Budapest report on press freedom by Albertine Kennedy Publishing

The Budapest Report

SCIENCE

Press freedom under threat

Science writers from around the world discuss how independence is being eroded

SPIN

2nd European Conference of Science Journalists November 2015

At the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest and held in conjunction with the World Science Forum 2015 Organised by the European Union of Science Journalists Associations and the Club of Hungarian Science Journalists.

Editorial Tom J Kennedy Production Tom A Kennedy Design Clear Concept www.clearconcept.ie

Published by Albertine Kennedy Publishing Swinford, Co. Mayo, Ireland

Conference Photographs Jorge de Reval Featuring

Hans von Storch

Climate Scientist - University of Hamburg

Martin Schneider

President of the GSJA

Alexander W A Kellner

Palaeontologist - University of Rio Janeiro

Curtis Brainard

President - World Federation of Science Journalists

Connie St Luis

Director of MA in science journalism - City University London & Presenter - BBC

Tim Radford

Four times winner - Association of British Science Writers Award & former Editor - The Guardian

Jens Degett

Chair - Danish Science Journalists’ Association Member of the board - EUSJA

Dominique Legu

Editor in Chief - Science et Avenir

Satu Lipponen

President - European Science Journalists Association

To what extent can the public believe what they are told in the press? Journalists are concerned that editorial independence is being sacrificed in return for what has become known as native advertising. In November this year, Tom J Kennedy reports that over 100 members of the European Union of Science Journalists’ Associations gathered at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest to discuss this and other issues in advance of the World Science Forum. Speakers

International steering group

Jens Degett (President ECSJ2014) | Reetta Kettunen (Vice-President WCSJ2013) Satu Lipponen (President EUSJA) | István Palugyai (President ECSJ2015)

Local organising committee

President of ECSJ2015 István Palugyai

Alex Gerber

Professor of Science Communications - Rhine Waal University

Miko Tatalovic

Environment & Life Science News Editor New Scientist

SCIENCE

SPIN

Local organiser Gusztav Hencsey

any newspaper and magazine publishers, alarmed at stagnating print circulation and falling advertising revenue, are pinning their financial hopes on a digital uplift that will put them firmly back in the black. Likewise, scores of redundant journalists are blogging away in hopes that someone out there will want to read, and maybe even pay for what they have to write.

Content is the king

was good about the press, may be a lost cause. A smarter way for the press to rebuild circulation might be to refocus on those who want quality content, features that look behind the headlines and in-depth coverage on topics of general inHowever, as many have found, it is not terest. just a simple matter of waving a digital wand to Strip away those that only want up to the make everything better again. minute share prices or a weather update, and Old habits die hard, and perhaps a large undoubtedly there is a solid core of readers that part of the problem is that too many of our ex- want real content. These are the readers that pectations are too firmly rooted in the past. the press and journalists should concentrate on Readership figures have always been important rather than trying to satisfy the ephemeral milto the press, and there is an assumption that the lions of skimmers and headline hoppers. detailed and impressive looking web analytics True, it may be necessary to contemplate have the equivalent value in assessing performance. Not so. The figures reflect two different downsizing, or even departure to a different platform, but as the number of failures indilevels of interest. cates, many publications had already become In pre-Internet days, newspaper and far too big for their boots and they went under magazines could maintain big circulations be- because they were unable or unwilling to adapt cause, as a source of information, they had little to changing circumstances. or no competition. People read newspapers for Less revenue means that overheads have all sorts of reasons and of course no one ever read them from cover to cover. The first thing to be reduced, but lowering editorial standards many readers turned to was the crossword, oth- is not the solution to that problem. Yet the alers went immediately to the share prices, the most universal reaction to the downturn has weather charts or the sports results. All of this been to cut down on quality editorial while ininformation is readily available on the web, as creasing puffed-up fluff and advertorial. If ever is breaking news, so, for an increasing segment there was a misguided strategy for survival this of readers, newspapers have simply became re- must be it, for whatever way the press goes, print or digital, content has to be the king. Whatever dundant. reasons readers had before in giving up, a deThe continued draining away of such cline in content is likely to become the final nail readers is inevitable, and indeed, trying to re- in the coffin. After all why bother to continue capture them, while attempting to retain what buying when there is nothing worth reading?

