BlueSci Issue 28 - Michaelmas 2013 by BlueSci

The Cambridge University science magazine from

Cambridge University science magazine

FOCUS

Whatever the Weather

Michaelmas 2013 Issue 28 www.bluesci.org

Sleep . Tracing Cholera . Pain . Psychedelic Drugs Digital Romance . Science Games . Buzz Aldrin

Michaelmas 2013 Issue 28

Cambridge University science magazine

Features 6

Regulars

Sleep: Keeping Scientists Awake at Night Toby McMaster discusses why we need to sleep— and for how long

Bug Off!

Tracing Cholera

No Pain, No Gain

A Trip to the Psychiatrist

FOCUS Whatever the Weather BlueSci explores where the ever-changing weather comes from and how it affects us

About Us... BlueSci was established in 2004 to provide a student forum for science communication. As the longest running science magazine in Cambridge, BlueSci publishes the best science writing from across the University each term. We combine high quality writing with stunning images to provide fascinating yet accessible science to everyone. But BlueSci does not stop there. At www.bluesci.org, we have extra articles, regular news stories, podcasts and science films to inform and entertain between print issues. Produced entirely by members of the University, the diversity of expertise and talent combine to produce a unique science experience.

Hugo Schmidt chats to Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, about space exploration

Science and Policy

Camilla d’Angelo argues the case for more research into street drugs

Emily Pycroft summarises decisions of the CITES meeting on animal trading practices

Away from the Bench

Christopher Tsantoulas explains why a world without pain is not as good as it sounds

3 4 5

Jordan Ramsey explores how technology has reshaped our romantic relationships

Initiatives

Celebrating his birth bicentenary, Laura Pearce looks back at the work of John Snow 12

On the Cover News Reviews Technology

Joy Thompson investigates how bacteria within insect cells are harnessed to combat dengue fever 10

Contents

Greg Mellers analyses the background and consequences of the neonicotinoid ban

Perspective

Brianne Kent discusses why attitudes towards scientific research need to change

Arts and Science

Matthew Dunstan examines how science has impacted the development of gaming

Weird and Wonderful

Committee President: Nicola Love �� president@bluesci.co.uk Managing Editor: Felicity Davies �� managing-editor@bluesci.co.uk Secretary: Beth Venus �� enquiries@bluesci.co.uk Treasurer: Robin Lamboll �� membership@bluesci.co.uk Film Editors: Alex Fragniere �� film@bluesci.co.uk Radio: Anand Jagatia ..................... �� radio@bluesci.co.uk Webmaster: James Stevens �� webmaster@bluesci.co.uk Advertising Managers: Philipp Kleppmann & Deirdre Murphy �� advertising@bluesci.co.uk Events & Publicity Officer: Martha Stokes �� events@bluesci.co.uk News Editor: Joanna-Marie Howes �� news@bluesci.co.uk Web Editor: Aaron Critch �� web-editor@bluesci.co.uk

Contents

Issue 28: Michaelmas 2013 Editor: Christopher Tsantoulas Managing Editor: Felicity Davies Business Manager: Michael Derringer Second Editors: Sheenagh Aiken, Luke Burke, Laura Burzynski, Jennifer Harris, Philipp Kleppmann, Allisa Lamb, Robin Lamboll, Ana Leal-Cervantes, Alison Macintosh, Jannis Meents, Greg Mellers, Vicki Moignard, Laura Pearce, Elly Smith, Nathan Smith, Martha Stokes, Adil Wafa, Theodosia Woo Copy Editors: Chris Creese, Alison Macintosh, Jannis Meents, Laura Pearce, Sarah Smith, Martha Stokes News Editor: Joanna-Marie Howes News Team: Maciej Hermanowicz, Ornela De Gasperin Quintero, Laura Pearce Reviews: Greg Mellers, Jordan Ramsey, Nathan Smith Focus Team: Yvonne Collins, Matthew Dunstan, Martha Stokes, Theodosia Woo Weird and Wonderful: Robin Lamboll, Laura Pearce, Nathan Smith Production Team: Nuno Alves, Aaron Critch, Jonathan Lawson, Jannis Meents, Louise Nicol, Michael O’Neill, Laura Pearce, Sarah Smith, Sara Soleman Illustrators: James Baker, Alex Hahn, Alison Macintosh, Aleesha Nandhra, Emily Pycroft, Hannah Whittall Cover Image: Xana Almeida

ISSN 1748-6920

Varsity Publications Ltd Old Examination Hall Free School Lane Cambridge, CB2 3RF Tel: 01223 337575 www.varsity.co.uk business@varsity.co.uk This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (unless marked by a ©, in which case the copyright remains with the original rights holder). To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

2 Editorial

“To Boldly Go...” in 1977, voyager 1 was sent on a trek to study the outer planets. Equipped with the equivalent computing power of today’s smartphones, the exploration vessel has since been constantly transmitting data that has assembled the first view of our solar system. On board the craft is the Golden Record, a gold-plated 12-inch disc engraved with operating instructions. Encoded in the disc is a compilation of phonographic information about mankind: multilingual greetings, music scores, depictions of DNA and anatomy, pictures of Earth and its biodiversity. This means that even when its power is depleted in about 10 years, the craft will become a “message in a bottle” drifting in the cosmic ocean—there is even a map marking our position, in case someone decides to seek us out. Last month, some 36 years and 19 billion kilometers later, Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to breach the outer boundaries of our solar system. Celebrating this milestone in scientific achievements, BlueSci chats to Buzz Aldrin, the second man to ever walk on the Moon, about the future of space exploration. In the FOCUS, we look at one of the most ubiquitous planetary phenomena: the weather. We discuss its origin, examine how it shapes human lives and ask whether we will ever be able to manipulate weather patterns—or indeed predict them accurately! The Golden Record also contains brain recordings belonging to the creative director of the project, Ann Druyan. During the compiling process Miss Druyan and Carl Sagan, the scientific director, fell in love. Consequently, some of the encoded activity reflects her reminiscing the moment the pair decided to get married. Keeping with the digital romance theme, this issue examines how technology can uniquely foster human relationships, especially when today’s demanding careers often generate distances. We also examine how brain waves are used in sleep research, and how this could improve restoration in these fast-paced times. As usual, the science packed in BlueSci is as fascinating as it is diverse. In this issue, we follow superhumans that feel no pain, describe how bacteria are harnessed to tackle mosquito-borne diseases, contemplate medical uses for psychedelic drugs and consider how science has influenced gaming design. We revisit the detective work of John Snow on cracking cholera and discuss whether current scientific research needs adapting. Finally, we cover policy decisions aimed at guarding mammals and bees from extinction. If the purpose and content of BlueSci spark your interest, why not become involved in one of the next issues? We are always looking for enthusiastic contributors from a variety of fields— just get in touch!

Christopher Tsantoulas Issue 28 Editor Michaelmas 2013

Visualising Vision Xana Almeida discusses the 4D imaging method used to generate this issue’s cover image The Cambridge University science magazine from

Cambridge University science magazine

FOCUS

Whatever the Weather

Michaelmas 2013 Issue 28 www.bluesci.org

Sleep . Tracing Cholera . Pain . Psychedelic Drugs Digital Romance . Science Games . Buzz Aldrin

MARRABBIO2

Embryos of zebraﬁsh are extremely useful in biomedical research

Michaelmas 2013

THe Brain iS a complex structure comprised of thousands of neurons and glia (cells that support and protect nerves). Neurons come in many shapes and sizes and have a number of different purposes. In order for the brain to function properly each neuronal type must be generated at the correct time during development, in a precise number and in the appropriate brain region. This process facilitates the right connections with other neurons towards formation of sophisticated neuronal circuits. Understanding how the brain achieves this intricacy with such accuracy remains one of the major challenges in the field of neuroscience. The overwhelming complexity of the brain makes it a difficult organ to study. However, the eye retina, an outpocket of the forebrain, has proven to be a powerful—and most importantly accessible—model for neuronal development studies. The retina has a relatively simple structure, consisting of five neuronal cell types (photoreceptors, horizontal cells, bipolar cells, amacrine cells and retinal ganglion cells), which are responsible for processing and transmitting visual signals to the brain via the optic nerve. Within the eye, neurons are highly organised into three separate layers. We know this precise architecture is crucial for proper function, however, little is known about how it is produced. The retina is formed during embryonic development from progenitor cells. These cells express genes which allow them to follow one of a number of different neuronal fates and ultimately differentiate into mature neurons. However, exactly how a cell’s fate is decided is not known. The use of microscopy has revolutionised our understanding of the developing nervous system. Cells can be visualised by labelling them with dyes, or more commonly, adding genes that code for fluorescent proteins, which are produced only when the cells coexpress a certain gene. For example, if the expression of a green fluorescent protein is driven by the expression of PTF1A, a gene expressed only in amacrine and horizontal retina neurons, only these two cell types will be labelled green. Although traditional labelling techniques have enabled high resolution 3D imaging of entire vertebrate brains, these methods can only be performed in non-living tissues, meaning that they only capture a snapshot of development. Observing distinct cell populations in real time as they go through the developmental process has remained a challenge. These difficulties can be overcome using the embryos

of the zebrafish, a small tropical freshwater fish, very popular in scientific research. Zebrafish embryos are transparent, allowing brain development and neuronal activity to be studied in real time in the whole live organism using imaging microscopy. The image on the cover of BlueSci Issue 28 shows a four day-old zebrafish embryo that has been genetically modified to allow each cell type within the retina to be identified by a uniquely coloured fluorescent protein. This tool, termed the SoFa fish (spectrum of fates approach), has been generated by Dr Xana Almeida in Professor Bill Harris’ lab in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, and it allows retinal development to be visualised in real time in the living animal. Photoreceptors and bipolar cells are labelled in cyan, amacrine and horizontal cells are green and retinal ganglion cells are red. What distinguishes the SoFa fish from other labelling techniques is that the expression of the fluorescent markers in the retinal cells is switched on by genes that become active as progenitor cells commit to differentiation. This means that we can visualise what a cell will become before it has fully differentiated. By studying the SoFa fish retina with high-resolution confocal microscopy, the researchers witnessed for the first time the birth of all five types of retinal neurons in live zebrafish embryos, as it was happening. This ability to image the developing retina in 4D (with time being the 4th dimension) provides an unprecedented view of neural development, and will open the door to many further studies. For example, researchers can now determine patterns of cell division and migration, allowing them to study how the architecture of the retina is created. Additional applications are visualising the establishment of connections between neurons, as well as monitoring the effects of altered gene expression on cell fate. Therefore, the SoFa fish retina represents an invaluable tool to understand the complex sequence of events required to create functional tissues. Dr Xana Almeida’s image was one of three winning entries in the University of Cambridge Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS) image competition. The competition, run during the Cambridge Science Festival, showcases the variety of biological research in Cambridge. To find out more, visit the GSLS website. The other winning images, taken by Nuri Purswani and Mubeen Goolam, can be found on www.bluesci.org. On the Cover 3

News Bacteria Make Biofuel Precursor

in 1990, the Pale Blue Dot image made headlines as Earth was photographed by Voyager 1 from a record distance of six billion kilometres. Thanks to astronomers from Oxford and Exeter, we now know of another blue dot, orbiting another star. Forget pale though —this planet is deep azure. Since 2005 the star HD 189733b was known to harbour a “hot Jupiter”, a massive planet on a very short orbit. Subsequent studies found that its surface temperature is close to 1000°C and that the planet is tidally locked to the host star, featuring the same orbital and rotational periods. This means that the same planet side faces the star at all times and the huge temperature gradients resulting from uneven heating are thought to stir up 7000 kilometre per hour winds. The researchers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to monitor the intensity of visible light coming from the system during the passage of the planet behind the face of the star. They observed a drop in the blue part of the light spectrum by 0.01 per cent, but no similar effect in green or red. The tiny missing amount is the light normally reflected by the planet—a hue of blue much deeper than that of Earth, Neptune or Uranus. This extraordinary colour is not due to the presence of liquid water, but rather is believed to be evidence of a hazy and turbulent atmosphere filled with silicate particles. This makes HD 189733b a place where it can rain glass. Sideways. DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/772/2/L16 mh

researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically

Check out www.bluesci.org or @BlueSci on Twitter for regular science news and updates

