BlueSci Issue 46 - Michaelmas 2019

Michaelmas 2019 Issue 46 www.bluesci.co.uk

Cambridge University science magazine

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The Quest for Immortality

Mirror Universes . Aliens Real-Life Vampires . Mind Control

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Program

Contents

Cambridge University science magazine

Features

Regulars

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On the Cover 2 News 4 Reviews 5

The Turing Test Reimagined Charlotte Zemmel explores artificial intelligence and whether we can really make a machine that thinks 8

Shifting Control: Brain-to-Brain Interfaces Abigail Wilkinson explores whether two brains can become one, mind control and the technological singularity 10

Love at First Bite

FOCUS

Bryony Yates investigates the origins of haematophagy and the curious world of the vampire bat

The Quest for Immortality

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Mushrooms, Modern Therapeutics and the Psychedelic renaissance Jonathon Turnbull and Andrew Malcolm discuss the history and potential of psilocybin from the cultural to the medicinal 14

Oscillations into the Upside Down Maeve Madigan discusses how a ‘mirror universe’ of particles might solve puzzles at the frontier of particle physics 22

Global Warning

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Nicole Torreli and Leia Judge discuss recent advances in extending lifespan and the explores the question of whether we truly want to 28

Is There Anybody Out There?

Lucy Hart asks whether aliens exist and where we can find them

Seán Herron explores whether hidden naratives of pop culture can be applied in our approach to the world’s most direct PAVILION: 50 years in Space threat BlueSci showcase a number of novel lunar panorama images released to celebrate the The Moon Landing Faked? What Lunarcy! anniversary of Apollo 11 Jake Rose investigates the science and society of conspiracy theories

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Weird and Wonderful

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An Expanding Mystery Philip Clarke explores issues surrounding the current physical understanding of the Big Bang

Super geeks, indestructible worms and bubbles, we delve once again into the strangest of the strange

President: Seán Thór Herron ����������������������������������������������������������������������� president@bluesci.co.uk Managing Editors: Alexander Bates, Laura Nunez-Mulder.........managing-editor@bluesci.co.uk 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.co.uk, 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

Secretary: Mrittunjoy Majumdar.......................................... �������������������������enquiries@bluesci.co.uk Treasurer: Atreyi Chakrabarty �������������������������������������������������������������� membership@bluesci.co.uk Film Editor: Tanja Fuchsberger ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ film@bluesci.co.uk Radio: Emma Werner.............................................................................................radio@bluesci.co.uk News Editor: Elsa Loissel �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������news@bluesci.co.uk Web Editor: Elsa Loissel.............................................................................web-editor@bluesci.co.uk Webmaster: Adina Wineman.....................................................................webmaster@blueci.co.uk Art Editor: Serene Dhawan.........................................................................art-editor@bluesci.co.uk

Contents

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Issue 46 Michaelmas 2019 Issue Editor: Serene Dhawan Managing Editors: Alex Bates, Laura Nunez-Mulder Second editors: Matt Wright, Ming Yang, Chisato Tsuji, Brian Zhao, Nik Drummond, Sarah Lindsay, Ruoh Wen Chong, Christopher Cheng, Charlene Tang, Dan Sayle,Will Moody, Chioma Vivian Ngonadi, Haz Lim, Bao Xiu Tan, Brendah Beh, Salvador Buse, Matthew Harris, Maya Petek, Selin Zeyrek, Philip Leung, Roxy Francombe, Andrew Malcolm, Seán Thór Herron, Serene Dhawan Art Editor: Andrew Malcolm News Team: Eva Higginbotham, Josie Gaynord, Serene Dhawan Reviews: Xanthe Malcolm, Azmaeen Zarif, Rachel Fox Feature Writers: Charlotte Zemmel, Abigail Wilkinson, Bryony Yates, Jonathon Turnbull, Andrew Malcolm, Maeve Madigan, Seán Herron, Jake Rose, Philip Clark, Lucy Hart Focus Team: Nicole Torreli, Leia Judge Weird and Wonderful: David Garbutt, Matthew Harris, Bryony Yates Production Team: Andrew Malcolm, Seán Thór Herron, Serene Dhawan Caption Writer: Andrew Malcolm Copy Editors: Seán Thór Herron, Serene Dhawan, Laura Nunez-Munder Advertiser: Christina Turner Illustrators: Lucy Hart, Evan Hamilton, Rosanna Rann, Sam Mills, Eva Pillai, Darren Wong, Alex Hahn, Serene Dhawan, Andrew Malcolm Cover Image: Nataly Martynyuk

ISSN 1748-6920

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.

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Editorial

Where Science Meets Fiction IT’S 2019 AND my car won’t fly, time travel exists only as a convenient plot device, and the supercomputer we call ‘Earth’ has still not revealed why 42 is the meaning of life. Nonetheless, over the last century elements of popular fiction have increasingly begun creeping their way off our pages and screens into our lives. In this issue we explore the intersection of fantasy and reality, examining the scientific plausibility of various pop culture phenomenon.

Inspired by Voldemort’s quest for eternal life, Nicole Torelli & Leia Judge discuss modern scientific endeavours to engineer immortality and reflect upon the chilling implications of a society that can live forever. Continuing this theme of technological innovations paving the way towards a dystopian future, Abigail Wilkinson examines how the unsettling possibility of mind control is being facilitated by sophisticated brain-to-brain interfaces. Meanwhile, Charlotte Zemmel explains why one day machines will possess true human-like intelligence. Changing track to explore the staple creatures of pop fiction, Bryony Yates demystifies the real-life vampires of the Americas whilst Lucy Hart attempts to answer the age-old question of whether aliens really exist.

Also within these pages: Philip Clarke & Maeve Madigan challenge our understanding of the universe itself with their thought-provoking pieces on cosmic expansion and the existence of parallel dimensions. Shifting the focus back down to earth, Sean Herron argues that winter really is coming and explores how science communication efforts can better convey the threat that climate change poses to all of us. Meanwhile, Jonathon Turnbull & Andrew Malcolm invite us to consider the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs in treating various mental health issues.

Finally, Jake Rose examines what happens when our imaginations are allowed to run rampant, giving us a tour of prevalent scientific conspiracy theories and their origins.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy asserts that “if there’s any real truth, it’s that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs.”

After reading this issue, what do you believe?

Serene Dhawan Issue Editor #46

Art this issue WHAT STRUCK ME about this issue's theme is the stark interconnectedness of science and pop-culture, particularly in today's climate of instant consumption.

I think the art in this issue reflects this with ambitious contemporary takes on the themes thorughout each article. On the cover, we find a stunning piece of work by Nataly Martynyuk showcasing the fragility of time and our desperate reach for control over it. Inside we see the anthropomorphism of the machine by Lucy Hart, bleak dystopian portrayals of our interaction with technology from Evan Hamilton, and illustrations of our true vampire counterparts by Rosanna Rann. The fabulous illustrations for this issues focus come from Darren Wong, capturing the wisping fleeting nature of time in his images. Elsewhere, we see trippy fungi by Sam Mills, urgent climate calls and mirror universes by Eva Pillai, alien worlds by Serene Dhawan and a celebration of the centennial anniversary of the Bauhaus school of art and the Apollo 11 landing in our later articles Andrew Malcolm Art Editor Michaelmas 2019

News The Royal Society of Chemistry publishes

Mimicking the mimicker: Scientists

report on gender equality

develop artificial ‘chameleon skin’

in the uk women make up just 22% of the STEM workforce,

just as a

and a ‘leaky pipeline’ is to blame for the lack of progression and retention of women in the chemical sciences. In response to this, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) have published a report, ‘Breaking the Barriers’. Based on responses from researchers working in academic and industrial roles, the RSC have explored the challenges women face and created a fivepoint action plan to address the current gender imbalance as the UK’s professional body for the chemical sciences.

The stark facts are that the number of women in chemistry drops from 44% at undergraduate level to just 9% in senior academic roles. The RSC predict that if the current rate of change continues, gender parity will never be achieved. Amongst the issues that disproportionately affect women, an environment of bullying and harassment was highlighted. Also mentioned was the prevalence of shortterm contracts which create job uncertainty and unnecessary pressure, particularly for researchers with young families.

In their five-point action plan, the RSC have called for institutions to be open about their lack of transparency regarding recruitment and promotion practices. They are also lobbying the government for shared parental leave and putting pressure on funding bodies to review funding allocation. The report has been warmly received by the scientific community as it stresses that institutional and cultural barriers are to blame for the leaky pipeline, as opposed to a difference in scientific ability or ambition between the genders. JG

chameleon mimics the colours of its environment, scientists strive to imitate the natural world. Chameleons achieve their glamorous skin displays by manipulating pigments and nanocrystals in specialist cells called chromatophores. However, most human efforts to replicate this process so far work only on the macroscale and rely on electrical input. In August, the Baumberg lab at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, reported the development of an artificial chromatophore ‘skin’ that changes colour when exposed to heat or light. Gold nanoparticles are wrapped in engineered polymer shells and loaded into water-in-oil microdroplets, which will reversibly clump together or spread out. The nanoparticles’ aggregateor-separate behaviour is key to the material’s colour changing ability. When cold, the microdroplets spring away from each other and the material appears greyish and transparent.

However, above 32°C the nanoparticles bind together tightly and the material appears red. This dramatic colour shift with increased temperature can be manipulated to be red-to-blue by changing light conditions. As the individual chromatophores can be selectively illuminated and repeatedly cycled through colour changes, this technology represents a huge leap forward in the field. We are now one step closer to everyone’s shared dream: a real-life invisibility cloak! EH

Check out www.bluesci.co.uk, our Facebook page or @BlueSci on Twitter for regular science news and updates

Sinking to a new low: Attempts to resurrect the Titanic the RMS Titanic is perhaps the most well-known maritime tragedy of all time. Today, eccentric Australian billionaire Clive Palmer plans to build and sail a near-identical replica of the doomed vessel on its original maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Whilst the Titanic II will retain its predecessor’s period architecture and lavish fittings, the new ship will purportedly boast a hull manufactured from welded steel alloys to circumvent brittle fracture in the event of low temperatures or a high impact collision. It will also have an improved navigational control centre. Palmer is not alone in his controversial endeavour to resurrect what some see as a relic of past colonial decadence. the sinking of

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News

In China’s Sichuan province, efforts by the Seven Star Energy Investment Group to revive the Titanic as a non-functional, centrepiece tourist attraction are also well underway.

Reactions have been mixed. History buffs and cult-fans of James Cameron’s 1997 epic blockbuster rejoice at the prospect of seeing the Titanic brought to life once more, but many others have adopted more sceptical positions. Charles Haas, president of the Titanic International Society argues that “we commemorate tragedies, not duplicate them” whilst Sarah Rense of Esquire Magazine has more bluntly termed these projects a failed “Darwinian test for humankind”. SD

Michaelmas 2019

Reviews The Science of Discworld

Terry Pratchett; Ian Stewart; Jack Cohen

Perhaps it was inevitable that the Discworld series would spawn a pop-science mini-series. This sprawling fantasy that satirises our own world as well as the tropes of the genre is hugely popular and makes frequent playful nods to scientific concepts. Pratchett teams up with mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen, both well-known science writers, to explore the science of our own universe, casting light on this through comparison to the Discworld.

