(A)

If you stand in what will be the longest and deepest railway tunnel in the world – the new Gotthard Base Tunnel under the Swiss Alps – you feel a current of air on your cheek and a noise in your ears. Look down the dark hole into the distant future, and, for a moment, you think a train is coming. But the thought does not last long; after all, with trains scheduled to rocket through at 240 km/h, how could it?

(B)

In fact, you won’t be able to catch a train through the tunnel for another three-and-ahalf years. “That sound is the air conditioning,” my guide said. “Swiss labour law says that the temperature must not exceed 28 degrees. Without the air conditioning, it would be as hot as 45 degrees down here.”

(C)

Once work on the 56-kilometre tunnel is complete, you will be able to speed in airconditioned comfort from Zürich to Milan in just 2 hours 50 minutes – a saving of 50 minutes on the current travel time. Along the way, you can enjoy the novelty of travelling 2,400 vertical metres below the surface of the earth – at double motorway speed limits.

(D)

For now you can join a group tour of the tunnels. These are organised by the visitor centres, where you can see a model of the machine that did most of the work: a mechanical mole nearly 460 metres long, weighing more than 300 tons, and using as much electricity as 4,000 family homes. In good conditions, it chewed through more than 38 metres of rock a day.

(E)

The tunnelling machines finished their work in March 2011, but engineers still have to complete installation of the track, power supply, and telecommunications equipment. The first trains are expected to thunder through towards the end of 2016 – 20 years after engineers dug the first shafts, and a year ahead of schedule.

Anthropologist Jane Goodall was born on April 3, 1934 in London, England. Her father was a businessman and her mother an author. Growing up, Jane loved animals. She dreamt of someday going to Africa in order to see some of her favourite animals in the wild. She particularly liked chimpanzees. One of her favourite toys as a child was a toy chimpanzee, which she loved to play with.

Jane spent her late teens and early twenties saving money to go to Africa. She worked in various jobs, including as a secretary and a waitress. When she was 23, Jane finally had enough money to visit a friend who lived on a farm in Kenya.

Jane fell in love with Africa and decided to stay. She met British archaeologist Louis Leakey, who offered her a job studying chimpanzees. Jane was so excited. She moved to the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania and began to observe the chimpanzees.

When Jane began studying chimpanzees in 1960 she had no academic training or education. This may have actually helped her as she had her own unique way of observing and recording the chimpanzees’ actions and behaviour. Jane spent the next forty years of her life studying chimpanzees. She discovered many new and interesting things about the animals.

When Goodall first began studying chimpanzees she gave each chimp she observed a name. The standard scientific way of studying animals at the time was to assign each animal a number, but Jane was different. She gave the chimps unique names that reflected their appearance or personality. For example, she named the chimpanzee which first approached her David Greybeard because he had a grey chin. Other names included Gigi, Mr. McGregor, Goliath, Flo, and Frodo.