Inspired Engineering and Harvard Medical School have engineered a bacterium that can produce a key biofuel precursor. Biofuels are alternative energy sources to petrol, diesel and aircraft fuel. Research on biofuels is critical as burning gasoline shrinks the world’s limited oil supply and releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. However, existing biofuels do not produce as much energy as gasoline; ethanol for instance packs only two-thirds the energy of gasoline. Pamela Silver and her team have been pursuing new ways of synthesising gasoline precursors called fatty acids. These energy-packed molecules contain chains of carbon atoms flanked by hydrogen and can easily be transformed into fuel. The chains must have a length of four to twelve carbons; shorter chains do not store enough energy, whereas longer chains are too waxy. The researchers succeeded in genetically modifying E. coli so that the bacterium produces large quantities of octanoate, an eightcarbon fatty acid which can be converted into octane, just by ingesting carbon-rich sugars. Their results are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Silver and her team are now seeking to engineer E. coli to convert octanoate and other fatty acids into alcohols, which are just one chemical step away from octane and can themselves be used as biofuels. DOI:10.1073/pnas.1307129110 ogq Steve Jurvetson

NASA

Azure Planet Spotted by Hubble

Neurodegeneration: How Important is Taking Out the Trash? clearing proteins and

patrick hoesly

cellular waste products is a crucial process, ensuring that tissues and organs function properly. The lymphatic system is a circulatory network of organs and vessels, which runs in parallel with the blood vascular system and is the principal way in which tissues eliminate fluid and proteins. However, the lymphatic system does not extend to the brain, so how does the brain manage its waste? Using a new imaging technique called two photon microscopy, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have discovered a network analogous to the lymphatic system termed the ‘glymphatic system’. The brain is bathed in cerebrospinal fluid which flows into the interior of the 4 News

brain at high speed sweeping excess proteins and debris away. These are then transported down the spine to the lymphatic system, and ultimately to the liver where they are degraded. So why is this important? Many degenerative diseases are caused by the build up of toxic proteins, leading to the death of brain cells. In Alzheimer’s disease for instance, the protein beta-amyloid accumulates, giving rise to the characteristic plaques found in the brains of patients. Now that we know about the glymphatic system, it will be critical to determine its role in disease. For example, does the glymphatic system slow down with age, explaining why the risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases increases as we get older? Ultimately, it may be possible to develop novel therapies that enhance waste removal in the brain, which can then be used to treat people with conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. DOI: 10.1126/science.1240514 lp Michaelmas 2013

Reviews The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us – Bee Wilson

John Murray, 2005, £9.99

in THE HIVE, the appositely named Bee Wilson explores the history of our relationship with the honeybee over the past 10,000 years. Rather than simply presenting the evolution of this relationship in chronological order, Wilson employs aspects of modern society (e.g. politics) to provide a narrative structure, which is much more engrossing than simply plodding through time. Some of the most interesting aspects of the book are the discussions of our past scientific theories on the origin of bees and their societal structure. The earliest observers of the honeybee thought that swarms spontaneously arose from dead oxen, a theory which remained fixed in public opinion for nearly 2,000 years. Furthermore, the popular view as to the sex of the hive’s queen depended on the gender of the reigning monarch (particularly upon the death of Elizabeth I). This book therefore provides some wonderful examples of how established theory can either go unchallenged for centuries, or be transformed to align with societal norms. There are also some surprising insights into other aspects of history, such as how the shape of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s crown was established. Highly informative and engaging, The Hive presents enough science to keep a keen mind involved but is also light enough for a perfect bedtime read. gm

StarTalk Radio Show – Neil deGrasse Tyson STARTALK RADIO SHOW is a science podcast that airs roughly three times a month and is hosted by

www.startalkradio.net

Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the Museum of Natural History in New York and director of the Hayden Planetarium. As of July 2013, the show’s popularity was second only to Radiolab in the iTunes Store’s science & medicine themed podcasts in the US. Aside from a few question-andanswer shows, each week a comedian and/or scientific expert will join Tyson in mulling over his pre-recorded interview with a celebrity of variable fame; recent guests have included Alan Rickman, Bill Nye, Anthony Bourdain, and Max Brooks. Some of the more broadly appealing guests certainly impose limits on the scientific themes that can be covered in an episode. Furthermore, StarTalk relies solely on one or two experts to discuss these topics, meaning the show can lack depth when covering issues outside of their realm. Although it’s a fresh approach, the comedian often offers little more than infrequent and awkwardly timed one-liners. The fusion of science communication, comedy, and mainstream celebrity interviews does give this podcast the potential to reach new audiences. However, finding a better way to integrate these key components would benefit the show by improving its appeal to scientists and interested listeners with a variety of backgrounds. JR

The Origin of Feces – David Waltner-Toews in THE ORIGIN OF FECES , David Waltner-Toews examines the history, composition and even

ECW Press, 2012, £12.99

Michaelmas 2013

definition of excrement as he puts forward his ideas on the ever-growing problem of dealing with our waste. A well-established author and former vet, his passion for the subject radiates from the pages—never before have dung beetles sounded so inspiring—and he provides a unique and well-grounded perspective. However, like many books in the popular science genre, it suffers from the problem of the science being frequently presented in an oversimplified or misleading manner. Though it occasionally creates the impression of trying too hard, the points the book makes are generally thought provoking and there are moments of genuine hilarity in the commentary—feces inherently lend themselves to a variety of jokes and many of these are capitalised on with great vigour. The first half of the book is perhaps the best, with strong stand-alone chapters each tackling one topic with fun facts and anecdotes, whilst the end is bogged down in a philosophy-rich ‘save the world’ message just as likely to alienate the reader as it is to engage them. A less preachy tone and a more tied-together narrative could benefit this book, though if you are searching for an entertaining toilet read then look no further. NS reviews 5

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osh cint Ma

Sleep: Keeping Scientists Awake at Night

Honeybees recover from sleep deprivation by improving sleep quality rather than quantity

danieljames

As a newborn, we sleep about 18 hours each day. The reasons we need to sleep at all, are still unknown

you spend roughly a third of your life doing something we simply do not understand. The ancient Egyptians believed it allowed the soul, Ba, to fly out of the body. The ancient Greeks thought it allowed the receipt of prophecies, until Aristotle who suggested it allowed digestion. Even now, sleep is arguably the most poorly understood aspect of daily human life. What is sleep? All organisms have a circadian rhythm, a kind of day-night cycle, which allows them to anticipate and prepare for regular changes in their environment. For example, plants will naturally increase production of insect repellent chemicals during the day, when insects are most likely to attack and bacteria activate different genes at different times of day. But sleep is more than just a daily cycle of activity; it is a complex state of inactivity that requires some kind of nervous system. During sleep the organism is less able to react to stimuli and, unlike a coma, this state is quickly reversible. There is undeniably something special about sleep. We may abstain from eating and drinking for long periods of time, or even indefinitely refrain from reproduction, but even a priest cannot abstain from slumber. So surely there must be some incredibly important reason for sleep, something that makes it fundamental for our survival? The best answers we have to these questions come, as so often in biology, from studying other animals. If sleep was not essential we ought to be able to identify animals that do not sleep, do not need to compensate for sleep losses, or can lose sleep without any negative consequences. So far, the only animal thought not to sleep is the bullfrog, however this claim has been challenged due to poor experimental design in the original 1967 study. Other research has shown that even ‘lower’ animals like flies and worms do indeed sleep. Dolphins are a particularly interesting case, as they are capable of having only half their brain asleep at a time, a state characterised by slow ‘sleep

6 Sleep: Keeping Scientists Awake at Night

Nick perla

Toby McMaster discusses why we need to sleep at night—and for how long

wave’ activity in that half. Unlike the automated human response, dolphin breathing ceases under anaesthesia, suggesting it is a conscious procedure; this may explain why dolphins have to always retain significant degrees of brain activity when sleeping. If no animals have been demonstrated to go without sleep altogether, are there any which do not compensate for sleep losses? It was once thought this was the case for honeybees, which do not increase sleep length following sleep deprivation. However, it was later discovered that the duration of slow wave electrical activity in the brain, which is indicative of sleep, increased during recovery. Thus honeybees recover from sleep deprivation by improving sleep quality but not quantity. Interestingly, when pigeons were prevented from sleeping for 10 days, they demonstrated no change in recovery sleep but showed an increase in slow wave brain activity during wakeful periods. Thus so far we have found no animals which do not sleep at all, or do not compensate for sleep loss. Are there then any animals which can lose sleep without negative consequences? Once again, none have been found so far, and loss of sleep has been shown to lead to cognitive impairment in animals as diverse as flies, humans and birds. So throughout the animal kingdom, from tigers to domestic kittens, a certain amount of sleep, or sleep-like state, appears to be essential for the correct functioning of an organism. Michaelmas 2013

clemsonunivlibrary

Mike r

Sleep must surely serve some purpose—if it really were just a wasted eight hours a day it would undoubtedly have been rooted out by evolution long ago. Many theories have been proposed but none has proven definitive. A reduction in metabolic rate has been suggested; sleep allows heart rate to drop by approximately 10 beats per minute and core body temperature to decrease by approximately one degree in humans. Memory consolidation is often also touted as a reason for sleep, although this process may also occur whilst awake. Although no complete explanation has ever been offered as to why sleep is necessary for memory consolidation, recent studies have shown that the brain activity of a mouse allowed to solve a maze during the day is repeated at night. A simpler explanation is that sleep simply allows an organism to keep out of harm’s way, when nothing of great significance is likely to be achieved. Perhaps sleep gives the brain a chance to recover, for example by replenishment of chemicals such as neurotransmitters that carry signals between neurons. We may never know the original purpose of sleep, although it has certainly evolved to be multi-functional. Whatever the origins of sleep, we undoubtedly need it now. The exact amount required by an individual is, like so many aspects of human biology, incredibly variable. However, there are definite trends over a lifetime, with a gradual decline in the amount of sleep an individual needs, from almost 18 hours a day as a newborn, to around seven hours as an adult. These requirements are important, for example individuals awake for 17 consecutive hours have reduced cognitive performance akin to that produced by drinking two glasses of wine. Night shift workers who regularly have disrupted daytime sleep have also been shown to have increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Much of the current sleep research focuses on how we can improve sleep quality. There are four distinct stages within sleep, forming a cycle of about 90 minutes, repeated several times a night. These stages are perhaps more familiar to us than we realise: wake up during the wrong part of your sleep cycle and you

often feel groggier than before you went to sleep. The four stages are: rapid eye movement (REM) and stages 1, 2 and 3. REM is the most similar to an awakened state while stage 1 appears to serve mainly as a transition to later stages. Stage 2 has been implicated in memory consolidation, whilst stage 3 is generally considered the most beneficial stage and exhibits the slow wave activity characteristic of deep sleep. Through the night, each cycle gradually includes less stage 3 and more REM, suggesting that we gradually meet our requirement for stage 3 sleep. Given all this information, one radical new approach to sleep research is attempting to cut out the middle man and head straight for deeper sleep, with all its associated benefits. This could drastically reduce the amount of sleep a person needs, something we would all find useful on occasion—that last minute deadline for one. The research involves a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) that has been shown to instantly induce a deeper sleep state—at least in those volunteers who were able to get to sleep inside the machine. As slow waves characteristic of deep sleep are involved in consolidating newly learnt tasks, using TMS to create localised slow waves in specific groups of neurons may increase the efficacy of information consolidation and allow a decrease in the amount of sleep we need. However, there are both scientific and ethical controversies surrounding TMS. Firstly, some evidence suggests that stage 2 function may be key for memory consolidation. Furthermore, even if TMS was to work perfectly without damaging side effects, it could divide society; those who could afford the technique would get an extra two waking hours per day. There could be an imbalance in the economy of time as well as money. Maybe then, the ancient Egyptian notion of losing our soul while we sleep might not be so far-fetched after all.

The koala is one of the sleepiest animals, managing 16 to 20 hours per day

Sleep deprivation is particularly common amongst students

Toby McMaster is a 2nd year undergraduate studying Biological Natural Sciences at Jesus College Michaelmas 2013

Sleep: Keeping Scientists Awake at Night 7

emily

o pycr

Bug Off!

