Special events

More than 100.000 guests celebrated the RUB’s 50th birthday on June 6th 2015 at the BlauPause. For this occasion the Universitätsstraße was closed down for one day and a five kilometer long row of tables was arranged on the street. From the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum-Querenburg to Ferdinandstraße near Bochum’s main station at more than 1.200 tables the city’s organisations and institutions, as well as the faculties, institutes, and various departments of the university presented themselves and joined in the celebrations.

In a joint presentation the Collaborative Research Centre 874, the Research Department of Neuroscience and the International Graduate School of Neuroscience welcomed many visitors. A “Brain Rallye” was specially created for the day to get the younger guests involved, and to spark their interest in neuroscience. Questions such as “What is pareidolia?” or “Which animal has the largest brain?” led the children across the whole BlauPause and to the tables of neuroscientists from many different departments. Every child, which successfully completed the rallye was given a small toy brain to take home as a memento.

Many visitors also took the opportunity to interact with our Brainiacs. These are high school students from Bochum, who explain neuroscientific concepts to the public. Hundreds of curious BlauPause-guests had their hearing or their color-vision tested under the guidance of our junior researchers.

The weather lived up to the occasion and thousands of people took to the streets to visit the seemingly endless row of tables on the Universitätsstraße. Many of them took the time to stop at the tables of SFB 874, RDN and IGSN, to learn more about the fascinating field of neuroscience, and to take home some leaflets or brochures. Ultimately we can look back on a very successful event with many interesting conversations and much positive feedback.

The Ruhr-Universität Bochum participated for the first time in the “ExtraSchicht” (night of industrial culture) on June 30th. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the University Library the motto was: “A place of spirit” and who could represent the spirit better than the neurosciences at the RUB? In cooperation with the SFB 874 and the IGSN, young researchers from the IRTG and the IGSN and neuroscience research at the RUB developed and hosted as “Brainiacs” a parcours around the brain. Situated in the “Leselandschaft” of the university-library, guests could see and experience optical illusions, they could test their concentration or explore fantastic brain exhibits. For the young and the young at heart they could examine a “Lego” brain and check out its construction manual. Last but not least our junior researchers (11-15 years old) explained how we hear or see colour, by running tests on our visitors, and showed them how to model their brain using modeling dough.

It was such a tremendous success! With the opening of the door at 18:00 hundreds of people flooded the room and we soon stopped trying to count them. By 22:00 after four hours of explaining, talking and fun all participants were exhausted but happy!

We would like to thank the university library for hosting us and the ExtraSchicht crew for their commitment, the hard work and the fun we had in experiencing this great day!

The ExtraSchicht team in alphabetical order:

Verena Aliane
Tobias Eckhardt
Hardy Hagena
Niels Hannsen
Olivia Masseck
Steffen Pahl
Nora Prochnow
Christiane Reijak
Johanna Rubelowski
Andreas Schöbel
Fabian Schönfeld
Katharina Spoida
Christina Strauch
Hannah Twarkowski
Uta Wiemers
Valentina Wiescholleck

And the junior team:

Aoibhne Braunewell
Naoise Braunewell
Christian Vorobev (all Hildegardis Gymnasium)
Karl Heiler
Anne Höppner
Annika Lemke (all Theodor-Körner-Gymasium)

The organisation team:

Sabine Dannenberg
Ursula Heiler
Peter Hoffmann
Denise Manahan-Vaughan