Research Communicator
from AlphaGalileo — April 2012

VIP Profile: Gail Purvis – AlphaGalileo, one of my trinity of compulsory reading

“I think AlphaGalileo, The Herald and the New York Times are my trinity of compulsory reading to know exactly what is going down in Europe, Scotland and the USA.

AlphaGalileo is my European roots, and is the most scrupulous coverage of high technology across a lot of disciplines through Europe. I get well over 100 releases a day and have a 'to-be-sorted' backlog of at least another 100, but I will go through AlphaGalileo the minute it appears and I see it. I appreciate the quick one line offerings so you can see ahead to the possible stories, and then the greater detail paragraph link, lets you judge if the story is right for what you need.

The service is not only excellent at covering work across Europe, it offers me an exhaustive data base of fascinating work from social sciences to astronomy, from physics to textiles and toys so it’s a great repository of information for features, and quite frequently I will pick up Scottish new stories embedded in Portuguese academic studies, or part of some German major research project that have simply not been identified by even my home sources.

What do you want me to write about? You alerted me to Graphensic and a very happy but long ago contact Rositza Yakamova, and I passed the story on to my friend and editor of Semiconductor Today, and we both think the story then got picked up by European Semiconductor. So you have a considerable knock on effect!

The one that amused me recently was from University of Leicester and its work on an interactive newspaper.

I then discovered that Dundee was part of the project playing with the interactive embedded music side of things, which to be fair, maybe Dundee did alert me about, (but music is seen as arts, not tech) and I would have missed the whole interactive scenario of the three Universities without AlphaGalileo!”

In case of any questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact Gail at: gpurvis@gmail.com

Hits Parade — AlphaGalileo Top 5

Our hit parade compiles the press releases with bigger number of visits in March 2012.

1. Happiness: it’s not in the jeans — University of Hertfordshire — 08/03/2012

You may throw on an outfit without much thought in the morning, but your choice is strongly affected by your mood. And the item of casual wear in almost everyone’s wardrobe – denim jeans – is what most people wear when depressed, new research from psychologists at the University of Hertfordshire reveals.

2.Milky Way image reveals detail of a billion stars — Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) — 28/03/2012

More than one billion stars in the Milky Way can be seen together in detail for the first time in an image captured by an international team of astronomers.

Detail of star-forming area in Milky Way: Mike Read (WFAU),UKIDSS/GPS and VVV

3. Near-miss asteroid will return next year — European Space Agency (ESA) — 15/03/2012

When it whizzes past Earth in 2013, a newly discovered asteroid is going to miss our planet – but not by much. The 50 m space rock is expected to come closer than many satellites, highlighting the growing need to keep watch on hazards from above.

4. Nitrous oxide emissions are no laughing matter — The Research Council of Norway — 12/03/2012

While many are acquainted with the problems caused by CO2 emissions, the harmful effects of the release of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere have been far less well known. Only in recent years has the international scientific community begun to understand the scope of the threat posed by N2O emissions.

5. A study reveals that eating at home prevents childhood obesity — University of Granada — 04/03/2012

University of Granada researchers have confirmed that there is a significant direct relationship between the nutritional status of children and the person who prepares their meal. The study revealed that the children who have lunch at home with their mother present a better nutritional status and are at a lower risk of suffering obesity than children whose meal is prepared by a person other than their mother.

Staff Pick — Was human evolution caused by climate change? — Bournemouth University — 14 March 2012

According to a paper published in Science, models of how animal and plant distributions are affected by climate change may also explain aspects of human evolution. The approach takes existing knowledge of the geographical spread of other species through the warming and cooling of the ice ages to provide a model that can be applied to human origins. Climate is believed to be the driving force behind most of these evolutionary processes, including geographical range change. It dictates which species are where at what time, driving their geographical spread or contraction.

You can read the full article here

Image of the Month

Colourful river crabs: newly discovered and already threatened — Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum — 21 March 2012

“Colourful river crabs: newly discovered and already threatened” Mining project puts recently identified crab species at risk, published on 21 March 2012 by Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum

A particularly colourful new species: Insulamon palawanense.

The Savvy User's Corner – What is a ‘library & multimedia’ item?

Some users have been confused by this term. A library & multimedia item for AlphaGalileo is a piece of information that is not ‘hot’ news, or even news at all, but that is relevant as background material for journalists, researchers or the general public. An illustrating example is a briefing or report that may not have been recently published, but that can be stored in the ‘library’, meaning database, for reference.

The section where we store this supporting/additional/background material is called ‘library and multimedia’ because it resembles a library. You can find information but also images, videos, documents, papers or reports that can help and support different audiences in their research. Our database stores more than 65,000 items that are available for everybody to use and consult.

If you have any questions about this or any other feature please do not hesitate to contact our team at alphagalileo@alphagalileo.org

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