Joy Thompson investigates how bacteria within insect cells are harnessed to combat dengue fever from dengue fever to malaria, mosquito-

The dengue virus is most commonly transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti

8 Bug Off!

public

borne diseases have been a scourge of human communities for centuries. While our current understanding of their causes has greatly improved, halting their spread remains a challenge. Diseasecausing organisms develop drug resistance, overuse of insecticides has severe environmental consequences, and mosquito populations can also become insecticide-resistant. However, there is now a better approach that, if successful, could eliminate mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever. Our unlikely saviour? A bacterium called Wolbachia, which prevents the mosquitoes that carry it from transmitting disease. This is good news for the over 100 countries in which dengue fever is endemic. The World Health Organisation estimates that over 40 per cent of the world’s population is at risk of infection from the dengue virus, which is most commonly transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Controlling dengue is a particularly intractable public health problem: no specific drug treatment is available, no vaccine has yet been developed, and infection with one strain of the virus confers no immunity to other strains. In fact, prior infection increases the future risk

of severe complications, such as internal bleeding and organ failure. Until recently, the only ways to combat dengue were to prevent mosquitoes from biting or to eliminate them altogether. So where does our humble bacterium fit in? Wolbachia’s story begins in 1924, when it was first isolated from another mosquito species, Culex pipiens. Since then, it has been found in many other insects, though surprisingly not in the mosquitoes that carry the dengue virus. Wolbachia is an intracellular symbiont: it lives and reproduces within the cells of its host and is found in a wide range of tissues, such as the brain and gut. Female insects pass Wolbachia on to the next generation through the eggs they lay. In mosquitoes, the bacterium makes transmission even more efficient by killing eggs laid by uninfected females that mated with infected males. This is called ‘cytoplasmic incompatibility’ and ensures that the bacterium quickly colonises entire mosquito populations. Wolbachia was originally thought to be harmless, perhaps even conferring metabolic benefits on its host. Interest in it as a method of disease control only arose in earnest in 1997, after a novel strain of the bacterium was discovered. This strain was called wMelPop, or popcorn, because of its bizarre effects on the host’s cells. Unlike most other strains, wMelPop, originally found in fruit flies, was highly virulent. It multiplied so rapidly within its host that the infected cells became packed with bacteria, eventually resembling bags of popcorn. This led to cellular degeneration and early death of the infected flies, whose life-spans were half that of uninfected insects. In 2009, wMelPop attracted the attention of dengue researchers after Scott O’Neill’s research group stably introduced the strain into the dengue transmitter Aedes aegypti—which it killed just as quickly as it did the fruit flies, suggesting that this method could help control mosquito-borne disease. Michaelmas 2013

percherie

The wMelPop strain turned out to decrease not only the lifespan of Aedes mosquitoes, but also their ability to transmit dengue. In 2009, O’Neill’s group also found that wMelPop-carrying mosquitoes could not be infected with the dengue virus; in other words, Wolbachia was ‘vaccinating’ them. Suddenly, the focus switched from using wMelPop to kill mosquitoes to introducing the dengue virus-preventing bacterium into wild mosquito populations. In 2011, an avirulent strain, wMel, provided a solution: like wMelPop, it could be stably introduced into mosquitoes in the laboratory and could block dengue transmission, but unlike wMelPop it did not harm its host. This chapter in the Wolbachia story marks the beginning of an international research and fieldwork collaboration: the Eliminate Dengue programme. Its aim is to release wMel-carrying mosquitoes in areas where dengue is endemic. The first field trial, which took place at two locations in northern Australia, has been a resounding success, with wMel colonising at least 90 per cent of the local Aedes populations. This approach has several advantages. First, there is little ecological impact because no insecticides are required and because the mosquito species is not being eliminated from the environment. The second and greatest advantage is the high degree of community involvement at each stage of the trials, which accounts for the global spread of enthusiasm for the project. Releases of wMel are now taking place elsewhere in northern Australia and in Vietnam. Releases are also scheduled for 2014 in Brazil, which has the highest incidence of dengue worldwide, with collaborations planned in China and Indonesia. However, despite the initial success of the Eliminate Dengue trials, there are several areas that urgently need further research. In the laboratory, wMelPop actually ‘vaccinates’ mosquitoes against the dengue virus more effectively than wMel. However, due to the bacterium virulence, infected mosquitoes may be unable to compete with wild ones under environmental stress, resulting in a less efficient spread of Wolbachia. This is important Michaelmas 2013

because Aedes populations in cities and towns often breed in confined, overcrowded conditions, which can lead to increased resource competition. To address this problem, Ary Hoffman’s research group is carrying out detailed studies of the effects of wMelPop infection on Aedes aegypti’s ability to compete with uninfected mosquitoes at different stages of the life cycle. An alternative approach, which the Hoffmann group published this year, is to breed wMelPopcarrying mosquitoes that are insecticide-resistant. Spraying an area with insecticides just before wMelPop mosquitoes are released could reduce the size of wild populations enough to give the Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes a competitive advantage. However, besides the ecological and health issues associated with insecticides, this could be counter-productive. We do not yet know if wMelPop’s ability to block dengue attenuates over time; if it does, combining it with insecticide resistance could create a population of resistant, dengue-carrying ‘super-mosquitoes’. Finally, we still do not know exactly how Wolbachia blocks dengue transmission, though preliminary evidence suggests that both fruit flies and mosquitoes produce higher amounts of protective immune proteins following infection. In the future, a better understanding of the biological mechanism behind Wolbachia-mediated dengue ‘immunity’ could increase the efficiency of disease control. Will Wolbachia spell the end of dengue fever? It is too soon to tell, but the leaders of Eliminate Dengue remain optimistic. Perhaps we could eventually use this approach to combat a range of mosquito-borne diseases: recent studies have shown that it can also prevent transmission of malaria parasite. In an era of Wolbachia disease control, we might still get bitten, but it would mean irritation rather than life or death.

seth bordenstein

World distribution of dengue. Orange areas are infested with A. aegypti and red areas have additional dengue epidemic activity

Wolbachia (green) targets the reproductive system of insects where sperm DNA (red) is stored

Joy Thompson is a 1st year PhD student at the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience Bug Off! 9

HANNAH WHITTALL

Tracing Cholera

Celebrating his birth bicentenary, Laura Pearce looks back at the detective work of John Snow

John Snow began studying the spread of cholera in 1848

Scanning electron microscope image of Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes the disease

10 Tracing Cholera

was sweeping Europe. People would rapidly develop symptoms including vomiting, watery diarrhoea, muscle cramps and severe dehydration (indicated by sunken eyes, wrinkled skin, fast heartbeat and low blood pressure). Less than 24 hours after they first became ill, the person would be dead. Although cholera had been around for hundreds of years, this new strain, known as Asiatic cholera, was particularly frightening due to the severity of the symptoms and the speed with which an outbreak could spread and kill. It was also indiscriminate, killing not only the old, the young and the ill but also healthy adults. In 1831-1832 more than 32,000 people died. By the time of the first outbreak of Asiatic cholera, the industrial revolution had led to a mass exodus of people from the countryside to the towns and cities. Most people lived in squalid conditions and it was not uncommon for one room to be shared by five or more individuals. Many houses had cesspits in the basement and refuse was left rotting in the street, so it is not hard to imagine how incredibly unpleasant cities such as London would have been. For this reason, many doctors believed that diseases, including cholera, were caused by poisonous vapours, the so-called ‘miasmatic theory’. These vapours, or miasmas, were thought to be given off by sewage, refuse, graveyards and even people themselves and spread in the air before entering the body and causing illness. But could this really explain how cholera was transmitted from person to person, or how the disease would often disappear just as quickly as it had appeared? In 1836, a trainee doctor called John Snow arrived in London to begin his training at the Hunterian School of Medicine in Soho. A shy man, he was vegetarian and a teetotaller, which led to him being thought of as rather peculiar by his peers. Nonetheless, he applied himself whole-heartedly to

his studies and by 1840 had set up his own medical practice in Frith Street, Soho. Originally from York, Snow had spent time as an apprentice to a Newcastle surgeon and worked at the Killingworth coal mine, seeing at first hand the devastating impact of cholera during the 1831 outbreak. In 1848, cholera returned. Many Soho residents were affected and this prompted Snow to investigate what might be causing it and how it was spread. He postulated that if, as the miasmatists believed, cholera was transmitted in the air, the victims’ lungs would be clearly damaged. However when he performed autopsies on cholera victims, he found that instead the small intestines and bowel were inflamed and showed signs of disease. Snow also studied samples of water collected from households affected by cholera in the hope of identifying what might be causing the infection. Although he didn’t observe the tiny bacteria (Vibrio cholerae) which we now know cause cholera, he postulated that the consumption of “materies morbi”, or disease-causing particles, in the water was to blame for the disease. Snow published his findings and ideas challenging miasmatic theory in a pamphlet entitled

public

PUBLIC

back in the 19th century a new terrifying disease

Michaelmas 2013

Justinc

which was far less polluted. Meanwhile the Southwark and Vauxhall water company kept their Battersea Fields site. When Snow compared the death rates of customers of the two water companies during the 1854 epidemic, he found that 38 out of 44 households suffering cholera deaths had their water supplied by the Southwark and Vauxhall water company. Furthermore, Southwark and Vauxhall customers were almost nine times more likely to die of cholera than those of the Lambeth water company. Snow published his work in a second edition of his cholera pamphlet, leading to the removal of the now infamous Broad Street pump. However, beyond the confines of Soho, it had very little impact. Ultimately, the fact that John Snow was just a doctor with a small medical practice and very little influence meant that his work on cholera was largely forgotten following his death in 1858. At the time of his death he was instead known for studying and optimising the administration of anaesthetics; he had even been called upon to give chloroform to Queen Victoria during the births of two of her children. It was not until the 1930s that John Snow’s work was rediscovered by a new generation of epidemiologists (people investigating disease outbreaks), who saw his systematic investigation into the spread of cholera as a clear indication of the importance of their subject. Although cholera outbreaks do still occur—one of the most recent being in Haiti following the earthquake in 2010—thanks to John Snow we now know how cholera is spread and how to limit the number of people affected by it.

The Broad Street water pump in Soho (now Broadwick Street), where many Londoners contracted cholera. The pub in the background is the John Snow

Laura Pearce is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Metabolic Science at Addenbrooke’s Hospital

PUBLIC

‘On the Mode of Communication of Cholera’ and waited for the response of the medical community. Unfortunately, Snow’s pamphlet went largely unnoticed. Despite this, Snow remained convinced that cholera wasn’t spread in the air and a few years later another outbreak provided him with the opportunity to collect more evidence for his theory. On 31st August 1854 more than a dozen people in Soho developed the symptoms of cholera and just two weeks later over 500 people had died. Snow set about conducting door-to-door enquiries, drawing up a list of the dead and their addresses. He then marked each case of cholera on a map of Soho. This provided a striking indication that cases were clustered around the Broad Street water pump in Soho and the incidence of cholera decreased as the distance from the pump increased. In addition, Snow’s enquiries turned up a number of other interesting findings; a woman living in Hampstead who died from cholera had water collected daily from the Broad Street pump (as she preferred the taste of it) and had received one such delivery the day before she began to develop symptoms. In addition, the workers at the Lion brewery never touched the water from the Broad Street pump, instead preferring to drink beer, and none of them developed cholera. Although this evidence left Snow in no doubt that cholera was spread by contaminated water, he realised he still needed further proof. Snow had noticed that cholera death rates were very high in South London during the 1848-1849 epidemic and at that time two water companies supplied the area with water taken from a polluted part of the Thames at Battersea Fields. However, in 1852 the Lambeth water company moved its waterworks further upstream to Thames Ditton,

Part of John Snow’s map showing the clusters of cholera cases in the London 1854 epidemic. The location of the Broad Street pump can be seen in the centre

Michaelmas 2013

Tracing Cholera 11

ALEESHA NANDHRA

No Pain, No Gain

Painkillers are used by millions of people every day for chronic and acute pain relief

Sunburned skin is a good example of pain hypersensitivity

12 No Pain, No Gain

the phenomenon of pain has long been a topic of speculation and inquiry. In Greek mythology, algea were the spirits of pain and suffering, bringing body and mind to a state of grief, sorrow and distress. More recently, the British psychiatrist Ronald D. Laing encapsulated the overwhelming dominance of the sensation, stating “the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain”. To this day, pain remains a leading source of morbidity and loss of productivity, and its reduction is therefore one of the liveliest sectors for academic research and drug development. At first glance, pain seems an unfortunate biological peculiarity. But could pain in fact have evolved for some useful purpose? A clue to answering this question lies in the reality of a painless life experienced by rare individuals with congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP). Although appearing normal in all other sensory and cognitive aspects, an injury that would cause agonising pain to the rest of us leaves those with CIP indifferent. As ideal as this situation may seem, it comes with a price: typically CIP severely reduces life expectancy. A lack of awareness of the tissue damage incurred by harmful stimuli means concealed injuries remain untreated, eventually causing life-threatening conditions such as widespread bacterial infections. Even when extremely cautious, people with CIP are at risk; a woman giving birth survived only because an observant physician realised she was undergoing a serious internal complication, normally diagnosed by intense pain. Other frequent characteristics are skin burns, scarred lips due to self-biting and bone fractures or joint deformities due to inappropriate limb use. Only with much effort and guidance can these people lead near-normal lives by increasing their awareness of dangerous situations and acting accordingly. It becomes evident that pain is a sophisticated protecting mechanism, allowing

us to safely interact with the world around us by imposing limits on exploratory behaviours, particularly when young. Thus, upon encountering a threatening situation, pain serves to minimise physical damage; touching a hot object triggers a reflex reaction that drives your hand away, even before you are consciously aware of the danger. Moreover, pain facilitates the healing of injuries that have already occurred; a fractured leg hurts so that you become aware and take measures to assist recovery, such as immobilisation with a plaster cast. So, if pain is such a glorious adaptation, why are we so eager to get rid of it? Despite the obvious benefits of feeling pain, there are scenarios where it remains a deeply unpleasant experience with very limited usefulness. For instance, it is not helpful for a dental patient to feel pain when under the care of a qualified professional. Perhaps the best example of unwanted pain is persistent (chronic) pain which, unlike ‘normal’ (acute) pain, extends far beyond the expected period of healing. Common chronic pain symptoms are spontaneous pain as well as exaggerated responses to naturally painful or even non-painful stimuli. You can get a good idea of the latter when showering after a long sunbathing session on a Mediterranean beach in summer; the sunburned skin becomes hypersensitive to warm water and this is abnormally registered as pain. Another intriguing manifestation is ‘phantom limb pain’, encountered in amputees. These patients report peculiar

