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Recently, a few Romanian and foreign experts from Europe, Asia and U.S. gathered in Bucharest to launch the first wiki platform for the global community of foresight experts: ForWiki. The international online platform - in English - has been developed by the Romanian foresight specialists, as a result of the project "Quality and Leadership for Romanian Higher Education". The launching event took place at the workshop "Jointly Shaping and Launching the Foresight Wiki".  We have tried to find out more details about the subject from two of the participants: Dr. Philine Warnke (Germany), workshop coordinator, and Dr. Ziauddin Sardar, writer, journalist, editor (Futures, multidisciplinary journal published by Elsevier) and professor at The City University, London, United Kingdom. Tomorrow's science and transdisciplinarity, the attitude toward future, the role of history in the study of the future, and what is to be done for shaping a future closer to our desires - these were the topics discussed. Finally, both discussions have the very same conclusion: the group intelligence is shaping the future.

Although the theory of evolution is widely accepted in science, whether it comes to biology, medicine or psychology, public opinion still holds some prejudices and imprecisions related to this process. These are mainly caused by philosophical and religious views of the world, but sometimes it amounts to an inaccurate teaching of the theory of evolution or reflecting it in the media. On the one hand, the cause may be the ignorance, but on the other hand, there are certain misunderstandings. Some of it will be discussed next.

Within the Solar System, surfaces of the atmosphere less bodies are strongly influenced by factors often associated with the expression "space weathering" (*). Recent scientific evidence has shown that the aging process surface due to space weather has a very strong momentum (of the order of one million years) relative to the age of the solar system (about 4.5 billion years).

"Science and journalism - friend or foe?" gathered at the British Council's genuine friends of knowledge. They represent many fields including media, IT, architecture, education, psychology, theology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, linguistics and climate. The story of the event continues now with the second part, and this precedes the one dedicated to few of the email questions and aspects addressed by friends of the Science Newspaper.

The celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 involved 148 countries, a number that confirms that the IYA2009 network is the largest ever in science. Activities and events from these participating nations paint a picture of professional and amateur astronomers bringing the Universe down to Earth through countless projects, opening the eyes of the public to the wonders above.

Although we do not have instruments to measure the degree of boredom or the properties of time, one thing is for certain: the science cafe on the relationship between science and journalism lasted two hours. Two times more than the initial planned programme. The topics, the discussions between participants and video dialogues with partners from UK, Greece and Romania seem to have dilated time. In a pleasant way and for all those who were or wished to be present at this event. That's because we have received email requests from young researchers and science communicators from abroad.

University Open Days is one of the news that caught the attention of participants at the 2009 edition of the European Week of Regions and Cities that took place in Brussels, Belgium, between 5-8 October. Open Days 2009's motto was "Global Challenges, European Responses" and attracted thousands of national and regional policymakers, experts and representatives from business, civil society and academia. Discussions focused around four main topics but the pride of place was the perspectives that can offer creativity and innovation. That's because the field of RDI (Research, Development and Innovation) is a matter of high priority for European regions. These were the topics that we addressed in a discussion with Luc Van den Brande, Committee of the Regions' (CoR) President.

Imagine for a moment that you could peer into the future what would you look for? Perhaps in your excitement, you'll want to know how things will turn out tomorrow or even five years from now. As your glance moves from family to friends and business relations, the thrill continues with one delightful discovery after the other until all of a sudden and with a screech, you are stuck in traffic. You think to yourself for a moment:  "why didn't I look out for the traffic". This is the real world, welcome to Lagos.

Cancer. Obesity. Robot. Astronomy and peace. Premier League. Life and comet. These are the keywords for the week that has just passed.

The 'New Zealand Virtual School' proposal, led by the 163 student The Catlins Area School, Owaka, has been shortlisted by the Ministry of Education to become one of five new national Trade Academies. The Virtual School would be the first of its type; delivering vocational training to young New Zealanders through online learning.

In a remarkable first for the UK, the European Space Agency (ESA) has touched down in Britain, heralding the start of a new space age and thrusting the sector forward for the next 40 years and beyond.

It has always been known that a good mother-child contact leads to healthier and happier babies and adults. But what would happen if we knew that early life nurturing affects our genes and can leave life long imprints in our genome? This is a research focus of Patrick McGowan and his colleagues at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal, Canada, who found that suicide victims with a history of childhood abuse are more prone to carry stable chemical modification on their DNA that will cause impaired response to stress later in life, published in a recent volume of Nature Neuroscience (McGowan et al., 2009).

The beginning of summer coincides with the sixth World Conference of Science Journalists, hosted in London, at Central Hall, Westminster from June 30 to July 2nd.  We spoke to Pallab Ghosh, President of the World Federation of Science Journalists and BBC Science Correspondent about this biannual global event.  We discussed  what news will be brought to your attention, why should science journalists attend, what are the expectations, and last but not least, the effect of the financial crisis in the area of science writing.

Scientists in the US used brain imaging techniques to localize the areas in the human brain that are activated when thinking about God and religion.  The results suggest that specific components of religious beliefs are mediated by known brain networks.  What techniques helped researchers to reach to this conclusion and if we are close to an instrument for measuring religious belief are just few of the questions discussed with Dimitrios Kapogiannis, first author of research that was published in PNAS.

Scientists in the UK have developed a new type of light bulb that could last up to 60 years. Researchers are developing an alternative to replace existing light bulbs which might last a lifetime, giving energy efficiency a bright future.
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1.4 billion euro. This is the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's total funding of 2008.  The Society has also created and filled 1,400 new positions so at the moment it employs about 15,000 people. And, all of these during the financial and economical crisis.