Tag: nature

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Gone gliding

Nowadays gliding in form of hang gliding is a leisurely experience within the reach of almost everyone. The human dream of flying, however, has been shattered by the Icarus narrative, humans aiming too high and too close to the sun. More realistic first experiments were undertaken by Otto Lilienthal, who pioneered the first human built and steered glider based on an innovative concept of the wing at its basis. Aerodynamic construction of the wing with a rounded shape allows air to flow faster on top than below the wing, which lifts the wing and glider upwards. His tragic fatal accident on one of his gliding experiments has been wrongly attributed to a construction default, but recent research has shown that it was most likely due to  bad weather conditions on that particular day (Link Radio3). According to Markus Raffel, Otto Lilienthal was a broadly educated and practicing polymath in addition to his gliding innovations

Science and art Radio3 talk at airport Tempelhof Berlin 2026-9

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Human gravity

Long before the establishment of Newton’s theory of gravity, humans have been fascinated by gravity. Elevation from earth, after all, has figured prominently in religious imagery. Mankind’s dream to fly has become so popular that it contributes substantially to ruin the blue planet. Defying gravity as much as feeling the amplified force of it have become a continuous challenge. In sports we adore the bouncing on a trampoline and classical dance derives a lot of its charm from the suspended moments in air. Beware the landing and get accompanied in your first steps.
Modern Dance is equally creative in the challenge to defy human gravity. Trisha Brown (1971) suspended dancers horizontally so that they could walk in space at least along fixed lines and perpendicular to the surface. The physics of our body change in this bird-like position. Dancing in equilibrium on a horizontally suspended line leaves the audience amazed. The spectacular setting and performance at the “Neue Nationalgalerie” transforms the architecture again into a playing ground for choreographers. Suspension from human gravity is hard work, beyond “¾ Walzer” rhythm and, of course, it takes 2 to tango to feel the suspension.

Trisha Brown horizontal suspended Dance Berlin 2026-9

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Park Impressions

Parks and gardens have been among the preferred items of impressionist painters. In Berlin it is possible to visit the Villa of Max Liebermann and the splendid garden next to the Wannsee. The 3 years Liebermann spent in Paris as well as his friendship with Cezanne “converted the young painter to impressionist’s painting style. The subjects of his paintings became similar as well. Splendid gardens and people working or going about their daily routine inspired him. The visits to the Netherlands (image below) inspired him to paint the joyful and relaxed atmosphere during summer. Sunlight and shadow outside an atelier became the fascinating moment he captured so well. Enjoy the summer and take a break. (Image: extract from Max Liebermann: Park in Laren).

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Forest sponge

Forests work like sponges. They can stock enormous amounts of water. Trees, even when cut years ago, keep a lot of their humidity, especially if they are underneath other trees. A rich nourishing soil allows biodiversity to thrive. It takes years and sometimes decades for these ecosystems to grow, but they are destroyed within a few months or just days in case of wildfires. We have to put higher monetary values on these ecosystems and their contributions to biodiversity in order to make the preservation economically feasible as well. The sole ecological value does not seem to stop us humans to exploit this resources beyond sustainability. The succession of seasons should be a reminder of the essential role of circularity in nature and a principal of conservation of biodiversity.

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Fighting fires

In our homes and offices we are used to have electric, digital and chemical devices to assist us in fighting fires. Fires can have multiple origins ranging from faulty technical devices to human errors, behavior and volition. Some countries have terrible experiences with city fires engrained into their history. The scale of wild fires in forests in Europe, the USA, Australia or Canada have reached a new dimension. With global warming fires known in southern parts of Europe reach further north and become more intense. The fire near Fontainebleau (Forêt de Sénart, France) in 2018 destroyed 9000 hectares forest. In 2026 the fires near Bordeaux burned 10 times the size (Link). There were about 8 years to get prepared between the 2 large scale incidents. The technocrats’ answer usually is just limited to the immediate surroundings of the fire. Instead larger scale actions have to be prepared and enacted to prevent the next incidents. The technocrat’s answer is more technology like aircrafts and yet bigger aircrafts(still largely insufficient in 2026-7). Satellite and drone surveillance with infrared cameras additionally can go a long way, but the human factor remains a hard to fight beast in all such technical fire fighting scenarios. This setup seems to be somehow like a constant to take into account in all technological propositions.  

Cercis siliquastrum Jardin des plantes Paris, planted 1785.

