I have received an eight-page article entitled "Photochemical nucleophile-olefin combination, aromatic substitution reaction. Its synthetic development and mechanistic exploration", just published by Dino Mangion and Donald R. Arnold in the American Chemical Society`s Accounts of Chemical Research.

I cannot say "it`s all Greek to me" because Greek was my favourite subject in my student days. But it`s pure science, and as I am neither a scientist nor a science journalist the text`s cryptic language is totally incomprehensible to me.

All I know is that it is a review of Professor Arnold`s lifelong dedication to the study of photochemical reactions (something which has to do with the impact of light on matter) and refers to several contributions by his former Ph.D. students at the Canadian University of Dalhousie, including Dr Robert M. Borg of the University of Malta.

Science affects our daily lives and our societies in a very significant manner, and we are badly in need of journalists capable of informing us of what goes on in the secluded science faculties and their mysterious laboratories. We also need more scientists capable and willing to explain to us what they are doing.

An Italian research group has just found out that chewing gum is dangerous for health, for it contains a substance which can cause cancer. A Swedish research group last week came up with a theory that potato chips are carcinogenic.

Journalists splash the news on the media, without going into detail. If they are specialised in science, they explain how such discoveries come about, and the information they provide is both reliable and effective.

Scientists tend to live in their ivory towers, and are generally averse to meet journalists, who would not easily understand and might oversimplify and distort their complex scientific experiments and jeopardise their potential results.

The solution is to have in every country a sufficient number of science journalists, i.e. journalists who are trained and qualified to write or broadcast on scientific matters.

This was the main conclusion of an important seminar held at the French National Assembly on October 11-12, 1999, on the initiative of Claude Birraux, a French scientist and MP. An excellent 57-page report was published by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly`s culture section in June 2000, but unfortunately it did not get the publicity it deserved (copy freely available from bogdan.torcatoriu@coe.int).

Some 60 experts attended the seminar. The speakers included Enric Banda, from the European Science Foundation (1 quay Lezay-Marnesia, 67080 Strasbourg); Robert Cailliau, director of the WWW office at the Geneva-based CERN European Laboratory; Clive Cookson, science editor of the Financial Times; Sir John Maddox, former editor of Nature; Geert Noorman on behalf of the Amsterdam-based Elsevier Science publishers; Jean-Eric Aubert, from the science section of the OECD; Peter Green, from the British Association for the Advancement of Science; Patrice Lanoy, chairman of the French Association of Science Journalists; Paola de Paoli, head of the Italian Union of Science Journalists; and Istvan Palugyai, vice-chairman of the European Union of Science Journalists` Associations.

"In the past scientists had asked to be left alone in their laboratories, with the result that citizens have become distrustful of the scientific world. Politicians increasingly find themselves passing laws which have important implications for citizens and which draw their inspiration from science and technology, whether it`s medicine, bioethics, organ transfer, telecommunications or genetically modified organisms.

"Politicians must therefore have some understanding of science to take enlightened decisions and to be able to explain them to citizens". That`s how Mr Birraux introduced the debate.

Scientists are often reluctant to react to people`s demand for reliable information on hot issues concerning food safety, pollution, health risks, AIDS, nuclear energy and so on. But this must change.

"The communication gap between scientists and public opinion must be bridged, and for this to happen, scientists must wake up," Mr Cookson argued.

If scientists must wake up and try to inform the general public of what they are doing, which would also help them to obtain more funds, science journalists must also be more active and, I would add, more numerous. The school of journalism at Lille, in Northern France, has set up a special section for science journalists.

The organisers now prefer to recruit science graduates and train them as journalists, rather than the other way round. For it is easier to teach journalism than science. Science is not an easy option, and in fact the study of science at university level is rapidly decreasing both in Europe and the US.

But the US continues to recruit scientists and science graduates to its universities and laboratories from abroad, offering them the best possible conditions. With the result that the brain drain from Europe continues. And knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, is power.

Governments are usually not alive to the pressing need for more funds, personnel and research in the sciences, one of the reasons being that politicians usually come from other branches of knowledge and represent people who are traditionally more interested in the arts than in science.

This trend needs to be reversed. Certain universities are now recruiting communication officers capable of dealing with the media on scientific matters and of attracting promising students to science courses.

What about Malta? How many science journalists do we have? How many of our science lecturers hold regular meetings with journalists and schools in a bid to arouse interest in their own research, attract students and secure more funds?

The "science week" held regularly at the University is a good thing, but not enough. Museums of art abound all over the world. But museums of science are few and far between.

I was deeply impressed by the Deutsches Museum of Munich when I visited it 20 years ago. President Ciampi of Italy has just paid an official visit to the magnificently restored Museum of Science History in Florence (Italy is on the move to promote science education, see Repubblica April 17, 2002, p. 44).

Another famous science museum is the Exploratorium of San Francisco, designed by Frank Oppenheimer. What about setting up a science museum in Malta, possibly with EU funds?

In a resolution approved last January on the basis of Birraux`s report (http://stars.coe.fr), the Council of Europe recommended to governments the following initiatives:

¤ encouraging universities to train scientists to communicate with the people, on the model of the UK`s Committee on the Public Understanding of Science;

¤ fostering regular contacts between science journalists and scientific circles, so that the two communities get to know each other better;

¤ enhancing the training of science journalists, especially by setting up a special section in journalism schools and courses;

¤ supporting the specialist science publications to improve their quality and extend their readership;

¤ developing a permanent Website on the Internet on the lines of the American Public Library of Science; and

¤ encouraging the scientific community and the media to co-organise events likely to attract the public and students to the sciences, such as laboratory open days, science weeks and science programmes on television.

Will this appeal fall on deaf ears? Such initiatives are in full swing in the US, with the beneficial effects we know. Europe should not continue to lag behind. Nor should Malta.

Carla del Ponte in Strasbourg

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) recently gave a press conference in Strasbourg after addressing the Parliamentary Assembly. She underlined the many obstacles encountered in her bid to bring numerous culprits to court, as in the case of Slobodan Milosevic. But her determination knows no bounds. The Court plans to end investigations by 2004 and wind up its proceedings by 2008.

When asked if crimes against humanity committed in Chechnya or the Middle East might fall under her jurisdiction, she replied that her remit referred only to former Yugoslavia.

When asked if effective co-operation with the ICT was conditional to Serbia-Montenegro`s admission to the Council of Europe, secretary-general Walter Schwimmer unconvincingly answered in the affirmative. But Mrs del Ponte reiterated that she will not keep quiet until the main butchers of thousands of Muslims and Croats in Bosnia, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, are handed over to the ICT at The Hague.