Features

  BOSTON / AP Where are the trees? More important, where aren’t the trees? A lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is helping some of the world’s cities answer both questions in an attempt to make them more pleasant places to live and work. In an effort to enhance the critical role trees play in urban environments — providing ...

  Cuxhaven / DPA “Ten minutes of playtime for the captain!” announces Commander Markus Venker over the ship-wide loudspeaker system. Actually, it’s a warning for the crew to hold on very tight. Then Venker, captain of the newest and most modern ship in the German Navy, shows what his big baby can do in clear weather but rough seas off ...

  Washington / DPA Scientists of all stripes have appeared as characters in movies and TV shows: from the meglomaniacal Dr Frankenstein, to archaeologist adventurer Indiana Jones, the “Back to the Future” time-machine inventor Doc Brown and the palaeontologists in dinosaur-filled “Jurassic Park.” But rarely has scientific accuracy in an entertainment medium been so carefully researched as in the popular ...

  Bamberg / DPA When Annemarie Sommer enters the seminar room she’s convinced that in order to be a YouTube sensation, you have to do things others wouldn’t think of doing. When the 15-year-old leaves, she knows that in fact, YouTube stars don’t necessarily have the best videos – but they are the best connected. “How to Become a Rockstar ...

  Kitzbuehel / DPA Without my poles I would have been lost. I was using all my strength to push them into the slope and pull myself up. I had no idea the competition would be so hard. I was taking part in order to conquer one of the most dangerous ski runs in the world, the “Streif” in Austria’s ...

  Ulm / DPA Landmines are notoriously difficult to clear away. Deminers have to bravely probe the ground, putting themselves in mortal danger. Explosives dogs are expensive to train. And if caterpillar-tracked vehicles are used to detonate the mines, they ruin the whole area in the process. Researchers are now investigating whether drones could be used to hunt for the deadly ...

  Bursa / DPA Ercan Aksakal carefully picks up the coloured shadow puppet and examines the workmanship with an expert’s eye. It is a model for Karagoz, or “Black-Eye,” the protagonist and crowd-pleaser in Turkish shadow theatre. A coarse, crafty and forthright exemplar of the common people, Karagoz was also a favourite target of Ottoman censors in centuries past. Now ...

  BEIJING / AP Beijing residents concerned about breathing the capital’s thick gray air are adapting, inventing and even creating businesses to protect the health of their families and others. Some of their efforts could help people around the world. Already this year, the smog-shrouded capital has suffered particularly hazardous bouts of pollution caused mainly by coal burning and vehicle ...

  Duisburg / DPA Outside it may be grey and dusty, but in Wolfgang Mueller’s studio, the paintings of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) glow bright. That’s because they are all fresh. In the former upholsterer’s workshop in the German city of Duisburg, Mueller sits at a white grand piano and plays his own romantic compositions in an ode to his ...

  Wuppertal /DPA If you love riding trains, you’ve got to ride this one before you die: It’s the world’s only mass-transit rail system which has its wheels on the roof and a yawning gulf under the floor. Is it an aerial cableway or a rollercoaster? Neither. It’s a stately suspended monorail that carries 24 million passengers a year through ...