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This week in European sciences -- week 13|2004 |
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Overview
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U.S. War on Drugs has been Lost The UN commission
for narcotic drugs, the most influencial council in worldwide drug policy,
changed its strategy. Since 33 years the fight against drugs was a strict
law and order policy. In die Zeit (March
25, 2004), Dirk Assendorpf reports about the results of a meeting
last week. The conclusions: The council formulated doubts on the effectiveness
of their recent policy. Instead of a zero-tolerance viewpoint, the drug-fighters
stated "treatment and aftercare as efficient alternatives to condemnation
and punishment" for the drug consumers. This, the author states, is a
real victory for European policy against the hardliners in the US-government. |
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Die
Zeit |
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Generally
spaceprobes vanish from the screen of the media after a successful launch
and regain attention just at arrival time. Günter Paul reports now
in FAZ (March
25, 2004) on intermediate advances of the European Smart-1 spaceprobe
on its way to the moon. The batteries work properly even during the periods
of darkness when it crosses the earth's shadow. Because the orbit turns
over time the dark periods are smaller now. Also the radiation belt of
the earth was crossed by the up-skrewing probe without any damage to the
instruments. At the moment, the probe spins higher with its ion propulsion
system and also uses some resonance effects to speed up. In December it
will be caught by the gravitational field of the moon. |
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Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung |
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UK Efforts to Regain Excitement in Sciences Last week
was "science week" in the UK. Rebecca Smithers points out in
the Guardian (March
25, 2004) that besides this singular but important event huge efforts
have to be made to educate and train engouh scientists and engineers to
keep Britain competitive on the global stage. "Some big plans are
needed", writes Smithers. Young people turn their back on sciences,
numbers of graduates decline and even the latter often go off into financial
services when it comes to choosing a career. According to a report "schoolchildren
find science unexciting". The knock-on effects are: fewer students
are choosing to study science and, hence, a lack of trained scientists.
Recommendations to boost the image of sciences are, for instance, to improve
the training and recruitment of science teachers and to make further investments
in teaching laboratories. In a partnership with the Wellcome Trust the
UK government set up a network of nine science learning centers "that
will deliver training and continuing professional development to science
teachers". |
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The
Guardian |
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At the Cebit
consumer electronics fair in Hannover, Germany, several companies show
applications for a digital signature. This signature enables people, for
instance, to sign contracts solely digital by a specific key algorithm.
A crucial role play the so-called trust centers which quarantee for the
credibility of users and their digital signature. Now, a U.S. based company
takes over the trust centers in several countries, reports Nicola Schmidt
in Süddeutsche Zeitung (March
23, 2004). Some find it critical that a single company obtains a major
stake, but others hope that this will push new applications into the market.
Over the years there was much talk about digital signatures and their
possibilities, but nothing really happened. |
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Suedeutsche
Zeitung |
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The Discovery at the Black Rock Jürgen
Kremp reports in Der Spiegel (March
22, 2004) on an archaeological highlight in Chinese history. Recently
a sports diver from Hamburg, Germany, discovered a 12-century-old wreck
in Indonesian waters. It's supposed to be the biggest treasure the ever
left ancient China. Kremp now shows how scientists examine the find (ancient
ceramic objects and filigree items made of gold and silver, of a kind
rarely ever seen before by experts) and reconstruct its origin. He also
embeds the story into a brief history of the China of the Tang dynasty
(618 - 907). In this epoch China ruled the Asian world as the U.S. today. |
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Der
Spiegel |
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Karin Bojs
describes in an entertaining but rather unsubstantial article some kind
of "beauty contest" in the evening and night sky which is happening in
the next few days (Dagens Nyheter - March
21, 2004). On March 29 it will be possible to see all five planets,
which are visible with bare eyes, neatly aligned in the sky. In the West,
just above the horizon, Mercury will be visible in the early hours of
the night. Further to the South and higher in the sky, Venus, Mars and
Saturn can be seen. And the giant Jupiter makes its appearance in the
South East. |
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Dagens
Nyheter |
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James Gleick
reports in the New York Times magzine (March
21, 2004) on the clash of namespaces on the Internet. The term 'namespace'
is invented by computer science to describe all possible domain names.
But as globalisation proceeds "certain namespaces have grown dangerously
overcrowded", writes Gleick, for instance, for international trade
names, drugs, cars makes or companies. Gleick explains the role of the
ICANN - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers which
oversees the management of Internet names and addresses - and its subordinate
body, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). Gleick describes
a whole bunch of cases where the WIPO tried to judge on rather tricky
issues. By giving critics a voice he also showed that some decisions are
more arbitrarily than sound. |
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New
York Times |
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EU Programme Investigates Chemicals in Foodstuffs In September
last year the European Commission decided to invest 14 million euros to
create an European 'CASCADE' network of excellence investigating the presence
and effect of natural and harmful chemicals in common foodstuffs. The
network includes more than 20 universities, research institutes and businesses,
all coordinated by Sweden's Karolinska Institute. Inger Atterstam is now
paying a visit to Jan-Åke Gustafsson, the scientific coordinator of the
network (March 21, 2004).
Gustafsson expresses his enthusiasm over the EU's decision and is delighted
that food research finally can use research methods, which have been out
of reach before. According to Gustafsson, research on the effects of chemicals
in food has finally arrived in the genomic era. The main topic of the
research will be the analysis of so-called nuclear receptors that relay
signals from the outside to the DNA in the cell nucleus. These receptors
are involved in biological processes such as metabolism, fertility and
diseases such as diabetes and probably also cancer. These receptors bind
to chemicals in food like vitamin A and D, cholesterol and fatty acids
and also to well-known environmental toxins like dioxins and PCBs. Their
research pursued under the 'CASCADE' initiative will explore which chemicals
in food bind to receptors and then test these chemicals in model organisms
like mice and zebrafish to see which health effects they have. Together
with epidemiological research it should be possible in the future to make
better risk assessments concerning food. |
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Svenska
Dagbladet |
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Donald Kennedy
writes in an editorial of Science magazine (March
19, 2004*) on drug discovery: "The process of drug discovery
is not only of scientific interest, it entails a fascinating interplay
among a variety of economic, social, and political institutions."
New approaches are promising but also expensive. Hence, collaboration
between the different sectors of public funded medical research, organisations
and pharma companies has to intensify. In particular as the rate of introduction
of new drugs slowed down. Kennedy also addresses the issue of health legislation
and drug prices in the different countries of the world and thinks that
"to a large extent, U.S. health care consumers are subsidizing the
cost of pharmaceuticals elsewhere in the world." Because big pharma
cannot raise prices and, hence, charge the consumer for investments in
research and drug development, "increasingly, the U.S. market is
driving them toward drugs aimed at the diseases of richer, older Americans
and away from antimicrobials, vaccines, and the like." Kennedy is
in favour for way out of the dilemma: The government should increase its
support for basic medical research and for development of drugs targeted
to infectious disease and "orphan diseases". That shifts a consumer subsidy
into a taxpayer subsidy. "But it will also give government more control
over an industrial policy, and some won't like that." |
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