The MPs’ complaints echo what scientists have been saying since the
law was passed two years ago. Then, the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house
of parliament, approved stringent regulations monitoring the work of bioengineers
in the pharmaceuticals and agriculture industries.

The law divides experiments into four categories ranging from ‘no risk’
to ‘highly dangerous’. ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵs must apply for permits to conduct any
experiment involving the manipulation of genes. But whichever risk category
the experiment falls into, the application involves filling out a 60-page
document. ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵs say the paperwork is overwhelming and that government
officials are frequently overzealous and partisan in their enforcement of
the law.

If the MPs get their way, some of the bureaucracy could be eliminated.
Many of them support measures that would rule out the need for any permit
for no-risk experiments.

Heinz Riesenhuber, minister for science and technology, has spoken out
in the Bundestag in favour of a change in the law. He illustrated the effect
the law has on the economy with the case of the pharmaceuticals company
Hoechst, which has been waiting for a licence to produce insulin using biotechnology
for eight years. Not one foreign biotechnology company operates in Germany,
he said.

Opponents of a change in the law say the government is bowing to pressure
from industry. They say that revising the law would make German regulations
less stringent than those laid down in directives from the European Community.

‘If the law is changed, work at 80 per cent of the labs will be unsupervised.
That is not sufficient. Furthermore, it will be the scientists carrying
out the experiments, rather than the authorities, who will decide how dangerous
their experiments are,’ said Wolfgang Lohr, spokesman for Genethisches Netz,
a Berlin environmental group which advocates more stringent regulation of
research in biotechnology.

‘Politicians have used spin-offs to justify funding for manned space
flight,’ says Ulrich Schmoch, who led the project. ‘But the study’s results
mean they must now rely more heavily on direct, scientific arguments for
space flight, like its usefulness in observing the Earth or repairing satellites.’

The ISI researchers identified 3000 patents for advances in space technology
filed since 1988, and then looked for patents in other fields that cited
one or more of the source patents. Those that were for spin-offs into other
fields numbered between 20 and 30 per cent of the original 3000. ‘It’s difficult
to express in percentages because the definition of a spin-off is subjective,’
says Schmoch.

The researchers used patent citation analysis because they thought it
would be less biased than other methods, such as asking companies if they
use space research. ‘The officials issuing the patents didn’t know we were
going to do a study,’ says Schmoch. When the ISI used the same method to
investigate transfers from research on sensors for robots to other areas
it found three times as many spin-offs.

According to the report, some space research, such as fittings for remote-controlled
telescopic arms, heat-resistant materials and control technologies, did
find other uses. Gas turbines, for example, can now operate at higher temperatures
because the surface of the blades is treated by a process developed for
space flight. The air-cooled motorcycle helmet is an even more down-to-earth
example, says Schmoch.

The project was commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Research and
Technology, but in 1990 responsibility for it was transferred to the German
Space Agency, DARA. Although the study was completed in April, it remained
under wraps until this month. Franz-Peter Spaunhost of DARA says the delay
had nothing to do with the agency. ‘This is not a DARA study,’ he says.
‘It is something we inherited from the federal ministry.’

‘In 1988, Germany didn’t have the budgetary problems it does today,’
Schmoch says. ‘That’s a recent addition to the discussion on whether to
stop funding space flight.’

A proposal to bury most of Germany’s low and intermediate level radioactive
waste at Schacht Konrad, a disused mine in Lower Saxony, has existed since
1975. The federal government employed consultants to evaluate the site’s
suitability, safety requirements and the dump’s impact on the environment.
In July, details of the design were made public.

By the end of September, 290 000 people from Brunswick and other nearby
towns had filed written objections to the proposals. The number of objections
forced the government to hold the public hearings.

According to Eckhardt Viehl of Germany’s Radiation Protection Authority,
which will run the dump for the federal environment ministry, more than
£230 million has been spent on the project so far. But the dump’s
opponents and Lower Saxony’s environment ministry, which is ultimately responsible
for licensing and safety monitoring at Konrad, claim that the consultants’
work is inadequate.

