Category: Feature Stories

Homophobia is unfortunately still ingrained in many minds. Research is being done on it in social psychology. But only for the last 50 years or so. The word homophobia first appeared in literature in the late 1960s. At that time, Jewish-American psychologist George Weinberg published an article in which he used the term for the first time and thus coined it. He defined homophobia as a kind of disturbance in the brain, to which the sensitive person was more or less at the mercy – just like a phobia. Term…

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According to the United Nations, this striking mark in the world population will reach eight billion people around November 15 this year. Nonetheless, the number of people on our planet is growing slowly. By 2080, it is forecast to stop growing at 10.4 billion people by then, as the United Nations writes in a report for World Population Day on July 11. John Wilmoth, director of the UN Population Division, has many opportunities in global development – despite all the regional differences – especially for developing countries. In addition to…

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Beer is already so intertwined in our daily lives that many drink a glass of it daily. But how healthy is that? An after-work beer here, a cold one there on a balmy summer evening by the canal: It’s easy to reach for a beer bottle. And a beer like that doesn’t do any harm. Wrong. Regular, just daily alcohol consumption, like beer, affects our bodies in many ways – mostly negatively. Process 1: The kidneys are damagedThe kidneys are responsible for cleansing the body, so daily alcohol consumption affects…

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The new Omicron subvariant BA.2.75 has been given its own “nickname.” So far, however, little is known about the descendant of BA.2. Alpha, Delta, Omicron – and now Centaurus. The different coronavirus variants have all been given a Greek letter as their name after the wild type from Wuhan. However, not all of them were relevant until now because they did not catch on. The recently discovered Omicron subvariant BA.2.75 has also been given a name, albeit with a wink: Centaurus. The descendant of the Omicron sub-variant BA.2 may have…

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The number of people suffering from hunger worldwide continued to rise last year, according to United Nations (UN) estimates. Between 702 and 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021, according to the annual report on the global supply situation, which was presented in New York on Wednesday. It said that that was about 46 million more than the previous year’s mean of 721 million. The challenges of ending hunger and malnutrition were growing, wrote several U.N. agencies, including UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Food and…

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Until now, antibody tests, unlike antigen tests, had to be performed in laboratories after a blood sample had been taken – including several days of waiting for the result. But Japanese experts have now developed a method in which antibodies against Sars-CoV-2 can be detected without taking any blood. This was reported this week by the German medical journal Ärzteblatt. Measuring 1.5 by 3.5 centimeters, the patch test / Image: Institute of Industrial Science, The University of TokyoExperts developed the rapid test at the University of Tokyo. This novel test…

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Vacations, summer vacation, and finally, breathing deeply are the motto of many people from Europe. However, the Corona virus does not take a break. Vacations at last, finally traveling again and enjoying the summer. But while we euphorically pack our bags, the Coronavirus continues to spread unchecked, and infection numbers are shooting through the roof across Europe. The best strategy is to know in which countries the 3G rule applies again and where you must wear an FFP2 mask. There is no vacation country where the entry for vaccination or…

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The variant has been detected in five countries—British health authority: No cause for concern yet. The series of bad news surrounding Corona refuses to stop: British researchers led by virologist Thomas Peacock have now expressed concern about a new Covid variant that has emerged in several countries worldwide. The strain, a descendant of Omikron, has been given the international classification BA.2.75 because it is a second generation of the BA.2 variant that caused a surge in Europe in late March. While the number of cases sequenced in laboratories is low…

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Plants like to align themselves with the sun – more light means more photosynthesis. When sunflowers grow up, they do the same. During the day, they move with the sun. So in the morning, they face east, where the sun rises. Throughout the day, they follow it across the south to the west in the evening. There the sun sets, the sunflower turns back to the east during the night, and the game starts the next day again. With “adult” sunflowers, i.e., when they have fully blossomed, things are different:…

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