hey, this is the 1st time in the last 2 years that we've been able to gather both as a family and to attend mass because of the pandemic. so we are very excited and grateful. unlike last year, the pope will once again deliver his traditional irby at all the message from the balcony of saint peter's basilica on christmas day. ah, a tell news update this our alcove at 19 special is up next. i'm tired reading fairly merry christmas. thanks for watching with the fight against the corona virus pandemic. how has the rate of infection been developing? what are the latest research, se, information and context? the corona virus updates because 19 special next on

d w. and we're interested in the global economy. our portfolio d w. business. beyond here, the closer look at the project. our mission. to analyze the fight for market dominance. east, this is west gast of a head with v w business beyond on you too. mm. mm. oh the fi is burned day and night. these opening ceremonies have become a symbol of the coven. 19 catastrophe. at no, just in india. crim atoria around the hold have buckled sandra record surgeon

covert debts. over 5000000 people have officially fallen victim to the virus. but the news magazine, the economist estimates that the pandemic true death toll is 4 times higher. ah, many people who die while infected a never tested to they don't enter the official tally. the patients have died of preventable causes, because overstretched. hospitals could not treat them and many countries struggle to count deaths under normal circumstances, let alone a pandemic. the official covert toll could just be the tip of the iceberg. welcome on ben fizzle. and can we put our trust in numbers or the institutions that provide the statistics? in many respects, this pandemic has become a crisis of trust. just how dangerous or deadly is coven 19?

well, williams, since can tell us about the situation on the ground. he's a chief physician at these and and toys, hospital in ash, viola. he's also on the board of the german interdisciplinary association for intensive care and emergency medicine and is in berlin today for us. the me treat kobuck is a data scientist from tubing and university and joins us for tubing and to crunch the numbers. the me to let start with you, what's the likelihood of the global death toll being 4 times higher than the official, right? the somebody's very approximate, the official call italy at the moment is i think around 5000000, i think based on the day so we can do reading them to show that it's more than twice that much. so it's about 10000000 and i would say it's probably below 20. and it caused that the moment to, to know more exactly because unfortunately for many, many countries, we don't have any reliable data whatsoever. so this estimate of the economist is an extrapolation for the data. we have 2 large parts of the world where we don't have

any data. although would you say that lines up with what you're seeing and hearing about in intensive care units? yes, that's exactly the thing we saw last year. we learned a lot about the delay in treatment for instance, than cardiovascular disease. like acute my colleagues fortune or all the hospital because the rest and in some regions, for instance, in italy or in paris, me all the death toll triple in comparison to, to 2019. so it's some things we now learn and we don't know what will be the effects in the next few years because people don't go to doctors. they don't go to doctors when they have symptoms and so on. so we must get the data. but at the moment, the figures are quite unsure what about a mortality in the over eighty's or in kids, dimitri,

that's hard to detect because the, the numbers whole small we and for many countries, the one important thing in there for many countries. we don't have this information countries many countries with these numbers of the overall death, but we don't have yet to possibly we'll get that later. detailed age break dollars . another question for you. i guess some people may think it's quite simple, but i guess it could be complicated. how. how do you distinguish between cobit and non covered deaths? yes, it was difficult. some people thing about it and they said did this, that person died from code 910 on the id with the code 9, and was code 910 the exact cause for the death, or is it just the we measured this off of to virus and the person

died from we cute my code and fire can, but we also know that many of the diseases, for instance, cardiovascular diseases may, may be aggravated by the off cost to virus. so it's a stream it difficult to differentiate exactly at the time off that when we the intensive care unit and wherever code 19 patient, he dies from maggio organ failure. this is he died from the organ figure when the patient got some cute migrate in faction. in combination with aft of 2 and it dies for my calling function may be that soft of to added to it and that this was to cause up there. so it's quite difficult. and not all people are brought in germany to autopsy. so we don't know the exact figures, and it's in the end the, the, the doctors who tell this was do, or he died with when it comes to the fake is dimitri. what does the world mortality

