Basel’s stinky flower, Geneva’s sexiest fingers study, Cern’s rumoured Higgs particles, US women skate to gold in Zurich
Cern's Alice experiment, particle collisions
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A giant stinky flower in Basel, ring fingers that mean true love, thrilling women’s ice hockey world finals – the international population in the Lake Geneva region disappears during the spring holidays, heading off on travels near and far, but the news doesn’t stop.
Here’s a brief roundup of what you might have missed:
Phew! but beautiful to behold, Basel’s corpse flower
Switzerland was on the world news map, with hundreds of articles about the amophophallus titanium, aka the “corpse flower” that pulled in an estimated 25,000 visitors to Basel. Key facts: it is one of the world’s largest flowers (technically: “largest unbranched inflorescence in the world” according to wikipedia), it smells of rotting flesh, and it grows in the wild only in Sumatra, Indonesia. The first cultivated flowering was at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London in 1889 and since then there have been few sightings of the rarely-blooming flower. Basel’s Botanical Gardens‘ two-metre high plant bloomed this weekend, for the first time in its 17 years, and the first such plant to flower in Switzerland in 75 years.
Check out his length, dear
A man’s ring finger length gives clues to his masculinity, researcher Camille Ferdenzi at the University of Geneva in Switzerland shows in her research on 2D:4D, the name for the ratio comparing second and fourth digits. Her work was published 19 April in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biology Letters. For an easier explanation, LiveScience unravels the mysteries of sex and the ring finger.
God or no god particles, Cern is intense
This one wasn't at the Hallenstadion
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland’s competition watchdog Comco is to investigate the five-year agreement, which came into force early 2009, between the country’s largest ticket-seller, Ticketron, and the Hallenstadion Zurich (AGH), one of its biggest concert venues. Comco will look into the details of the agreement which obliges the organizers of events at the Hallenstadion to offer least 50 percent of the tickets for sale through Ticketcorner.
Ticketcorner has been in the sights of the Federal Competition Commission before. In 2006, after an appeal, it was absolved of monopolistic behaviour.
Update 17:35 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The 50-strong Rigdzin Buddhist community of Lausanne, who invited the Dalai Lama to speak at two days of conferences 4 and 5 August in Lausanne, is quietly putting the finishing touches on the preparations, 24 Heures and TSR report. The 12,000 tickets to the two-day event have sold out, but the events at the Malley skating rink can be followed live, according to the organizers. The web site lists the programme and live streaming will be available.
