Category: Study trips

The Ideological Understanding of Science

Vienna at night. Breathtaking view from the Museum of Natural History (c) EUSJA

Vienna is a huge museum. The city is covered with gorgeous palaces, mansions and churches. Witnesses out of carved stone testify the former wealth and power of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The political clout of the 18^th and 19^th century has long gone. Nowadays the lush city at the Danube strives for scientific excellency and grandeur. During an EUSJA study trip to Austria’s capital the scholars demonstrated that they do want to belong to the world’s best and most reflective.

“There is no science without a philosophical and ethical framework”, pointed out Friedrich Stadler, professor at the Vienna Department of Contemporary History. Austria is beginning to take this serious and live up to its Nazi heritage. Historians produce evidence how Viennese biologists have contributed to racism and the holocaust. 75 years after, 2700 Jewish members of the University are commemorated. They were expelled and or in the course of their odyssey murdered.

Young scientists make the difference: Linda Erker investigates the ideology of science (c) EUSJA

In the process of this, new and innovative angles to this question emerge. How did Jewish scientists pursue their research in exile, i.e. in Southeast Asia? How was Austriafascism connected, politically and scientifically to the Franco regime? In her dissertation, Linda Erker investigates what she calls “the ideological understanding of science”. This immediately raises the question, unanswered yet but not less important which ideology runs 21^st century science (and perhaps distorts it).

EUSJA visitors at Joseph II. monument: Against the resistance of the old elites he reformed Austria and introduced education for the general public (c) EUSJA

The excursion through Viennese labs had been organized by Oliver Cyril Lehmann, chairman of the Austrian Association of Education and Science Journalists. The start at the history department, right after breakfast, delivered the day’s message. Science and technology are done by people, with the people and for the people and thus are deeply embedded in the democratic principles. Or in Lehmann’s more general words: “Humanities are tackling natural sciences.”

The new WU campus: Vanguard architecture introduces vanguard academical goals (c) EUSJA

This or something similar could be the overall Vienna Research Mission Statement, also for the new University of Economics. WU is one of the highest ranking business schools in Europe, close to the Vienna Prater and within sight of the famous Ferris Wheel.

During lunch in the vanguard library, WU Rector Christoph Baldelt introduced the “open campus without fences”. In the center it exhibits a fancy building which seems to be coated by rust, but which is green in the inside with 70 percent of the heating and cooling provided by groundwater. Little parks and recreational facilities on the premises are available to the entire population. While academia’s ivory towers and the elite university are retreating a tricky questions remains, admits Baldelt in private conversation: How to spot and promote the real talents?

Interior of the Vienna reactor: dedicated to peace making missions (c) EUSJA

For coffee the almost 30 science journalists from 20 European nations were shuttled to the Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics ATI. Austrians learned their lesson derived from two lost wars. The department’s nuclear reactor is strictly used for basic research and peace seeking missions. Inspectors who check nuclear facilities around the world for abuse are being trained here. TRIGA Mark-II is the only nuclear reactor in Austria. Nuclear power plants are banned. Nonetheless to climb on top and to gaze into the reactor’s bluish core is quite a fascinating act.

The Vienna BioCenter is a distinguished European Institution which attracts researchers from the entire world. It’s geared to crack down on cancer, with the financial support of leading pharmaceutical companies. However it has not found yet an alternative to highly controversial animal testing. A respective question by one of the EUSJA journalists a researcher contested with: “Critics shall see both, mouse houses and chicken farms before they express an opinion.”

Schnitzel under dinosaurs: Vienna Museum of Natural History; in green coat: study trip host Oliver Lehmann (c) EUSJA

The EUSJA trip ended with a dinner in the Natural History Museum. Viennese Schnitzel was served under the skeletons of dinosaurs. Their sudden disappearance demonstrates the vulnerability of the Creation and the existence of a fine balance which enables life. This insight was reinforced during a closing tour of the museum. Repeatedly the chemistry of our atmosphere changed dramatically resulting in mass extinction which put the planet at the brink of death.