data set show when it comes to all the diseases? we see in multiple countries is that the exceptional talent, which is what the matter is about mortality data set, just tracks the call, the deaths freshly during the call with outbreaks, the entire excess mortality is explained by quadrant other contributions are very small in comparison. so we don't, we don't think that with, with i don't think that with our dataset, we can say anything about about how to use it. but i think that the contributions of all the diseases to the assessment challenges are very small. when we talking about accept my challenge, we primarily talking about cause it influenced deaths. dmitri, will we ever know the true number of deaths from covered? i don't think so. not very precisely, there are unfortunately large areas in the world where without reliable reporting of either cases or, or the death or also all cause mortality particular i'm talking about developing

countries. but i do think that we will know the number more precisely than know the day to come in and many countries release the data later. there are ways to monitor mortality by, for example, monitoring cemeteries that don't rely on official data at all. and the estimates were going to be coming in the coming years and the number the, the, the total estimates will get more precise kind of scientist, committee kovak and she physician, we answer is great too heavy both here. thank you. thank you. let's take a look now though, at how the coven, 1900 pandemic, is hurting the fight against other diseases. in particular, patients who are chronically ill at the marine house clinic in mines, germany, one forensic surgeon has lost faith in his job and the world. these are sounds, it's definitely very painful for us when we're sat in the tomb a conference and realize that our skills can't help any of our patients anymore because as soon as too far advanced, really hurt sean hart, peter hollows,

hence the marine house clinics. the erratic surgical ward, he seeing more and more patience with tumors that have grown to the stage where they're no longer operable. they all follow the same pattern. fearful of contracting the corolla virus patients, lead routine checkup slide all the while they're tumors growing unseen. by the time they get to the clinic, it's almost too late to take for the lead, martin and the snow question about it is it drives you crazy. was mondays because you know that a couple of months earlier, you'd have had a realistic chance of effecting a cure and look up at so for him. so that means our therapies can now by a patient some time given them, but we can no longer offer them the prospect of a full recovery this whole coast close in our system. the marine house clinic isn't the only hospital experiencing this sad trend of 1st german t v station

a r d documentary survey, the 20 clinics with the highest number of lung cancer patients. 71 percent of those responded said they were recording an increase in severe cases. hospital safety officer and patient activist would hecker sees political failures. self is going more to management and it would have been better and highly commendable if the federal health minister had used his social media campaigns consistently raise awareness of this matter as well. that i said to go visit the hospitals again. go to your g p. 's axle, if he's been radiating confidence, that would have been communicated to the population at large, out of latin before the cold. germany's health ministry told the a r d journalist. it has addressed the situation many times that the minister himself spoke about it in may 20, 20, and february of this year. as did the federal center for health education. but that treatment and therapies are up to doctors to decide they for their part,

expect to see an increasing number of severe cases emerging among people whose lung cancer hasn't yet been recognized. time for derek williams. and if you'll question which won't be all that easy to answer, but it's something i want to know if i lost my sense of smell or taste. oh my daughter had good 19 months ago and still hasn't regained her sense of smell or taste. will they come back? the sense of smell in the sense of taste are closely intertwined, and losing them is a very common symptom of covered 19. and several studies have shown that the loss of smell, or changes to the sense of smell in particular, are an issue for at least half the people who get the disease, probably more. sometimes it's the only symptom that develops in a patient who's otherwise asymptomatic. although there's still

a lot that we don't know about what causes the loss of taste. there is evidence indicating that the loss of smell is likely linked not to the virus infecting the all factory neurons that carry signals from the nose in the direction of the brain, but instead to its infecting cells called suss 10 tackler cells which play a supporting role in the lining of the nasal cavity. according to an overview of studies that i read, the loss of taste and the loss of smell usually occurs very suddenly, at the onset of coven 19, and often begins to slowly return. after around 3 to 5 days, many patients had pretty much regained the senses completely within a few weeks, but a significant percentage, maybe as many as one and 20 people. they continue to have major deficits. um,

