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Germany

Sixteen-Year-Old German Wunderkind Takes University By Storm – As Professor

By all accounts, Carina Lämmle is the youngest college lecturer in Germany. She also happens to teach a discipline so advanced, few have ever heard of it, and most can barely pronounce it. Still, she may study something else when it's time to ret

16-year-old university professor Carina Lämmle
16-year-old university professor Carina Lämmle
Roman Deininger

BIBERACH - Carina Lämmle calls it "a little bit unfair..." Teaching at the University of Applied Sciences in Biberach, she is not able to drive herself to school, like most of her own students do.

At 16, she is thought to be the youngest lecturer in Germany. And no, she can't even get into the local disco in this southern German college town.

On campus, she's taken for a student. But that, she believes, may be due to the fact that she looks a little older than she is. Lämmle, in fact, is still in high school. She's an 11th grader at Biberach's Pestalozzi Gymnasium. It will be another year-and-a-half before she graduates.

On the day Lämmle gave her first lecture, the auditorium was full. There were the soon-to-graduate bachelor of science students– in their seventh semester of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology -- who all had to be there. But fellow teachers were also out in force, there to see for themselves if it was true what Professor Chrystelle Mavoungou had said about Lämmle: this teenager was a "natural-born scientist," who not only knew her subject but also possessed a gift for teaching.

Mavoungou says it's not just just Lämmle's academic gifts that make her such a good teacher. "Ms Lämmle is also somebody who can keep unruly students under control."

Balancing biotech with gymnastics and piano lessons

Lämmle, who hails from the Upper Swabia region of Germany, is almost certainly the youngest college professor in Germany. She was interested in biology, physics and chemistry from the start at high school, but not to the detriment of other activities – gymnastics, tennis and piano playing are also important to her.

She has won various prizes in academic competitions and eventually earned a grant to the Student Research Center in Bad Saulgau, which is where she discovered her passion for a subject many find hard to even pronounce correctly: Massenspektrometrie, or mass spectrometry. Even fewer know the meaning of the discipline: a way of measuring the mass-to-charge ratio of charged particles.

Anybody who doubts Lämmle's pedagogical talents should ask her to describe a mass spectrometer. "Very simply put, it's a big box that makes a lot of noise when you turn it on and that enables you to break chemical substances down to their individual components."

It all began on a tour she was taking of the university in Biberach, when Lämmle noticed that the mass spectrometer on hand was silent. "It's not good for the vacuum pump to leave it off for long periods of time," she told the dean, adding that "in general" you couldn't let a device that costs 500,000 euros just sit there gathering dust. The dean told her that the staff member who'd been using the device had left the university, and for months they'd been looking in vain for a qualified replacement. One thing led to another and Lämmle finally sat down for an interview with Professor Mavoungou, who says she was open-mouthed the whole time she was listening to Lämmle.

Lämmle says she definitely wants to continue working in Mavoungou's department until she graduates from high school. She also says she doesn't yet know what she wants to study at university: "I'm interested in a lot of things."

Says Mavoungou: "I will do everything in my power to keep promoting her."

Read the original article in German

Photo - Pestalozzi Gymnasium Biberach

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

A Profound And Simple Reason That Negotiations Are Not An Option For Ukraine

The escalation of war in the Middle East and the stagnation of the Ukrainian counteroffensive have left many leaders in the West, who once supported Ukraine unequivocally, to look toward ceasefire talks with Russia. For Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, Piotr Andrusieczko argues that Ukraine simply cannot afford this.

Photo of Ukrainian soldiers in winter gear, marching behind a tank in a snowy landscape

Ukrainian soldiers ploughing through the snow on the frontlines

Volodymyr Zelensky's official Facebook account
Piotr Andrusieczko

-Analysis-

KYIVUkraine is fighting for its very existence, and the war will not end soon. What should be done in the face of this reality? How can Kyiv regain its advantage on the front lines?

It's hard to deny that pessimism has been spreading among supporters of the Ukrainian cause, with some even predicting ultimate defeat for Kyiv. It's difficult to agree with this, considering how this war began and what was at stake. Yes, Ukraine has not won yet, but Ukrainians have no choice for now but to continue fighting.

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These assessments are the result of statements by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and an interview with him in the British weekly The Economist, where the General analyzes the causes of failures on the front, notes the transition of the war to the positional phase, and, critically, evaluates the prospects and possibilities of breaking the deadlock.

Earlier, an article appeared in the American weekly TIME analyzing the challenges facing President Volodymyr Zelensky. His responses indicate that he is disappointed with the attitude of Western partners, and at the same time remains so determined that, somewhat lying to himself, he unequivocally believes in victory.

Combined, these two publications sparked discussions about the future course of the conflict and whether Ukraine can win at all.

Some people outright predict that what has been known from the beginning will happen: Russia will ultimately win, and Ukraine has already failed.

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