Hans von Storch Climate scientist University of Hamburg

Truth in the news C

an we rely on scientists to tell us the truth? As Hans von Storch, a prominent climate scientist from the University of Hamburg observed, “climate scientists think that they have an urgent message for ‘the’ society and the climate problem need priority attention, and they believe that the media should deliver ‘the’ truth based on ‘the` science. In Germany, he added, journalists who had failed to report ‘the right stuff ’, have been aggressively blacklisted by the scientists for irresponsibly supporting ‘stupid’ or ‘evil’ claims.

Hans, who accepts that our own activities are having a global impact on climate, said this approach, in which the media are not supposed to ask questions, is seriously flawed. Scientists should learn not to behave like the bishops and ministers of the past in readily dismissing those who disagree with them as a bunch of ignorant fools.

Scientists, in their enthusiasm to deliver ‘the’ truth, often override the views of others, making such extravagant statements that the public, observing that things that were supposed to happen didn’t, understandably lose interest. Furthermore, when answers to questions on topics such as climate change are not forthcoming, people turn to the comforting free-for-all Internet where everything is ‘true’.

Copenhagen a disaster

Television journalist, Martin Schneider, agreed with Hans that failure of the mainstream media to engage with the sceptics is a real problem. As a science journalist, Martin wanted to see balanced coverage of the climate debate, but he remarked that the constant repeating of extravagant doom-and-gloom announcements from such events as the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit, made viewer lose interest. From a television marketing perspective, he said “Copenhagen was a disaster.”

Martin Schneider President of the GSJA

Falling interest meant that allocating extra time for follow-up coverage, was not an option, and attempt to clarify the issue by broadcasting different views were also not successful. In an issue such as climate change, he said, there are too many conflicting views, so instead of adding to the confusion journalists have an important role to play in untangling the arguments to deliver a balanced message. Miko Tatalovic, environment and life science news editor with New Scientist does not see scientists as keepers of the truth, but instead they are valuable sources of information. Miko is not afraid to challenge the official views, because, as he observed these can be wrong. Such was the case, he said, with Britain’s official claims to be taking firm action on wind and other forms of alternative energy. Having examined the figures, New Scientist reported that Britain, when compared to other countries, was in fact one of the ‘bad guys’.

This is not just an issue for climate change,

but for science in general. Alexander W A Kellner, a distinguished palaeontologist from the University of Rio Janeiro and an active science communicator, said that science is a growing power in society, yet the language of science has become so complicated that specialists do not understand each other unless they work in the same field. This, he remarked, is a dangerous situation because it disconnects science from society at a time when the application of science to everyday life is growing. Science journalists are needed more than ever before, for without them pseudoscience, using the expressions of

Curtis Brainard President of the WFSJ

real science, steps into the gap. Pseudoscience, he remarked is widespread, and unless there is cooperation between scientists, science journalists and politicians it is difficult to fight its influence. Journalists, he said, are in a position to build the bridges that lead to a better understanding of science.

Conflict of interest has become a topic of growing concern, particularly with the rise of agency and institution controlled communication, and in response to such issues a fouryear Nucleus Network project has been set up with €20,000 funding from the European Horizon 2020 programme. Although details of how this will work and what the project will produce have yet to be made clear, EUSJA’s President, Satu Lipponen, said that a team of journalists will begin working on the Nucleus Network in January 2016. One of their aims, she said, is to look into the ethical aspects of emerging technologies so that guidelines for good practice can be produced.

