Origins - The Downe House STEM Magazine - Issue 2 2022

ORIGINS SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ENGINEERING MATHS

June 2022

In this special centenary edition, we look to the science of the past in the hope of discovering answers to the future: ● The golden records of humanity ● Why is Borneo so important to the fight against climate change? ● What is history’s most significant invention?

A N N UA L S T U D E N T- L E D S T E M M AG A Z I N E

WELCOME Welcome to the second edition of the Downe House STEM magazine, Origins. After the success of last year, we are delighted to bring you an even more jam-packed publication featuring a very special treat, a brand-new Guest Contributor section. We are very lucky to have two separate articles to share with you; Dr Louise Natrajan, Reader in Chemistry at The University of Manchester writes about her personal research on the Lanthanides, and two of our editors, Louisa and Jiayi conducted an interview with one of our very own Downe House Parents; Mrs Zara Qizilbash – the first female registrar of the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

This year, as we celebrate 100 years of our School being at our Cold Ash site, the editing team have had the luxury of being allowed to delve into Mrs Caiger-Smith’s treasure trove of archive material. Inside you will find some superb science-based extracts looking at the labs, STEM students and even the dogs that accompanied the science field trips over the years.

MAGAZINE TEAM

Back in Michaelmas 2021 we celebrated all things science with a weeklong academic residency in the Murray Centre where students were hands-on creating some Origami Organs and even got involved with creating Downe House’s biggest ever elephant’s toothpaste! You can also find out more about the launch of the Downe House coding club with Mrs McClure, as her Lower School team got to grips with Raspberry Pi to enter the annual STEM competition.

Editors Cleo DutertreDelaunay, Louisa Neill, Jiayi (Ariel) Cao and Dr Rachel Maclennan.

Thank you to all the contributors and editors for their hard work in creating this edition of Origins, and I really hope you enjoy reading.

As ever, if you are keen to contribute in any way to next year’s edition, please do get in touch, we would love to hear from you!

Our thanks to Pixabay and Pexels for the use of images.

Dr Rachel Maclennan (nee Pilkington) Deputy Head of Science i/c STEM

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CONTENTS 4 7 10 12 15 17 18 20

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THE LANTHANIDES Dr Louise Natrajan ZARA QIZILBASH: FIRST FEMALE REGISTRAR OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES Louisa Neill (LVI) & Jiayi (Ariel) Cao (LVI)

WHAT IS HISTORY’S MOST SIGNIFICANT INVENTION? Cheuk-Yi Cherie (Sage) Lau (UIV)

WOULD YOU WANT BEAVERS IN YOUR BACKYARD? Louisa Neill (LVI)

WHY DO WE NEED CYBER SECURITY? Maria Taraban (UIV) THE HISTORY OF THE REFRIGERATOR Pearl (Ivie) Avwenagha (UIV)

SCIENCE DEPARTMENT’S FIRST MURRAY CENTRE RESIDENCY Dr Rachel Maclennan ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE Alexa Nash (UIV)

THE CENTRAL SCIENCE Anya Gannon (LVI)

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WALRUS FROM SPACE Linlin Chi (LVI) THE GOLDEN RECORDS OF HUMANITY Elfreda Harvey (LVI) THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COMPUTING Sophie Lambourne (UIV) & Cheuk-Yi Cherie (Sage) Lau (UIV)

22–27

MATRIARCH COMPETITION

GRAND CANYON Alexandra Diez Sanchez-Tabernero (Remove) MOTHERS Phillipa Drysdale (LIV) ELEPHANTS Aleksandra Cork (LIV) BEES Gabrielle Yue (Remove) CLOWNFISH Gabriella Bailey (LIV) ORCAS Agnes Rose (LVI)

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IMMERSE ESSAY PRIZE

SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT Daria Andreeva (LVI) MATHS AND ART Mrs Michelle Hobbs

KEY Pupil contributor

Staff contributor

Alumnae/guest contributor

Other

USING OUR NEW TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT CREATIVITY IN 3D DESIGN Mr Ben Wall

40 40 42 44 46

DNA Phillipa Drysdale (LIV)

48 49 50 51 52 55 56 57 58

ALUMNAE PROFILE: CHARLOTTE WILLIAMS Cléo Duterte-Delaunay (LVI)

DOING A PHD IN CHEMISTRY Dr Rachel Maclennan CHEMISTRY TO KILL OR TO CURE Ziqi (Jade) Fang (LVI) CAN HIV BE CURED BY GENE THERAPY? Jiayi (Ariel) Cao (LVI) WHY IS BORNEO SO IMPORTANT TO THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE? Aryana Patel-Sharma (LIV)

ALUMNAE PROFILE: SOPHIE ELLIOT Sophie Elliot THE USE OF STEM IN ARCHAEOLOGY Siying (Amy) Liu (LVI) SMART TEXTILES Rahma Qizilbash (LVI) SYNCHROTRON RADIATION Sayuri (LVI) CODING CLUB Mrs Siobhan McClure RANDOM FACTS QUIZ The Editing Team ARE BRAINS NEEDED IN ECONOMICS? Cléo Dutertre-Delaunay (LVI) BONDING ON IONA Yichen Li (UIV) 03

THE LANTHANIDES Dr Louise Natrajan

‘Shining Light’ on the Chemistry of F-element Compounds

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Often displayed at the bottom of the Period Table of the Elements, lies an intriguing group of elements, the lanthanides, or the 4f-elements (Figure 1). These are largely ignored until more advanced levels at degree level Chemistry as they exist due to filling up of electrons in the f-orbitals (which come after the d-orbitals in the transition metal groups). Historically, these elements were discovered much later on than the main parts of the Periodic Table and although they possess no known biological function in the body unlike most of the transition metals (e.g. iron in blood and vanadium as a trace element for life), they are indispensable commodities for modern life and technology as we know it today. The lanthanide elements are often called the ‘rare earth elements’ due to the fact their natural abundance in the Earth’s crust is concentrated in geographical areas including Scandinavia, China and Australia. However, their overall actual natural abundance is similar to that of bromine, tungsten, tin and arsenic. The only exception to this is the element promethium (Pm), which is radioactive and is only found in trace amounts in the Earth’s crust as a radioactive decay product of 238U.