Chapters alternate between a Discworld story in which the wizards of the Unseen University accidentally create a universe (ours, of course) which inexplicably runs on physical rules rather than magic or narrative imperative, and a discussion of scientific concepts relating to that story. Spanning cosmology, anthropology, geology, psychology, thermodynamics, evolution and more, the scope of the scientific chapters is impressive; they are also highly readable in style, and generally well-explained. The discussions in the second book, The Globe, of the history of science and at what point the label ‘science’ becomes appropriate, were particularly well executed. Sometimes, the age of the books shows, as the first two were written nearly twenty years ago – in the chapters about cosmology, the authors tell us that recent evidence suggests that the (now observed) Higgs boson ‘probably doesn’t exist’, and sound highly sceptical of dark matter and dark energy, which was still being referred to as ‘quintessence’, both of which are now very widely accepted to exist – but overall they are certainly an enjoyable read, especially for fans of the Discworld series. XM

Factfulness

Hans Rosling; Ola Rosling; Anna Rosling Rönnlund

Do you think you know more about the world than a chimpanzee? In the first chapter of Factfulness, Hans Rosling shows us that on his “chimpanzee test” – a set of 10 multiple choice questions about global issues – people, irrespective of background, score worse than chimpanzees choosing randomly would. In fact, Nobel laureates and medical researchers give the most inaccurate answers of all. The answers we choose are always worse than reality.

Over the course of the book, Rosling details 10 biases that cause us to interpret the world in such a gloomy light.

For instance, “The Gap instinct” causes us to focus on the gap between the best and worst data and disregard the middle, despite the fact that is where most of the data usually lies. Such an instinct drives us to divide the world into harmful binaries, in particular, the “developed” and “developing” world. By using global health, economic and education data throughout to illustrate these misconceptions, you can adjust your worldview as you read. Though the facts of the world prove to be more positive than you expect, Rosling highlights work that still needs to be done.

He conveys an earnest hope that focus on facts can lead to change. It is a delightful read – leaving you feeling better informed and offering an antidote to the apathy one can feel about the prospects of improving global issues. RF

Milner Therapeutics Symposium

@TheMilner Inst 2019

The Milner Therapeutics Symposium started with a selection of excellent morning talks. These covered topics including the monitoring of human organs through 3D conducting polymer electrodes and the re-conceptualisation of Biology within a computational model. A fascinating talk by The Inflamed Mind’s Prof. Bullmore followed discussing the novel strides within neuroscience of looking at the mind, brain and body from the viewpoint of the immune system. The final talk before lunch was delivered by Prof. Aznar-Benitah and, personally, was the most interesting. His group’s focus on the epigenetic influence of our fatty diet on metastasis-initiating cells provided a grim outlook as to the impact of palmitic acid, a common ingredient of multiple foodstuffs, for cancer metastasis.

Perusing posters and scoffing sandwiches silenced my judgemental epigenome and revived me for the chosen parallel seminar on Oncology. Whilst the talks lasted for only 15 minutes each, they provided a comprehensive overview whilst covering an astonishing breadth from cytotoxic T cells as Cancer Assassins to Oncometabolism and Chemoprevention. The day concluded with an industry-focused start-ups and investments workshop aimed at senior academics. The symposium stuck true to its focus of transforming therapeutics in the years to come and left me eager to explore the completely novel areas of research I had been introduced to. With brilliant academics delivering accessible talks on ground-breaking discoveries with implications ranging further from health and medicine to wider society and the economy, there could not have been a better launch to Cambridge BioTech Week 2019. AZ

Michaelmas 2019

Reviews

5

The Turing Test Reimagined Charlotte Zemmel explores artificial intelligence and whether we can really make a machine that thinks the most widely known way of judging whether a machine is intelligent is the Turing Test. This test was first expressed in Alan Turing’s monumental paper, C ​ omputing Machinery and Intelligence (Mind​1950). Here, Turing tries to answer the question “Can machines think?” by rephrasing it to, ‘can we create a machine that passes the Turing Test?’. This article aims to explore the Turing test, and examine whether passing the test is a real indication of true Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Contemporary society is obsessed with creating true artificial intelligence. Ever since computers were first conceptualised by pioneers such as Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, humanity has been plagued by the question, ‘can we make a machine that thinks?’. The reason we have such a desire to answer this question, in my opinion, is to understand what makes us who we are. It is believed that our extended cognitive abilities are what sets us apart from every other organism on the planet, but no one has been able to truly quantify what that extended cognition is.

We are so close to solving the secrets of AI and this is seen with the advancement of machine learning techniques which create devices that can identify cancer, translate books, and replicate voices and locate terror threats.

Understanding the cause of our own innate intelligence is a philosophical pursuit essential to how we can decide whether our new mechanical friends are intelligent too.

What is the Turing test? | The general idea behind the Turing test is that if a machine can convince a human that it is a human too, then it has passed the test. This test thus comprises of a human component and a subject. The human asks the subject a series of questions and engages in general conversation with it. The human discusses a multitude of topics that they feel would best represent an intelligent conversation with a human and then decides whether the subject is a human or a machine based on the subject’s responses. If the subject is a machine but passed the Turing test, then Turing argues that is has a strong probability of possessing true artificial intelligence. If we want to design an AI machine, then modelling it based on a theoretical machine that would pass this test is a good 6

The Turing Test Reimagined

place to start. It is important to note that in classical Turing tests the human component is forbidden from seeing the subject as it would appear. However, the idea of a subject that the human component can physically interact with, is an interesting but separate conceptualisation of the Turing Test. The 2014 film E ​ x Machina ​explores this possibility.

So far, no computer has passed the Turing test (bar several instances of cheating), but most AI developers believe it will be passed in our lifetime. The question “can we build a machine that can pass the Turing test?” is all but redundant.

Michaelmas 2019

It is now the time to turn our attention to the arguably even more pressing question, “if a machine c​ an t​hink, would we ever really know?”.

The Turing test reimagined | Having a single human assess whether a machine is human-like enough and decide if it can think seems elusive from the scientific method which focused on repeatability and controls. I propose a slight amendment to the test that I believe will constitute a true test for AI and that is ​for the AI machine to be the human component in the test​.

To understand why this amendment would be a significantly better test, let’s analyse what goes on inside a human being. The key point is that humans could assess intelligence because they believe that they possess intelligence. This is what qualifies someone to be the human component in the test. Therefore, it seems logical to assume that if an AI really does have intelligence, then it too has the qualifications to be the human component!

To recognise intelligence, a human component needs a large database of past human-human interactions and the ability to formulate her own answers to the questions she is asking the subject. Under the Turing test, the only way to test for intelligence is to have intelligent examiners and to put the subject in the position of the examiners and then see the outcome!

Putting it to the test | So, what will happen when we make our potential AI the examiner? There are 4 possibilities: 1. The subject is a machine and the potential AI chooses to vote ‘human’ in the test. Ah, back to the drawing board, I guess. Our creation clearly does not possess the kind of intelligence that allows it to recognise intelligence in others.

2. The subject is a machine and the potential AI chooses ‘machine’. The AI can recognise the subject’s inferior cognitive abilities with respect to itself. This provides evidence towards the potential that it has intelligence and recognises it, therefore knowing that the machine does not have what it does have.

Another argument presented against the ability for machines to ever have human-like intelligence is that machines can’t make mistakes. Therefore, an error in the diagnosis of a subject is not enough to write off the machine.

My proposal for a deeper test of the machine’s human qualities is to ask it to take part in hundreds of thousands of Turing tests, being the human component of course, and to compare its frequency of correct diagnoses with other human components in similar tests. If the AI performs at the same level as the humans, surely it does have human like intelligence and a mind of its own that it can use to try and probe others! If it performs significantly better, perhaps we have created a machine with intelligence that surpasses our own! If it performs significantly weaker, then maybe we aren’t there yet.

“The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.”

- Alan Turing The final question | The question “can we make a machine that can think?” seems to have a unanimous answer of “yes”. The question “if we did have a machine that can think, how would we ever know?” - I believe this question has been answered above.

Finally, we should be concerned about the ethics of having artificial, but equally intelligent, creatures roam around us.

Should artificial intelligent beings be considered living beings with rights? Will our courts one day encompass laws regarding the conduct of robots? Will our prisons be filled with robot offenders? Human beings have claimed the superiority of their lives over all other life forms on the planet on the basis of their superior intellect and cognitive abilities. If they have created creatures with equally as advanced brains, they should enjoy the same splendour of being at the top of the food chain and have the freedom to live in a civilised society Charlotte Zemmel is a third year Natural Sciences student at Newnham College. Art by Lucy Hart.

3. The subject is a human and the AI votes ‘machine’.

4. The subject is a human and the AI votes ‘human’. This means the AI has asked the human a series of questions, processed her replies and compare the replies with what it would expect other humans to say based on past encounters with humans, compared her replies with what the AI itself would expect to answer.

Michaelmas 2019

The Turing Test Reimagined

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Shifting Control: Brain - to - Brain Inter faces Abigail Wilkinson explores mind-control and whether two brains can become one IS BLACK MIRROR about to become reality?

As many of us know, Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror is an exploration of possible technological innovations and the (often dystopian) futures that they could lead to. One recurring theme in Black Mirror is the idea of communication via some form of brain-to-brain interface (BBI). In San Junipero, Brooker explores a future development in nostalgia therapy. Patients visit a virtual world via a brain-machine interface and live out parts of an alternative past alongside other patients, or even communicate with passed loved ones. This brain-to-machine-to-brain interface is a type of BBI, which isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem.

This is certainly a step forward in the area of BBIs, but does a simple binary decision being transmitted over a network really constitute the Black Mirror comparison? Prior to this, many brain-machine interfaces existed. For example, at the University of Bradford in 2017, Computer Scientists were investigating the use of continuous electroencephalography (EEG) readings to control a virtual representation of emotion with the user’s brain signals, and to control small robots racing around a predetermined track. These are examples of information flowing from brain to machine.

Information can also flow the other way using computer generated signals to stimulate particular areas of the brain. Combining these two types of interface to create one BBI sounds relatively simple, right? Until the following study was completed, not many investigations had focused on this particular area.

Early last year, members of Zhejiang University showed that “rat cyborgs could be smoothly and successfully navigated by the human mind to complete a navigation task in a complex maze”.

This, in short, means the motor intent of the human 8

Shifting Control: Brain-to-Brain Interfaces

(i.e. which way to turn in the maze) was successfully transmitted to a computer, the signals were processed and retransmitted to the rat cyborg in a form that it would understand. The rat then moved with the human’s intent. It is worth noting that this communication was performed wirelessly, whereas the previous BBI involved wired connections between each EEG device. This experiment was especially impressive considering that, in order to Michaelmas 2019

navigate the rat through the maze, a continuous stream of data from the human brain would be needed. Any lapse in the human brain signals would cause the rat’s own conscience to take over and possibly move in a different direction.

Combining the two technologies could lead to some terrifyingly Black Mirror-like situations.

Presumably, this would first be picked up as some kind of defence technology: cutting the cost of actually training a soldier, and instead mindcontrolling them, would undoubtedly be favourable.

Then, what if members of society were mindcontrolled by the elite? This technology could easily be used to control one’s thoughts rather than, or in addition to, one’s physical actions. People could be forced to perform awful actions against their will, leading to a whole new area of debate.

