More than half of the matter in our universe has so far remained hidden from us. However, astrophysicists had a hunch where it might be: In so-called filaments, unfathomably large thread-like structures of hot gas that surround and connect galaxies and galaxy clusters. A team led by the University of Bonn has now for the first time observed a gas filament with a length of 50 million light years. Its structure is strikingly similar to the predictions of computer simulations. The observation therefore also confirms our ideas about the origin and evolution of our universe. The results are published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The new version of the North Rhine-Westphalia Ordinance on the Protection Against New Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Infections (CoronaSchVO NRW) amends the provisions for on-site classes and examinations during the period from December 16, 2020 to January 10, 2021 in order to protect students and instructors.
The German Research Foundation extends the Research Unit 2535 "Anticipating Human Behavior" for three more years. Since 2017, scientists in the group have been investigating how artificial intelligence recognizes and anticipates human behavior. On the one hand, the researchers develop techniques to analyze complex interactions between humans and robots, and on the other hand, technologies for service robots. Due to demographic change, the importance of such robots is steadily increasing.
The Council of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has decided today that Bonn will be a new location for the European authority from 2021. This is a forward-looking decision for the University of Bonn and its partners in the region.
Together with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, researchers from the University of Bonn have deciphered the oldest place name sign in the world. An inscription from the time of the emergence of the Egyptian state in the late fourth millennium B.C. from the Wadi el Malik east of Aswan, which is still barely explored archaeologically, bears four hieroglyphs: "Domain of the Horus King Scorpion".
How do laser beams get the right shape? A question that occupies not just some fantasy heroes, but also physicists at the University of Bonn. In the course of their research, three of them have found a solution to the problem that is so practical that it has aroused the interest not only of the scientific community, but now also of industry experts: The start-up project "Midel Photonics" by Dr. David Dung, Dr. Christian Wahl and Frederik Wolf is one of twelve start-ups selected this year for the state-wide "HIGH-TECH.NRW" program.
The University of Bonn and the Japanese National Institutes for the Humanities (NIHU) have signed a cooperation agreement. It defines the terms of cooperation between the two institutions in research and comes into force on December 1, 2020.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) have the potential to convert into a wide variety of cell types and tissues for drug testing and cell replacement therapies. However, the "recipes" for this conversion are often complicated and difficult to implement. Researchers at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at TU Dresden, Harvard University (USA) and the University of Bonn have found a way to systematically extract hundreds of different cells quickly and easily from iPS using transcription factors, including neurons, connective tissue and blood vessel cells. Researchers can use this transcription factor source through the non-profit organization Addgene. The results have now been published in the journal "Nature Biotechnology".