Tomorrow Today: The Science Magazine
DW-TV’s science program TOMORROW TODAY focuses on current topics in research, and is aimed at anyone who is interested in ongoing projects in Germany and Europe. Our reports use terms and concepts that are easily understood, portrayed in interesting ways, and address the core issues ...
DW-TV’s science program TOMORROW TODAY focuses on current topics in research, and is aimed at anyone who is interested in ongoing projects in Germany and Europe. Our reports use terms and concepts that are easily understood, portrayed in interesting ways, and address the core issues at stake. The show presents a comprehensive overview of the latest trends in science and research. The exploration of the deep sea is one of the great scientific challenges of the future. This is a gigantic area. Covering two thirds of the earth’s surface, it is an unknown world with bizarre geological structures and exotic inhabitants. So far, only one percent of the deep ocean habitat has been explored. TOMORROW TODAY takes a fascinating look into the work of marine researchers – a five-part series in cooperation with the MARUM Research Center in Bremen. Heiko Sahling is a biologist and deep sea geoscientist at the MARUM Research Center. The area he studies is in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Pakistan. There, at depths down to 3,000 meters, something fascinating is happening. Natural gas is emerging from the sea bed, to produce a surreal world of millions of tiny bubbles, which has already spurred the fancy of science fiction authors. In these exotic surroundings, the scientist has discovered both new animal species and communities and new geological truths. But the main questions that drive him are concerned with the methane gas emitted here. How much is emitted, how does it affect the biological world of the deep sea, and how much reaches the surface to enter the atmosphere? That is also relevant to climate researchers, because methane is a major greenhouse gas that increases global warming. Heiko Sahling takes Tomorrow Today viewers on an expedition on the METEOR research vessel. He tells us about life on board, about burning ice and about organisms that no one has seen before.
Show all Visit Show Website http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,306...Recently Aired
-
HD
Out-of-this-world Cameras
Sensational images from the surface of comet "Chury” have translated ...
Sensational images from the surface of comet "Chury” have translated into global exposure for the Max-Planck Institute for Solar System. The Göttingen-based research center is acknowledged as one of the best in the world when it comes to the development and construction of spacecraft cameras and similar devices. Our report explains the reasons for the institute’s excellence.
-
HD
The Fight against Cholera
Cholera - a potentially deadly disease transmitted via contaminated water ...
Cholera - a potentially deadly disease transmitted via contaminated water - remains one of the most feared pathogens on the planet. Scientists at the University of Bochum have found a new way of fighting the bacteria. They discovered that the gene in the microbe that makes people sick is inactivated when outside the human body, and is only ‘turned on’ by the body’s internal temperature of 37° C. The researchers now plan to flip off that switch to prevent the cholera bacteria from causing its dangerous symptoms. The idea has already worked in animal experiments. The next step for the team is to use their insights to develop an effective medicine.
-
HD
Nano-propellers - Drug carriers inside the body
Scientists are working on micro- and even nano-scale robots that ...
Scientists are working on micro- and even nano-scale robots that will be able to transport medical agents through our body - many times smaller than a human hair. At the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, researchers have constructed miniscule vessels that can be deployed in bodily fluids or cells. What’s more, they can move autonomously.
-
HD
Treating malnutrition among cancer patients - Prescription nutrition
Each year, some 100,000 cancer patients die from malnutrition in ...
Each year, some 100,000 cancer patients die from malnutrition in German hospitals - a little-known statistic. They end up starving to death following surgery on the stomach, colon or pancreas, because their bodies can no longer absorb enough nutrients from the food they eat. Nutritional medicine specialists have found a solution: liquid diets are prepared according to each patient's individual dietary needs. That can then be fed to the patient through a central line in a vein, bypassing the digestive tract.
-
HD
Foreign language learning - An early start may not be a headstart
A long-term study by the University of Zurich indicates that ...
A long-term study by the University of Zurich indicates that starting on English in early years may not give schoolchildren the headstart many take for granted. It may even have a negative impact on performance in the students' own language. Linguists have been testing 200 high school students aged 13 and 14. The ones who started with English later soon caught up with the ones who started in 2nd grade. In grammar, syntax, structure and content, the late starters were even noticeably better. Just before their final exams, the researchers tested their language skills one last time and found no appreciable difference between the early and late starters. They also found that the ones who mastered their own language best were also better at the foreign language.
