ah, in 60 minutes on d, w. o, and the battle against covey. and the only variant is putting healthcare systems around the world to the test. vaccination campaigns are accelerating while restrictions are intensifying once again. but are these measures enough to stop the spread of omicron, fax data and reports release, you know, a weekly covert 19 special every thursday on d w. this is the sound of pests having a feast. gray rebels are known for destroying entire crops. this tube is designed

to stop them in their tracks. should we be worried that an asteroid could destroy planet earth and no more scalpels autopsies go virtual. this and more coming up on today's episode. ah, welcome to to morrow to day the sign. so on d. w. moon efforts to establish the cause of a person's death date back centuries. autopsies are conducted not only in the name of science, but also to solve crimes. ah, full hundreds of years. the techniques and tools didn't change much but now a new method could revolutionize an age old practice. ah,

ah, some $23000.00 people die in traffic accidents every year in the european union. but it's not always easy to immediately establish the exact cause of the accident and the fatalities. often, there are unanswered questions. lou, why did the driver lose control of the car? from which side was the pedestrian hit? who is to blame for the accident? when it comes to forensic mysteries where victims are no longer able to tell their side of the story, it's up to up is to solve the mysteries. for centuries we've relied on forceps and scalpels, but it zurich forensic scientist, michelle italy and his team,

a breaking new grounds there the pioneers, a virtual autopsies. the goal is to quickly establish what killed the person and how they died. currently, forensic experts have to work alongside police to determine from which side an accident victim was hit. with new technology is supposed to assist with this. the 1st house scan with millimeter precision the scanner photographically documents external injuries, 180 degrees from the front. them from the back. so in just a few seconds, the scanner generates a virtual duplicate of the victim. but a virtual autopsy is not just about speed because it's a digital render. the scan generates evidence that investigators can access years later. this also applies to the images from the computer tomography,

the c t. this device uses x rays to scan the body several 1000 times. in seconds, a digital image of the deceased interior is created. but what exactly does it reveal? was the pedestrian actually hit from the left auto show. when i hear this bone is fractured in the middle, it was really intense. we have something there, there, and there emotional, we should also look at the skull. if it's left sided, we should expect something on the left side, right? there's an impaction on the left. okay, there we have that. com. yes, not confirms it left sided fracture system up to 15. 0, and within minutes they have answers. a classic autopsy would have taken up to i was pretty clear that the left side was head injuries down by the seat and the skull. yes. due to this massive fracture wound,

daughter was the cause of death. there's the fraction of the break and then the bleeding into the brain. okay. well then we actually have it in the mystery of the pedestrians. death was solved. but what about the driver? what caused his death? like in many cases, the young man had been partying until the early hours before he got behind the wheel. was he intoxicated when he got into his. com this is the question that the virtual autopsy team is trying to establish as the case is, book before the justice system. removing tissue from the deceased is the usual method. alcohol analysis is a laborious and expensive process. and magnetic resonance spectroscopy can provide data more quickly and determine if there was alcohol present, especially in the brain. the m r i machine works using magnetic fields and radio

waves. the nuclei of the hydrogen atoms in our bodies react in the magnetic fields . an m r i is therefore particularly good at depicting organs and muscles with high water content. images are based on signals emitted by the hydrogen actions in the water molecules during the scam. if a hydrogen atom is located in a molecule other than water, for example, ethanol, also known as alcohol, this changes the frequency of the signal. this allows alcohol to be detected using m r i spectroscopy. so even without a tissue sample, forensic scientists can determine the concentration of alcohol presence in a dead person's brain. then the initial estimate that's probably 0.8 to $1.00 pro mill and remain okay. but in the case of this young man,

the test came back negative. he didn't like alcohol and only drank water at the policy. is there another biological factor that caused him to lose control of his car? in a similar case, zurich forensic scientists are once again going on a digital search for clues. with contrast, fluid, a post mortem and geography should make injuries in the vessels visible the deceased off, so suddenly lost control of the car. could it have to do with a heart problem? if so, a digital tomography scan should show this but the forensic talk to find nothing in the heart itself. can the virtual autopsy still be used to find how the accident happened? to miss me now we have to take a look at the main artery,

