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This week in European sciences -- week 01|2004 |
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Overview
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Scientists
know that it's generally impossible to predict the future. But in spite
of this knowledge so-called futurists consider the world in 10, 20 or
even more years. Tina Baier reports in Süddeutsche Zeitung (January
2, 2004) about the difficult and rich-in-pitfalls work of those people.
A century
ago people didn't hesitate to make predictions about the future based
on the present, but nowadays life is so much more complex. Does it mean
that futurism is dead, as Wired magazine recently claimed? It isn't. Companies
and governments hire futurists to develop scenarios for future markets,
needs of people and challenges to be prepared for. |
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Süddeutsche
Zeitung |
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Does it
make sense to exaggerate scientific results in the public? Holger Wormer
gives some thoughts in Süddeutsche Zeitung (December
31, 2003) on the ambiguous issue. This
year scientists announced for the third time the complete decoding of
the humane genome - has someone exaggerated the achievements in recent
years? In the media the decoding didn't play any role any longer. In the
case of SARS, an obvious exaggeration of the spread of the new virus may
have helped WHO officials to prevent many more deaths. For comparison,
800 people died from SARS, but hundreds of thousands of people die worldwide
from the flu or AIDS. |
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Süddeutsche
Zeitung |
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Looking Ahead to the Year 2010 The German
weekly Die Zeit (December
31, 2003) asks 33 experts in science, technology and education what
the world will look like in the year 2010. Most of the questions are closed:
the expert has to answer Yes or No, and then has to argue for it in a
short statement. For instance, will Germans elect their parliament, the
Bundestag, via Internet by 2010? - Surely
Yes, says Dieter Otten, researcher on electronic voting of Osnabrück
University, Germany. Or, will we be able to read the thoughts in our brain?
- Probably,
answers Niels Birbaumer, neurobiologist at Tübingen University,
Germany. Some questions are only understandable to Germans: In how many
dustbins are we supposed to separate our rubbish - six, eight or even
ten? - Essentially
one, says Diethard Schade, former director at the now closed academy
of risk assessment in Stuttgart, Germany. Craig
Venter, U.S. star geneticist, ponders the question whether and at
what cost we will be able to decode our personal DNA. Josef
Kind of EADS, an aviation and space company, is optimistic as to the
fate of the International Space Station ISS. |
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Die
Zeit |
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Biosphere II to become Holiday Park Jörg
Hänzschel reports in Süddeutsche Zeitung (December
30, 2003) about the ambitous project of Biosphere II that is now supposed
to become a holiday park. A decade ago in a huge glasshouse in Arizona
researchers tried
to establish and analyzed a self-contained ecosystem. The studies should
collect data for further space exploration, for instance, self-contained
space ships or planetary bases. It didn't work. Later is was sold to Columbia
University for climate change research. Now, after budgets are cut down
private investors are ready to develop the site as a tourist attraction. |
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Süddeutsche
Zeitung |
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Astronomy's New Grail: The $1 Billion Telescope Telescopes
are getting bigger and bigger. Dennis Overbye reports in The New York
Times (December
30, 2003) about different plans of astronomers all over the world
to plan and build in several collaborations even bigger telescopea to
look further into space - including the so-called Overwhelming Large Telescope
(OWL) which is planned by the European Southern Observatory. The 100-meter-dish
would be extremely powerful especially in spotting Earth-like planets
around nearby stars.
The telescopes scheduled for the next decades have one hurdle to take:
bigger instruments need also big money. |
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New
York Times |
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Big-screen boffins 'in time warp' Roger Dobson
reports in the Independent (December
28, 2003) about a recent study on the image of scientists in movies.
The survey, which scans films over 80 years, shows "that
the image of the scientist is stuck in a time warp with Frankenstein.
On screen, boffins are usually nutty, naive or bad, performing evil science
in the basement or attic." The study was performed by Peter Weingart
of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science (Germany). |
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The
Independent |
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Europe's last wild reindeer herds in peril Around Christmas
NewScientist picks up on the peril facing reindeer
in Norway. "To flee human construction projects, animals crowd into
ever smaller areas, with ever scarcer supplies of the lichen on which
they feed", writes Andy Coghlan (December
27, 2003). In the past 50 years they have lost about 50 percent of
their habitat. Overall population declined from 60,000 to 30,000, fragmented
into 24 isolated groups. Scientists suggest an extension of the size of
national parks to reopen the vital migration routes of the animals. Those
routes and habitats are at present severed by human infrastructure ranging
from roads, power lines, dams, reservoirs to mountain cabins. |
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NewScientist
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