Native advertising

As a threat, the desire of scientists to tell their version of the truth pales in comparison to the rise of managed communications. Curtis Brainard, President of the World Federation of Science Journalists, said he became aware of this shortly after beginning work ten years ago on the Columbia Journalism Review. One of his colleagues, Trudy Leaderman, wrote a report highlighting a growing trend of slotting pre-packaged news reports into local television stations. In one case 19 million people tuned in to a promotional story produced for the Cleveland Clinic thinking it was genuine news. The clinic had set up a production unit to feed pre-packaged stories to 140 local Fox stations. As Curtis explained, hospitals, competing for lucrative lines of business, discovered that instead of advertising they could easily exploit television’s hunger for cheap and easy stories. Since then, similar practices have become widespread, posing a serious threat to journalists who value their independence. Combating this trend is difficult, and as Curtis

observed, journalists who take a stand can pay a high price. One year after landing the job of news director in a National Broadcasting Company (NBC) television station, a journalist, Glen Healy, was instructed to send his news room staffers out twice a week to a local hospital where they were to work up a pre-determined list of promotional stories. Rather than force his staff to comply with this unpopular request, Glen resigned, causing the station to call off the deal and earning him high praise and a special award from the 7,500 strong Society of Professional Journalists. In presenting the award the Society declared that such deals undermine healthcare coverage and they recommended that journalists should try to avoid entering similar arrangements. In the US, pre-packaged content has managed to merge seamlessly into the media and organisations such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) have become directly involved in generating the sort of content that would traditionally have been produced by independent editors and journalists. The NSF Discovery series of podcasts have been aired on 1,500 radio stations, and as Curtis observed, not that many people would be aware these were not independent productions. This blurring of distinctions, where managed content blends seamlessly into the editorial environment, has given rise to the term ‘native advertising.’ With generous budgets, production standards in native advertising can be so high that publishers and independent journalists simply cannot compete with the quality and slickness of presentation. Native advertising, said Curtis, is now being accepted as normal, and it is on the increase. The New York Times, he said, recently featured Cities Energized: the urban transition, an eight-page section paid for by Shell. This was a slick, informative, and highly professional production under the newspaper’s distinctive banner, yet, as the feature itself stated, “The news and editorial staffs of The New York Times had no role in its preparation.”

Responsible training

Alex Gerber, (pictured) Professor of Science Communications at Rhine Waal University, does not believe that science journalists should have one string to their bow. Alex argues that diversity provides opportunities for journalists who are prepared to acquire business and technical skills. Training people for straight science reporting, he said is no longer a responsible approach. To succeed in science journalism, he said, it is necessary to know how to use the technology and to be familiar with such things as syndication location-based services, digital content, apps and crowd funding.

While many publishers embrace native advertising as their saviour, and many hardpressed journalists are pragmatically prepared to apply their skills in writing to order, others are not so happy. However, Curtis believes that independent journalists can still stay in the lead. If you look at native advertising, he said, the stories are uniformly positive and you will never find criticism. Journalists, he said, can always do better than that. Conflict

Experts, pulled in to make some comments, have become a familiar presence on radio or television discussions, but in the US the approach has often gone one step further. As Curtis Brainard explained, practicing medical doctors have taken over from journalists, raising serious concerns about objectivity. The Chief Medical Correspondent of CNN, Dr Sanjay Gupta, for example, is a practicing neurosurgeon. Sanjay has won awards for his reports, and Curtis commented that “there is no question that he has actually produced a lot of good journalism.” However, there is some disquiet among journalists about what has become known as the ‘Gupta effect’. Essentially this comes down to whether it is right or wrong to be an active participant in a news story. The danger of crossing the line is high and Curtis gave the example of a CBS broadcast where their environmental correspondent, a lead scientist in the Nature Conservancy, interviewed one of his own staff. The ‘Hero of the Hudson’, the pilot who safely landed a plane is now the aviation corresponded of CBS, and a former army chief of staff is the broadcaster’s security analysis. Such appointments, said Curtis, raise important questions about the erosion of independence of reporting

Loaded words

Who is the minority?

