Guided Tours: Leipzig – Northeast Germany

Follow DW reporter Lukas Stege on an expedition through the city of Leipzig, in the heart of Saxony! His tour of the city center begins at Marktplatz, continues on to the university, over to Augustusplatz to enjoy the opera and the Leipzig Gewandhaus (Concert Hall), past the famous Nikolai Church then towards the main train station.

Leipzig is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. With a population of 605,407 inhabitants as of 2021, it is Germany’s eighth most populous city as well as the second most populous city in the area of former East Germany after Berlin.

Travel Tour: Top Ten Places To Visit In Chile

Squeezed between the Andes and the Pacific, Chile is sometimes called the longest country in the world. It is never more than 180 km wide, but its coastline extends over 4,300 km. It’s unusual long shape has given it a varied climate with one of the world’s driest desert in the north, while its southern tip is home to cold-weather creatures like penguins. Chile is also one of the closest nations, along with Argentina and New Zealand, to Antarctica. Here’s a look at the best places to visit in Chile:

Health: How Depression Affects The Brain (Yale)

For many people, depression turns out to be one of the most disabling illnesses that we have in society. Despite the treatments that we have available, many people are not responding that well. It’s a disorder that can be very disabling in society. It’s also a disorder that has medical consequences. By understand the neurobiology of depression we hope to be able more to find the right treatment for the patient suffering from this disease. The current standard of care for the treatment of depression is based on what we call the monoamine deficiency hypothesis. Essentially, presuming that one of three neurotransmitters in the brain is deficient or underactive. But the reality is, there are more than 100 neurotransmitters in the brain. And billions of connections between neurons. So we know that that’s a limited hypothesis. Neurotransmitters can be thought of as the chemical messengers within the brain, it’s what helps one cell in the brain communicate with another, to pass that message along from one brain region to another. For decades, we thought that the primary pathology, the primary cause of depression was some abnormality in these neurotransmitters, specifically serotonin or norepinephrine. However, norepinephrine and serotonin did not seem to be able to account for this cause, or to cause the symptoms of depression in people who had major depression. Instead, the chemical messengers between the nerve cells in the higher centers of the brain, which include glutamate and GABA, were possibilities as alternative causes for the symptoms of depression. When you’re exposed to severe and chronic stress like people experience when they have depression, you lose some of the connections between the nerve cells. The communication in these circuits becomes inefficient and noisy, we think that the loss of these synaptic connections contributes to the biology of depression. There are clear differences between a healthy brain and a depressed brain. And the exciting thing is, when you treat that depression effectively, the brain goes back to looking like a healthy brain, both at the cellular level and at a global scale. It’s critical to understand the neurobiology of depression and how the brain plays a role in that for two main reasons. One, it helps us understand how the disease develops and progresses, and we can start to target treatments based on that. We are in a new era of psychiatry. This is a paradigm shift, away from a model of monoaminergic deficiency to a fuller understanding of the brain as a complex neurochemical organ. All of the research is driven by the imperative to alleviate human suffering. Depression is one of the most substantial contributors to human suffering. The opportunity to make even a tiny dent in that is an incredible opportunity.SHOW LESS

Paris Walks: Trocadéro & Eiffel Tower (4K Video)

The Trocadéro, site of the Palais de Chaillot, is an area of ParisFrance, in the 16th arrondissement, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. It is also the name of the 1878 palace which was demolished in 1937 to make way for the Palais de Chaillot. The hill of the Trocadéro is the hill of Chaillot, a former village.

Paris France, Reopening update – Around Trocadero and Eiffel Tower

Video timeline: 00:00 Preview 00:20 Place Trocadero 12:00 Jardin du Trocadero 16:52 Pont d’Iéna 19:41 Eiffel Tower

Climate: Mozambique Builds Green Areas To Curb Cyclone Flooding

In 2019, Cyclone Idai devastated Mozambique’s port city of Beira. Many died and entire neighborhoods were flooded. The city is now setting up large green areas designed to absorb future floodwaters. But entire fishing communities need to relocate.

Morning News: Rise In Employee Marijuana Use, Trump Business Probe

A.M. Edition for May 26. WSJ’s Matt Grossman discusses the increase in marijuana use among American workers. 

CEOs of the biggest banks are set to testify before lawmakers starting today. A special grand jury is convened in the investigation into the Trump Organization. Marc Stewart hosts.

Aerial Travel Views: Delhi – Northern India (Video)

Delhi, India’s capital territory, is a massive metropolitan area in the country’s north. In Old Delhi, a neighborhood dating to the 1600s, stands the imposing Mughal-era Red Fort, a symbol of India, and the sprawling Jama Masjid mosque, whose courtyard accommodates 25,000 people. Nearby is Chandni Chowk, a vibrant bazaar filled with food carts, sweets shops and spice stalls. 

Views: Arabian Saluki – The Fastest Dog In The World

Saluki are a breed of desert dog famed for their speed. In the old days, Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula relied on them to hunt for gazelle. Today, they are more likely to race for sport.

The Saluki is a standardised breed developed from sighthounds – dogs that hunt primarily by sight rather than scent – that was once used by nomadic tribes to run down game animals.[2] The dog was originally bred in the Fertile Crescent.[1] The modern breed is typically deep-chested and long-legged,[2] and similar dogs appear in medieval and ancient art. The breed is most closely related to the Afghan hound, a basal breed that predates the emergence of modern breeds in the 19th century,[3] and the Saluki has been purebred both in the Middle East, including by royalty, since at least that era, and in the West (especially in Britain and Germany) since the 1840s (with breed standards established in the West and the Middle East around the 1920s–1930s), though as a free-breeding landrace, similar dogs are common as feral animals in the Middle East. A related standardised breed is the north African Sloughi.

Analysis: Why U.S. Houses Are So Expensive (CNBC)

With Covid encouraging city-dwellers to emigrate to the suburbs and families looking for home offices and bigger yards, prices for the American dream home have skyrocketed. Home prices surged in March 2021 up 13% from the year prior, according to the S&P Case-Shiller index. With homeowners unwilling to sell, a record-low supply of homes for sale has forced buyers into intense bidding wars. At the end of April 2021 there were only 1.16 million houses for sale in the U.S. down more than 20.5% from the year prior. Higher costs for land, labor and building materials including lumber have also impacted homebuilders. With the 30-year fixed mortgage rate hovering near a 50-year low and strong demand pushing prices to all-time highs, why is the housing supply so meager? Watch the video to find out if the U.S. is running out of houses.

News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious