On Wednesday—a few days before lectures actually start—some 2,000 new students came along to the First-Semester Students’ Welcome put on by the University of Bonn. The emphasis was on giving advice and information and enabling people to get to know one another. Whether it was at the large-scale opening event, the info market in the Arkadenhof or the party in the evening, the First-Semester Students’ Welcome provided ample opportunity for them to find out more about the University, their subjects and their fellow students.

The UK-based magazine “Times Higher Education” (THE) has compiled its internationally renowned THE World University Ranking, which compares some 1,900 universities, for the past 20 years now. The University of Bonn came in 91st globally and 6th in Germany, putting it in the world’s top 100 universities. One noticeable aspect was that, compared to other institutions, a change to the methodology used in the rankings had virtually no impact on the University’s excellent results.

When two, three or four apples are placed in front of us, we are able to recognize the number of apples very quickly. However, we need significantly more time if there are five or more apples and we often also guess the wrong number. In fact, the brain does actually register smaller numbers of things differently than larger ones. This has been demonstrated in a recent study by the University of Tübingen, University of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn. The results were published in the magazine “Nature Human Behaviour.” 

A comparison of apartment price trends by year of construction in Germany's largest cities reveals a notable pattern: While prices for new buildings have experienced a relatively modest decline from their peak, the value of existing properties has fallen by more than twice as much. This finding comes from a comprehensive data analysis conducted by the German Real Estate Index (Greix), a project of ECONtribute and the Kiel Institute. 

A receding hairline, a total loss of hair from the crown, and ultimately, the classical horseshoe-shaped pattern of baldness: Previous research into male pattern hair loss, also termed androgenetic alopecia, has implicated multiple common genetic variants. Human geneticists from the University Hospital of Bonn (UKB) and by the Transdisciplinary Research Unit "Life & Health" of the University of Bonn have now performed a systematic investigation of the extent to which rare genetic variants may also contribute to this disorder. For this purpose, they analyzed the genetic sequences of 72,469 male participants from the UK Biobank project. The analyses identified five significantly associated genes, and further corroborated genes implicated in previous research. The results have now been published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Communications.

The third Nacht der Technik (“Engineering Night”) Bonn/Rhein-Sieg is coming up soon, and the University of Bonn will have its own station at the event for the first time in order to give visitors insights into various areas of its research. From 6 pm to midnight on Friday, October 20, 2023, the University will be one of 49 places in the region to open their doors and showcase engineering innovations with the help of interactive experiments from the worlds of robotics, geodesy and geoinformation, and astronomy. All its events at the University of Bonn will be held in the Institute of Computer Science at Friedrich-Hirzebruch-Allee 8.

Once again, a great many students will be starting their degree program at the University of Bonn in the coming weeks. For many of them, it will also mean getting to grips with a new city. With the First-Semester Students’ Welcome, the University says hello to its new students and supplies them with a wealth of information and advice so that they can find their way around the University, their department and the city of Bonn. The celebrations will be rounded off with a big party.

The University of Bonn is to welcome in the new academic year 2023/2024 with a ceremony in the main auditorium of its Main Building starting at 5 pm on Wednesday, October 18. All members of the University, including students in particular, are warmly invited to attend the celebrations, as are the media and anyone else living locally who might be interested. Registration is required as space is limited.