Is it time to think about the idea of “family” in a different way? A podcast with Sascha Sistenich on family-friendliness and caregiving from the queer perspective

Our diet puts a strain on planetary resources. Shifting to a sustainable diet that benefits both our health and that of the planet is therefore assuming increasing importance. Researchers at the University of Bonn have analyzed the diets of children and adolescents in terms of their contribution to the ecological sustainability indicators of greenhouse gas emissions, land use and water use. The study shows that there is both the potential and a need to make the diet of younger generations more sustainable. The study will be published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; it is already available online.

Strongly interacting systems play an important role in quantum physics and quantum chemistry. Stochastic methods such as Monte Carlo simulations are a proven method for investigating such systems. However, these methods reach their limits when so-called sign oscillations occur. This problem has now been solved by an international team of researchers from Germany, Turkey, the USA, China, South Korea and France using the new method of wavefunction matching. As an example, the masses and radii of all nuclei up to mass number 50 were calculated using this method. The results agree with the measurements, the researchers now report in the journal “Nature”.

The North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts welcomed 10 new members at its annual ceremony. The new recruits include two from the University of Bonn: the soil scientist Professor Wulf Amelung and the computer scientist Professor Stefan Wrobel, who is also Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS). The four women and six men are united by exceptional research work and creative excellence in their area of expertise. 

Plants adapt genetically over time to the special conditions of organic farming. This has been demonstrated in a long-term study conducted at the University of Bonn. The researchers planted barley plants on two neighboring fields and used conventional farming methods on one and organic methods on the other. Over the course of more than 20 years, the organic barley was enriched with specific genetic material that differed from the comparative culture. Among other things, the results demonstrate how important it is to cultivate varieties especially for organic farming. The results have now been published in the journal “Agronomy for Sustainable Development.”

Uljana Wolf has been appointed the 13th Thomas Kling Lecturer in Poetry at the University of Bonn and will hold her inaugural public lecture, entitled “Ferngespräche mit Muttersprache”, in the University of Bonn’s Grand Hall at 7 pm on Monday, May 13, 2024. The poet and translator from Berlin is regarded as one of the most significant and distinctive poets of her generation, and her works have won multiple awards.

How much progress has the University of Bonn already made with internationalization, and where is there still room for improvement? The University asked itself these questions for the first time in 2017 when it passed the “Internationalization of Universities” audit organized by the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK). The University’s Rector Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Hoch and its Vice Rector for International Affairs, Prof. Dr. Birgit Ulrike Münch, received a certificate from the HRK earlier today confirming its successful completion of the re-audit. The implementation of around 140 action points has been discussed, supported and evaluated together with experts from the HRK between 2018 and 2024, with a very positive outcome.

Prof. Dr. Daniel Boyarin is Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor Emeritus of Talmudic Culture at the University of California, Berkeley. The philosopher and scholar of literature, language and religion will visit the University of Bonn between May 14 and 15 2024; he will give a lecture with the title “Towards a Poetic of Midrash: Skepticism and the Reading of Torah”, on Wednesday May 15, from 11 am to 1 pm. The day before, Professor Boyarin will hold a workshop for students and members of the teaching staff. Both English-language events have been organized in cooperation between the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Bonn and the Luxembourg School of Religion & Society.