Kelly Sue deconnick

Kate warner

Christopher Tsantoulas explains why a world without pain is not as good as it sounds

Michaelmas 2013

nathan rupert

The careful study of individuals with pain insensitivity has revealed that the trait runs in families, implying that clues to the underlying cause can be found in their genes. Strikingly, when their DNA was sequenced, a number of unique alterations in single genes was uncovered. When the same mutations were introduced into mice, they resulted in attenuated pain-sensing. In a complementary approach, other scientists examined people born with pain hypersensitivity and discovered genes associated with the extreme pain. Importantly, both methods have identified similar genes expressed in nociceptors, such as those encoding specific ion channels—membrane Michaelmas 2013

proteins involved in the generation of electrical signals in neurons. The pharmaceutical challenge now is to exploit this information to develop drugs that diminish chronic pain but retain the protective role of acute pain. But do some of us feel more pain than others? The answer is yes—we can measure that, for instance by applying a temperature ramp on a subject’s hand until they call ‘ouch!’. Such experiments show that identical twins (100 per cent gene match) have more similar pain thresholds than non-identical twins (50 per cent gene match), emphasising the importance of genetic make-up. However, environmental influences can modulate the inherited gene dynamics; a fallen child who is encouraged to get up and carry on will probably develop more stoical reactions compared to one subjected to parental overreaction. The cultural setting is also instrumental; while pain thresholds are fairly similar between sexes, males tend to exhibit higher pain tolerance, in agreement with the ‘macho-man’ stereotype. In other words, although both sexes feel pain to a similar degree, males are less likely to express it. Even for a given individual, pain is finely shaped by environmental circumstances and personal expectations. Anecdotes underscoring the importance of context include reports of soldiers being completely unaware of gruesome injuries in the heat of a battle. Brain imaging studies have been employed to try and understand how pain processing occurs, however it appears that no single pain center exists. Instead, a whole matrix of cross-talking structures is in operation. These approaches have provided additional insights, informing us for example of an elevated engagement of the limbic system in women, explaining why pain tends to elicit a greater emotional response in females. It is perhaps reasonable to assume that emotional pain, like physical pain, has evolved in humans for similar risk-aversion purposes. The fear of disastrous heartache often drives us to weigh situations more realistically and proceed with caution. But as in the case for physical pain, the danger and potential rewards can be strangely appealing. After all, we all like a little bit of chili in our food! While the conscious brain is struggling to make sense of it all, pain will continue to protect us and ensure we cherish the accomplishments for which we suffer. As the saying goes—no pain, no gain!

balaji iyengar

sensations coming from their missing limbs, such as ‘clenched fists’ and excruciating pain. Apart from nerve trauma, a plethora of diseases including diabetes, viral infections and cancer can lead to chronic pain, while more common conditions such as back pain and migraines also fall within the spectrum of chronic pain syndromes. As a result, the prevalence of chronic pain is as high as 20 per cent in Europe, representing a major cause of misery that diminishes working ability and social interactions. Unfortunately, current pain relief options such as aspirin and opioids are largely inadequate and/or associated with adverse sideeffects and addiction issues. Early neurophysiological studies identified unique pain-encoding neurons in the peripheral nervous system, called nociceptors. These cells extend their up to one metre-long extensions to regions such as the fingertips and are remarkable in that they can encode the intensity of a stimulus; the more painful the stimulus, the more frequently these neurons send signals. All these signals are promptly transmitted to the spinal cord and subsequently relayed to the brain where pain is evaluated and an appropriate response generated.

Sensory neurons mediate pain sensations in fruit flies (image) and other organisms

Pain has a genetic component—identical twins have more similar pain thresholds than non-identical twins

Christopher Tsantoulas is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Pharmacology No Pain, No Gain 13

james baker

A Trip to the Psychiatrist

Camilla d’Angelo argues the case for more research into street drugs

Psilocybin is the active compound in magic mushrooms which gives the user psychedelic hallucinations

14 A Trip to the Psychiatrist

Beat kung

used for centuries in religious ceremonies, psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms have a long and vibrant history, and could one day be used in the clinic to treat depression and anxiety. Whilst the 40s and 50s saw extensive research into the mind-altering effects of psychedelics as potential psychiatric aids, promising research ground to a halt after drug misuse and media scares led to psychedelics being made illegal. Following a 50-year research hiatus, scientists are re-discovering the potential of drugs like magic mushrooms, ecstasy and ketamine as clinical aids in psychiatry. In the last decade, renewed interest has led to pre-clinical studies conducted on a whole host of drugs including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin, ibogaine and 3,4-methylenedioxy-Nmethylamphetamine (MDMA). Still, relatively little is known about how psychedelics act in the brain to produce such profound changes in consciousness. Amongst those interested in the potential medical benefits of certain under-researched illegal drugs, David Nutt and his colleagues of Imperial College London are interested in using psilocybin, the active compound found in magic mushrooms, as a potential treatment for depression. Psilocybin has already shown promising results in the treatment of anxiety, pain, and existential crises associated with end-stage cancer, and as a potential new treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Nutt and colleagues have provided the most detailed account

to date of how the psychedelic state is produced in the brain. Specifically, 30 volunteers were scanned using fMRI during intravenous infusion of placebo or psilocybin. Psilocybin produced profound changes in consciousness and was found to switch off activity in two brain areas in particular: the anterior cingulate cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex. These form part of the brain’s ‘default mode network’, a system that is active when individuals are thinking about themselves, the future or recalling memories, and is also overactive in depression. Interestingly, the greater the decrease in ‘default mode network’ activity by psilocybin, the greater the intensity of subjective drug effects. These are the first results that help to explain how psilocybin could be useful in treating depression. These findings prompted Nutt and colleagues to conduct a second study, in which they investigated whether psilocybin could facilitate access to personal memories and emotions. The group again used fMRI to scan 10 volunteers, receiving either psilocybin or placebo, while they viewed autobiographical memory cues. Whilst both placebo and psilocybin enabled the recollection of memories in response to the cues, psilocybin produced especially vivid ones and sensory areas were uniquely activated by memory cues under the drug. Moreover, greater vividness was associated with improved subjective well-being at follow-up two weeks later. It appears that by switching off an over-active default mode network, psilocybin enables the senses to run free and could lead to longer-lasting positive effects on mood. Researchers hope to harness these powerful mind-altering effects of psilocybin to reverse pessimistic thoughts associated with depression. Another drug with promise in the clinic is MDMA, the active component in the street drug Ecstasy. MDMA increases empathy and encourages recall and exploration of painful memories, rendering it particularly suitable for assisting psychotherapy. Several pilot studies are revealing beneficial effects of MDMA for the treatment of post-traumatic stress Michaelmas 2013

eszter hargittai

A shift in the way society perceives these drugs could be advantageous to patients and recreational users alike, by facilitating development of new treatments and even recreational drugs. For instance, we have witnessed major advances in the understanding and treatment of drug addiction, a Michaelmas 2013

major worldwide health problem, for which there are currently limited treatment options. Novel approaches, which treat drug users as patients rather than criminals, include anti-drug vaccines for cigarette smokers or cocaine addicts. The antidrug vaccines generate antibodies that bind to the drug and prevent it from reaching the brain; anti-cocaine vaccines are already available to treat cocaine overdose. It is possible to imagine a future in which vulnerable people would be vaccinated to protect them from developing an addiction in the first place. This would pave the way for bringing psychedelics back into the clinic, as researchers believe that psychedelics could help recovery from addiction to drugs such as opiates, alcohol and nicotine. In addition, increasing acceptance of psychedelic research may allow for the development of better synthetic alternatives. Paradoxically, thinking of a safer drug future might even one day extend to those drugs used recreationally, with the development of lessharmful and improved drugs than the ones we have today. Nicotine substitutes, including the nicotine gum, patches and lozenges, are already available on the market to help combat cigarette smoking. David Nutt and colleagues have even proposed a drug related to Valium as a more innocuous alcohol substitute. This novel â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;harm-freeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; alcohol has an antidote, which would allow revelers to sober up instantly at the end of a party and drive home quite safely. These exciting developments are only an example of what our future drug landscape might look like. The next 20 years could witness a plethora of potentially safer recreational drugs and medicines for mental health. However, this may only happen with a change in social attitudes and drug policies. For instance, while the impact of addiction on society is significant, the social stigma associated with addiction and use of recreational drugs means that pharmaceutical companies have little incentive to develop treatments for addicts to illicit substances. Similarly, prohibitive scheduling of psychedelics may be preventing medical advances that could help relieve patients suffering from depression, anxiety and addiction. A better understanding of how the human brain works has led to changes in the way we treat drug addiction. These advances illustrate the importance of framing new treatments in a modern context. Perhaps with psychedelics too we need to separate their therapeutic use from their historical recreational misuse and open up new possibilities for the treatment of severely debilitating illnesses.

Factfission

disorder (PTSD). In 2011, the first controlled trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy on treatmentresistant PTSD patients showed that it produced significant improvements in symptoms compared with psychotherapy alone. Furthermore, the longterm follow-up of the participants found that the MDMA effects were maintained for over 3 years on average. These promising studies suggest psychedelics may offer hope to patients who do not respond to conventional treatments and therefore highlight their potential therapeutic value. Despite these findings, research with psychedelic compounds remains controversial; MDMA, like psilocybin and other psychedelics, is illegal and governmental regulations continue to hinder research into its effects. Coloured by the drug culture of the 60s and extensive media coverage of MDMA misuse, psychedelics continue to have a negative image in society. The legal scheduling of psychedelic drugs makes it difficult for scientists to study them, and pharmaceutical companies are often unwilling to undergo the long and costly process of obtaining a license to manufacture the drugs. But, even if they were shown to be beneficial, current regulations would make the use of these drugs difficult. These laws were set out to protect people from the harm that psychedelic drugs can cause when used recreationally, thus rendering the fear of addictive abuse potential a legitimate cause for concern. However, it is becoming apparent that these drugs could be of immense benefit to patients who fail to respond to conventional treatments, if used in a carefully controlled clinical setting.

fMRI helps uncover how psychoactive drugs affect the brain

Alcohol could be replaced by a Valiumrelated drug that has an antidote to reverse the effects at the end of the night

Camilla dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Angelo is a 2nd year PhD student in Experimental Psychology A Trip to the Psychiatrist 15

Whatever The Weather

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BlueSci explores the origins of the everchanging weather and how it affects us

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the weather is a grand scheme of nature that influences almost every aspect of our lives. It determines our outdoor activities, how we dress and what we eat. Yet, it is more than our daily routine that is tangibly shaped by the direction of the weathervane arrow. The collapse of the once powerful Mayan civilisation and the fall of the Tang Dynasty can both be correlated with drought and famine, caused by changing weather patterns. In 1281, the naval invasion of Japan by the Mongols, the largest in history, was crippled by the Kamikaze winds. Encrypted weather reports included in German correspondence during World War II were exploited by the British to crack the Enigma code and give the Allies a significant advantage. More recently, hurricane Katrina flooded 80 per cent of New Orleans causing $150 billion worth of damage and 1800 casualties. Weather phenomena can also strike in implausible patterns: in 1998, lightning during a football match in Congo killed all 11 players of one team, leading to accusations of witchcraft by the other team. It is precisely this erratic nature of weather that makes it an ideal conversation starter. Humans have devised weather forecasts to protect life and property from such unfortunate occurrences, as well as plan our lives effectively. On the next few pages we shall explain why todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s forecasts are often so unreliable; we will discuss where the weather comes from, how it arises and what effect it has on us. We will see how lightning storms and hurricanes come about, how the climate can change the fate of us all and why we feel gloomy on a rainy day. More importantly, we will ask ourselves: will we ever be able to manipulate the weather? But first, let us try to explain why you simply cannot trust the weatherman. The weather on Earth is extremely complex and it is impressive enough that we can follow the constantly changing patterns, let alone anticipate them. For centuries, humans have depended on rules of thumb to predict weather changes. For instance, closed pinecone scales or certain animal behaviours indicate that rain is on the way. It was not until 1922 that the publication of Weather Prediction by Numerical Process set out scientific methods that form the basis of weather forecasting to this day. The first stage of this process involves collecting enormous sets of data, such as atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, precipitation and wind speed. This is done by