A BIT OF HISTORY… Johann Gadolin who was a Finnish chemist, first discovered the oxide mineral he named ‘yttria’ in 1974, and shortly afterwards, ‘ceria’ was extracted

by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger. Subsequently, Carl Gustaf Mosander began work to separate these oxides

into their elemental forms (now known as the lanthanides). Indeed, the small Swedish town of Ytterby is now famous for being a main source of the lanthanide elements due to the discoveries of yttrium (Y-a lanthanide analogue), terbium (Tb), erbium (Er) and ytterbium (Yb). The separation of the individual lanthanide elements from their naturally found mineral forms is however, a far from easy task. This is due to the fact that they all commonly exist as the +3 cations in standard aqueous conditions, and they display very similar chemical properties. However, repeated size exclusion type separation techniques (since the size of the lanthanide ions decreases steadily across the periodic series) has proven most useful in separating and therefore isolating individual elements in their pure form for further investigation and use.

LANTHANIDES IN MODERN TECHNOLOGY… Comprising cerium (element 58) to lutetium (element 71), the lanthanides are unfamiliar to many of us, but they are crucial for everyday technologies from fluorescent lighting to the internet. As a synthetic chemist whose job it is to study the chemistry of the lanthanide ions, I am often asked which one is my favourite. However, this is not an easy question to answer, and my reply depends on which element I have been using in the lab that week! Although a common perception is that lanthanides possess almost identical chemistry

‘lanthanides … are crucial for everyday technologies’ 58

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140.12

140.91

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150.36

151.96

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162.50

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167.26

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173.05

174.97

Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu Figure 1. The lanthanides or 4f elements, left to right: cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium.

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and have in the past been described as boring in a famous quote, each lanthanide (particularly in its cationic form Ln3+) possesses unique physical characteristics. My favourite characteristic is that almost all the 4f elements glow in the dark (or luminesce following light stimulation). Their colours and brightness are similar to those seen in the common glowstick and range from UV, to blue, green, red, yellow, orange and the near infra-red (which our eyes cannot see).

Figure 2. Common emission colours of lanthanides demonstrated with organic fluorescent dyes (red = europium, orange = samarium, yellow = dysprosium, green = terbium, blue = thulium)

REFERENCES: Element recovery and sustainability: F-block elements recovery L.S. Natrajan, M.H. Langford-Paden, in RSC Green Chemistry Series, Element Recovery and Sustainability, ch.6, F-block Elements Recovery, The Royal Society of Chemistry, Ed. A. Hunt, (2013) 160-177. http://www.rsc.org/ shop/books/2013/ 9781849736169.asp Radiochim. Acta95, 303– 311 (2007)/DOI10.1524/ ract.2007.95.6.303©by Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, MünchenRadiolanthanides in Endo radiotherapy: an overview By F. Rösch*

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Although the actual chemistry of the lanthanides is quite predictable across the series, e.g. they become more potent Lewis acid catalysts for a range of organic transformations (including polymerisation reactions to make plastics) as the ionic radius decreases due the increasing charge density, they actually display some very intriguing physical properties which are nowadays being commercially marketed. One of the main applications of Gd (III) compounds is as a magnetic resonance contrast agent to aid in the diagnosis of diseased tissue in the human body. Indeed, nowadays, 1 in 3 of clinical MRI scans in hospitals use a Gd (III) contrast agent to enhance scanner images of tumours and blood flow for example.

These are most commonly marketed under the trade names DOTAREMTM and MagnevistTM and essentially work by measuring the rate of exchange of water molecules with the Gd (III) ion in a controlled manner, to enhance contrast. The overall experiment is very similar to NMR spectroscopy.

Other important medial applications include the use of certain radioisotopes of the lanthanides such as 153Gd, 177Lu and 111Sm for cancer therapy.

A FEW EXAMPLES… The lanthanides are perhaps most well renowned for their optical properties (i.e. the fact they glow brightly, with characteristic colours under UVvisible light stimuli (Figure 2). This has resulted in the widespread use of lanthanides in lighting, displays (including white light in incandescent light bulb), the red, blue and green colours in display technologies including iPhones and colour indicators in biological applications and security inks to identify counterfeit money amongst many others. Many lanthanide ions are used in lasers; the main example being Nd in Nd:YAG, (YAG = yttrium aluminium garnet) which can produce bright green light which has been used in medicine, and laser light shows for example. Ytterbium (Yb) is also used in some laser systems and ytterbium fibre laser amplifiers are found in commercial and industrial applications where they are used in marking and engraving. Moreover, erbium finds a niche use in the telecommunications industry and is a vital component in optical fibres for optical digital information transmission including the internet.

Given the majority of the lanthanides in their ionic forms possess a large number of unpaired electrons in their valence orbitals (≤7 unpaired electrons), it is therefore not surprising that they possess unique magnetic properties. In fact, Nd is heavily used in permanent magnets in electric and hybrid electric vehicles (electricity driven bikes, cars and buses), including in windfarms and is one of the strongest magnets known. The remainder of the rare earths find many uses in hybrid electric vehicles, for example, the Toyota Prius and Yaris, the Honda Insight and the Ford Focus Electric, where their uses are varied and range from batteries, lighting, catalytic convertors (cerium), polishing and headlights. In modern day ‘green technologies’ high purity Nd and Dy are utilised in second generation wind turbines that convert wind energy to electrical energy. They also have proposed uses in solar cell technology.

So, what do iPhones, hybrid cars, wind turbines, lasers, Euro bank notes, medical imaging agents and the internet all have in common? Lanthanides of course! So, now when someone asks me which lanthanide is my favourite, I’d have to say all of them as they are all unique and their chemistry is certainly far from boring!

ZARA QIZILBASH:

FIRST FEMALE REGISTRAR OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

Louisa Neill, LVI and Jiayi (Ariel) Cao, LVI

Zara Qizilbash is the first female registrar of one of the top universities in Pakistan, known informally as LUMS. She studied condensed matter physics at the University of Oxford and is now a mentor, a supporter of women in STEM in Pakistan and a Governor of Roedean School in Brighton.

The idea was to have a transdisciplinary school where people could take subjects across all majors.

