Focus

The oceans are the cradle of life and the most biodiverse habitat on our planet. Around 23,000 species are known, but scientists estimate that as many as 10 million species could live in the oceans! (In comparison, around 1.4 million species live on land.) Although the Earth is a “water planet”, the depths of the […] Read on...

World No Tobacco Day, proclaimed by the WHO, takes place on May 31st. Before we deal with partly alarming, partly delightful facts about this, we would like to broaden the focus and look at breathing. As with the heartbeat, the special thing about breathing is that, seen from the outside, it simply “does”, the heart […] Read on...

In the mid 19th century, many farmers in the centrally located states of the USA were struggling with erosion. To counteract the loss of fertile soil due to storms, wind and water, they planted trees. The politician and farmer Julius Sterling Morton was consequently one of the first to reforest his property. After only a […] Read on...

This planet Earth is “custom made” for us humans; it offers everything we need for our survival and our wellbeing. At least, this is the case for what nature provides for us, for it is especially civilisation – cities, traffic, industry and so on – that causes problems for us, for example in the form […] Read on...

Nearly 85% of New Zealanders are smoke-free. But New Zealand is aiming even higher: The New Zealand Government has set the goal that by 2025 fewer than 5% of New Zealanders will be smokers. To this end, on 9th December 2022, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall launched a new legislation, Auahi Kore Aotearoa […] Read on...

The evidence that mobile phone radiation, and in particular 5G technology, is anything but harmless for human beings and that the current threshold values are by no means sufficient to protect health, is becoming increasingly clear and frequent. For example, on 10 January 2023, a Swedish case study was published in the “Annals of Case […] Read on...

It can no longer be dismissed out of hand: Non-ionising radiation, as emitted primarily by mobile phone transmitters and devices such as mobile phones, smart meters, WiFi, etc., as well as high-voltage power lines, causes considerable harm to insects. This was recently shown in an overview study by the University of Neuchâtel commissioned by the […] Read on...

For more than 3 billion people, fish is the primary and often irreplaceable source of protein; 800 million people live directly or indirectly from fishing. To feed that many people, it takes a lot of fish: worldwide, more than 90 million metric tons are caught each year, covering nearly seven percent of global protein consumption. However, […] Read on...

First of all, the good news: Between 2007 and 2019, the number of adult smokers has declined steadily. However, 1.3 billion people worldwide still use tobacco today (of which 1.1 billion are smokers, with another 200 million turning to other tobacco products). Five companies dominate 80 percent of the market. While they are promoting increasingly […] Read on...

The Darwinian world view assumes that there is a constant competition between all living beings, in which the stronger wins. For a long time, this approach also applied to the woods. According to popular belief, trees fight for light, water, soil nutrients, and only those who ruthlessly prevail, win. “Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural […] Read on...