The first pogrom documented in history took place in Alexandria in the year 38 CE. The only document describing this event is an eyewitness account by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. It is a problematic source because the concern of the author is largely theological and also because he fails to inform the reader about the causes of the violence. These causes must be sought in the combination of a growing tendency among Alexandrian intellectuals to depict Jews as criminal misanthropes, and the Jewish tendency to side with the Roman occupiers of Egypt.

The concept of moral space is presented here, in the arguments of classical authors who treated the decay of moral space as an inevitable cost of modernity. Three areas are identified where the decay of moral space is manifested in our period of ‘late modernity’. They are: violent crime, distrust and cynicism, and the vanishing of social capital. Paradoxically, however, opportunities to overcome the current moral void are discovered in the very traits of modernity: reflexiveness and globalization. They allow the process of moral healing through the reconstitution of primordial communities, ethnic, national, religious, in an open, tolerant and ecumenical manner, as well as the constitution of new communities of universalist and global reach.

The Big Bang created primordial material from which the first stars formed. These stars exploded as supernovae and polluted the material from which subsequent generations of stars were made. Astronomers have had difficulty in finding stars made of the pure Big Bang material, but they have found stars with very little polluting material. The age of these cosmological relics of the first eras sets a lower limit for the age of the Universe we live in. European astronomers and their colleagues worldwide have joined in the effort to discover and date these, the oldest stars, and cast a glance into the obscure phases between the very first seconds of the existence of the Universe and the epoch at which galaxies and clusters of stars matured. Many independent techniques have been devised to date the oldest stars and stellar systems in the Universe. Some of them are briefly reviewed. The age of the oldest stars is now converging on a value in the range from 12 to 15 thousand million years. However, a large uncertainty still exists and a value as a large as 17 to18 thousand million years cannot be totally ruled out. Such a large value would be difficult to reconcile with the age of the Universe based on cosmological data. Significant improvements in the uncertainties of this situation are expected from the 8–1 m telescopes and space missions of the next decade.

Introduction

The rapid development of molecular biology and genetics has created exciting new possibilities, but these are not without concerns. Some are ethical, relating to human life and behaviour, and some are ecological, potentially affecting the natural environment. The articles in this Focus are concerned with some of these matters.

Stem cells are capable of regenerating tissue cells. They have an important potential use in a wide range of therapies, especially as an alternative to organ transplantation, with the advantage that they can be derived from the patient and thus avoid rejection. Embryonic stem cells are potentially capable of forming all kinds of cells. Their use is controversial however, because they are derived from early embryos and because, if they were to match the patient, they would have to be obtained using the same techniques that could, in theory, be used to produce cloned individuals. This article discusses the uses and problems of stem cell research and therapy.

The beginning of political and economic liberalism is distrust. This claim is clearer for economic liberalism than for political liberalism because it is overtly foundational in economic liberalism, which was directed against the intrusions of the state in economic affairs. Those intrusions typically had the obvious purpose of securing economic advantages for some by restricting opportunities for others, although some of them may have been merely capricious or ignorantly intended. The hostility to such economic intrusions led to the form of the American constitution, with its principal purpose to restrict government and its actions in the economy or, in the lexicon of the time, in commerce. James Madison saw the creation of an open economy or untrammelled commerce as the main achievement of the new constitution.

Space weather is caused by conditions on the Sun and in the solar wind, the magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems and can affect human life or health. It affects man-made systems such as satellite electronics, terrestrial power grids and radio communications. This paper provides an overview of how space weather arises in the solar–terrestrial system and how physical processes are able to cause space weather effects. We also discuss European perspectives and activities geared towards the possible initiation of a European Space Weather programme.

The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, who lived from 1872 to 1945, is considered to be one of the greatest historians of the 20th century. His work has been translated into many languages. More than 80 years after its first appearance, his most famous book, The Waning of the Middle Ages, is still read the world over and regularly reprinted. Huizinga is now mainly read and admired by historians, although his book, Homo ludens, is also appreciated by anthropologists. In the 1930s, he was even more well-known but in a different capacity: not as a cultural historian but as a cultural critic. His book, In the Shadows of Tomorrow, which appeared in 1935, was soon translated into eight languages. It was as influential as Ortega y Gasset's, The Rebellion of the Masses, and made him ‘the most famous man of the Netherlands’. This paper will describe Johan Huizinga's transition from cultural historian to cultural critic and discuss how far his cultural criticism can be seen as an example of ‘the spirit of the 1930's’.

An important proportion of citizens do not manifest confidence in many basic institutions (parliaments, parties, unions, army, public bureaucracies, big business, courts, ecclesiastic hierarchy, police) nor in the political class. Such a deficit of trust is attested by a wealth of empirical data. Nonetheless, the legitimacy of democratic regimes is not challenged: European citizens do not conceive realistically of an alternative system of government. A new counter-power is playing an increasing and crucial role in advanced pluralist democracies – that of magistrates and journalists combined. France and Italy are considered as typical cases, concerning in particular corruption at the highest level of the State and society. What types of citizens are needed in advanced democracies? Ignorant, naive, deferential, credulous, believers in myths or well informed, rationally distrustful citizens? Today, democracy is permanently under the supervision of the public, as attested by surveys conducted periodically.

Demographers have traditionally been preoccupied with human reproduction and mortality, and with the links, at different levels of aggregation, between the two. Today, when in some regions of the world sexual intercourse carries with it the risk not just of pregnancy but of fatal infection with the human immunodeficiency virus, that traditional preoccupation acquires a special urgency.

