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This week in European sciences -- week 45 |
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Overview
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The GM Crop Story: Deep Mistrust in Scientists Michael
Sontheimer interviews in Spiegel online (November
7, 2003) former British minister for the environment, Michael Meacher,
about the recent UK studies of GM crops. Meacher initiated in 1999 the
studies on sugar beet, maize and oilseed rape which came to a result in
last october. He speaks as an emotional opponent of GMO: The giant GM
corporate players Monsanto and Bayer are the bad guys on the scene. Even
the relatively positive outcome of the maize study is criticized as being
manipulated by Bayer. Meacher sees a deep mistrust of people in scientists.
After looking at the environment he asks for detailled studies on the
health risks of GM food. |
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Spiegel
online |
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What will Germany's Year of Innovation Bring? The economy
in Germany is suffering, the tax income decreases - German people are
in a bad mood. "It´s time to react," the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder,
might have had in mind when he announced the year 2004 to be the year
of innovation. In the German weekly Die Zeit (November
7, 2003) Gero von Randow discusses the reasons behind and the perspectives
of the plans. He does not sound very optimistic: No more money for research,
and hence no innovation - in contrast to Schröder's intention. |
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Die
Zeit |
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Should We be Scared Of Nanotech? How seriously
should we take the hype about nanotechnology, asks Ian Sample in his report
in The Guardian (November
6, 2003). He toured some British labs and came back with interesting
insights. First, although for most of us nanotech means building very
tiny machines, it turned out for the author that those "do not exist
- and won't for a very long time to come." Second, there is lots
of money being set aside for nanotechnology. Why not take it? Hence, "attaching
nano to a research project can make all the difference" if you are
looking for funding, writes Sample. Finally, Sample concluded that "we
should probably be more concerned about inhaling nanoparticles" than
about dangerous nanobots. For instance, nanoparticles are used in sun
creams and car paint. But what happens exactly when they hit the human
body or the environment? That is still an open question - and should be
addressed by research and legislation. |
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The
Guardian |
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In a humourous
piece, Alessandra Farkas writes in the Corriere (November
5, 2003) that a new traffic gadget is becoming increasingly common
in the U.S.: the traffic light remote-control. Originally devised for
use by the emergency services, the dashboard-mounted box is now available
even on eBay and allows its owner to change any suitably equipped traffic
light from red to green by means of an infra-red signal. Needless to say
that the authorities aren't very happy about this! |
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Corriere
della Sera |
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Hormone Therapy to be Phased Out Recent studies
show that the established hormone-replacement therapy against symptoms
in women's menopause can also endanger the patient's health through higher
risks for breast cancer and strokes. The German federal drug commission
(Bundesinstitut für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte) therefore decided
to outlaw the treatment. But it's not clear yet how to find a replacement
for the therapy, writes Hildegard Kaulen in FAZ (November
5, 2003). Already about four to five million women are treated with
estrogenes and gestagenes, both are given during hormone replacement.
The drug commission of a German medical body rewrote its guidelines for
hormone replacement (www.akdae.de).
According to this paper hormone therapy should only be applied in case
of strong climacterical symptoms and after an appropriate risk assessment.
Also, the dosages used should be as low as possible. The commission stressed
that women's menopause is no disease per se, but a natural part of life.
Anyway, in recent years, the medical body admitted, doctors got used prescribing
medication routinely. |
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Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung |
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The Corriere
della Sera (November
4, 2003) reports on a new kind of weather forecast provided by the
Italian National Research Council (CNR). The Florence-based Centre for
Biometeorology has developed a computer programme that calculates correlations
between past weather conditions and clinical reports in order to predict
weather-related health hazards in the future. Following the example of
similar services in the U.S., the centre will shortly launch a website
featuring interactive maps that contain biometeorological forecasts, making
it possible for those at risk to take precautions in time before the temperature
drops or the humidity rises. |
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Corriere
della Sera |
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AIDS Along the Trans-African-Highway Researchers
of Munich University, Germany, study the outspread of AIDS in the Tanzanian
town Mbeya where the Trans-African-Highway passes by. Christina Berndt
visited them and reports about their work in Süddeutsche Zeitung
(November
4, 2003). The place is important on the roadmap of Africa because
at Mbeya the highway devides into roads for Sambia and South Africa. People
passing by visit the prostitutes in the many bars of the place. The result:
All subtypes of H.I.V., the virus causing AIDS, are present. The researchers
examine the health status of the prostitutes, register whether they are
H.I.V. positive or not, cure side-infections and give medical advice such
as using condoms. Because of this, they are largely accepted in the local
community, which makes it easier to convince local doctors to participate
in the project.
