The work of Italian researchers and laboratories picked up by the scientific press during December 2017 focused mainly on endeavors in the fields of medicine and physics, but also robotics. Monitoring of the leading international scientific journals (Science, Nature, PNAS-Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, National Science Review, and Scientific Reports, rated as the top 5 for scientific impact according to the SCImago Journal Rank) revealed that 7 studies with input from Italian laboratories and research centers were published during this period.
Science devoted space to Italian work in the field of oncology, with a study to which Oncology, Nerviano Medical Sciences in Milan contributed, while a research paper on psychology published in PNAS featured input from the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences at the University of Trento. The same journal of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America additionally carried a paper on neuroscience made possible by work done at the University of Milan, the Istituto Nazionale Genetica Molecolare (also in Milan), and the University of Pavia.
Nature lent coverage to Italian contributions to research in the area of vaccines, with a comment co-written by Rino Rappuoli (who was interviewed by Aspen in 2013), in which mention was made of the masters program at the University of Siena that seeks to train physicians from low-income countries in vaccine development and implementation.
In respect of physics, one noteworthy study published by Nature saw the involvement of the astronomical observatories of Turin, Bologna, and Rome – part of the Istituto Nazionale di Astro Fisica (INAF) network – along with the Osservatorio Astronomico of the Autonomous Region of Valle d’Aosta and the Osservatorio Astronomico Sirio of Castellana Grotte. The importance of Italian studies in astrophysics was acknowledged in a Nature article that, in giving a rundown of the “science events” that shaped 2017, highlighted the role played by the Virgo interferometer (at Cascina, Pisa) in detecting gravitational waves and allowing the first observations of the collision between two neutron stars.
Also related to physics was a review of the book “The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age”, dedicated to the life’s work of Enrico Fermi (Nature, December 5 – The doubly dextrous physics of Enrico Fermi).
An article on the advantages of transitioning to LEDs for public illumination, which appeared in Nature, explained that “Milan in Italy was the first city in Europe to do so on a large scale — and the result can be seen from space” (December 16 – Make lighting healthier).
Lastly, there was also coverage of Italian contributions in robotics, with Science running an article on iCub, the robot “child” developed at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, as the cover story of its Science Robotics magazine (December 20 – iCub: The not-yet-finished story of building a robot child).
ARTICLES MONITORED: 7
ITALIAN RESEARCH CENTERS INVOLVED: 14