March 9, 2010

The first doctoral degree in midwifery was awarded last week by the University of Basel. Forty one year old Elisabeth Kurth investigated the reasons why some babies cry excessively. Ms. Kurth analyzed data from nearly eight thousand subjects.

Her work demonstrates causalities between exhaustion levels of new mothers and incidence of crying babies. Mothers suffering from physical discomfort, lack of social interaction, and depression have babies who cry more. Ms. Kurth recommends societal tools to allow women to recover adequately from childbirth.

Source: 20 Minuten
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The lyrics to Fasnacht songs will be reviewed before performers can sing them next year. The change was made when members of the committee overseeing Fasnacht were outraged by four verses of a song sung by the Basel comedians Almi & Salvi.

Most committee members are skeptical of efforts to censure songs outright, but performers will be given feedback about verses the committee feels are below the belt. In previous years, controversial verses were often dropped at the request of the committee during fasnacht.

Source: bazonline
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Basel debuted its first underground garbage collection bins last week. The city sanitation department launched a pilot project with six subterranean bins in the Erlenmatt development.

Underground collection has several advantages over curbside collection, according to the project manager. Plus points include greater ease of collection, less residual street garbage and less visual mess. The lids of the new bins are difficult to open, a precaution after a young boy fell down a similar chute three years ago in Zürich.

Source: 20 Minuten
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The Landhof will stay green. Plans to renovate the FCB's old playing field and put up apartment buildings were rejected by a wide margin in a referendum on Sunday. Supporters of the plan wanted to use the open space for more low cost housing while leaving space for a playing field.

Opponents want the area to be fixed up but kept as a large park within the city. They argued that there were other places to build low cost housing, but very few large green areas left in the city.

Source: bazonline
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Basel city granted a building permit for the expansion of the exhibition center after protests by opponents were withdrawn last week. A new building by local architects Herzog & De Meuron was scaled down from an initial design but will still cost over four hundred million swiss francs.

Construction will begin next year and run through 2013. All trade shows will continue to be held as scheduled. The AVO session concert series will be moving to a new venue.

Source: 20 Minuten
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Monday evening at horse riding lessons in Aesch, an eight year old girl fell from the saddle and hit her head against an aluminum post. She was wearing a helmut, but was unconscious on the ground after the fall. A rescue helicopter flew in and took the girl to the hospital.

Source: bazonline
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High school students in Northwestern Switzerland will have more freedom of school choice. School administrators in basel city, baselland, Aargau and Solothurn passed sweeping reforms last week to permit cross-cantonal school attendance as of 2014. Currently school choice for city high schoolers is restricted to basel city.

Schools hope to encourage consistent quality of education and do not expect a run on allegedly better institutions. Project manager Werner Baumann believes most teenagers are unlikely to switch schools, according to a report in the basler zeitung.

Source: basler zeitung
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Labor inspectors in Baselland found three czech workers living on the construction site of a house last week, according to the Basler Zeitung. The men could speak almost no German and had were sleeping on mattresses in house's frame and cooking on a grill in the yard.

A construction firm had hired the three men to work in the region, but had not provided them with a place to live as required. Inspectors say they are coming across more and more such cases.

Source: basler zeitung
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