This week in European sciences -- week 47
 

Overview
Süddeutsche Zeitung about the challenge of wiping out polio disease from our planet, also a story about how patients get some grasp of the diseases they are suffering from by studying medical journals. The Guardian writes about scientist's aim to attach people's behaviour to the flickering of brain areas, also a visit to an off-shore wind farm. Dagens Nyheter disproofs the myth of the evil stepfather. FAZ warns of harmful bugs with resistances against antibiotics. Der Spiegel addresses safety issues regarding baby diets after two deaths in Israel. Svenska Dagbladet about bio-organic composite materials used in cars. FAZ considers Germany's options in nuclear waste disposal, also about the lack of knowledge of the white shark's way of life. Dagens Nyheter about the questionable success of mass screening against breast cancer in Sweden, also on food's useful and healthy substances.
 

The Challenge of Wiping Out Polio

Polio is due to get eradicated from the planet by the year 2007, says Eckart Schreier from the Robert-Koch-Institut in Berlin, Germany, in an interview with Christina Berndt in Süddeutsche Zeitung (November 21, 2003). "But it is good advice to vaccinate people for five more years", adds Schreier. He addresses the problem that, first, with oral vaccination the virus may regain potential harm by mutations. Second, people secrete the virus over years after oral vaccination. The reason is that the oral polio vaccine goes with a deactivated, living polio virus. Schreier concludes that in the last phase of polio eradication only the 'dead' virus vaccine - administered subcutaneously with a syringe - should be used. But in third world countries applying the cooled vaccine with a sterile syringe is a greater challenge than the standard oral vaccination.

Good Study, Bad Study

Never underestimate the grasp of a patient to understand the key concepts of the disease he or she is suffering from. Wiebke Rögener reports in Süddeutsche Zeitung (November 21, 2003) on a workshop where patients and doctors discuss how to interpret recents medical studies. Patients learn how to get the key points of a study, what results are relevant or "significant" for a new therapy. Doctors learn what is important for the patients, for instance, the side effects of a therapy or quality of life. In fact, doctors can't oversee all the millionth of studies in thousands of journals, and there lies some fruitful area of cooperation between the medical professionals and the patients resp. the patient's interest groups.
 

Süddeutsche Zeitung
November 21, 2003

'The Brain Can't lie'-Hype

It sounds very familiar: Scientists probe violent tendencies, moral reasoning, feelings of love and trust, notions of justice. Just this week they claimed to have identified racial prejudice - well, not in people's genes (we heard that over and over again), but by scanning brain activities with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Do we see a new hype emerging? Scientists hope to reveal by MRI not only our future health, but the "intricacies of our personalities and how we might behave in a given situtation", report Ian Sample and David Adam in The Guardian (November 20, 2003). "There's no scientific distinction between prediction (of future behaviour) and understanding how the brain works," Stephen Smith of Oxford University is cited. The new disciplines of social neuroscience and neuro-marketing are expanding fast.
[btw, it's also a hype in the media, after extensive coverage in NY Times, FAZ, Die Zeit (and presumably others) the Guardian picked up the issue and asks for the private policy rights on the brain scans when the dreams of the scientists will become true. Anyway, it should be stressed there is still a deep gap between the flickers on the MRI screen and some attached human behaviour.]

When the Wind Blows

Alok Jha visits the first major British off-shore wind farm near the Welsh coast. 30 wind mills produce a power of 60 Megawatts in energy. By the time, British authorities want to cover 8 Percent of the national need by wind mills.
 

The Guardian
November 20, 2003

Myth of the Evil Stepfather Defeated

The myth of the evil stepfather has been laid to rest by new research from Stockholm University, reports Jenny Bäck in Dagens Nyheter (November 19, 2003). A classical case study of evolutionary psychology, based on data from Canada, claims that stepfathers are far more more likely than biological parents to kill or abuse children. Evolutionary psychologists explain this pattern with the so-called parental investment theory: stepfathers are not biologically related to their stepchildren and the human psyche is predisposed to selectively allocate ressources to related individuals. If ressources are scarce, unrelated individuals will suffer. In research to be published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Hans Temrin and his team show that in Sweden children with single parents incur the highest risk of dying a violent death: Between 1965 and 1999 about 32% of the children that were killed by parents came from single families. This is a significant overrepresentation given that only 12% of children life in such families. A stepparent in the family is apparently not a serious risk factor.
 