Somatic gene therapy remains a promising therapeutic approach for both inherited and acquired disorders. Among the tissues amenable to gene therapy, the skin, and particularly the epidermal cells, present several features advantageous for genetic manipulation and monitoring of therapeutic effects. Candidate diseases for cutaneous gene therapy not only involve skin defects but also systemic abnormalities. The robust basic and pre-clinical data gathered during the last few years have allowed the imminent launching of keratinocyte-based gene therapy with applications to patients.

For some decades, astronomy and astrophysics have undergone a technological and conceptual revolution. Supported by ever more powerful telescopes and instruments on the ground and in space, the volume and quality of new insights is incredible, both in terms of physical understanding of individual celestial objects and the grand evolutionary scheme. New and powerful observational facilities such as the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) are opening new horizons, from the nearby solar system to the corners of the Milky Way galaxy in which we live and, not least, towards the vast expanses in time and space of the remote and early Universe. The next generation of ultra-sensitive optical-infrared telescopes such as Herschel and ALMA will be ready within this decade and concepts are being elaborated for the construction of super-giant telescopes like the 100 m optical/IR OWL, the ‘Overwhelmingly Large telescope’. With these impressive developments, and in a true spirit of exploration, astronomers can now look forward to great research opportunities, in a resounding manifestation of the continuous drive towards a better understanding of our cosmic surroundings and of our own origins, so characteristic for enlightened humankind of every age.

The progressive elucidation of the structure of the human genome with the subsequent use of this information for various purposes, many of which will be of commercial value, raises questions about the ownership of the information. This article points out some of problems of defining the genome as property and explores the relevance of the usual criteria of patent law to this new situation.

The development, refinement and increasingly widespread use of DNA microarrays have been important responses to the explosion of sequence information produced by genome science. The high sample densities possible with DNA microarrays, coupled with the complete or nearly complete genome sequences available for humans and model organisms, provide a powerful analytical method to measure both qualitative and quantitative variations in RNA and DNA. Principal among the applications of microarrays is the large-scale analysis of RNA expression, often referred to as expression profiling. The power of this application lies in its ability to determine the expression patterns of tens of thousands of genes in a single experiment. Additionally, the ability to detect DNA polymorphisms makes microarrays useful in studies designed to correlate DNA sequence variations with variations in phenotype. The unprecedented scale on which microarrays allow both experimentation and generation of results should make possible a more complete and comprehensive understanding of cells and cellular processes.

The special value of radio astronomy lies in the probing of extreme conditions in the universe, including the highest energies and the lowest temperatures. Radio waves can penetrate clouds of gas and dust to reveal objects in the universe and, in particular, in our Galaxy that cannot be seen by visible light. To achieve the highest resolution, radio telescopes in widely separate parts of our globe combine their reception to produce a synthesized image. This is a splendid example of international collaboration. Among the images visualized are pulsars, derived from the remnants of supernovae explosions, and quasar sources powered by black holes.

Symbolic construction of the state identity is analysed, along with the symbolic politics of the state toward the past. The great systemic change is conceived as a symbolic transformation where the growth of semiotic behaviour is clearly noticeable. The analysis deals with the changes in the public holidays calendar in Poland: the communist symbolic strategies, symbolic politics of the Solidarity movement and the anti-politics of symbolization in the third Republic of Poland. It discusses problems of the symbolic control of historicity.

Plant molecular breeding represents a new technology that adds to, rather than substitutes for, traditional breeding practice, and shares with it the same long-standing objectives: higher yield, better products, better-adapted plants. Additionally, it allows the consideration of completely new applications: pharmaceuticals, industrial products and bioremediation processes. Safety issues and the socio-economic prospects of this new technology are discussed.

Suggestive or misleading interrogation techniques may have the effect that innocent people start to remember having committed a serious crime. Confessions are therefore not the best possible evidence, especially not when it is obvious that the interrogation contained elements of suggestion and deception. The problem is illustrated by a case that has become famous in The Netherlands, because two innocent men were imprisoned for about eight years, after obviously false confessions. The confessions were obtained during long and repeated interrogations in which various types of psychological deception were used. In the end, the amount of contradiction, and even of sheer impossibilities, made it clear that the confessions were false and the men innocent. Some of the literature on the creation of false memories is reviewed. It is argued that the practice of criminal investigation may elicit even stronger effects, because empirical research is constrained by ethical limits. The objective of criminal investigation seems to put no limit on what is deemed acceptable, even though we know quite well that the elicitation of false confessions is a serious risk. European agreements about criminal interrogation techniques may provide an effective protection against undesirable practices; but it will not be easy to convince the European legislators of this.

Social change is taking place today with enormous acceleration. The globalization of politics, economy, and culture, changes in information technology and the revolution in genetic engineering are the major transforming powers. They create a complex of change and have an effect on the individual as well as the community. Known structures are coming apart and this evokes feelings of fear. However, spaces of opportunity will be opened, too. They can be used if (what we call) post-traditional ligatures constitute a new basis of social embedding. Examples of such bondings, which are more flexible and (to a large extent) self-created, are mentioned at the end of this article.

Calcium is the major messenger inside cells that is responsible for muscle contraction, secretion and many other processes. This article outlines some of features of these activities and reports on an Academia conference in Heidelberg, Germany.