1.
The landing of the NASA probe on Mars, scheduled for today, should clarify whether life ever existed there - but we will have to wait a decade for the result.
The song that rumbles through my head all day today is by David Bowie and is called
"Life on Mars?"
It has been one of my favorite songs for many years, and there is also a fairly recent cover version by the German band Giant Rooks.
The song is probably only my catchy tune of the day because I read the story of my colleague Christoph Seidler about the
NASA Mars mission
, whose decisive maneuvers are to take place this evening after Central European time.
After a journey of around 480 million kilometers, if everything goes according to plan, the NASA “Perseverance” probe will land on Mars.
The last seven minutes of the approach are evidently particularly dramatic when speeds of up to 20,000 kilometers per hour and temperatures of up to 1,300 degrees Celsius are reached.
The probe is supposed to go down in a technically demanding target area full of cliffs, craters and boulders.
(Here you can watch the live stream in the late evening.)
Icon: enlarge
Looks red: This is what it could look like when "Perseverance" is on the move on Mars
Photo: JPL-Caltech / NASA
Christoph spoke to NASA research director Thomas Zurbuchen about the mission in a video interview.
"The most important thing is the search for old life from the time three billion years ago," says Zurbuchen.
Other nations enthusiastic about space travel are also increasingly interested in Mars.
The
United Arab Emirates and China have launched probes into Mars orbit,
and the Chinese one is due to drop a rover for the first time in the spring.
Researchers from the European Esa and the Russian Roskosmos want to send their planned Martian mobile off next year if everything goes well.
But if everything goes well today, NASA will be ahead.
"Perseverance", the name means "perseverance" in German, is supposed to search for traces of life such as clay minerals and carbonates - and for so-called biosignatures, the traces of tiny microbes in the rock.
The vehicle, which costs around 2.4 billion dollars and weighs around a tonne on earth, has high-tech equipment on board that is used to collect all kinds of samples on Mars.
They shouldn't be back on earth until 2031.
The central question of whether life has ever existed on our neighboring planet - there was apparently large quantities of liquid water there - should then "really be answered definitively," at least for the sampling area, says the researcher Zurbuchen.
In the medium term, NASA and probably other space enthusiasts want to bring people to Mars.
I asked Christoph whether he thought the huge expenses for such missions were reasonable and whether some people's criticism that the money could be better used for excursions into space is justified.
“I'm not really convinced by the argument that the money for such missions could do much more useful work,” he says.
“Perseverance” costs, “I have read, no more than, for example, the US Department of Defense spends in 33 hours.
Instead, we can experience the fascination that something man-made ends up on a distant planet and hopefully conducts exciting research there. «And then Christoph told me something astonishing:
“To fuel the fascination for NASA's Mars missions,› Persevereance ‹has several small memory chips on board, on which more than ten million names are stored.
Mine is also there. "
NASA research chief explains Mars mission: "The most important thing is the search for life from the time three billion years ago"
2.
The largest and fastest vaccination program in Europe is the work of a non-scientific manager: Kate Bingham is Britain's vaccination queen.
The lines of the David Bowie song "Life on Mars?" Are by no means about scientific questions, even if the title sounds like that;
the lyrics are a bit notorious for being incomprehensible.
The song and Bowie are adored and loved in Great Britain to this day.
Without any deeper insight into scientific questions,
Kate Bingham
now seems
to have made her idol there too.
The manager and venture capitalist is celebrated as a hero in the UK.
As the honorary head of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, a special group in the government, she was
responsible
for
vaccine
procurement
until December
, recognized the most promising vaccines - and hit the ground early.
Icon: enlarge
Syringe power: Kate Bingham was initially unsure whether her professional background could help with vaccine procurement - this concern was unfounded
Photo: John Nguyen / JNVisuals / ddp / News Licensing
My colleague Julia Smirnova describes how the "vaccination queen" Bingham secured a total of around 400 million vaccine doses for the kingdom long before the vaccination experts in the EU, which are now being delivered one by one.
Thanks to Bingham, Great Britain was the first country to sign a contract for the vaccine from Pfizer and Biontech, and the manager could also be partly responsible for the hasty approval of vaccines in Great Britain, which some have criticized as being hasty.
"We did it because we were quick and nimble," was her dry comment.
Brexit also helped Bingham.
The contract with AstraZeneca was signed three months earlier than the EU.
(More about new studies on Biontech and Moderna vaccines here.)
Around 15 million people in Great Britain have already been vaccinated with at least one dose - not least thanks to Bingham's organizational talent.
Her leadership style, carefully described as unconventional, is said to have caused a lack of understanding among various officials.
Bingham has been criticized for spending more than £ 600,000 in taxpayers' money on PR consultants.
She was appointed by the British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson
.
She is married to a Secretary of State in the Treasury and knows Johnson from her time at Oxford University.
I asked Julia how much risk Johnson was taking in calling for Bingham.
It was obviously enormous.
“Your position was not advertised publicly.
She's not a scientist who specializes in vaccines, ”says Julia.
"And when Britain decided not to take part in the EU vaccine procurement program, it didn't just look like a risky game, it also looked like a great deal of arrogance." But in the end, Julia believes, the solo effort directed by Bingham "worked for." the British obviously worth it. "
Read the full story here: Britain's Vaccination Queen
3.
