http://science.typolis.net/ bits, reviews and comments on science typolis: martin_ (mailto:info@euroscience.net) 2008-07-24T07:26:34Z en hourly 1 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z http://science.typolis.net/stories/17473/ 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. typolis: EuroScience.Net martin_ in the media, communication, mathematics, science policy Copyright © 2008 martin_ 2008-07-24T07:26:34Z http://science.typolis.net/stories/17233/ 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. typolis: EuroScience.Net martin_ in the media, communication, environment Copyright © 2008 martin_ 2008-06-16T07:16:22Z http://science.typolis.net/stories/16577/ 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. typolis: EuroScience.Net martin_ in the media, disaster, materials Copyright © 2008 martin_ 2008-04-15T19:45:46Z http://science.typolis.net/stories/16107/ 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. typolis: EuroScience.Net martin_ emerging diseases, medicine Copyright © 2008 martin_ 2008-02-26T06:57:48Z http://science.typolis.net/stories/15902/ Now, when the Space Shuttle Atlantis is visiting the International Space Station (ISS), swapping crew members and extending hardware by attaching the space lab Columbus, it's time to tell your kids about human space flight, what this people are doing on-board, and what all this fuzz is about. Thus, cock your head and watch the sky. The space station is visible very good just after sunset as a bright straight moving spot (it takes 91 minutes for one orbit, its altitude is around 340 kilometers). ESA provides a nice mash-up of ISS's present position on a Google map, although no future advice for a sighting at your home town is available. That's done by a website of NASA, showing the possible sightings for the next days. Click on "Sighting Opportunities" and go ahead for your country and nearest town. typolis: EuroScience.Net martin_ education, space Copyright © 2008 martin_ 2008-02-11T08:42:40Z http://science.typolis.net/stories/15856/ Some 50 years ago physicists unraveled the makings of superconductivity -- at least in a first stage for the so-called superconductors of type 1, say the ordinary superconductors. John Bardeen, Leon Cooper and Robert Schrieffer outlined the later dubbed B.C.S. theory (after their initials) in a Physical Review paper, which says, that electric current without resistance in established by the coupling of two electrons (a so-called Cooper pair) via lattice vibrations. Kenneth Chang remembers in a NY Times (8.1.2008) piece the making of. However, in 1986 a second type of superconductors were discovered, the so-called high-temperature superconductors that are still awaiting a concise explanation. typolis: EuroScience.Net martin_ in the media, physics Copyright © 2008 martin_ 2008-02-06T21:21:32Z http://science.typolis.net/stories/14698/ not what you think in the first case - if you take it according to Andrew Abbott of the University of Chicago in his "Welcome to the University of Chicago" address to the freshmen starting college. To give two bits of his speach to provoke further reading: First, what are not the aims of education: Let me pull my argument together about what are not the aims of education before turning, in the time remaining, to the question of what those aims are. I have shown first that your general level of worldly success does not depend on your study here -- indeed that success is already pretty much guaranteed. I have shown second that your detailed level of worldly success is a function of occupational choices that will come after your time here and that will be largely unrelated to it. I have shown third that there is no strong evidence that college instruction gives you cognitive skills not available elsewhere and fourth that the much-vaunted basic intellectual skills may not in fact be the most important skills either in professional school or professional life. Nor finally is there any reason to believe in a canon, since said canon is manifestly absent in actual American life. The sole thing I am willing to grant out of this whole discussion is that college instruction may be justifiable as a form of mental gymnastics. But lots of other things might serve that purpose just as well. And now the result of his argument: Education is not about content. It is not even about skills. It is a habit or stance of mind. It is not something you have. It is something you are... Education is a way of expanding experience...being educated is your best plan for an uncertain future. typolis: EuroScience.Net martin_ education Copyright © 2007 martin_ 2007-10-11T07:14:47Z Search this site: q http://science.typolis.net/search