These days we all know about the threat from Ebola, yet as the journalist Connie St Luis, who has long experience of working a producer and presenter in the BBC, observed, the media were slow to pick up the story. Until Ebola arrived on the doorsteps of the west, she said, no one paid attention to reporting by African journalists. As a result, she said, the threat was ignored and development of a vaccine was delayed.

This example, she said, highlights how the lack of diversity in journalism is not helping us deal with global issues. The western press is inward looking, and as Connie remarked, we often hear talk of minorities, and this is not helpful. Much of the world’s population is of African or people of Asian descent, so, as Connie asks, “whose minority are we talking about?” Journalists, she said, need to look beyond their patch and be more careful of the terms they use.

The words we use can influence our attitudes, and as the Austrian journalist, Oliver Lehmann observed we should exercise caution with metaphors. Words that belong somewhere else, but are familiar, are often used to convey the complexities of science. However, as Oliver noted, the metaphor itself can introduce a false association. Describing a disease as nasty, slimy or unwholesome, he said, stigmatizes that disease and those metaphors can become just as infectious as the diseases themselves.

Connie St Luis Director of the MA in Science Journalism City University London Producer & Presenter BBC

Journalists can have a big impact on how diseases and their treatments are understood by the public. As the pharmaceutical company, Johnson and Johnson discovered, trials of an Ebola vaccine had to be abandoned in Ghana because the press, without looking into the facts, spread a scare which had been sparked off by a politician. The trials were then transferred to Sierra Leone, but not before the scientists provided the press with detailed information in advance of what they were attempting to achieve. Journalists reacted to this full disclosure approach by writing up accurate reports. Unlike Ghana there was no scare, and the trials, which were not perceived as threat by the public, could proceed.

The cost of coverage

Covering science is expensive and as Tim Radford, former science editor of The Guardian, explained, a freelance journalist might have to travel far to attend a conference and back again before writing up a story. “If we can’t get out and meet people,” he remarked, “then there is no journalism.” Writing up a science story often requires talking to two or three experts, and all of this requires time, knowledge and money, yet the payment to the journalist will be no more than for a ‘quickie’ desk produced report Several science journalists have commented that fees have fallen so dramatically that they can no longer afford to write about science for a living.

One of the results of this, said Jens Degett, Chair of the Danish Science Journalists’ Association, is that more and more stories are based on a single source. Often this source is a just a press release, channelled directly through the newsroom where the prime aim is to churn out a fast turnaround of attention grabbing stories. This is not to say that science journalists should just give up in despair, for as Jens remarked, they can consider changing direction. There are huge possibilities with on-line, he said, and one way for science journalists to fit into the system is to add a layer to the big news stories. Instead of news topics becoming stale through repetition, background coverage can tap into and sustain reader interest.

Tim Radford Former Science Editor at The Guardian Four time winner of Association of British Science Writers award

Who pays?

Science journalists cannot continue to work for little, or in some cases, no pay, and as Tim Radford observed newspapers are finding it harder and harder to pay their contributors. If you see someone reading a newspaper on the London Underground, he said, one who has paid money for it, it’s likely to be someone with grey hair. Most of the other passengers are either peering at screens or twiddling their thumbs, and if you see a young person reading at all, it will be a free-sheet. Expanding language

Science has become so complex, said Tim Redford, that the language has become divisive. Even the editors of scientific journals have difficulty in understanding the language of science, and he recalled one commentator noting that 60,000 new words had been coined in biology alone over his lifetime. Shakespeare, said Tim, only needed 30,000 words to write everything. Science, he quipped, is creating a language faster than we can get it down on paper. It is up to science journalists to rise to this challenge, and indeed, unlike their press colleagues, they have the privilege of writing on subjects that have never been written about before. “The science that we have now is fantastically important,” he said, “and it seems to me criminal that newspapers and journalists are not enthusiastically sharing the excitement of science with readers.”

