Category: Techno

The chairman of wikimedia deutschland, pavel richter, presented what he called the first new rough project of wikipedia since 2006 on friday at the international wikimedia conference in berlin.

Wikidata is to become a free knowledge database whose information can be viewed directly, but is also machine-readable. Wikipedia articles will no longer contain data such as the population size of a city as text, but as a link to the corresponding location in the database. The information will then no longer be updated in the individual articles of the lexicon, but centrally at wikidata.

Tracking the forces of the big bang with rontgen rays: the german telescope erosita will give researchers a new illuminating look at the dark energy of the universe. In the end, erosita is supposed to provide a map of the sky that depicts the universe and its development in unprecedented qualitat.

On 21.6. A russian rocket is to carry the telescope into space from the baikonur spaceport as part of the spektrum-RG space observatory. Researchers talk about the first bilateral russian-german space project.

Time to the frankenmetropole on a daily basis to work there. The problem is that 90 percent of them drive their own cars, while just ten percent use the public transport system. "The traffic gridlock is practically being carried into the cities from the cities", explains andreas mader of the transport association grobraum nurnberg.
The consequences: CO2 emissions have been reduced only marginally over the last 25 years. With around 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, road traffic in germany makes a significant contribution to climate change and the associated problems. Individual motorized transport is responsible for around 70 percent of traffic emissions. "And that is exactly what has increased in the last 25 years. We simply can"t go on like this, because we"ll never achieve the climate goals we"ve set for ourselves", mader criticizes this development. In his view, demonizing diesel and relying more heavily on gasoline engines is not a solution either.

Climate killer carbon dioxide

Because CO2 emissions would then increase even more, and carbon dioxide is, after all, the real climate killer. But electromobility is no solution for a better climate balance if, as is currently the case, 50 percent of the electricity required is generated from fossil fuels.
In cities like nurnberg, erlangen, bamberg or bayreuth, individual transport is increasingly becoming the real problem, regardless of the mode of propulsion. Continuous influx, noise, fine dust pollution and simple lack of space made life difficult for residents. Mader's conclusion: "in the future, we will need less individual traffic while at the same time expanding local public transport." for example, the planned urban-umland railroad between nurnberg and erlangen would replace around 1400 car journeys a day. This would correspond to a car journey of more than eight kilometers. And the VGN manager has very specific ideas about what this expansion of the public transport system should look like.

Already in march, the hebdorf community council decided to convert the entire street lighting to the energy-efficient LED technology. Since the rough maintenance of the streetlights is due this year, the conversion was a natural choice. The costs amount to 1 146 000. Bayernwerk offered the municipality an energy-saving contracting agreement in order not to burden the municipal budget. The municipality of hebdorf will pay the investment costs back to bayernwerk in 73 monthly installments.

From the point of view of the administration, the m-measure is economical and, through the considerable CO2 savings and improved insect-friendliness, takes into account the current climate policy goals of the federal and state governments, which of course also apply to the municipalities. In the discussion at the time, the question was raised as to whether external financing of the investment costs would not be the more favorable solution, also in view of rising electricity costs. Therefore, the decision was postponed and an alternative financing was proposed.

The team led by prof. Stefan hell used the STED light microscope he developed, which makes structures with a resolution of less than 70 nanometers visible – about 1000 times finer than a hair. "Looking directly into the organism opens up a new tur in neurology and can provide insights into diseases such as alzheimer’s, autism or parkinson’s," hell told the news agency dpa. The aim is to decipher fundamental molecular processes in the brain.

The team from the gottingen-based max planck institute for biophysical chemistry published their work in this friday’s "science" magazine. Prof. Leo peichl of the max planck institute for brain research in frankfurt praised the technology. "This is a very interesting improvement for biological research. This will advance science enormously," he said in response to a question from the dpa.