In focus: change
Swapping the petrol station for a charging station
In 2021, there were 356,425 new registrations of electric cars in Germany – a European record. For comparison: 10 years ago, in 2011, there were only 2,300 cars with electric drives in the country. This corresponds to an increase of more than 15,000%!
Call me maybe
On 29 October 1969, Leonard Kleinrock for the first time connected two (fridge-sized!) computers via a telephone line.
20 years later, British IT expert Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web, which has been accessible from any computer since 1993.
It is believed that in 2021 there were approximately 4.9 billion internet users worldwide. For comparison: internet users in Germany 2001: 37% vs. 2021: 91%.
Sobering
Only about 5% of the knowledge that was considered correct in past centuries is still considered to be correct according to the current state of knowledge. The other 95% have meanwhile been proven to be simply wrong.
No postage required
The first electronic mail was sent by US American Ray Tomlinson in 1971. Today, 50 years later, around 200 billion emails are sent worldwide every day.
You name it!
Most popular baby names in Germany 100 years ago (1921): Hans and Gertrud – 2022: Sophia and Leon
Short and sweet
In the 21st century, brevity seems to be the spice of life. In 1980, for example, a song still had an average length of 4:13 minutes – 40 years later, the average song is only 3:13 minutes long. The most sung about topic, however, has not changed: love!
Thriving desert city
105 years ago, Las Vegas had a population of just 30. Today, the city has almost 635,000 inhabitants (2019).
Weight loss without the yo-yo effect
The first mobile phone weighed almost 1 kg when it was launched in 1983 and cost $4,000. Compared to that, today’s lightest smartphone on the market is a featherweight at 133 g and even comparatively cheap at €679.
Short and sharp
The most popular women’s haircut 100 years ago was the bob. Even 100 years later, short haircuts are experiencing a revival. True to the motto of the Golden Twenties: short hair, full power!
No crook at all
Would you have recognised it? This is actually a wild banana – albeit in its most original form. The path to the curved yellow body was a long one: the domestication of the banana is said to have begun as early as 7a. At that time it was still a small green fruit with many hard seeds in the flesh. Today’s banana is much larger, curved and uniformly yellow in colour.
A platypus never changes its beak
Despite all the changes the world has seen since the Cretaceous Period, the platypus remains true to itself. The hybrid of bird, reptile and mammal not only has a beak, but also suckles its young after they have hatched from their eggs.
Work is where your home is
While just 4% of professionals worked from home before the Covid pandemic, the number increased to a full 24% at the beginning of 2021.
You are what you eat
In the USA, researchers discovered 19 different gene changes in New York’s mice vs. their rural counterparts. Among other things, these genes are responsible for fat processing, which the researchers attribute to the fast food waste the city mice feed on.
Sky scraping
At 828 m, the Burj Khalifa skyscraper has been the tallest building in the world since 2008. Until 1930, it was the Eiffel Tower in Paris with a height of 330 m. This equals an increase in height of 498 m in 78 years.