Exodus of life: Science needs to preserve the planet — Vienna Message 2014 (c) Vienna

Humans and their technology have started another, artificially caused change, with so far threatening and unpredicted consequences. In the Vienna Spirit, rolled out during this visit during beautiful spring weather, scientists together with science journalists could make the difference in this biggest of all experiments.

7 April, 2014
Sunny with some plasma clouds

An international traveling party is always fun. An Italian tells juicy details about the strange behavior of Berlusconi, a Russian girl tells how she evades the tight press regime and an Irishman talks about Irish ghost neighborhoods caused by the real estate crisis. It’s nice to look for differences and similarities between countries. At nuclear fusion project ITER, all these international conversations take place every day. But here it is not only small talk. Tough agreements are made on an international level to build the most complex machine in the world. An almost impossible task.

‘The position of the sun turns bougainvillea into firework.’ It is a phrase in a song about southern France by the Dutch pop band Bløf. I often think about it when I’m in Aix-en-Provence, the city where I studied eight years ago. I still visit regularly because it stole my heart. The sun does something to you here. Not only to tan or burn your legs. The bright and omnipresent sunshine here brings up the most beautiful colors in buildings, streets, flowers and trees.

Sun in a box
It is therefore a very appropriate place to put the sun in a box. Or, as Pierre-Giles de Gennes, Nobel Laureate in Physics, said: ‘We say we are putting the sun in a box. A lovely idea. Too bad we do not know how to make that box.’ At a 45 minutes drive north of Aix, a complex machine that simulates the processes occurring on the sun is being built. This process is called fusion energy. In contrast with nuclear energy, atoms are joined together instead of split. With only a negligible amount of nuclear waste, which remains radioactive for ‘only’ one hundred years. This machine should eventually produce more energy than the 50 megawatts it needs. 500 megawatts of energy should be delivered by the enormous power released during fusion. It is possible, according to the scientists working on this project called ITER. One of the scientists assured us that there are no ‘show stoppers’ anymore. At least on a technical level. The international cooperation and political will required for such a project, that’s a whole other story.

Mistake
As many as seven countries (China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, USA) and the EU are united in the project. All countries are building – in their own country – a piece of the machine. Ultimately, it all comes together in France. The assembly of all the components (there seem to be more than a million) gives the scientists already many headaches. The tolerances are minimal. When a part is a few millimeters larger than agreed, it no longer fits. And I’m not even mentioning the bizarre temperatures that the materials have to undergo. In the middle of the plasma (in which fusion occurs), the temperature is about one hundred million degrees. The superconducting magnets are -269 degrees and the walls around the plasma may ‘only’ be a few hundred degrees. No wonder the demands for the materials are strict and the manufacturing process is thoroughly monitored. However, mistakes still occur. For example, the Italians suddenly came up with another welding method for the vacuum chamber. And in Japan someone had left a towel on a long coil. When the coil was rolled up, the towel destroyed a part of it.

Chinglish
Communication is essential in order to correct these mistakes. To prevent these errors in an early stage, ITER has set up a video conferencing system that – to my surprise – works really smoothly. We had a conference call with members from all over the world. Five cameos showed fusion researchers from Spain, USA, India, China and Russia. Questions and answers and even a bit of discussion was possible, without any delay or disruption in the connection. It might make such a complex international project a bit easier. But different interpretations and cultures will always remain. For example, the Chinese video caller spoke a strange kind of ‘Chinglish’. Later on, an ITER employee told me that he was regularly frustrated by the Chinese: ‘They do no effort to speak good English.’ The project will cost billions of dollars and has been considerably delayed. But given the ambitious goal – to put the sun in a box – this is not that surprising. For me it’s already quite something that they can put all participants in a conference call. So I expect a lot from it. Until then I’m going to enjoy the southern French sun. Time to shut down my laptop and settle down with a pastis on a terrace on Place Richelme.

