the lab' report Issue 3

THE LAB’ REPORTISSUE 3

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editorial

This issue was brought to you by:

Onur Can Uçarer (TR) Veronika Datzer (DE)

Tuusa Eriksson (FI) R. Tamer Ozgen (TR) Peter Pölzleithner (AT) Manon Schürch (CH)

Raphael Bek (AT) Olivier Rostang (SE/FR)

Goodbye is a word that I always have had trouble with. It goes back to saying goodbye to my father the first day of Kindergarten, or simply just “goodbye” to a friend that you will see again tomorrow. It does not really change anything, but the fact that you officially announce that you are going to be gone. They sometimes hurt, and that is proof that have souls, that we care, that we are humans. In most cases, the pain is unbearable, but like most wounds, it is only a matter of time before it starts healing.

As much as I wish you to have a heart of stone to repel those feelings, I also wish you to accept them, and realize that EYP is a big family, and eventually, everyone will meet again. That’s the definition of fate within EYP.

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contentsBigger, Faster, Stronger

GB Elections

Greek Mythology

Man’s Best Friend

Philosophy

Accidents

Milgram

Freedom Of Speech

Splinter

Science & Hugging

Grazinga

Independent ?

The Bright Side

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Bigger, Faster, StrongerPeter Pölzleithner

These days science is lite-rally omnipresent and the

impact of the innovations provided by conducting Re-search & Development (RD) is visible in just about every aspect of our daily routine. One particular area, which has strongly profited from the advancement in science, is Sports. These days, athletes jump higher and run faster, than ever before. Scientific research has been a driving factor behind that pheno-mena, thus it has been my great pleasure to investigate the good, the bad and eve-rything in between concer-ning the huge scientific as-pect of sports. First and foremost it is the area of sports equipment that a lot of new trends have recently been set. Ground breaking development in the labs of our major sports companies have even led to the creation of an entirely new industry related to it. This

brand of business is com-monly referred to as perfor-mance apparel. It is a highly competitive business, howe-ver there are two highly in-novative companies, which are standing: “Speedo” and “Under Armor” Speedo s product line is mainly centered on high-quality swimsuits. The engineers working in its RD department have long made it their top-priority to create the fastest possible piece of equipment for competitive swimmers. Their product aims to keep the hydrodynamic drag as low as possible, reduce the form drag to a minimum and thus give the swimmer that slight edge in competition. In sim-pler words the suits are being designed to give the swim-mer as many of a fish s attri-butes as somehow humanly possible. The results speak for themselves: just about every gold-medalist of last

year s summer Olympics was competing in a Spee-do swimsuit. This leads to the accurate conclusion that although the devil might be wearing Prada, the swimmer of today is definitely wearing Speedo. Another trailblazing corpo-ration in this field of perfor-mance apparel is Under Armor. The Maryland based company is centered on the idea of creating the ultimate t-shirt for athletic competition. Well and guess who was responsible for im-plementing an idea of that magnitude. Yes you are cor-rect. Research and Deve-lopment has struck again. It has been the company s RD staff, which have managed to create a unique fabric that does not absorb sweat. These fabrics have been further developed into a so-called compression t-shirt. This revolutionary product apparently does not get

sweaty and thus keeps an athlete dry and cool during competition. Pretty impres-sive stuff if you ask me. Their unique idea helped them achieve major success on American soil and in recent history the company has been continually increasing market share on the Euro-pean market. The second factor strongly contributing to the extraor-dinary performances in to-day s world of sports is nu-trition. Nowadays countless famous athletes are coo-perating with nutritionists to ensure their calorie intake is adjusted accordingly to their training needs and their intake of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fibers) is appropriate. However an athlete s diet should not be limited to simply getting the correct amount of vitamins, also the factor supplementa-

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tion should be given utmost consideration. A proper protein powder for keeping muscle mass, fish oils for recovery and electrolytes for energy should be fixed components of every com-petitive athlete s nutritional intake. Of course these pro-ducts have all originated in the science labs of the revolutionizing companies in this uprising domain fol-lowing countless hours of scientific research. The fact that today athletes are able to compete on a very high level up until their late for-ties, is a great testament to nutritional sciences and the business of supplementa-

tion as this feat would haven unthinkable as recently as a couple of decades ago. Oh, these must have been dark ages. But there are also negative effects connected with the strong cooperation of scien-tists and athletes most no-tably the issue of illegal per-formance enhancing drugs. When talking about Perfor-mance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) it is usually Anabolic Steroids, Blood-doping and strong painkillers we are re-ferring to. These have all pro-ven to improve your physical fitness by leaps and bounds. However all of them are as-

sociated with terrible long-term side effects including severe cardiovascular di-seases, liver damage and in cases of extreme abuse even death. Additionally PEDs are prohibited in just about every major sports competition, thus giving an athlete an illegal advan-tage. Nevertheless it is sadly becoming more and more questionable if the intake of PEDs can still be considered cheating if each and eve-ryone is being convicted of doing it. Well and I am pro-bably not the only one whose thoughts have now shif-ted to the cycling tragedy. You see the impact of

science in the world of sports is obviously undeniable. Des-pite the constant problem of PED abuse, it is simply ama-zing how sophisticated the research and development aspect behind the world of sports has already become. However considering the fast rate of progress in recent history, I have the strong fee-ling there are still a lot of ga-me-changing innovations to come; a perspective, which leaves a fitness and sports enthusiast like myself extre-mely excited

