Science can be as fun as a music concert or a game of football, according to Jácome Armas, the Portuguese physicist who founded the Science & Cocktails (S&C) series of public lectures in Denmark. This initiative, which combines scientific knowledge with music, art and dry ice-filled drinks, offer new ways to communicate science. It has arned Armas a Genius Prize from the Danish Science Journalists Association. Read more [...]
Recent changes in the political landscape in Northern Europe have brought some new policies that are less supportive of science and education than previously. This is a major shift for Denmark and Finland, which have until now invested 3% of GPD in research and development. Time will tell whether such research and education cuts are a mere bleep on these countries record, or whether they will bear long-term consequences. Read more [...]
Imagine that all the information including the health data, the intimate personal problems, the social references together with the results of your blood tests and all prescribed medicines in the past seven years have been sent to a database and stored under your unique personal identity number. This is what happened in Denmark. It is the result of a mandatory programme ordered by the Danish regional health authorities. When people realised that such data had been used for research without the consent of individuals, it created a massive scandal in a country known for its transparency policies. This unfortunate episode is a good illustration of how things can go wrong when data privacy issues are not being fully taken into account. Can other European countries learn from the Danish experience? Read more [...]
What can a conference like this one bring to you? Those among our readers who have a sweet tooth will agree that such events can be compared to the cherry on the cake of academic life. Once every two years, it is time to enjoy a stimulating flow of discussions. Participants are guaranteed to have fruitful encounters with other people from various horizons. They may not be like-minded but, at least, share similar concerns about European science, policy or science communication. This is what ESOF 2014 is about! Read more [...]
Jean-Patrick Connerade, is emeritus professor of physics at Imperial College London, UK, and the president of the European Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (EASAL). He is also a poet in his own right, writing in French, under the pen name of Chaunes. To many, science would seem the very opposite of poetry, being born of reason and rational deduction, whereas a poem appears as the fruit of imagination. Amongst all literary forms, poetry is the one most likely to be associated with the irrational. This could perhaps explain the hidden tension which has driven so many scientists, from Omar Khayyam to Robert Oppenheimer and from William Hamilton to Marie Curie to write poetry. Read more [...]
A recipe for how to stimulate breakthrough research would include the following ingredients: long-term commitments, large flexible grants, trust, and the funding body’s continuing interest in the research. This is precisely the approach that the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF) has adopted with its ‘Centres of Excellence’ concept, over the past 22 years. The foundation’s core activity is to fund frontline research in highly creative environments. By recognising and trusting the talent of top researchers, the foundation expects them to deliver potentially ground breaking results. Read more [...]
What can a conference like this one bring to you? Those among our readers who have a sweet tooth will agree that such events can be compared to the cherry on the cake of academic life. Once every two years, it is time to enjoy a stimulating flow of discussions. Participants are guaranteed to have fruitful encounters with other people from various horizons. They may not be like-minded but, at least, share similar concerns about European science, policy or science communication. This is what ESOF 2014 is about! Read more [...]
Science increasingly deals with challenges that concern society at large such as climate change, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, demographic change or resource scarcity. But civil society participation in science, let along in science policy, has so far mainly been limited. Now, there is a will to increase citizen participation, in countries like Germany and others... Read more [...]
When bats want to find their way around in the dark, they start by emitting a series of loud, ultrasonic sound pulses. Analysing how long it takes for the sound waves to return enables bats to construct a detailed map of their environment. Reverse Read more [...]
This week, ELIXIR has taken a step closer to becoming the central research infrastructure for life-science information in Europe. Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom plus the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to kick start the construction of ELIXIR. Read more [...]
Do you want to fly around the Earth in a space orbit? Are you lacking the 20 million Euro the Russian Space agency requires to take you into orbit? Do you have a yard full of metal, plexiglass, cables, and other strange technical objects? Why not built your own rocket capable of carrying a human into space? Read more [...]
European science conversations by the community, for the community
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