Despite the financial crisis, economics is a genuine success story, according to American economist, Daniel Hamermesh. An interview on the reliability of economic theories, their usefulness in everyday life and the fun of teaching and blogging. 

Wolfgang Herrmann, President of TU München (TUM), talks about appointment policies, envy among professors – and the significance of Italian food. 

What does Germany have to do to attract top-flight researchers? And how can the private sector get involved? A discussion with Lorraine Daston, a director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Arend Oetker, President of the Stifterverband, and Helmut Schwarz, President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. 

Astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch is sure that we are not alone in the universe. A conversation about life on Mars and intelligent aliens. 

Chemist Joachim Sauer is one of the researchers from East Germany who was successful both before and after the Wende. A discussion about the achievements and injustices of reunification and about research careers between conformism and creative resistance. 

Only about one in eight top positions in German research was held by a woman in 2007, relegating Germany to the bottom of the league Europe-wide. A conversation with Chemist Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus about causes and remedies. 

Sometimes the future lies in the past. Historian Alexander Geppert talks about the role of utopias and nostalgia in space travel. 

A discussion with the chemist Helmut Schwarz, President of the Humboldt Foundation, on visions for chemistry.

A bee’s brain is about ten thousand times smaller than that of a human being and still accomplishes amazing things. The Australian bee researcher Adrian Dyer investigates how bees learn complex tasks and can even recognise human faces. The processes going on in the bee’s brain could become the model for computer systems for facial recognition, at airports for example.

Not all that long ago, climate admonishers like Al Gore in the USA were thought of as incorrigible pessimists. Since then, Gore has been awarded an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize, and everyone is talking about climate change in the States, too. Engineering scientist and museum expert, Charles Trautmann, talks about the reasons for the rapid shift in public opinion, how the work of science museums has contributed to it and the differences between museum culture in America and Europe.

Nigerian linguist, Bassey Antia, and German economist, Michael Kirk, talk about learning from one another, northsouth scientific fair play, and projects that really keep their promise of sustainability.

With his prognoses on international politics he has become one of the most influential authors in the United States. The British historian, Paul Kennedy, from Yale, is considered to have been one of the brains behind the Clinton era. Thoughts on India and China as future super powers, the likelihood of military conflicts, the poker-player Vladimir Putin and the unrecognised strengths of the Europeans.

Why an astrophysicist can make a good expert on Goethe. German scholar Walter Hinderer talks about his exchange with natural scientists and the self-image of his discipline at Ivy League University Princeton.

There is now a general consensus on what has long been a matter of hot debate: global climate change is a reality. Humboldt Research Award Winner Holm Tiessen is director of a research institute in Brazil that deals with the international repercussions of rising temperatures. In this interview, he talks about the quest for alternative fuels, Europe's obligation to Brazil, and why it took the world so long to realise that it really is getting warmer.

Kosmos talked to the Science Council's Secretary- General Wedig von Heyden about rampant evaluation fever, dreams of a German Harvard and the future of academic quality control.

Sociologist Peter Weingart on politicians' longing to get things straight, on reports disappearing in drawers, and on academics having a go at being politicians.

Research on stem cells in the USA is under pressure. While the patients are expecting to benefit from effective therapies in the near future, conservative politicians want severe restrictions imposed on research. Stem cell researcher David Anderson on his discipline, which has turned into a political issue.

As a resistance fighter against the Apartheid regime, he was a prisoner on Robben Island, together with Nelson Mandela. Today, educationalist Neville Alexander is regarded as one of South Africa's most important intellectuals and education experts. Kosmos talked to him about the links between science and politics and the sort of education system South Africa needs in order to compete in science internationally.

In Japanese literature, whether it be classic poetry or today's light reading for people on the underground, pictures play an important role. Kosmos talked to German language and literature scholar Teruaki Takahashi about Japanese traditions, European influence and Japan's special liking for comics.

Mutual concepts of the enemy have not only started to poison the relations between the Western and the Islamic world since the 11th September 2001. Tit-fortat disparagement can draw on tradition. Kosmos talked to art historian Lucy-Anne Hunt about the renaissance of the crusader image and its historical roots.

Imaging methods have revolutionised brain research and turned it into a topic of public debate. Kosmos talked to neurologist Hans-Jochen Heinze about why the colourful pictures of the brain are so suggestive, what new therapies they can pave the way to and how brain research could also help the healthy in future.

Originally, historian Sven Beckert had only intended to study at New York's Columbia University and then return to Germany. But one year turned into eighteen. Now however, as a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award Winner, Beckert is spending a longer period in Germany for the first time again. Kosmos talked to him about the advantages of American universities, what frustrates German doctoral candidates and his newly discovered enthusiasm about living in Europe.

The Chilean political scholar Carlos Huneeus was the first Ambassador of the Aylwin administration in Germany. Kosmos talked to him about his moving between politics and science.

Poland is terra incognita to most West European academics. Irena Lipowicz thinks this ought to change. The Ambassador for German-Polish Relations speaks about her country's image in Europe, the tough measures required during the run-up to accession to the EU and jokes that are no longer funny for young Poles.

Vilmos Agel is one of the few foreign professors of German language and literature in Germany. Here, he tells Kosmos about his love of the German language, his astonishment at German tourists speaking English and the myth of the language's demise.