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The Ballot Is Stronger Than The BulletOnur Can Uçarer & R. Tamer Ozgen

As the elections for the 3 selected seats of the Go-

verning Body (GB) started 3 days ago, the international alumni of EYP goes to the ballot box after two years to elect who is going to de-cide on the strategy of the organisation in the next two years. It is expected from the majority of the alumni to cast a vote during this week. Before voting, it is crucial to understand the mechanism of the Governing Body and the manifestos of the candi-dates in order to determine the best choice available. As the debates under diffe-rent subjects are still going on under the forum section of the alumni platform, we wanted to put a microscope on the elections, the candi-dates and how the GB works. Established approximately 10 years ago, the Governing Body is the premier decision

maker and strategy plan-ner for the development of EYP on international level. The GB has 6 seats in which three of them were selected by the International alumni while the other three are as-signed with a selection by the boards of National Com-mittees (NCs). Nonetheless, the GB members don’t repre-sent the opinions of the NC that they were nominated from or the international alumni that selected them. Elections for the GB members of next 2 years, are happe-ning right now and will end this Friday so we strongly en-courage you to vote if you are eligible, as voting is cru-cial to shape the future of our organisation. Below, you can find brief introductions about the candidates, as well as their views on EYP and EYP’s future.

According to the Charter: ”International alumni are defined as participants

(teachers, organisers, journalists, chairs and jury) of the National, Regional and In-ternational Sessions of the past two years (counted from the date of the election), delegates of the International Sessions and as GB members of the same time period.

Alan FlowersAge: 60Nationality: BritishNominated by: EYP Belarus and EYP Ukraine• AlanhasbeeninvolvinginEYPformorethan15years,respectively. He has introduced the EYP to the Belarus youth and he has focused on spreading the EYP there. • HeapprovesEYPtoestablishcloserrelationshipswithother NGOs with similar educational purposes.• He encourages the support of EYP Initiatives andagrees with the expansion of EYP to Balkan countries, such as Kosovo or Montenegro.

List Of The Candidates:

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Anar Kucera26 years oldNationality: CzechNominated by EYP Germany, EYP Czech Republic and EYP Bel-gium• AnarisoneofthethreecandidatesthatbelievetheGoverning Body should focus on the development of the exis-ting NCs instead of establishing new ones.• HeworksfortheEuropeanParliamentwhichgiveshima chance to observe the subjects we’re discussing from a more professional perspective• Heistheonlyoneinthegrouptochair3timesatanInternational Session

Mark Berkel23 years oldNationality: DutchNominated by EYP the Netherlands• Markhasparticipated inseveralyouthorganisationsas well as studying at both the Oxford and Utrecht Universities which he believes that provided him with a good perspective on education systems of different countries.• He thinks that raisingawarenessonEuropean issuesshould be one of the priorities of the Governing Body.• HealsomentionsthathewouldencouragetheNa-tional Committees to publish selection reports of the officials whenever they organise a regional, national or an Internatio-nal session.

Schima LabitschAge: 21Nationality: AustrianNominated by: EYP Austria• SchimahasbeenaboardmemberofEYPAustriafora long time in various positions. She was the President of the National Committee in 2011 and 2012 for one term. • SchimabelievesthatEYPshouldtakeopinionsfromthe newcomers as well as the experienced EYP’ers. • ShedefinesthemainoutlinesoftheaimsofEYPaspersonal skill development, awareness for European issues and intercultural dialogue.

Lars Kristian SelbekkAge: 24Nationality: NorwegianNominated by: EYP Norway• LarsbegandoingEYPin2005,andhasbeenaboardmember of the Alumni Association in Norway between 2007 and 2009. He is the president of the Alumni Association since 2011.• HethinksthattheGoverningBodyshouldsupportthemember national committees to make sure the growth and initialisation of national organisations.• LarsendorsesthegrowthofEYP.However,hebelievesthat the quality of the events should be carefully maintained while organising more conferences and expanding EYP.

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Greek mythology creatures taking over EMPLManon Schuerch

Discussing a very crucial topic in today’s society, EMPL sets out to debate the current policies regarding people with disabi-lities. You can firmly feel the debates heating up the room. While post-its were flying around and voices were being raised, the committee on Employment and Social Affairs was about to put down their last introductory clause, when suddenly something rather odd happened. All of the sudden the room was no longer filled with delegates and chairpersons. The members of the EMPL committee had all been transformed into creatures and Gods of Greek mythology. Beware Ladies and Gentlemen; these folks are going to be tough to face in GA on Friday!

Harpy - Anna Maria Czesak:Harpies were featured in the story about Phineas, who was punished by Zeus for revealing too much of the God’s secrets. The punishment involved putting Phineas on an island that always had good food but which he could not touch. This was because of the harpies who would come down from the mountains and steal all the good food away before Phineas could have had a chance to take a bite. This continued until the arrival of Jason and the Argonauts. Harpies featured beautiful women but with wings and claws. You better keep an eye on Anna Maria because this harpy will not rest until she has des-troyed all your arguments in GA.

