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Reassessment
of Traveling Genetically Modified Grass
New
York Times 30.9.2004
"There
is no evidence yet that any of the genetically engineered crops already
in wiedeuse in this country have caused any signigicant environmental
harm," concludes the New York Times in an editorial piece (30.9.2004).
Modified corn, soybeans and cotton are widely produces in the U.S. Now,
scientists found that the genes of genetically engineered grass, a creeping
bentgrass, migrate much farther than anyone had thought possible - more
than 15km away from the trial field. Although, there are more urgent
environmental problems, as the NY Times stresses, it's good that an
official full-scale environmental impact assessment is scheduled for
the Monsanto plant.
Dogs
Sniff Right the Cancer from Your Urine
New
York Times 28.9.2004
Sounds
like an April fool's day's top story, researchers found that dogs may
sniff rather good whether your urine probe yields the smell - supposedly
by formaldehyde, alkanes and benzene derivates - of cancer. The study
was published in the British medical journal. Donald G. McNeil Jr. goes
for the NY Times (28.9.2004) into the issue and devides science from
fiction.
Particle
Physics Across the Borders
Neue
Zürcher Zeitung 29.9.2004
50
years ago an outstanding European, better: global research institution
has been founded, the "the gigantic pan-European particle physics research
centre, Cern, buried in a 27km ring under the border between Switzerland
and France", as the Guardian
puts it in an editorial. The Conseil Européen pour la Recherche
Nucléaire is granted a success story by a feature article in
Neue Zürcher Zeitung for several reasons: Cern is a successful
pan-European project with global relevance, scientists from all over
the world spend their time and exchange their spirits. It brought European
research back on a competitive stage after the II. World War. The competition
between Cern and U.S. institutions, the Brookhaven National Lab in New
York and the Fermilab in Chicago, gave plenty of outstanding results,
including Noble prizes, and also many interesting stories to tell. Also
the internet and HTML coding of web pages have been invented and applied
by the particle physicists over there. Now, experiments in Geneva have
ceased due to the construction of the next, biggest-ever international
linear collider. This Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will go into service
in three years and - hopefully - uncover the existence of the Higgs
particle that is associated with matter and leading to its mass. Also
the U.S., Russia and Japan spend a 12 percent of its total costs of
3 billion euros.
Recording
Miracle Cures
The
Guardian 30.9.2004
Laura
Spinney visits Lourdes (France) and profiles the official medic of the
place, Dr Patrick Theillier, whose job is to "welcome pilgrims, doctors
and carers from all over the world", but especially records the many unexplained
cures - working in a "position at the boundary of science and faith".
Sciences
are a Net Gain to Economy
The
Guardian 30.9.2004
As
fewer British students take science courses the closure of university
departments has now a matter of growing concern in the British scientific
community. Rebecca Smithers reports in The Guardian (30.9.2004) whether
the proposed funding subsidies by education secretary Charles Clarke will
bring an end to the crisis. According to studies the number of university
physics courses dropped by 18 percent between 1994 to 2001, in materials
sciences by 33 percent. High profile departments in chemistry closed at
King's College London and Queen Mary University London. But British nobel
laureate (in chemistry) Sir Harry Kroto sees a renaissance in chemistry.
The number of students has risen in recent years, and research from Germany
shows - according to Kroto - that "the sciences are a net gain to the
economy, while the arts and media are a net loss, because far more people
take them up than there are jobs."
Supercomputing
Competition Yields New Record
New
York Times 29.9.2004
The
race for ever higher performance in computing yields a new benchmark record
by a machine of IBM with 16,000 processors, reports John Markoff in the
NY Times (29.9.2004). It exceeds the Japanese Earth Simulator by 'just
a few' calculations per seconds, but it is awaited that the fully installed
BlueGene/L system with roughly 130,000 processors will even do better.
Markoff explained that "supercomputing technologies were widely viewed
as indicators of national industrial powers in the 1980's and 1990's.
They are used extensively in weapons design." In the U.S. - you have to
add, while the Japanese machine was used for civil simulations, for instance,
climate change models. Eventually, the most important progress has been
done by IBM in reducing drastically the size and the power consumption
(per computation). Although corporate and academic researchers rely heavily
on high performance computer applications there's no relevant research
and production in supercomputers themselves being done in Europe.
The Many
Lifes of a Shark
Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 27.9.2004
As
an interesting example of stem cell research Joachim Müller-Jung
describes in FAZ (27.9.2004) the work of Hermann Haller at Hannover university,
Germany, who examines the kidneys of sharks. Sharks may regenerate their
kidneys when necessary. Researchers have found a regenerative zone around
the shark's kidney with a huge reservoir of stem cells with a rescue programme
included. How it works is unknown. Müller-Jung adds that just in
recent week the first stem cells have been discovered in human kidney
- but their amount and function is still unclear. Now, hope comes up that
basic stem cell research may eventually give clues for a better treatment
of patients with dysfunctional kidneys.
All He
Can Do, for the People and Company
The
Guardian 23.9.2004
Sarah
Boseley talks to Hank McKinnell, the CEO of Pfizer, the world's largest
drug company, and asks for his position in the fight against Aids/HIV.
McKinnell was the only drug company boss at the recent international Aids
conference in Bangkok and claims to fight against Aids due to his deep-felt
responsibility to "children and grandchildren." At present, Pfizer has
got two promising drug candidates against Aids in the pipeline. "I don't
doubt some of them would be donated," says McKinnell, but it depends on
the circumstances of each market and each individual product. He also
criticised European countries for their healthcare policies. Pfizer has
already closed research centers in France, Germany and Italy. Pfizer may
only supply cheap or donated drugs to Aids-affected countries when the
rich countries pay for the drugs on a market level. According to him,
when European countries insist on ever-lower prices, "they've basically
become countries that don't welcome innovation."
Your Next
Space Trip Endangers Your Health
The
Guardian 23.9.2004
Isolation,
nausea, kidney stones - these are the realities for a space trip, for
instance, to our next neighbour Mars. Tim Radford investigates in the
Guardian (23.9.2004) what will happen to your body physically and mentally
when you explore space.
Iraqi
Science After 'Shock And Awe'
The
Guardian 23.9.2004
Luke
Harding reports from Baghdad what left in Iraqi science after Saddam,
international sanctions and the U.S.'s 'shock and awe' strike. Scientists
are demoralised, most equipment is 20 or 30 years old and should be in
a museum. Looters carried off everything they could. Now, female and male
students sit together in Baghdad university. But after a radical Islamist
group demanded than men and women should be taught separately, guards
with machine guns are posted at all entrances. Most Iraqi scientists graduated
in western countries, especially the U.S. and UK. Now they hope for help
and try to re-establish international contacts with the scientific community.
In addition, Brian Whitaker gives
an overview what fruitful developments and achievments Iraqi science
contributed to the world in the past 5000 years - algebra, optics, windmills.
Iraq was a key center of ancient scientific knowledge. It "went into decline,
partly for reasons that are familiar today: religious rivalries and problems
with internal security," writes Whitaker.
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