Open articles in category : Science and education

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.

"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.

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.

Dr. Eric Demoncheaux is Head of Science at Battle Abbey School, which lies on the historic site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, built by William the Conquerer. Eric gives us his highlights of National Science and Engineering week where our co-editor visited the school to meet some young scientists.

In 1609 the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei used the telescope for the first time to comment on the sky, which meant a revolution in astronomy. People found with astonishment that the surface of the Moon has similar forms of relief to land (mountains, valleys, Crate, plains, etc.) Around the planet Jupiter rotating four natural satellites, now called Galilean satellites, it was found that on the surface of the Sun appear occasionally some dark spots, and not least in the Milky Way there are thousands and millions of stars. To mark the astronomical revolution that has radically changed the design of the human universe, the United Nations has decided that 2009 should be considered the International Year of astronomy and worldwide events are occurring to mark this astronomical anniversary. Activities are conducted under the aegis of the International Astronomical Union in partnership with UNESCO.

This year, like every year, Yuri's night takes place on April 12th and is a celebration of humanity's achievements in space. Each April 12, people from around the world come together to mark the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space (in 1961) and the first launch of the US Space Shuttle (in 1981).

The most spectacular meteor shower acts as the basis for the origin of a new project between science and music. It is the work of the same team of three that did the soundtrack of an eclipse.

Science and music; or what an astronomer, a science journalist and a composer can do.