“rat cyborgs could be smoothly and successfully navigated by the human mind to complete a navigation task in a complex maze” Heading back to San Junipero, towards the end of the episode it is revealed that users of the technology can choose to upload their conscience to the network after they pass, keeping them ‘alive’ for the foreseeable future. Whether this would ever be possible is somewhat questionable, considering the billions of neurons that would need to be preserved, each with thousands of connections. In addition to this, it is unclear as to how much data would need to be stored to represent a single neuron, but, assuming that only one bit of information would need to be stored for each connection, one human brain would take zettabytes (ZB) to store (i.e. billions of terabytes). To put this amount into perspective, it is predicted that by 2020 there will be a total of 40 ZB in our digital universe. Storing the state of a brain digitally is clearly not feasible with the current level of data storage, and is not likely to be for a very, very, long time.

original, but to make them think, act and have the same memories, as the original would suffer from the same data storage problem as uploading the mind to the cloud.

The video-game theme continues in Striking Vipers: two friends innocently playing a futuristic version of Street Fighter soon turns into a question of morals. The friends take the idea of role-playing in virtual reality to another level when they begin to experiment with their gender and sexuality. This brings to light a few possible issues that could spring from playing online video games in virtual reality: is it morally acceptable to cheat on someone in VR? Should violence in VR games be toned down due to the risk of normalising violence? We are most likely currently walking down an Ender’s game path of using VR to control weapons of mass destruction, making the act of destroying civilisation into some kind of game.

Let us remember that with each new development in technology, that there will be a potential Black Mirror-esque future involving it. We must do our best to put the necessary precautions in place Abigail Wilkinson is a second year Computer Scientist at Queens’ College. Art by Evan Hamilton IG: @ wearelostbecareful

Moving on from San Junipero, USS Callister explores the use of BBIs across a massive multiplayer online game. It uses the same type of technology for the actual BBI: humans communicating via their virtual presence in a virtual universe. The added caveat with this episode is that the creator of this game is able to create virtual clones of his colleagues by harvesting their DNA, which is clearly very unethical. Whilst a physical clone of a human being is already technically possible, whether it would be ethically right to do so is another question. Creating a digital clone of a human being would be somewhat harder; it is possible to create one that looks like the Michaelmas 2019

Shifting Control: Brain-to-Brain Interfaces

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Love at First Bite Bryony Yates investigates the origins of haematophagy and the curious world of the vampire bat

vampires are a staple of modern horror fiction.

Although vampire folklore probably has roots as far back as ancient Egypt, it is largely Bram Stoker’s famous Gothic novel, Dracula (published in 1897) that initiated the public’s thirst for vampire stories. Because Stoker gave Dracula the ability to shapeshift into bat form, bats are now almost synonymous with vampires, Halloween and horror.

While a bloodthirsty reputation is not deserved by the vast majority of the over 1,300 species of bats, there are three species of vampire bats that do, as the name suggests, feed exclusively on blood (known as sanguivorous behaviour). All three species are native to South and Central America and 18th century European scientists named them “vampire” after the myth.

Despite their fearsome reputation, vampire bats have been the subject of varied scientific research programmes. These are shedding light onto the evolution, behaviour and physiology of these real-life vampires.

DECODING THE VAMPIRES’ SUPERPOWER | Life as a vampire is harder than one might expect. Blood may be Dracula’s favourite food, but as a nutrient source, it is far from ideal. Blood is mostly composed of water, and although it is rich in some nutrients, such as protein, it contains very low levels of carbohydrates and vitamins. To get enough nutrients, "If there's a bat might consume the equivalent of half its body-weight one thing in blood in a single feed. The extra weight means the bat is real vampires grounded until it has shed most of this weight, which it does seem to have by rapidly processing its meal and expelling urine within two in common, minutes of starting to feed. Blood-borne parasites, blood it is their viscosity and clotting also present difficulties, while the high reluctance to protein and iron content of blood would be toxic if not dealt tell the world with. about who, and what, they are."

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Vampire bats take these challenges in their stride, thanks to many remarkable physiological traits. These include an excellent immune system, specialised digestive and kidney functions and compounds in their saliva that maintain blood supply (see “Vampires and Medicine” below). They have infrared sensors around their nose to locate blood vessels in their prey and their highly sensitive hearing can detect breathing sounds. Last year, the Common Vampire Bat (Desmodus rotundus) genome was sequenced: every letter in their DNA code is now known. This allows us to ask lots of questions about how these special traits evolved.

Love at First Bite

A study in Nature Ecology & Evolution probed this very topic. The researchers found a possible role for small DNA sequences, known as transposable elements (or, more colloquially, as “jumping genes”). These can move around the genome and insert within or near genes, possibly affecting their function. These transposable elements were frequently found near genes involved in the bat immune response, viral defence and nutrient metabolism, all of which are functions that have become specialised to support the bats’ blood diet.

A comparison of the vampire-bat genome with the genomes of non-vampire bats has found several genes that have undergone interesting evolutionary changes. Some of these genes have clearly been favoured during vampire bat evolution. These included a gene involved in nutrient starvation (LAMTOR5), suggesting that their metabolism has adapted to their low-nutrient diet. Other genes have evolved particularly quickly, undergoing more changes than their counterparts in other species. This suggests the functions of these genes have changed to become more specialised. These include the fatty acid receptor FFAR1 (which supports glucose homeostasis) and several genes involved in the disposal of toxic nitrogen waste (produced during the breakdown of proteins).

The bats also get help from friendly bacteria. Like all animals, vampire bats are teeming with microbes and the DNA of the gut bacteria (taken from samples of poo) has revealed the importance of this association. A DNA sequencing project found a wealth of microbe genes that respond to low nutrients and synthesise vitamins. By contrast, many copies of the core energy metabolism genes were faulty.

This suggests the microbes have evolved to thrive despite low levels of nutrients and support the bats to do the same. There are also bacteria that may protect their hosts from pathogens.

Interestingly, the Borrelia and Bartonella species of bacteria were much more abundant in the Common Vampire Bat, relative to other bats, and these are known to be transmitted by blood-sucking insects, such as ticks and mosquitoes. This suggests that these bacteria may be a feature of sanguivorous animals more generally.

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VAMPIRE SOCIAL LIVES | It’s not just the vampire bats’ genes and physiology that reflect their lifestyle - it also affects their social behaviour. Vampire bats are one of the few documented cases of reciprocal altruism among non-humans.

This behaviour is neatly summed up by the saying “you scratch my back, I scratch yours”, but instead of scratching backs, the bats regurgitate blood to other bats they roost with. This may sound unpleasant, but it is life-saving – a bat will die after a mere 70hrs without food. Bats are more likely to feed hungry bats that have frequently fed them in the past. Previous feeding interactions are even more important at determining future behaviour than how closely-related the bats are. Helping other bats in the present therefore pays off in future times of need.

The bats use calls to recognise food-sharing partners from a distance which allows them to maintain stable food-sharing relationships even when switching between roosts.

VAMPIRES AND MEDICINE | While vampire bats are interesting in their own right, they (specifically, their saliva) could save human lives. Stroke is the fourth biggest killer in the UK, with more than 100,000 occurring every year. Most strokes are ischaemic: caused by blood clots within blood vessels that block blood supply to the brain. Blood clotting (or “coagulation”) is also a problem for vampire bats, which need to keep the prey’s blood flowing during feeding. To prevent blood clotting, the bat saliva contains at least two anticoagulant toxins: DSPA (D.rotundus salivary plasminogen activator) and the delightfully named, draculin. DSPA breaks up clots, whereas draculin inhibits the signalling process that triggers clotting. These properties could be useful for treating and/or preventing strokes and heart attacks.

The list of potentially useful substances is growing, with the recent discovery of a bat protein resembling CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide), a protein found in humans and other mammals. CGRP causes dilation of the blood vessels and so too does its bat counterpart. This suggests that it could be useful for treating cardiovascular diseases such as heart failure and hypertension. More research is required to assess the function, safety and effectiveness of these various substances, so it may be some time until vampire-based remedies hit the pharmacy shelves.

VAMPIRE HUNTERS | Sadly, it’s not all good news for our real-life vampires. Just as Dracula has Van Helsing, our vampire bats also have their enemies. The bats carry the rabies virus and are responsible for outbreaks of the disease in livestock and even humans. Because of this, these bats are widely persecuted in their native countries. Although bat culls are intended to prevent the spread of rabies, they have little effect and may even be counterproductive - culling could cause the surviving bats to disperse and transmit the virus to neighbouring colonies.

So how can we protect people and livestock from the threat of vampire bats? Stakes and garlic won’t be much help, but an oral

rabies vaccine shows promise. The vaccine is applied to the bat’s fur and ingested by its roost-mates when they groom each-other. However, there are no immediate plans to start vaccinating. More research into vampire bat ecology and behaviour is needed in order to find solutions regarding their conflict with humans.

Thanks to this wide body of research, our real-life vampires are becoming much less mysterious than their mythical counterparts. Rather than fear, these misunderstood creatures deserve our attention and protection Bryony Yates is a fourth year Natural Sciences student at Newnham College. Art by Rosanna Rann.

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Love at First

Mushrooms, Modern Therapeutics and the Psychedelic Renaissance

Jonathon Turnbull and Andrew Malcolm discuss the history and potential of psilocybin from the cultural to the medicinal popular culture, both secretly and overtly. From The Beatles classic, ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, to the LSD tests that imbued Elle with her supernatural powers in Stranger Things, references to these mind-altering substances saturate modern music, literature, film and television. Despite being made illegal in 1966 as a symptom of the ongoing ‘War on Drugs’ initiated by the U.S. federal government, research into the effects and uses of psychedelic substances has made a comeback to the mainstream over the last few decades. Changing public attitudes towards psychedelic drugs and numerous decriminalisation initiatives around the world (including Denver, Oakland, Canada, and the Czech Republic) are encouraging the development of a new and burgeoning scientific field of enquiry. This includes an ongoing investigation into the pharmacology and therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs for treating a range of clinical issues, including PTSD, depression, addiction, and OCD. This ‘psychedelic renaissance’ is garnering attention from researchers across the natural and social sciences, as well as the popular media. psychedelic drugs pervade

Derived from the Greek psyche – meaning, ‘mind’ – and delos – meaning, ‘make visible’ or ‘reveal’, psychedelics are substances that induce altered states of consciousness, sometimes compared to waking dreams. Of the three main families of chemical compounds that most psychedelics fall into – (1) the tryptamines (e.g. psilocybin and DMT);(2) the phenethylamines (e.g. mescaline and 2CB); and (3) the lysergamides (e.g. LSD) – psilocybin in particular has been gaining attention from a range of researchers and drug advocates for its emergent potential for treating depression and other mental health issues. Psilocybin is naturally found in over 200 species of ‘magic mushrooms’. There is no reason to suggest LSD would be any less effective in having the desired clinical 12

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outcomes. However, due to psilocybin’s shorter acting time (around five hours versus eight hours with LSD) it seems more practical for use in a clinical setting. This combined with the lingering negative associations with the letters LSD that remain as a hangover from the ‘60s, make Psilocybin more politically palatable and commodifiable. Ultimately, it is more profitable, too.

Humans have a long history of using psychedelics for medicinal purposes. The story of how ‘magic mushrooms’ first became popular in the West begins with ethnomycologists, R. Gordon Wasson and Valentina Pavlovna Wasson. During a trip to Mexico in the 1950s, they encountered the Mazatec, an Indigenous People from Oaxaca in southern Mexico, with whom they participated in a ritual ceremony using psilocybin mushrooms. The Mazatec had been using these mushrooms for a range of medicinal and healing purposes for millennia and the Wassons were amongst the first Westerners to experience their effects. These experiences were enshrined in the famous Life magazine article, “Seeking the Magic Mushroom”, where the phrase ‘magic mushroom’ was first coined. It was only later that psilocybin became known to science for its psychedelic effects, when the Wassons and their colleague Roger Heim brought back samples from Mexico and, with the help of Albert Hofmann (the “father” of LSD), isolated psilocybin and its psychedelically-active metabolite, psilocin, in the lab.

