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Category: German Language Media
Since Dolly, the cloned sheep, several scientists around the world announced the cloning of a whole zoo of mammals. Some had nothing more than a plan, some seemed to have proof (but had faked it), and some, actually, did make clones. In those peak days of the clone hype, even the plan to clone was good enough for a report. Does anyone remember the announcement...
10Jan 2011
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What is now renowned worldwide as the Max-Planck-Society was established on January 11th, 1911, exactly 100 years ago in Berlin. At first it was the "Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft" (KWG). The today 80 institutions (with about 5000 scientists) make it one of the most successful scientific endeavors in Germany. The Berlin Tagesspiegel...
Money is great, especially if you have enough of it in your account, right? But as the financial...
Money is great, especially if you have enough of it in your account, right? But as the financial and economic crisis has made people realize, money also is the cause of many problems.
To be sure, Karl Marx and many others have thought deeply about the consequences of money as a medium of exchange for goods and services.
But it was Silvio Gesell (b. 1862), who realized that money should "rust", so to speak. Gesell's idea was that money hoarded on bank accounts and not used for actual exchange of goods and services should lose its value over time. This way, people would be eager to keep their money in circulation. A strange idea? Well, it has already been tested (successfully!). Die Zeit printed an ...
20Dec 2010
For years (...
For years (and especially during the recent swine or avian flu pandemic panic) Tamiflu (Roche) and Relenza (GSK) have been the drugs of choice to treat flu patients with severe complications like pneumonia. Governments all over the world bought and stored the drugs to be prepared. But, apparently, the data proving the efficacy of these drugs are weak! Nike Heinen (a freelance) quotes a report of the Cochrane Collaboration, a group of scientists "preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of health care".
The...
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung took a...
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung took a local path to deal with the conference on climate change in Cancun. Swiss and Austrian scientists found, that regular hares are infiltrating mountain hare (or arctic or snow hare) country. According to genetic studies, more mountain hares carry gene variants from regular grey-brownish hares under their snow white fur. Climate change (bringing few less snow covered landscapes and warmer winters) seems to allow regular hares to move higher into the hills until the ranges of the closely- related species overlap....
Since excavation of its first known member in the German Neander valley the fate of Homo neanderthalensis has prodded people to think about the vulnerability of our own human species, Homo sapiens. And right in time for the discussions in Cancun about the threatening effects of recent climate change on current human populations, German scientists say it was climate that ended the time on Earth of perhaps the last and surely the best known...
It was George Soulié de Morant, a Frenchman (1878-1955), who is considered to be the "father" of...
It was George Soulié de Morant, a Frenchman (1878-1955), who is considered to be the "father" of western style acupuncture practice. His descriptions in his books, how and where to put the needles into the skin of patients, guided all his followers. Unfortunately he was a fabulist, according to an article published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (a short version of a text published in Deutsches Ärzteblatt). The author (Hanjo Lehmann) is a physician and head of...
The gene variant has been named after the city...
The gene variant has been named after the city, where it might have originated: Neu-Delhi-Metallo-Beta-Lactamase-1, NDM-1, makes bacteria resistant against all currently known antibiotics. NDM-1-bacteria have been originally found in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, but already reached Europe, too. In Belgian, a man died, who came back with an injury from a visit in his home country Pakistan (according to the Belgian newspaper "Le Soir"), probably the first NDM-1-caused death in Europe. The German Robert-Koch-Institute said, that a few cases have been registered in Germany, too (that's the information from dpa, the website of the Robert-Koch-Institute is more specific: 4 cases), although not fatal due to the existence...
Should society allow a certain degree of whaling? This is a question not only of scientific,...
Should society allow a certain degree of whaling? This is a question not only of scientific, but also political, cultural, and - perhaps - economical considerations – not to speak of emotions and political populism. Nevertheless, it is mostly discussed by science/environmental reporters, which is a good thing, if the journalists tend to stick to the facts. Hans Schuh (Die Zeit) wrote down his thoughts about the outcome of the negotiations at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) today. He describes the standoff situation at the commission, where pro- and contra-hunting nations paralyze any political advancements (Headline: "Deep in...
Every four years if happens. If it is time for the German World Cup soccer team to play during...
Every four years if happens. If it is time for the German World Cup soccer team to play during working hours, German productivity drops dramatically for at least 90 minutes. About 23 million Germans watched this year's first German World Cup game against Australia - more than a quarter of the 80 million population! It's no different with Germans' Swiss neighbors - this year their team won against Spain, the European champion and one of the odds-on favorites for the prize.
So, no one, especially no one in the media business, can evade World Cup enthusiasm (nigglers call it hype). But how to serve the "topic number one" as science editor? The problem is that (watching) soccer is supposed to be fun. So, articles about the physics of the ball might sound too...
That's interesting (or funny, if you like...
That's interesting (or funny, if you like): One study, but very different types of headlines: "'Male Menopause' discovered" and "Men have no Menopause".
Both types of headlines are based on one study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which analyzed 3219 European males between 40 and 79. Blood samples provided testosterone levels and questionnaires (!) asked about the "general, sexual, physical, and psychological health". The result: "Symptoms of poor morning erection, low sexual desire, erectile dysfunction, inability to perform vigorous activity, depression...
What's proof? A fingerprint, for sure, isn't it?! Judges and lawyers...
What's proof? A fingerprint, for sure, isn't it?! Judges and lawyers like scientific methods, because they seem to be a tool to come up with "proof" or even "the truth". That's the hope, at least. And of course it's just so easy to refer to a scientist or even to some sort of an apparatus to justify your judgement, isn't it? (Sounds familiar, journalists? I will come back to this, later...)
But, judges should not have to much trust in forensic methods, because the uncertainties of given technologies like fingerprints, lie detection or else are far worse than expected. The Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Patrick Imhasly)...
Did I say yet...
Did I say yet that the tracker appreciates suggestions from science reporters out there telling us of articles interesting from a quality of journalism point of view? Both positive and negative examples are welcome.
The following responds to just such a suggestion. Wolfgang Goede (P.M. journal) gave me a nudge toward a blog article from Caroline Braun, undergraduate in media science studies at the University of Bayreuth. She wrote about the astonishing news that crossed the wires on March, 3rd initiated by a (rather sloppy) NASA ...
19Apr 2010
"Number of teeth is a predictor of cardiovascular...
"Number of teeth is a predictor of cardiovascular mortality", that's the title of a research paper published in the Journal of Periodontology by Swedish periodontologists (University of Uppsala), adding to some older studies, which found a correlation of periodontitis and cardiovascular disease. (The theory explaining this correlation is, that harmful bacteria involved in periodontitis spread into the blood stream and cause problems there, too.)
Together with some scary pictures of toothless mouths, the study...
The weekly Die Zeit had the courage to feature the decade long,...
The weekly Die Zeit had the courage to feature the decade long, emotional and sometimes even violent debate between the University of Bremen and animal rights activists – in an unusual way. The scientist (a brain researcher) and the animal welfare activist got the chance to write down their perspective of the difficult topic of experiments with animals (macaques in this case). Both statements are emotional, the animal welfare activist describes a feeling of powerlessness, the...
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