The 2023 Ideas Competition organized by the Transfer Center enaCom once again impressively demonstrated the innovative potential of the University of Bonn. Eight candidates made it through to the final on December 6 and pitched their ideas to the jury and audience at the Digitalhub at Bonn's central station. Three of them convinced the distinguished jury: "UniTalks" by Daria Kononenko and "Inspired by Learning" by Fabian Mantsch and Lars Pfleider each won 1,000 euros donated by the Universitätsstiftung Bonn and Comma Soft AG. The idea "PlateProfit" by Leon Schmidt won the Digital Startup Prize from DIGITALHUB.DE.

How do you explore an excavation site without being there in person? The Classical Archaeology team and the Bonn Center for Digital Humanities at the University of Bonn want to use new digital tools such as 3D technologies and virtual reality in their research and teaching. Their researchers are collaborating with the Universities of Amsterdam and Oslo and the Open University of the Netherlands in an international project entitled “Virtual Worlds in Teaching Archaeology.” The European Union is co-financing the project to the tune of some €400,000 over the next three years.

The University of Bonn has achieved very good results in the latest QS Sustainability Rankings, coming an excellent sixth in Germany in the overall scoring and 138th among the 1,400 or so global universities that were evaluated. Compiled by analysts at Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the rankings assess the work that universities are doing to tackle the most urgent environmental and social problems facing the world.

A delegation from the University of Bonn has visited Australia with three main aims in mind: to cultivate partnerships, strengthen exchange programs and explore options for joint research. Existing cooperation arrangements were stepped up on the trip and new ones agreed for the future.

The universe is expanding. How fast it does so is described by the so-called Hubble-Lemaitre constant. But there is a dispute about how big this constant actually is: Different measurement methods provide contradictory values. This so-called “Hubble tension” poses a puzzle for cosmologists. Researchers from the Universities of Bonn and St. Andrews are now proposing a new solution: Using an alternative theory of gravity, the discrepancy in the measured values can be easily explained - the Hubble tension disappears. The study has now been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).

Henry Kissinger has died, at the age of 100 in his home in Connecticut, whose legacy includes the Henry Kissinger Professorship for Security and Strategy Research at the University of Bonn.

Where and how can diversified farming practices be put to profitable use in order to boost both productivity and biodiversity? Researchers at the University of Bonn have tackled this question in a study that has now been published in “Communications Earth & Environment.”

For successful fertilization, sperm should move forward rapidly and be shaped correctly. The unique structure of the sperm cells forms during spermiogenesis. Now, researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the Transdisciplinary Research Unit "Life & Health" at the University of Bonn have found that fertility problems in both mice and humans can be caused by loss of so-called cylicines. This causes defects in head and tail structure of sperm. The results of the study have now been published in the scientific journal "eLife".