Great suspense to be expected...

An impressive private collection of parasites (gift of René Gerber, Switzerland) allows Micronaut to investigate "a mysterious world full of surprises".

Despite their notoriously bad reputation, parasites are outstanding -and often surprisingly beautiful- animals, which show remarkable adaptations to their way of life and host.

Believe it or not - you will see soon enough.

Open heart surgery...

Micronaut's ultra-fast new notebook, as it is being pimped with an additional 1 TB storage.

Drowning in the snow...

Around X-mas usually dozens of Micronaut calendars have to be shipped daily to places in Portugal, Italy, Canada, Taiwan, Australia, or the USA.

Whilst the vast majority travels fast and save, one piece got lost just around the corner (Germany). The german post has finally returned it with 3 months delay. However, the address turns out to be perfectly right (initially the official reason for the delivery failure) and the german post continued to explain, that they were unable to deliver the envelope due to heavy snow in December 2010. Right, but to return the package was no problem... must be kind of logic, but I don't get it.

Needless to say the customer will get his piece for free - at least if it does not fall victim to the upcoming summer heat... I keep you posted ;-)

'Image of the month' - March 2011...

The new image of the month on Micronaut.ch shows the beautiful pollen grains of a common snowdrop (magnification 1'370:1).

Ich bin ein Berliner...

...well, you know this is not true. But despite the cold, I very much enjoy my trip to Berlin. The river Spree carries sheets of ice - can't believe my eyes. I've never seen this in a river in Switzerland, actually.

'Images of Research' - 'Bilder der Forschung'...


...a slave of detail in front of his winning entry 'What's the face of cancer?', which was exhibited at large during the award ceremony in Berlin.

'Images of Research' represents one of the most popular scientific photography competitions worldwide. The jury annually presents outstanding images from two categories ('Fascination of Research' and 'Faces of Research'). In parallel, the traveling exhibition has attracted more than four million people since 2005.

'Images of Research' - 'Bilder der Forschung'...


...yes, it's the same guy, posing in front of another winning image (3rd place, category 'Fascination of Research' 2009). The image depicts two florets from a small composite plant (a daisy flower, to be precise) and thereby demonstrates intraspecific diversity as a powerful result of evolution acting over millions of years.

Micronaut has devoted this work to the english Naturalist Sir Charles Darwin, which was born 1809 and published the groundbraking theory about evolution through natural selection at the age of 50.