AlphaGalileo News 


As well as my usual apology for any cross-posting, I must also apologise for the long delay between this news mailing and the previous one in October. Sadly there has been just too much other work. 


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Contents

The end of the Pilot and the start of the full-scale service 
Top 10 releases April and October 1999
The Media Resource Service
Site statistics
And finally...
Email addresses of the AlphaGalileo editorial team


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The end of the Pilot and the start of the full-scale service

The final feedback of the Pilot Phase of the project, showed continued support for the project. Comments from users included these from University of Cambridge Press Office and the UK's Daily Express: 

"AlphaGalileo extends our media coverage beyond the UK to the international media in a fast and effective way that we would find difficult to emulate with traditional mailing list," Cambridge

"There's no doubt that AlphaGalileo has improved the media profile of the organisations issuing press releases," Daily Express.

The demands from users that we will meet early in 2000, when the new IT contract is in place are: automatic feedback on hits on releases for contributors and greater control of email alerts for journalists, including emailing full texts of releases, improved keywords and selection by language. These changes should be introduced no later than the end of March. 

The variable in this is the timing of the funding being available for 2000. We are building a consortium to bid for Framework 5 funds from the European Commission during 2000 and countries already represented in the consortium are Finland, France, Germany, Greece and the UK. 

The final report of the Pilot Phase will be available in PDF format. If you would like a copy please email me.


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Top 10 releases April and October 1999

To give you a flavour of the use made of the service and the way hits have increased here are the top ten releases from start and end of our recent survey period. The figure at the end of each line is the number of hits it received. In January your release would have made the top ten with just over 50 hits.

If colleagues would like to know how many hits a specific release got this year, please get in touch. Since the data is in a pretty basic form it may take the quiet period of Christmas to do the analysis and get back to you.

APRIL
First transatlantic dinosaur confirmed (The Geological Society) 152
Killing cancer cells with tapioca (University of Newcastle upon Tyne) 138
Manchester Team develops new male contraceptive (Society for Endocrinology) 136
Nature Contents: 22 April 1999 (Nature)112
Short-term Effects Of Exposure To Mobile Phones - New Research By Bristol University Team (University of Bristol) 112
Can Machines Think? (The Novartis Foundation) 109
Hysterical headlines and fact-free stories result of GMO scare (British Association for the Advancement of Science) 107
Sunderland researchers discover link between drug use and memory loss (University of Sunderland) 107
On-line shopping - for viruses, fungi, bacteria and much more (BBSRC) 102
Microwave chips to put phone masts in the past (University of Leeds) 102

OCTOBER
New Roman camp confirmed outside of Perth, Scotland (The Roman Gask project) 324
EBOLA : Virus marks detected in terrestrial small mammals (Institut Pasteur) 255
BBSRC concern about GM paper in The Lancet (BBSRC) 225
Recent European advances in biotechnology (European Commission) 172
Revolutionary New Detector For Toxic Gases (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) 168
The Role Of Scientists In Public Debate: A National Survey  (The Wellcome Trust) 168
Smart Houses boom in Finland (Tekes, the National Technology Agency of Finland) 162
Puzzle of cometary orbits hints at large undiscovered object (Royal Astronomical Society) 156
There's a new kind of computer in the air (New Scientist) 154
Biologist Calls 30% Of African Primates 'Living Dead' (Institute of Zoology) 152


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Media Resource Service

AlphaGalileo and the Media Resource Service have been in contact during the autumn to ensure that the valuable work of the MRS continues. We will be announcing our detailed plans, early in 2000, but in the meantime, you will be pleased to learn that the work of the MRS will continue.


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Site Statistics


On 13 December the site had (figures from 15 October in brackets): 
Registered journalists: 1,283 (1047)
Registered contributors: 707 (634)
Press notices: 2,164(1,874)
Calendar events: 300(269)


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And finally...

On behalf of the Project team may I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.


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Email addresses of the AlphaGalileo Editorial Team
If your message is urgent you should avoid a emailing a specific editor, who may be away from the office, and send the message to the duty Site Editor at [log in to unmask]

Peter Green (Project Director) [log in to unmask]
Sabine Louët (International Coordinating Editor) [log in to unmask]
Site Editor (Duty editor) [log in to unmask]


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AlphaGalileo is the Internet-based press centre for European science, engineering and technology. Our aim is to increase awareness of the excitement and significance of European research amongst young people, industry and tax-payers via the mass media. The financial support of the UK and French governments, and some of the UK's medical charities and Research Councils is gratefully acknowledged, as is the encouragement the project is receiving from the British Association, Euroscience and members of the European Union of Science Journalists Associations.

If you are not yet registered you can find out more about the service and access all releases and event details that are out of embargo by visiting http://www.alphagalileo.org.


Peter Green
Project Director
AlphaGalileo: the Internet press centre for European science, engineering and technology
www.alphagalileo.org

peter.green @alphagalileo.org
44 1793 496200 (answer phone)
07867 787889 (mobile)



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