In some cities, “I love Paris” (Jazz Song), we admire the “breath-taking” large corridors, right in the centre of the city. This has been the outcome of the urban planning in the 18th century. Haussmann designed large parts of Paris with huge corridors despite the medieval narrow streets in some of the arrondisements”. Ease of traffic, fewer riots and representative housing became the new mantra of urban planning and superb boulevards.
In the 21st century it is about time to question the notion and social process of corridorisation. This has been accomplished in a paper by Fatima Tassadq et al. (2025). Modern infrastructure like fibre-optic cables, energy or water networks are easiest to deploy in urban spaces with large corridors than the complex narrow inner cities with supposition of different kinds of network layers. The grand ideas of the 18th century should be questioned from time to time and some districts that have escaped the corridorisation might well have a particular charm about them, maybe just because they seem to escape the rational approach of making and structuring space by means of large corridors. Large corridors separate city districts and they are a major driving force of gentrification.
The rationality of corridors has some roots in maths or physics of complexity. A recent paper by Shanshan Wang et al. (2024) reports the surprising finding that the transport corridors in several cities across the globe allow for a 1.3 times the distance of transport networks compared to the so-called direct linear “bird’s flight line”. Hence, corridorisation is (has been) a rather pervasively applied model of urban planning.
Alternative approaches advocate in favor of the 15-minutes walking distance city. All amenities like shops, schools, maybe work and services should be reachable within a 15 minutes walk. This does include “walking corridors” that facilitate (social) connectivity in inner cities. Cyclists also claim their corridors or fast lanes across cities, which underlines the pertinence to take corridorisation seriously and apply the concept with care.
In any case, social connectivity is key. The big social media platforms operate similar to the traffic infrastructure in the 21st century and provide huge corridors to knowledge and people. We only realize this once a service (for example tiktok) or the internet altogether gets disconnected. We have moved from (social) categorisation to (social) corridorisation as technology and rationalisation have taken the upper hand to structure our (social) lives. 
Obesity Revised
The scientific paper on a revised definition of obesity was produced by the special Commission on Obesity. It appeared in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology in 2025-1. The previously common practice by medical doctors was to classify person in the obesity category based mainly on the simple calculation of the body mass index (BMI = weight/height²). A BMI > 30 put persons into the obese category and stigma.
Since the Covid-19 society-wide testing experience, we are all familiar what it means if you get misclassified and have to live with the consequences (exclusion from work or events etc.). The simplifying and summarizing BMI calculation and classification has also produced many wrong classifications. For example, persons with a lot of muscles (just watch this at any fitness studio) will have a high weight relative to their body height², but they are likely to be more healthy than many other light weight, but seriously stressed persons.
In empirical test theory such cases are the so-called false positive cases, i.e. classified as obese, but not a medical problem at all. Medical doctors and health insurances should not finance special treatments for these persons, which foregoes treatment of other more needy persons.
With new expensive drugs on the market to treat obesity it is even more important to test with more precision the normal, pre-clinical and clinical status of obesity. Fatty tissue or muscles, that is the relevant question. Fatty tissue in muscles is the next level testing issue. 
Californication
In a song by the „Red Hot Chili Peppers“ the term californication appeared for the first time as far as I remember. This song is rather critical of the superficial californian way of life. The belief in the dream that you may get rich quickly in California has suffered another blow wit the thousands of homes burned in the wild fires in January 2025. Dry and arid areas are spreading and the lack of water makes it very hard for firefighters to protect homes, particularly in difficult to reach valleys. Stormy weather adds to the speed of fire spreading. All these elements are predictable additional risk of climate change. Californication is the old and new word to describe a trend of acceptance of increasing climate risks by at the same time neglect of environmental precaution. Hollywood is just around the corner there and the film industry might come up with some other narratives than just the previous californian dream. Get rich fast, then run away. Sustainability is a more difficult concept and yet it keeps getting more and more attention. 