The so-called ‘psychedelic renaissance’ marks a contemporary resurgence in public recognition of the potential uses of psychedelic drugs for treatment of depression, addiction, anxiety and other more severe mental disorders. Since the pioneering research of Charles Grob and his team in 2011, subsequent studies have explored the use of psilocybin and LSD for treating patients diagnosed with end-of-life anxiety associated with terminal cancer. Delivered in a single sitting and accompanied by counselling, the treatment had antidepressant effects and led to a decrease in anxiety. Following this study, the psilocybin research Michaelmas 2019

focus shifted towards treatment-resistant clinical depression. Patients in these trials were each given a dose of psilocybin, accompanied by counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) before and after their experience. The majority of patients reported improved mood and a reduction in clinical symptoms after three months, with over 50% reporting that the effects remained two-and-a-half years later.

Early indicators from two other clinical trials suggest that this effect is reproducible, demonstrating improvements in patients’ emotional responsiveness, a decrease in pessimism bias, and more realistic future forecasting.

Addiction has been at the forefront of many preclinical studies investigating the potential therapeutic effects of psilocybin. Patients undergoing psilocybin treatment for alcohol dependence have reported a significant reduction in alcohol consumption after 36 weeks. These results were echoed in studies on cessation of tobacco addiction, where 10 out of 15 smokers administered with psilocybin combined with CBT were found to be clinically abstinent after 16 months. In 2018 social scientist, Tehseen Noorani and colleagues, provided a long-term qualitative follow-up to the pilot study, finding long-term abstinence in nine participants. The study reported an increase in openness, interconnectedness and altruistic tendencies amongst its participants as likely mechanisms for the drive towards abstinence from tobacco, echoing previous hypotheses from researchers at New York University and Imperial College London that suggested the experiential effects of psilocybin were the drivers of change. They also reported increased aesthetic appreciation and pro-social behaviours as positive side effects.

Although the therapeutic value of psychedelics is gradually being accepted, whether the context is clinical or ceremonial, not properly facilitating a ‘trip’ may dampen the beneficial effects, and in some cases be harmful. In the clinical setting, researchers highlight the importance of staging the trials in a controlled space after a full psychological assessment has been undertaken to ensure patient safety. These suggestions from contemporary psychedelic research, however, are not novel in any way. The importance of ‘set and setting’ amongst ordinary users of psychedelic drugs in non-clinical spaces is common knowledge for psychonauts, or those using psychedelics to explore consciousness recreationally. Coined by Timothy Leary, ‘set and setting’ refers to the importance of ensuring the correct mindset and intentions before tripping, as well as curating a safe and responsible setting or space in which to embark upon the trip. The notion of set and setting itself has its roots in the ceremonial uses of certain psychedelic plants and substances by Indigenous Peoples around the world. The ayahuasca ceremonies of Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon, for example, are tightly controlled by Mestizo shamans who pay attention to the spiritual and physical requirements of each individual involved. This highlights how contemporary Western psychedelic research could learn from these non-Western and Indigenous perspectives, from those who have practical and historical experience with these substances and altered states of consciousness.

Furthermore, the idea that psychedelic drugs can be used medicinally is also nothing new. Indigenous Peoples around the world have employed them as medicines for a long time, and the knowledge accumulated with regards to their effects and healing potential should

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not be ignored or displaced by Western science. Psychedelics are more than medicinal for many Indigenous Peoples. In the ecstatic tradition of shamanic cultures, for example, sacred plants (that contain psychedelic compounds) are used to induce disembodiment and soulflight to other, unseen dimensions in order to acquire knowledge that is of social and ecological importance.

The increasing Western appetite for psychedelic experiences also has huge impacts for Indigenous Peoples for whom certain plants are a sacred and central part of community and cultural life. The political narcoeconomies surrounding these plants have violent consequences in the Amazon, where narcotourism is leading to fears about a shortage of the plants involved in the ayahuasca brew, which could make them unavailable to the Indigenous Peoples that use them traditionally.

Proposed privately-owned ayahuasca plantations could also lead to further increases in deforestation. The inflow of capital generated by narcotourism is thus substantially affecting local economies and power relations in the Amazon. Shamans popular amongst Westerners are also sometimes looked upon unfavourably by their rivals, which in some cases has led to murder between rival ‘shamanic experience companies’. This is a familiar story. Maria Sabina, the Mazatec shaman who first shared magic mushrooms with the Wassons, received backlash from her own community for bringing outside attention to their sacred Indigenous practices. The international fame she received after the Wasson interview forced her to flee to the outskirts of her native city after her home was burned down, highlighting the Indigenous violence and coloniality associated with the discovery and uptake of psychedelics. Research into psychedelics must ensure that it does not conform to colonial and imperial forms of science, all too familiar in the West.

Modern psychonauts, moreover, such as the late Terence McKenna, support the use of psychedelics outside of a clinical context for personal growth and exploration. The act of outlawing psychedelics in the ‘60s drove experimentation and research underground in Western contexts, where today a treasure trove of expertise exists for understanding their safety and efficacy for a range of clinical and recreational purposes.

Tehseen Noorani advocates for seeing the 'overground' of psychedelics as a small island floating atop a much bigger range of underground usages that has been in existence continually since the ‘60s.

The socio-political landscape surrounding these fascinating compounds is changing in the West. In May of 2019, Denver became the first US city to decriminalise psilocybin-containing mushrooms for more-than-therapeutic purposes, with other US states looking likely to follow. As the restrictions are relaxed and the positive results continue to be published in scientific journals, we can expect the use of these compounds to continue to spread into the clinic and further into popular culture – if Ari Aster’s latest film, Midsommar, is anything to go by. In an age rife with mental illness and an austerity-induced shortage of resources for treatment, maybe it's time to embrace the historical and cultural legacy of psychedelics, and continue to recognise their medicinal, recreational and cultural potential Jonathon Turnbull is a second year PhD student at the Department of Geography and studies at King's College. Andrew Malcolm is a second year PhD student at the Babraham Institute and studies at King's College. Art by Sam Mills.

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Oscillations into the Upside Down

Could there exist a zoo of undetected 'mirror' particles to balance those we can see?

Maeve Madigan discusses how a 'mirror universe' of particles might solve puzzles at the frontier of particle physics we have long entertained the fictional concept of an alternate reality: from Alice’s journey Through the Looking-Glass to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, our imaginations are full of universes other than our own. But pioneering ideas in theoretical physics suggest other universes might, in fact, exist. The concept of the multiverse has been around for decades, implying that the universe we know is just one of infinitely many others. Another theory has posed the idea that at the time of the Big Bang, two universes were created – our own, and one in which time is moving in the opposite direction. While exciting, these theories are difficult to prove. After all, how can we confirm the existence of another universe if we can’t access or experimentally verify it?

Perhaps this is why the idea of a ‘mirror universe’ has recently caught the attention of the media. It promises a zoo of ‘mirror particles’, each a partner of the fundamental particles of the standard model. Although the existence of such matter would not imply another universe in the same sense as the multiverse theory, it does suggest that there could be a wealth of undetected matter sitting right under our noses. Additionally, it can be tested experimentally: a simple experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee is underway to look for these mirror particles. But what does it mean for us if they do?

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Oscillations into the Upside Down

In 1956, Chien-Shiung Wu and her team began an experiment to test the effects of parity on particle decays. Parity is the transformation which takes the mirror image of a particle, inverting properties such as its momentum. Until then, it was an accepted fact that particles behaved in exactly the same way as their mirror image; parity was thought to be a symmetry of physics. What Wu found, however, was that certain atoms undergoing weak interactions would decay asymmetrically with a preference for one direction over the other. When flipped in a mirror, the image would then prefer the opposite direction, and so the two systems could be distinguished. The symmetry of parity was violated.

Although parity violation is now a familiar feature of our theories, back then it was a surprising concept. The idea to test the symmetry of parity was originally proposed by theoretical physicists Lee and Yang, leading to Wu’s famous experiment. But in the same paper, they provided an explanation for why parity could still remain an overall symmetry of physics, even in interactions where it appeared to be violated.

Their idea was simple. A particle with a preference for a decay in one direction is referred to as ‘left-handed’, and ‘right-handed’ for the opposite direction. Lee and Yang proposed that for every left-handed particle, there is also a right-handed particle. These right-handed

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partners are the ‘mirror particles.’ Apart from this left-right asymmetry, the mirror particles would be identical to their partners in every way: they could interact with each other just like the interactions of the standard model particles and combine to create their own form of matter called ‘mirror matter’. When Wu examined the decay of a nucleus, she was looking at a system made up of left-handed particles.

Naturally, this led to a preference for left-handed decays. If, instead, the experiment consisted of both this nucleus and the corresponding mirror nucleus, she would have seen that overall parity is still a symmetry.

Taking a good long look in the mirror | The good news is that there could be interactions between our matter and the hidden mirror sector: electrically neutral particles such as neutrons could interact with their mirror partners. In fact, there is a small probability that a neutron could transform into a mirror neutron and vice-versa, allowing for neutral particle oscillations. Processes of this type are now under scrutiny at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by Leah Broussard and her collaborators. The idea is to send a beam of neutrons at a barrier which is impenetrable to neutrons while allowing mirror neutrons to pass through freely. If a neutron transforms into a mirror neutron, this could move through the barrier and then transform back into a neutron on the other side. By searching for neutrons on the other side of the barrier, Broussard hopes to find evidence for these oscillations. While this experiment will not allow us to open a door to the upside-down world of Stranger Things or meet a mirror version of ourselves, it has the potential to detect a form of matter different to anything previously observed. This would be a major contribution to the ongoing search for physics beyond the standard model.

If these particles have been theorised since the 1950s, why are we only searching for them now? The surge in interest is partly due to a small discrepancy found in neutron experiments.

Over the last 15 years, an unusual feature has shown up in measurements of the time it takes the neutron to decay. There are two simple methods to measure this. The first is to trap a fixed number of neutrons and measure how many are missing after a certain amount of time. Any missing neutrons must have decayed, and we can then infer the lifetime. The second method assumes that any decaying neutron will become a proton. Protons carry electric charge, making them much easier to detect than neutrons. By counting the number of protons we see, we can figure out the number of neutrons which have decayed.

This is enough to give fuel to the theory of mirror matter: a neutron could decay to a mirror neutron and escape the proton detectors, leaving no mark it was ever there. However, even if this discrepancy in the neutron lifetime is confirmed, it does not imply that mirror matter exists: mirror matter is only one of many possible explanations. Another popular solution to this issue is dark matter. This is a hypothetical form of matter constituting 85% of the matter in the universe. In the 1930s, astrophysicists noticed that some galaxies behaved as though they contained much more matter than observed. A huge portion of matter was going completely undetected, appearing ‘dark’ to our telescopes. Since then, evidence has mounted in favour of the existence of some sort of dark matter, but no direct detection of dark matter particles has been successfully performed. If they exist, however, a neutron could decay to a dark matter particle and escape detection, just like the mirror matter solution to the neutron lifetime puzzle.