For science journalists, simply transferring their crafted text over onto an on-line platform is usually not an attractive option. While the pay for a newspaper feature may have hit an all-time low, journalists are unlikely to get anything at all for their on-line content, and besides, in general, on-line readers on the more popular sites have an extremely short attention span, so they don’t want length or depth. There are exceptions, and perhaps, as part of a fast evolving media environment, more content-rich platforms will begin to appear. With some other colleagues, that had either retired or been made redundant, Tim Radford set up the Climate News Network, an open platform providing unbiased stories on climate and energy. The founders aim was to produce a story a day and to their surprise, the articles they produced were picked up by media all around the world including The Guardian and Scientific American Readership probably runs into the millions, said Tim, but there is no income. “We have managed to beg enough to pay someone to maintain the site and pay contributors,” he said, “and if that is all we have achieved, that’s not bad.” But as he pointed out, while there is no question about demand, matching this high level of interest to income remains an underlying problem. Left: Jens Degett Chairman of the DSJA Member of the EUSJA board

Dominique Legu, Editor in Chief of the French monthly magazine Science et Avenir, said that generating digital income is a problem that is proving extremely difficult to solve. Fortunately, the magazine, founded in 1947, is still going strong with over-the-counter sales of 200,000 per issue. Describing this as their “comfortable mattress” Dominique remarked that income from readers has given Science et Avenir a high degree of financial security. However, as she added, the publishers do have to move on from their comfort zone. Making content deals with big companies and institutions such as the European Space Agency, is helping to make up for a decline in traditional advertising, but the publishers are still wondering how to profit from their 1.2 million friends on facebook. Like many other publishers, one of the questions, which only time will answer, is whether or not they should try to impose a pay wall on content.

Dominique Legu Editor in Chief Sciences et Avenir

s Curtis Brainard remarked in his keynote address, the media has come to depend more and more on material produced by vested interests. Quality and credibility are being eroded as independent reporting is being displaced by managed communications. The science community is not being served well by this loss of independence, for without well-informed and balanced coverage why should the public be expected to support something that they do not understand? It could be argued that if science goes out of sight, it could just disappear. Researchers need to engage more effectively with their supporters, especially with those who do not even know they are interested in science. Publishing a peer review paper, dressing up in an Einstein wig or assuming that a PR circular will do all the explaining that ever needs to be done, is just not good enough. True, science can be difficult to explain, yet this is what science journalists do. Science journalists can bridge that gap between specialists and people that are actually eager to learn. Science journalists do have an essential role to play in the science community, yet many are beginning to wonder if they have become an endangered species. One of the big questions being asked at ECSJ2015 was, how science journalists can go about recovering their position? The problem is not lack of interest, but in finding a way out of a declining business model. Gone are the days when there was enough in the kitty for journalists to spend a few days working up a story, so if independent reporting is to make a comeback it will undoubtedly require a radical change in how quality content is financed. There are some signs that this is beginning to happen, and the fact that so many independent journalists are now posting stories online and getting lots of readers, suggests that there is a considerable rise in bottom-up pressure to connect writers more effectively with readers. Journalists are now also talking about ‘long form’ reporting on line and there is increasing diversity in how content is generated and organized on news sites. The launch of SUMEST is one response to this fast evolving situation and it follows the success of Science Spin, a magazine founded twelve years ago by science journalists to report on everything from astronomy to zoology. Like many other publications, the time had come either to change or stagnate, and with SUMEST we have the start of something new and even better. With SUMEST the scope is being broadened, both in editorial content and in reach to include a lot more reporting across Europe and the world. Our aim is to provide readers with high quality content, well-written features, news and reports. We have already established that readers around the world have an enormous appetite for quality content. SUMEST is taking off from an existing digital platform of over two million readers. You will find SUMEST at www.sumest.com or on social media soon! Stay updated by signing up to our newsletters or liking/following our pages.

At the invitation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, journalists took part in a study trip to learn about the work being done on data storage, brain research, intense lasers and on technology transfer to stimulate innovation. All of these topics are of strong international interest and as such are helping to link Hungary into the international scientific community. Hungary has the second largest data centre for CERN, the foundations have been laid at Szeged Univerity for facilities that will enable scientists to ‘freeze-frame’ extremely fast molecular reactions, and while brain research is a national priority it is part of an international programme.

