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This week in European sciences -- week 06|2004 |
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Overview
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In Mission to Sex up Scientese A lot of
scientific papers are inherently incomprehensible and dull, writes cancer
researcher Chris McCabe in a column for The Guardian (February
5, 2004). What are the options to change that? McCabe gives some examples
that speak for themselves - and in comparison to tech-speak, legal language
or business-speak the 'scientese' doesn't sound too crazy. McCabe's way
to escape the scientific language: Besides his academic carreer he is
the author of five novels. |
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The
Guardian |
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How to Organize German Science? In the German
weekly Die Zeit (February
5, 2004), Andreas Sentker and Ulrich Schnabel discuss the question
whether Germany needs a National Academy of Science. The German science
committee, the most important advisory body in science policy for the
government, recommends a National Academy to be set up. Robert May, the
president of the Royal Academy in the UK would really appreciate a similar
German institution. In
a comment, he writes, that it would be rather strange if in order
to solve more and more important problems all over the world, German science
is not able to speak with one voice. But the authors don't see a chance
to implement a national academy, although it seems to be a noble goal.
The federal structures in German science and a lot of personal interests
are likely to block a national academy. |
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Die
Zeit |
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Scientific Method and Telepathy Evidence
is all - and regarding telepathy there is none of it at all, writes Lewis
Wolpert in a column for the Independent (February
4, 2004). Wolpert is a professor of biology at UCL, London, and describes
some thoughts after a recent debate with biologist Rupert Sheldrake. The
latter is a strong proponent of telepathy. First Wolpert mentions that
there is no evidence on telepathy published in any well-known scientific
journal. But this might be related to the common sense that such phenomena
have nothing to do with hard science. In history many top scientists like
Alfred Wegener (continental drift), Lord Kelvin (age of the earth) and
Isaac Newton (gravity) struggled a lot with their peers until a new theory
was well accepted. Thus, in principle Wolpert doesn't rule out that it
works. According to telepathy, Wolpert thinks "scientists would be
wildly excited to investigate such a fascinating and surprising phenomenon
if it existed. (...) At present there is nothing for scientist to investigate
other than why people have such beliefs." |
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The
Independent |
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Dr. Zakaria
Einbeigi from Sahlgrenska Hospital in Gothenburg has identified a gene
version in women from Western Sweden, which increases the risk of being
struck by breast and ovarian cancer by 60 percent (Dagens Nyheter - February
4, 2004). Einbeigi also managed to determine the age of the mutation:
it is likely that the hereditary change first showed up in the area in
the 5th century and managed to remain there for 50 generations. |
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Dagens
Nyheter |
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Big Pharma Steps on the Screen They are
so easy to use - software utilities for practitioners seem to be a great
help in the daily life of doctors. They supply the doctors with background
knowledge on diseases, give access to drug and prescription databases
and - at the hit of a key - print out the prescritions. But some programs
used by German doctors are near to manipulation as Elke Brüser reports
in Süddeutsche Zeitung (February
3, 2004). The programs are sponsored by pharma firms or companies
that distribute drugs. Thus, the products of those firms are highlighted
on the screen, recommended directly after diagnosis, or the doctor is
asked after prescribing a competitor's drug whether he or she would like
to consider a different one. The programs are pre-set to favour the sponsoring
company. These settings might in principle be changed to prevent a conflict
with German legislation, but since doctors are no computer geeks this
kind of preselection remains unaltered and thus helps the 'sponsors' to
boost their revenues. |
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Süddeutsche
Zeitung |
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Some years
ago, the U.S. president George Bush (the father) said that the International
Space Station (ISS) was to become "our critical next step in all our space
endeavors." Now, after the new announcements of the current President
Bush heading for Moon and Mars, the ISS seems to "become a $100 billion
dead end", writes William Broad in NY Times (February
3, 2004). With the new focus of the NASA the prospects of the ISS
are uncertain. Broad gives an account of how the ISS went from star to
sideshow. |
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New
York Times |
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Genetic Resources of Antarctica Researchers
with the United Nations in Tokio recently released a report about a possible
exploitation of the genetic resources of Antarctica by pharma companies.