Dagens Nyheter
November 19, 2003

Risks out of the Cowshed

An unappropriate use of antibiotics against cattle's diseases bring health risks for people because of a growing resistance of harmful bacteria that may infect people, reports Karoline Stürmer in FAZ (November 19, 2003). Earlier this week, in Berlin, an international conference explored the risk potential of antibiotic resistance. The more the drugs are used, the more likely the possiblity of resistances. Often certain antibiotics are used also as growth promotor for the cattle. The experts appreciate the EU's decision to ban those promotors by the year 2006. But one problem remains: When a single cow suffers from a disease it is used to give a drug with the drinking water to all of the herd. If the dosages is too low bug resistances are more likely. Studies show that in Denmark only 25mg antibiotics are used to produce 1kg meat. In Germany it is twice as much, in some southern European countries four to five times as much. The simple reason is that Danish legislation has reduced the profit margin for doctors prescribing antibiotics.
 

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
November 19, 2003

Two Deaths By False-Mixed Baby Diet

The death of two Israeli babies has upset people in Israel and Germany. The German company Humana delivered a false-mixed charge of baby diet to Israel. In the soya milk the proportion of essential vitamine B1 was missing. A team of reporters with Der Spiegel (November 17, 2003) investigated the tragedy-in-four-steps. First, mixing a new charge of baby diet the producer miscalculated the amount of vitamine B1. Second, a test laboratory missed to measure the B1 content of the probes. Third, the lab's failture wasn't seen at Humana. And finally, the Israeli import control skipped testing the German product as they thought "made in Germany" is safe. In conclusion, the reporters cite Berthold Koletzko, a paediatric at Munich University, who demands stricter controls in baby diets by EU executive bodies.
 

Der Spiegel
November 17, 2003

Bio-organic Composite Material Goes Nano

Håkan Borgström recounts how composite materials based on renewable biological substances may revolutionize the construction of cars, planes and ships - Svenska Dagbladet (November 16, 2003). Lars Berglund, researcher at Stockholm's Biofibre Materials Center, explains that development of biocomposites has reached a new stage. Instead of using entire fibers taken from plant materials, researchers now try to use nano-scale fibrills, the small, useful parts of the constituent molecules, which are responsible for the sought-after mechanical properties. Berglunds research aims at developing an entirely bio-organic composite. He expresses hope, that potatoes for instance will not only deliver the cellulose for the fibers but also the matrix material into which the fibers are embedded.
 

Svenska Dagbladet
November 16, 2003

Germany's Options for Nuclear Waste Disposal

In a full page story and a detailled geographical map a team of writers of the FAZ on Sunday (November 16, 2003) explore the options of Germany for a nuclear waste disposal. As long as for 40 years Germany seeks for a final dump for radioactive waste. But none of the intended projects by the authorities has been succeeded in political or juridical approval. The options are focused on geological burial, and the authors name the areas where disposal within salt, clay, and granite deposits might be worth to consider from a scientific point of view. Especially, clay deposits are the new favourites for the researchers as they have the lowest permeability for water compared to salt and granite. Research in Switzerland and Belgium addresses the open question of long term stability, for instance, against heat produced by the radioactive waste.
The white shark's way of life is almost unknown. Their habitat, life expectancy, behaviour, size of population are in the dark of the deep see - little is known about the predator, reports Julia Gross. She visits the Point-Reyes-Bird-Observatory in California. There, researchers try to bring light into the issue by attaching radio sensors to the sharks. That way, they want to follow the presumably 2-year periodical travel of the female fish through the waters. One assumption is that the fish goes in east-west direction across the whole Pacific ocean, from California just right way heading for Japan.
 

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
November 16, 2003

Swedish Debate on Mass Screening for Breast Cancer

The efficiency of mass screening for breast cancer is a continuously debated topic in Scandinavian media. The Swedish general practitioner Göran Sjönell now steps forward with a strong criticism of mass screenings in Sweden and accuses authorities of bad information policies concerning potential risks and side effects - Dagens Nyheter (November 14, 2003). The risk reduction through mammography is, according to Sjönell, only marginal. In areas with screening programmes four women out of 1000 die of breast cancer within ten years. In areas with screening programmes this number is only reduced to three. The relative risk is reduced by 25%, the absolute risk only by 0.1%. Sjönell claims that this reduction of the risk does not justify the unnecessary taking of tissue samples, operations or radiation exposure. He claims that authorities neither inform women adequately about absolute risks nor side effects.
Fruits and vegetables are supreme sources of vitamins and minerals. These substances, however, only make up a small part of all the useful and healthy substances in these foods, reports Ewa Lundborg (November 16, 2003). Consumers can use a simple guideline in order to decide which vegetables and fruits are especially healthy: the more colourful the better. The brighter the colour the more of the protective antioxidants can be found in the foods. Pizza lovers will be relieved to learn that a delicious sauce made out of cooked, fresh tomatoes with some oil is a better supplier of lycopen than raw tomatoes. Lycopen, which protects against certain cancers, is released from the destroyed cell, dissolves in the oil and is easily taken up. Nutrition specialists recommend that adults should consume around 10 portions of fruits and vegetables every day (one portion corresponds to approximately a volume of 100 ml).
 

Dagens Nyheter
November 14/16, 2003

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