The Swiss Are Learning Klingon, Star Trek Voyager Is Teaching Ethics And More Great Links

Once again, Star Trek is intersecting with education. This week brings news that Switzerland’s largest adult education institution (Migros Club School) has begun offering in-person classes in Klingon, and they are a hit. USA Today reports:

The classes, which started in May in several Swiss cities, have been very popular – or as the Klingons would say, “Quapla.”

“We are overwhelmed by the interest in these courses. It exceeded all our expectations,” said Mirjam Jaeger, who coordinates foreign language projects at the school.

The three-hour crash courses currently offered by Migros for $80 cover Klingon history, as well as grammar, pronunciation and basic sentence structure.

According to USA Today, the classes have been at full capacity and have a waiting list. Students are said to be a good mix in age “from 14- to 61-year-olds, from Trekkies to IT professors.” According to EssayPro market researchers, Star Trek has been gaining even more popularity in the last four years. More Klingon classes are already scheduled for the fall.

Watch a promo for the classes:

Klingon as a hot language in Switzerland got the notice of NPR, who used it as their intro stinger for Morning Edition today.

Star Trek Teaches Scientific Integrity

But wait, there’s more! Netherlands Research Integrity Network has developed a course that teaches scientific integrity by using examples from Hollywood films and TV shows, and one lesson uses an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. In an interview with Science Magazine, Fenneke Blom from Free University explains:

In the 1998 episode “Nothing Human,” the chief physician of a spaceship creates a hologram of an exobiology expert who he wants to consult in order to save the life a crew member. The consultation goes well, until the crew member sees the expert and refuses further treatment because of his involvement in a series of experiments that killed thousands of subjects. What is the doctor to do? There’s a similar discussion about science conducted under the Nazi regime. What do you do with data collected in an unethical way? The example is science fiction, but the dilemma is real and easy to imagine.

Star Trek Voyager took on medical ethics in the episode “Nothing Human.”

More Wrath of Khan 35th

TrekMovie celebrated the 35th anniversary of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan with an interview with writer/director Nicholas Meyer and a look at the film’s impact on popular culture. But we weren’t the only outlet that took note of the film’s anniversary. Here are some more tributes and celebrations:

Moviefone has 9 reasons why Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the best Star Trek movie ever.

Yahoo movies looks at the success of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and sees 4 things that film owes to The Wrath of Khan.

Astronomer Phil Plait goes in-depth on the Mutara Nebula at Blastr.

Blastr also has 12 things you may not have known about The Wrath of Khan.

Huffington Posts’s Nostalgia Theater Podcast released their own TWOK commentary track.

The Mutara Nebula from Star Trek II gets the ‘Bad Astronomy’ treatment

Video of the week: all of Worf’s grunts

Mega-cuts of Worf are a YouTube favorite (like the 2011 video ‘Worf gets DENIED,’ which has almost two million views). This week, YouTuber ‘Suspense’ has compiled all of Worf’s grunts and growls from his extended tour through two Star Trek series and four feature films.

Facebook of the week: Northern Ireland police on the case for stolen Trek collection

Some Denebian Slime Devil has stolen a fan’s collection of 3,800 Star Trek trading cards in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, U.K. Luckily the local police are on the case as evidenced by this post from the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Facebook Page (via BBC).

The PSNI are having some fun with this case

Instagram of the week: Sofia and Alex’s Star Trek Mummy moment

Yesterday Star Trek Beyond’s Sofia Boutella shared this image of herself and The Mummy director (and Star Trek writer/producer) Alex Kurtzman on the set of The Mummy.

Great Links follow-up: not over for Canadian Borg-themed license plate?

A few weeks back, Great Links featured a story about Canadian Trekkie Nick Troller who was ordered to give up his “ASIMIL8” license plate because it was deemed offensive. That may not be the end of the story, though: the Metro News reports he is fighting back:

Now, Troller’s working with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF)—a group also representing a Nova Scotia man who recently lost his custom “Grabher” license plate—in order to get MPI to return the plate.

In a letter JCCF sent to MPI, the group calls MPI’s decision “improper, unreasonable and capricious,” while explaining it violates Troller’s right to freedom of expression.

Troller’s lawer, Jay Cameron, said MPI’s actions in handling the ASIMIL8 plate matter were “unjustifiable in Canada’s free society.”

This plate may be saved

Even more links

Want even more Star Trek? Here are a few more links from the week…

National Interest: If the U.S. Navy Wants to Win a War Against China They Need to Watch Star Trek First

NextWeb: Automation of jobs should be like Star Trek, not Star Wars

ScreenRant: 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Ben Sisko

That’s it for this week in Trek links! Keep up with all the Great Links here at TrekMovie.

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Why would the Klingons say “Quapla” and not “Qapla'”?

Regional dialect?

Bad link for the Yahoo Movies article about Guardians.

fixed

Love the photo of Kurtzman and Boutella. Forgot they were working together on the Mummy. Always fun to see Trek vets together on other projects.

I always found the “dilemma” quite hollow and contrived.
Not using the data would be disrespectful to the memory of the victims. Not only they died, but they died in vain because the data is not going to be used, even though it could’ve been (and should’ve been) their legacy to the mankind.