The Swiss Connection SWI swissinfo.ch

Construction workers got a surprise recently while laying a pipeline underneath Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland. On the lake floor they found the traces of a prehistoric village! This finally confirmed a long-standing theory among archaeologists, who believed that people had lived in the area thousands of years ago.
But why were the traces of their home so deep within the lake? Across Switzerland there are about 500 pile dwelling sites, but these are normally found along the shorelines of lakes. And how do archaeologists manage to unravel prehistoric findings underwater? On this episode of The Swiss Connection podcast, we take a boat ride to get to the bottom of this mystery. While onboard, we meet a team of international experts and learn about an unusual technique using sound to map the depths of a lake.

In this second part of our two-part series on assisted suicide, SWI reporter Kaoru Uda tells host Susan Misicka what it was like to accompany two Japanese patients who came to Switzerland to die.

Every year, over 1,000 seriously ill people end their lives in Switzerland with the help of suicide assistants. 
 
 Assisted suicide is legal in several countries, including Switzerland, Canada and the Netherlands. A handful of other countries – like Germany and Colombia – are working out the legal and practical details.
Some people even travel great distances to die in Switzerland because assisted suicide is illegal where they live. For example, a 104-year-old Australian man made the trip in 2018.
One of the people who helped him was Erika Preisig, a Swiss doctor and the founder of Life Circle, which operates in Basel in the northern part of the country. She’s passionate in her belief that people should have the right to die. She’s even been charged with -- and later acquitted of -- murder. 
Long before she started doing assisted suicide, Preisig worked in palliative care. Then her father had a stroke and threatened to throw himself in front of a train. Preisig decided to help him find another way, as she was telling SWI swissinfo.ch reporter Jessica Dacey.
This episode is the first of a two-part series on the topic. In the next episode, we’ll hear the stories of two seriously ill Japanese patients who came to Basel in 2021. 

Now that Switzerland has approved marriage for all, host Susan Misicka talks with some couples who explain why it's important to them. We also hear from opponents of Swiss legislation granting same-sex couples the right to marry.

In this encore episode of The Swiss Connection, we visit Swiss century-old pen and pencil maker Caran d'Ache. Podcast host Susan Misicka takes a tour of the factory and feels a bit silly when Caran d’Ache President Carole Hubscher sees her hasty choice of writing instrument.

Swiss designers gave us the big-name Helvetica and Frutiger typefaces in the 20th century. Now a modern-day designer from Basel is collaborating on a new font that we might soon be seeing a lot more of.  Nina Stoessinger of Frere-Jones Type in Brooklyn talks about inspiration and challenges.