When can we hope to solve these puzzles? Broussard’s search for mirror matter is currently underway, and we can expect the results to follow soon. While the outcome is uncertain, even a negative result can be useful in narrowing down the possible forms that mirror matter could take. We can also look forward to developments on the neutron lifetime discrepancy: members of the UltraCold Neutron Tau experiment are planning an experiment to simultaneously measure the number of disappearing neutrons while counting the number of protons, ideally removing sources of error that could come from comparing the two separate methods. Together, these puzzles make one thing very clear: before we can understand any other universe, we have a lot to learn about the particles that make up our own Maeve Madigan is a PhD student in Theoretical Physics at St. John’s College. Art by Eva Pillai.

“When you say “hill,”’ the Queen interrupted, ‘I could show you hills, in comparison with which you’d call that a valley.’

‘No, I shouldn’t,’ said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: ‘A hill CAN’T be a valley, you know.

That would be nonsense –’" ‘The Red Queen shook her head. ‘You may call it “nonsense” if you like,’ she said, ‘but I’VE heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!”

- Lewis Carroll explores an alternate reality in "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There".

If our knowledge of particle physics is correct, the results of both methods should agree. Curiously, a series of independent measurements have repeatedly shown that they do not: the first method finds the lifetime is 8 seconds shorter than the second.

However, this could be the result of an unlikely statistical fluctuation, or some experimental error not yet considered. But if these numbers are really to be believed, they suggest that more neutrons are disappearing than protons are appearing. Perhaps our assumption that neutrons must decay into protons is false.

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Oscillations into the Upside Down

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The Quest for Immortality 16

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Nicole Torreli and Leia Judge discuss recent advances in extending human lifespan and then explore the question of whether we truly want to Let’s face it: the only true certainty we have in life is that, one day, we will die. However universal this truth is, many of us are unable to come to terms with it, and dream of evading the inevitable bony embrace of the grim reaper and circumventing our own mortality. It is therefore not surprising how often the concept of immortality appears in myths and works of fiction, from vampires to Elysium to the fountain of youth.

In Harry Potter, one of the best-selling book series in history, the theme of immortality comes into play multiple times: from using the Philosopher’s Stone to achieve eternal life, to evil wizards placing parts of their soul into various ‘horcruxes’ to avoid death should their own bodies be destroyed. While these methods were effective, in both cases there was a price to pay for immortality: the Stone makes the user immortal, but does not spare them from aging, while splitting the soul comes at the cost of murder, and makes the wizard less human.

Could science one day find a way to make us immortal, ideally with fewer downsides? What might be the repercussions to ourselves and to humanity?

Society’s fascination with tapping the fountain of youth extends back centuries to folklore featuring queens who bathed in blood, believing it would keep them younger.

However, avoiding, or at least delaying, death is no longer an idea restricted to fiction and legend. A modern incarnation of this ancient practice is apparent in the blood treatments which form part of the $300 billion market for anti-aging cosmetics. More advanced endeavours are being spearheaded

by Silicon Valley billionaires such as Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, and Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, who have invested over $1 billion in research focused on increasing longevity.

genes in cells, animals, and even babies, with ever-higher precision. In CRISPR/Cas9, a protein that breaks DNA (Cas9) is delivered to cells together with an RNA sequence (CRISPR) that guides the protein to a particular location in the genome. If CRISPR/Cas9 is used alongside a template that allows the cells’ own DNA repair mechanisms to fix the DNA break by substituting the broken DNA for the template, sequences can be added into the genome at will.

This technology allows scientists to remove any genes they desire, as well as to add new ones, making gene editing faster, cheaper and more accurate than before.

Despite the major recent advances in gene editing technology, altering our DNA to allow us to live longer is not straightforward. The problem is that there is no single gene that controls ageing. According to Dr. Hugo Aguilaniu, a geneticist and president of the Serrapilheira Institute, our genetic code is the result of millions of years of random mutations, the most favourable of which are selected by evolution. However, the way that evolution works is that mutations that improve the chances of an animal to procreate are passed down to future generations, and therefore are likely to remain present in the genetic code. Since ageing is something that happens after the reproductive age, the genes that affect the way we age do not necessarily influence our ability to procreate. This means that there is little ‘evolutionary pressure’ to select specific mutations in genes that control ageing.

Additionally, it is likely that the way we age is governed by a multitude of genes involved in various functions of the body, rather than a single ‘ageing gene’. Therefore prolonging lifespan is not a matter of simply regulating a few genes involved in ageing, but rather controlling a wide combination of genes involved in multiple functions and whose modification is likely to result in unexpected side-effects.

The ultimate goal is not only to live forever, but also to remain young and healthy. This is no simple task, and we are still far from being able to achieve it. Such a complex problem is unlikely to have a simple solution, and a few ideas are beginning to be explored.

Gene Therapy: Engineering an “Immortal DNA” In the era of genetically modified organisms, the idea of modifying our own DNA to achieve better health and longevity does not sound as far-fetched as it once did. New technologies are allowing scientists to target and edit specific

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Stem Cell Therapy: Renewing Youth Another technology being explored to achieve immortality is stem cell therapy, a way of replacing damaged cells. Over time, cells become increasingly damaged and eventually die. Cell death is constantly occurring in our bodies, and is the result of a combination of factors, including genetics, environment, and normal gradual deterioration. As we age, our ability to replace the damaged cells with new ones decreases, and as a result our body begins to show health problems.

alternative methods involving stem cell donors is that since the patient’s own cells are used, there are fewer risks of their body rejecting the treatment. Despite promising preliminary results, many clinical trials show only modest benefits in patients receiving stem cell therapy for various conditions, including heart, kidney and Alzheimer’s disease. For now, scientists agree that further studies are necessary to establish protocols that yield effective results.

Each cell in our body is specialized for a particular function: the cells in the heart are different to the ones in the brain, which are different to the ones in the skin. No single one of them is able to perform all the necessary processes to allow the organ where they are located to work – instead, the different types of cells must work together.

Digital Consciousness: A Heaven on Earth?

Stem cells are different. These cells are not yet specialized, but can ‘differentiate’ to become many different kinds of cells, depending on the necessity. They are naturally present in organs, and can make new cells constantly, such as in the blood or in the skin, or remain “dormant” until the body needs them, for example to heal a wound.

The idea behind stem cell therapy is to use this natural regenerative capability to make the body renew itself. A stem cell therapy patient’s cells are collected, and then injected where they are needed. The main advantage of this method over

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What if the answer to achieving immortality is not to be found in the form of religion, magic, or even our own biology, but instead in digital technology? Perhaps even more so than biotechnology, this concept has a rich pedigree in science fiction.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, an alien race assists humanity from our early beginnings to aid us in reaching for the stars. It is implied that this species possesses the technology to transfer their minds into digital media, transcending physical limits and reaching a state of omnipotence. This idea of unlocking our full potential through a digital “uploading” of our mind and riddance of our corporeal bodies is echoed in many other novels and movies, implying that this is the ultimate destiny of every species that will survive in the cosmos. Can this be considered a form of immortality?

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The Netflix show “Black Mirror” normally examines the potential destructive consequences of new technologies through the lens of various futuristic dystopian societies.

However, a welcome respite from this bleak narrative is found in the most highly rated “Black Mirror” episode yet, “San Junipero”. In the episode, a futuristic invention allows users to enter a virtual reality world, San Junipero. When the users pass away in reality, they can upload their consciousness into the San Junipero Cloud and “live forever in a heavenlike state”. Naturally, this episode left people wondering about the feasibility of such a future. Could little sensors attached to our heads one day allow us to spend the afterlife in a picture-perfect virtual reality beach town?

This raises the question of whether a copied self is really an immortal self – the copied human and the copy of the human will exist separately in the same objective reality, originally similar but diverging over time through separate experiences and thoughts. Would the copy really be “me”? Would I be comforted knowing that “Other Me” survives once “Original Me” passes away? If anything, I think I would be jealous. Furthermore, “San Junipero” prompts important questions regarding the continuity

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of consciousness. Consider on one hand the consciousness of a living person interacting with a virtual reality, and on the other the virtual consciousness of a digitally entombed person interacting with a virtual reality. Are they the same thing? Is the digital version still the same person as the original, or merely a shadow? Can you even tell the difference between a computer that’s conscious, and a computer that just tells you it is?

Among some futurists and within the transhumanist movement, this concept of “mind-upload” is considered an important goal in life extension technology. Some believe it is humanity's current best option for preserving the identity and collective wisdom of mankind in the coming millennia, as opposed to cryonics (freezing the body for preservation and future restoration), gene therapy or stem cell treatments.

On a practical level, is it even theoretically possible to replicate a biological organism in a computer program, especially one as complex as a human mind, in a computer program? While technically possible, creating a backup copy in silico probably isn’t on the cards any time soon.

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The issue, however, is that no one really knows what makes us conscious, or what parts of the brain or neurological processes are responsible for it. Consciousness is a concept based on our own subjective experience and is not something that we can quantifiably measure or observe in brains themselves, let alone recreate accurately. As such, replicating consciousness may require a simulation of the entire brain, down to the molecular level in each of the ~100 billion neurons, and the complex interactions and networks formed by these neurons. Even then, simulating a generic functioning brain is one thing, but how do we define and replicate an individual consciousness? Little is understood about how memories are stored, how personality arises and how life is subjectively experienced. At minimum, we would most likely need to be able to map all of the neuronal connections in the brains of each person whose consciousness is uploaded. And the issue extends far beyond the brain – life is experienced not just as a solitary brain, but a whole body, with limbs, senses and interactions with the outside world and other people.

This is a Herculean task, but it is one that several people are trying to solve. Nectome, a California-based startup, is offering to upload the contents of willing consumers to a digital hard drive, in the future. The underlying science is centred around a chemical process, aldehyde-stabilised cryopreservation, which may be able to maintain organic matter (i.e. your brain) fresh and intact, preserving it until technology reaches a point where it can be analysed and recreated in some futuristic still-to-be-written computer program. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the potential reward on offer, Nectome has raised over $1 million in funding, including a $960,000 grant from the US National Institute for Mental Health. However, their efforts are not without criticism, with some concerned about the feasibility of effective technology ever being developed. Michael Hendricks, a professor at McGill University, went so far as to liken the scheme to a snake-oil con. Such worries led to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology withdrawing support from the project, citing concerns about the effectiveness of the method in preserving usable data.

And then there is Elon Musk's recent technological endeavour, Neuralink, which can be seen as an ambitious attempt to straddle the line between fiction and reality.

The neurotechnology company has the ultimate goal of “developing ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers” using implantable electrodes. While Neuralink doesn’t yet plan to copy or upload the mind for the purposes of immortality, it focuses on the next logical step beyond current technology – a connection to and control over computers using thought.

Many working in the field consider a successful humancomputer link to be crucial in the development of any future “mind-upload” technology. Musk himself has admitted that he drew inspiration for Neuralink from the science fiction “neural lace” – biomechanical computer implants taken from

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“The Culture”, a series of novels by Iain Banks, featuring sentient, immortal “pan-human” machines. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre and DARPA (the US military’s advanced projects agency)-backed Synchron have been working on similar devices, but only time will tell whether such devices will successfully allow minds to interface with computers, let alone permit transfer of consciousness.

It is overwhelmingly clear that true immortality is a long way from reality. However, as technology reaches new levels of complexity, and people push the boundaries of what can be achieved, it’s impossible to know what the coming decades may bring. Should such a feat as digital consciousness be achieved, much consideration will be required around the ethical implications and regulation of such a commodity.

Who will be granted the luxury of sentient immortality? If we can upload ourselves to the cloud, how will a “mind server” be maintained without downtime, indefinitely? And perhaps most worryingly, what if people decide that such an existence is more desirable than that of a real, mortal, physical life?