It was sort of American in its concept. We wanted to help [students] so that they would still have careers 40 years after they graduated. So, I worked there and then I ended up heading the academic affairs for the whole school, which had majors in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, computer science and electrical engineering, and so I worked eight years and after that I felt that things had become quite stable and I had the opportunity to work on a tech start-up with my brother, which was a an E-procurement platform called KHAREED, which was very new at that time because it was all about transparency and the corporate marketplace, so that was very exciting. I did that for four years and then I was asked by LUMS to consider coming back as the Registrar because they wanted the office to be looked at full time.

LOUISA: IF YOU WOULDN’T MIND, COULD YOU START OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF?

I’m very fond of the university and working in an academic environment. There are so many bright young people around and you learn so much from your peers as well. I also had the opportunity to work with the Punjab government. Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan. I worked with them in a project called Women in Leadership where they were looking to identify women who were professional and who could join public sector boards to influence decision making to make a difference to the lives of women in different areas.

I’m now in a few public sector boards, including the Queen Mary College Lahore, which is a very old institution, and we are working to improve the quality of education for young women there and trying to see if we can turn it into a university.

Zara: I’m based in Lahore, Pakistan, and I’m currently the Registrar at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. It was set up in the 80s and it’s one of the best universities in Pakistan and South Asia and it’s grown to encompass the School of Science and Engineering, School of Management, School of Arts and Humanities, School of Education and School of Law. I’m honoured to be the first female registrar of this university. It’s a demanding job. [I grew] up in Pakistan, but I went to Roedean School, Brighton for my A Levels. And after that I was admitted to the University of Oxford, Somerville College.

I did my degree in Physics there specialising in condensed matter physics.

One of my main passions is to encourage more young women to take up science and engineering subjects, although of course the humanities are equally important. When I went back to Pakistan there were not that many opportunities for women in physics. It was like a sort of closed door. So, I joined the family business where I could use some technical skills. I was lucky enough to be asked to join the Lahore School of Science and Engineering when it was being set up in the year 2007. There were not that many experimental physicists at that time in Pakistan and they asked me to help work on the physics lab. So that was very exciting, and I joined and then it just grew and grew, and it was a start-up.

In my spare time I talk about STEM and the importance of women in science. I’m a proponent of science for women and men. I don’t really distinguish, but I do understand that women are less privileged.

ARIEL: YOU’VE CLEARLY HAD A VERY VARIED CAREER. ARE THERE ANY BIG MOMENTS IN YOUR JOB THAT MAKE YOU FEEL GLAD THAT YOU’RE WORKING IN THIS FIELD? Zara: When I’m able to make a difference in somebody’s life. For example, students come to me, and they have some problems or something that I can help with, and then they write back and thank me. It’s that feeling that you’re making a difference.

It’s not just a desk job. When you say registrar, it sounds like, “Whoa, what is she doing?”

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I’m really, really pleased to say that when I joined the School of Science and Engineering, we handpicked the first batch [of students], this was the Class of 2012 that came in 2008. Just to see those kids come in and study and grow and leave.

Believe it or not, some of them have come back to the University to teach as professors. They went on to do their Master’s and PhD’s and now they’ve come back to be part of that same ecosystem and to contribute to science education in Pakistan.

It’s just an amazing feeling that you may have contributed to somebody’s life and made a difference. I think that makes my job worthwhile for me.

That was an amazing experience. Oxford is known for its condensed matter and the research in that area, so I was drawn to it and a lot of it is about materials and how substances behave at very low temperatures and magnetism and spin.

I was drawn to that area because by the time that you choose a particular option, you’ve done everything, and you know what you’re interested in. I did that with atomic physics, which I didn’t find as interesting as condensed matter. It has a lot of applications in industry of course, and my thought was I would go back to Pakistan, and I could do a lot with it there. I was wrong about it at that time, but that’s how it came to be.

I started reading science fiction… that really got me interested in science and physics.

LOUISA: WHAT INITIALLY SPARKED YOUR INTEREST IN PHYSICS? COULD YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT THE CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS THAT YOU SPECIALISED IN AT OXFORD? Zara: I’d like to say that I had amazing teachers at my school, and they really inspired me, but (I probably shouldn’t say this in a public interview), it was the opposite, I didn’t.

I think my interest in physics started because my father was very keen that I read up on science, and so I started reading science fiction, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke. That really got me interested in science and physics. Of course, you must be interested in maths as well. [I found] my O Level (GCSE) Physics very difficult. The teaching left something to be desired, it was more of a challenge for me, so I was determined that I would do my best, and so I think I worked harder at that than anything else. And then I did well and when I went to Roedean, which is an amazing school, I had incredible teachers and so they made up for the slack and really helped and guided me. That passion had been nurtured enough and I knew that I would just be happy doing Physics and Maths. I was also doing economics, but that was sort of on the side. It’s a great discipline, but I was really into physics, and I was lucky enough to be accepted to Oxford where the teaching is a one-to-one tutorial system, very rigorous. You can’t slack off at all. You’ve got to be ready for those lessons.

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LOUISA: HOW DOES WORKING AS A REGISTRAR AND IN STEM IN PAKISTAN DIFFER FROM DOING THE SAME IN EUROPE? Zara: As a registrar, my job is to run the academic management of the university. It’s not directly linked to physics so much anymore, it’s more about actually overseeing everything. I oversee all the academics of the schools, so basically when students come in, they become our responsibility.

[I also oversee] the scheduling and the enrolment of their courses. Of course, we get the grades, but we [also] handle how to post them. At the end of their time, so once a student graduates, the Registrar’s office issues the degrees and transcripts. That’s what my office handles and I have about 25 people working with me as a team.

My work at the School of Science and Engineering and in physics helps because I understand a lot of how the academia works, so that’s a bonus. But as far as STEM in Pakistan and the Middle East, it all depends on the facilities. I would say that where I’m working, we are lucky to have amazing research scientists come back and we’re giving back to the country and the facilities are second to none. But overall, in Pakistan because it’s a poor country there’s a lot of human resources, but we probably haven’t put the investment into our infrastructure that we should have. I would say that we are lagging behind Europe, but not because there’s a lack of brain power or people.

It’s just a lack of opportunity. [The] education

system is split between the majority of people doing the Pakistani education system and people who are luckier. I don’t like the word elite, but you could say that there’s a percentage of the population that [can afford to do] the British system GCSEs and A Levels of which we are a part, and so those people are more privileged, and they’re able to go abroad to get exposure to the best universities and some of them choose to stay abroad. That’s a brain drain. If they come back then [that’s good], but [just] a few people can’t make such a difference. That’s why in terms of infrastructure and investment we are lagging behind.