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andreanna moya photography

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The source of all weather on Earth lies in the uneven heating by the Sun

rkramer62

The chaotic nature of weather means that a butterfly’s flapping could escalate into substantial weather changes

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trained observers, automatic weather stations (such as the one 26,000 feet up on Mount Everest) and buoys strategically positioned all over the world or by orbiting satellites. The gathered data is then fed into mathematical models incorporating physics and fluid dynamics equations in order to model the initial state of the atmosphere and generate a forecast of how it might change in the future. Handling the vast amounts of data and performing the trillions of complex calculations requires some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world— the Met Office uses a machine with the computing power of 20,000 ordinary PCs. Despite the tremendous advances in meteorology, the chaotic nature and incomplete understanding of the underlying processes mean that predictions become less accurate as the forecasting range increases. Even the most sophisticated models oversimplify the real state of the atmosphere and tiny changes can have huge domino effects. As mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenzo eloquently put it, “does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil cause a tornado in Texas?” The ‘stochastic method’ of weather prediction accounts for this uncertainty by running the forecast multiple times using slightly altered initial conditions, such as a change of 1°C in temperature or a percentage point in humidity. The most statistically probable predictions are then further scrutinised by experts. Meteorologists are constantly trying to improve forecasting methods and lengthen warning times for natural disasters like tornadoes and hurricanes. That’s all well and good, but just what exactly does it mean when the weatherman talks about ‘low or high pressure’, ‘precipitation’, ‘humidity’—and what is their connection to the majestic plethora of weather phenomena we experience? Moreover, what underlies the perpetual change in weather? Before we address these questions we

need to examine the basics of how the weather works. For the most part, weather on Earth occurs due to the uneven distribution of solar energy between locations; the closer to the equator, the larger the Sun angle and the warmer the temperatures. The air above hot surfaces heats and expands, resulting in lower air pressure. In low pressure systems, the warm humid air rises up and when it reaches the (cooler) higher altitudes it releases water vapour, because cool air cannot hold as much moisture. The vapour then condenses around tiny particles, such as dust, into visible clouds of water droplets or ice crystals. Cumulonimbus clouds—the ones responsible for storms—can typically form in under an hour and contain millions of tons of water. As this process carries on, the water droplets become too heavy to be supported by the updraughts of air and leave the cloud in the form of precipitation. Precipitation falls as snow when the air temperature is below 2°C. If the temperature is slightly warmer, the snowflake will melt and fall as sleet. If it is warmer still, it will be rain. As air moves upwards, wind rushes in to fill the gap. Therefore, the temperature gradient also drives winds moving from areas of high to low pressure. For instance, sea breezes occur because heat from the Sun warms the land much quicker than the sea. On a larger scale, the high temperature contrast between the poles and the tropics gives rise to very strong winds high up in the atmosphere, called jet streams, and large ocean currents. Weather in the UK is affected by the Gulf Stream, which transfers warm Atlantic water and air northeast towards the western coast of Europe. As all this moist air sweeps across the country it is forced over hills and mountains, where it often precipitates to rain. While wind, rain and snow might be annoying and even dangerous or damaging, nature’s real power becomes evident in more extreme conditions, such as lightning storms and hurricanes. After all, at 30,000°C, a lightning bolt is hotter than the surface of the Sun and carries enough electricity to light a 100 watt light bulb for three months. Lightning is caused by precipitation that moves within the cloud, rubbing against smaller ice crystals and thereby acquiring a negative charge that accumulates at the base of the cloud. The negative charge then seeks out the shortest route to something with a positive charge to balance itself out. When a recipient is found (a tree, a tall building or—if unlucky—a person), the discharging flash of lightning travels through the air at an astonishing 120 kilometres per second. The accompanying sound of thunder is caused by the shockwave produced by the sudden air expansion due to the increase in temperature around the lightning bolt. The distance of lightning can be calculated by the time interval between the flash and the thunder; every 2.9 seconds that elapse translate into approximately one kilometre distance. Despite the forceful Michaelmas 2013

Michaelmas 2013

years, with winds reaching 400 kilometres per hour. Still, these winds are a gentle breeze compared to the ones on Neptune, where the lack of a surface allows speeds of more than 2500 kilometres per hour. This poses a puzzle for planetary scientists, because the solar energy reaching Neptune is only 1 ⁄ 900th of that received by Earth—yet the intensity of weather phenomena is far greater. On Uranus, the extreme axial tilt of the planet (98°) leads to decade long winters; when parts of the planet finally emerge from winter, gigantic springtime storms roughly the size of North America are triggered. Coming back to Earth, how does the weather that we experience influence human life? Surely it goes further than determining what we wear and how we spend our time? To address this question, we have to look beyond daily weather fluctuations. Slow changes in dynamic variables, such as vegetation coverage or the quantity of atmospheric greenhouse gases, modify the weather over longer periods of time. These so-called climate shifts have shaped human progress throughout history: civilisations have risen and fallen; wars have broken out and disease has spread; settlements have been established and ideas formed. By understanding the impact of climate, researchers have been able to reconstruct certain historical events. For instance, warfare, population growth and dynastic upheaval in China were closely associated with notably cold periods, particularly in the 17th and early 19th centuries when crops failed and prices increased. Populations responded to this stress by defending their limited resources, which often led to stealing, conflict and political unrest. Many migrated, leading to wars as one group tried to displace another.

At 30,000°C, a lightning bolt is hotter than the surface of the Sun

Cumulonimbus clouds generate storms that can release more energy than all axisting nuclear weapons

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nature of this phenomenon, lightning is not always deadly; Roy Sullivan, a ranger in a USA national park was struck seven times, yet only suffered minor injuries. Tropical storms such as hurricanes occur in areas of very low pressure, typically within 8° and 15° of the equator, where surface sea temperatures reach 27°C. The air above the warm water is heated and rises, forming huge clouds, while strong winds rush in to fill the gap, creating a spiral. In essence, hurricanes use the warm water as a power source, which is why they die out over land. The radius of a hurricane is usually around 50 kilometres, but can sometimes reach more than 300 kilometres—in any case, weather in the eye of the storm is always calm. While it is going strong, a hurricane can within ten minutes release more energy than all the world’s nuclear weapons combined. Accordingly, it is estimated that hurricanes have led to the death of over 2 million people over the last 200 years. The dynamic nature of weather formation leads to a quite remarkable breadth of conditions on Earth. The highest recorded temperature was a sweltering 58°C in Libya, while the lowest was a bitter -89.6°C in Antarctica. Eleven metres of annual rainfall makes India the wettest place on Earth, while you would have to wait a century to fill up a cup in the dry Chilean desert. Conditions can also change rather quickly; on January 1943, appropriately named Rapid City in South Dakota saw the temperature rise from -20°C to 7°C within just two minutes. Although this variant nature of weather often prompts us to complain it’s ‘too hot’, ‘too cold’, or ‘too windy’, when we consider weather patterns on other planets we can see that we truly have the better deal on Earth. Mercury, for example, is much closer to the Sun and has a very thin atmosphere that cannot retain solar heat the way Earth can. These two factors lead to the most extreme variations in the solar system, with surface temperatures ranging from -184°C at night to 430°C during the day—if a human being was to be exposed to these conditions they would either be frozen hard as rock or burst into flames in a nanosecond. Mars has a very complex weather system caused by the interaction between its solid CO2 polar ice caps and the atmospheric CO2. When one pole is in winter and pointing away from the Sun, the cap expands as atmospheric CO2 freezes into dry ice, while the Sun-facing cap melts to release CO2 to the atmosphere. In the end, the unequal amounts of CO2 exchanged between poles over the year generate massive changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure, generating enormous sand storms. The gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, which are not primarily composed of solid matter, feature even more extreme weather due to their dense atmospheres. The Great Red Spot of Jupiter is in fact an immense storm that has been raging for the past 300

leszek.leszczynski

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allan foster

Such mass migrations also facilitated the spread of disease and created several epidemics. It is thought that the spread of the bubonic plague in the 1300s, which saw the death of 25-33 per cent of Europeans, was assisted by increased migration brought about by the coldest weather in several hundred years. Even in today’s modern world, Earth’s climate significantly influences human populations. Much of the unrest encountered in the Horn of Africa can be linked to erratic weather. Recent climate changes have caused the displacement of over one million inhabitants of Kenya and Somalia, with an additional 150,000 to 300,000 at risk of starvation. Even a 0.5˚C annual increase in temperature sees crop yields decrease by up to 30 per cent, leading to limited resources and conflict. In fact, research has shown that conflict is up to 50 per cent higher in years that are only 1˚C warmer. This is worrying because given that average temperatures are estimated to rise by 0.2-0.5˚C per decade in Africa, there could be a 50 per cent increase in conflict by 2030. The El Niño phenomenon, an abnormal warming of surface ocean waters in the eastern tropical Pacific, causes extreme weather which hampers agriculture and fishing yields, leading to economic contraction and unrest across the region. Solomon Hsiang and his team found that in El Niño years, the risk of civil war in tropical countries doubled—this means that the phenomenon has potentially influenced 20 per cent of civil wars since 1950.

Cold weather promotes respiratory infections, however the underlying causes are still debated

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tim j keegan

Droughts and floods have substantially affected human development throughout history

tim j keegan

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The random and rapid onset of El Niño makes it hard to combat its devastating effects. Although we still do not fully understand its origin, modern computer models can predict occurrences up to two years in advance. Hopefully, governments and aid groups will soon use this technology to help combat the upheaval associated with El Niño and other erratic weather patterns. Given the body of evidence highlighting our political and social fragility at the hands of the weather, it is imperative to prepare for its effects. But how does each of us individually come into the big weather picture? Even when following regular patterns, seasonal changes still affect our well-being. Perhaps the most illustrative example is the common cold. As the name implies, catching a cold has long been associated with cold weather, based mostly on empirical evidence. A study has indeed found a 19 per cent increase in the frequency of consultations for lower respiratory tract infections for every 1°C drop below 5°C. One popular explanation is that host immunity is compromised in the cold. For instance, the constriction of blood vessels, a mechanism reducing blood flow to the body surface in order to conserve heat in cold environments, also diminishes immune cell delivery to the respiratory tract. Scientists believe that breathing in colder air chills the upper airways and allows rhinoviruses that cause the common cold to flourish; indeed, when rhinovirus-infected airway cells from mice were grown under cold conditions they were less likely to be eliminated via a process of regulated cell death. Besides a weakening in our defense capabilities, the increased infection rates in cold weather could also be explained by an enhancement in infectious agent transmission. For example, changes in humidity may affect the amount of air-borne viruses contained in the air. Some researchers have also pointed out that cold weather can indirectly foster pathogen transmission by increasing the time we spend at close proximity with other people indoors. “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down”. The popular saying implies an effect of weather fluctuations on human psychology, however the scientific evidence for this remains controversial. Some early research reported Michaelmas 2013

Naturally, weather interference has also been explored as a tactic to prevent more extreme phenomena, such as hurricanes. Ideas include pouring liquid nitrogen onto the warm sea surface or mixing it with the cooler water below to deprive the storm of heat energy, or seeding storm clouds with a water-absorbing polyacrylic acid derivative. The most ambitious plans implement a space-based solar power network to ameliorate hurricanes via heating with microwaves. Unfortunately, there is little scientific evidence to confirm the effectiveness of these manipulations at present, so the thought of flipping a switch to instantly produce rainbows is still a long way off. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, weather in 2012 was the hottest and second most extreme in recorded US history. It is increasingly evident that we are in the middle of another climate change, attributed mainly to human activity but also to natural causes. The most pessimistic estimations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warn of imminent and disastrous changes, such as a 6.4˚C rise in global surface temperature by 2100, calling for immediate regulatory action. Knowing the effects climate can have on whole populations as well as individuals, it will be interesting to see how this climate change may affect humanity and what challenges we might face in the future. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that weather forecasting is never straightforward, reflecting our inadequate understanding of the underlying processes. What is certain is that humans will continue to indulge in, explore and adapt to these mysterious phenomena around us—whatever the weather. Yvonne Collins is a 3rd year PhD student at the Mitochondrial Biology Unit (MBU)

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Matthew Dunstan is a 3rd year PhD student at the Department of Chemistry Martha Stokes is a 3rd year Natural Sciences student at the Zoology Department Theodosia Woo is a Natural Sciences exchange student at Emmanuel College Michaelmas 2013

SAD patients feel low during the winter periods due to limited sunlight

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a link between weather and mood but this could not be confirmed by subsequent studies. Interestingly, a 10 year-long study in England and Wales showed that each 1°C increase in temperature above 18°C is accompanied by a 5 per cent increase in suicidal rate, an effect attributed to variations in serotonin—a hormone linked to depression—or increased alcohol consumption due to thirst. A greater consensus on a causal relationship between weather and mood is seen in Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a syndrome in which patients feel low during winter. Although this condition is not well understood, it is thought that low light availability is a key factor. The amount of sunlight influences the number of nerve messages sent from the eyes to certain parts of the brain and in turn affects levels of mood-controlling chemicals and hormones. Indeed, SAD has been linked to mutations in melanopsin—a photopigment found in the eye retina—which is involved in fine-tuning the body clock according to daylight hours. It has even been proposed that the tendency for low mood and inactivity during SAD may be an evolutionary remnant to reduce energy consumption, similar to winter hibernation when food is scarce. Knowing how intricately the weather affects our welfare, could we not go one step further and control the weather to create favourable conditions, improve public health or preclude disasters? Although this idea verges on science fiction territory, weather manipulations have actually been attempted repeatedly throughout history. The most widely used weather modification is ‘cloud seeding’, a technique to enhance precipitation in existing clouds—in other words, to make them rain out. The first demonstration came from the Schaefer-Langmuir experiments in the 1950s: seeding clouds with grains of dry ice caused water to condense and form crystals, which then fell as precipitation. Today, a more common method is to deliver silver iodide into clouds with airplanes or special artillery. Cloud seeding has been used to increase rain in drought-prone countries like the US, India, Russia and China. Applications also include reducing fog over airports, increasing snowpack in mountainous regions and even ‘washing the air’ in heavily polluted areas. In 2008, cloud seeding was implemented in Beijing to prevent rainfall during the Olympic Games ceremonies.