Patients are attacking rescue workers more and more often - because the paramedics are seen as representatives of a state authority that parts of the population reject.
They come to help.
And are beaten and spat at, bitten and cursed at.
A new study by the Red Cross, reported by my colleague Martin U. Müller, shows the apparently growing number of
attacks on paramedics.
The rescue service employees often have to listen to insults, insults and threats of violence and it is alarming that assaults occur.
Around a fifth of those surveyed even experience verbal violence every week.
Many helpers have been exposed to situations for years in which they fear for their own physical integrity.
Almost all rescuers who provided information in questionnaires between August and November 2019 reported that they had already experienced attacks themselves.
Ambulance service employee in Freiburg
Photo: Patrick Seeger / dpa
The German Red Cross believes that it has ascertained that the helpers are seen as representatives of a state power that is not accepted by many people.
That is an obvious and worrying finding.
Now you are thinking about training the staff in de-escalation and self-protection, which sounds quite reasonable.
The rescuers themselves should learn to assess problematic destinations of operations at an early stage, for example parties with many intoxicated visitors, as sites of possible threat.
Above all, however, acts of violence against rescue workers should be documented more consistently - and forwarded to law enforcement authorities.
15.7 percent of the DRK rescuers stated that they had not filed a complaint after an attack, because they assumed that the procedure was hopeless and would be discontinued.
"The surprising thing is that the patients themselves are often the perpetrators," says my colleague Martin.
»You have to consider: Not everyone in need calls the emergency services themselves, not everyone wants this kind of help at the moment.
People who make the emergency call are in an absolutely exceptional situation.
That doesn't justify outbreaks of violence, but it may explain some cases. "In Martin's opinion, changed guidelines for the employees of rescue control centers could also help:" If emergency calls are received that potentially smell of trouble, the control centers should in future also alert the police. "
Read the full story here: When patients suddenly strike
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What else is important today
That's why Facebook is now blocking news:
In Australia, the dispute over a new law has escalated.
Facebook is now banning all media content from its network there.
The move has consequences for German users as well.
Left rebel against the appearance of Wagenknecht:
The left parliamentary group has invited Sahra Wagenknecht to the election date.
Some in the state party don't find that funny - and accuse the left icon of deviating from the right.
What is known about the explosion at Lidl headquarters:
On Wednesday, a letter bomb injured three Lidl employees at the headquarters in Neckarsulm.
A hot lead is apparently still missing.
Several suspicious objects triggered false positives.
My favorite story today: So that we don't let Corona dumbfound us
Although he has very bizarre preferences as a football fan (for example Werder Bremen at times), Cordt Schnibben has been one of my favorite colleagues at SPIEGEL for many years, and of course a reporter.
For reasons of age, he no longer works in the editorial office.
Now Cordt has written a great essay about what Corona has done to the world and to us;
over twelve months and two million deaths.
Icon: enlarge Photo: Michael Meißner
His text is about how Sars-CoV-2 forces us to live, work, learn, love, and die differently.
"Better we learn from this pandemic," writes Cordt, and in view of the threat posed by the virus, hopefully not too difficult to answer a question: "Are we dumber than this thing without a brain?"
One year of the coronavirus: Read Cordt Schnibben's essay here
What we recommend today at SPIEGEL +
"We must stop China and Russia from ever going to war with us":
The modernization of US nuclear weapons is said to cost more than a trillion dollars.
This is where Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Forces Committee, calls for a change of course.
"We are not afraid":
The activist Ko Jimmy has been fighting for democracy in Myanmar for decades and has been imprisoned for half his life.
Now he's back on the streets - here he explains why he's risking his freedom again.
"Withholding school is a crime against children":
The educationalist Heinz-Elmar Tenorth says that the pandemic is throwing the education system back into the early 19th century.
How does he get it and what does he ask for?
Which is not so important today
Icon: enlarge
Talks about dose
Photo:
Rachel Murray / Getty Images
Unrepentant drug patient:
Demi Lovato
, 28, is not only known as an actress and singer of hits like "Anyone", but also because of her apparently long career as a drug user.
Now the American has spoken publicly about how much the consequences of an overdose in 2018 have affected her life to this day.
In a trailer for an as yet unpublished documentary with the lurid title “Dance With The Devil” she said: “I suffered brain damage, and I can still feel the consequences today.” However, Lovato also told the US magazine “People” that you Feelings of regret are rather strange: "All of this had to happen in order for me to learn my lesson," says Lovato.
“It's been a painful journey, and sometimes I get sad when I think about the pain I've endured.
But I have no regrets. "
Typo of the day
, now corrected: "Recently only minor prosthesis in residential areas"
Cartoon of the day:
Dissatisfaction is growing
Icon: enlarge Photo: Stuttmann
And tonight?
Could you have the good-humored author
Horst Evers
read something to you
, who presented his new work "Whoever knows everything has no idea" to my colleague Volker Weidermann's book show today.
Evers also reveals his three rules of humor.
One is: no jokes at the expense of others.
Icon: enlarge
Horst Evers reads from "Whoever knows everything has no idea" in top titles
Later Mithu Sanyal is also a guest at Volker's, her highly acclaimed debut novel is called »Identitti«.
In between, Elke Heidenreich Heino sings, but only very briefly, I promise.
(Click here for the book show.)
A lovely evening.
Sincerely,
Wolfgang Höbel
Here you can order the "Lage am Abend" by email.