ARIEL: HOW DO YOU THINK SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS MOTIVATE THEMSELVES TO KEEP GOING WHEN THEY HAVE DEDICATED THEIR LIVES TO WORKING IN LABS AND POSSIBLY DOING REPETITIVE EXPERIMENTS WITHOUT ANY MAJOR BREAKTHROUGHS? Zara: Well, the breakthroughs that you speak of are a result of years and years of hard work and passion. So, I think the passion keeps them going because they’ve got something in their hand, and they believe that they’re going to achieve something [but] not every scientist has a public breakthrough. So, when you know this has been invented, or this has been discovered, there are teams working. I wouldn’t call it failure, but you know, it’s like for every success you understand that there must have been 100 failures behind it, but you learn from each mistake or each error and at some point, you refine what you’ve done and then you get what you call a breakthrough. So, there’s ground-breaking research going on in every field, and physics is no exception. It’s about passion.

LOUISA: THAT’S SO INTERESTING TO HEAR. I REALLY HOPE WE SEE MORE SCIENTISTS AND PEOPLE IN STEM COMING FROM PAKISTAN AND COUNTRIES LIKE IT IN THE FUTURE. HERE’S A QUESTION FROM OUR OTHER EDITOR, CLEO – WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO PEOPLE WHO ARE INDECISIVE ABOUT CHOOSING PHYSICS FOR A LEVEL? Zara: At the stage you’re at, it’s a little early. Some of you may know what you want to do because you’ve known for a couple of years. For example, somebody who’s very much into art might already know that they want to go into that field, but you may not know if you want to do [physics].

Somebody who’s interested in physics and maths could go into computer science. They could go into engineering. They could go into mathematics.

There are lot of other fields, so why [not]? It’s all about problem solving [and that] teaches you

how to think, so my whole career is a testament to the fact that you don’t need to stay in physics if you’ve done physics, you know, because some people are like ‘what will you do? Will you just teach?’ It’s the kind of discipline that you can just do anything with it. You can go into finance; physicists are very much in demand in [that area].

Physics just teaches you how to think and solve problems. It’s up to you what to do with those skills once you’ve learned them.

But how to choose the area you want to go into?

I always tell my children that they need to look at their passion and what gives them a thrill. Then they need to look at which places offer courses in that area. So that’s how you should choose. You must read up and see what really thrills you. And then choose accordingly. Don’t go by the name of the university or the college or whatever. Find the place that offers what you want to do. That’s how I think you should choose a university. For example, in my case, when the school suggested I try for Oxbridge, I didn’t know whether I should go for Cambridge. So, I looked at the courses and at that time there was no Internet. The Internet was created the summer of that year. We had email, but not the whole World Wide Web, which by the way was also created by an Oxford professor! We didn’t have Google; we didn’t have access to all these things. We had to open books and see what Cambridge offered, what Oxford offered, and when I looked at them, Cambridge had a system where I would have to do geology and other things, so I was not interested. And then when I looked at Oxford it was physics, physics, maths, physics, and more physics and I said, OK, that appeals to me. You will know when you get that little thrill! That’s the sign that you’re interested so follow that passion and then it won’t seem like a challenge. You’ll enjoy it. That would be my advice.

LOUISA AND ARIEL: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TALKING TO US. WE REALLY APPRECIATE THAT YOU’VE GIVEN UP YOUR TIME AND EVERYTHING WE’VE HEARD FROM YOU HAS JUST BEEN SO FASCINATING. THANKS SO MUCH AGAIN!

Full interview can be accessed here: https:// downehouseschoolmy.sharepoint. com/:v:/g/personal/ neilll_downehouse_net/ ESVufkkV3ohDs0hYjIr8 unUBip5WUHy5JaQcK gS2jkmJmw?email= NeillL%40downehouse. net

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WOULD YOU WANT

BEAVERS IN YOUR BACKYARD?

Louisa Neill, LVI

Before the 1700s, the Eurasian beaver was one of the UK’s key native mammal species, although today many would find it difficult to imagine walking past a river and seeing a beaver-built dam or, better yet, its residents.

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Hunted for their fur, meat and a salicylic acid cureall called castoreum from their castor sacs, beavers disappeared from Great British woodlands and wetlands sometime in the 16th century, though nobody is quite sure exactly when. However, after 300 years, small populations of the furry rodents have begun to flourish in parts of southern England and Scotland. But it is not just the beavers who are flourishing; the degraded ecosystems they have re-inhabited have benefitted greatly under their stewardship. This effort has been carried out mostly by independent UK landowners, supported by the Beaver Trust, an ecological restoration charity.

Its core programme, Mainstream, aims to make beavers a key species in the UK once again. They do this by encouraging and advising farmers and landowners on how to acquire funding grants and non-native animal keeper licences to introduce Eurasian beavers onto their land. It is natural restorative efforts like these that, if scaled up, could help to combat Britain’s biodiversity crisis.

THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN’S BEAVERS Before their extinction, beavers were a fundamental component of both ecosystems and local economies and could be found across the entirety of Britain. They thrived on wetland habitats and in ancient woodlands, helping to manage the flow of water throughout the ecosystem by building dams, and maintaining those conditions so other animals could thrive. Inhabitants of the wetlands, such as small birds and amphibians, also co-evolved with beavers, including a now extinct species of European hippopotamus.

Eurasian beavers were a valuable commodity for local people in small villages right up until the 1700s. They hunted the beavers for their extremely soft waterproof pelts that were in high demand for warm clothing, especially as the rodents became increasingly rare. The cure-all castoreum, a form of salicylic acid from the beavers’ castor sacs, which are used for marking territory, was also harvested, and sold to be used in perfume and even by beekeepers in the Middle Ages to increase honey yields. In fact, today, castoreum is still used for notes of leather in perfume and even as a food additive, albeit in increasingly small amounts. Before their disappearance from the British countryside, beavers even taught medieval foresters the technique of coppicing. Coppicing is the practice of cutting trees down to the base repeatedly, producing the wood needed by local communities while promoting new growth in the old tree to keep it in production year after year while also maintaining essential habitat and stabilising the soil. It turns out humans were not the first species to learn how to manage forests sustainably – beavers got there first!