whether something happens there or not. before all the hunch is indeed correct. the c t images show a small bit crucial injury. montage the blue, then the bleeding of, of the heart is the cut in the i alter and there's, we're glad how long on that one. so it seems to be a natural cause of death behind the wheel, bleeding in the a arctic arch causing death. and there we have it in the a or that for the forensic doctors have diagnosed in the young driver the cause of a tragic traffic accident blood flowing uncontrollably into the body, causing death. just one of the many forensic mysteries that can now be solved more quickly with new technologies. ah, once upon a time, dinosaurs roamed the us. but at some point they banished in both an asteroid

responsible for their demise. moral not coming up. but 1st cosmic balden and what could happen if they collided with planet of young from algeria asked us, is there a risk that an asteroid could hit the earth again? if so, when asteroids are cosmic, boulders rubble from the early days of our solar system? today most of them orbit the sun between jupiter and mars in what is known as the asteroid belt. if small asteroids get too close to jupiter, the giant planets, gravity can divert them out of their stable orbits. and that can put them on a collision course with the earth. these stray asteroids can collide with other

asteroids and thus create smaller fragments that then also whiz towards planet earth. which is why the sky is constantly being monitored to track down dangerous asteroids and calculate their trajectories around 2200 asteroids that passed close to earth and are large enough to cause serious damage have already been catalogued of the around $1000000.00 noun asteroids. some repeatedly, cross earth's orbit, like a po for us, with a diameter of more than 300 meters. it's big enough to wipe out a city like berlin. in april 2029, it will come so close to the earth that it will only just miss satellites in their gio, stationary orbits. this particular asteroid comes close to the earth every 4 years

. with the diameter of several kilometers. it's big enough to be seen with radar telescopes. an impact with the earth would cause a global catastrophe. according to new calculations, however, the risk of an impact is low for the next 200 years. unfortunately, telescopes based on earth cannot see asteroids coming from the direction of the sun . the asteroid that exploded over the russian city and shelley ovens in 2013, came from this direction. it was only 20 meters across, but it released 30 times more energy than the atomic bomb dropped on hiroshima. 1500 people were injured and almost 400 buildings damaged. and such unexpected impacts are possible at any time. now back in time, could an asteroid be the reason dinosaurs went extinct? we are highly intelligent, kai hagar from the university of bon. yeah. for

a long time in the 20th century, it was believed that the mass extinction was due to volcanic eruptions. and the new as they still do today, that what is now india so intensely counting activity over a long time. the impact on the environment may have included openness, that if occasion, which in turn led to a collapse of ecosystems over a period lasting several 100000 years done analysis. but later in the 20th century, scientists on growing evidence of an asteroid impact in modern day, mexico and timelines that impact correlates exactly with the mass extinction. more recent research has indicated what massive consequences it had since in armies and dust, but probably blocked out the sun for many years. and research has also reveal deposits of iridium and bro mean around the world dating

to precisely that period of time. and the extremely high concentration of these isotopes means they must have been brought to earth via an asteroid. so that's why we now believe that while not the soul factor, the asteroid impact was at least the primary reason for the mass extinction. that's not what makes the end of the cretaceous period. so special ed is that it was also a mass extinction event. the asteroid impact caused the death of a very large number of organisms in a very brief periodic leading to the extinction of those species. of a most mass extinction and our planet history take place over longer periods of time and hundreds of thousands of years. not long in geological terms though it is for us don't. so you don't tend to notice changes happening around you and it's very possible. and there are strong indications that we're currently living in a mass extinction event given the high number of species disappearing within just

a few generations. if our blood is red, why i gave you a, do you have a science question you'd like us to answer? when you send it to us as a video, text or voice mail. if we feature it on the show, you'll get a little surprise from us as a thank you. come on just on for more fascinating stories, head to our website, d, w dot com slash science or check us out on twitter. the world health organization forecasts that within the next 10 years, 6 out of every 10 people will live in a city. population density is based on the number of residents per kilometer squared african and asian cities tend to have the highest levels. the