Ferenc Oberfrank Director National Brain Programme

Downside of living longer A

sk people about diseases and they might think of diabetes, heart attacks and cancer, but collectively they have less impact on society than brain disorders. World Health Organisation figures indicate that brain disorders account for 35 per cent of the burden of all diseases in Europe and they will have an impact on one in three people over their lifetime. The burden on society is enormous, and as we age the situation will become worse. Frank Oberfrank, Director of the National Brain Programme in Hungary, said that brain disease will become the major medical need for the 21st century, and for this reason researchers from around the world, in this Year of the Brain, are collaborating in an international programme. In Hungary, the national programme, was set up in 2014 with the largest grant there to date, £39 million, and as Ferenc commented, “it imposes a huge responsibility on us.” Tamás Freund, Director of Experimental Medicine at Budapest, explained that Hungarian researchers have been focusing on the transmission of messages between neurons. Each neuron has multiple connections, billions in just one tiny area of the brain, and as Támas explained, among them a delicate balance is maintained between stimulation and transmission. When natural circuit-breakers fail, he said, the result is uncontrolled overactivity, in other words, an epileptic seizure. These glutamate circuit-breaker, he said are of enormous importance and have become a target for the development of a variety of new treatments. For pharmaceutical companies, said the programme’s director, Prof Oberfrank, progress on brain research has become a problem because, compared to many other diseases development of drugs for brain disorders takes a lot more time and requires a lot more collaboration between researchers. Hungary already has a lot to offer, but to boost research performance, scientists who have gone abroad are being attracted back with funding and promises to reduce their teaching obligations to ten or less per cent. However, as Prof

Oberfrank pointed out, international collaboration is essential because brain research is so complex and demanding that no one country can do it all. Researchers in Hungary work in close collaboration with centres around the world, and during the scientific sessions following the study trip, the global importance of this work was highlighted by a number of internationally prominent experts. Mary G Baker, former President of the European Brain Council said enormous strides have been taken in public health, we live longer, but the longer we live the more diseases we acquire. As she remarked, a little girl born in Japan today has a 50 50 chance of reaching 100 years. We have, she said, entered the age of the old, and this gives research into brain disorders a degree of urgency. Two thirds of all the people who have ever reached the age of 65, she said, live on the planet today. This is something to celebrate, but with every step forward come the new challenges, prominent among them Alzheimer’s, stroke and other brain diseases. Our ability to cope with this rise in brain disorders, she added, is being compromised by changes in society. The liberation of women, for example, has come at a price. In the 1920s, she said, a couple in their 80s had 44 live female relatives, fourteen of them not in employment. Today, a couple in their 70s have just 13 female live relatives and only three of them were not employed. Whatever about the fairness of this situation, the ability to care for those with brain disorders has declined dramatically, and as Mary explained, the economic burden on taxpayers is very high. According to the London School of Economics, she said, it now takes six working young people to maintain one pensioner and the average time given to patients when visiting their GP has fallen to an average of 12 minutes. Brain disorders are not just one problem, they have a knock-on effect on many other disorders, they persist over a lifetime and they disrupt family life. Thus, as Mary observed, the outlook for an ageing society is grim unless we make brain research a priority.

A banana a day

One of those involved in the Human Brain Project is Sean Hill who admits to being in awe of our super-computers. The brain, he said is just one and a half kilo, yet it is the most powerful technology we know of, and it only takes a banana a day to keep it going. We are only beginning to understand how the brain works, so when things go wrong we often have no idea of why. Many of the treatments researchers come up with fail to work on half the population, and often results in trials are not readily reproducible.

Facilities at the Institute of Experimental Medicine at Budapest for scanning of brain activities.

