A fire alarm went off this morning in Wegelerstraße, Campus Bonn-Poppelsdorf. Next to the University building, which houses, among other things, the University IT, an external cooling unit was on fire.
"Good intentions" do not generally produce "good results". This wisdom also applies to establishing coherent environmental policies. Without proper oversight and planning, environmental policies can lead to unintended and harmful side effects. A current special issue of the journal Environmental Research Letters is devoted to this urgent problem. The guest editors are researchers from the University of Bonn and international partners.
Like a snapshot, amber preserves bygone worlds. An international team of paleontologists from the University of Bonn has now described four new beetle species in fossilized tree resin from Myanmar, which belong to the Kateretidae family. They still exist today, with only a few species. As well as the about 99 million years old insects, the amber also includes pollen. It seems that the beetles helped the flowering plants to victory, because they contributed to their propagation. In turn, the beetles benefited from the new food source. The results have now been published in the journal "iScience".
An immune reaction in the brain seems to play a major role in the development of Alzheimer's disease. In a way, it "adds fuel to the fire" and apparently causes an inflammation that, in a sense, keeps kindling itself. The study has now been published in the journal Cell Reports.
Toxic personality is a term used to describe people who behave greedily, immodestly and unfairly and take the truth very lightly. Dr. Mareike Kholin, Bastian Kückelhaus and Prof. Dr. Gerhard Blickle from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bonn found out why such people can still succeed in their careers. The trick that leads to the top is social skill. The results are presented online in advance in the journal "Personality and Individual Differences". The print version will be published in April.
The Rectorate of the University of Bonn, in agreement with the faculties, has decided on further measures with the aim of slowing down the spread of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). In particular, as of Monday, 16 March 2020, all examinations in the University's area of responsibility originally planned for the coming weeks will be cancelled and postponed to a later date. As things stand at present, the examinations are to be made up for before the start of the summer semester's lectures.
In order to fight the spread of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia has ordered that the lecture period in summer semester 2020 shall begin on April 20, 2020. Lectures at the University of Bonn will therefore also start on this date.
The richest 50 percent of Germans have doubled their wealth since reunification - the poorest 50 percent have gained practically nothing. This is shown by the new study "The Distribution of Wealth in Germany, 1895 to 2018" by the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute of the Universities of Bonn and Cologne. It is the first comprehensive analysis of the long-run evolution of wealth inequality in Germany. The results are based on historical tax data, studies and surveys as well as rich lists of the last 125 years. The Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz was presented with the study in Berlin.