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Gone birding

Birding is fascinating science and hobby. The recent advances in bird song recognition allow to compare the sometimes complex melodies across species. The support by many citizen scientists who collect data on sound, images and environment, made it possible to identify 8 major types of sound snippets. These constitute the basis from which to study or imitate the major bird songs, if you like. The scientific paper by Bacquele et al. (2026) shows that in dense forests the songs are more complex, whereas in open space simple tunes allow to travel far across space. Mating potentials seem to play an interesting role as well. But birding does not stop there. The Brancusi exhibits in the „Neue Nationalgalerie“ in Berlin deal also with the fascination about birds by the artist (image below). We also find depictions of the „bird-man“ in mythology more than 3000 years before our time and ever since. Flying probably brings together our science and dreams about birds and mankind. Science fiction is full of examples of that kind.

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Beware Albedo

At times of high radiation from the sun, we suffer from high “albedo” values surrounding us. Albedo is scaled between 0 (black) and 100 (white) and is a measure of the reflection of light. Dark surfaces have a low Albedo, which means they absorb a lot of light and store this energy in form of heating. On the contrary, white surfaces or reflector materials like mirrors absorb very little of light as they reflect the light and, therefore store very little of it as heat.
In housing or urban planning this is an important indicator to take into consideration when planning for summer heat reduction, for example. Inner cities with dense construction, lots of windows, which in most cases absorb rather than reflect sun light, Light absorption and storage during the day will contribute to heat urban environments and inner cities during summer nights. This might be comfortable during winter, but in hot summer days the high reflection value creates additional discomfort.
Greening of cities is a powerful answer as vegetation absorbs the sunlight, but does not store it in form of heat. The glaciers and huge snow fields have shielded us from the earth heating up too fast in the past. Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge about “albedo” has lead us to undervalue these shielding effects. Light absorption by the earth is an additional driver of climate change in form of global warming. (Image: Brussels, Forest, Park Duden Community Gardening 2026-5)

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Autonomy in swarm

Swarm behavior is a fascinating research area. Almost all scientific disciplines feature some interest and publication in this area. The biological origins have been associated a lot with the marvelous behavior and patterns formed by fish moving about in swarms. Some species of birds show similar patterns of collective and somehow coordinated swarm movement. It appears to be tricky to safeguard some form of autonomy in the overriding mass behavior and mass movement.
Recent advances in this field by Li, Li & Zhao (2023) model such behavior within a predator-prey framework to explain the evolution of overall swarm behavior. Whereas “prey” strategies consist in “flocking” and “swirling” to irritate predator(s), the predators make use of “dispersion”, “confusion” as well as “marginal predation tactics”. Additionally, several assumptions go into the modeling of swarm behavioral evolution: agent observation, agent dynamics, and the environment. The mixed cooperative-competitive multi-agent setting applies reinforcement learning, additionally. The framework of evolution has 5 driving forces: (1) homogeneity of a swarm (parameter sharing); (2) actor with decentralized critic network; (3) replay buffer to enhance learning; (4) rewards for predator and loss for prey; (5) learning algorithm.
The modeling approach reveals the impact of an agent-critic network (potential of autonomous behavior) for protection of a swarm in a predator-prey scenario. (Image: fish in fish bowl 2024)

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Nature as a concept

We all hold implicit or explicit concepts of nature in our minds. There are few countries that have “battled” over the course of history with changing and often “politicised” concepts of nature. The exhibition in the DHM “Deutsches Historisches Museum” on “Nature and German History, Faith – Biology – Power” is convincing with this cross-disciplinary approach to the subject. The chronological structure of the exhibition starts with Hildegard von Bingen’s vision of nature embedded into the huge diversity of plants with almost spiritual power. Admiration of plants and the animal world, however, became an economic resource just like gold and slavery during colonization, being followed by industrialization as the epitome of man’s power over nature. Counter movements have been on the rise in the 2nd half of the 20th century. Another power struggle over how and who defines the dominant concept of nature in the 21st century. As nuclear energy, bombs and waste redefined the long-term consequences of “treating” nature, the battles about the prevailing concept of nature intensify. The exhibition in Berlin 2026 is a fine example of a historical perspective on the relationship between society, nature and technology, where the concept of nature becomes a malleable concept between the other two players or systems. (Image: Metamorphosis of the silk moth, DHM 2026-5)

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Gone walking

During busy weeks or travel times it can be difficult to keep your average healthy walking distance up to standards. Rather than traveling even longer distances to far away destinations, nearby areas might have to offer lots of options to get more exercise of any kind and particularly walking. The environment for walking plays an important role as well as for example walking on the beach distracts easily from the efforts involved. You don’t have to go fishing, but lots of activities will encourage you to further to explore soft forms of exercise.