When gifted inventor Hugo Junkers’s two companies (for engines and airplanes) were merged in Dessau in 1936, the first Ju model – the D-AQUI Fritz Simon – was just about ready for its maiden flight within the Lufthansa route service in April that year. Junkers stroke it lucky with his newly developed aircraft, which is said to have made him the most successful manufacturer of passenger planes worldwide, a happy circumstance to last for many years to come. As for D-AQUI – originally constructed as a water plane – constant changes of ownership in varying countries down to abandonment marked her turbulent path.
Reading time: about 3 minutesPosts in category: Video/Talk
TED Talk. Bill Gates: The next outbreak? We’re not ready
This TED talk was first posted almost exactly five years ago. See the parallels to Covid-19? Read article
Reading time: about 1 minute
TED Talk. Pico Iyer: The art of stillness
In our hectic lives of constant motion and commotion, going nowhere at all could well be the key to more contentedness, says Pico Iyer, a travel writer with his heart and soul. A contradiction for a man crisscrossing the globe? Nothing is as urgent as sitting still, he says. To take the time to quietly lean back and indulge in a few peaceful moments a day, or to take the liberty of withdrawing for days, months – or years. And to contemplate to digest and organise the billowing mass of impressions inside our heads. An invigorating sabbatical may even provoke an entirely new approach and reveal a completely different meaning of life.
Reading time: about 1 minute
The Sound of Friendship: Beethoven’s „Ode to Joy“
Whenever there is reason to celebrate on a festive scale, a dramatic sound scape must not be missing. Worldwide, solemn ceremonies are carried by Beethoven’s „Ode to Joy“ (Ode an die Freude), being played by enthusiastic orchestras and sung by effervescent choirs in front of a mesmerised audience. Since its debut in Vienna in 1824, the compassionate tune and emotional lyrics manifested themselves as the epitome of the brotherhood of man.
Reading time: about 4 minutes
TED Talk. Andrew Pelling: Making ears from apples
„My lab is not in the ear-making business. What I’m really curious about is if one day it will be possible to repair, rebuild and augment our own bodies with stuff we make in the kitchen,” says Andrew Pelling who leads a university-based biological research lab. Usually, he likes to rummage through garbage and often digs up discarded hardware he first dismantles and then reassembles into something completely new. Could that also work with a biological system? Creating human ears from apples may be far-fetched, but seems feasible: the lab removed apple cells and DNA and implanted human cells instead. The result was a cellulose scaffold with a structure that could be carved into a human ear!
Reading time: about 1 minuteFeatures
Our best, long-form pieces on the most interesting meeting locations in the world:
Heiligendamm: A Beauty by the Sea
Limpopo: About rockefants, soaked cats and kidnapped termites
Chocolate: The Key to Happiness?
Johannesburg: Constitution Hill