The findings and recommendations of a detailed study of successful and unsuccessful US-European space missions are published today (30 June 1998) in a new report US-European Collaboration in Space Science.

A series of new scientific advances are unveiled in the 1997 Annual Report from the European Science Foundation published today. The report covers more than 30 pieces of research or research-related activity on a variety of scientific, social, economic and cultural issues, drawn from the physical, life, environmental and medical sciences as well as the social sciences and the humanities. These include:

Signposts for Europe’s deaf

More than 25 different sign languages are in use in Europe but little is known about how they originated or how they are represented and coded visually. A new ESF network should resolve this problem. Contrary to popular opinion, sign is not based on a country’s spoken language, for instance American and British sign languages are very different from one another. Sign languages can also differ within a country, both in terms of lexicon and grammar. In Northern Ireland, the Catholics use Irish sign while the Protestants rely on its British counterpart. The new network aims first to establish a common basis for transcribing, analysing and storing data and subsequently to investigate in-depth the acquisition, representation and grammatical structures of sign language. Then, by comparing spoken and sign languages, researchers hope to gain important insights into how language conveys universal cognitive properties irrespective of the mode of communication.

Antarctic ice core holds key to understanding climatic change

Plans to unlock further secrets about global climatic change moved forward during the year when the ESF’s European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica started drilling last season. The aim of the programme is to obtain an ice core of more than 3,000 metres in length by drilling down to bedrock at a site in East Antarctica. By analysing gases trapped in the ice, researchers hope to gain important insights into climatic change over the last 500,000 years which will put them in a stronger position to understand and predict future changes.

Tiny particles present massive opportunities

Research into nano-particle materials, composed of particles up to one thousand-millionths of a metre in size holds the key to developing molecular computer components, implanted biosensors and highly specific drug targeting systems amongst numerous other applications. An ESF programme on vapour-phase synthesis and processing of nano-particle materials has been helping this become a reality by bringing together leading members of the aerosol and materials sciences, as well as engineers, from across Europe. Since 1995, workshops and other programme events have sparked off more than 30 new research collaborations – a surprisingly high figure given the fact that bringing together two scientific disciplines normally entails a longer time-scale than generating collaborative initiatives within a single discipline.

Tackling Europe’s growing health divide

An ESF exploratory workshop has brought together social scientists and medical researchers to try and unravel the causes behind Europe’s health variations. Across Europe, poorer sections of the population are more likely to fall ill and die earlier than their wealthier counterparts and despite improvements in health care and per capita GDP, the gap between the health ‘rich’ and the health ‘poor’ is widening. Added to this, there are health divides between countries and regions. One way forward discussed at the workshop was to focus on specific causes of death, like coronary heart disease, and specific sets of influences, like the impact of disadvantage or the workplace to tease out the range of factors involved. And plans are now being developed for a new scientific programme that would focus on providing explanations of Europe’s health divide.

Reexamining the Nazi occupation of Europe

A pioneering ESF network has shed new light on one of the most pivotal periods in the history of 20th century Europe. Having gained access to previously locked second world war archives in central and eastern Europe, a team of European historians – led by a German – have challenged a number of long-established views on Nazi occupation policy. One of the most striking findings was the diversity of occupation models applied by the Nazis. In reality the Third Reich had no rules for occupation. They didn’t have any colonial experience they could draw on and consequently made numerous "beginners’ mistakes". For instance, their excessively harsh treatment of people in eastern Europe ultimately backfired.

Ends

Copies of the annual report are available from the ESF Communications Unit. An on-line version will be available at www.esf.org/news

For further information contact :

Andrew Smith
Head of Communication and Information, ESF
+33 (0)3 88 76 71 32

Notes for editors:

1. The European Science Foundation is the European association of 62 major national funding agencies devoted to scientific research in 21 countries. The ESF assists its member organisations in two main ways: by bringing scientists together in its scientific programmes, networks, exploratory workshops and European research conferences, to work on topics of common concern, and through the joint study of issues of strategic importance in European science policy.

For further information contact: Andrew Smith

Category: Media Centre, Press Releases 1998