Medusa – Eira MederoMedusa was one of the three Gorgon sisters, generally described as having the face of a human female with living veno-mous snakes in place of hair. Gazing directly upon her would turn all living things into stone. Eira certainly has the ability to turn all her competition into stone if you dare to challenge her. She has proven that more than once in Committee work.

Talos - Filip VolfTalos was a giant man of bronze who protected Europa in Crete from pirates and invaders by circling the island’s shores three times daily while guarding it. Filip not only catches your eye because of his rather heightened figure, but also will fight off every attack speech ready to take it down in GA.

Centaur – Gustaf WestinThis half-human and half-horse composition is caught between the two natures, embodied in contrasted myths and as the embodiment of untamed nature. Gustaf will certainly show his untamed nature in GA on Friday when he endorses on a journey to successfully fight off all the points against EMPL’s resolution.

Sirene – Laura LutherSirens are beautiful creatures that used their voices to lure sailors to their hideout at the cliffs where they would crash to their deaths. Sirens are depicted as having a bird’s body. It is said that if anybody heard the sirens’ voice and survive, they would kill themselves. Whenever Laura will state her opinion in GA, everybody will willingly agree with her and no longer dare to dispute her. Better not try going up against her Lads.

Griffin – Lisa AdrienThe Griffin is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head and wings of an eagle; and an ea-gle’s talons as its front feet. Since the lion is considered to be the king of the ground, the eagle is considered to be the same of the air. This sassy lady will certainly show the GA which committee to vote in favor for and you better not disagree with her.

Charybdis – Marta RosiqueCharybdis assumes the form of a huge bladder of a creature whose face is all mouth and whose arms and legs are flippers. She swallows a huge amount of water three times a day, before belching it back out again, creating large whirlpools ca-pable of dragging a ship underwater. Don’t be fooled, the rather talkative Marta will belch all her well-prepared arguments into GA when the time is just right.

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Hydra – Mila GoreckiThe Hydra is a serpent-like chthonic water beast that possesses many heads, and for each head cut off it grew two more. It also has poisonous breath and blood so virulent even its tracks were deadly. Nobody is going to be able to take Mila down in GA, as she will take an argument against her committee as a chance to face down two more. Laelaps – Olivier LanooLaelaps is a Greek mythological dog that never failed to catch what he was hunting. No committee is going to be safe from Olivier, this quick fellow will lead EMPL to success by fierce fully hunting down every point which has not already been mentioned.

Cerberus – Panagiotis ThemelisCerberus is a multi-headed dog, or «hellhound» which guards the gates of the Underworld, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping. No point made against EMPL will be passing by Panagiotis intended to harm EMPL.

Almighty (FABULOUS) Chairpersons:

Athena - Despina Dimitrakopoulou Athena is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, warfare, strength and strategy. Despina will, together with her also brilliant co-Goddess Jelena, lead EMPL into victory at the GA. The always-smiling Despina embo-dies that graceful Goddess just perfectly. Hera – Jelena StevanovicPortrayed as majestic and graceful woman, Hera is the mightiest Goddess amongst all female Goddesses. She is the Goddess of women and marriage. While the second mentioned attribute might not yet be suitable, Jelena, together with the lovely Despina, rules over a bunch of fearful creatures. Jelena will be the first to raise the placard when somebody will dare to challenge EMPL in GA.

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Man’s New Best FriendTuusa Eriksson

«Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and MySpace. Social media can be great. It helps us keep in touch with hundreds of people simultaneously. It helps us main-

tain relationships with people we don’t get to see very often. It allows us to experience the world from our own living rooms. Maybe this is how we justify all the hours of our lives that we waste sitting in front of a computer screen. Social networking has become a part of every-day life for the vast majority of our population. Our generation has become accustomed to having access to the Internet and the media and it is beginning to shape our interaction with other people.»

What’s concerning is that it sometimes seems

that in today’s society, we spend more time talking to people online than we do face-to-face. We may have a lot of friends, but is quan-tity more important than quality? Does having a lot of friends have any value, if none of these friends are really friends at all? It seems that social networking can-not only have a positive ef-fect on our friendships, but can also be detrimental to their quality. It’s much har-der to get to know someone on a deeper level virtual-ly, than it is in person. Then again it’s a lot less scary to have a conversation on Facebook than it is to ac-tually go up to someone and start chatting to them. Social networking most

definitely has an impact on our human interaction. It’s not only changing the fundamental bases of re-lationships, but it also in-fluences the core of all in-teraction, language. The social media has affec-ted our communication by creating almost its own language. There are innu-merable words and sayings that have been produced and become popular via Internet sites that are cur-rently ubiquitous. Common jokes spread like wild fire. YOLO and SWAG are just a few examples of words that have become a part of eve-ryday language for many youngsters. Quick chatting and short messaging with friends has changed the media language to abbre-viations and incorrect lan-guage. The role if the Inter-

net is illustrated further by the fact that the incorrect lan-guage is no longer limited to online sites, but it infiltrates all communication. We’re becoming accustomed to using language wrongly threatening the roots and uniqueness of languages. The entireness of the online community is also in some cases making especially the youth’s knowledge of their own language de-creases, as they use English daily. There have also been changes in the slang or everyday language in other languages, not just in Engli-sh. The language simplifies over time and the media speeds up the process. Lan-guages become alike and English is used as the basis when creating new words.

