Cultural Studies

The ancestral relatives of millets and other small-seeded crops originally evolved to be dispersed by megafaunal grazers of the Pleistocene and earlier epochs, and in some cases later came to rely on pastoral herds to disperse their seeds.   more

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In an age of modern anatomy atlases and freely available online body-browsers, Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings of organs and body parts done with quill, ink and red chalk may strike us as aesthetically pleasing, yet antiquated. Nevertheless, almost everyone in Germany carries a reproduction of his famous Vitruvian Man with them – on their health insurance card. Alessandro Nova, Director at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, on the other hand, explores Leonardo’s work in the light of the scientific knowledge it generates. more

Florencia Campetella, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, on Maria Sibylla Merian - 17th century entomologist, artist, naturalist and proto-ecologist more

Lively written information is more important for the listening enjoyment than the composer's prestige. more