even many months later. so your daughter's condition is not all that rare in as if the century loss is persistent. a lot of experts, including ones that we've had here on the coven, 19 special. they recommend what's called all factory training. it involves repeated targeted exposure to specific sense on a daily basis, and that's helped a lot of patients recover at least some sensory perception. m. have you a long stay safe and see you again say, ah ah animal, i'm clever in some of the smartest i pigeons. their visual memory is outstanding. can you memorize $700.00 images and recall

them at any time? for a pigeon, it's a piece of cake. to morrow to day next or on d. w. champagne is perfect for festive occasions. i but not everything that sparkles may bear this exclusive name. what makes champagne a premier, a sparkling wine. we uncovered secret euro max. in 60 minutes on d. w. o. t please listen

carefully. don't know how those 2 things you miss today. ah, feel the magic discover the world around you subscribe to d w documentary on youtube. mm mm hm. oh, they smarter than we think. we look at the hidden wonders in the mines of pigeons and does music make us smile to reset his hat down some truly resonating inside.

also in this week's dw science show, we face up to the phenomenon of super recognizes. welcome to tomorrow today. ah. a lot of people have difficulty remembering faces or telling them apart. the key is their cognitive abilities. cutting edge technology can help us to correctly identify faces. as we all know, that computer assisted facial recognition is now used to keep track of people in cities around the world. but some of us have similar faculties and police forces are eager to recruit the services of these super recognizes london. 6 august 20, 201414 year old alice ross went for

a walk that afternoon. 6 at 4 26 pm, her image was recorded on cctv and then she disappeared. the police search for alice gross was the biggest in london since the 2005 bombing . the video footage provided vital clues in the cctv capital of the world. an estimated 1000000 cameras truck people as they go about their daily business. footage from these cameras is viewed in the headquarters of the london metropolitan police, also known as scotland yard. this is where the so called super recognizers work. people with particularly good recall when it comes to faces. they identify faces time and again, even partly concealed in crowds or in very grainy footage. it's

a skill that long when unrecognised, an unused to 94, i realized that the police weren't using see she tv properly than that of images just were being used like fingerprints and dna in a systematic way. so started to develop systems to gather images, to catalog them properly. and as i circulate to them more and more, you realize that for every 100 identifications, some offices would, might want to. but some mood might 10 or 20. so it really stood out that those people who out real note this is how the world's 1st super recognizers unit came into being it's now led by elliot pour it who'd also been unaware of his special talent. it was on he really in about 2012. the metropolitan place i said is new on a super recognize, listen, my 1st thought was, well, was the super recognizers. and apparently was because i was making successful

identifications. i'm from, you know, wanted posters of criminals. this ability turned out to be the key to solving the alice gross case. a few days after the 14 year old went missing, a woman living in the same district in london reported her partner is missing. he was already known to the police and was identified as a possible suspect. the super recognizers poured over cctv footage along the route that alice had taken to see if they could spot the man to get better just on his way home. and sure enough, eliot pour it, and his team spotted him, they noticed that the possible suspect kept returning to a particular spot at the riverside after alice grosses disappearance. what did you like? so he went back to the senior officer who's investigating the case and he said, look, we think we've found sal cans and changing his closing out to the crime scene. and

that was when they found her just over a month after her disappearance, the parents of 14 year old alice grass had their worst fears, confirmed the body of the young girl was found in the river. brent. at that stage, there was still no sign of the suspected killer super recognizers can also help solve other crimes. apart from murder. one of the most successful cases we've had, i was with serial shoplifter. we had one super recognizers who and i separated by a couple of weeks with memory when that you have seen that guy before. i shall seen him in the, in our database and then we sell to seeing him for 5 times. and then we really went hunting that see vantage of having a database of all images of criminals and images from crime scenes,

because then we're able to go back for these on so crimes. and we had him eventually for about 40 free ah offences. facial recognition software wouldn't have helped. here it needs better footage than the detectives generally have access to agreement university in london, psychologist josh davis is studying super, recognize her powers, using tests that he's continually refining with the help of the police investigators. i want to understand the science behind this. i also think that the more we know about this, the more we understand about human memory, and maybe it's got further applications that no one's even thought about. yet. a few days ago, davis showed one of elliot por, it's team members, short video clips of people that she's now being asked to identify in photos.