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The future may not be full of rainbows

Cloud seeding using silver iodide is one way of weather manipulation with numerous applications

Focus 21

Love on the Line

Online dating offers the convenience of meeting millions of potential partners at the click of a button

More than a third of US marriages now begin with online dating

technology has transformed the ways in which we form, interact in, and maintain romantic relationships. In contrast to the great number of unknowns involved in meeting people at parties, through friends, or at school, online dating now allows us to carefully browse potential mates and use matching algorithms to make our search more efficient. The most popular dating websites and apps are visited hundreds of millions of times every month, with monthly subscription fees of up to $125. Currently, 37 per cent of single American internet users report using online dating services and 22 per cent of heterosexual American couples who met between 2007 and 2009 started their relationship online. But while many are busy meeting people online, others are more interested in using technology to maintain relationships. Video chatting software brings relief to couples in long-distance relationships and is becoming more popular, with Skype call traffic growing by 44 per cent in 2012 and 50 million users reported to be concurrently online this year. Couples can even share intimate moments when miles apart with connected pillows and shirts. These budding online relationships demonstrate the good, the bad, and the ugly of using technology in our quest to meet and keep that special someone. Online dating seems to offer it all: access to millions of user profiles, quick and convenient use of computer-mediated communication (CMC), SEAN MCGRATH

Urban Women Mag

Jordan Ramsey explores how technology has reshaped our romantic relationships and matching algorithms to screen for compatible mates. But recently, researchers have begun to question the superiority of online dating to conventional methods of meeting a partner. For example, although online dating provides us with an endless number of choices, we are notoriously bad at making a selection when the number of products on offer is too high. This is known as ‘choice overload’ and can cause us to come up empty-handed when we are overwhelmed at the prospect of evaluating so many options. One blogger claimed to become “more picky than an Arabian sultan” as he waded through vast numbers of online dating profiles, discarding women based on small and perhaps insignificant flaws. Indeed, a recent paper published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest by Eli J. Finkel and colleagues remarked that profile browsing caused mate-seekers to objectify candidate partners and calculate the relative risk and reward of pursuing a relationship prior to contact. Although it might be appealing to evaluate certain aspects in a new partner before meeting him or her, research shows that the romantic process doesn’t always work that way. In most cases, even when we find a profile that meshes with our ideal version of a mate, we are often disappointed by the reality in a face-to-face encounter. Several studies have demonstrated that there is a mismatch between the qualities we believe we desire in a mate and the qualities of the person we ultimately end up with. So, if we have such little insight into what we want, why not simply rely on the matching algorithms employed by many online dating sites? Unfortunately, many sites match people based on similarity in particular attributes, though there is only weak evidence that this contributes to satisfaction within a relationship. Despite this, dating websites like eHarmony state that their “bold, scientific approach to matching means more quality dates with deeply compatible singles that truly understand you”. This has been a cause for concern to some in the scientific community, like UCLA social psychology Professor Benjamin Karney, who believes regulatory agencies should more actively investigate the claims of dating sites. Even if we do meet ‘the one’ online—is emailing and Facebooking a good way to start a relationship? Michaelmas 2013

In the US, 14 million people report that they are in a long-distance relationship, 4.4 million of whom are students. These numbers are reportedly on the rise, partly due to the growing number of options available to keep the romance alive. Skype and other software for video chatting is ubiquitous, as are mobiles and smartphones with their capabilities for texting, sending video messages, Snapchats and anything else you can think of. As one blogger posted about her new long-distance relationship, “there’s literally an app for that”. But one thing that technology can’t provide is intimacy. Or can it? Cuddling, hugging and even sex don’t have to go completely out the window when your partner isn’t physically close. There’s Pillow Talk, in which a sensor embedded in a pillow causes it to glow when one of the pair has gone to sleep. It also lets each person hear the other’s heartbeat in real-time, as they drift off to sleep. Then there’s the Hug Shirt that communicates the touch and warmth from the wearer’s shirt to the partner. If a longMichaelmas 2013

Tanel TEEMUSK

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

distance couple is after something a little more intimate, there are several sex devices that use computers or game console remote controls that may be more appropriate. Durex is even developing a product called Funderwear: vibrating underwear controlled by an app on a partner’s phone. The range of products and options for communicating long-distance can’t quite replace a real-life companion though, as many bloggers and columnists have reported. One advised that “throwing money at airline tickets” was still the best way to make it work and warned against missing nights out with friends to stay in and Skype. After all, while technology can change how we get and stay together, it can’t change what we need from a relationship. Managing our expectations of technology and recognising the advantages and disadvantages of online dating, email, text, video messaging and other forms of digital communication may be key to satisfying our needs.

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According to Finkel and colleagues, CMC can be a useful tool during a budding relationship, increasing a couple’s intimacy and attraction for one another. But if CMC continues for a prolonged period without a face-to-face meeting, it can have a detrimental effect. In these cases we build up exaggerated expectations of the other person, based on potentially misleading profile photos and carefully planned responses in online conversations. After all, romantic relationships can only start when two people ‘click’ offline. And what makes a couple ‘click’, according to the authors, is based on “experiential attributes, chemistry, and gut-level evaluations” that can ultimately only be assessed in person. Despite its limitations, online dating has undoubtedly changed the way many of us form romantic relationships. No doubt it will continue to do so as it has entered the mainstream. But going further, the way we maintain our relationships, especially long-distance ones, has changed with technology as well. Before the advent of Skype, couples had limited options when separated by land and sea. They could write letters or talk on the phone—landline, that is.

Technology has allowed couples in long-distance relationships to easily communicate in any location at any time

Increasing numbers of couples are in longdistance relationships, mostly due to college, work and military services

Long-distance relationships bring on challenges to both emotional and physical intimacy which is gradually being eased by new technological advances

Jordan Ramsey is a 3rd year PhD student at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology Technology 23

The End of Extinction? Emily Pycroft summarises decisions of the CITES meeting on animal trading practices most of us are familiar with the idea that human

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Great white sharks are barbarically killed for their fins

activities are currently driving the world’s sixth mass extinction of animal and plant species. The Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is an intergovernmental agreement set up to protect animal and plant species at risk of extinction due to trading. Governments can opt in to the legally binding convention and must then implement appropriate laws to ensure CITES agreements are upheld. Earlier this year, delegates of the convention marked its 40th anniversary with a meeting in Thailand. The conference was surrounded by controversy due to it being hosted in Bangkok. In Thailand, trade in ivory from native elephants is legal, creating an opportunity for smugglers to sell laundered African ivory. Elephant poaching in Africa is at a twenty year high, with an estimated 50 to 100 elephants killed daily. The suspected cause is increased demand from Asia where ivory is used to make traditional medicines and ornaments. By the end of the twoweek session, eight nations thought to be primary suppliers and importers of ivory were identified as needing to make drastic changes. Action plans were demanded and acquired from the ‘Gang of Eight’, including China, Kenya and Thailand. If not proactive in enforcing their proposals they face sanctions, such as the banning off all wildlife trade, which would have particularly devastating impacts on the economies of China, Thailand and Vietnam, where trading in wild orchids and crocodile skin are major sources of income. However, the closing of the meeting heralded more immediate blows to the economies of Southeast Asia. Despite regulations on the trade of three shark species (great white, basking and whale), an estimated 100 million sharks are killed annually—a rate thought to outstrip their population growth. Previous bans have focused on the barbaric practice of finning, in which fins are cut off live fish at sea before dumping the body overboard. Sadly, the fins are so valuable that this simply resulted

24 Initiatives

in the sharks being brought ashore instead. Much of the demand is from China, where shark fin soup is traditionally served at special occasions. In a marginal vote, delegates extended the number of protected sharks to include the oceanic whitetip, porbeagle and three types of hammerhead. Whilst the vote does not ban fishing of these sharks, fisheries will now have to provide evidence of using sustainable harvesting practices. This will enable more accurate assessment of population sizes and hopefully allow stocks to recover. A surprising outcome of the meeting was the decision to not upgrade the current regulation on polar bear trade to a complete ban on trading any bear parts. The Inuit of the Canadian Arctic hunt the bears to sell their pelts as rugs as well as exporting fangs and paws. One of the main arguments against the ban was that the trade threat to polar bears is insignificant in comparison to the problems induced by climate change. Another was that trading of bear parts is essential to the economies of the Inuit, who live in such inhospitable conditions that agricultural practices are simply not feasible. Many conservationists were outraged by the decision, but others agreed international trade has little effect on bear populations. Member states were also asked to prosecute criminals involved in the poaching and trafficking of rhinoceros horns and emphasis was placed on using forensic analysis to identify the source of seized horns. Perhaps surprisingly, the South African government is considering applying to legalise the trade in rhino horn at the next CITES conference. They argue that whilst the trade ban has worked to conserve rhinos in the past, it is now driving up prices fetched by horn and therefore poaching levels. They cite the success of legalising the trade of crocodile skin as justification. It remains to be established which countries would be potential legal buyers, and whether adequate security measures to control the trade can be taken. The next CITES meeting in 2016 in South Africa will assess the impact of the changes implemented by the ‘Gang of Eight’; hopefully, the decisions made in the 2013 meeting, described by many as “historic”, will help put an end to extinction. Emily Pycroft is a 2nd year undergraduate in Biological Natural Sciences at Sidney Sussex College Michaelmas 2013

To the Future, or From the Past? Nasa

Hugo Schmidt chats to Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, about space exploration

Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the Moon in 1969

Buzz Aldrin’s new book discusses space exploration

Michaelmas 2013

nigh on fifty years ago, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to set foot on another world. Now Aldrin is urging mankind to take a much larger leap—not merely to visit but to colonize Mars. In his recent book Mission to Mars, Aldrin provides practical solutions, both political and scientific. Via video chat, Aldrin describes his vision: “Going back to the early eighties, there seemed to be a growing interest in some kind of return to the Moon, and I began to think that this was the time to think about some alternatives. And I began to realise that maybe there were even better ways of going to the Moon, especially to flyby the Earth and the Moon, and continuously cycle back and forth. […] The former NASA administrator, Tom Pain, understood this and encouraged me to take a look at Mars. I began to try and use a very simple, basic orbital mechanism, and it seems as though it might be easier to get to Mars and back than it might be to get to the Moon and back. That we had used gravity assist, departing the Earth, to swing by other objects in Space, which then redirected us to other objects in space, and then another, and another—it’s called the grand tour—and why couldn’t we reverse swing by gravity assist and come back to earth again, with just the right conditions. […] It is amazing to me that since these ideas were introduced in 1985, no one in the standard system of NASA or other countries has realised the advantages of a continuously moving habitat with radiation protection that come with a reusable travelling container between the Earth and Mars.” One reason might be that humans cannot take being cooped up in tiny environments for twentyfour months at a stretch. Aldrin laughs. “I don’t think that’s a problem. People behave themselves quite well. When people misbehave, we put them in a cell and they stay there for quite a long period of time”. More seriously, he adds, “We have had people training in Europe for long periods of time, whether it was in Biosphere 2, years ago, or the more Mars500 project. If you are going to spend the rest of your life on Mars, why do you care how rapidly you get there?”

