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This week in European sciences -- week 24|2004 |
| Overview The Economist wonders whether we need some sort of open-source drug development, and takes a glimpse at space probe Cassini now approaching Saturn. The Guardian on a old story involving Feynman. Die Zeit is concerned about possible downsides of in-vitro fertilisation, also New Scientist discusses the benefit of pre-implantation diagnosis. Dagens Nyheter on restricting fishing of cod stocks, and on long-term prostate cancer development. El Pais on a grasshopper plague in northern Africa that could reach Spain. Der Spiegel on a Spanish-German co-operation inventing competely automatic software coding, also on Venus's transition of the sun. Die Zeit about prospering medical technologies. FAZ on findings that the psyche doesn't cause cancer in deep sorrow, also a welcome note for the movement of cafés scientifiques. FAZ on how bees foster environmental policy in France. In addition: NY Times on the controversy about unpublished data of an anti-depressant drug. |
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Do We Need Open-Source Pharma? The Economist
looks at the success of the open-source movement in IT applications --
"This is a decentralised form of production in which the underlying
programming instructions, or 'source code', for a given piece of software
are made freely available. Anyone can look at it, modify it, or improve
it, provided they agree to share their modifications under the same terms"
-- and wonders whether its key goals are also suitable for drug development
(June
10, 2004). Especially in biomedicine, for instance, the human genome
project, and in bioinformatics many collaborative approaches resemble
open-source. But does this also work, when it comes closer to the patients,
huge amounts of money are in the stake and expencive clinical trials to
do. Two options are discussed: Open-source might be interesting for drugs
which patent protection have expired. Also in cases with small numbers
of patients, like Parkinson's, or with diseases mainly occurring in develloping
countries, open-source might be reasonable. |
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The
Economist |
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To Shrink the Motor the Odd Way In 1959 prominent
physicist Richard Feynman gave his famous after-dinner talk "There's
plenty of room at the bottom", which is taken as a founding announcement
of nanotechnology. After the talk he offered a prize to the first guy
to succeed in building an operating electric motor inside a 1/64th inch
cube. Philip Ball, by occation, met this first guy who won the 1000 dollars
in the U.S. and reports on the past issue (June
10, 2004). Apparrently the winner used a top-down process for his
achievement whereas Feynman should have thought of some bottom-up set-up
from scratch. |
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The
Guardian |
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New Discussion about in-vitro Fertilization In-vitro
fertilization of humans could cause similar damages like cloning of animals
does, writes Hans Schuh in Die Zeit (June
9, 2004). Although now 25 years after the first in-vitro baby was
born, more than a million in-vitro humans live all around the world the
risks are still unknown, states the author. New studies prove the worries
that the test-tube babies develop genetic faults during their life. Schuh
cites a review article from the "Journal für Reproduktionsmedizin und
Endokrinologie": "A few studies, published in best time could indicate
that specific congential syndromes appear more often after in-vitro fertilisation".
