This week in European sciences -- week 52
 

Overview
Spiegel Online about privacy issues regarding smart labelling of goods. Süddeutsche Zeitung on Eta Carinae, the biggest star of the Milky Way supposed to explode in 10,000 years. Die Zeit reports on the origin of human arts in southern Germany, also about educating aggressive children and a report on extreme software programming. Der Spiegel reports on uncomplete deletion of data from digital devices and their reconstruction. Nature magazine with a story on nanotech and public concerns with the new technology. In addition: Wired reports about research in tiny sensors ('smart dust') which build autonomous networks, for instance, to monitor the environment. Science's breakthroughs of the year 2003.
 

Explosion of a Star, Soon

The biggest star of our galaxy is near to explosion. Helmut Hornung reports in Süddeutsche Zeitung (December 24, 2003) about Eta Carinae which is about to explode in a supernova in roughly 10,000 to 20,000 years. The red giant has got 100 times the mass and is 5 million times brighter as our sun. Put in our solar system Eta Carinae would reach as far as the path of Jupiter. Astronomers with the European Southern Observatory in Chile have now figured out a more detailed picture of the star and its surroundings.
 

Süddeutsche Zeitung
December 24, 2003

The Origin of Arts

In the German weekly Die Zeit (December 22, 2003), Urs Willmann reports about the hottest topic in science last week: The Nature publication on the origin of arts. The archaeologist Nicholas Conard has found in caves around southern Germany three new figurines made of ebony. Now 18 of such figurines exist, the oldest: 36000 years. Willmann concludes that the 'Big Bang' of arts has taken place in southern Germany. From there the artists spread into other countries. Why the homo sapiens sapiens decided to make art is still unclear. Maybe they celebrated some kind of early religion. Or maybe they were just a little bit bored.

Our Little Enemy at Home

Sabine Etzold describes in Die Zeit (December 22, 2003) a method how parents may cope with their rebellious and aggressive children: Just apply the method of Mahatma Gandhi and practice non-violent resistance. A PhD student at the University of Witten/Herdecke develops a concept and a masterplan for parents, including, for instance, sit-ins in the child's room, where and how to apply them, and methods of coaching of the parents.

XP - Extreme Programming

According to a German study around half of all government-funded IT projects and 40 percent of private financed software projects flop. Is the hype of "extreme programming" - or XP, for short, - a way to reduce failures and accelerate software development? Mario Sixtus reports in Die Zeit (December 22, 2003) on the issue. Classical software building is like building a house. First comes the ground plan and system design, the latest step is programming and implementation. XP goes a different way. It dispenses with a framework. The demands of the clients are put into so-called stories. A story is no abstract but a rather realistic description of a functionality. The most important features or demands of the clients are worked out first. If time is short, less important features are skipped. Thus, the clients get a software that works. One more aspect of XP is that the client is involved in the development and programming process. He is part of the team what makes re-thinking of client-service relationship necessary. Also, the software engineers work in "pairs" - what costs more time, but according to studies the coding has a much higher quality.
 

Die Zeit
December 22, 2003

Telltale Data Protection

Data stored by computers, digital cameras and copiers are usually incompletely erased. Hilmar Schmundt reports in Der Spiegel (December 20, 2003) how IT experts can easily reconstruct confidential data. Almost every digital device has got a memory, and where data is stored and later erased it leaves traces computer experts may look for. Uncovering willingly or unwillingly erased data "is similar to archaeology", one computer expert is quoted. "With computer utilities you can unearth layer after layer. It is possible to reconstruct the data on a hard disk that is 20-fold overwritten."
 

Der Spiegel
December 20, 2003

Smart Dust Could Become Huge

Tiny sensor chips that network and communicate with each other could be the next big thing for IT industry. Brendan Koerner reports in Wired (December 2003) how microprocessor giant Intel prepares the field. Call them 'smart dust' or 'motes', in the imagination of researchers with Intel the fleck-sized wireless sensors are proposed to do their job in assembly lines, soybean fields and nursing rooms - just to give a few examples. The chips set up autonomously, form communications networks and sense their environment by biological, chemical or physical means. At the moment, the motes have the size of golf balls but are supposed to shrink to a rice grain in the next decade. Researchers try to handle networks with several hundreds of chips, develop dedicated operation systems (such as TinyOS which runs on 128 kB of memory), and figure out which kind of power supply may be appropriate.
Martha Baer describes a first application of such sensor networks: The nesting ground of the storm petrel, a seabird which nests in arm-length burrows. Thus, they are nearly impossible to study. Biologists and computer scientists deployed 190 devices inside and near the entrance of the burrows. Each records barometric pressure, humidity, solar radiation and temperature. For instance, by the temperature reading the researchers can determine when a petrel is present.
Elsewhere, Michael Voregger questions in Spiegel Online (December 25, 2003) the new technique of spying chips or 'smart labels'. What about privacy issues when everywhere small circuitry monitors, for instance, the motion and behaviour of people. In U.S. and German multistores already tests run with smart labels that store properties and price of goods. The labels are passive devices, the aim is to use them to profile the wishes and behaviour of the customers.
 

Wired
December 2003

Breakthrough of the Year 2003

Science magazine describes the breakthroughs in science of the year 2003 (December 19, 2003).

The winner: "Portraits of the earliest universe and the lacy pattern of galaxies in today's sky confirm that the universe is made up largely of mysterious dark energy and dark matter. They also give the universe a firm age and a precise speed of expansion."

A runner up to mention: "Single molecules groove and glow. Biologists and physicists are detailing the busy lives of single molecules, in real time, as they buzz about their business in the cell. They captured molecular motors in motion; refined long-lasting, nanoscale markers; and revealed some basic properties of a single enzyme bound to DNA."
 

Science
December 19, 2003

Nanotech: What is there to fear from something so small?

Jim Giles reports on public concerns with the new technology in Nature magazine (December 18, 2003). In the UK the first lab recruits staff members in social sciences to communicate with other stakeholders in science policy. Scientist learn from the GMO disaster and argue about the risks and health issues - also with campaigning environmental pressure groups. "If scientists don't get involved, debate about nanotechnology will simply be conducted without them", states Giles.
 

Nature
December 18, 2003

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