Aldrin has also given some thought on what to do once Mars is reached. “I have not designed the details of a Mars base, but I have started a semblance of an international lunar base design. I looked around and asked people and have not found anyone who has come up with a concept to bring six or seven nations together and to preserve their individuality but maintain international support. If we can do that on the Moon, the US role would not be to land the components, not even to build large structures, but to assemble the components when they have been sent.” We move on to a discussion of the dangers of such a long exposure to radiation. “I have seen some projects by high school kids with layers of protection, a cloth-like material that includes sophisticated molecules like bucky-balls. They are specifically designed for Solar flares. Layers of these materials for background cosmic radiation. They are being advised by some very credible PhDs. I am very interested and they are getting protection for the proprietary nature of their inventions—but given that these guys are seventeen, eighteen, nineteen and have a fantastic motivating t-shirt, you can never tell what the future will yield.” It’s the ease of that response that brings me up short. It has been 50 years since this man walked on the Moon, but it has also been nearly forty years since anyone last set foot on it. I ask him about this. “I am trying to address that by organizing a space policy analysis by a group of people that are well respected […] to uncover the mistakes that recently led us where we are.” I finally ask whether there are any science fiction writers he thinks could provide the same inspiration to today’s youth as did in his? “What would motivate people to the very challenging task of leaving the solar system and going to some unknown location? So I wrote this science fiction story called Encounter with Tiber and it is in the process of being made into a television series of ten episodes. The book is available on ebooks now.” I’m left wondering whether Buzz Aldrin is a voice for a credible future, or a relic of a more hopeful time. Either way, his voice is one that needs to be heard. Hugo Schmidt is a 4th year PhD student at the Department of Biochemistry Away from the Bench 25

The Bee All and End All

Strawberries are one of many crops pollinated by bees

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Worker bees provide royal jelly for the larvae, which is not affected by pesticide use

“if the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years to live”. A quote often misattributed to Einstein, likely to increase its gravitas given the real author’s anonymity, but one that certainly holds elements of truth regardless of its origin. Approximately 35 per cent of crops depend on petal-mediated pollination. This means that pollination events involving animal interaction need to have occurred for these crops to set fruit. Numbers of honeybees, domesticated or wild foraging, are highly important to food security because they provide the greatest proportion of this pollination. Whether or not the estimate of four years is wholly accurate is debatable, however, bee loss would surely lead to a grim outlook for crop production. This makes the recent two year ban on the use of three neonicotinoid insecticides by the EU that will come into force this December an important piece of legislature. But is this scientifically or politically motivated? Neonicotinoids are similar to nicotine, both in structure and in biological action, but are much more potent. As insecticides, their primary use is to control populations of crop pests, such as aphids or wood-boring beetles. Neonicotinoids affect the insect nervous system and can induce paralysis by binding to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors— proteins on the surface of neurons that sense the environment. They are much more effective at impacting this pathway in invertebrates than birds or mammals due to structural differences in the receptors, minimising possible side effects in humans and other animals. Their mode of action is ‘systemic’ because they are absorbed and transported to all organs of the treated plant, and are therefore present within all tissues pests feed on. This systemic presence provides further benefits in reducing toxicity to other organisms as crop application can be achieved by methods other than spraying, for example as granules applied to soil. Consequently, they are generally seen as the most environmentally friendly ie

Philip miseldine

Greg Mellers analyses the background and consequences of the neonicotinoid ban

26 Science and Policy

insecticide because of their limited ‘off-target’ effects and relative ease of application. This has led to the recent increase in the use of this insecticide to around 20 per cent of the market. The systemic nature of neonicotinoid action also means they can be potentially harmful to pollinators via pollen and nectar, even when applied outside the bloom period. This is due to the fact that following applications outside of the pollination season there is an indeterminable persistence of the insecticides within soil, which may later be taken up by plants. The most frequently used neonicotinoid is imidacloprid, which has a soil half-life of 40-200 days, depending on weather conditions. Other neonicotinoids have shorter half-lives, but on average persist for around 100 days. The precise determination of how long these insecticides remain in the environment following application is a key issue. The presence of neonicotinoids in pollen brought to the hive and stored within it, as well as in honey, has been detected by several studies. It appears that neonicotinoids can indeed persist in the pollen and nectar of crops, though concentrations can vary significantly and the effect on bee colonies remains obscure. Nevertheless, given that bee larvae feed almost exclusively on row—a complex mix of proteins and sugars—with pollen totalling only 5 per cent of their food consumption, it is unlikely that insecticides are the direct cause of colony collapse disorder. The problem lies in the sub-lethal effects that these substances can invoke in pollinators. For the honeybee, the major impact of these insecticides at non-lethal doses is probably on navigation. There are some suggestions that action of these insecticides via nicotinic acetylcholine receptors impacts the bee ‘waggle-dance’, which is associated with the transfer of locational information to other foragers. In turn, the ability to navigate from the hive to food-rich areas is reduced, which diminishes colony fitness. Neonicotinoids could also impact on associative learning in honeybees, assessed by measuring proboscis extension in Michaelmas 2013

response to food. This is a vital part of successful foraging behaviours, as bees associate petal features with levels of reward over the flowering season. Significantly less work has been done on other pollinating insects due to their lesser economic importance, but it is apparent that not only honeybees are affected by neonicotinoids. For instance, several studies suggest that insecticides reduce food consumption and reproduction of bumblebees. However, some of the studies that are held up as evidence to justify the imposed ban are irrelevant to the field. The most prominent example was a study that determined insecticide effects by direct application of imidacloprid and clothianidin to excised tissue of the bee nervous system. This kind of direct exposure is not a relevant possibility in the environmental setting, and the political motivation behind the use of such data in any decision is questionable. This raises the question of whether the political incentive to appease conservationists has played a role in hastening the legislation to ban these insecticides. There are of course major economic problems invoked by the ban, due to the high usage of neonicotinoids. The vote to ban neonicotinoids was inconclusive, with the UK voting against a ban. The final decision was left to the European Commission, which imposed the ban as a “precautionary measure”. Nevertheless, alternatives with similar toxicity remain legal and are likely to become heavily used when the ban comes into force. For example, rapeseed is currently treated once with neonicotinoids before planting, which is sufficient to protect against the cabbage stem flea beetle, a particularly destructive pest of emerging seedlings. The use of neonicotinoids for this crop species increased, partly as a result of greater resistance to alternative insecticides. However, the ban will force farmers to return to older and less effective treatments, such as repeated pyrethroid foliage spray treatments. This insecticide has greater off-target effects and has been shown to be toxic to many pollinators, fish and other aquatic animals. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of populist attention that

Michaelmas 2013

Bumblebees are also heavily affected by the use of insecticide

André van der Stouwe

neonicotinoids received perhaps overshadowed the environmental impact of alternative insecticides for some major crops. As a result, the total environmental damage may in fact be greater as a result of the ban, even if pollinator numbers stabilise. Another major problem is the large bias towards laboratory studies focusing on honeybees, primarily due to their key agricultural importance. However, recent work has identified that for 41 crop species, a rise in wild pollinator interactions increased fruit set twice as much as an equivalent rise in honeybee visitation. Consequently, the role of wild pollinators in any crop system appears to be underestimated. It is therefore necessary to further investigate the impact that these insecticides have on local vegetation such as neighbouring weeds, as well as on wild pollinators, before they can be safely reintroduced. The use of neonicotinoids was encouraged because of their milder impact on other wildlife such as birds and mammals. Their widespread use however appears to have led to negative sub-lethal effects on pollinators that interact with plants adjacent to crop fields. The alternatives that some farmers will now be forced to turn to may be equally, if not more, environmentally damaging. The reality is that more studies into the long-term impact of neonicotinoids on wild populations are needed. We will have to wait for further research, but as a precautionary measure, a ban—even for political reasons—may be the most sensible immediate solution.

Farmers in Vietnam spray pesticides on their crops by hand

Greg Mellers is a 2nd year PhD student at the Department of Plant Sciences

Science and Policy 27

Standing Up for Science Brianne Kent discusses why attitudes towards scientific research need to change the scientific method is a collection of

F1000Research is a journal dedicated to open access and encouraging negative results (image used by permission of F1000 Research Ltd)

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28 Perspective

techniques for investigating phenomena, based on systematically gathering empirical and measurable evidence for a stated hypothesis. This methodology is designed to be objective and attracts people aspiring to uncover the true state of nature. Why then, has science become so riddled with bias? Although it is a field composed of critical thinkers devoted to truth seeking, many scientists are in agreement that the system is flawed. The question now is how do we fix it? For young scientists, the whole process of running experiments and publishing them often seems intriguing and fun. The challenge of out-smarting a colleague can be exciting and the trust that there are bodies and procedures in place, such as anonymous peer-review, to catch errors in methodology and interpretation, encourages confidence in the system. Unfortunately, it seems that the more time spent in academia, the more likely one is to become disappointed with the system. The prevalence of untrustworthy and biased science is troubling and ranges from minor data adjustment to extreme, and sometimes publicised, cases of fraud. Along with wasting resources on failed attempts to replicate previous findings and having potentially dangerous consequences, particularly in the case of biomedical research, these incidents distract attention away from the countless scientists dedicated to conducting objective and honest research. An illustration of the growing concern about the current state of science is the fact that one of the most downloaded technical papers from the journal PLOS Medicine—with over 800,000 views—is an essay by John Ioannidis (2005), entitled: “Why most published research findings are false”. Using simulations, Ioannidis argues that the majority of published research findings are more likely to be false than true. This is a frightening claim for anyone who understands that research is designed to build on what is already ‘known’ or rather what has been published. If the majority of what is published is in fact not true, then these false claims snowball into further misunderstanding of the true state of nature. It is important to recognise that much of the bias is introduced by well-meaning individuals, without malicious intentions. Of course, blatant cases of fraud do exist, when even prominent researchers fabricate data, but this is extremely rare. The majority of bias

is introduced sometimes unintentionally during data collection, or through selective or distorted reporting of results. The problem of misrepresented data, resulting in the inability to later replicate published findings, appears to be so widespread that some of the fault must be due to a fundamental flaw in the scientific process. The current system is designed in such a way that by putting so much pressure on scientists to get statistically significant data, it may actually be indirectly encouraging bad science. A scientist’s career and funding are almost entirely determined by what they publish, and in which journals. This, compounded by the fact that there are so few academic jobs and research grants, makes competition extremely strong. When one’s career depends on the outcome of experiments, it is understandable that a scientist is willing to do almost anything to make sure their results are publishable, even though they are aware that allowing for bias is an unethical and shortsighted approach. So what can be done? How can the system be improved in a way that encourages sound research methodology, instead of just rewarding ‘significant’ results? These issues are a hot topic of discussion among scientists and there are a few possible changes that could be made. First, we must encourage journals to move away from the policy that only positive results are good enough for publication. If a series of experiments were conducted and interpreted in a methodologically sound way, a negative result can be just as informative as a positive one. This policy feeds the problem referred to as the ‘file-drawer effect’, where many studies get conducted but not reported because their outcome was negative. If some studies show positive results, these are selectively published, and will bias the overall literature in support of the hypothesis being tested. The effect also makes it difficult to know if someone has already attempted a particular experiment because the results may not have been published. Moving away from a positive results criterion for publication would help reduce this publication bias and allow the literature to provide a more accurate description of phenomena. Recently, some journals have started to not only accept but to invite negative results, such as the All Results Journals and F1000Research. Nevertheless, more needs to be done to encourage more journals to appreciate Michaelmas 2013

Features

which may overcome this problem. Once funding bodies and employers consider archive submissions comparable to journal publications, these open access archives have the potential to replace traditional journals. Finally, institutions should require students and employees to take research ethics and methodology seminars. Ultimately, the source of the problem lies at the level of the individual researcher. We can only benefit from open discussion of the importance of scientific integrity and of the issues that undermine the foundation of science. It is also likely that having a more thorough understanding and respect for research methodology and statistical data analysis would reduce its misuse. As a young scientist, it is hard not to become discouraged, but it is important not to lose sight of the fact that there continues to be groundbreaking research, leading to robust scientific theories with huge impacts on our understanding of nature. There is a lot of exciting science going on, and numerous scientists who are committed to the truthâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the task now is to improve the system. Although daunting, institutions including the University of Cambridge are starting to make policies, such as requiring all research publications to be freely available to the public, aimed at correcting shortfalls in the system. We must now keep the momentum moving forward and find effective ways to reward sound scientific methodology, instead of only positive results.

