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Organic molecules with atoms of the semi-metal boron are important building blocks for synthesis products to produce drugs and agricultural chemicals. However, the boron unit is often lost during the conversion of substances. Chemists at Münster University are now presenting carbon-carbon couplings in which the boron atom is retained.

The criminologist Prof. Klaus Boers (University of Münster) and the sociologist Prof. Jost Reinecke (University of Bielefeld) have presented the results of their long-term study "Crime in the modern city". The scientists have observed and analysed the delinquency behaviour of around 3,000 people for almost 20 years.

At a traditional ground-breaking ceremony today (January 16), building work began officially on a large-scale project worth millions at Coesfelder Kreuz – the so-called Research Campus East, where a large number of researchers from a variety of disciplines from Münster’s Medical Faculty will be working in future.

The diameter of a hair, but a hundred thousand times thinner – the products made by Dr. Ashish Arora and his colleagues in the laboratories of the Institute of Physics are difficult to imagine for outsiders. The materials they deal with on a daily basis hold a world record because they consist of a single layer of atoms, the smallest building blocks of nature.

According to current statistics from the journal "Nature", the Center for Nanotechnology (CeNTech), a joint institution of Münster University and the City of Münster, is the second most powerful "public-private partnership" institution in high-tech research worldwide.

Professor Ron Naaman from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, has been awarded the Meitner-Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The prize is intended to support collaboration between Israeli and German research institutions. He will be collaborating closely with scientists at the Center for Soft Nanoscience at Münster University.

Plant seeds can store their energy in a dry state for years, only to suddenly release it and germinate. But how can the energy metabolism be started early and efficiently? Researchers at Münster University have discovered that thiol redox switches play a key role in this process. The study has been published in "PNAS".

Two scientific publications by researchers at Münster University rank among the best 30 research studies of the year 2019, rates "Optics & Photonics News". With their annual special issue in December, the journal selects the highlights in optics and photonics of the past year.

The Universities of Twente (UT) and Münster (WWU) have maintained a close partnership for many years. Now they want to deepen their strategic partnership and identify further cooperation and strengthen existing research networks. A three-part series highlights special features and plans of the partnership. Part I: Strategy meeting of the universities of Münster and Twente.

Over the Christmas holidays and at the turn of the year, the central facilities of WWU have separate opening hours. The Communication and Public Relations Office has compiled them on a special page. The Botanical Garden is open regularly.

Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, and the University of Münster reviewed recent work that shows how meteorites exhibit a fundamental isotopic dichotomy between non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC – rocks or sediments containing carbon or its compounds) groups, which most likely represent material from the inner and outer solar system. The research appears in the journal Nature Astronomy.

How do we use messaging services such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Co.? For linguists, these services are a highly interesting resource for research. The experts at the University of Münster, together with the University of Duisburg-Essen and the University of Hamburg, have therefore developed the "Mobile Communication Database", or MoCoDa for short, for archiving chat processes.