Social media can be a blessing as well as a curse. Because of social networks, we are less keen on small talk than before and even on the rare occasions when we do small talk we use In-ternet slang. Also, because a lot of friend networks are created online these days, many people start fearing meeting others in person. It’s hard to say whether either language or friendship has evolved towards a better direction. In any case, may-be it’s not quite the time for the tradition of face-to-face interaction to die away. So next time, instead of sitting alone in your room having a monologue with your com-puter, why not give dialogue a try? Trust me, it’ll be worth it!

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Philosophy : Allegory Of The CaveManon SchürchAll right EYPers, it’s time for

some Philosophy. Did you ever hear of the famous “Allegory Of The Cave” that was presented by the Greek philosopher Socrates? This allegory describes a cave in the underground from where a wide path leads up to earth. But in the cave live people, who have been kept there their entire life. They sit tied up so that they can only see the front of the cave wall and they also are not able to turn their heads to the path leading up. That’s why they will never be able to see it and know of its existence. The only thing the prisoners have ever seen is the wall of the cave, not even amongst them, they are able to see each other. A fire that is lo-cated on earth is lightening the cave up and its light can

shine through the path. But the prisoners are only able to see the light that shines onto the wall, not its spring. On the wall they are able to see all kinds of shadows. On earth there are people who carry all sorts of objects with them around and their sha-dows reflect onto the wall in the cave. Since the objects that the people on earth are carrying around can have shadows, the prisoners can only identify the shapes on their cave wall. They do not know anything of their car-riers. That’s why the prisoners think that the shadows can talk and believe that the shadows are living beings and everything that hap-pens is because of them. What goes on, on the wall, to them is reality. They deve-lop a scientific world of their

own and try to determine principles to gain prognosis of the meaning of life. It’s a world of its own, the prisoners have been living there but now a very impor-tant question comes along, that Socrates asked himself: What would happen if one of the prisoners would be un-tied and asked to stand up, to turn around and have a look at the exit path leading up to earth as well as the ob-jects whose shadows he has been observing all his life. This person would be pained by the light and also would be extremely confused. He would believe that the things he is observing right now would be less real than the familiar shadows down in the cave because he would be determined that

the only way to gain the ab-solute truth is to be found on the cave wall. If you would now force the person out of the cave and up to ear-th, he would first be in ab-solute pain because the light would be unbearable. But soon he will be able to identify all the things sur-rounding him, first the night sky then the daylight and last but not least, he would examine the sun, its cha-racter and consistency. This person would now come to terms with the workings of the light and recognize how the shadows are just a copy of the real objects. He would no longer want to go down to the cave and even if he did to tell the others of his realizations, they would ne-ver believe him.

The cave emblematizes the normal world around us, how it presents itself to us. The walk-ing the path up to the light is equal to the rising of our soul, from a world of materialistic things to spiritual enlightenment, a world where there are only perishable sensual objects. To gain knowledge and enlightenment of these things, the “Idea Of The Good” is the most important thing of them all. Socrates associates this “Idea Of The Good”, the highest thing achievable in this universe with the sun in this allegory. Ac-cording to Socrates it is of vital importance to achieve the enlightenment of the “Idea Of The Good”, in order to act sensibly in every days so-ciety. But it is also important to know that not even Socrates has reached this Idea. Finally the prisoner who is lead free from the cave up to earth is associated with the philosopher, an en-lightened man who has seen the divine and af-ter the humble human misery down in the cave. As a philosopher he will know that he will have to return back to the cave, even if he does not want to, it is his duty to also enlighten the others down in the cave. Of course he will return to an uncomprehending and ignorant surrounding, which will not understand his beliefs. But the phi-losopher will feel the responsibility for his peers even if it will weigh heavily on him to return to an ignorant environment. But the gift of having been able to seen the divine will be rewarding enough.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

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An Accident, One Region Lost Forever

Pripyat, the ghost town

Peter PölzleithnerListen guys, right now I want you to sit back, make yourself comfortable, put your cup of coffee away and ima-gine. However do not imagine all the people – save that for the closing cere-mony – imagine a three-eyed fish and five-legged wolves running around in the woods. What sounds like a scene right out of a bad horror movie, actual-ly constitutes a very sad reality. These extraordinary kinds of animals do exist in real life and unfortunately it has been one of the negative side effects of science, which led to the develop-ment of these creatures. But first of all you will be given a quick history lesson.