‘It’s just a big waste of paper,’ says Roland Hipp of Greenpeace. ‘Some
of the consultants’ reports are of such low quality they could have been
written by schoolchildren. There’s a great deal of missing information about
traffic patterns around the site and evacuation plans,’ he says. Some of
the official studies were carried out before the border between East and
West Germany was removed.

Late last month, as the hearings were due to begin, Lower Saxony’s environment
minister, Monika Griefahn, tried to use deficiencies in the official documents
to postpone the public hearing until more evidence was available. For her
trouble, she was reprimanded by Topfer, who insisted that Griefahn carry
on with the hearings. They eventually started on 28 September and are expected
to last until the end of this month.

The Salzgitter inquiry is expected to set a precedent for hearings about
other planned storage sites. If opponents succeed in blocking the Konrad
plan, Germany could find itself without a place to put a growing pile of
radioactive waste. ‘Last year western Germany alone produced 6000 cubic
metres of the type of waste which would be stored at Konrad,’ says Viehl.
‘And 50 000 cubic metres of waste is currently being stored at temporary
sites.’ Germany has no permanent waste storage facilities for any type of
radioactive waste, and temporary storage capacity is expected to be filled
within five years.

Eastern Germany’s Association of Independent Enterprises says there
is a growing discrepancy between east and west: in the western states, 5
per cent of the population works on research commissioned by industry, while
in the east, only a tenth of this number work in industrial research.

The reason for the precipitous decline in the east, says Wegerdt, is
that as Germany’s privatisation agency, the Treuhand, closes the giant East
German industrial combines, the associated research establishments are forced
to go it alone. With eastern industry in general decline, the newly independent
establishments have no customers and are going out of business. Wegerdt
argues that the Treuhand would do better to keep research laboratories attached
to the privatised companies, at least initially, but there are no signs
of this happening.

Between January 1991 and May 1992, 22 research establishments were closed
down by the Treuhand, 33 were ‘freed’ to operate on their own, and four
were taken over by the government. Only three remained attached to their
original firms. Of the 49 which are still administered by the Treuhand,
only two are likely to stay bound to their original partners.

At the Association for Applied Innovative Research, in Bochum, western
Germany, the analysis is essentially the same. ‘You can say research in
general, not just applied research, is losing ground,’ says Peter Muhlmeyer,
manager of the association.

He agrees that the newly privatised institutes are simply not getting
enough work. ‘The commissions just aren’t there,’ says Muhlmeyer. ‘There
isn’t the industry right now in the east to support them.’ Western companies
also lack confidence in the eastern researchers. ‘They’re good, but no one
knows exactly what they’re able to do, what kind of facilities they have
– so they don’t get contracts,’ says Muhlmeyer.

Yet Muhlmeyer does not subscribe to Wegerdt’s remedy. ‘They should be
made independent as quickly as possible. Otherwise, they’ll stay weighted
down working on older projects.’

But those working in the east say this will not work. Helmut Rosner,
general manager of the Association of Independent Enterprises, feels eastern
research is caught in an impossible position: ‘Eastern applied research
needs industry to keep it alive. But right now, industry in eastern Germany
is flat on its back. If industries can barely survive themselves, then applied
research establishments will not survive either. And for industry to be
competitive, it must be innovative. Without the research establishment,
innovation is not possible.’

His answer to the problem, in the short term at least, is for the institutions
to maintain close links with industry, but for both state and federal governments
to provide grants for innovative research.

The fridge uses a mixture of propane and butane as its refrigerant,
neither of which worsen global warming or enlarge the hole in the ozone
layer. Its CFC-blown insulation foam is also replaced with one blown with
another gas.

Ludwig Tranker of the Treuhand says the agency will continue to finance
Scharfenstein’s operations and try to find investors until the end of 1993.
Keeping Scharfenstein in business for another year will cost £3.6
million.

