The tiny forefoot of a lizard of the genus Anolis was trapped in amber about 15 to 20 million years ago. Every detail of this rare fossil is visible under the microscope. But the seemingly very good condition is deceptive: The bone is largely decomposed and chemically transformed, very little of the original structure remains. The results, which are now presented in the journal "PLOS ONE", provide important clues as to what exactly happens during fossilization.

How do we manage to find our way around our neighborhood even though the streets look so similar? Researchers at the University of Bonn have gained new insights into a mechanism that very likely plays a major role in this ability. Especially interesting: It only seems to work well when our brain is oscillating in a special rhythm. The results have been published in the journal "eLife".

Professor Anna-Katharina Hornidge has accepted the Professorship of Global Sustainable Development at the University of Bonn and has been appointed Director of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). She will take up these positions on 1 March 2020.

Rising sea temperatures more than 100,000 years ago drove the melting of the Antarctic ice sheets and caused an extreme rise in sea level, as a new international study involving the University of Bonn shows. According to the scientists, the current situation is again moving in this direction. The massive melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet was a major cause of the high sea level during a period known as the last interglacial period (129,000 to 116,000 years ago). The research results are now published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)”.

Macrophages are part of the innate immune system and essential for brain development and function. Using a novel method, scientists from Jena University Hospital, the University of Bonn and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York (USA) succeeded in visualizing macrophages that were formed in the bone marrow. In studies on mice, this technology enabled the researchers to observe that shortly after a stroke, numerous macrophages that had migrated from the blood begin to attack dead and adjacent healthy brain tissue. The results have now been published in the journal "Nature Neuroscience".

The Rector of the University of Bonn, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Hoch, receives the award "Rector/President of the Year" from the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (DHV) for his exemplary leadership. The prize winner was selected in an online survey of the association's almost 32,000 members.

Prof. Dr. Christian Kurts, Professor of Experimental Immunology at the University of Bonn, has been appointed honorary professor at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. With this appointment, Australia's leading university acknowledges the achievements in establishing a scientific network between Melbourne and Bonn. Prof. Kurts is a recipient of the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Prize and is director of the Institute of Experimental Immunology at the University Hospital Bonn.

For the first time, researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Strasbourg have simulated the formation of galaxies in a universe without dark matter. To replicate this process on the computer, they have instead modified Newton's laws of gravity. The galaxies that were created in the computer calculations are similar to those we actually see today. According to the scientists, their assumptions could solve many mysteries of modern cosmology. The results are published in the "Astrophysical Journal".