Responsible, reports Schuh, are probably "imprinting gene defects" - genes
that are switched on and off the wrong time during embryonic development. |
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Die
Zeit |
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Report Advices to Reduce Fishing Pressure on Cod Stocks On Friday, June 11, scientists from the Copenhagen-based International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) will release a report giving more strong advice to the European Commission and governments to reduce fishing pressure, writes Lars Johansson in Dagens Nyheter (June 8, 2004). In particular, cod stocks in the Kattegat, eastern Baltic and Norwegian coastal cod are all, according to the report, depleted and being overfished and ICES will advise zero catch of cod in these areas for 2005. Swedish fishermen express dismay at the recommendation and see their professional future threatened. They claim to have had good catches of cod during spring and think that the EU should enforce stricter controls instead of implementing a total ban. Study Looks for Long-Term Behaviour of Prostate Cancer Development Marcus Lillkvist
reports about a new Swedish study on the long-term consequences of prostate
cancer to be published this week in the "Journal of the American Medical
Association" (Dagens Nyheter - June
8, 2004). Every year 8000 new cases of the cancer are reported in
Sweden and 2300 sufferers pay with their lives. Still, prostate cancer
is considered to be a mild form of cancer and treatments often simply
try to slow down the spread of malignants cells. The study, carried out
at Örebro University Hospital, followed 223 untreated sufferers over 21
years. Sufferers that survived 15 years began to develop very aggressive
forms of the tumor and suffered consequently a high mortality. The study
covered a time during which prostata cancer was hardly ever treated. Today,
many patients undergo radiation treatment or surgery. The results of this
study may, however, affect many sufferer's decision to undergo treatment
- which may lead to incontinence or impotence. |
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Dagens
Nyheter |
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Grasshopper Plague in Morocco Could Reach Europe Spain sends
nine aircrafts to help the government of Morocco to fight the huge amount
of grasshoppers in the desert Sahara, writes Rafael Méndez in El País
(June 7, 2004). "The
plan is to fumigate the insects, so that they cannot travel to the cultivations
of Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania or to Europe," warns the Food
and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It's because of the climate that the
insects could proliferate so much. Last summer was very rainy in the desert,
what stimulated the growth of the grasshopper's eggs. FAO is warning since
last October about a possible grasshopper plague and the importance of
controlling it. |
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El
Pais |
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While software
coding looks generally more like handicraft in which many programmers
hack millions of lines of code into the keyboards, a Spanish-German co-operation
succeeded in the development in a computer tool for completely automatic
software coding. Hilmar Schmundt writes in Der Spiegel (June
7, 2004) how it works. First, customers get a two-day briefing in
the general outlines of the tool, for instance, how to set up flow charts
for the programme they wish to be coded. Hence, the outlines are fed into
a mainframe to be processed further to obtain a running programme. The
inventors claim to cut down general development times for software to
one half and decrease the amount of bugs to one sixth. |
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Der
Spiegel |
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"It
is outrageous that any company should have the power to mislead doctors
and their patients by stressing only positive results and hiding negative
findings," comments the NY Times on the civil suit of New York's
attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, against pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline
(June
6, 2004). Glaxo is said to have concealed negative results of several
clinical trials with its anti-depressant Paxil. The trials showed that
the drug "was no more effective than a placebo in treating adolescent
depression and might even provoke suicidal thoughts." Glaxo submitted
those data at a later occation, when the firm sought approval for new
uses of Paxil. The NY Times demands that drug companies should be forced
in future to make public all results on their drugs - negative alike positive. |
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New
York Times |
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Despite of
the struggle in many industrial areas there is one that is well propering,
as Werner Bartens reports in Die Zeit (June
3, 2004): medical technologies. Those range from the expensive M.R.I.
machines for diagnosis, defibrilators to rescue people after a heart attack,
to commodities like pulse measuring equipment for running or biking. Meanwhile
companies and doctors promote to deposit defibrilators at public locations,
in trains or aircrafts. Actually, the handling of the technique is easy
and could be done by everybody according to doctors. But in general firemen,
staff people or crew members are briefed to apply it. |
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Die
Zeit |
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Deep Sorrow Doesn't Cause Cancer It was often
stated or supposed that deep sorrow might be one cause in getting cancer.
Now findings of Danish researchers in Copenhagen showed that is not true
at all, reports Martina Lenzen-Schulte (June
2, 2004) in FAZ. There seems to be no indication that psychological
causes are involved in obtaining the disease. Now, the case is open how,
for instance, a positive psychological attitude towards the medication
process and life in general might influence the treatment. Just think
of Lance Amstrong, a former cancer patient and than multiple Tour de France
champion. |
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Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung |
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Dying Bees Foster Environmental Consciousness of the French As Jürg
Altweg reports in FAZ (June
2, 2004) the French in general aren't as much concerned on environmental
issues as, for instance, the Germans just on the other side of river Rhine.
The French react quite relaxed on the nuclear disaster of Cernobyl or
natural catastrophes. But since last year's heat wave with a death toll
of several thousands in France and a mysterious dying of bees, the French's
consciousness on the environment increases drastically. A good stake into
the issue might also have the rivalry between France and Germany as for
as the dying of bees in France might be initiated by pesticides of the
German chemical companies Bayer and BASF. Although not yet proved as the
single reason, the pesticides are now banned. |
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Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung |
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