from researchers to entrepreneurs and founded the start-up TILLER ALPHA GmbH in early 2025. “It’s important to us to communicate this change of roles openly,” emphasizes Katharina. Their clients, like themselves, come from the scientific community: TILLER ALPHA provides data-driven and AI-supported analyses for research infrastructures. Katharina also explored this topic in her research at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) at the University of Bonn. In this interview, she explains their business idea, the start-up journey, and the support they received from the Transfer Center enaCom.

The University of Bonn’s Global Heritage Lab is hosting not one but two exhibitions that explore colonialism in its impact, consequences and resulting enmeshments. The exhibitions are open until October 12 at P26.

The universities of Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf and Aachen agreed to establish a joint academic institution (Gemeinsame Wissenschaftliche Einrichtung, GWE) on 1 January 2025. The contractual partners will thereby be transforming the West German Genome Center (WGGC) from its current form as a collaborative research network into a new kind of institution. Newly founding the center as a GWE ensures that the partners can maintain already existing structures and further develop established technologies.