Audiostretto 59/4/24 English

Are wasps annoying or are you even afraid of them? You've probably already experienced being stung by one, which can be very painful and in some cases even life-threatening. Nevertheless. Wasps are important players in the natural balance. They contribute to pollination, control pests, serve as food for other animals and help to recycle nutrients in the ecosystem by destroying waste. Even thou...

We used to play dominoes as children. That game with the black pieces that have white dots on them. The aim - at least that's how we played it - was that you were only allowed to put tiles together that had the same number of eyes or dots. How unpleasant it was when there was simply no suitable place for the pieces you had left to join the existing chain of pieces. In theory, you could have si...

Do you prefer the veggie version of sandwiches or do you like them with meat? Perhaps with some fresh salad or steamed vegetables or antipasti? Light or dark bread? Many of these questions arise when you go to a certain take-away sandwich restaurant. You can be overwhelmed at first because you are walking along a buffet and have to make all these decisions and there are other customers in front of...

I am a fan of the local football club, FC Basel. I'm not one of those people who own a season ticket and watch every home game in the stadium. But when I can, I watch at least some of the games on my computer via a streaming service. There were times when the club was very successful and as a fan you are filled with a certain pride. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case in the recent pa...

Have you ever seen bonsai trees or plants? I am fascinated by how otherwise enormous, large plantations such as trees can exist as living organisms in such a small form. I have read that this is about more than just gardening. Although the term comes from Japanese, it obviously originated in Chinese. According to the ancient Chinese understanding, part of this garden art is to depict a harmony bet...

You've probably had food left between your teeth while eating. If these don't come off, you constantly start to use your tongue or other means to get these annoying remnants out of the spaces between your teeth. If you don't succeed straight away, you keep trying and trying and become very absorbed. This can be extremely annoying. So it's good to have the opportunity to brush your...

In Asia, rice is like bread to us, a staple food consumed on a daily basis. I've wondered how many grains of rice it takes to fill you up and how much a single grain contributes. They are so small. And one more or one less doesn't really matter. But if I do it x times, it does matter whether I get full or not. So how big is this x? So you can almost lose yourself in thought or try to think...

So-called target markers can be found near or at construction sites. Sometimes they are quite small and glued on as reflector foils or larger and are characterised by striking black and white contrasts. This is important so that when these targets are measured using imaging methods such as a camera or similar sensor, they are easily recognised in order to achieve a precise measurement. Targets mus...

The other day I heard in the news that the Federal Roads Office had undertaken a new trial with a mobile bridge it had invented, which is used on highly frequented, narrow stretches of road in need of renovation. It works like this: the section in need of renovation is virtually covered by the bridge. This allows traffic to flow normally over the bridge, albeit slightly restricted due to the local...

There are many images of prisons: Perhaps a heavily guarded high-security wing or one surrounded by barbed wire, or a barren cell with a tiny little window that is also barred. These are all external representations of the physical restrictions that prisoners are subject to. In other words, restrictions that massively impair or even destroy actual personal freedom. But there are also internal pris...

There are certain words or things in life that are somehow very clear. A loaf of bread or an item of clothing - you know exactly what they are talking about. But then there are also terms or realities where this is not so readily the case and yet they are omnipresent and actually vital to our survival. Let me take the example of love. Love as such can be viewed and treated in an excellent philosop...

Certain well-known products do not simply write their product names in a standard font, but in their very own. In other words, they do not use the usual standard fonts, but have their very own way of writing the alphabet and numbers. That is quite elaborate and remarkable. As this font is presumably also protected by law and cannot be used just like that, it is automatically linked to this product...

Do you know this? You're hiking in summer and pass through a village, it's hot, you're thirsty from hiking and the heat and then you find a village fountain. How such a sight suddenly feels good and you look forward to one or probably several sips of cool water to quench your thirst and maybe even fill up the empty bottle you brought with you. However, I have also seen a sign at the fo...

The ceiling light at our home was broken. The lights used were attached to a double cable so that they could be aligned with a certain degree of manoeuvrability to illuminate the part of the room that we wanted to be bright. But they only had limited manoeuvrability. In our three-dimensional space, we have three degrees of freedom, i.e. directions that we can adjust. If we have unrestricted freedo...

As children we loved playing with rubber balls. These are balls made of hard rubber that bounce back with almost the same energy when they hit a resistance. So you can simply drop them on the floor and they bounce back to almost the same height. Only the force of gravity takes a certain amount of energy away from them, so that it is not quite enough for a complete return. However, they also have t...

I know a middle-aged woman who wears make-up that is relatively conspicuous. That in itself is not unusual. But she has applied the lipstick so thickly that it looks unnatural and exaggerated to me. In other words, she almost pretends to have a lip thickness with the strong red colour that isn't there. In my incompetent opinion, I would say that she is exaggerating. I don't know whether th...

There are lightning maps that show lightning activity. They are used to visualise the distribution and frequency of lightning in a particular region and during a particular period. One of the many uses of this information is by energy supply companies: they use lightning maps to monitor the risk of lightning strikes to their networks, as lightning can cause power outages. To collect this informati...

In our country, church bells still ring frequently and regularly. To the delight of some, to the annoyance of others. Some chime only twice an hour, others only on certain occasions such as a funeral or in the evening, and still others every quarter of an hour. The chime was originally a call to prayer for the praying monks and people and I think also a kind of public clock when wristwatches were...

In sport, there are restrictions for a performance to count as a score. In the long jump, a certain mark must not be exceeded. The distance of the jump is measured from the mark to the nearest footprint in the sand. If a competitor jumps before the mark, this additional distance is not taken into account and she loses valuable distance in the competition. With modern measuring methods, it would be...

Are you enthusiastic about something? For what? Sport or literature or relationships or work, a hobby, music or an instrument or the success of others, perhaps your children? In German, the word "Geist" is in the verb and I interpret it like this: suddenly another spirit comes into play. You may notice this yourself: there is suddenly more life, more enthusiasm, commitment, passion, will...

When you go to the seaside for a beach holiday, you certainly enjoy lying on the beach, enjoying the waves, the sea, the view, etc. You don't always have a deckchair, so you use a beach towel that you lay down on the sand to sit or lie on. The towel lets you feel the sand almost directly, but not quite, and gives you a thin layer that helps prevent you from being covered in sand that sticks to...

Are you a visual person? If so, you may respond more than others to outward appearances and perhaps see details or things that others don't notice. Design is therefore not unimportant when selling products. For me, I allow myself to be influenced by appearance when making a decision. Be it when choosing products or eating out, etc. Design can therefore have a significant influence on the decis...

I sometimes have smudges or splashes on my computer monitor. The fact is, however, that if there is important information behind it, it is partially covered by the smudges - so I may not always recognise or confuse letters straight away. That's one thing: the spots obscure what I should be able to see or cloud my vision, so to speak. But the other thing is that they also draw attention to them...

The metaphorical term "shark tank" is used as a figure of speech to describe an environment characterised by fierce competition, conflict and ruthless behaviour. It often refers to work environments or situations in which everyone is trying to get ahead at the expense of others. However, this is not necessarily the case, because sharks do not fight each other - partly out of fear of bein...

Do you know what delirium is? My spontaneous reaction: it comes from taking drugs and puts the person who consumes drugs in a special state that is far removed from reality. Wrong. I looked it up and read: "Delirium refers to a sudden dysfunction of the brain. It is not a mental but a physical event with a disturbance of consciousness. Acute delirium is an emergency situation that requires in...