Once upon a time, 27 years ago the world had to witness one of the most devastating events in all of human his-tory. On April 26th 1986 in Soviet Rus-sia, the main reactor of the nuclear power plant Chernobyl exploded, an accident with terrible consequences. The entire area surrounding the power plant reached an unimaginable level of radiation. A lot of radioactive par-ticles were also spread throughout other parts of Western Europe and So-viet Russia. Even today an area equal to the size of Great Britain is still expe-riencing radioactive fallout. Additional-ly it was scientifically proven that the woods next to the reactor are the most radioactive places on earth. In other

words: if you enter this forest, you have a bad time.31 immediate recorded deaths (ac-cording to official Soviet sources, which I would not consider as being the most reliable source), countless cases of cancer as well as other severe illnesses and the destruction of an entire region were just some of the recorded short-term effects. Quickly the entire area around the blown up radiator was eva-cuated and declared as the Cherno-byl exclusive zone. Still today Pripyat, the city where the power plant was located, has theoretically zero inhabi-tants and it totally resembles a ghost town. However although the humans were evacuated, the animals living in the woods were left behind.

Scientists have discovered that the animals living in the woods next to Pripyat have been strongly affected by the radiation in the form of genetic mutations. Three-eyed fishes and tu-mor carrying birds are just a few of the creatures, which have now occupied this region. Adding up to this incredibly high level of insanity, people have ac-tually traveled to the radioactive region to hunt these unconventional animals; which is only another confirmation of how stupid mankind actually is.Everybody promoting the idea of a world without nuclear power in light of

our current circumstances might not completely be aware of the Human needs regarding power supply. Howe-ver the fact that a region of Great Bri-tain s size can not be used for any pur-pose whatsoever following a nuclear accident and is currently only serving as the natural environment for mutant animals basically speaks for itself.The radioactive beasts of Chernobyl should be incentive enough to res-tructure our energy policy and all the motivation in the world to develop al-ternatives as far as energy supply is concerned. Because in case three-eyed fishes do not sufficiently prove the high factor of danger associated with a nuclear accident, I honestly have no idea what you are looking for. And yes, now you are indeed allowed to take your little coffee back.

PS: During this accident the only people, who kept themselves unaf-fected by the radiation, were the city s firefighters in charge. Their secret was simple: Getting completely drunk. Wi-thout any joking involved, it has been scientifically proven that a high level of intoxication keeps the human body practically immune to radioactive par-ticles. However this excuse is absolutely not valid for your next hangover, so do not even think about using it.

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The Milgram ExperimentOnur Can Uçarer

Although the history of psychology is very deep, it was in 1879 when psychology was firstly referred to as a self-conscious field of medicine. So, this is a rather new field comparing to branches like ana-tomy or pharmacology. Psychologists’ main way of making progress is conduc-ting experiments on living beings and this gives them fast and reliable results. This is the reason that there have been huge developments in the science of psychology. These experiments are ge-nerally very useful and are conducted under very strict regulations. Still, there are some unethical experiments in the past, which gave us very shocking results.

The most famous and also interesting experiment is called the Milgram Expe-riment. This experiment began in July 1961 in the Yale University. The subjects were paid small amounts of money to contribute to a ‘memory study’. There were three individuals involved in this experiment; an experimenter who has an authoritative role, a teacher asked to obey the orders of experimenter and a learner. The experimenter and the lear-ner were part of the Milgram’s team and the teacher was found from the area near the University. When the experiment began, the teacher and the learner were separated into two different rooms and could not see each other. The tea-cher was connected to the learner with a telephone and asked him questions. If he gave wrong answers, the teacher was asked by the experimenter to give the learner an electric shock. The dose of the shock would increase after each wrong answer the learner gives. If the learner gave the right answer, the tea-cher would ask the next question.

A vital point in this experiment was that the experimenter was always wearing a white lab coat. That emphasized the

fact that the experimenter was a trained medical person who knew what to do. That is why many of the subjects trusted him and saw him as an authority figure. It was all about uniformity. You trust a person more who wears the appropriate uniform.

The teachers’ thought that, after each wrong answer, the learner would get real shocks but in reality, they weren’t getting shocked at all, the learners were all acting the part. The aim of this expe-riment was to see if the teachers would listen to the orders of experimenter and how much further they would go while knowing that the learners were suffering. If they intended to stop, the experimen-ter would tell that he must go on and that this is all part of a well-prepared ex-periment. But if the teacher would have insisted on not continuing and would have stopped the experiment, the ex-perimenter would have let him go after the fifth warning.

Before the experiment, Milgram conduc-ted a poll consisting of Yale professors and asked 100 participants, how many of them would never stop, even if the

learner would suffer by reaching the hi-ghest voltage,which is 450 volts.Mostof the professors thought that only 3% of the participants would go on until 450volts. However, the results were shocking. 65%oftheteachersobeyedtheexpe-rimenters until the end and inflicted the full-shock. Although most of them hesi-tated at some point, these people all continued. The people stopping were directly the ones to leave the experi-ment area, without inquiring about the health of the learner.

This experiment has shown us how people obey the authorities without the consideration of the consequences. It is also a good way to understand the events happened in the past such as the massacres conducted by the Na-zis. The officers of the army thought that they must obey the orders, which has led to deaths of millions of people. We can learn a lesson from this experiment and the historical incidents in order to prevent such dreadful results in the fu-ture.

