How do unemployed men and women deal with aging? Why do women in Romania know so little about hepatitis? Irina Catrinel Crăciun’s research projects focus closely on the lived experiences of many people.

When Kai Hartmann and Frank Riedel set off for the areas where they do research, the trip often involves traveling to the very origins of humanity. Starting from Berlin, where they work at Freie Universität – Hartmann as a geographer and Riedel as a paleontologist – they travel more than 10,000 kilometers by plane and car to reach the Kalahari Desert, in Botswana, and specifically the Tsodilo Hills, northwest of the Okavango Delta.

The Botanic Garden in Berlin’s Dahlem district is known for its rare and exotic plants, such as titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), the world’s largest flower, which blooms only every couple of years, with a meters-tall inflorescence – and a distinctive odor of carrion, which has also earned it the name “corpse flower.” Less well known is the fact that the Königin-Luise-Straße entrance is home to just as rare a jewel: the Botanical Museum, which opened in 1906.