An Immortal Society: Dream or Nightmare?

Though the technology surrounding life extension and immortality is progressing slowly, humanity may eventually need to confront the ethical, societal and environmental implications of a society where people do not die.

A major issue facing the future of life extension technology relates to the potential for it to exacerbate the already pressing problem of unequal death. Inequality, not only in

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terms of finances, but in lifespan and in access to healthcare, is rife both within and between developed and developing nations. Will medical advances which provide immortality be prohibitively expensive? Will access be limited to the elite among us, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor? How can we, as a society, justify extending the lives of those who already have more?

The ethical implications are particularly striking when you consider that the average life expectancy in many sub-Saharan countries is 50-60 years, while the average in developed countries rises above 80 years. While the immortality revolution is thought of as an opportunity for all humans to benefit, it is far from clear that everyone’s life will be prolonged. There is already a huge gap in access to medicines and medical technologies: currently existing medical treatments could go a long way to close the gap in life expectancies between countries. It is far from obvious that everyone would be able to access a (likely expensive) immortalising technology. Is it justified, then, to pump billions into developing these treatments, when the money could be used elsewhere to have tangible benefits in poorer countries? Demand may eventually lower the price, but plenty of non-billionaires will likely die in the meantime.

Just as pertinent is the stress an ever-growing population will place on the world's resources. As climate change becomes an ever more urgent issue in our daily lives, it begs the question of whether the planet could support an immortal population. The population bloom, enabled in part by our increasing lifespans, has already placed additional stress on the environment – the global average life span has doubled since 1900, and this is the primary reason for population growth in wealthy countries. As climate change rapidly approaches the point of no return, it becomes clear that while attractive in concept, an immortal population, unless balanced by a severe drop in fertility rates, may in fact bring about the demise of the species far before we can reap the benefits of an extended life.

More personally, what effects might guaranteed immortality have on our perception of life? If there is always a tomorrow, why do things today? In his short story “The Immortal”, Jorge Luis Borges explored the idea that life gets its meaning from death. When an entire society achieved immortality, they found time became infinite, and so had no motivation for anything, losing their sense of identity. Would society function if everyone lived forever? Who would work, and would retirement still exist?

Would work be reserved for the mortals, while the immortals lived out their days?

Perhaps the answer to this dilemma lies in the option to choose when you die. This may, however, inflame already controversial legal questions. If one could choose to become immortal, would one be able to change their mind and become mortal again, and would this be considered a form of assisted suicide? If so, under what circumstances would it be allowed? Nowadays, there is no consensus on this matter, with most countries forbidding it, and a few countries allowing the practice, usually to relieve pain and suffering from a terminal illness. The possibility of choosing to be immortal would stress debates even further.

Finally, immortality may also have a long-term impact on the evolution of the human species. From a biological point of view, the effect that immortality could have on the future of humankind would depend on the extent to which the therapies used to achieve it would impact on the biology of the children of immortal parents. If society were divided into immortal and mortal peoples, perhaps in the far future humans might diverge into distinct species, one that evolved from the scientifically engineered immortal beings, and one that evolved from the natural pressure faced by the mortal ones. Things become even more difficult to predict if we consider a digital form of immortality, to which the laws of biology might not apply at all.

In the end, whether immortality is eventually achieved through a hijacking of our bodies’ natural mechanisms, or through abandoning our physical bodies all together, it is clear that such a reality is still a long way off, despite fervent efforts from some of the wealthiest people on earth. When considering the possibility of a world where no one dies, it is important to consider the implications this will have for both the trajectory of human evolution and the potential stressors this will place on our already fragile ecosystem and societal structure. In the end, only time will truly tell whether this uniquely adventurous and ambitious species can overcome time itself

Leia Judge is a first year PhD student in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience studying at Corpus Christi College. Nicole Torelli is a final year PhD student at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit studying at Lucy Cavendish College. Artwork by Darren Wong.

As much as immortality is often idolised, physical immortality has frequently been depicted in the media as a form of eternal torment. In Mary Shelley's novella "The Mortal Immortal", the protagonist witnesses everyone he cares about dying around him, enduring eternal psychological torture. Would you choose to live forever if it meant seeing all those you love eventually perish?

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Focus

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Global Warning: Can scientists use pop culture to solve climate change?

Seán Herron explores the hidden narratives of pop culture and asks whether these can be applied to our approach to the world's most direct threat 'WINTER IS COMING'

'As for the future, it is not a question of predicting it, but of making it possible.' Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Citadelle, 1948.

Translation from header of the IPCC 2019 special report on Climate Change

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We all know the quote. Most of us know the show. HBO’s Game of Thrones stands among the most successful and widely-viewed television shows of all time, receiving the greatest ever number of Emmy nominations of any drama show, with a total of 161.

What many of us might not have known, however, is the eerie parallel between the show’s most pervasive plot lines and the realworld reality of anthropogenic climate change. Although the show isn’t particularly direct, understanding its methods might present scientists with a weapon capable of killing the seemingly unkillable saga of the ‘Climate Change Myth’. (Valyrian steel, anyone?).

What is the Game of Thrones allegory for climate change?

The parallels are -- dare I say it -- Stark. All of Westeros has heard that “winter is coming”. In the coming ‘long winter’, the villainous White Walkers provide a long-predicted, poorly understood and easily disregarded danger with the potential to destroy all of civilisation. Importantly, the problem demands everyone work together to fix it. But, as seen on the show, there

Global Warning

are many geopolitical issues at play. We often see faction leaders denying the existence of the White Walkers. Sound familiar? In an interview with the New York Times, series author George R.R. Martin himself explains, “The people in Westeros are fighting their individual battles over power and status and wealth,” he continues, “and those are so distracting them that they’re ignoring the threat of ‘winter is coming,’ which has the potential to destroy all of them and to destroy their world.” Martin himself acknowledges the direct analogies to modern climate change issues.

Game of Thrones was not the first. Climate change allegories have been appearing in Western films and media for nearly as long as we’ve been aware of the problem. Broadcast as far back as 1993, the Hugo Award-winning episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Inner Light”, shows an alien probe knocking Captain Picard unconscious. He awakens on an alien world to be told his previous life had been a feverish dream. Only 25 minutes pass for the crew aboard the Enterprise trying to revive Picard.

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The captain himself however experiences 45 years life on an alien world. He sees progressing drought and desertification eventually leading to the downfall of the planetary civilisation. The alien world was unable to achieve the social cohesion or technological solutions necessary to prevent their rapidly worsening climate change. Before awakening, it is revealed to Picard that all that society managed to do was launch a probe to tell their story so that their civilisation is remembered. He is the only person to receive their message.

to the queen, he adds, “There is only one war that matters. The great war. And it is here”. Greta Thunberg, eat your heart out.

What can scientists learn from these pop-culture discussions of climate change? Well, these shows are some of the most popular and best viewed of their respective eras. They are well-received and openly discussed in everything from newspapers to coffee shops.

‘But wait!’ I hear you call, ‘What about the truth! Nuance and honesty about the complexity of the climate change situation must be maintained’. While these are noble goals, sociological research suggests that when it comes to public communication about scientific issues, treating ‘the public’ as though they are scientists or ‘average individuals’ is a poor strategy. The so-called “knowledge deficit” model, the assumption that the lack of societal support for scientific concerns and technology stems from public ignorance, is the model upon which most science communication has historically been based. Most previous science communication has used the socalled “knowledge deficit” model, which assumes that the lack of societal support for scientific concerns and technology stems from public ignorance. Writing in a paper for Public Understanding of Science, Molly Simis of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, and colleagues, explore the issue. Presenting a wide range of empirical data to suggest why the knowledge deficit model is ineffective, Simis argues that, “the knowledge deficit model is perpetuated because it can easily influence public policy for science issues”. The model works on politicians, who are often informing themselves through scientific reports, but not with the general public. How do we uproot the deficit model and move toward more effective science communication efforts? Simis and colleagues present a number of possibilities. Chief among them are “training scientists in communication methods grounded in social science research” and “using approaches that engage community members around scientific issue”. Involving the public in local experiments and schemes to detect and combat climate change, and providing tangible results at the community and individual level (even with ‘non-rigorous’ science) is far more effective than brain-dumping of figures and arguments, and trying to provide nuanced debate in a 30 second sound bite on the six o’clock news.

Budding and not-so-budding Earth scientists should ask ourselves honestly, can the same be said of the communication of real climate change science to the public? The answer: Certainly not. The real science on climate change is poorly understood and received by the public. What should be a unifying and uncontroversial issue is divisive and polarising to the point we avoid bringing it up with acquaintances. And worse – it’s boring! The man heard ranting about climate change in the corner is unlikely to be the life and soul of the party.

Popular media conveys these messages well. What are we scientists doing differently? Sliding past the obvious point that people from many backgrounds are willing to suspend disbelief for a TV show or story, but less willing to change their everyday behaviour or accept inconvenient truths on anthropogenic climate change, there is an issue of communication strategy.

Communication scientists have been aware of this problem for some time. As far back as 2000, Sheldon Ungar of the University of Toronto contrasts the public perception of a “hole in the ozone layer” versus that of anthropogenic climate change. The ozone hole was “capable of engendering public understanding and concern,'' writes Ungar, “while climate change failed to do so”. Ungar continues, suspecting that “the ozone threat encouraged the acquisition of knowledge” due to its being “allied with easy-to-understand bridging metaphors derived from the popular culture”. So, a setting within popular culture made the ‘scientific knowledge’ about the ozone layer easier for the public to accept. “That is,” concludes Ungar, “[the ozone hole] provided a sense of immediate and concrete risk with everyday relevance. Climate change fails at both of these criteria, and remains in a public limbo”. Just like the ’coming winter’ in Game of Thrones, the issue of climate change fails to provide immediate risk to the everyday lives of individuals. Or rather, the way that scientists have presented the issue have provided this impression.

How can scientists convey, then, the true and everyday risk climate change poses to all of us? In Game of Thrones, Jon Snow drags a living wight to King’s Landing - the capital of the Seven Kingdoms to prove that the dead have risen. He tells Queen Cersei, “The same thing is coming for all of us — a general you can’t negotiate with, an army that doesn’t leave corpses behind on the battlefield.” Turning

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Snow emphasises the immediate danger, exemplifies concrete risk, and underscores the risk to everyone when he states ‘this is happening right now, to all of us’. Scientists have not been, and to a large extent still are not clear enough on these issues. We need to drag our own wight into the light.

Whether it is Game of Thrones, Star Trek, or some other TV show or literature, scientists can look to pop-culture metaphors to understand how to provide an engaging method. This occurred with the ozone hole but not with climate change because no tangible everyday risk has been presented. Although this is beginning to change, scientists (in particular) could do a lot better when communicating the climate emergency. We each need to make an the individual and situationally- aware choice: Do weon whether to provide nuance and the ‘full scientific truth’, or do we trust in our own scientific research on truly effective engagement of the public about issues like climate change?

Seán Herron is a graduate student in Earth Sciences at Magdalene College and is the current president of BlueSci. Art by Eva Pillai.

Global Warning

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The Moon Landing Faked?

What Lunarcy!

With trust in science diminishing - how do we begin to understand what we truly believe?

Jake Rose investigates the science and society of conspiracy theories: their origin, what perpetuates them and the consequences of belief in them

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IN RECENT YEARS we have seen a wave of conspiracy theories flood the internet from ever more compelling sources.