1 May, 2013
Kafkaesque? Not Prague’s Science! by Wolfgang C. Goede

During Franz Kafka’s time, Prague was supposedly quite a Kafkaesque place with lots of secrets behind the doors of its ancient buildings. Communism did not help much to disperse this reputation. Now modern science is fundamentally changing the city’s fame and vibrations. During an EUSJA study trip to the Vlatava capital, laboratories turned into public show cases. Hands-on science with in-depth explanations, impressive experiments and open discussions with accessible researchers demonstrated that Prague ambitiously reaches out to become a major player in the world elite of science.

Alas! No charming old buildings any more. Instead a brand new campus with the most modern labs, English is spoken everywhere, a liberal spirit prevails. The physicist Ivan Kasik takes us around the Institute of Photonics and Electronics. Here we are at the forefront of the communication revolution. Kasik and his team are cooperating with leading research organizations throughout Europe to improve the performance of glass fibers. The scientist knows how sci journs tick. In very basic terms, with striking examples and little experiments he explains how this type of glass works and lays out the challenges ahead in fiber engineering.

Principally the transparent strings are pipes which transport light waves, which are coded communication signals. With many tricks such as purifying the glass and applying special coatings the material’s efficiency is being boosted. As a carrier of our worldwide communication, highly efficient glass fibers are becoming a prime commodity. Cities and countries with a high fiber index such as Sweden or South Korea belong to the leading high-tech nations. “If we want to further increase the speed of the internet, we have to change the wave length from visible to near infrared”, says Kasik. That would, in the long run, ensure a “fantastic data stream”, he adds.

There are many other applications though. Glass fibers can be used as lasers with the light more intensive than 200 suns. They serve to weld and to cut. Also fibers are viable sensors and become increasingly important in chemical detection, emergency systems as well as medicine. Hopefully one day they are able to look into cells, however, they cannot detect cancer or HIV, Kasik corrects speculations which were expressed in some premature media reports.

The production of the fibers is outright exciting. Glass is heated up to 2100 degrees Celsius and then threads are drawn, if necessary extremely thin, like “Angelo’s hair” spaghetti, says an Italian colleague. Another one wants to know whether nerves could be made from special glass one day. Kasik does not want to get into other speculations, rather stays on firm ground and demonstrates the production process. In his lab, a fiber of one kilometer length takes one hour, in an industrial plant only two minutes.

Change of scenery. The geologist Pavel Bosak talks about another fascinating topic: minerals. They are our greatest treasure, he says and states: “All materials we use on earth come from the interior of our planet.” At the same time, minerals are a window into our past. They document the entire history of our planet and evolution. Since our earth has been exposed to so many changes, from steamy heat to extreme cold, he cannot believe in the threats of climate change. Therefore he considers himself a climate skeptic, he admits, a position widely not very well accepted, but geologically perhaps justified.

For its investigations, Bosak’s institute relies on a series of highly sophisticated instruments such as scanning electron microscopes, X-ray powder refractors, electron probe microanalyzers, superconducting rock magnometers. Looking through the optical systems of some instruments reveals most beautiful and mysterious crystal formations. The institute’s fossil studies contributed to cutting edge research, for example to explore the evolution of jump mechanisms of animals. Analysis of the Egyptian pyramids established the fact that the materials came from very far away – how, no one knows yet.

All in all, Bosak concludes, passionately, that geology is a prime scientific discipline, which deserves much more funding. The financial situation remains tight, he confesses. Politicians don’t always understand the needs of science, he regrets with diplomatic politeness; and, may be, there could be more public debate about research and its goals, he hesitantly agrees with one participant of the tour.

After glass fibers and minerals the next stop are plants. The biology institute emphasizes a focus on medicine, for instance the development of anti-cancer properties and GMOs, genetically manipulated plants to be used as new vaccines. The highlight, as it turns out, is to peer into a cell and witness a cell division, almost just as dramatic as Hollywood presents these wondrous processes of life. On the other side, very reconciling the fact that biology also can do without expensive instruments and yet progresses, rather naturally by means of conventional breeding and crossing.

