nothing is as sluggish as an idea whose time has long since expired. A fascinating example of this is the time change, which is likely to cause confusion and small talk again this weekend. During the night from Saturday to Sunday, the clock jumps back to two o'clock at three o'clock and seems to give us an hour's sleep. Now would be no objection to a prolonged slumber, if this hour was not painfully missing in the time change in March, partly with negative health consequences, as health insurance companies warn.
This article is from the SPIEGEL
Issue 44/2019
From 100 to zero
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The basic idea was well meant. During the First and Second World Wars, Germany introduced summer time to save energy. After the war was over again. Then the idea came back in 1980 after the oil crisis. What does the whole thing in terms of energy savings? Probably next to nothing, researchers come to this sobering result again and again, as well as the Office for Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag in an overview study 2016.
Future Image / imago images
And what does the time change with the health? As well as nothing. Only the number of hospital visits increases slightly, especially in March, when shortening the night's sleep causes some people to "social jetlag". In any case, recent studies suggest, among others, Italian researchers who have taken a one-third million hospitalizations in Padua over a period of more than ten years under the magnifying glass. Conclusion: The health and economic side effects of the time change are not earth-shattering. But just superfluous.
That's what more and more citizens are seeing. The time change is unpopular, an EU-wide survey found that over 80 percent of the participants would prefer the nonsense. The EU Parliament also voted in March to step out of the time change, preferably until 2021. But whether this date is to be observed, seems increasingly questionable. Currently, the ball is in the participating states. And lies and lies. In order to avoid a patchwork of time zones, they would have to mutually agree on whether they prefer to permanently keep the summer time, also because of the wonderfully long summer evenings, or if they permanently prefer the normal time (wrongly called winter time), as many doctors recommend.
This return to standard time would actually be quite easy. Even today, from Finland in the east to Portugal in the west, there are three different time zones without any problem. Why is the obvious not done? The participants continue to wait. And it's better to keep dawning, not only on this Sunday morning.
Also you have fun sleeping in!
warmly
Your Hilmar Schmundt
Feedback & suggestions?
Abstract
My reading recommendations this week
- What brings the time change, what are the recommendations of science? A team around chronobiologist Till Röenneberg offers an overview of the current state of research in this paper.
- Sleep better, lose weight more easily, and live healthier lives: Chrono biologist Satchin Panda explains how to plan your day to follow the natural rhythm of the body.
- Neanderthals used to be quite simple-minded fellows. Wrongly. This seems to be proven by the tools that were expertly glued together with birch pitch some 50,000 years ago.
- Quantum computers should deliver enormous computing power. Now Google announces a breakthrough: the so-called quantum superiority. But Tommaso Calarco from Forschungszentrum Jülich is adjusting the hype.
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Quiz*
- What is the "Autobrewery Syndrome"? A hydrogen-powered vehicle that uses waste heat to burn liquor? A hallucination, which occurs especially with brewery employees after long night shifts? A bacterial infection that causes people who do not consume alcohol to stagger drunk?
- What are "Living Root Bridges"? Dentures anchored in the root canal? A novel mathematical procedure? Bridges that are particularly stable due to wildly proliferating roots of living plants?
- What is "Quantum Supremacy"? The title of the new James Bond film in which he fights a group of racists ("White Supremacists")? The ability of quantum computers to solve tasks where traditional supercomputers fail? The new episode of the online game "Supremacy 1914"?
* The answers can be found at the bottom of the newsletter.
Picture of the week
Dr. Igor Siwanowicz / Nikon Small World 2019
Trumpets are single-celled, but because some of these creatures grow up to two millimeters, they can even devour young water fleas. If they are bitten, a tiny fragment is enough for a complete restoration. The picture was taken under the microscope of Igor Siwanowicz from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; He reached the second place in the photo competition "Nikon Small World" (here you see the winning pictures).
footnote
7 seconds in the future it could only take until Californians learn of a recent earthquake. MyShake is the app maintained by geoscientists at UC Berkeley. The app, downloaded 300,000 times, connects the motion sensors of mobile phones in 80 nations to form a seismographic network. MyShake collects the signals, evaluates them with machine learning algorithms and sends warnings to the users.
The SPIEGEL + - Recommendations from science
- Psychology: SPIEGEL conversation with the sociologist Eva Illouz about happiness as a status symbol and the political power of anger and suffering.
- Geology: Deadly Seas - Researchers are reconstructing one of Earth's worst disasters.
- Networld: The supposedly smartest office building in Europe is being built in Berlin - critics fear full employee monitoring.
- Species Protection: The smuggling Sherlock - how a biochemist wants to expose illegal trade in endangered animals.
* Quiz Responses: The "Autobrewery Syndrome" can occur when certain strains of the bacterial species Klebsiella pnemoniae unnoticed in the gut of unsuspecting patients, the blood alcohol level, driven up to drunkenness. / "Living Root Bridges" are bridges in India that are stabilized by the living aerial roots of rubber trees (Ficus elastica). / The term "quantum supremacy" describes the superiority of quantum computers over conventional supercomputers. It was coined in 2012 by the theoretical physicist John Preskill of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.