the test is intended to reveal how long super recognizers memory skills last davis and pour it are happy with the results. the super recognizers team leader sees the work with the university as vital because we're operating in an area of a place where that is pretty much undefined. and as you know, experimental, it's almost piloting. um, all the forces from around the world are looking our models. in the case of alice grass, the body of her suspected killer was found a few days after the discovery of her body. the 41 year old was found in the woods. he hanged himself, apparently for fear of being captured the police are convinced that he would have been convicted. the evidence found at the crime scene

was too damning, like traces of his dna on the teenager shoes and a cigarette stub. but the tip that led the police to the body in the 1st place came from the super recognizers. while the super economics unit in the future i think will expand or across the world. the 1st a murder, solve with fingerprints is about 2 miles from where you all know a 1905, no to scotland yard up so tight that out and show everybody else or to do fingerprints. and then dna came along and, and the british police out to the same. so now we're super recognizers. this is the 3rd step. and, and so we've got to expand this because there's no reason why there are no super recognizers in germany or in, in america or anywhere else in the world. super recognizers tend to be deployed to solve crimes after they've been committed. but sometimes, for example, during big events,

they can stop planned crimes from control rooms. they monitor events by a video link. if they identify known criminals or suspects, for example, police can intervene. but of course they do anything if for example, an unknown sleeper is planning an attack. so even in the cctv capital of the world, there's no such thing as total security. there are animals that use tools to secure food and learn through observation. so species are known to have an impressive level of intelligence. parents have developed their own solutions for specific problems and use form intelligence to improve their efficiency. while dolphins are not dissimilar to humans on the intelligence front. and there are countless other animals where we know how small

they are. but our next report deals with the species that are higher flyers. then you might think scientists and bo, whom university have known for a long time. the pigeons aren't stupid, but are in fact highly intelligent. their visual memory is phenomenal and their masters of rote learning. they can memorize the 700 images and recall them with ease. this is lam pigeon, 094. she is about to prove how powerful her working memory is to neuro scientist, semi 7 chick these are the images to pre prison, to the pigeons, the prison dental pets of items. one of them contains images with the shape, information, and color information. and the one can contrast this route,

only colors are great with no champion formation or color information. and at the end of the day, we want to see if the information like the amount of information to provide to this animals can affect their working memory performance. this is elaine simple process . pigeons tenacity and their equity are legendary. they peck away at the monitors for hours on end, but it has to be quiet. we need to whisper as tim was, it's old and his present image, if it killed it and that it, it 6 seconds and then it, beg your side it back to the answer here was wrong. so that's why he shouted the lives and didn't provide food. but the answer regarding daniel to provide food, so did critical thinking that these, his demos, that keep it in mind for 6 seconds and then that you, according to this,

so be it was a correct responses i've got to put already. and this is how they spend their time . it takes the exec to wonder daysia for down between this into all all can go and then contin 094 is off to the races. she doesn't know what give up means owner good to could once to better understand why thought processes and such different brains as pigeons and human brains function. so similarly, our own working memory is a good place to begin for a comparative experiment. then vio lence, the fatherhood, when we have to remember the color red, then inside ourselves, we secretly repeat, read, read, read, read, read. so we'll store the idea of you, but how does the pigeon memorize it of us? and what we're looking at now though, i'm still not sure we'll find it out, is could it be that a pigeon rather than using words which it obviously can instead codes these stimuli by a different movement and it was on the vehicle could such as doing one thing on read