Vissago

that negative outcomes are as important to report as positive ones. Second, it is worth considering whether an online registry for experiments should be implemented for all fields, similar to clinical trial registries used in medical research. In 2005, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors decided that no clinical trials would be considered for publication unless they were reported on the registry. Requiring researchers to submit their experimental design and hypothesis to a central database prior to collecting data would increase transparency and act as a safeguard against selective reporting, which will help to reduce the file-drawer problem. The database could also help researchers identify others who have already started working on a particular set of experiments, allowing them to choose to form a collaboration or restart with something novel. This would be an extreme move for all research fields, and would definitely burden researchers with an additional bureaucratic task, but it might be worth considering a similar but simplified type of registry for some fields. Third, all fields should consider utilising open access archives for pre-published papers, similar to those used in physics, mathematics, and astronomy. For example, arXiv.org provides a platform for scientists in certain fields to upload their research prior to being published in a scientific journal. Online archives that provide free, worldwide access to their content ameliorate the file-drawer problem, because all results can be submitted, regardless of the outcome. By reducing the pressure on scientists to get positive results, it may help to keep findings unbiased and objective. In some cases, influential papers have been published exclusively on an archive without ever appearing in a traditional journal. Arguably, a potential downside is the lack of peer-review, which is intended to serve as a safeguard against poor quality papers. However, such archives invite the readership and community to comment on submitted research,

Much published research cannot be faithfully replicated

Brianne Kent is a 3rd year PhD student at the Psychology Department

References:

Sleep: Keeping Scientists Awake at Night - http://www.newscientist.com/special/instant-expert-sleep Bug Off! - http://www.eliminatedengue.com/ Tracing Cholera - http://sickcityproject.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/john-snow-and-cholera/ No Pain, No Gain - Wall, P. & Melzack, R. (1996). The Challenge of Pain. Penguin. A Trip to the Psychiatrist - http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/186/6/457.full

Regulars

Love on the Line - DOI: 10.1177/1529100612436522 The End of Extinction? - http://www.cites.org/eng/news/pr/2013/20130314_cop16.php To the Future, or From the Past? - Aldrin, B. (2013). Mission to Mars. National Geographic Society The Bee All and End All - http://tinyurl.com/npbszc3 Standing Up For Science - http://www.nature.com/news/open-your-minds-and-share-your-results-1.10895 Game (R)evolution - http://www.knizia.de/ Michaelmas 2013

Perspective 29

Game (R)evolution

Chance and risk play a major role in many classic games

Matej Bat’ha

Reiner Knizia, mathematician and pioneer in boardgaming

30 Arts and Science

as children, we would have been accustomed to the games we played being far removed from our experience of the world. Whether it was buying properties and building hotels to bankrupt our opponents in Monopoly, aiming our missiles to sink aircraft carriers in Battleships, or even trying to fill our bellies in Hungry Hungry Hippos, the world our games were played in and the one we lived in were separate and distinct. Furthermore, the concepts and ideas in these games were never particularly complex and certainly stayed far away from themes that might scare away potential customers, such as nuclear physics or the Age of Enlightenment. It might be surprising then that a quiet revolution is coming to the world of gaming, especially boardgaming, in the form of games that dare explore deeper scientific ideas and experiences. These games are even becoming quite popular! In The New Science by designer Dirk Knemeyer, players are one of the great scientists working during the scientific revolution in 17th century Europe. In the game, players compete with their adversaries to test scientific hypotheses and make discoveries. These are then published as papers which the players use to network with the rest of the scientific world (their opponents). The player with the most prestige at the end of the game is appointed the first President of the Royal Society. The game features discoveries that follow the historical progress of knowledge in mathematics, biology, physics and astronomy with cards representing ideas such as the discovery of logarithms, or the laws of attraction. Make no mistake, playing the game is just as cut-throat as the real world of academic science. If this experience is a little bit too close to your day job, you could try The Manhattan Project by designer Brandon Tibbetts, in which you lead a great nation’s atomic weapons programme in the hope of beating your opponents to research and build better bombs. For those who prefer to work together, there is always Pandemic by designer Matt Leacock, where you play a team of scientists, researchers and logistics specialists trying to contain the outbreak of four deadly diseases around the world and to eventually discover the necessary cures. These games might explore some very new themes compared to more classic games, but that doesn’t mean that nobody is playing them. The Manhattan Project and Pandemic are ranked 213 and 47, respectively, on the largest online boardgame database boardgamegeek.com, which allows players to rate over 60,000 games (including the hundreds of different versions of Monopoly).

Therichbrooks

Matthew Dunstan examines how science has impacted the development of gaming

Science and mathematics have not just influenced games in giving them new themes; behind the scenes, these disciplines have had a much more profound impact on game design and development. The principles and systems that underpin many new games can be traced back to mathematical ideas such as graph theory and combinatorics, and an elite group of game designers are in fact mathematicians by training. The name Reiner Knizia might not be recognised by most people, but he could very well be considered the Issac Newton of the boardgaming world for his incredible contributions and output. Over a period of 20 years, Knizia has created over 500 published designs, with sales exceeding 13 million games and books worldwide. But before this, Knizia graduated from the University of Ulm with a Diploma of Mathematics, before going on to gain a Master of Science from Syracuse University and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Ulm. Furthermore, he has stated that his design approach stems in some way from his scientific background and that his games rest on fundamental principles such as risk, probability and optimisation, that he is so familiar with from his earlier studies. Another mathematician-turned game designer is Richard Garfield, who is primarily known as the inventor of the trading card game Magic: The Gathering. He actually developed the game during his graduate studies in combinatorial mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, with his fellow students acting as playtesters for the game. Not predicting the game’s future success, Garfield took up a position as Professor of Mathematics at Whitman College, Washington in 1993, the same year Magic was released. However, he ended up Michaelmas 2013

DAN__DAN

leaving academia altogether the following year once the game took off. Like Knizia, Garfield has spoken about how his background inspired him to design a game that involved both strategy and chance and how the combination of these two principles led to an engaging game. Considering that 20 years and over 10,000 unique cards later Magic is still going strong, it seems that a more scientific approach to game design might be the secret to their success. Science has influenced both the themes and appearance of games, as well as their construction, but it is now also enabling the emergence of entirely new forms of games. With the prevalence of smartphones and GPS access, these scientific and technological developments are spawning a new class of location-based games, far beyond the simple checking-in at a location such as that seen in Foursquare. One of the pioneers in this field is Geocaching, in which players first hide ‘caches’ (usually small plastic boxes filled with a logbook and various other small items) anywhere in the world and then post the GPS coordinates of the cache’s location on a website, geocaching.com. Other players can then log on to the website, get the coordinates and try to find the cache, signing the logbook for posterity when they do and sometimes swapping an item that is in the cache. There are even specific items with barcodes that can be tracked as they move from cache to cache, sometimes circling the globe via the hands of multiple willing geocachers.

Recently, even Google entered the arena with their world domination game Ingress. Players are split into teams with the goal of claiming portals, which are real world locations tracked via a smartphone. Linking the captured portals creates control fields which earns ‘Mind Units’ depending on the regions’ population. These games are only the beginning of what is possible, and this style of real world, immersive experiences may be giving us a glimpse of the gaming of the future. In any case, the myriad possibilities available by mixing existing analog and digital game forms, as well as entirely new technologies based on virtual realities, mean the gaming revolution is far from over.

ingress is a multiplayer game by Google that uses location data in real time

Matthew Dunstan is a 3rd year PhD student at the Department of Chemistry

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Weird and Wonderful A selection of the wackiest research in the world of science A Novel Marriage Proposal coming up with an original way to propose to your

partner can be pretty hard. However, an Australian physicist has come up with a novel solution by proposing to his girlfriend through a scientific paper. The paper, inspired by the classic physics problem involving the gravitational forces of two independent objects, was posted to the website Reddit and entitled ‘Two body interactions: a longitudinal study’. It describes the investigation of a two body interaction over a period of time in a variety of locations, starting at a ‘SciSoc BBQ in March 2005’. The author then explains that the second phase of the study involved the two ‘bodies’ being based in a number of ‘local, interstate and international’ locations. The paper also describes how they were subjected to a two-week separation and discusses the effects of martial arts training. In addition, a graph of ‘happiness versus time’ is included, showing an upward trend and even a future prediction of continued happiness. Concluding, the author ‘proposes to Christie the indefinite continuation of the study’. Luckily it appears that Christie (full names were redacted) is also a physicist and appreciated the creative nature of the proposal… she accepted! lp

are immune to a wide range of toxins and venoms due to a unique protein found within their blood. This protein—labelled rather inventively as Lethal Toxin Neutralising Factor (LTNF)—gives resistance to toxins produced by organisms ranging from snakes to bacteria and from plants to sea cucumbers. When mice were treated with LTNF 30 minutes before or after administration of a normally lethal dose of various toxins, there was a 100 per cent survival rate. LTNF provides the possibility of a universal antitoxin/antivenom with greater range and fewer side effects than the horse protein based anti-venoms currently in use. ns

Boy or Girl? it may be expected that there is an equal chance of either gender being born, but on average a slight majority of babies are male. The sex ratio, defined as the number of males per female in the population, is

Think of All the Opossumbilities! nature has a variety of animals that can be described

as ‘badass’: lions, crocodiles, and honey badgers to name but a few. The list is broad and varies from person to person, though even the most optimistic people are unlikely to include the opossum. These western marsupials, most famous for playing dead, are often considered the butt of nature’s jokes. However, revisited research initiated 15 years ago shows that opossums

32 Weird and Wonderful

1.05 at birth for the UK and America. However the lower life expectancy of males means that the ratio in the overall population is 0.99 in the UK and 0.93 in America. The trend is not universal —factors such as selective abortion in places like India and China or deaths during labour mean that worldwide we see a very slight majority of males. Interestingly, we see a decrease in the number of boys born during stressful conditions like famine, mass unemployment and earthquakes. An explanation for this may be that more male foetuses die before birth when the mother is stressed; despite being more likely to be conceived, male foetuses are often frailer. The males which are born (the stronger ones) tend to live a little longer than average males. However, during a major war we see a slight increase in the number of boys born. This is odd, as wars generally involve high-stress conditions. Why male foetuses are generally frailer and why wars should cause more to be born is still debated. rl

Illustrations by www.alexhahnillustrator.com

Michaelmas 2013

Name: Matilda Hay, Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge Subjects taught: KS3 & KS4–Biology, Chemistry and Physics, KS5 Biology Current job title: Masters in Science Media Production, Imperial College What was your motivation for applying for Teach First? I always wanted to be a teacher but thought it might be more of a second career; working with children and being a figure of inspiration at that critical stage in their life is just such a privilege. Then I saw the Teach First Leadership Development Programme and I really liked what it entailed so I figured I´d just go for it now. I liked the challenge (and efficiency) of completing the PGCE whilst teaching, and having the opportunity to develop so many key skills that are integral to any work place or project that you want to accomplish. I was also motivated by the fact that we teach in schools in challenging circumstances, because as someone who was privately educated I wanted to share the education I was lucky enough to receive with others! What was your most memorable moment? There were so many; probably my GCSE class’s first exam results sat in November (I had only been teaching for two months). They had all done pretty well! I was so happy I hadn´t let them down, I literally skipped the whole way home, it was the best feeling. What were your highlights of teaching science for two years? • The relationships I built with my classes. Some of them I taught for the whole two years and you really care about your students. Some of them were truly inspirational and it´s fun imagining what they´ll all be doing when they´re older. • Debates about ethical issues, the class always came up with some amazing points. • Sharing my love of science documentaries and the glories of David Attenborough. • Seeing students take on board feedback you´d given them and really improve. • Discussing possible science careers with those who were interested. Briefly explain what you are doing now? I’ve always wanted to get into science documentary production. I’m going to be studying Science Media Production at Imperial College London. Hopefully after that I will be working for a production company or (the dream) at the BBC. How do you think Teach First helped you? My experience in the classroom helped get my place and the funding for my course. I am moving into Science Communication through TV/radio but I have actually been communicating science for two years in my classroom. I have experience with what engages children and common misconceptions they fall into. The Leadership Development Programme has also given me a lot more confidence in my own ability and improved my time management. Which opportunities did you take advantage of to develop yourself? I took part in coaching which was great and although I didn´t do an official summer project, I was able to organise my own relevant work experience through a Teach First ambassador. I attended all the Leadership Development workshops and found the theory of leadership and self-management particularly interesting and useful. How do you remain connected with the vision? I hope to take part in the HEAPS programme next year and I am always happy to advice new participants thinking of applying.

If you would like to find out more about how you could make a difference like Matilda, please get in touch with the Cambridge graduate recruitment officer Charlotte (charlotte.edwards@teachfirst.org.uk)

> more info at www.teachfirst.org.uk

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