WHY DO WE NEED BEAVERS? Dubbed by scientists as ‘ecological engineers’, beavers are so important to their ecosystems because they provide essential ‘ecosystem services’.

This includes benefits such as water purification, reduced flood risk, restoration of wetland areas and even greenhouse gas sequestration as healthy wetlands, especially those containing peat, serve as huge stores of carbon.

Arguably the most important service provided by beavers is dam building. This favoured pastime of the Eurasian beaver has helped new populations convert drained farmland back into the thriving wetlands of nearly 400 years ago by raising the water table and the land itself as well as increasing the size of the river and purifying it of agricultural runoffs, such as nitrates and phosphate from fertiliser, benefitting natural communities downstream and preventing leached chemicals from reaching the ocean. Before a dam is built, the waterways snaking through fields have often cut deep into the ground rather than spreading outwards, forming a deep ditch, and causing a lowering of the water table. When beavers construct a dam, the water flow is diverted around it, widening the stream channel, and causing deposition of sediment on the inside curve of the meander that helps to raise the level of the stream bed. When the stream bed level is high enough, water is forced onto the field floodplain, restoring the groundwater level, and providing the water needed for more diverse plant species, and by extension the animals that depend on them, to return to the area. As more dams are built and more waterway diversions occur, complex water systems emerge, and wetland habitats or woodland waterways can be fully restored. This means that endangered or vulnerable UK wetland species, such as water voles, kingfishers and curlews, can benefit indirectly from the presence of beavers. With over 10% of our wetland species under threat in Britain, the re-introduction of beavers is a vital tool at our

disposal to protect and conserve some of the most threatened wetland and ancient forest habitats in the world.

Beavers can also benefit humans with their feats of aquatic engineering. According to a paper published by Prof. Richard Brazier et al. from Exeter University, the beaver dams studied reduced average flood flows by up to 60%. With humancaused climate change causing rising sea levels across the world, combining natural solutions such as beaver dams with human engineered management could both reduce costly damages to human life and property from flooding and help to draw out carbon from the atmosphere, as well as boosting the UK’s biodiversity.

THE FUTURE OF BEAVERS IN BRITAIN Today, around 90% of Britain’s wetland habitats have disappeared due to over-abstraction and farmers draining their land of water, encouraged by government subsidies. This means that, if Britain wants to increase its biodiversity from the meagre 53% it currently maintains, then re-introductions and re-wilding projects must become widespread.

Thankfully, progress is being made, albeit at the local level. Tiring of government bureaucracy, landowners such as Merlin Hanbury-Tenison, owner of the temperate rainforest Cabilla in Cornwall, have returned beavers to riparian woodlands or ecologically restored areas by going around the UK government and working with organisations such as the Beaver Trust and Natural England.

Since the release of a male and female beaver pair in July 2020, two beaver kits (baby beavers) have been born on Hanbury-Tenison’s site. His goal is to increase the area that his forest covers three-fold and re-introduce even more formerly native species.

The current population of beavers in England and Scotland stands at around 1,500 individuals, with two thirds of them residing in Scotland. However, growth of this population is expected, especially after the government gives English beavers protected status at some point this year, and re-wilding efforts, such as those championed by the English musician Ed Sheeran, become more popular.

The future seems bright for Britain’s beavers, as the Beaver Trust plans to expand their beaver populations to ultimately cover the whole of the UK, matching the territory the beavers occupied pre-extinction. With the British public onboard, a new age of environmental restoration instead of degradation may be taking off in Britain, and perhaps beavers will once again become a regular sight on British waterways.

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SCIENCE DEPARTMENT’S FIRST MURRAY CENTRE RESIDENCY Dr Rachel Maclennan

During the week of 15 November 2021, the Science Department hosted their first Murray Centre Residency; it was a fantastic week of activities and quizzes, fun and wonder for students – all in the name of science!

The week was kicked off by the superb Dr Helen Czerski as she delivered a Medley Lecture, ‘The Ocean at the Top of the World’. We were lucky to learn about Dr Czerski’s exciting work investigating bubbles during the time she spent on an icebreaker near the north pole. It was a fascinating and engaging evening and was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Dr Helen Czerski is a well-known scientist and scientific communicator, and it was fantastic to be able to welcome her to Downe House.

Dr Jones and Mrs Maspero started off the weekly lunchtime slots with some chemistry fun; the classic Elephant’s toothpaste and investigating dry ice. We also had some Origami Organs with Mrs Harrop and Miss Pugsley and ‘tightrope walking fruit’ with Mr Smith; sadly we cannot promise that no fruit or veg were harmed during the making of this balancing act!

It was great to see so many of the students getting invovled with the exciting activities on offer during the week. We had daily recommendations throuhgout the week, and in case you missed them, here they are again (opposite):

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MONDAY Listen to Physics in all its glory with Dr Helen Czerski: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/ m000p6dl Watch Dr Helen Czerski discuss why Calcium is her favourite element: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=EMNuYOEBOWI Read Storm in a Teacup, or Bubbles. Or a fiction book – The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is about a hen called Sprout who is no longer content laying eggs on demand, only to have them carted off to the market the very next day.

THURSDAY Listen to the awesome Andrea Sella and guests discuss their favourite elements https://www.bbc. co.uk/sounds/brand/b08p6q4r Watch the video clip about the vampires of Wolf Island in the Galapagos! https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=LHP5ZiIPGb0 Read Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry, or Factfulness. Or a fiction book – Klara and the Sun. You get to see the world from the perspective of Klara, a companion and ‘artificial friend’ of a young human girl.

TUESDAY Listen to Crowd Science discuss Do Plants Have Immune Systems? https://www.bbc.co.uk/ programmes/w3ct1pr0 Watch 25 Chemistry Experiments in 15 Minutes | Andrew Szydlo | TEDxNewcastle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOuEJf8Dr_4 Read 39 Ways to Save the Planet by Tom Heap, and The Everyday Journeys of Ordinary Things by Libby Deutsch. Or a fiction book – In the Key of Code, where music, code and poetry are combined in Emmy’s world.