According to the Treuhand’s plans, the first fridges will appear in
the shops in April 1993 at a price of around £250. Although some
production departments will be closed, says Benni Haerlin, a Greenpeace
representative, the refrigerator’s production is ensured.

‘The important thing is that they will continue producing compressors
at Scharfenstein,’ Haerlin says. Western Germany’s only compressor maker,
Danfoss, makes compressors specifically for refrigerators cooled with CFCs
or the CFC-substitute HFC₁34a. ‘We didn’t want Scharfenstein
to be exposed to any behind the scenes deals between the big, western German
appliance manufacturers and Danfoss,’ he says.

Altering the compressor is essential to improve the energy efficiency
of the Green Freeze. The compressor valves and cooling tubes on CFC-cooled
fridges are too large to optimise the properties of the propane-butane mixture.
Prototypes of the fridge used 0.71 kilowatt-hours per day, which is a bit
higher than average, says Haerlin. Both the Treuhand and Greenpeace say
Scharfenstein can bring this down.

Adlershof is a huge science park on the outskirts of eastern Berlin.
Although the laboratories are already there, the buildings are in dire need
of renovation and its equipment is outdated. As a result, it has had difficulty
attracting investors and tenants. The BMFT hopes that the new synchrotron
will draw industry to Adlershof and ease demands on BESSY I, which is located
in western Berlin

Although BESSY II will be used mainly for basic research, the BMFT hopes
that German industry will use the synchrotron for applied research and development.
‘We believe that if there were better-quality beams produced, demand would
climb even more,’ says Baerbel Brumme-Bothe of the BMFT

German firms such as AEG, Siemens and Telefunken have used BESSY I,
but the BMFT says: ‘Compared with other industrial nations, like Japan and
the US, German and European industry in general still do not use synchrotron
radiation to the same degree. It is now expected that German industry will
strengthen its engagement in this area.’

Among other things, synchrotrons are used to study atomic structure
and to help in the design of microcomponents. Some 130 research groups from
all over the world now use BESSY I. All the research slots are occupied
and the waiting list grows longer every day, says Ernst Weihreter, a scientist
on BESSY’s staff

As the demands of research have grown, the capabilities of the old synchrotron
have become increasingly outdated. ‘It’s not so much a question of capacity
as it is of the quality of the beams produced,’ says Weihreter. To study
such things as the structures of crystals and reactions on the surfaces
of semiconductors, scientists now demand more intense beams of radiation
than ever before. The ring of the new synchrotron, in which electrons will
be accelerated, is designed to have a diameter three times as large as that
of BESSY I. The refined arrangement of magnets in BESSY II is expected to
produce radiation between 1000 and 10 000 times as intense as that generated
by its predecessor

The new synchrotron will cost DM190 million ( £68.5 million).
Germany’s federal government and the Berlin authorities will split the bill.

Germany now has 16 large national laboratories – 13 in the west – covering
a wide spectrum of research. Riesenhuber made his announcement at the opening
of the latest addition, the geophysics centre in Potsdam. Widespread sackings
would not take place, he said. ‘In many cases, we just won’t refill positions
after people retire.’

Just how much money needs to be squeezed from the western institutes
will not be known until the national budget is agreed in mid-July. Last
year the national laboratories had a budget of DM2.5 billion ( £800
million) – 29 per cent of the federal research budget.

National institutes in the east are sorely in need of renovation and
modern equipment. ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵs working in them earn 60 per cent of what their
counterparts in western Germany are paid.

‘It can’t stay that way forever,’ said Jens Kruger, of the research
ministry. Last year, eastern German research was cut down to the core, he
said. ‘If the facilities aren’t good and pay remains low, good scientists
will not be attracted to the eastern laboratories and those already working
there will leave. The work already done to restructure and get eastern German
science back on its feet will be for naught.’