News, one of our former most trusted places for information has already been infected: a quick look on the Daily Express’s website and navigating to the ‘weird’ section reveals 8 out of the first 15 stories were about aliens. Scepticism is becoming a rare reaction to this credibly presented misinformation, and the few with access to reliable experts or quality education resemble a fine needle in an enlarging haystack. These specific stories aren’t harmful, but they speak of a much deeper problem that is hurting real people.

Conspiracy theories have, and always will be, present. From flatearthers to climate change deniers, there will always be somebody who disagrees with the norm. This is good. Having the confidence to deny conventional wisdom in pursuit of truth is our second greatest quality; the first is having the humility to accept, in the face of conflicting evidence, that you were wrong. This humility is a quality lacking in the snake oil salesman of the 21st century, of which a prime example is Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS). MMS is a solution of chlorine dioxide, an industrial bleach, which has been hailed as a panacea by various snake oil salesmen throughout the last decade. People such as Jim Humble recommend you ingest this bleach - and buy his book telling you how to ingest it. Over the years this solution has been peddled as a cure to autism, HIV and other conditions. As recently as May 2019 a self-proclaimed clairvoyant named Sam Little was arrested by Ugandan police for his part in misleading up to 50,000 civilians (including children) into consuming MMS as a 2-hour cure for Malaria, proclaimed as a ‘gift from God’1. Sam is sadly one of many, as is MMS. If there is any bright side, it is that similar events in the 20th century are the reason why modern regulation around clinical trials, efficacy advertising and drug marketing is so strict in the West.

Fortunately, MMS is on its last leg. Most government agencies have regulations forbidding the advertising of it as a cure-all, and the public is slowly becoming aware of the dangers of fake medicines thanks to comprehensive and well researched videos and articles that now show as the top results when researching MMS. Yet MMS is still available at dozens of online shops, which care little for pharmaceutical regulation and are often not accountable for the health claims they make. Furthermore, while advocates of alternative medicine often decry side effects caused by regular medication, they do not maintain any reporting mechanism for unwanted effects of their “cures”.

The harm caused by conspiracy theories is never the same. It’s a function of who, what, where and when. In this case, poor and uneducated people from developing countries had their health (and the hope of good health) compromised. They will now be sceptical of further help from accredited medical professionals, leading to harm of thousands more. In other cases it may be less clear cut. The public may lose trust in a piece of science or medicine due to an ill researched viral post. Nobody was directly hurt, but maybe that convinced somebody not to give their child the medicine they needed, or a politician not to fund potentially lifesaving science.

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WHAT DRIVES BELIEF IN THESE THEORIES? | Karen M Douglas et al. grouped the motives for conspiracy theory belief into 3 categories. The first is epistemic, which answers the need to understand one’s environment; the second existential, which addresses being in control of one’s environment; and finally social, the motive for maintaining a positive social image within the group.

It is hard not to sympathise with any of these motives: who cannot remember a time they googled a question about the world, a time as a child when they longed for freedom from a bedtime, a time when they wanted to be loved by their friends? Paradoxically, the paper suggests a negative outcome with respect to attaining these motives: across the board belief in conspiracy theories did not lead to the fulfilment of these motives, and is likely a “self defeating form of social cognition”.

HOW DO WE STOP CONSPIRACY THEORIES? | So far, we know more about what doesn’t work than what does, and direct criticism is perhaps the worst. By asking people to rate their agreements with statements on vaccination, the researchers found that highlighting the scientific evidence against common myths on vaccines was significantly less effective than highlighting the negative consequences of not vaccinating. In other words, fear works. But how can we as individuals combat conspiracy theories? Education is perhaps our most powerful tool. It allows you to better see the flaws in strange arguments, or even simpler, know how to research the topic for yourself. Listen to the experts, they are people who have spent a long time building a large body of knowledge. Real experts are very quick to acknowledge any shortcomings in their knowledge or field, so do question if the person you trust shows such humility.

Experts are not infallible, and no faith should ever be placed in a single person – so look for specialist organisations such as the WHO or the Royal Societies. Be respectful and patient with your friends/ family who have strange beliefs, they’re normal people like us. It’s hard not to judge people for their weirder beliefs, especially if you can see the harm they produce. But can you be assured everything you believe is correct? Be kind to them, question them thoughtfully and encourage them to investigate their knowledge. Allow them to develop the skills they need to combat similar things in the future.

The people who believe in conspiracy theories are not tin foil hat wearing people in the street, but a mother who doesn’t want to hurt her child with a harmful vaccine; a terminally ill cancer patient with no more hope for traditional medicines. These people are scared, not stupid. The world is complicated, and rarely do we have all the answers: this is what lures a conspiracy theorist in. They rationalise the world around them as we all do, with the knowledge and expertise available, even if it is lacking. We are only human and the only solution is to do what we have always done: correct our mistakes with pride, and to hold them with us as a humble reminder that there will be more Jake Rose is a third year Astrophysics student studying at Magdalene College. Art by Andrew Malcolm.

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An Expanding Mystery Philip Clarke explores issues surrounding the current physical understanding of the Big Bang After a lengthy twelve-year run, the final season of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory finally concluded last May. The Big Bang model, however, is still far from its curtain call. This one is less of a comedy and more of a detective story. Of its many mysteries, one in particular stands out: how fast is the universe expanding? To answer this, we can follow two breadcrumb trails – one linked to distant galaxies, and another to the oldest light in the universe. The problem (or opportunity) here is that those two trails appear to diverge. Only by around ten percent, but this is still more than what the experimental uncertainties allow.

Something interesting is going on.

Space is stretching, quantified by the Hubble constant.

It can be measured with the help of observations from many interstellar phenomena, including supernovae and white dwarf stars.

When we say that the universe is expanding, we mean that the distance between galaxies is increasing; not due to their relative movement, but because the intervening space itself is stretching. For nearby galaxies (such as the Andromeda Galaxy, home to billions of stars), this effect is barely noticeable; but when we look further out across larger gulfs of space, the effect of the expansion eventually dominates. Human (or alien) observers in any galaxy would see all sufficiently faraway galaxies hurtling away from them. These galaxies are said to be in the “Hubble flow”, and the rate of expansion of the universe today is known as the Hubble constant, H_0. Galaxies further away appear to recede faster; the Hubble constant measures how much faster.

One method of measuring the Hubble constant involves spotting an event that marks the final moments of some white dwarf stars: type Ia (“one-a”) supernovae.

These violent explosions are bright enough to be seen even well into the Hubble flow, and can thus function as a “standard candle”. In other words, they have some observable characteristics that can be used to determine how far away they are from Earth. Combining these distance measurements with how fast the home galaxies of the supernovae appear to be receding gives a measurement of the Hubble constant.

Supernovae are a powerful tool, but they can’t be used out of the box; their precise properties need to be worked out to use the relationship that determines their distance from Earth. The SH0ES collaboration (Supernovae, H_0, for the Equation of State of dark energy), led by American physicist and Nobel laureate Adam Riess,

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used Cepheids to make this calibration. A Cepheid is a star whose luminosity oscillates regularly in time, with a period directly related to its maximum luminosity.

This relationship, noticed a little over a century ago by astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt, means that when a supernova occurs in a nearby galaxy that also contains some Cepheids, important calibration information is learned about the supernova. This technique, stepping up local measurements of Cepheid properties to universespanning measurements from supernovae, is known as the distance ladder method.

This method is a direct measure of the expansion of the universe, and with every new Cepheid and supernova detected, the uncertainty in the final result is reduced.

Systematic errors may remain, however; an important example is that dust in galaxies makes objects appear dimmer, and so assumptions must be made to model this effect. Using this data, the SH0ES collaboration obtained a value of 74.0 km s^(-1) Mpc^(-1) for the Hubble constant, with known uncertainties giving the result a margin of error of around 2%. This implies that a galaxy’s apparent speed away from us increases by 74.0 km s^(-1) for each megaparsec (or 3.1x1019 km) further away it is.

The SH0ES constraint is tight, but the team which lays claim to the smallest margin of error on the Hubble constant is the Planck Collaboration. They used the Planck satellite, launched by the European Space Agency in 2009, to measure the oldest light in the universe – the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Left over from the Big Bang, the CMB is invisible to our eyes, but to Planck shines with a nearly perfectly uniform glow in every direction on the sky. The tiny deviations from uniformity, only one part in ten thousand, contain rich information within their statistics – information that the Planck collaboration used to fix the age and contents of the universe, and to refine our knowledge of the earliest moments, right after the universe (as we know it) began. They found H_0 to be 67.4 km s^(-1) Mpc^(1), with a margin of error of only 0.8%. This is a ten percent disagreement with the SH0ES result, too large a difference to be accounted for in the error budgets of the experiments. Somewhere along the way, something has gone wrong.

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light, the measurement of red giants is less complicated than that of Cepheid oscillations in that it does not require multiple observations over an extended period of time. Furthermore, red giants can be sampled solely from the outskirts of galaxies where the effect of dust is minimal. Should it withstand scrutiny, this exciting new result may become a crucial clue to solving the Hubble constant tension.

Other experiments have placed independent but looser constraints on the Hubble constant. The H0LiCOW collaboration used the fact that light from distant objects can be bent and lensed by the gravity of galaxy clusters, and thus the same object can appear in multiple distinct images in our sky. By measuring the time delays between such images, the team obtained a direct and independent measurement of H_0, close to the SH0ES result. Another calculation performed by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) combined multiple datasets with their own data on 300 million distant galaxies; this result matches Planck.

When these (and other) results were considered together, a straightforward pattern emerged; experiments that used data from the late universe clustered around the SH0ES result, while early universe experiments agreed with Planck. Which value, if either, is correct? This ten-percent discrepancy is known as the Hubble constant tension.

This pattern held until July 2019, when a late universe experiment broke ranks and fell squarely in between the two camps. A team headed by Chicago astronomer Wendy Freedman replaced Cepheids in the distance ladder method with red giant stars and determined H_0 to be 69.8 km s^(-1) Mpc^(-1), with an error margin of a few percent. The advantage of using these stars is their well-understood lifetime maximum luminosity. When the luminosities of the red giant populations of target galaxies are measured, the maximum causes a cut-off in the data; this can be matched to the known intrinsic luminosity, and compared to the (dimmer) observed luminosity to obtain the distance. While red giants can be harder to spot than Cepheids for some wavelengths of

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What could be causing this scatter between measurements? One possible answer is that we live in a region of the universe with far fewer galaxies than the average, or that is in some other way unusual. However, some cosmologists have calculated that to explain the entire discrepancy, our local region would have to be one of the most unusual places in the universe, too unlikely and unlucky to be a serious solution. Other explanations evoke more exotic physics. We know that dark matter and dark energy exist, and we know some of their properties; perhaps they have other properties that could explain the discrepancy, making the standard history of the universe assumed by Planck insufficient? None of these explanations have found strong support; modifying the standard history without also sacrificing the successes of Planck has proven difficult.

Even if a new, more convincing theory emerges, more data will be needed to confirm (or disprove) it. The nextgeneration James Webb Space Telescope will add to the current pool of red giants available for use in the distance ladder, and to our knowledge of the environments around these and other stellar objects; perhaps some explanation will be found there. Or perhaps the discrepancy is a signpost to some exotic physics in the early universe neglected in existing models. Further clues to the mystery will come from gravitational wave astronomy; beyond this, other new methods will be dreamed up, leveraging the quality, quantity and variety of data from the next generation of telescopes.