the was must, and another on green, 0 us mar. i'd still an open question. the boom team has been able to show that the cerebral cortex with which we think is not only found and mammals. a new laser technique has shown that bird brains also have a structure resembling our cortex, with its typical horizontal and radial layers where complex thought takes place. you believe that the con, they make an extremely detailed analysis of everything they see with the vertical layer on him. they coordinate it all with the radio layers. the honest me, dad, just want these structures are capable of becomes visible under the microscope. but museums it, i've lizzie, here, individual nerve cells marked in dark wood in that and with the technology we used, you can see these dark colored cells communicating with other nerve cells, smith and of anal from saying we can practically see who's talking with wholly to,

to meet them. the recently made discovery as groundbreaking, something as complex as this was expected and mammals, but not in birds. of that is conflicting. at 1st glance, the 2 brains look so different money, but the near you go and the more closely you look at, you can see the same basic principles throughout cbs. the closer we look, the more they look the same. that doesn't make master minds of pigeons. in the bird world alone, crows are far superior. yet pigeon still possess astounding cognitive abilities. it's impressive how they recognize and contextualize pictures, and even learn if a sequence of letters forms an english word or not. pigeons are totally underrated . this machine just a bit of a shame because they're running about all over the place and it would be nice to

say, wow, a grandmaster of working memory comes to visit me. that would be cool. if i let is read, why i there is no such thing as tis smart, right? if you have a science related question, then as a video, text or voice message, if we answer it on the show, will send you a little surprise as a thank you. come on to starve scientifically, memories are generated by inflammation. they stored in our sensory memory for a few seconds. working memory, stores information for a few minutes. and our long term memory stores information for hours, at least, and usually for many years. but memory is not always reliable.

ah, the human memory is a huge archive that works like a well oiled machine. well, most of the time, but not always. sometimes there are things we just cannot retrieve while the memories land on us uninvited. there is some we simply can't shake off. here are 3 classic tricks our memories play on us. oh, 1st up, the tip of the tongue phenomenon. something we've all experienced at some point was annex his name again. hang on on the tip of my tongue. oh, this is what's going on upstairs. recollection of one particular person is stored

in a number of locations. their appearance in the visual center sound of their voice in the auditory center, and the approximate number of syllables in their name in the language center. in order to identify the pers, the brain has to dig up and piece together a sufficient number of those features. and that's where it's easy to get confused. a similar sounding name might 1st pop into your head because it's available sooner . so what's the solution? one answer to turn your attention to something completely different. that will remove the scanner in the works and eventually the penny dropped. oh, john claude van damme. of course. trick number 2. in factory memory. that is memories linked to oda. it's not just unsolicited visual memories that sometimes bother us, not smell. but i know that from again, and suddenly you might be haunted by a distinctly unwelcome memory. why is that?

it's pretty simple. with all our senses, smell is the only one directly connected to the brains, emotional center, the a mig dealer, and also to the adjacent hippocampus, the area where memories are created. therefore, odors and the recollections associated with them are particularly vivid memory. cues, o. number 3, the e were more catchy tune. memories that refused to go. i can be very annoying. like a song you just have to sing along to the songs that you can't get out of your head tend to resurface when we're busy doing mundane tasks. and our working memory has some free capacity to stave off board my brain browsers through its archives and pulls out a specific song in a similar style to a record player. and in our heads, we are that he

a music we adore. all that we absolutely hate this trick as a stimulus that makes us repeat the melody all there expect to ourselves. that creates a never ending loop. as you're singing leads to you hearing the tune internally, which in turn encourages for the singing. the remedy. research is recommend listening to the song once bull away through to the bitter end. and then bury the memory deep deep down in your brain's archive. 2 2 next tend to music and the days made that is a superstar of classical music in his own day. and now he composed of

a 1000 word i and those legs on said to have magical effects unless i just listening to mozart really make you smarter. the so called mozart effect was identified by researchers in 1993. 0, they gave a group of college students a 10 minute audio sample to listen to. oh, with soundtracks ranging from silent to a relaxation tape. ottomans you we go to a mozart piano concerto. oh, the students were then asked to take a spacial intelligence test. oh, oh,

