Blog Lars Jaeger
Another eco-crisis - and nobody takes notices
German car drivers have long noticed: the number of insects is decreasing. Compared to 20 years ago, the windshield is hardly smeared with the annoying creatures after racing on the autobahn. What may be pleasant for German car pilots has the potential to develop into a global ecological catastrophe. To some, this may sound alarmist, […]
Protect science! – The lack of intellectual integrity exemplified by a recent public discussion in Germany
The recent debate in Germany about the health consequences of air pollution, particulate matter and nitrogen oxides has shown how scientific research results can suddenly become the center of a heated political discussion. It was triggered by the publication of a position paper by Dieter Köhler, a pneumologist (lung researcher), and Thomas Koch, an engineer […]
Globalization 4.0 - The World Economic Forum between the discussion of our technological future and the increasingly unbearable vanity of a dull global financial elite
“Every year once again” could be the motto of the event, which takes place at the end of every January in the tranquil Swiss alpine village of Davos. More than 3000 people, including many high power people from business, politics, culture, and academic research gather and discuss the state of the world. The mottos of […]
The discussion about shaping technological progress using the example of artificial intelligence - On the latest proposals of the EU Commission's High Level Expert Group
It dawns more and more on many people that future technologies will likely not only change the nature around us, as they did in the past, but will soon also transform man himself. The possibility of a fundamental change in our biology, our psyche, our perception and our consciousness is already emerging. How we deal […]
Caught between enjoyment of prosperity and fear of the future – Some more optimism at the beginning of 2019
Looking at the collective state of mind of modernity we witness an all too strange paradox: More and more people are living in incomparable comfort, in almost total safety, in best health all the way into old age, and are enjoying a living comfort that only a few generations ago was regarded as hopelessly utopian. […]
On the eco-ethical indifference of business leaders - The example of Glencore
At times, one has to study the newspaper very closely to learn about insightful statements by top business executives providing a deeper insights into what our economic leaders think about pressing questions in our world than any journalist’s editorial or comment. Often one then stumbles over phrases and statements that at first sound rather harmless […]
It finally happened (probably) — the first CRISPR baby is here
It had to happen at some point. You did not need to be a prophet to predict the birth of the first CRISPR baby. More than two years ago, in May 2015, the science journal Nature in an article entitled the same asked the question: “Where in the world could the first CRISPR baby be […]
With artificial intelligence to the top of the world - the examples of China and Germany
The term “artificial intelligence” (AI) is more than 60 years old (it was coined by John McCarthy at a conference in Dartmouth in 1956). But only in the last five to ten years has this field evolved into a future key technology with ever more powerful impact on our lives. Increasingly, it deals with tasks […]
A forgotten female pioneer of quantum physics - The mathematician and philosopher Grete Hermann
Those who are more concerned with the early development of quantum theory will quickly realize that the pioneers of modern physics appear to be a pure men’s club: Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Max Born, Paul Dirac, Enrico Fermi, later Richard Feynman or Freeman Dyson, to name only […]
The Woman Who Explained Nuclear Fission - On Lise Meitner's 50th Death Anniversary
With Donna Strickland in 2018 only for the third time a woman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, after Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963 (only the economists have less Nobel Prize laureates, but the Nobel Prize for Economics has only been awarded since 1969). The most well-known physicist, who remained […]