Article by Federico Neresini, Kostas Dimopoulos, Monika Kallfass, and Hans Peter Peters Science Communication, Jun 2009; vol. 30: pp. 506 – 533. The results from a cross-national study of visits by the public to four large physics research centres in Europe focus on short-term learning and motivational effects produced by such visits. The findings are…
Nuclear energy, stem cell technology, GMOs: the more science advances, the more society seems to resist. But are we really watching a death struggle between opposing forces, as so many would have it? Can today’s complex technical policy decisions coincide with the needs of a participatory democracy? Are the two sides even equipped to talk…
In the last years Italians’ attitudes have increasingly shifted in favour of investments in nuclear power. From 2003 to today, supporters of this investment have risen from just over 22% to almost 42%; during the same time period the opposites have decreased from 56% to 39% approximately (view the table and the bar graph). Therefore,…
Is it true at all that Italian media do not engage so much with science? What space is left for science and technology in comparison with other topics? Which are the most addressed scientific-technological issues? And how are these issues discussed? Science in the Media Monitor was created to answer such questions. The monitor uses…
The new data coming from the Science in Society Monitor are published on Nòva 24 – Il Sole 24 Ore In 2009 the use of web sites and blogs to get informed on science and technology has slightly increased compared with previous Science in Society Monitor data (2007): 30,2% of interviewees use these tools at…
Thanks to the increased reliability of medical surgeries and improved technological interventions in the field of transplantation, a growing number of people are now listed for transplants. Recent scientific developments indicate that transplantation of organs, tissues or cells between species (xenotransplantation) may at some stage become a realistic option. Despite this, several immunological, biosafety, physiological,…
Blood availability is a serious concern for most national health systems, including Italy. This makes increasingly necessary, on the one hand, to understand the motivations that can prevent people from donating blood and, on the other hand, to have an updated picture of how the issues of blood donation and transfusion are discussed in the…