oh. oh, those subjects who had been listening to mozart performed better than the other groups registering spatial i. q scores, 8 or 9 points higher. not a huge leap, but certainly had jumped. and that said the intelligence boost lasted all of 15 minutes, said most. and then it disappeared. but that surprising if short lived effect triggered a media frenzy. mozart makes you smart, was in all the headlines. ah, the impact was especially great in the united states. babies born in georgia and tennessee were given a mozart cd, while kindergarten, kids in florida were treated to an hour of mozart music every day. the scientific community also seemed enthralled. researchers reenacted the original experiment but struggle to confirm the mozart effect. it was replicated in some tests but not in

others. oh. 2 meanwhile, there was a suspicion that the music merely improved the mood of test subjects, giving their brain some brief stimulation. another question soon arose. does it have to be mozart? oh, as it turned out, music by other artists had the same effect, whether as to knotted by schubert or a song by the 19 ninety's british band to blur i. so the notion that only mozart makes you smarter and permanently so was just a myth. but the big question remains, how does music affect the brain? oh,

or grey matter is in fact colored by practically every thing we do. that includes listening to music and even more so playing music. what ever the music, practicing and performing, leave a mark. any drummers, the neural pathways linking the 2 halves of the brain, tend to be fewer but thicker, which is perhaps why they're so good at certain swift and complex movements. surely a well trained fit brain is capable of more than a standard specimen. well, there are plenty of studies that claim playing music makes you smarter. experiments showed that people with a musical background, we're better at certain things. they might have better language memory skills for example, or were better able to remember things. they had c m

children in particular performed better on the memory front and, and intelligence tests if they had at least a year of music lessons. the problem is, even if playing and instrument goes along with higher i q test scores, it doesn't mean the one cause the other. ah, i played the violin and was an ace in physics. wouldn't he have been a science? was even if he had never learned an instrument playing music and being intelligent, may well co occur. but whether one contributes causally to the other is highly questionable. more than a 100 studies over the past 20 years have claimed there is a causal connection without sufficient evidence to back up the claim. like muscles, the brain can be given a workout. but training and one activity doesn't mean you perform better in others

. if 2 skills are very different, being good at the one is not likely to make you better if the other, practicing the piano all day is likely to make you a better pianist. but will it make you better at solving differential equations? hardly. still practicing an instrument not only lets you play music, it can also teach you that practice does make a significant difference. that can boost your self confidence and willingness to really apply yourself. so to recapitulate, does music make you smarter? well, there's no straightforward answer, but quite apart from any possible link to intelligence. music is a treasure and a joy in its own right. whether in the form of mozart pop or hip hop

in for more from the wonderful world of science and tag, find us on the web at d, w dot com slash science and on twitter, that's old from tomorrow to day. for now we have you join us again next week for another fascinating addition of assigned shad. until then the by ah ah, with

who a champagne is perfect for the festive occasions for but not every thing that sparkles may bear this exclusive name. what makes champagne

a premier, a sparkling wine. ah, we uncover its secret euro macs in 30 minutes on d. w. o. when she is conducting a by very fast women on the venerable conduct, ah unskilled meat. march 21 from in 60 minutes. oh d w. oh, she's up to date. don't miss our highlights. the d w program on line d,

w dot com. highlight welcome to the dark side where we tell a chance agencies are pulling the strings. there was a before 911 and and after 911, he says after 911, the clubs came off where organized cry rules. every genuine use a global network of companies, banks, and operators. we will provide those services to anyone operation in the criminal economy. where conglomerates and make their own laws. they invade our private lives through surveillance. hidden opaque, secretive. what's true? what's vague? it doesn't matter. the only criteria is worked. we'll hook people up. we shed light

on the opaque worlds. who's behind, who benefits? and why are they a threat to us all? opaque worlds starts january 5th on d, w. ah, ah, ah, this is dw news live from berlin. the pandemic overshadows another holiday season. the surgeon, the army kron variant of the corona virus, is disrupting christmas. travel airlines are facing a shortage of staff and that is leading to thousands of flight.