Archive by category | Euroscience Open Forum

ESOF: The Middle East fighting comes home

One of today´s featured speakers, Syrian philosopher Sadik al-Azm, wasn´t able to make it out of the Middle East to give his keynote presentation. But he did get to an internet cafe and email it in. So Wim Blockmans of the Netherlands read aloud al-Azm´s lecture on “Islam and the science-religion debate in modern times”. With the focus here on European science, it´s a shame a leading Middle Eastern voice was missing.  Read more

ESOF: The universe in an hour

Gerry Gilmore, an astrophysicst at Cambridge University, gave a lunchttime talk in the aviation hall of the Deutsches Museum today. He seemed unfazed by the breadth of his topic: the entire history and future of the universe. Then again, his job title suggests he´d be up for the challenge: He´s a professor of “experimental philosophy”: https://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~gil/.  Read more

ESOF: Treating phobias with virtual reality

Virtual reality, once a techno-toy for the curious and wealthy, is becoming an important tool for helping people cope with stressful situations. Here at the ESOF meeting in Munich, a pair of researchers presented some intriguing new work on how to treat phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder using virtual reality.  Read more

ESOF: Science trucks, walking fuel cells, and more

The EuroScience Open Forum (https://www.esof2006.org) isn´t like most of the science meetings I´m used to attending. Normally I´d be sitting in three hours of the latest research into paleoclimatology. Here, the focus is on celebrating European science and bringing it to the public in a most informal fashion.  Read more