This, for example make apples more resistant against invaders. Many species like Red Topaz don’t require chemical treatment any more. Probes circulated around in slices reveal that the outcome is delicious. Photographs at the lab’s walls show how far this organic method extends. Apple trees have turned into vertical wooden columns which facilitate the harvest of the popular and healthy fruits. This all pays off. Licenses produce a yearly income of 200 000 Euros for the institute.

The next demonstration is on a screen. Milan Hajek, Prague’s expert on microwave technology, apologizes: There is no space right now in his lab. Although rather dry and abstract, he manages to catch the attention of his audience. Drying books and valuable papers after floods and natural disasters is very difficult and so far has almost been impossible. His team deploys microwaves, so well controlled that they don’t leave any spots. The other field of research is street repairs. After this long winter period roads all over Europa are severely damaged. Microwaves can help. They enter the asphalt by ten centimeters and dry it almost instantly, providing the conditions for a swift repair.

Then this study trip’s final visit: Microreactors which look like lego. Assembled and connected with each other they produce chemicals. Amazing, the purchase of one piece easily runs up to 10 000 Euro. But it withstands pressures of 100 bar! The set-up reminds of a little steam engine which children in the 1950ies used to play with. In the old days, they drove tiny saws and hammers, now they synthesize wash lotions, pills, dynamite.

The chemical engineer Jiri Kristal explains the advantages of this new production line: safer, more energy efficient, better control, “the way to go”. A pragmatic, no word about the fiction-like perspectives: factories of the size of chips, which can be inserted everywhere, in bodies – may be also premature, although laboratories on a chip have already been state of the art for years.

Saturday evening, after 6 pm. A closely tacted all-day marathon around Prague’s new high-technology campus at the outskirts of the city comes to an end. We look around. The scientists and their staff are less exhausted than the visitors. They really must like what they are doing and share it with critical audiences like science journalists. Kafka would have enjoyed the tour!

LINKS:

Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic: http://avcr.cz

Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals: http://www.icpf.cas.cz/en

Institute of Geology: www.gli.cas.cz/en

Institute of Photonics & Electronics: http://www.ufe.cz

Institute of Experimental Botany: www.ueb.cas.cz/en

Contact: Marina Huzvarova, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Academic Bulletin, Editor-in-Chief: huzvarova@ssc.cas.cz

pix (c) Goede

1 April, 2013
Little notes about a great opportunity: Mission (Almost) Impossible

by Agnes Kittel, Budapest

There are some science journalists who work in the same time as researchers. Actually it is my situation.

As a researcher, I regularly attend meetings and conferences organised in the field of my research topic – depending on the most important subject in science, namely, money.

Although the smaller meetings, workshops may return profit immediately and so I always enjoy them, similarly others, attend big conferences, too and besides posters and talks in my research area, visit other posters and listen lectures in topics pretty far from my own one – and never regret it. They are also very useful and can help to think about my own questions in a different way.

If you are a science journalist, the situation is totally different. There is no need to concentrate on your own research problems, can select the topics sound the most exciting, can concentrate on others questions as usual and can share the joy of fellow researchers in case of their success –sincerely. It is, in some term, the freedom itself. You do not need to blame yourself spending time with listening lectures not in your subject, can contact people whom you could not meet at your meetings, can speak even with a Nobel laureate about several topics, moreover, by chance or on purpose, can meet other journalists and you can change your experiences, discuss difficulties etc. Of course, there is nothing without some work, so besides enjoying great lectures and discussions at the meeting and the sightseeing afterwards if you can, you have to make interviews and write an article.

As a lucky one, with the support of EUSJA, I could attend two very exciting conferences I could not have attended in other way. (I could not take the whole charges of them.)