-
HD
Report: Nobel Laureates in Lindau
This year marks the 65th time that the world's top ...
This year marks the 65th time that the world's top scientists are meeting in the town of Lindau on Lake Constance, and in honor of the anniversary the organizers have invited 65 Nobel Prize winners and 650 young scientists from around the world to the event. They’re gathering for a week to exchange ideas and information in the fields of chemistry, physics and medicine in a relaxed, summery atmosphere. Stefan Hell, the German biophysicist who won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, is making his Lindau debut this year. DW's Wolf Gebhardt accompanied the "newcomer" during the conference.
-
HD
Stockholm: Behind the Scenes of the Nobel Prize Committee
Each year in early October, the Nobel Committee names the ...
Each year in early October, the Nobel Committee names the winners of the Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine or Physiology. But how are the decisions made? What criteria are used to choose the candidates? Tomorrow Today took a visit to the most important Nobel Prize locations, met the chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, and caught a glimpse behind the scenes of a century-old ritual.
-
HD
Portrait: Europe's New Top Spaceman
Tomorrow Today met up with the former head of the ...
Tomorrow Today met up with the former head of the German Aerospace Center Johann-Dietrich Wörner, who on July 1st entered office as the new Director General of the European Aerospace Agency. He told us about his plans for the agency, the new horizons of space, and the importance of working together in harmony with other nations in its exploration.
-
HD
"We want to get rid of animal testing."
Professor Gilbert Schönfelder of Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment ...
Professor Gilbert Schönfelder of Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment talks about the controversy and the challenging search for alternatives. DW: The Biotechnologist Uwe Marx is working on an alternative to animal testing in laboratories. He developed a miniature version of human organs- microchips cultured with cells to mimic organ structure and function. He believes up to 70 percent of the present-day animal testing can be replaced. Now what do you think about the idea of organ chips? Is that maybe the breakthrough to get rid of all this animal testing? Gilbert Schönfelder: It's a very forward-looking, promising innovation: technology which is in focus all over the world right now. But I wouldn't say that we get rid of all the animal testings in the next years, or that this technology brings us away from seventy percent of all animal testings right now. So you think in principle it is possible to set up a system which is very similar to a human body, right? Well, I wouldn't say that we are on that way already. But we are very close, we can bring different organs on a chip together. But it took us about 500 million years of evolution to create an organism like a human body, bringing all the organs together and functional systems. It's very complex and to build up such a system in such a fast time, to mimic the whole human body at once, it takes a little bit longer. I understand. So if we don't look that far into the future, I mean what else is there? Can you work with single cells, or what other ideas are there to reduce animal testing? There is a whole bunch of ideas. We call that the "three R principle." That's reducement, replacement and refinement. So we have tissues, we have simple systems, and we have 3-D-systems, like printers. We can print an organ by using a kind of 3-D-printer to rebuild a system instead of just putting everything together. And one day you might even be able to simulate it in the computer? We're already simulating organ functions. That's what we call in silico experiments. But those experiments, they need a close combination of biological experiments together with bioinformatics or systems biology. But we are trying to get all this data together. So I can tell that we are heading towards a future which could be very comfortable for animal rights activists, who want to ban all animal testing. Just tell us, what happened if we did so? What if we had to go completely without animal testing? If we would ban animal testings right now, we get huge problems related to toxicity testing. If we don't have the right alternative, we would face side effects of drugs which were not tested. Was there anything in the past, an experience that tells us we need it today? Well, the whole story started with Contergan (thalidomide in English), a drug that was taken in the sixties by pregnant women, and at the end it turned out that their babies had teratology effects. So we definitely don't want that again and similar effects. Thanks a lot for the talk, Professor Schönfelder. (Interview: Ingolf Baur)
-
HD
Artificial Organs instead of Animals
Biotechnologist Uwe Marx is working on an alternative to animal ...
Biotechnologist Uwe Marx is working on an alternative to animal testing in laboratories. He's developing miniature versions of human organs - microchips cultured with cells to mimic organ structure and function. He already offers two-tissue chips for drug and toxicology testing and he wants eventually to simulate all the organs of the human body. He says tests using multi-organ chip technology are much more conclusive than tests on animals, whose results can be applied to humans only to a limited extent.