According to Ulrich Wahl, also at the research ministry, research into
nuclear energy technology will be hit hardest. ‘There just isn’t enough
public support for nuclear fuel reprocessing research or fast-breeder reactors
to make continuing in those areas defensible,’ he said.

However, work on new and important projects at western laboratories
will continue to grow, said Wahl. For example, a project in applied tumour
virology at the German Cancer Research Centre was considered to be a special
case. ‘We were fortunate because the project has just begun and we’ve hired
200 scientists to work on it. I think its public visibility was a factor,
too,’ said Reinhardt Grunwald, the centre’s director.

Others exempt from the freeze include ‘big science’ projects such as
the electron synchrotron in Hamburg and the research reactor at the Hahn-Meitner
Institute in Berlin, which generates neutrons for research. ‘We just got
DM20 million from the federal government to get the reactor up and running,’
said Thomas Robertson of the institute. ‘But we are going to have to cut
jobs elsewhere.

MetaDesign, the group that developed the £12 000 pilot system,
based its work on theories of cognitive psychology. ‘The signs are designed
to orient users in the station and transport network without confusing them
with superfluous information,’ says Bruno Schmidt of MetaDesign.

The information varies according to where the signs are located in the
station. A sign on a platform will only provide information on where a passenger
can go from there, not where the passenger has already been. Exit signs
have been given priority. ‘Take King’s Cross as an example,’ says Erik Spikermann
of MetaDesign. ‘When the fire broke out, people needed to locate the ways
out, not which train was coming next.’

According to Heiner Erke, a cognitive psychologist at the University
of Brunswick, the different signs should help passengers to draw a mental
map of the underground. ‘As passengers head for the trains the mind processes
information from general to specific. At certain points – stairwells and
intersections – passengers interact with the system to check that they’re
still on course. It is crucial that signs in the locations convey information
appropriate to those locations.’

The design of the lettering and how the sign is lit are almost as important
as what the sign says. According to Erke, lighting is a subtle but powerful
tool for steering people in the right direction. ‘The process is very basic
and involuntary. It’s almost impossible to control. We’ve learnt that where
there’s light there’s something to be seen, so we look in that direction.’

For station platforms, MetaDesign originally proposed backlit signs
composed of white letters on a black background, but the transport authorities
rejected the idea. They wanted backlit white signs with black letters. ‘Most
of the tube stations in Berlin are long, rectangular and difficult to illuminate,’
says Spikermann. ‘They think signs with light backgrounds will brighten
the places up, but it may only cause passengers to confuse the signs with
the light fixtures.’

Erke disagrees. Signs with dark backgrounds can get lost in the shadows
of a dark station, he says. ‘The sign must say, ‘Here I am, I am a sign’.’
In darker stations, the danger of not finding the sign at all is greater
than confusing it with the lighting, he says.

‘All signs have four characteristics,’ says Erke: ‘Content, appeal,
an estimation of the service provided, and an indication of the attitude
of the provider of the service towards those being served.’

Whatever the outcome of the trial, the signs in Alexanderplatz station
are a definite improvement. Although the station was the hub of the underground
system in what was formerly East Berlin, directions were so bad that people
had trouble finding their way around. People working in the station kiosks
grew so tired of being asked for directions, they put up their own makeshift
signs to speed passengers on their way.

Doeberitz Heath, 30 kilometres west of Berlin and measuring 47 square
kilometres, has been the exclusive preserve of the military since 1740.
Before the Soviets, soldiers of the Prussian and Nazi armies marched,
fired guns or drove tanks there. Ironically, the withdrawal of the Soviet
occupants last year has left the heath threatened. Less than an hour away
by car from central Berlin, Doeberitz is ripe for exploitation by property
developers.

Local naturalists have taken initial steps to defend the heath by taking
an inventory of its plant and animal life. The cataloguing has already unearthed
some surprises.

