Everyone knows, but no one does anything about it. Huge amounts of plastic waste are piling up at certain points in the ocean, carried there by currents. Five of these “garbage patches” have formed in the world’s oceans. There is talk of there being tens of thousands of tons of plastic trash involved: “That’s just a rough estimate of the amount,” says computer scientist Tim Landgraf of Freie Universität Berlin. “But what’s really impressive, though, is the area,” he adds.

The first sign is that the animals develop a fever. They grow weak and lose the desire to eat. Then, after two to three weeks of suffering, most of the cattle die – dead of a disease caused by tiny single-celled organisms. Theileria is the name of the genus of parasites that claim the lives of thousands of cattle in northern and eastern Africa every year.

A storm is moving in. There is a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning – and smoke suddenly starts to rise from the local chemical plant. Researchers from the Research Forum on Public Safety and Security at Freie Universität are now gathering ideas for possible ways to respond in this and other crisis situations. About 20 team members are working on developing the results of safety and security research for policymakers and the general public.