Three factors—spectacular images, a high death toll and strong personal ties—make it more likely that the media in one country will report on a natural disaster in another, according to a study by the University of Bonn, the University of Warwick and Imperial College London, which has now been published in the journal “Nature Human Behaviour.” The data also shows that droughts and flooding—two of the biggest effects of climate change—are considered particularly un-newsworthy, which could be one explanation for why many people are still underestimating the impact of the greenhouse effect.

The Minister of Finance of North Rhine-Westphalia, Dr. Marcus Optendrenk, has just visited the University of Bonn. Following talks with Rector Michael Hoch, the Finance Minister visited Poppelsdorf Campus to learn about the latest research methods for sustainable agriculture and bioeconomy, and inspected ongoing construction projects of BLB NRW (the building and real estate management agency of North Rhine-Westphalia). The visit commenced with the Minister visiting Rector Hoch at his offices at the University, where they talked about current issues and developments at the University of Bonn. These included the recent confirmation of the institution’s status as a University of Excellence, remaining indeed the most successful German university in the Excellence contest with eight funded Clusters of Excellence.

Many massive stars were once part of binary systems, but their exciting past is often lost – at least it was so far. A new study at the University of Bonn and at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics has now found a new method to identify stars that once gained mass from a companion – stars that now appear as single objects but carry the chemical scars of their binary youth. Using a unique “chemical fingerprint” – independent of specific evolutionary models – they were able to reconstruct the binary histories of massive stars. The method has already reclassified the well-studied star γ Columbae as a former mass gainer – challenging long-held assumptions about its origin– and offered new insight into Supernova SN 1987A’s progenitor. The findings have now been published in “Nature Astronomy.”

A study involving the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne demonstrates that not only retail investors but also financial professionals often assess the potential returns on the stock market differently to what standard models of financial economics predict. This is due to differing ideas about how news on companies affects future stock returns. The study, entitled “Mental Models of the Stock Market,” has been published in the prestigious Quarterly Journal of Economics.

The search for an as-yet undiscovered elementary particle has been given fresh momentum as the German Research Foundation (DFG) has now greenlit the construction of a special €6 million magnet system in the Color meets Flavor Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn, University of Siegen and TU Dortmund University. Dubbed “BabyIAXO,” it is being built to hunt for the axion, a hitherto undetected elementary particle that could unlock one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in particle physics.

Fossils and other exhibits have been stolen from the Goldfuß Museum at the University of Bonn during renovation work, prompting the police to launch an investigation. Since there is the possibility of individual items being offered for sale, passed on or put on public display, the University is appealing to the public for assistance. The Bonn Police will be happy to receive any information or tip-offs.

How did the Latin language change as Christianity emerged and spread in late antiquity? This is the question being tackled by Christian Hornung, Professor for the History of Early Christianity and Patristic Studies in the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Bonn, in a new research project. He is aiming to compile a new concise dictionary of early Christian Latin (Handwörterbuch des antiken christlichen Lateins, HACL) that will index the corpus of Latin Christian literature from Tertullian to Isidore of Seville and document the evolution of early Christian Latin vocabulary in all its dimensions, i.e. encompassing the history of ideas, institutions, society, law and religion. The German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) will be providing €1.4 million in funding during the long-term project’s first phase to 2030. It is set to run for 12 years in total.

The program in German and Comparative Literature at the Universities of Bonn and St Andrews gives students in the Rhineland and Scotland an international double degree and has been one of the mainstays of the two institutions’ strategic partnership since 2013. The German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) has now agreed to fund the program for a further four years, thus enabling the continuation of a study offering that has combined a literary education with intensive international experience since 2013.