Have you ever wondered why our hands have five fingers? And what about amphibians? They usually only have four. Until now it was assumed that this was already the case with the early ancestors of today's frogs and salamanders, the Temnospondyli. However, a new find of the crocodile-like Temnospondyl Metoposaurus krasiejowensis from the late Triassic (about 225 million years old) in Poland shows five metacarpal bones and thus five fingers. As the researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Opole (Poland) note, this finding is very important, because until now, fossil animal tracks may have been wrongly assigned. The results have now been published in the "Journal of Anatomy".
Major gain for international cooperation as the European Commission forms a European University Alliance with the University of Bonn as member. A consortial alliance devoted broadly to the field of neuroscience entitled “The European University of Brain and Technology (NeurotechEU)” is being formed with initial three-year funding of five million euros.
Launched in 2016, the international Research Training Group of the Universities of Bonn and Melbourne will now continue to receive funding until 2025. This was confirmed by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The joint project facilitates the training of young researchers in an excellent academic environment at two globally distinguished research locations.
The summer semester 2020 is coming to an end next Friday, and with it the first lecture period in the history of the University that has been carried out almost entirely online. In a new video message to all members of the University, Rector Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Hoch looks back at the soon-to-end semester and presents the University’s plans for the coming winter semester, which currently include a comeback of teaching on site.
The latest edition of the widely respected “Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020” placed the University of Bonn as the best university in Germany for Mathematics and Economics. Both Bonn departments already proved themselves in the competition for the award of a Cluster of Excellence. Many other departments in Bonn are following close behind.
Almost all land plants employ an army of molecular editors who correct errors in their genetic information. Together with colleagues from Hanover, Ulm and Kyoto (Japan), researchers from the University of Bonn have now transferred one of these proofreaders from the moss Physcomitrium patens (previously known as Physcomitrella patens) into a flowering plant. Surprisingly, it performs its work there as reliably as in the moss itself. The strategy could be suitable for investigating certain functions of the plant energy metabolism in more detail. It may also be valuable for developing more efficient crops. The study will be published in the journal The Plant Cell.
Increasing abdominal girth and shrinking muscles are two common side effects of aging. Researchers at the University of Bonn have discovered a receptor in mice that regulates both effects. Experiments with human cell cultures suggest that the corresponding signaling pathways might also exist in humans. The study, which also involved researchers from Spain, Finland, Belgium, Denmark and the USA, has now been published in the renowned journal "Cell Metabolism".
The start-up "Murmuras" of the University of Bonn has won a prize for its software solution in the "Digital Innovation" competition of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy. The new app and platform solution offers psychologists, sociologists and other human scientists new possibilities for conducting smartphones-based studies. The startup is an outcome of the Menthal Project of the University of Bonn, in which the mobile phone usage data of more than 700,000 participants have been examined for scientific purposes since 2014. The founding team of Ionut Andone, Konrad Blaszkiewicz, Qais Kasem and Alexander Markowetz will receive a prize money of 7,000 euros as well as coaching and webinar offers.