In spite of the difficulties, he said, lots of good results are being produced around the world, and under the Human Brain Project, data from a multitude of sources is being integrated into an overall picture of how the brain works. In a way, he said, this is a bit like the early efforts to map the world. Over the centuries localized charts bordered by unknown and unexplored territory, merged until finally we could see the world.

Adjusting the dials

While one approach is to use drugs, Andres M Lorenzo, the Senior Scientist at the Toronto Western Research Institute, is more inclined to view the brain as machine. As he explained, there are many different circuits regulating functions and feelings, so he relies on surgical procedures to “adjust the dials on this machine we call the brain.” Disorders, such as Parkinsons, he said, arise from flaws of these circuits, and if a circuit is concerned with mood for example, you can get depression. Andres is a neurosurgeon, and he has had considerable success in going physically to the source of problems by inserting electrodes deep within the brain. These electrodes, attached to a pacemaker, stimulate neural circuits, either to reactivate them or modify their aberrant behaviour. “We have become better and better at pin-pointing where those circuits are,” he said, so electrodes can be placed with a high degree of precision.

Understandably, this raises the question of collateral damage, but as Andres explained, the insertion is guided in through so called “silent areas” of the brain where no activity can be detected. Whatever about the risks, the treatment can be of enormous benefit to patients with severe brain disorders. Over 120,000 people around the world have now received this form of treatment, mostly for Parkinsons, making deep brain stimulation one of the fastest growing areas in neurosurgery. About thirty different brain disorders, including depression, drug addiction, and bipolar problems are currently being considered as suitable for this form of treatment, and Andres said it can be surprisingly effective. In one case, a woman with Parkinsons had progressed to a stage where the shakes made it impossible for her to hold a cup. After undergoing deep brain stimulation treatment her movements were perfectly normal. It was like a miracle cure, the effect was immediate, but as soon as the pacemaker was disconnect, she reverted to the shakes. The treatment, said Andres is not a cure, it is a lifetime treatment, and fortunately batteries for the pacemaker device only have to be changed every five years. In another treatment producing spectacular results, a young boy with a condition known as dystonia was given deep brain stimulation. In this disorder, which is genetic, there is progressive and distressing loss of muscle control. The first treatment was experimental, but without it, said Andres, the boy was completely crippled and could not have survived for much longer. Once again, deep brain simulation immediately restored muscular control, enabling the doctors to capture the boy on video as he raced up and down the hospital corridor. Since then, said Andres, many other cases of dystonia have been treated. Different areas of the brain, which before had been considered completely out of reach seem to be accessible to this form of treatment, making Andres wonder if it would become possible to deal with something as elusive as depression. Thousands of people fall into such a black pit that they commit suicide, and the available treatments are not always successful. What we do know, said Andres, is that blood flow in some areas of the brain changes during depression. These changes are associated with a shift in balance between a positive to a negative attitude, even when presented with the same stimulation. In a way this is a bit like those who look at a bottle and see it as half empty, while others, more cheerfully disposed, could see it as half full. Trials to stimulate the positive side are underway, and Andres is hopeful that this will prove to be a treatment for those with chronic depression where all other avenues have failed.

