Chemists at Münster University have succeeded for the first time in creating three-coordinate Lewis superacids based on a phosphorus basis. Previously, it had not been possible to isolate this type of compound, either in a liquid or in a solid state, due to its extreme reactivity. The researchers assume that the underlying method can be transferred to other classes of compounds hitherto classified as "not viable".

How do bacteria manage to adapt to synthetic environmental toxins and to even develop strategies for using a pesticide agent as food within less than 70 years? This is what scientists at Münster University have investigated. They found out how mutations led to biochemical changes that now enable an enzyme to cleave a pesticide. The study was published in "Nature Chemical Biology".

Prof. Harald Fuchs received the "Chinese Government Friendship Award" for his long-standing scientific cooperation with China. The physicist at Münster University has been honoured with the highest award given by the Chinese government to foreign experts - this year there are 100 prizewinners from 31 countries. The award ceremony took place in Beijing at the beginning of October.

In discussions about immigration, it is often the eastern part of Germany, in particular, that the population associates with hate crimes against refugees. Are there any differences between East and West in small acts of everyday help? Researchers from Münster University have investigated this question using a rarely used method. The study was published in "Social Psychology".

Quantum effects are genuinely found in the world of nanostructures and allow a wide variety of new technological applications. Researchers at Münster University have developed an interface that couples light sources for single photons with nanophotonic networks. The results could help to make quantum technologies scalable. The study has been published in "Advanced Quantum Technologies".

How do immune cells behave in the body? What happens during immunotherapy? To answer these questions, the European Union brings together leading experts from research and the pharmaceutical industry. The Europe-wide research project "Immune-Image", which is funded with 30 million euros over five years and in which scientists from Münster University are involved, started on 1 October.

According to the scientific journal "Nature", the University of Münster has gained the most in Germany in the strength of its scientific publications between 2015 and 2018. Internationally, it is thus in sixth place – the top three fastest rising institutions are the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and the US Princeton University.

The memory of the immune system is able to distinguish a foreign protein with which the organism has already come into contact from another and to react with a corresponding antibody. Researchers have now discovered that the immune system's ability to specifically fend off pathogens can adapt in the course of evolution. The study has been published in the journal “PNAS”.

The University Centre for Teacher Education (ZfL) of the University of Münster (WWU) and the Hyogo University of Teacher Education in Japan (HUTE) will cooperate more closely in the future. Following the signing of a "Memorandum of Understanding" this week (23 to 27 September), twelve Japanese teacher training students and one professor will visit Münster for the first time.

Physicists and chemists at Münster University have succeeded in developing a technique which is able to detect the typically invisible properties of nano-structured fields in the focus of a lens. This can help to establish nano-structured light landscapes as a tool for material machining, optical tweezers, or high-resolution imaging. The study was published in "Nature Communications".

Two research institutions have made Münster a globally renowned location for battery research: ten years ago, the MEET Battery Research Center at Münster University was founded, five years later, the Helmholtz-Institute Münster of Forschungszentrum Jülich. Around 150 guests were greeted on September 18th at the double jubilee celebrations, including high-ranking politicians.

In this semester the University of Münster welcomes about 370 international exchange students. During the Welcome Week, the guests receive important advices on starting their studies and get to know their supervisors. After the Welcome Week, most of them take part in a one-week intensive language course.

Electrochemist and Materials Scientists Prof. Martin Winter from Münster University has been awarded the Arfvedson-Schlenk Prize for his outstanding scientific achievements in the field of lithium chemistry. The Society of German Chemists (GDCh) awards the prize, which is endowed with 7,500 euros, every two years. The prize is named after the discoverer of the element lithium.

Geochemists at Münster University have investigated the volcanic rocks that build up the Azores in order to gather new information about the compositional evolution of the Earth’s interior. The results suggest that a larger amount of the Earth’s mantle has melted and formed the Earth’s crust than previously thought. The study has been published in the journal “Nature Geoscience”.

Apart from photons, neutrinos are the most abundant elementary particles in the universe. With the KATRIN experiment at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, in which scientists of the University of Münster are also involved, researchers have now succeeded in measuring the mass of neutrinos with unprecedented precision limiting it to less than 1 electron-volt.