Theoretical physicists around Martin Plenio from Imperial College, London, propose to introduce into research papers by short videos that highlights the essentials of the paper and the results. The video is self-made by a small webcam and posted to the Quantiki portal. The video may be linked to the pre-print server arxiv.org, where researchers in the branches of mathematics, theoretical physics, and astronomy are used to deposit their papers in advance to publication.

The main goal is to give users an easier access to research, to expand the audience and to push scientists to explain their research to a broader readership. The video is essentially a presentation with maximum 6 minutes length.

Cristine Russell shows in her contribution for the Columbia Journalism Review (14.11.2008) how the press staff with universities, organisations and industry triggers science stories picked up by news reporters. And take it the other way round, science editors become dependent on the news release outlets - there's only the science in your paper delivered by Science, Nature, Eurekalert et al to your doorstep.

Impact factors and citation indices are a somewhat gold standard to measure quality and productivity of a scientist. But critics question the validity of these measures. Now, Jürgen Kaube writes in FAZ (24.7.2008) about a statistical report on impact factors commissioned by the International Mathematical Union (among others). The conclusion is, the significance of these citation measures like the impact factor or the Hirsch index is poor, if not nil.

Lisa Margonelli reviews in the NY Times (15. June 2008) the book "Bottlemania" by Elizabeth Royte. The message: "So why did Americans spend nearly $11 billion on bottled water in 2006, when we could have guzzled tap water at up to about one ten-thousandth the cost? The facile answer is marketing, marketing and more marketing." We know, tapped water is as good as bottled water, or even better. Royte gives now a broader picture, including political, economic and cultural background. I guess, all speaks for the tap.

William Broad investigates for the NY Times (15.4.2008) whether the Titanic sank in 1912 because the ship's builder used not the best available material for the thousands of rivets but second choice.

The hotspots for the risks that new infectious diseases emerge are located in India, China, tropical Africa and Central America, states a report in the journal Nature and a related Nature News story (20.2.2008) by Michael Hopkin. But also the western part of Germany, NL, BE, and the UK are at risk, according to deep red spots on the map. High population density is a main risk factor, explains Kate Jones of the Zoological Society of London. In the supplementary information of the paper there's a list of all 335 new infections diseases emerged since 1940, and a lot came first on the stage in western Europe.