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Freedom Of SpeechOnur Can Uçarer

”EvEryonE has thE right to frEEdom of opinion and ExprEssion; this right in-cludEs frEEdom to hold opinions without intErfErEncE and to sEEk, rEcEivE and im-part information and idEas through any mEdia and rEgardlEss of frontiErs”

The description of freedom of expres-sion is one of the most controversial arguments in the world. Every country has a different sight and definition of the freedom of expres-sion, however, the Universal Declara-tion of Human Rights, which is widely ac-cepted throughout the world, defines it as ”Everyone has the right to freedom

of opinion and ex-pression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions wi-thout interference and to seek, receive and impart infor-mation and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. The ques-tion about the limita-tion of this freedom has been rapidly ri-sing in the last years because of the inci-dents such as publi-

cation of classified government data or humiliation of other people’s beliefs. Also, in this techno-logy age, the ideas can spread very fast with the help of the media and Internet. If the ideas you have are ‘dangerous’ or ‘wrong’ for your go-vernment, they take this as a threat to the national secu-rity and find ways to stop these ideas

to spread, thus, vio-late the freedom of speech. But the out-lines of the freedom of speech are really complex to mark out. As recent exa-mples on the dis-cussions on limita-tion of this freedom, we can look at the controversial situa-tions, such as Wiki-Leaks and Anti-Islam movies.

Wikileaks website launched in 2006 and since than, it has been publishing classified information to the public. These documents sometimes show the mistakes of military officers or expose behind-doors secret agreements between governments or disclose the lies of the governments to their own citizens. Many believe that if the classified docu-ments get published, there can be national secu-rity issues while many other people believe that the governments should be 100% transparent on every affair. Although transparency is a very im-portant attribute of a government, the national security issues should not be forgotten, because citizens wellbeing is the one of the most important things that the governments should maintain.

wikilEaks anti-islam

Islamophobia and hatred against the Muslim wor-ld has increased especially after the 9/11 attacks. In 2006, the publication of insulting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed in a Danish newspaper drew a lot of reaction by the Muslim community. This made many Muslims go on the streets and protest these caricatures. When an American film-maker produced a film in which Mohammed was insulted in the summer of 2012, Muslims reacted much stronger, even leading to the killing of the US ambassador to Libya. Is insulting a person who is important for a certain community in the range of freedom of expression? This is hard to answer but it is obvious that being humiliated does not justify killing another person.

As the people have lots of different ideas about this issue, the limitation of the freedom of speech still remains as a big problem for European community, as well as the whole world. The solution of this issue is an important test for the European democracy, that’s why the measurements that will be taken should be considered carefully.

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Like A Splinter In Your MindVeronika Datzer

“The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” The Matrix is a 1999 published Ameri-can Science Fiction film by the Wachowski brothers. It is an artwork that has started many controversial debates whether the future depicted within the film is likely or not. The software programmer Thomas Anderson, known as the hacker Neo, receives a call by the mysterious Mor-pheus which approves his belief that something about the world is badly wrong. He explains that in fact, the year is already 2199 and the ma-chines, built by humans, en-slaved mankind, which now only exist to provide energy. These human beings are connected to the Matrix, a

simulated world telling them that the year is 1999.Morpheus and the fellow in-surgents are unplugged and fight against the system. As soon as Neo is unplugged as well, he elaborates that, among the rebels, Neo is the crucial figure because he might be the messiah who was predicted to save humanity. Meanwhile the traitor Cypher has made a deal with the re-bels enemies, Agent Smith. Morpheus is taken prisoner and drugged, in order to tell the secret entry codes of the city of Zion, the last human city on earth. Neo however is plugged into the Matrix and saves Morpheus. His com-panions can escape but Neo is trapped in the Matrix facing Agent Smith. On his way out Neo gets shot. He dies but is resurrected and destroys Agent Smith by flying into him. Already we are depending on Artificial Intelligence (AI) more than we realise, and needless to say, with further

technological evolution will come further obedience. This dependency is not only physical, medical or elec-tronic, it is mainly psycho-logical and the progress already started: These days we feel uncertain when leaving the house without a mobile phone because we think that we might miss out on something. Humanity gradually loses the ability to talk to people in person ins-tead of through the Internet, providing us with other ad-dictions such as compulsive gambling or the need to up-date social networks hourly. However, with our techno-logy also our ability to mo-del the world improves. With technological advances come social progresses as humanity is able to adopt to new circumstances. So far the computer is a finite-state machine which cannot per-fectly represent an infinite, diverse world. Just as Goo-gle Chief executive Eric Sch-midt wants to realise a smart search engine which will be

acquire data and be able to ask questions such as “What should I do today”, the com-puter will be able to model the human brain – but never a perfect simulation of the world.Indeed, our brains cannot create an illusion of an al-ternative reality that is strong enough to fully deceive us. Although dreams reflect upon our life and mental state and have a deep meaning,we cannot interact within the stage. We can-not smell, move or touch something freely, dreaming means being conducted, just like being an actor.The Matrix appeals with scientific and philosophical brilliance but after all, it is simply a motion picture with an fascinating fictional story behind it – let us be glad that there is no world pulled over our eyes to blind us from the truth. Or is there?