Aridification
Man made climate change and local policies increase speed of aridification (Link). It is not only the Sahara desert that is spreading out, but the lake Aral is another horrible example of the disrespect mankind attributes to its own resources of living. As more regions become arid due to our faults and long term consequences of industrialization we provoke human resettlement of an increasing scale. Water resources are and have been for centuries the major reason for people to settle nearby. Aridification of the soil like in California increases the risks of wild fires. The costs associated with aridification are very high and such areas can no longer be insured through normal private insurers. In most cases poor people or countries are affected the most, but we are all likely to bear the consequences in one way or another. We will have to accept that the size of habitable areas on earth decreases while the peek demography of humans is still at least a decade away from now. Not to tackle aridification is not an option. When shall we ever learn? (Image: sketch for Hagar and Ishmael in the desert, by Navez 1819, MRBAB) 
Enshittification
Don’t laugh. This is a very serious scientific term to describe the way social media function in the 21st century. The scientific reference goes back to 2025 and article in “Science” by Kai Kupferschmidt. Twitter, now eXit, like most other social media platforms uses algorithms that select posts for you from the millions of posts that are likely to induce a reaction from you, which prolongs your time on the platform. Additionally, eXit Twitter applies an algorithm that prioritizes accounts with already a huge followership, which makes these accounts even bigger. The result is an increasing inequality in attention to info, facts, fake news, but also revenue for the platform owners through more advertisements. As hate speech and fake news are commonly perceived as shit, many social media are happy to spread more shitty things on their platforms as this generates more money for the platform as well. In short, enshittification happens sooner or later to most platforms and we all suffer from this. As user of these platforms, it is hard to escape from this process, as most platforms tend to “convert” to enshittification at some later point in their life cycle, unlike babies who manage to quit this phase after a few months. A move to Bluesky might be indicated, but there is no guarantee that the same process will just happen again. Mastodon is another small twitter-like platform that like Bluesky offers a more open approach to its governing algorithms and a more controlled access in the registration process.
To avoid enshittification, we have to be ready to move away from one platform to another one, just like changing bank accounts or club memberships. Make sure to take most of your friends with you and there are already tools for this online as well. Enjoy the safe online life again on another platform or consume more of the traditional media like newspapers, radio or tv with proven quality. (Image: extract from Jan Steen, 1625-1679, The Rhetoricians – “In liefde vrij”, MRBAB) 
Science and Fiction
We associate with science and fiction the extrapolation of scientific trends into some futuristic settings. The most striking examples of science fiction in novels or video use some scientific findings (dinosaurs, genetic engineering) and project this knowledge into another fictional setting. The usual personal relationships follow rather predictable plots of romance, deception, violence or war.
The novel “Wellness” (Hill 2024) is also a kind of science fiction as it is based on social science evidence and builds its fictional plot firmly embedded into the social and psychological research. The attachment of references (and defending the print of those in translation) underlines the commitment to write a new type of “social science fiction”.
In this innovative style the scientific basis of psychology and sociology is then extrapolated into a fictional arrangement. Research on subjective well-being with the U-shaped form over the life course and the extrapolation of the placebo effect, which is instrumentalized for a business, derive from key topics in the social sciences. In fact, the novel and the background scientific literature in the bibliography could well figure in a social science course at university entry level. These readings constitute a 360-degree-view on personal development and social structures. Of course, social sciences move on and add new evidence on an almost daily basis, but the selection and arrangement of the characters create an innovative social science fiction, without some unrealistic technological extrapolation.
It strangely feels like we are already part of this social science fiction (compare “Klara and the sun” by Ishiguro) as politicians advocate and campaign with placebo topics in elections and project us into some more happy past or future.
The social science fiction of Nathan Hill resembles for me the great utopian novel by George Orwell “1984” published in 1948. A title “2032” instead of “Wellness” could have worked quite well, as the first edition of Nathan Hill’s social science fiction was published already in 2023. (Image: Extract of: Lo Spagnolo, 1665-1747, Hecuba makes Polymnestor blind, MRBAB).