trend is only said to accelerate, even in germany. in the city of munich, they've come up with a creative solution in the german city of munich, finding land to build on is like winning the lottery. and so architect oliver, whom has specialized in the opposite direction. urban consolidation group, he has just finished renovating this building. and expanding its attic. johan, this is where the stairwell windows used to be. and whenever you looked out and you saw the courtyard, the garages, the hall, and an ugly, rather dilapidated roof, tubman placed off and we know, especially in the city like munich, we think that every area which can be reasonably used should be developed as a system of the architect, so untapped potential here. his idea was to use the court yard for a residential building. busy whom together with his colleague,

alexander how looked for optimal utilization of the 130 square meter space. busy at the technical university of dumpster architecture, professor caston oil, which tillman researches the development of urban spaces. it's a to z b. a. after all, we're currently ceiling off about 70 hector's every day of the year for new building land, which roughly corresponds to $120.00 soccer fields, even talk noises, eagleton noisy. of course, this poses an ecological problem using our natural land in such a way, liens constantly depleting it. it will never recover from it extended lust need english, but i'll turn it of li, getting more out of the land, which is already being used is much better ecologically. this is what we need to be doing. i'm the co lucius, extreme north vending a steamer. oliver home is

a fan of such urban consolidations. one of his favorite examples, munich architect flooring and not le, creating 100 new apartments above a parking lots. this is how it looked before a parking lot between an outdoor pool and a sports failed. and today, the finished construction on stilts, with cars parked underneath for me. i've missed these for me, this kind of deal use of space is suitable for any kind of housing steam. and we're not talking about the outskirts here from them. we're right in the middle of an established neighbourhood voice with housing built in the 19 thirty's johan has developed ever since. and now i only want to complement it for whom shows us another urban consolidation project. an unused gap between buildings only about 3 and a half meet his white for a long time. something like this was not considered useful space. now,

a new building in the adjacent lot has used the gap for balconies. he put in charlotte, in windsor condo just at the potential and our german cities is so great because they're not as dense as we think. like, for example, vienna or copenhagen get by with population densities in the range of 10212000 inhabitants per square kilometer munich, the densest city, germany is about 50 percent less than that lot. so we have to have the density to have to dish to i'm shouldn't come back with oliver home and his building project above the garages in the courtyards. his client is enthusiastic about the plans. they must also meet the strict regulations of them. unique building authority, the home we were told we have to build at least full garage isn't anything more is fine, all is lost, but if we wanted to use it as free space, well we wouldn't be allowed to do something like that. different id is miss bohannon and there are other problems the driveway is narrow and there's not much

room in the courtyard. where could a crane be set up and how to get all the necessary machines and materials here in the 1st place. but the architects found solutions, a specialized small crane that fits through the narrow coat yard entrance. winfield, it and the wooden wools were adapted to the dimensions of the driveway while being pre made in a carpentry work shop. after 8 months of construction, the courtyard with the garages has been transformed into a unique residential building in the glockland by federal district in the house of munich to day oliver, whom has been invited for the 1st time to a private viewing at the home of the owners, katya, and lots fallen heights. we wanted to show you our house now and yeah, i'm excited to see how it turned out. come on, let's look. where do we start? look right here. even though it's a small space,

there's no claustrophobic feeling. was so much green actually, you could even think you were in the countryside at yahoo. yes, you think you're in the forest beside and instead of a dark courtyard building light now streams in through the patios, even into the stairwell. the skylight here is nice. nice. yeah, it's great at 1st i thought i should be able to open it, but it doesn't bother me any mom got me together. they've created new housing through the smart use of space. and this right in the middle of munich as the world's population continues to grow, the demand for food and resources is increasing to grains, or especially versatile, a source of food for both animals and humans. they can also be used as a rule material for biofuel. but cultivating crops is no easy task. climate change and pests are a major threat. for one scientist though, the war on grain,

