Work to adapt to climate change is becoming increasingly important across the globe. Ensuring that these efforts are effective and have no unintended negative consequences is a vital part of this process. Researchers from the University of Twente in the Netherlands have joined forces with colleagues from France, Kenya, India, South Africa, the US and the University of Bonn to propose a framework that they call “Navigating the Adaptation-Maladaptation Continuum” (NAM). This tool will aid decision-making on climate adaptation measures and help promote a more equitable and more sustainable future. Their findings have now been published in the journal “Nature Climate Change.” 

In the recently published Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the University of Bonn has ranked as one of Germany’s top four universities and in the top ten EU-wide, taking 67th place in the list of the world’s leading universities. Bonn thus moved up nine slots since last year on the worldwide ranking list.

A novel catalysis scheme enables chemical reactions that were previously virtually impossible. The method developed at the University of Bonn is also environmentally friendly and does not require rare and precious metals. The researchers recorded the exact course of the catalysis in a kind of high-speed film. They did this using special lasers that can make processes visible that last only fractions of a billionth of a second. The results allow them to further optimize the catalyst. They have been published in the international edition of the renowned journal “Angewandte Chemie.”

While some parts of the world suffer extreme heat and persistent drought, others are being flooded. Overall, continental water volumes vary so much over time that global sea levels fluctuate significantly too. By combining the hydrological model WaterGAP with GRACE satellite data, a team of geodesists at the University of Bonn have come up with a new set of data that shows how the total distribution of water over the Earth’s land surfaces has changed over the past 20 years more accurately than ever before. Their findings are now being published in the “Journal of Geodesy.”

At this year's International Mathematics Competition for University Students (IMC) in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria), the team of the University of Bonn achieved 4th place. Lennart Christian Grabbel even achieved an outstanding second place in the individual ranking among almost 400 participants with a score of 80 out of 100 possible points and received a so-called "Grand Grand First Prize" the highest possible award. 

Euclid, ESA’s newest space telescope with strong German participation, has delivered its first test images a few weeks after the rocket launch. They already show excellent image quality. Scientists from the Argelander Institute for Astronomy are involved in the mission. 

The Belle II cooperation project at the Japanese research center KEK is helping researchers from all over the world to hunt for new phenomena in particle physics. The international experiment has now reached a major milestone after a team successfully installed a new pixel detector in its final location in Japan. The size of a soda can, the detector was developed in order to make out the signals coming from certain types of particle decays, that can shed light on the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry that has been observed in the universe. The installation ran without a hitch and is a key milestone in the evolution of the experiment and German-Japanese research collaboration.

The downward trend for real estate prices in Germany was partially halted in the second quarter of 2023. Compared with the first quarter of 2023, many prices are even rising slightly again, although there is still a significant drop compared with the previous year and the peaks. This is shown by the latest update of the German Real Estate Index (GREIX), a project of ECONtribute and IfW Kiel, which evaluates the actual sales prices of German real estate according to the latest scientific standards. All data for currently 18 German cities and their districts are freely available at www.greix.de.