This week in European sciences -- week 25|2004
 

Genes' Influence on our Body Weight

We cannot blame our genes for everything in our lives, but "we shouldn't deny their influence", writes Vivienne Parry in The Guardian (June 17, 2004) -- for instance, their influence on obesity. After the hype in British media on obesity - triggered by a report of a parliamentary committee - which results in accusing food industry and customer's behaviour Parry notes that body mass index is after body height the second most heritable body feature. "We still persist with the notion that obesity is simply about behaviour, not biology", writes the author. To date, researchers found four genes controlling weight. If one is defect, regulation of the appetite might get affected. Parry puts that as an example that genes might controll behaviour.
John Vidal reports out of Gabon how scientists investigate the spread, outbrake and the host of the ebola virus. According the World Health Organization, there have been now a dozen of ebola epidemics. Scientists and field workers like Eric Leroy now ask what links the different outbreaks. "Why was there a 19-year gap between the first group of four epidemics and the second group of four in 1994-96?" Also the host is unclear. Leroy favours a bat, others birds or mice. The ebola virus passes from the so-far unknown host to monkeys, chimps or gorillas and from there to humans who eat infected meat. Clearly, Westerners have not to fear the disease, writes Vidal: "We should not be very afraid of it. It is only transmitted by direct contact, so it is relatively easy to handle." But for the future, some scientists are concerned of the possibility that "ebola could change its transmission route" and get transmitted by animals' or even human's breath.
David Adam profiles Ron Oxburgh, the non-executive chairman of the UK branch of Royal Dutch Shell. Oxburgh is supposed to guide Shell into still waters after overstating its oil reserves and other calamities. He admits: "We have to take into account the greenhouse effect and global warming."
 

The Guardian
June 17, 2004

Global Warming in the City

Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist (June 16, 2004) that due to global warming the urban heat island effect will intensify. Concrete and asphalt absorb the heat and, hence, for the next decades living in a city means more sweaty nights for people. Actually, local authorities as well as the population should be more aware of the consequences of building streets and houses and thus often block fresh, cooling air blowing into the streets.
 

New Scientist
June 16, 2004

Gene Therapy with Artificial Chromosomes

Sylvia Pagan Westphal describes in New Scientist (June 16, 2004) a different approach in gen therapy. Instead of manipulating genes on the existing chromosoms of mammals, eg. mice or humans, scientist consider to add an artificial chromosome pair that "is duplicated when cells divide and is passed from generation to generation", as trials with mice have shown. Obviously the scientists hope to get more degrees of freedom to incorporate multiple therapeutic genes and prevent the downsides of present methods. These use viruses which bring only a limited number of genes into the cells and have also a high risk in failure. However, scientists are concerned whether the mouse-derived artificial chromosome might be harmfull for humans in a clinical trial, also long-term stability of an additional pair of chromosomes is an open question.
 

New Scientist
June 16, 2004

The Unique Shape of our Planet

They cross in tandem our sky and measure the tiniest shifts in earth's gravity: the two radar space probes 'Grace' gave now the most detailed evidence on gravitational anomalities of our planet, reports Horst Radermacher in FAZ (June 16, 2004). The gravitational force a body on earth is experiencing depends to some extend (a fraction of a percent) on the material underneath, whether granite or a salt deposit, the density is different and hence affects the resulting force. Thus, our planet isn't a sphere, nor an ellipsoid, but a wrinkled potato with ups and downs going to roughly 80 meters.
Olympus Mons is the highest volcano on Mars and in our solar system. Its height is 24 km and makes Mount Everest a dwarf, the diameter of the crater is roughly 80 km and the overall base width would fit well into France (600 km), reports Günter Paul in FAZ (June 9, 2004), including magnificent pictures of the European Mars Express space probe. The volcano is extinct for more than 25 million years.
During surgery it happens - rarely - that narcotic drugs don't work properly and patients realize more than it's good for them. Nicola von Lutterotti describes in FAZ (June 16, 2004) how doctors engage to figure out a method using EEG to keep track on the patients falling asleep.
 

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
June 16, 2004

Multiresistent bacteria have broken out of hospitals

Microbes, that are immune to the most important antibiotics, are not only found in hospitals, according to a new study by a research group in Sevilla. The dangerous microbes also live in persons that have never been hospitalized, reports Joaquín Mayordomo in El Pais (June 15, 2004). The bacteria Escherichia Coli converts itself to a multiresistent microbe by the pressure of excessive antibiotic use. It can cause severe renal and abdominal infections. Until now it is unknown, why the bacteria are contaminating always more poeple in the community. A project (Red Española de Investigación en Patología Infecciosa), financed by the Spanish ministry of health shall bring answers to this question. Jesús Rodríguez Baño, microbiologist of the hospital Macarena de Sevilla and coordinator of the project says in the article: The only thing we know is which persons are at high risk: "people with chronic urinary disease, diabetics, old people and those, who recently used the antibiotic quinolones."
 