For example, naturalists employed by the Brandenburg state authorities
found a summer crab (Branchypus stagnalis) that lives in the stagnant water
which fills the large ditches that have been left by churning tank treads.
In another study, Horst Korge of Berlin’s Technical University and his students
became the first to sight three types of spider in this part of Europe.
Zelotes villicus, Zora armillata and Thanatus vulgaris are species that
are usually found in the fenlands of Sweden and Britain.

The heath is home to the hoopoe, Upupa epops, a bird more at home in
Africa and southern Europe than in northern Germany. The hoopoe and another
visitor, the black crane, Ciconia nigra, are on the endangered list in northern
Europe.

Thomas Schoknecht, a naturalist from Brandenburg’s environmental authority,
says the ideal solution is to convert the heath into a nature preserve.
However, Brandenburg, like Germany’s other eastern states, is short of money.
Schoknecht says it is unlikely that the state can afford to prevent the
heath from being trampled upon by tourists. ‘It’s too expensive to fence
the whole place in and police it properly,’ he says.

Restricting only certain areas is also a problem, says Werner Shulze,
an ornithologist who used to sneak onto Doeberitz to watch birds while the
Soviet troops were still shooting. ‘If you protect the areas where the cranes
nest, but fail to main-tain the fields where they feed properly, the birds
will notsurvive,’ he says.

Schulze and Schoknecht agree that an interim solution for Doeberitz
would be to allow the German army to continue manoeuvres on the heath under
the supervision of naturalists. That way, the army would assume thefinancial
burden of restricting access, and naturalists could continue their research.
The voice of conservationists, however, may exert only a limited influence
in the forthcoming war of words. Legally, the heath comes under the jurisdiction
of Germany’s federal finance and defence ministries, and it is officials
there, rather than naturalists, who will ultimately decide the fate of Doeberitz.

Two years after reunification, the country has still to agree a common
abortion law. Women in what was East Germany can have abortions on demand
in the first three months of pregnancy. But in the west a woman must still
obtain a letter from her doctor stating that having the child would damage
her physically or psychologically.

Last autumn, as MPs tried unsuccessfully to create a single law for
the whole country, health ministers from the German states endorsed the
introduction of RU486 as a less intrusive way of terminating pregnancy than
surgery.

The hormonal drug blocks the action of progesterone which is essential
to maintain pregnancy. Two days after it is taken, the woman is given a
prostaglandin to induce contractions and the fetus is expelled.

Hoechst has declined to market the drug. Roussel-Uclaf, the subsidiary
of Hoechst that makes RU486, would only apply to market the drug once a
single abortion law is in place, said Hoechst’s chairman Wolfgang Hilger.
Applying to market RU486 any earlier would be an unnecessary intrusion in
the debate, he said.

Socialist MPs retorted that Hoechst was already taking an anti-abortion
stand by not applying to market the drug. Behind the row is concern that
Hilger is against abortion. In 1988, for example, he wrote to the president
of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics saying that
RU486 did not conform to Hoechst’s ethics (This Week, 4 November 1989).

The drugs company denied that it was taking any stand on abortion. It
argues that the absence of proper clinical facilities precludes safe use
of RU486 in Germany.

Hoechst’s health policy spokesman, Hassan Nour Eldin, says German
law would make it possible for a woman to obtain a prescription for RU486
from her doctor, collect the drug from a pharmacist and take it without
proper medical supervision.

Gynaecologists and health authorities agree that such a sequence of
events could be dangerous but say the problem is easily overcome. ‘Hoechst
can specify that RU486 can only be used in hospitals in their marketing
application,’ says Juergen Kundke, spokesman for the federal health authority
– the agency that grants licences for drugs to be sold.

To break the deadlock, Hoechst asked the Federal health authority to
ask it to submit a marketing application. The authority refused. ‘It’s perverse,’
says Kundke, ‘it’s as if they were asking us for our approval before they
even applied to market.’

The MPs are now deciding how to make such a request and who should make
it. Marilese Dobberthien, a Socialist MP, says parliament should decide
in the early summer how to proceed.