The BioVision conference (more than 2.000 attendees), was held in Lyon, France in 2011. It was a great experience. Since this conference was initiated to help the dialogue between decision makers on several fields and researchers, following the lectures was not too difficult for me. I would not have missed the excellent lecture delivered by Nobel laureate Prof. Tsien, or the round table discussions, and although I attended many lectures and visited posters, too, I could also enjoy the social events – and excellent food. It took less than 3 days and when I got home, it was a piece of cake to select from the topics must be interesting for a wider readership.

Last November I could participate at the first European Science Foundation conference in Stresa, Italy, thank the EUSJA support. The conference title was “The neurobiology of emotion” and it contained sessions with lectures about pain, fear, anxiety, emotion and high level cognition. (Actually, some topic was not too far from our research topic.) The title sounded very interesting, important for the readership of popular science journals. We were no more than 160 including only 4 science journalists. I was the only one active researcher among them, however, I could understand their problem. These lectures were not for the wider audience as in Lyon, they were for the specialists. Even, researchers working with different approach could find some difficulties to understand each other. And if sometimes it was not easy for them, either, you can imagine the situation of poor science journalists. Of course, there were some exceptions, when everybody could follow almost everything, or when missed something, it was not disturbing. Among them the lecture given by Jaak Panksepp can be mentioned. It was the last lecture on the first day and besides it was an excellent talk, it could encourage us that hopefully every day we can understand something. It was a hard work, it was a challenge – however, the common problems and difficulties to understand as much as we wanted or would have liked, resulted vivid conversations among the participants especially during dinners. I think, they were very useful and seminal. Everybody was helpful, there was no prob to ask for an interview either during the meeting or afterward. We, science journalists, without solid background on this research field, all decided to read a lot about the topic before reading the papers for our audiance, and I think, this type of „extra work” is never useless.

I would like to go back and see more in this area of Italy. In spite November, we could enjoy sunny days- at least during coffee breaks, becasue before the sessions was too early or too late for enjoying sunshine. Almost everybody tried to walk a bit on the shore of the beautiful lake and I was not the only one who never missed shot a glance at the marvelous view before entered the lecture hall.

I thank EUSJA for the opportunity and thank Alessandra Piccolotto (ESF) for her organising work and hospitality, too.

7 February, 2013
EUSJA study tour to Saarbrücken

Under the headline “How Computer Science and Materials Science are improving the world”, EUSJA journalists are invited to a press trip to the Saarland University from March 28-30, 2012:

Which technologies can ensure privacy in the so-called World Wide Web? How can you enhance websites with three-dimensional content? How can you use three-dimensional computer graphics for other disciplines like Materials Science?

These questions will be addressed by the press tour to Saarland University from March 28 to 30, 2012. We would like to invite you to take part at the program, which introduces Saarland University in Saarbrücken and Schloss Dagstuhl, the Leibniz Center for Informatics in Wadern.

Computer science at Saarland University has played a cutting-edge role from its beginning. It has developed to become an internationally acclaimed location for this discipline. Top-tier research institutes with an international reputation contribute to this prestige. Besides the Department of Computer Science, these include the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), and the Cluster of Excellence on “Multimodal Computing and Interaction”.

The department of Materials Science and Engineering of Saarland University develops similarly. It maintains close connections to the Material Engineering Center Saarland, a Steinbeis Research Center, the Fraunhofer Institute for Non-Destructive Testing, the Leibniz Institute for New Materials, which are also located on the campus. There are only a few universities in Germany that can provide such a major focus to this research area.

Located in the picturesque baroque manor Schloss Dagstuhl, 50 kilometres from Saarbrücken, the Leibniz Center for Informatics brings together prominent computer scientists, young researchers, and practitioners from all over the world. In this way, it promotes fundamental and applied research, continuing education and technology transfer in informatics.

Programme for the Saarland study tour. We are looking forward to welcoming 15 journalists in Saarbrücken from March 28 to 30. If fewer than eight journalists register, we will have to postpone the tour. Therefore, please register as soon as possible.

13 January, 2012