Not learning
For decades our attention has been focused on how learning works. However, at the beginning of 2025 it might be more important to shift our focus of learning research on “not learning”. Recent research on learning includes the study of “social learning” of mice (Winiarski et al. 2025) and the related brain mechanisms that are involved in social learning like the prelimbic cortex.
For our human societies we also rely to a great deal on social learning. In mice, however, the disruption of the prelimbic cortex causes mice to no longer seek “social information related to rewards” from other mice. In Eco-HAB cages these mice follow their scent capabilities to “sort” their information seeking from for example higher “social status animals”. This tested reward seeking behavior allows clues to how learning works. The intervention to disrupt the synaptic plasticity in a later phase of the experiment reveals less social learning from the network social information and fewer contributions to the social network.
Only intact neural plasticity in the prelimbic cortex ensures the maintaining of the social structure. Of course it is highly questionable, whether these results based on animal experiments tell us anything about social structure and social learning in other mammals, but there might be reasons to search for explanations of “no social learning” in humans as well. 
Wellness Sickness
There appears to be some kind of a relationship between the 2 conepts of wellness and sickness. Some would argue that the more sick you are, the more you seek wellness. Sickness seems to be the precursor of wellness for many people. Wellbeing or happiness are even higher order concepts which are only indirectly related to wellness. In an almost 600 pages science and fiction novel, Nathan Hill (Link) constructs his plot based on the psychological research on the placebo effect. With a sufficient aura around a pseudo-medication administered in a wellness clinic, the clients or some figure near the 50% random positive effects are treated with at least no negative side effects. On page 152 we find the more explicit description of how to induce a placebo effect in participants. Context, expectations, faith, symbols, metaphors and story are all ingredients for a placebo effect to work. Sometmes without knowing we receive a treatment in our childhood or throughout the life course that we work on using placebo effects to overcome them. The novel by Hill (2024) is a well researched psychological as well as sociological fiction including a bibliography, which reminds us „If you cling too hard to what you want to see, you miss what’s really there.“ (p. 496). 
Career Criminals
From a life course perspective it is not easy to define a colloquial term like career criminal. A person who has been convicted for a single crime and has served his/her sentence should be allowed full integration into society. Even a repeated offender should not be stigmatized or labeled as career criminal. However, this is exactly what the NS-state did (traveling exhibition across Germany and Austria: „Die Verleugneten“). These persons were subject to targeted charges for criminal offenses they „might“ commit eventually. The term „community alien“ or „asocial“ were also used to refer to persons that did not fit into the dominant Nazi doctrine of „Volk“. It took 75 years until these persons could receive a recognition and a recompense for their unfounded discrimination and incarceration. In concentration camps the so-called asocial or career criminals were at the highest risk of further prosecution and death. Great that the stumbling Stones include these victims as well, as a way to remember these crimes against humanity. Beware of definitions of social groups which are based on totalitarian ideologies. 
Question Tomorrow
« Tomorrow is the question ». This is the imprint on the 8 table tennis tables in the Martin Gropius Bau 2024. As part of the Contemporary art exhibition by the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, the tables are very busy throughout the day and invite people to meet, play and greet. If tomorrow is the question, today is the answer. Is it? Maybe the answer is the day after tomorrow? Time appears to be the answer and the question. Such questions touch on basic philosophical questions about our relationship to and concept of time. Future orientation or even the belief in life after death touch upon basic religious beliefs. Intergenerational transmission is useless if there is no tomorrow or concept of tomorrow. Sustainability is most relevant if we are convinced there will be a tomorrow. Fatalists or warmongers rate today so much more than tomorrow that everything is subordinated to the urgency of now. Not easy to strike the right balance between „for now“ and „for tomorrow“. Simple financial discounting of benefits which accrue only tomorrow do not solve the urgency issue of behavioral concerns. My personal discounted value of ice cream tomorrow might be superior to ice cream now, but it is based on the tacit assumption that the shop still exists tomorrow or any other time in the future. The exhibition invites people not only to play table tennis but also to discuss the question of tomorrow across language barriers and across tables and cultures. 