Logo of the UNESCO programme ESD

A role model for sustainability

On 8 November 2023, the University of Konstanz received the National ESD-Award (Education for Sustainable Development) from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Commission for UNESCO. The university's overall concept for education and sustainability convinced the jury.

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Keiko Kitagawa during the excavation in the Lone Valley in southern Germany. Copyright: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg

Genetic traces of the woolly rhinoceros in southern Germany

A woolly rhinoceros in southern Germany? Researchers from the universities in Konstanz and Tübingen as well as the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg reconstruct the flora and fauna of the Stone Age based on genetic clues in hyena coprolites. Now, for the first time ever, they were able to sequence the mitochondrial genome of the extinct European woolly rhinoceros.

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Arriving in Konstanz – interview with Lena Barra

What's it like to be an early career researcher at the University of Konstanz? Lena Barra, a tenure-track professor in the Department of Chemistry since 2022, gives us insights into her research in enzymology and reports on what it's like to get started in Konstanz.

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How can life emerge in a world of minerals?

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded an ERC Synergy Grant of 9,996,000 Euros to the project “The role of silica at the dawn of life on our planet” (PROTOS). In the project, Helmut Cölfen, professor of physical chemistry at the University of Konstanz, will collaborate with researchers from the University of Bremen, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS-Geo-Ocean) in Brest, and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC ) in Granada that coordinates the project.

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On the trail of a great mystery

An interdisciplinary project led by primatologist Gisela Kopp is using genetic analysis to determine the geographic origin of mummified baboons found in ancient Egypt. The team finds evidence that the two legendary trading regions of Punt and Adulis may have been the same place separated by a thousand years of history.

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Collaborative research on proteostasis: a look back and ahead

Proteostasis research is a young interdisciplinary field dedicated to the fundamental biochemical processes of life. At the University of Konstanz, pioneering research on the topic of proteostasis has been carried out since 2012, within the framework of the Collaborative Research Centre "Chemical and Biological Principles of Cellular Proteostasis" (SFB 969). In December 2023, this SFB will expire. We look back on twelve successful years, while looking ahead to new perspectives that have opened…

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Not lazy at all: honey bee drones

Sometimes it is worthwhile to look at the details, to study aspects that seem to be uninteresting or were previously ignored, and see noteworthy phenomena come to light. This has been the experience of honeybee researchers from the Cluster of Excellence Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour (CASCB) at the University of Konstanz and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. In a recently published study in Animal Behaviour, they showed that male honey bees (drones), long…

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