El Pais
June 15, 2004

At Least, Some Revenues for the Web's Inventor

When he invented the Web's unique communications language HTML in the early 1990s, he kept all open for the public and his fellow colleagues and thus founded the success of the Internet for everyone. But while others earned millions, Tim Berners-Lee unpretentiously continued his career at Cern and later as director of the W3C consortium that handles standardisation of Internet ressources. Now, as Patrick Illinger reports in Süddeutsche Zeitung (June 15, 2004), the 49 year old Briton Berners-Lee is awarded the one million euros heavy Millennium Technology Prize in Helsinki, Finland. Thus he receives a revenue for not patenting his invention, which is seen as the primary reason that many people adopted his proposals as a state of the art standard.
 

Süddeutsche Zeitung
June 15, 2004

California Takes the Lead

The NY Times welcomes in an editorial (June 15, 2004) that California is supposed to implement legislation to curb down greenhouse gas emissions drastically. Over the next decade a reduction of 30 percent is set as a goal. But pressure against it by automakers and the Bush government is awaited. Also locale measures make on sense on a global scale. In particular, "the initiative is likely to inspire similar efforts in other states and may have the futher salutary effect of forcing the issue of climate change onto the campaign agenda."
Barry Meier reports on a proposal by top medical journals to "consider for publication only clinical trials that have been registered from the start" -- as a reaction to the recent scandal that GlaxoSmithKline only disclosed drug-trials that have been favourable for its anti-depressant drug for children and adolescents.
 

New York Times
June 15, 2004

Caesar Missed Its Aims

According to an evaluation report by a German science advisory board the recently established "Center for Advanced European Studies and Research" in Bonn, for short Caesar, missed the promises that politicians, science policy makers and local administrators have put on the facility. No wonder, reports Winand von Petersdorf in the FAZ on Sunday (June 13, 2004). The elite institution has been inspired by politicians as a compensation for so many institution moving to Berlin after Bonn lost its function as German capital. Out of this compensation fund (1,4 billion euros) the Caesar foundation received some 380 million euros. Caesar was meant to push basic and applied research and engineering forward, in the end into products and spin-off firms. But at present the outcome seems to be poor for the German science advisory board: Caesar needs a complete re-structuring. Hermann Horstkotte writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung (June 8, 2003) that Caesar is supposed to "sail more in the wind of competition". At present, only 15 percent of its revenues come from industry or other outside sources - in comparison, the successful German applied research institution, the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, is financing its activities by two thirds parties.
 

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
June 13, 2004

Ecology of the Underworld: A Closer Look on Soil

A couple of centimeters under our feet a whole ecosystem with its own web of life spreads in the soil: Science magazine devotes a special to the alien ground beneath (June 11, 2004*). Ecologists traditionally see the soil and its inhabitants (from funghi to insects) as 'decomposers'. Now as new techniques for soil analysis are available they are furious: "digging deeper, it turns out that the soil food web is every bit as complex as the aboveground web, with intricate connections to its aerial counterpart."
Donald Kennedy writes in an editorial (June 11, 2004*) on climate change and proper climate science: Weather is not climate, and any single weather occurance, let it be a heat wave, a tornado or a flood, may not be attributed to climate change - "we simply don't know. But we do know a lot on climate and how it is being changed." And "we are in the middle of a large uncontrolled experiment on the only planet we have." For sure, there are disagreements among climate scientists but they focus on details inside the models. The gerneral line is clear: earth's atmosphere will heat up, with all consequences.
(* a free registration is required)
 

Science
June 11, 2004

The Obesity Epidemic

Well, because U.S. dietary styles and food habits have been exported globally, the editors of Science Magazine Donald Kennedy and Philip Abelson (June 4, 2004*) spend a closer look at nutrition, obesity and resulting diseases like diabetes or heart diseases in the U.S. They stress: As early as "in 1998, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States found that 97 million U.S. adults (55% of the U.S. population) were considered obese or overweight." Now the figures have grown up, and no successfull action has been taken, neither in the U.S., nor in Europe or elsewhere. "At the political level, the best solution surely is a ministry or department that is responsible for dietary advice, research, and food policy and is dominated by the interests of consumers rather than producers."
(* a free registration is required)
 

Science
June 4, 2004

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