How effective is biodiversity conservation of European and African national parks? This seems to be strongly associated with societal and economic conditions. But even under the most favourable conditions, conservation efforts cannot completely halt emerging threats to biodiversity if conditions outside of the parks do not improve. This is the conclusion of a new study led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI EVA), and the University of Bonn, in collaboration with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig University, the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and many other institutions. The study published in the journal Nature Sustainability highlights the urgent need for a better design of national park networks.

The recently published Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) puts the University of Bonn among the four best universities in Germany. It has been placed 13th in the list of top universities in the EU and 76th in the world. The University of Excellence has thus moved up eight places on last year in a global comparison and five within the EU. 

What are the researchers of the Clusters of Excellence at the University of Bonn actually working on? They provide an up-close look on August 22 at 8 p.m. in the Arkadenhof of the University Main Building. At the Excellence Slam, scientists from the clusters will present their research in short talks in a generally understandable and humorous way. At the end, the audience votes - and the most popular slam wins. The free event takes place one day after the finale of the Bonn Silent Film Festival and uses the festival's stage in the courtyard of the Baroque Palace. Please note: The event and the slams will be held in German.

Based on conservative calculations, every single euro that North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) provides to its universities as core funding generates €4.01 in value. This is the main finding of a study that Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Lambert T. Koch, Chairperson of the Rectors’ Conference in NRW, officially presented to Ina Brandes, its Minister of Culture and Science, earlier today.

The fungus Ustilago maydis attacks corn and can cause significant damage to its host. To do this, it first ensures that the plant offers little resistance to the infection. The surgical precision it applies is shown by a new study from the University of Bonn, which has now been published in the journal New Phytologist. The Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna and the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben were also involved in the work.

According to the standard model of cosmology, the vast majority of galaxies are surrounded by a halo of dark matter particles. This halo is invisible, but its mass exerts a strong gravitational pull on galaxies in the vicinity. A new study led by the University of Bonn and the University of Saint Andrews (Scotland) challenges this view of the Universe. The results suggest that the dwarf galaxies of Earth’s second closest galaxy cluster – known as the Fornax Cluster – are free of such dark matter halos. The study appeared in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The transport of substances across the membrane into the cell is linked to specific membrane transport proteins. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn, in collaboration with an international team, have now succeeded in elucidating the molecular structure of a completely new class of such membrane transporters. In addition to the Bonn scientists, researchers from the University of York were also involved. The study has now been published in the journal Nature Communications.

In the Middle Ages, every city had its own system of measurement. Even today, you can sometimes find iron rods in marketplaces that determined the length measurement valid for the city at that time. In science, however, there is no room for such uncertainties, and no matter what method you use to measure the length of a molecule, for example, the answer should always be the same. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the University of Bonn and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich have now investigated whether this is true for two methods that are very often used to measure distances in protein molecules - for example, to find out how such molecules move. The study has now appeared in the journal Nature Communications.