The region whose prehistory Elke Kaiser studies is an inhospitable one. Kaiser, an archaeologist who studies how the inhabitants of the Eurasian steppe lived more than 5,000 years ago, says, “We still know very little about it.” Starting this year, Kaiser holds Germany’s only professorship in the archaeology of Eurasia, a position established with funding from the Topoi cluster of excellence at Freie Universität.

Countless treasures are tucked away in the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung (Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection) in Berlin. Some of the pieces are on display in the museum’s exhibits. But many precious items are still waiting to be “unlocked”: The inscriptions on many papyri that were brought to Berlin in crates long ago have remained a mystery even to scholars. Some of them have been rolled up or folded together for millennia, so the experts only dare to disturb a few selected pieces.

The poker game surrounding the costs of Germany’s nuclear phase-out has entered a new round. Energy providers E.ON, RWE, EnBW, and Vattenfall have filed a flurry of lawsuits against the German government. They want damages for the country’s abandonment of nuclear energy.