16

The Science Behind HuggingTuusa Eriksson

wE nEEd 4 hugs a day for survival. wE nEEd 8 hugs a day for maintEnancE. wE nEEd 12 hugs a day for growth—vir-ginia satir, family thErapist

Hugging seems like a completely natu-ral part of human life. We all know that a simple embrace is a good way of expressing love, affection, happiness, sympathy or friendship. But when you think about it; why do we actually go around wrapping our arms around other people? Even if it may be hard to believe, there is actual science behind this strange human custom.Hugging makes you happy. The ave-rage hug lasts only three seconds, but a good hug should last for at least 20 seconds, for you to really feel the full ef-fect. These hugs increase the oxytocin level in our bodies making us happier and more relaxed. Oxytocin is known as the “love drug” and increased levels of it result in a lowering of blood pres-sure, decreased levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) and the disappea-rance of other stress related symptoms. The physical squishing-effect of a hug relaxes the muscles and relieves ten-sion, much like the after-effect of mas-sages. So we become happier, more

content, healthier and more relaxed, all in 20 seconds. But even if you don’t have anyone to hug at your moment of sadness, that doesn’t mean that you can’t join in on the oxytocin rush. There are reports that even hugging yourself can reduce pain and make you feel better.

It is said that hugging is universal me-dicine for a reason. Applying pressure on large areas of the body relaxes your nervous system and slows down your heart rate. If someone has an anxiety attack, just holding them is the best thing you can do to help. Hugs are ac-tually used to calm down people with autism.Despite the universal benefits of hug-ging, there seem to be some people who are keener on hugging than others. All humans have an oxytocin receptor gene, which is responsible for the way that we interact socially. The oxytocin receptor gene has two ver-sions; an «A» variant and a «G» variant.

You could have two as or an A and G, and in both cases we all still have some ambivalence when it came to social situations. If you had two Gs in your genetic makeup, you’d be so full of empathy; you would be essentially somewhat hardwired to pass the love around. There is also a big difference between men and women when it comes to hugging. Men produce 10 times the amount of testosterone than women do, which is fine, except that testosterone inhibits oxytocin. I guess we’ve all witnessed some version the bro hug. The sad part is that our oxyto-cin-depleted friends are the ones who need the 20-second hug the most, and I’m afraid that the bro hug doesn’t quite cut it.So, the next time you see a friend with increased cortisol production, give them a nice long 20-second hug. Es-pecially if they are men.

17

GrazingaVeronika Datzer

The Big Bang Theory, the sitcom by brainchild Chu-ck Lorre, is one of the most popular series on air these days. It centers a group of highly intelligent, but so-cially awkward nerds and their daily life experiences with the real world. Leonard Hofstadter, (IQ 173), Sheldon Cooper (IQ 187), Howard Wollowitz and Raj Koothrap-pali live their lives all per-vaded by their job and their favorite hobby: Science. Thus, sitcom includes a huge amount of scientific references, experiments and thesis. But are these correctly displayed?A major part within the show is taken over from science. Since all characters are employed at the California Institute for Technology, re-searching in different areas, every episode includes

many hints. Even their few romantic experiences are influenced by science; for instance, Leonard breaks up with his girlfriend Leslie when siding with Sheldon in a de-bate regarding the String Theory.The producers originally had planned to give the charac-ter of Sheldon Cooper a real problem, which he would gradually solve throughout the season. However, this idea was not enforced since as a sitcom the Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady wanted the single episodes to be rather independent. Behind every smart TV show, there are technical coordi-nators, adviser and resear-cher who make sure the terms are right. As an actual professor for physics and as-tronomy at the University of California, David Saltzberg

has been helping to deve-lop the script and proof the scientific accuracy. Saltz-berg, 44, has a bachelor’s in physics from Princeton University, where he worked on the Cyclotron. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the Uni-versity of Chicago and did his post-doc at CERN, the European nuclear research center.Although scientists say that the series is scientifical-ly correct, the audience is put off by it. Many see the stereotyping of the shallow blonde wannabe-actress and cheesecake factory employee Penny as well the nerdy, socially awkward scientists as a regress in science. However, there has also been positive feedback, with several scientists apprecia-ting the humorous way the

scholars are depicted. Many have already expressed their wish to be a guest within the series. In fact, the Nobel lau-reate George Smoot of the University of California, Ber-keley, and the NPR Science Friday host Ira Flatow have appeared on the show.Einstein once said: “Only two things are infinite, the uni-verse and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” No matter what opi-nion one might have on this TV show, the Big Bang Theory has helped to make scienti-fic discoveries popular and famous. Terms such as the Doppler effect or Schrödin-ger’s cat are known to all of us and that makes it va-luable to the science within society.