Gábor Szabó Rector Szeged University

Bright lights

As a result, major research facilities are now under construction in these countries, and a fourth centre is under consideration. In Hungary, the foundations have already been laid for the ELI Attosecond Light Pulse Source centre (ELI-ALPS) in the university town of Szeged. By 2018 researchers at ELI-ALPS exmagine a lens so big that it can focus the en- pect to be blasting out ultra-fast blasts of light tire light of the Sun onto a one millimetre in the extreme THz range. square patch. Achieving this level of intensity, said Gábor Szabó, Rector of Szeged University Why is this so important? Gábor exin the south east of Hungary, is no longer an plains that these intense bursts of light are so impossible dream. Since laser amplification of brief that they can freeze molecular actions light first emerged in 1960 there has been an that otherwise we cannot observe. He comexplosion of interest in the field, and not alone pared this to watching a pole vaulting perforhave we become accustomed to laser technol- mance using a camera that only records one ogy in DVD players and other compact devic- frame every second. First you see a figure on es, but the power of lasers has continued to the ground before a pole, then you see the same climb. person on the other side, he said, and you have no idea of what happened in between. Push up the intensity, he said, and interesting things begin to happen, and even if With attosecond snap shots taken at you focus on nothing we begin to enter the one billionth of a billionth of a second, he said, quantum world. International interest in light or even higher up into the zeptosecond scale, amplification is high, and in 2005 a case was it will become possible to see how an electron made to fund establishment of the Extreme cloud in a molecule moves during an extremeLight Infrastructure as a shared project. While ly fast chemical reaction. Up to now, scientists thirteen countries agreed to form a consorti- could only observe the before and after asum, the project eventually took physical form pects of chemical and physical processes, and in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania. because of this, there is very little understandThe locations, said Gábor, were mainly deter- ing of how these processes actually work. Ultimined by the availability of funding, and like mately, said Gábor, it may even become possithe Czech Republic and Romania, the Hun- ble to observe ‘virtual’ particles that annihilate garian government decided to step in with each other so fast that they hardly appear to support. exist.

Cashing in on results

Martin Kerns Director of the Hungarian Institute of Innovation & Technology

o one doubts that the quality of research in Europe is high, but excellence in the lab is not being matched by application in business and industry. Martin Kern, director of the Hungarian based Institute of Innovation and Technology, said that Europeans are actually quite good in coming up with bright ideas, but performance in other parts of the world is better. In a competitive world, he said, Europe cannot afford to slide, and to give business a boost the Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) was established and has since 2020 has became active across a number of countries. Centres in Sweden, Finland, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Spain, France, the Netherlands, UK and Denmark now work with EIT in providing support and encouraging young students to become entrepreneurs. Every year, said Martin, awards are presented to student innovators, including one from London who came up with the smart idea of growing vegetables on city rooftops. Certain areas, said Martin, are ‘hot spots’ for innovation. A lot of good projects come from Stockholm, Paris, Eindhoven, London and Barcelona, but for every hot spot there are blank spaces where entrepreneurial skills seem to be lacking. The local attitude can have a big influence on this. Often, lack of success is seen as a failure, something to be ashamed of, and this is both harmful and wrong. Failure, observed Martin, is part and parcel of innovation, and if something does not work, you move on. False starts are often followed by success and many Europeans still have a difficulty accepting this. One of the EIT aims is to help build capacity in areas where it seems to be lacking, and as Martin explained, there is no set formula in how this is to achieved. Centres can work in whatever way is appropriate to their environment, and while EIT can back this up, the golden rule is not to provide more than 25 per cent of the funding. With this approach, said Martin, the EIT can give substantial help while maximizing their geographical spread. Basically, this is kickstart funding, and eventually centres, by doing what they are supposed to do, should become self-funding. Two of the centres, one involved in health, the other materials, provided proof of this concept by becoming financially self-sustainable within a year.

Some of the delegates attending the 2nd European Conference of Science Journalists at Budapest.

Editorial Tom J Kennedy Production Tom A Kennedy Design Clear Concept www.clearconcept.ie

Published by Albertine Kennedy Publishing Swinford, Co. Mayo, Ireland

Speakers

Conference Photographs

International steering group

Jens Degett (President ECSJ2014) | Reetta Kettunen (Vice-President WCSJ2013) Satu Lipponen (President EUSJA) | István Palugyai (President ECSJ2015)

Local organising committee

President of ECSJ2015 István Palugyai

Local organiser Gusztav Hencsey

SCIENCE

SPIN

SCIENCE

SPIN To what extent can the public believe what they are told in the press? Journalists are concerned that editorial independence is being sacrificed in return for what has become known as native advertising. In November this year, Tom J Kennedy reports that over 100 members of the European Union of Science Journalists’ Associations gathered at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest to discuss this and other issues in advance of the World Science Forum.