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Issue no. 33, 2006 Published: Sep 29, 2006
Agreement on EU science funding
New body to boost science for development in South
EU accessibility boosted by EUR 3m project
More plants make more rain
Japan launches satellite to study the Sun
Virtual face-ageing may help find missing persons
US researchers to build mega magnet
Invention: Self-destructing memory

Agreement on EU science funding
The EU's next round of funding for scientific research is a step closer to being implemented. A common position has been reached by the European Council on adopting the so called 7th Framework Programme (FP7). The text of the common position will be sent to the European Parliament, which will take a vote on the EUR 50bn plan. It is hoped the funds available through FP7 will help stem the numbers of European researchers leaving science. For the past five years, European research has been funded by individual national agencies and the EU's Framework 6 programme (FP6). It had an approximate budget of EUR 19bn over the period 2002-6. But FP6 was criticised widely for being over-bureaucratic, skewed towards big, complex collaborations and subject to political pressures. One significant change made for FP7 will be the inauguration of a European Research Council (ERC) to support basic research across all disciplines. The final position of the member states - communicated through the Council - must be put to a vote in the European Parliament. Ministers would like FP7 to begin by January 2007, so officials want to get a final version ready for voting in November.
BBC News Sep 27, 2006	back to top

New body to boost science for development in South
The foreign ministers of 131 developing nations have backed plans to transform a network of science ministries, academies and research councils into a new body to promote science-based development. The Consortium on Science, Technology and Innovation for the South (COSTIS) will replace the existing Third World Network of Scientific Organizations (TWNSO). The decision was made last week in New York at the annual meeting of foreign ministers of the 131 member states of the so-called Group of 77 (G-77). The move is intended to put science and technology closer to the heart of economic-development policy. COSTIS will focus on organising South-South forums on developing appropriate and affordable technologies in sectors such as energy and water. It also plans to support the creation of scientific 'centres of excellence' and promote scientific cooperation between the G-77 member states through information-sharing, exchange programmes and joint research projects. COSTIS is set to be fully operational by Jan 2007.
SciDev Sep 27, 2006	back to top

EU accessibility boosted by EUR 3m project
The EC is ploughing EUR 3m into a new technology project that will aim to use technology to improve the lives of elderly and disabled people by making them more independent. Brunel University will head up the Diadem (Delivering inclusive access for disabled and elderly members of the community) project, which has started this week, by focusing on new technology to help individuals fill out forms. The 'Expert System' will analyse how elderly and disabled people interact with forms and then adapt them to suit the individual's needs. The software, which will sit on a user's PC, will be tested in three cities - Oslo, Sheffield and Turin - to develop a final version. The pilot in Sheffield will see guinea pigs using the system to access council services. Recently, two major charities called on the industry to improve technology for disabled people, saying it remains both too expensive and too difficult to access for elderly and disabled users.
Silicon.com Sep 26, 2006	back to top

More plants make more rain
More rain makes for more plant growth: that much is obvious. But now a statistical study of satellite images has added weight to the reverse notion: more plants also make for more rain. The result adds to the impetus to preserve green spaces in dry regions, in order to help prevent deserts from growing and encroaching on agricultural land. Greenery can have a number of effects on a local climate. Plants are thought to transfer moisture from the soil into the air by evaporation from their leaves, and hold water in the soil close to the surface, where it can also evaporate. What is more, the darker surfaces of plants compared to sandy deserts also absorb more solar radiation, which, along with their rough texture, can create convection and turbulence in the atmosphere. This might create more - or less - rainfall. All of these effects have been incorporated into climate models. But there has been disagreement about which effects were dominant and why, and how much impact it all has. The new work concludes that vegetation effects account for around 30% of annual rainfall variation in Africa's Sahel region. That should help scientists understand rainfall patterns in the area, which is threatened with increasing desertification and periods of drought.
Nature / Geophysical Research Letters Sep 25, 2006	back to top

Japan launches satellite to study the Sun
A satellite designed to collect vital information about the Sun's magnetic field successfully took off from Japan's Uchinoura Space Centre early on Saturday. The Solar-B mission will attempt to understand how the field triggers solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which can cause communications blackouts on Earth. Data from the mission could even be used to predict when these massive explosions occur. Solar-B is led by Japan's space agency (JAXA), with additional support from NASA, the UK's Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, and ESA. It has three instruments, each designed to measure different aspects of the Sun's behaviour. The first is a lightweight optical telescope, which can resolve features just 150 km across and can measure the Sun's magnetic field in 3D. The second instrument is an ultraviolet spectrometer that will take images of the corona, helping scientists to relate the movement of hot gases to the underlying magnetic fields. The craft also contains an X-ray telescope, which will observe and record the emissions of the corona at different temperatures.
PhysicsWeb Sep 25, 2006	back to top

Virtual face-ageing may help find missing persons
Researchers at Kent University have developed software that artificially 'ages' a person's face using a range of parameters. The software tries to work out how a face may change by factoring in their personal history, family traits and population trends. Artificial aging software exists already, but this can only apply rough physical changes. But the new software into account the way a person has changed in the past, where known, and examines the ageing of other family members as well as the wider population. The system first converts a face into a set of numbers based on the location and size of each feature. It then uses a database of previously entered faces to calculate the transformations that need to be made. This database includes previous images of the person in question as well as photographs of their family members and other individuals. The software tries to ensure any projected changes bear the right resemblance to images of siblings or parents stored in the database. In an effort to improve the accuracy of the system, the researchers have been using it to artificially age known older people, but using photos of their younger selves.
New Scientist Sep 26, 2006	back to top

US researchers to build mega magnet
US scientists have embarked on a project to build a USD 11.7m 'mega magnet' that could revolutionise molecular science. The initiative was made possible by a National Science Foundation grant to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University. The magnet will generate extremely powerful magnetic fields using just one-third the power of traditional 'all-resistive' magnets, enabling unique experiments to be conducted at the Florida facility. It will be used primarily for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to study proteins, nucleic acids, catalysts, conductors and semiconductors. According to the researchers, a key advantage of the new hybrid resistive and superconducting magnet is that it will allow experiments to be performed at lower cost and for longer periods than would be the case using existing all-resistive magnets. Resistive magnets require electricity and cooled water to function, while superconducting magnets require little or no electrical power once they are brought up to full field.
VNUnet UK Sep 28, 2006	back to top

Invention: Self-destructing memory
Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM) was developed by Honeywell and Motorola as a successor to flash memory. Now Philips has plans to make it hacker-proof. MRAM stores data by reading and writing data magnetically to a stack of thin film layers. If, however, a hacker opens the chip, they can easily read sensitive data from the layers directly. This could be a problem if an MRAM chip is used for high-security applications, like storing passwords or cryptographic keys. The thin-film magnets in Philips' tamper-proof chip will be wrapped in a soft metal sheet and then topped with another thin-film magnet. While the wrapper remains intact the soft metal acts as a 'keeper', gathering flux from the permanent magnet into a closed loop and keeping it away from the MRAM stack. But if someone attempts to break through the metal wrap to access the MRAM layers, the keeper becomes ineffective. Flux then breaks out and immediately erases the magnetic data stored in the MRAM chip.
New Scientist Sep 25, 2006	back to top