18

Independent ?R. Tamer Ozgen

“The EYP is a non-partisan and independent educational project which is tailored specifically to the needs of the young European citizen”. With this being the official definition of the EYP, a discussion concerning the political stand and sovereignty of the EYP Organisation has started two weeks ago and is still going on in the network of the European Youth Parliament. Controversies are rising one by one; “Are we as sovereign as we think we are?” is the question everyone in EYP is trying to find an answer for. It is a known fact the amount of sessions being organised by the National Committees (NCs) are constantly growing at the same time with the expectations from the sessions. In 2013, it has become almost essential for every session to have a media team, night activities and a high academic level which causes the session budget to rise to a high level. In fact, it is impossible to organise a proper session which has only a day of Teambuilding, a day of Committee Work andadayofGeneralAssembly,belowabudgetof5000Euros. Therefore, the sponsors play an indispensable role in order to fulfil the high demands of the participants. This was the exact point that lead to the outburst of this argument. The moment you get a sponsorship either from an indivi-dual or an organisation, these parties request for having a speech at the Opening Ceremony, a chance to observe how the session is going on, and having their logos on the back page of the issues, just like the one you’re holding at the moment. The International Session in Munich, organised by EYP Germany, was one of the closest examples of the situation, since one of the sponsors held a speech of 20 mi-nutes in the middle of the General Assembly. Furthermore, RWI foundation asked for paying a visit to three International Forums being organised by EYP Turkey, EYP the Netherlands and EYP Germany respectively, after sponsoring a hundred thousand euros to those session. Even though it seems like

a little request in return of a sponsorship and might be easily justified, it is a direct intervention to the right of making deci-sions independently of EYP boards. To continue, although it is understandable for newly recognised National Committees like those in Armenia and Denmark who have a big need for fundraising, it doesn’t speak in their favour when they decide about whether it is right or not to exchange sovereignty for the future of these new comers. Apart from the money issues the NCs have been facing, there is the socio-political attitude of the National Com-mittees, standing in the middle of the discussion. For exa-mple, the mail sent to the alumni by the board of EYP Turkey in order to raise awareness about the Gezi Park protests was hotly discussed among the NCs. While some NCs like EYP Poland stated their official support for the protests, the ma-jority preferred to stand none-sided and contended only by forwarding the mail to their members. With examples can be multiplied, I believe the closest example would be the session bracelets distributed at European Youth Forum in Graz, which had a message supporting the membership of Croatia to the EYP and were actually stating against the non-partisan stand of EYP. The thing is, although the EYP International keeps its non-par-tisan and independent position in most of the cases, the small parts of it which are NCs usually act in a way that can be seen against the official definition of our organisation. I understand the need for money and awareness for the stability of the organisation but at the same time, I think it should be the priority of the alumni to keep the independen-cy and the non-political stand of the organisation while ta-king any actions with other parties. For the unity of internatio-nal members of EYP, every single issue should be thoroughly considered and then be decided on.

10

Always Look On The Bright SideManon Schürch

“This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. This is an Ex-parrot.” Many Py-thon fans, such as myself mi-ght just at this moment feel their facial muscles moving and the biggest grin ever coming up. This extract was taken from probably the wor-ld’s most famous comedy sketch; the “Dead Parrot” by the absolutely brilliant Monty Python. In this sketch a rather odd and stiff man comes into a pet shop with a dead parrot he just bought half an hour ago. It is quite obvious that the parrot is dead but the shop owner constantly refuses to see that. It turns into quite a spectacle when the man pulls out all kind of arguments why this parrot should be dead and then even uses all kinds of syno-nyms for death.Monty Python was a come-dy group from Great Britain established back in 1969. It consisted of six still rather unknown male comedians; five of them hailing from the Universities of Oxford and

Cambridge. They started writing several sketches to-gether when finally in Oc-tober 1969 their television series called Monty Python’s Flying Circus made them famous. The people loved them and still do because of their really dark and obscure humor. They didn’t shy away of addressing political rele-vant topics such as for exa-mple playing a sketch where Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Von Ribbentrop were portrayed as tourists in a bed and breakfast in England. The series became a huge success not only in Great Bri-tain.Next to few other movies, the most controversial movie they probably ever made was back in 1979, when they did a parody movie on the life of Jesus called “Life Of Brian”. The movie quickly reached a high score in the box office because of its very dark humor and highly satirical topics on religious and social subjects such as for example the crucifixion of Jesus, the following of a

Messiah and stoning. At the same time it parodies bibli-cal films of the last centuries. The protagonist is a young man called Brian who was at his birth first mistaken for Jesus, as he was also born in a stable just next to Je-sus. The three kings first visit him instead of Jesus and are outraged when they discover that he is not him. Brian, in the course of his life, is always again mistaken for the Messiah; believers who think he’s holy chase him. From this aspect of the movie the still very famous quote is being used today that was made by Brian’s mother, also played by a Monty Python member; “He’s Not The Messiah! He’s A Very Naughty Boy.”, as well as the even more famous song: “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life”, where all the people hanging on a cross at the end of the mo-vie sing together this lovely song. Because of this rather controversial outlook on reli-gious beliefs, the movie was banned in several conserva-

tive American states, as well as in some places in Great Britain. Conservative Christian viewers described the mo-vie as extremely outrageous and impudent to their Chris-tian beliefs. Why? Because the character of Brian sup-posingly is a mockery of Je-sus’ life and that the movie is an outburst of blasphemy. In the end, all that Monty Python did was made the whole world laugh. They wanted everyone to take a critical view and make up their own mind about life. “Life Of Brian” was by no means a mockery of religion but a sarcastic look on every religious follower. That is why I will always be the greatest admirer of these six abso-lutely brilliant comedians. I strongly encourage each and every one of you to watch “Life Of Brian”, make up your own mind and laugh with me. I strongly suggest you take their advice per-sonally: Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life!