So, at what rate is the universe expanding? The answer seems to be around 70 km s^(-1) Mpc^(-1), but for the precise value, we will have to wait Philip Clarke is a PhD student in the Cosmology group of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and a member of St John's College. Art by Andrew Malcolm.

An Expanding Mystery

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Is There Anybody Out There?

The Search for Life in our Solar System

Lucy Hart asks whether aliens exist and where we can find them, exploring recent research in astrology and astrophysics NASA’S CURIOSITY ROVER, launched in 2012, has recently reached one of the most exciting points on its Martian tour. The underwhelmingly named “clay-bearing unit” lies on the lower side of Mount Sharp and was singled out for study by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) long before Curiosity even arrived on Mars. The region contains large deposits of clay, which often forms in water and so unveils Mars’ wetter past.

Theories about life on Mars have abounded since the 19th century, when the first telescopes powerful enough to observe

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Is there Anybody Out there?

features on the planet’s surface were made. Famously, Giovanni Schiaparelli observed long, straight lines that he called ‘canali’ and named them after famous rivers on Earth. These features turned out to be nothing more than optical illusions. However, prior to this realisation, theories of a technologically advanced society that thrived on Mars had emerged. Based on observations of seasonal changes in the size of the Martian ice caps, this civilisation was thought to have transported water from the frozen poles down to the drier equatorial regions via these canali. However, at the start of the 20th century, improved telescopic observations of the planet’s

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surface, together with spectroscopic measurements showing an absence of water in Mars’ atmosphere, combined to discredit these ideas. Further dreams of intelligent life so close to home were shattered in 1965 as Mariner 4 took the first photos of the Martian surface, revealing it to be a dry, inhospitable world, incapable of supporting complex life.

The hope of finding life on Mars remains alive. Research has shown that Mars was not always the dry world that we now observe. Around four billion years ago, Mars’ northern hemisphere contained a vast ocean, which would have covered a fifth of the planet’s surface. Evidence of this watery past abounds. Due to the lack of geological activity on the planet, much of the Martian surface is more than 3.5 billion years old. Thus, the waterways and lake beds eroded in this former age are still clearly visible. In fact, one of Curiosity’s first discoveries upon landing on Mars was direct evidence that there must once have been flowing water there. Gale crater, the site of the rover’s landing, was found to contain smooth, rounded pebbles that could only have been formed by the vigorous flow of a liquid around them.

The presence of water on Mars is of such importance, as water is key to the formation of life as we know it on Earth.

One recurring location for the emergence of the first living creatures on Earth is around hydrothermal vents. These openings in the ocean floor allow heat from the Earth’s interior to escape and tend to emit warm alkaline fluids. These alkaline fluids are emitted into acidic sea water, meaning that the two fluids have different proton concentrations. This means that there is proton gradient at the boundary between the two fluids. This proton gradient can be harnessed to produce energy and so allow life to form. Interestingly, observations from the MRO suggest that Mars, too, may have had these hydrothermal vents. 3.8 billion years ago, the Eridania basin on Mars is thought to have been home to a vast sea, containing ten times the amount of water found in the Great Lakes of America today. Today, the basin is dry but the MRO has found evidence within it of materials also formed in and around hydrothermal vents on Earth. This suggests that Mars may once have had conditions ripe for the formation of life.

Whether or not the presence of these conditions means that there must have been life on Mars remains an open question.

Scientists at NASA and ESA have made the search for evidence of it into one of their primary objectives, with both agencies planning to launch new rovers to explore the Martian surface in 2020. ExoMars, the ESA’s rover, will be capable of drilling up to two metres below the surface to seek out life below the ground. This is vital in the search for life on Mars as the planet’s magnetic field is significantly weaker than the Earth’s. Thus, the planet’s surface has no protection from the sun’s ionising radiation, making it inhospitable to life. While waiting for these new projects to get off the ground, Curiosity has been dutifully using its suite of scientific apparatus to analyse the composition of rock samples from the Martian surface for

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indications of life. There was considerable excitement in 2018 when NASA announced that Curiosity had discovered three-billion-year-old sedimentary rocks containing organic molecules, indicating that some of the early building blocks for life were once present on Mars. More recently, in June this year, Curiosity detected a transient plume of methane, which contained the highest concentration of this gas ever recorded on the planet. As methane is a volatile gas that reacts rapidly in the Martian atmosphere, any methane detected implies that there is an active source on the planet, acting to replenish the supply. Although this source could be geological processes, the more exciting possibility is that the methane is being produced by living microorganisms. These could resemble methanogens found on Earth which are able to survive without oxygen, a prerequisite for living on Mars whose atmosphere contains only trace amounts of it.

This raises a thorny problem: what would life on Mars look like, were it to exist? Would it look like organisms that we have on Earth? Or would it look completely different to what we know as life? Seeing as life, if it is or ever was present on Mars, is hypothesised to have originated around hydrothermal vents in an analogous manner to life on Earth, the types of lifeform expected to emerge would likely resemble those found here. There is even serious concern that future space missions to Mars could lead to ‘forward contamination’, whereby extremophiles would hitch a lift to Mars on our rockets and colonise its surface. If these hardy beings did manage to eke out a life on the Martian surface, would they then be classified as aliens?

The search for alien life in our Solar System doesn’t end at Mars. Another strong contender is Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Europa is thought to have liquid oceans under its icy surface which could also contain hydrothermal vents, and so life.

Moving beyond our Solar System, the search for planets orbiting around other stars is rapidly widening the field of possibilities. As we begin to realise how common planetary systems around stars are, it seems less and less likely that we are alone in the galaxy, let alone the universe. The probability of us finding other forms of advanced life in our galactic neighbourhood remains difficult to estimate, as the route from simple, single-celled organisms to complex, multi-cellular life is unclear. Of one thing we can be sure: if we were to find any other form of life out there, be it a microbe or ET from the Steven Spielberg Sci Fi film, there would be new, exciting questions to explore

Soon Curiosity will be joined by a companion in the form of the yet unnamed NASA Mars 2020 rover, estimated for mission start in July next year.

Lucy Hart is a third year Physical Natural Sciences student from Peterhouse college. Art by Serene Dhawan.

Is there anybody out there?y! 29

Pavilion: 50 years in Space BlueSci showcase a number of novel lunar panorama images released to celebrate the anniversary of Apollo 11 2019 MARKS THE 50th anniversary of the ground-breaking voyage of Apollo 11 which saw Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins lead the first moon landing. To celebrate the event, NASA have released a series of stunning panorama's collected from subsequent landings painting a stunning picture of a still largely unexplored lunar surface.

Above: Panorama of the (Mons) Mt Hadley and Station 8 lunar site. Mons Hadley is found in the Montes Apenninus range in the Northern Hemisphere of the moon. Station 8 served as a site of operations during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971 with the Mons massif provided a dramatic backdrop.

Below: Astronaut Charles Duke is seen in two positions whilst this panorama was captured by astronaut John Young. The two conduct operations on the lunar surface at Flag and Plum crater (left and right foreground) during the Apollo 16 mission in April 1972.

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Above: Apollo 16 commander John Young attending a rover on the lunar surface. Panoramic images were stitched together from individual images to reconstruct a 3D panorama of the view of astronauts on various apollo missions by imaging expert Warren Harold. These were then independently verified by Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist Harrison Schmitt.

The release of these photograhs is a stark reminder of not only the achievements of these pioneering astronauts but also the little we still know about our nearest astrological neighbour. Its easy to see why both the moon and the Space Race continue to inspire popular culture. With the prevalance of space-age technology in films such as The Martian, Gravity, Interstellar and many many more cultural icons, the reach for the stars continues to captivate us.

The celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 continue throughout this year showcasing the cultural impact of the achievement. BBC radio 6music 'In Space' programming explored the impact of our extraplanetary endevours on musical history showcasing the paradigm shift these events have had in all walks of music. Whilst the recent acclaimed Apollo 11 documentary relives the iconic moment of the moon landing. It is clear that our fascination with the stars is not diminishing anytime soon and will continue to shape both science and cultural history for a long time.

The images displayed here and many other can be found in full panorama at NASA Johnson's official Flickr account and Facebook accounts.

All images are licensed under creative commons.

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Weird and Wonderful It’s a no brainer!

PLANARIANS DEMONSTRATE THE unique ability to regenerate their entire body plan, even the head, following decapitation. Among the first animals to evolve a centralised brain, planarian flatworms provide a powerful system to study memory. Recent studies from Tufts University suggest that these worms retain memories, even through removal and regeneration of a new brain!

Investigations into this phenomenon used a behavioural trait of planarians: In unfamiliar surroundings, they are extremely cautious, as seen by their delayed acquisition and consumption of food. In one experiment, untrained worms were acclimatised to a new tank, before being decapitated and left to regrow their brains. When re-introduced to the same tank, these worms clocked significantly faster feeding times than a control group. Owing to the behavioural complexity of the task, the researchers believe that it is unlikely the memory is maintained entirely via the action of the peripheral nervous system (the old nerves), re-training the new brain. Instead, molecular candidates such as RNAi or epigenetic modification may offer insight into how the information is stored.

That memory may transcend the brain raises questions as to the nature of self and identity. Does certain knowledge and experience remain with the body? Where are “we” stored? DG

What’s in a name?

Pop science

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS ARE often perceived as dull and serious, full of impenetrable jargon. Even reading a paper’s title can make your eyelids feel heavy. However, a recent twitter thread has shown that scientists can be fun!

AT A TIME when physicists are using equipment such as the Big European Bubble Chamber to study particles, others are studying the bubbles themselves. The subtleties of bubbles are important for ocean/atmosphere mixing, ship buoyancy and even weather pattern modelling. Despite this, nowhere are bubbles more entertaining than in sparkling drinks.

It was kicked off by a tweet sharing the amusing title “Fantastic yeasts and where to find them: the hidden diversity of dimorphic fungal pathogens”.

Others pitched in with their favourites, referencing pop music (“Not getting high with a little help from your friends”, “PGAMgnam Style”), television (“Nudge, nudge, WNK-WNK (kinases), say no more?), fairytales (“miR miR on the wall, who’s the most malignant medulloblastoma miR of them all?”) and more. Even surprisingly risqué references have cleared rigorous academic review (p53 shades of Hippo”and “Aequorea victoria’s secrets”).

Referencing popular culture is risky. The Pokémon Company threatened legal action against researchers who named a gene POKEMON - the gene had been linked to cancer and Pokémon didn’t want the bad press.

One study suggests that, although funny titles may grab our attention, the papers generally receive fewer citations. Comedy titles might harm their papers’ credibility and, by including fewer scientific keywords, make the papers harder to find in database searches. Nevertheless, these examples suggest many scientists may not be super serious and instead adhere to another stereotype – they’re total geeks! BY

High speed cameras and physical models have helped studies to reveal the nuances of beer, Champagne & soft drink bubbles. The sound of the fizzing depends on the size of the bubbles when they pop into existence. Bubbles form on surfaces and tiny particles. As they lift off the surface the last bit of the bubble to leave is momentarily dragged out into a sharp point. This bubble end then pings up right inside the bubble. At the other end of the process, when bubbles break at the surface they catapult liquid into the air. Visually this is the same as drops falling into water but in reverse. The launched liquid helps to give the drinks their smell.

Champagne has three times as much gas as beer. As a result the bubbles grow faster and rise more quickly. This is especially obvious when served in a flute. To add to this, beer contains more proteins. As a result the slower growing beer bubbles are also more rigid. Next time you order a drink, take a closer look! MH Artwork by Alex Hahn

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