Category Subjects

The lives of people in the forest and in the fields in 1400, 1600 or 1800 were anything but idyllic. For her, wood was a hotly contested resource and increasingly in short supply. Instead of the noble knights and elves of romanticism, millions of people struggled in the fields and in the forest and tried to use every square meter - sometimes so as not to starve.

The term “ear tunnel” does not refer to any part of the body, such as the ear canal, but rather a widened hole that is made in the ear, strictly speaking in the outer ear, so that a piercing made of stainless steel, titanium or other material can be inserted. Such meat tunnels keep a channel open in which the large diameter piercing can be carried.

The internal critic who complains that we are too stupid, too lazy, too weak or too selfish can lead us to commitment, but also to constant brooding, self-doubt and irritability, according to Düssler, a specialist in psychotherapy and psychosomatics. This powerful inner authority puts us under pressure, especially on the verge of a depression or a burnout.

What irrational thinking does - and what it is good for "How can fiction be explained by facts? Why does irrational thinking thrive? Where is it going? And how could he be stopped? That is what the book "The Triumph of Unreason" by Jens Bergmann is about. The focus is on the sense of nonsense, because there are good reasons for irrational thinking - and nobody is immune from it, the author says.

The amphibian apocalypse - fungus causes mass extinction - for the first time in the time that humans are on the planet, an entire class of vertebrates is threatened with extinction. Amphibian death is on the increase, which has ecological consequences that we cannot even estimate.

Droemer 2018 - Everything is Psychology! Jens Förster is Head of the "Systemic Institute for Positive Psychology in Cologne" and is Professor of Social Psychology. Positive psychology criticizes that 20th century psychology focuses too much on psychopathology, that is, on mental disorders and not on the spectrum of the functioning psychic mechanisms.

Book review: Still / The Power of IntrovertsSusan Cain works as a negotiator in the United States. She is constantly confronted with a society in which extroverts are the yardstick and introverts have to "work on their weaknesses". "Their characteristics such as seriousness, sensitivity and shyness are now considered symptoms of illness, rather than qualities," says the opening text in the book "Still / The Power of the Introvert".

Hexen: Was ist Mythos und was ist RealitätKaum ein Thema ist so mit Mythen überladen wie die Figur der Hexe. Die Märchenhexe im Kinderbuch, die Kräuterfrau in der Heilpraxis, die Vorreiterin der Emanzipation im Feminismus, das Medium zum Übernatürlichen bei Esoterikern, die edle Wilde im Kampf gegen das Christentum der Neuheiden oder das Salz in der Suppe der Fantasy.

Ornamental scars are one of the oldest forms of identifying the human body. We say “branding” for scars from burns, “cutting” for those of cut wounds. The goal is to get permanent scars in the skin - as a rite of initiation, definition of status, to differentiate from others or as jewelry.

The Maya and Mexican natives thought cocoa was a gift from the gods. Cocoa beans were so valuable that the Aztecs used them like money. It was not entirely irrational: raw cocoa contains medicinal substances like hardly any other food: it "makes you happy", it protects the cells, lowers your blood pressure, supplies the body with magnesium and iron.

The Turkish word kahve comes from the Arabic word qahwa and means "stimulating drink", but is also based on the Kaffa region in Ethiopia, from which the coffee originally came. We know our morning coffee as a stimulant and as a caffeine donor that helps against fatigue. "C, A, F, F, E, E, don't drink so much coffee" warns an old children's song, and to this day myths have arisen about how dangerous coffee is.

From a biological point of view, our sugar is usually crystallized sucrose. This raw material is found in various plants, and that's why we extract sugar from sugar cane, maple, sugar palms and sugar beet. The most important facts: Sugar is indispensable in the body for motor skills, mental activity and cell function.

Mescaline is a substance found in the peyote cactus, as well as in the cacti of the genus Echinopsis. Many other cactus plants contain the drug in very low concentrations. Louis Lewin extracted alkaloids containing mescaline from the peyote cactus, and in 1896 Arthur Heffter isolated pure peyote mescaline.