weevils is well underway. when it pharma harvests crops, they don't just collect grain. but thousands of insects to it worse comes to the worst. they will include grain, weasels, there law, they don't just heat the grain. the secretions can also cause mold, making the store grain unfit for human or animal consumption. to prevent that down more, it says taking part in research projects. to day 2, scientists have brought a prototype early warning system for pests. this is going to struggle to get up there. the animal said producer in the research as are planning to bug the bugs, they want to find out if anything's a foot in the $450.00 tons of barley here with special microphones. as it is aware

that this has been naples, us to hear the sounds coming from the grain from the insects inside the grain. they produced a rustling noise as they move around and eat spending the spring. when you say they trample about and chump their foods company much, we gather this sound with this metal cheap movie and it isn't the title of them. we don't just have a little microphone which records the sounds in its vicinity. so we have this big 3 meter long, she which collects sounds and the kind of amplifier. but it does more than that. the so called beetle sound tube is also an insect trap. here let the the perforated sions in the tube there so that when the insect move through the grain, they fall through these homes into the chains and caught in a container which we're about to inset to on. and we hear them very clearly then because any infection that makes a dreadful noise, it looks a bit home mode. it is home made, it used to be a coco shake. molly got ca,

coastal oil, the microphone is the centerpiece of the sound tube. absurd said, did a very sensitive microphone which can pick up quiet insect sounds particularly well . it's not the kind of microphone you'd used to record. singing is pretty specialized on this so, but the details of the research is attached the traps and the microphone to a rope and lower it down into the tube. and then last but not least, had a kind of nest for harmless insects. though what that does is on the other thing behind that val contain if a beneficial insect side, when we find pests in the grain, we can send in the beneficial ones. if we identify the past, is that an early stage and said that they didn't have to go the whole way from the surface of the pile into the grain. we make things a bit easier for them when we transport them via the cheap. and these strips of paper that to help the insects climb from the container on to the wolves of the

chief direct soil monthly duncan, they get out for the holes with yet they exit by the hulls. the beneficial insects, a tiny wasps about the size of a grain of rice. they lay their eggs in the windows lava, killing them before they compute pace. oh, tiny wasps don't end up in food because the grain is cleaned before it's processed . for organic farmers like nicholas cozen bag, being able to detect weevils at an early stage and control them organically. is a huge step forward. is as veterans, osama present of who i can with great having something like this is an early warning system here. probably most farmers have problems with weevils, even if they say they don't both. we've taken a very upfront approach because it is a problem. but last year in particular, because of the high temperatures we had in the winter months. so without cold

periods, really the bugs have even more opportunity to reproduce. model lucia, therefore, mil meeting last year, cousin back became one of the 1st to join the project in the german state of brandenburg. back then this grain silo was full but not just with grain, pests and bread explosively within the crop. the sound tube which is still hanging inside and will also be used again. nicea raised the alarm immediately by the microphones and related computer program. the research is saved last year, sound recordings. this is what the and 2nd sounded like. what the south now this is a recording from last year for the music like the little lava is sitting in the grain, eating the inside of the grain colonel piece might pick up and when it's eaten enough, then it enters the pupil stage. and then at some point, it emerges from the grain as an adult weaver house on from the lotten. calling from

global warming means the grain weasel and similar pests are a growing problem. but a possible solution appears to be on its way. there are plans to market the sound tube as soon as the test phase is over. that wraps up this edition of tomorrow to day. join us again next week for more exciting stories from science and technology. until then state curious and keep asking questions with ah ah

ah ah, with keeping an eye on grandma china seniors are well monitored by robots. but are

they also well taken care of? it's a matter of perspective. china is using robots to help the elderly because many of them live alone in need contact. but is this model the right solution? close up in 30 minutes on d, w o. it's controversial prison in the world. the guantanamo may detention can. ever since it was opened, human rights activists argued guantanamo is where the u. s. lost its moral authority. the infamous prison has violated the geneva convention for 20 years. why has it still not been closed? today on dw news

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