Tag Archives: Smile

Superstition

For my colleague from Israel it was a matter of faith, when he warned me that going to the lab on a Saturday wont be favored by God. Yes I know, I said to him, but first of all I am an bloody atheist, and second this super-ambitious student in my group occupies the RealTime PCR machine every day of… (more…)

Elections in Iran – Facts, Faces, Folks

Yet the official results are not announced, but this time the Iranian officials have a valid explanation for this: against all forcasts, the 2013 ballots were frequented by more than 70% of all eligible voters and thus had to be kept open for an additional 5 hours. It seems that when the counting started at 9 pm CET or midnight… (more…)

Shopping and Raving in Munich – Burkas wellcome

Ghazal Dear, I still regret that you have been so much occupied with shopping here in Munich, but we never used any of the fine occasions to go out to one of the music clubs in town (except for the Bayerischer Hof Nightclub).  This year many of the Munich clubs announced their parties, and I think they might attract at… (more…)

That’s what we are needed for

On its concert tour through Israel a German chanson singer introduced one of his songs (about the mutual dependence of men and woman) as following: “A woman needs a man mainly for two things: First, to open the champaign bottles, and second, to explaine things.” One of his fellow musicians, a violinist girl replied after a few seconds “Hold on,… (more…)

Lost in Translation

Ghazal, my Dear, We recently discussed the issue of translating poetry from one language to another. You told me ones that in Persian language there are no gender specific prepositions, as there are HE and SHE in English or IT for all un-animated items. In German, in contrast, also un-animated objects usually are assigned a male or female gender, which… (more…)

The incredible Moon

Ghazal Dear, did you ever wondered why so many people are fascinated by the moon, which in fact has much less an impact on our physical life than the sun? Is it only its position close to the earth and the notion that the movement of the moon is completely depending on the existence of earth? Since unlike the sun,… (more…)

Stardust

Dear Michael, All the big stars, i.e. those with a mass exceeding the sun’s mass by a factor of 1.3, gain most of their energy by a hydrogen-fusion reaction that involves a catalytic cycle, known as the Bethe-Weizsäcker or CNO-cycle. During this reaction cycle,  protons (i.e. hydrogen nuclei) are added four times into a cycling reaction that converts carbon through… (more…)

Iranian Nose Jobs and the Value of Genetics

Dear Michael, It is no secret that many Iranian woman do not value their impressive, arian noses very high. In contrast, they tend to follow a very questionable beauty picture that more and more seems to be coined by the Japanese manga figures. For them, a nose is merely anything more than a small ridge to hide the nostrils. The… (more…)

Ich bin ein Berliner (says Nofretete)

Hello, my name is Nofretete, and I was born in Luxor in Egypt. 1912 some archeologists recovered me from this dark grave in the earth and brought me back to light. I, who together with my beloved husband Echnaton were so much fascinated by the divine nature of the sun had to spend 3400 years in the dark. When I… (more…)

Black and Blue

Coming from the north-east into Munich, perhaps one of the worst examples of 70th urban architecture awaits the traveler: The Arabella high-rising building, which harbours not only a large hotel of the same name, but office, medical practises and flats. What is less known: In the basement of this block once resided the most important music recording studio “Musicland”. It… (more…)