Most of the latter still discard AIDS as a diagnosis. There is no money
for medical treatment of AIDS, but the researchers hope to get funded
by the EU project EDCTP which spends 600 million euros to fight poverty-related
diseases like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. |
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Süddeutsche
Zeitung |
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Variant of Gene Increases Risk of Osteoporosis Dr. Kari
Stefansson of Iceland discovered a gene that, "in certain versions,
triples a person's risk of developing osteoporosis and related bone fractures,"
Sharon Begley reports in The Wall Street Journal (November 3, 2003). Stefanssons
article also received attention on The New York Times' front page. Nicholas
Wade writes that the risk to develop osteoporosis is three times as
high in people with three specific variants of the gene BMP2 (bone morphogenetic
protein 2). "We think BMP2 influences the peak bone mass" reached
in young adulthood, Stefansson is being quoted in The Wall Street Journal.
Steffanson is the founder of Decode Genetics, a company that specializes
in the discovery of genes that can cause common diseases. Roche Diagnostics
is currently busy developing a test to discover these variant forms of
the gene. The test can be expected to be available early next year, Stefansson
says. People only need to be tested once and when diagnosed as being among
the high-risk population for osteoporosis, they can be prescribed a high-calcium
diet and a lot of exercise. |
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New
York Times |
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Researchers look for a medical benefit in studying hibernation It's inevitably
getting ever darker and colder in Sweden. In an appropriate piece for
the approaching winter, Per Snaprud reports in Dagens Nyheter (November
2, 2003) on research in hibernation and its potential medical implications.
For instance, during hibernation the core temperature of brown bears drops
to approximately 33 degrees Celsius, heart rate drops by 75 percent and
energy consumption by more than 50 percent. Organs of hibernating mammals
show an amazing resistance against oxygen deprivation. Human tissues,
however, are very sensitive to a lack of oxygen. Especially organs stored
for transplantation react critically to oxygen deficit. A human liver
only survives for one day at freezer temperature. Hannah Carey from Wisconsin
University uses ground squirrels as model organisms in her attempts to
develop media, which may prolong the lifetime of donated organs. The research
has so far not resulted in any immediate pay-off for transplantation medicine,
but Carey and other scientists seem confident that hibernating mammals
offer one exceptionally promising avenue for research. |
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Dagens
Nyheter November 2, 2003 |
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Open Questions in Bird Migration Most avian
migrants should have left northern Europe by now. A quite large proportion
of these migrants will show up again next spring. Malin Eborn recounts
in Svenska Dagbladet (November
2, 2003) how scientists from Lund University's bird migration research
group try to figure out how birds manage to perform two such demanding
trips every year. One puzzling question is: how do the birds find their
way? The birds' magnetic compass sense poses many profound problems, because
it remains fundamentally unclear how sensory mechanisms function. Recent
research by Rachel Muheim, a PhD student at Lund, demonstrates that the
magnetic sense of birds interacts with light: birds can only use the directional
information of the magnetic field if light of certain wavelengths is available.
A current theory states that retinal molecules become sensitive to the
magnetic field if they are in an excited state. Birds, however, also have
magnetite crystals in their brains, which may function like the magnetic
needle in a compass. According to Thomas Alerstam, leader of the research
group, it is possible that migrants use the magnetite to determine their
absolute position and then employ "magnetic vision" to set a course. |
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Svenska
Dagbladet November 2, 2003 |
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