FRIDAY Listen to BBC Sounds Science in Action; there is so much to choose from! https://www.bbc.co.uk/ programmes/p002vsnb/episodes/player Watch Peter Wothers detonating a dry compound with a light touch https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=H7oZafSywow Read What if? by Randall Munroe and How to Win a Nobel Prize by Barry Marshall. Or a fiction book; The Bees by Laline Paull, and I am sure you will enjoy following Flora and her exploits in the hive!

WEDNESDAY Listen to Mrs Evans’ favourite podcast Stuff You Should Know | Podcast on Spotify Watch the excellent Jim Al-Khalili explain the double slit experiment. I love the thought of atoms listening to us! https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=A9tKncAdlHQ Read For older students, consider picking up No Time to Lose; A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses

by Peter Piot; it is a fascinating book for anyone, but particularly for those interested in Medicine and Biology. If you are lower down the school, then have a look at 100 Things to Know About Saving the Planet. Or a fiction book – Before the Coffee Gets Cold is an interesting and emotional book that involves time travelling from a café in Tokyo.

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ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE Alexa Nash, UIV

WHAT IS ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE? Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia that accounts for about 70% of all dementia cases.

Dementia is an illness that affects the fundamental aspects of a person such as memory and reasoning.

As it develops it can interfere with one’s daily tasks and even one’s personality. This disease affects the brain by releasing formations of insidious proteins that cause black stains on the brain also known as amyloid plaques (sticky proteins which fill the spaces between the neurons – which activate the brains thoughts and actions) and tau tangles (deformed proteins which destroy the neurons’ internal transport mechanisms). It takes on average about six to eight years to completely take over and ‘is a pandemic that took us centuries to track down.’ Approximately 57 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease globally and by 2050 this is estimated to rise to about 152 million due to the expected growth of an aging population.

HOW WAS ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE DISCOVERED? Alois Alzheimer 1864 – 1915 first reported the illness we now know as Alzheimer’s on 3 November 1906 after meeting an old (for the time) woman at the aged 56 who had an unusual mental condition which was becoming progressively worse as time went on. Initially she was observed to be making mistakes around the kitchen, but this progressed to her believing that their carriage driver was trying to break in and hiding things around the house. The woman passed away on 6 June 1906, and Alois Alzheimer had her brain sent to him so he could study what had happened to her as part of the post-mortem investigation. Whilst doing this he noticed straight away just how small her brain was compared to the average person. This had resulted in a significant loss of nerve cells (neurons) within her brain. He also identified protein tangles and plaques around many of the remaining neuron cells.

Alois Alzheimer showed his findings to his friend and colleague Kraepelin, who was a researcher and pathologist, who met Alois Alzheimer when they were both working at a psychiatry clinic in Germany.

Together they prepared to show Alois Alzheimer’s results at the South-West German Psychiatrists meeting which was to happen in November of that year. The meeting went extremely well and in 1910 the term ‘Alzheimer’s disease’ was first used in a psychiatry textbook written by Kraepelin. Since the discovery in 1906 there has been no identified disease modify treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

HOW DOES ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE AFFECT PEOPLE: Alzheimer’s disease attacks the brain starting at the hippocampus which is the part of your brain mainly controlling short-term memory, hence it is the first thing to be affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

The build-up of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, which accompany Alzheimer’s disease, unravel the brain’s neurons on a massive scale. When this happens the brain’s immune system is activated but unfortunately an irreversible amount of damage has been done so the immune system has very little effect on the disease and in only a few years the disease will have reached other parts of the brain such as the frontal lobe, cerebral cortex and will be destroying them affecting a person’s mood, spatial awareness, facial recognition and long-term memory. Sadly, Alzheimer’s disease often leads to an early death with the brain reduced to about the weight of an orange (about three times smaller than a healthy brain at the time of death). Alzheimer’s disease affects people mainly over the age of 65 but some individuals with genetic characteristics can suffer Alzheimer’s disease at an earlier age.

MEDICAL PROGRESS BEING MADE FOR ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: A lot of medical progress has happened in understanding Alzheimer’s and whilst a cure is not yet available the knowledge of the disease has moved on vastly since it was discovered in 1906.

FACTORS THAT AFFECT ALZHEIMER’S: Projects such as the Human Genome Project which was formally set up in 1990 and has discovered thousands of genes and DNA patterns have substantially advanced research into Alzheimer’s disease. On 11 April 1986 a 30-year-old woman from Nottingham wrote to St Mary’s Hospital in London where a group of scientists were based looking into the factor of genetics linked to Alzheimer’s disease. She informed them that three of her aunts, one uncle and recently her father were all victims of Alzheimer’s disease, backing up theory that the disease runs in genes. This idea had attracted more attention after a physician in Minnesota published some work on their observation of over 2,000 brain samples from post-mortems done in the Minnesota state hospitals. His discoveries showed that many relatives of middle-aged Alzheimer’s patients were more likely to then themselves develop the disease when they reached that age as well. By gaining more knowledge on the causes of Alzheimer’s disease, such as links to genetics, we move closer and closer to a potential cure. After dedicating the 15

next 30 years of her life to researching Alzheimer’s in honour of her father, the woman who wrote to St Mary’s Hospital in 1986 was diagnosed herself with Alzheimer’s at the same age her father was when he himself to was diagnosed. Genes only impact a small proportion of the cases and there are many factors which contribute to Alzheimer’s disease from genes to lifestyle factors.

SOCIAL IMPACT OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: A major part of Alzheimer’s disease effects not only the patient but also the ripple effect it has on friends and family; in many ways it can be as hard for them as it is for the patient. It can be very difficult to know the best way to help the person and witnessing them slowly forget the people around them, meaning the relationship they had is slowly lost as the sufferer loses their recognition and memory of who they are. The patient can become very temperamental and upset, so it is a very hard time for every one involved and therefore has a massive social impact. Looking forward with the increased number of people expected to develop Alzheimer’s disease, this significant social burden will increase substantially. The associated cost to health care bodies worldwide will also run to trillions of pounds.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP MINIMISE YOUR CHANCE OF GETTING ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE? Really it is the classics that help to reduce the chance of Alzheimer’s disease. They can’t completely prevent it, but they help, with the first being ‘stress’. You need to try and minimise your stress as much as you possibly can as it has been shown that people with chronic stress have less grey matter in their prefrontal cortex. This goes hand in hand with modern life stress causing depression, anxiety and a higher risk of heart diseases and people who suffer ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ are almost twice as likely to suffer from dementia, with a stress-prone person being 2.7 more times likely to develop Alzheimer’s; so it is no surprise that the less stress you have the better.

