The heater can be turned up even before you get home, your TV becomes a communication center, and supply chains automatically coordinate with each other. In the “Internet of Things” (IoT), objects communicate intelligently with people, plus they increasingly control themselves. But the flow of information is still slow and prone to errors.

First the good news: The human brain is omnivorous – “it actually learns incessantly,” says didactics professor Michaela Sambanis. The part of the brain that is constantly on the lookout for new and interesting stimuli is called the hippocampus, also known as the brain’s “novelty detector.” Of the many stimuli to which we are exposed on a constant basis, it filters out only some of them to be linked within the brain.

“Building bridges between East and West” is one of the areas of focus on the agenda for this year’s Leipzig Book Fair, which is traditionally held just before the start of spring. The fact that the title also resonates with the recent past of the historic trade fair grounds is probably known to only a few attendees, though. In the 40 years of East German history, the Leipzig Trade Fair played an important role in how the socialist country presented itself to domestic and international audiences.