»in the media«

According to a Greenbook by the European Commission the success of the Galileo navigation system for European enterprises is all but quaranteed. An article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (9.12.2006) says that European SMEs focus too much on hardware and infrastructure issues. There's a lack in ideas for applications.

The most money can be made in applications and software, where China and India take the lead. The European Commission estimates that Galileo products and services are worth some 400 billion euros until 2025. By the year 2020 some 3 billion satellite receivers could be in service.

Phil Baty surveys in THES (8.12.2006) academic fraud in the Uk. "Twenty-five UK academics have been found guilty of research misconduct in the past three years, including faking results, plagiarism and misuse of funds," Baty writes. The investigation of THES was possible due to the British Freedom of Information Act. He concludes that whistleblowers are encouraged and scientific institutions are more engaged in following claims of scientific misconduct.

Jacopo Pasotti writes in Science online (5.12.2006) about evidence that a huge tsunami occurred in the Mediterranean Sea some 8000 years ago. "The Mediterranean basin is a crucible of killer waves. More than 300 tsunamis have been recorded in the last 3300 years, with volcanic activity known to have triggered a dozen in the last two millennia. The most recent occurred in December 2002, when a colossal chunk of the Stromboli volcano slid into the Aeolian Sea, creating a 10-meter-high tsunami that snapped moorings of oil tankers in Milazzo harbor, 100 kilometers away, but did little other damage," writes Pasotti.

The temperature record is consistent from Iceland to Greece: Europe faces its warmest autumn since the year 1500. Quirin Schiermeier reports for Nature online (4.12.2006) on evidence for climate change and effects of a warmer climate on nature and the environment. "The change matches a trend. Autumn temperatures in Europe have been rising by about 0.45 °C per decade over the past three decades. The new data show that the past 30 years has been the warmest such period on record, and the past 10 years has been the warmest decade," writes Schiermeier.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung devotes the weekly science page (29.11.2006) one topic: animal trials. Special reporting on medical evidence found from animal trials and Swiss statistics of its use.

Drug companies lose hundreds of millions of dollars when large-scale human clinical trials fail. Helen Pearson examines for Nature (30.11.2006) whether alternative procedures could help avoid such disappointments. She describes the case where a promising stroke drug of pharma firm AstraZeneca failed a phase III clinical trial.
On average, "the failed phase III trial shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise. More than 40 percent of drugs that enter phase III trials - the final and most extensive stage of clinical testing - are abandoned because they prove ineffective or unsafe," writes Pearson. Phase III trials are the costliest part of drug development. They involve lots of patients; in this case with two phase III trials 4900 people.

Martin Enserink gives at Science online (30.11.2007) a brief overview of the 53 billion euros heavy seventh European Research Framework (FP7) now approved by the European Parliament.

The greatest German adventure park Europapark in southern Germany plans to set up a science center, dubbed Science House. The project is a successor of annual science days and shall draw the interest of kids and their parents on hands-on-science. The director Roland Mack invests one million euros in the center. Contributing sponsors are companies like Siemens, Daimler-Chrysler, ENBW, Trumpf and Novartis. The Science House will open in spring next year and features all kinds of modern science topics. Four million visitors are expected at Europapark for the year 2006. The Science House will reach it's break-even point with 70.000 visitors, writes Michael Roth in FAZ (1.12.2006).

The plant science devision of chemical company BASF is about to receiving approval for its genetically modified potato, called Amflora. The potato is optimized in its starch composition as for it only contains amylopectin. This compound is interesting for the non-food starch industry and may pave the way for more acceptance of GMO in the public, writes Tina Baier in Süddeutsche Zeitung (28.11.2006). Indeed, critics mostly agree that there's no risk to people but the potatoes have to be kept away from the food supply chain.

Frank Thadeusz reports in Der Spiegel (27.11.2006) about the yet unknown group of German adult thumbsuckers. The phenomenon was unrecognized until internet forums made the exchange among the 'addicted' possible. Scientific literature is poor, as well as knowledge on number of the people affected. Psychologists differ widely about the cause.