The next major thing that helps is your diet, with studies showing that a Mediterranean diet can help prevent Alzheimer’s with Mediterranean people being 52% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease compared to global average. With a connection known as the microbiome connecting what you eat to your brain, there are also dietary factors that impact likelihood of Alzheimer’s disease. Then of course the next factor to help is exercise – anything from stretching to running a marathon helps. The final thing is brain training as once again it keeps you brain working well.

REFERENCES In Pursuit of memory – Joseph Jebelli A short guide to Brain Imaging – Richard E. Passinham and James B. Rowe Alzheimer’s Association and the NHS Website

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BRAIN IMAGING: Brain imaging is a technology that has advanced significantly across the last 20 years. It enables detailed views to be taken of the brain without the necessity of having access to the brain itself.

What this means is that scientists are now able to investigate what happens in the brain when someone develops a disease such as Alzheimer’s rather than only being able to do so post-mortem.

This has brought the opportunity to objectively measure the progress of Alzheimer’s disease whereas previously the disease could only be measured using subjective tests such as a test of cognition or metal capability. This has introduced a new era of neurological disease research.

HOW BRAIN IMAGING IS SUPPORTING A CURE FOR ALZHEIMER’S: There are three key types of imaging used to looking into Alzheimer’s disease and these are: Structural imaging, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which looks at aspects such as the shape, position and volume of the brain tissue.

Scientists have standardised values that can be measured over time which can indicate the presence and rate of development of a disease such as Alzheimer’s. This allows scientists to assess the impact of a potential new medicinal drug by comparing the progress with Alzheimer’s when a patient is taking that drug compared to when a patient is not.

Functional imaging, often referred to as functional MRI, is another form of imaging that, rather than looking at the physical aspects of the brain such as shape like structural imaging does, looks at how well the cells in the different brain regions are working and responding by analysing the blood flow in the brain. This is useful as lots of research suggests that those with Alzheimer’s disease have brains which have reduced cell activity in particular regions of the brain (which is also associated with reduced blood flow).

Positron Emission Tomography (PET), is one of the most commonly used versions of imaging as it helps identify Alzheimer’s disease in its very early stages and potentially uncover biological clues that enable the detection of the disease before it takes an irreversible toll on the memory. It does so by enabling the tracking of a radiological tracer which is injected into the spine and then is taken into the brain and is attracted to the build-up of sugars and other markers of Alzheimer’s disease, which can then be read by the imaging technology.

Together these technological developments are supporting scientists to find new approaches to dealing with Alzheimer’s disease which continues to cause millions of lives to be impacted or cut short every year.

WALRUS FROM SPACE Linlin Chi, LVI 1

There are always news articles about global warming and climate change on social media, but like many of us, I have always felt frustrated that I am unable to do anything substantial to help with this situation. So, when I saw the message Dr Pilkington shared about saving walruses, I immediately signed myself up.

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So, what is walrus from space? Walruses are facing the reality of climate crisis and scientists need to know more about how they are affected. Therefore, the WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) and the BAS (British Antarctic Survey) are asking the public to become ‘walrus detectives’ and help contribute to conservation science by looking through satellite images taken from space. This project aims to carry out a census of Atlantic and Laptev walrus populations over five years, which will help the scientists to spot changes over time [1 & 2].

My role in this project was being the ‘walrus detective’. I looked through hundreds of satellite images taken from space and tried to identify whether these images did or didn’t contain walruses, or if the image quality was too poor to tell. It may sound easy, but it was much more difficult than it sounds. For example, some images appeared pitch black at first sight and it was tempting to choose the ‘no walrus’ option, however once I adjusted the brightness and sharpness of the image, I could see there were some walruses present [3].

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Furthermore, it is also easy to confuse walruses with other objects, such as rocks on the shore, as they all look very similar in the images [4].

After looking at around 600 images, I finally found a picture that contained walruses.

The feeling of excitement and relief at that moment was beyond words. If anyone wishes to join and make a difference, all you need is a computer/tablet and access to the internet and search for ‘Walrus from space’.

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THE GOLDEN RECORDS OF HUMANITY Elfreda Harvey, LVI

On 5 September 1977, NASA launched two spacecrafts – Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 – on a planetary grand tour.

Their purpose was to study our neighbouring planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, yet their initial plan was only to fly to Jupiter and Saturn.

The mission was time-critical as they were assisted by the gravitational pull of the planets which were in the optimal layout in our solar system. With the planets aligned, which only takes place roughly once every 175 years, the planets’ gravitational pulls would act as a slingshot, allowing the spacecraft to gain orbital speed, covering a much greater distance. Consequently, the crafts did not require as much fuel which meant they could carry more scientific instruments.

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To this day, the two voyagers are the farthest human-made objects to have travelled from Earth.

Voyager 1 was the first to reach interstellar space and scientists believe that it will reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud in 300 years. Voyager 1 is about 23.29 billion km (14.47 billion miles) away from Earth and travelling at 61,030 km/h (37,922 mph).

Since their launch, the Voyagers have sent home some of the most breath-taking images of our planetary neighbours. This includes the famous pale blue dot image in which Earth is barely a pixel against the stellar glow of the sun. The spacecraft are equipped with instruments to measure cosmic rays, plasma waves, magnetic fields and other data.

Four decades after their launch, the Voyagers still communicate with us, breaking the initial prediction of the mission only lasting five years. However, due to its incredibly immense distance from Earth, radio signals take more than fifteen hours to reach Earth.

Such longevity comes at a cost, the cameras onboard the space crafts have been turned off and less than half of the instruments are still functioning. Those working are being continuously reprogrammed to extend their performance, but NASA expects radio communications to cease completely by 2025. By then, the instruments will fail to produce sufficient heat to keep them at a stable temperature against the extremes of outer space. The machines will become too cold and

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the signals too weak, so everything will gradually stop working.

The Voyager missions were unique in their ambition and scale yet one can realise that similar missions as grand as these have been made in the past. For example, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, launched in 1973, paved the way for the Voyager missions. Yet, what made the Voyager mission even more special was a record placed onboard the spacecrafts. The record, designed by Carl Sagan, Frank Drake and Linda Salzman, was made to expand the human sphere, make contact with extra-terrestrials and welcome a new partnership with mankind.