Treaties on Antarctica rule out the exploitation of its 'resources' which
means above all the geological deposits of minerals. But nowhere do the
documents mention microorganisms. Joachim Müller-Jung writes in FAZ
(February 2, 2004) about
the occurrence of bacteria, algae or lichen on the hostile continent.
In fact, there is a gap in the treaties, and diplomats are due to fill
it at a conference in Kuala Lumpur this week. According to UN experts
the European patent office okayed 62 patents for substances related to
organisms out of Antarctica (in the US more than 300). |
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Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung |
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Recent research
has demonstrated that sex and gender identity is based on numerous complex
physiological and social processes. Gunilla Eldh reports for Dagens Nyheter
(February
1, 2004) on genetic and hormonal causes underlying the ontogeny of
sex and gender - and on how things can go wrong. Hormonal imprinting of
the brain during pregnancy - and even earlier non-hormonal developmental
events - turn out to be more important for sexual identity than secondary
sexual characters such as genitalia. This insight has in the past years
led to a reassessment of the treatment of children who are born with ambigious
sexual identity. American researchers have, for example, followed a number
of genetic boys, who had small or completely missing male genitalia. These
children were turned surgically into girls, but only less than half of
the sample was later on happy with the results. The differences between
the two groups are likely to be based on testosterone levels during pregnancy
and not on the morphology of the genitalia. A similar fate awaited genetic
girls afflicted with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasy (CAH), whose genitals
look more like a penis than a vagina. These girls often had to suffer
painful surgery that attempted to make the clitoris smaller. Recently,
a new consensus has emerged under the influence of pressure groups: in
cases of both genetic boys and girls with ambiguous genitalia, it is recommended
to abstain from surgery until the child is old enough to make a decision. |
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Dagens
Nyheter |
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Glorious Tradition in Swedish Palaeontology Swedish palaeontology
can look back onto a glorious tradition. Svenska
Dagbladet portrays Per Ahlberg, who is one of the most successful
and highly respected modern representatives of this research tradition.
After working for almost 25 year in Great Britain, most recently at London's
Natural History Museum, Ahlberg has just returned to his home country,
where he has taken up a new professorship at Uppsala University. |
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Svenska
Dagbladet |
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Smart-1 Moon Probe to Get New Software Due to some
hardware problems of the European space probe Smart-1, its on-board computer
switches off the engine whenever its circuitry is hit by ion bombardment
of the cosmic radiation. Justin Mullins report in New Scientist (January
31, 2004) about the issue. This week the engineers try to upload new
software to circumvent the problem. If it doesn't work the fine-tuning
of swapping orbits from earth to moon is so tricky that in the worst-case
scenario the probe won't make it to the moon. |
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New
Scientist |
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For about
25 years geologists have examined the Yucca Mountain in Nevada, U.S.,
for a proposed final deposit of nuclear waste. Saskia Guntermann and Michael
Marek have visited the place and report in FAZ on Sunday (January
31, 2004) about their investigation on the issue. According to the
Department of Energy (DoE) the intermedial disposal sites are almost full.
For reasons of cost and practicability completing the first global final
deposit ranks high on the agenda of the Bush administration. But as everywhere
on earth the nuclear dump site is criticized by local groups, politicians
and environmentalists. For the opponents too many questions are still
open. For instance, earthquakes with low magnitude are likely. But the
Bush administration is in a hurry. Their energy policy focuses on nuclear
energy and they are in need of a disposal site by 2010. |
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Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung |
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European Satellite System on its Way The European
satallite system Galileo is now on its way to rival the existing US Global
Positioning System (GPS). The Economist gives (January
29, 2004) a profound overview on the technical issues that had to
be cleared between Europe and the US - besides the political competition.
"More specifically, the Americans wanted the ability to jam Galileo
without rendering GPS signals ineffective", writes the Economist.
Another question was how far China may use the different channels of the
positioning system after paying 200 million euros towards Galileo's development.
Some channels are more precise than others, and they also have different
levels of encryption to prevent unauthorised users from accessing them.
The Economist expects four European consortia that bid to become the concessionaire
of the privatised Galileo. Optimistic projections say that by the year
2020 about 2.5 billion users may use Galileo's services. |
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The
Economist |
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