Research Communicator – December 2009
By AlphaGalileo
AlphaGalileo site navigation now in French
We are pleased to announce that we have completed the translation of the website into French. AlphaGalileo is committed to multilingualism and to enhancing science communications in the local languages of the countries where we operate. We hope that this addition will continue to help our French-speaking users.
Christmas coverage
21 until 23 of December
The service will be moderated as usual between, but please contact us by email on alphagalileo@alphagalileo.org instead of by phone. 
24 December until 3 January
A limited editorial service - the site updated at least three times a day, morning, lunchtime and early evening. Contact us by email on alphagalileo@alphagalileo.org instead of by phone.
The website will be available throughout the period as usual, it is the acceptance of news and new users that will be affected. If you are planning on posting a large amount of or urgent items during the holidays, please contact our team in advance and we will try to accommodate you.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!
Success stories: Science Spin - making international Science accessible to Irish readers
Set up six years ago by three science and technology journalists, Seán Duke, Tom Kennedy and Mary Sweetman, Science Spin takes a look at research through Irish eyes. Written and presented for reader appeal, the bi-monthly magazine covers just about everything in science, and not just from Ireland, but from everywhere. While reporting on the vibrant local scene, Science Spin also makes international science more accessible to Irish readers.
"The AlphaGalileo service has been of enormous help offering newsworthy material from institutions throughout Europe. Without these daily alerts, it would be next to impossible for Science Spin to include a mix of items from Germany, France, the UK and elsewhere with news from Ireland. The summaries and headers can be scanned quickly, and where items are of likely interest, the attached links usually provide enough background to work up a good story".
Science Spin has a website at www.sciencespin.com, and in the most recent development, the magazine has gone digital. The print edition is available on subscription, and the digital issues are available free. To register for the digital edition, simply email tom@sciencespin.com with the word ‘register'.
Feature: Is regulation strangling use of ‘green' pesticides?
An interview with Professor Wyn Grant, Warwick University, UK
‘Most consumers and environmentalists would like to see less use of chemical pesticides in the production of our food. But the greater use of ‘greener' insecticides is being partly hampered in the UK and other European countries by regulatory barriers.' concludes Professor Wyn Grant based on his research at Warwick University. Read the full story here...
Hits Parade - AG Top 5
The stories that received most hits in the last month unveil the history of the food...in space, that social tagging can be a great help and that the scenario portrayed in the film ‘The day after tomorrow' may not be science-fiction. But also, that scientists at Luleå University of Technology have created a computer-based architecture that mimics a pair of human brain functions, with possible applications in reducing the impact of noise, among others; and that BEinGRID, the largest ICT project financed by the European Commission, has published an impressive overview of twenty-five successful case studies covering the industrial sectors which show how businesses may profit from distributed computing.
Read our Top 5 news:
1. Big freeze plunged Europe into ice age in months - European Science Foundation - 30/11/2009
2. The Astronaut's Cookbook - Springer Science+Business Media - 13/11/2009
3. Social tags complement the learning resource metadata, a Finnish researcher finds out - Open Universiteit Nederland - 05/11/2009
4. Human brains emulated in the computer world - Luleå University of Technology - 27/11/2009
5. Approaching the Cloud: Better Business Using Grid Solutions - Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI) - 20/11/2009
Staff pick - What is unique in the brain of an Arabic speaker?
Research from the University of Haifa suggests that learning literary Arabic is expressed in the brain of an Arabic speaker like the acquisition of a second language on top of the mother tongue of the everyday, local dialect of Arabic.
The findings were published in the Journal of Psychology Research and Behavior Management and will have an impact on the teaching techniques of literary Arabic. Click here for the full press release.
The Savvy User's Corner
Did you know...
... that you can withdraw items? If you would like to remove one of your posted items from our website you can do this in a few steps.
First login into your account, go to the tab "My Content" and click on My Submitted Content. You will see all your posted items with a red prohibition symbol next to them. To withdraw the items just click on this symbol and wait until we send you a confirmation of the removal of your item.
The news will then be replaced by a message informing users that the item was removed and for journalists to contact the posting organisation for more information. As the item was published and alerts sent, we can't remove the record completely; there is a chance that journalists had saved the link for future reference.
The message helps to clarify things. But in case you have any question about this procedure, please contact our team.
Social Media
Finally, you can now follow us in Twitter and join our group or become a fan of AlphaGalileo in Facebook. Hope you enjoy it!
You can contact us at:
AlphaGalileo Foundation
Suite 4.05
130 Shaftesbury Avenue
London
W1D 5EU
United Kingdom
alphagalileo@alphagalileo.org