The record is made of a phonograph record which at the time was the most advanced method of coding.

Although these only had a runtime of 30 minutes, it felt impossible for the creators to represent humanity in only that short amount of time. Luckily, solutions were engineered, and the phonograph was able to have a runtime of 90 minutes.

With what we know, we don’t share the same languages with our interstellar friends, nor life experiences. Yet, what we can share are facts of reality, from physics, chemistry, and mathematics.

These became the guiding principles of the record.

After including these on the cover of the record [1], Sagan’s team contemplated the fact that however small the chance of the record being found by extra-terrestrials, guiding principles shouldn’t be all they should know about us. The team at NASA, agreed with their point and came up with the idea of adding music, language and photos to the record – creating something like humanity’s very own mix tape.

For example, Sagan wanted greetings from UN delegates, but realised almost all were men. NASA refused to include images of explosions as they feared they may be perceived as hostile and offensive. The team offered to include a picture of a nude couple to show a critical aspect of human lives – reproduction. NASA turned that down as they feared a negative public reaction, so a silhouette was used.

At every step in creating the record, the team wanted to make sure that its contents were as representative of Earth’s population as possible.

Music was a key element as it seemed to be a credible attempt to convey human emotions. The record contains music from Bach and Beethoven, which were chosen to highlight the mathematical properties of music. It also included music from ancient China, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Congo and Peru, reflecting the diversity of music on our planet.

The record is a gold-plated copper disc, protected by an electroplated aluminium cover which should last a billion years. This will be at that time when the Sun will have expanded to the point where it engulfs our planet and destroys life on Earth. The record would then be the last evidence of our humanity.

The record also included an audio essay, with sounds from volcanoes, thunder and other natural phenomena, ending with more modern creations, such as a rocket lift-off, which tell the story of our civilisation chronologically by sound. It also includes greetings from 55 different languages and includes the famous line from Carl Sagan’s son, Nick, ‘Hello from the children of planet Earth’.

If the record had been made today, it would have higher definition images and more storage, so could have included much more content. Yet limitations in the 1970s may have had advantages.

The restriction to 90 minutes and 115 images meant they had to carefully select every pixel and syllable used.

We may never know when the endlessly drifting Voyager spacecrafts are encountered by an extra-terrestrial civilization. One can see the Golden Record as a gift from humanity to the cosmos. Some may also see it as a gift to humanity, embodying a sense of possibility and hope which is as relevant now as it was in 1977. The Voyager Interstellar Record is a reminder of what we can achieve when we are at our best and an example that our future really is up to all of us.

You can follow the Voyagers live on the NASA website using this link: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/ mission/status/

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You can also see what music, images, sounds and greetings were used on the record using this link: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whatson-the-record/

Photos were also a way to show the meaning of our humanity [2]. 115 images, encoded in analogue form, are all arbitrary images with some describing constants and others demonstrating the scale of things. Some may seem completely irrelevant, such as the photo above, which captures the subtle mischief and joy of doing something you should not. It is hoped that those looking at them find meaning in them as they provide a space for exploration into the human psyche.

Although the record captures some of the most beautiful aspects about our life on this planet, the record also captures less beautiful ones.

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THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COMPUTING Sophie Lambourne, UIV & Cheuk-Yi Cherie (Sage) Lau, UIV

On Wednesday 20 October, a few Downe House girls visited the National Museum of Computing in Milton Keynes, for a day focusing on young women in STEM. We had so much fun there and all learnt a lot.

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Our first activity was led by RAF military crew.

We had to build a secure telecom tower out of nuts, bolts, washers and bridges. The goal was to create a free-standing tower with two disks 1.2 metres above the ground, 30cm apart from each other. All three teams completed this goal in under 30 minutes. We had to use a range of STEM skills, such as engineering, design and collaboration.

We then went on to learn about the Sphero robot [1 & 2], which was very cool! The Sphero is a ball that flashes and lights up. You can move the ball around using controls on an iPad, or you can program it to do certain things. We experimented with different games, my favourite being ping pong. In this game, the Sphero moves in random directions, but when it encounters another object, such as your hand, it changes colour. It then makes a ‘boing’ noise and moves in another direction.

We also played snake with the Sphero, with a small screen on the robot being the game screen.

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When we tilted the ball in different directions, this is the way the snake would move. In this activity, we had to do some problem solving when our code wasn’t working correctly, which is a key STEM skill to have.

As a quick bonus during our lunch break, we got to see an original Enigma machine [3] that was used in World War II. We got a fascinating demonstration of how the machine works and an explanation of how hard it would be to crack the code with nearly 160 quintillion combinations [4].

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After our lunch break, we took part in a workshop with Sophos, a company that specialises in security and advanced threat protection. It resembled an actual cyber threat attack, and we had around 45 minutes to solve the issue before it sent a virus to shut down the internet. We used clues that they provided, and my favourite was when we had to use the tape measure to wrap around a vitamin bottle, like the Jefferson wheel cipher. The tape measure had letters and numbers, and it revealed a password after you wrapped it around. Each group used problem-solving skills and collaboration to defeat the cyber threat. It also put into perspective how prevalent this issue is and how cyber security is of utmost importance.

We then went over to our penultimate activity and met up with software engineer, Kim [5]. She taught us how to make a machine recognise different objects such as a cat plush or a water bottle using a website called ‘Teachable Machine’. We learnt about the fundamental concepts of machine learning and how repetition is effective. There was a short Q&A session after that, and we asked questions about her profession as a software engineer. She talked about the numerous projects she has worked on, but her favourite was a no-contact payment method.

Finally, we had a scavenger hunt where we learnt about the female trailblazers who have worked in the computing industry. We learnt facts and new information about women who have changed the world of STEM for the better. Before leaving, we had a quick session where we played video games on the same computers and consoles [6,7 & 8].

There was Pac-Man and Space Invaders, but my favourite was Super Mario Bros. 2, released in 1988

by Nintendo. It was fun to see how much the game has changed, from the first few years to nowadays, and many still play.

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We headed to the gift shop before saying goodbye to the staff who helped at the museum. It was an eventful and entertaining day, and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

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MATRIARCH COMPETITION Dr Rachel Maclennan

On 11 February, Downe House celebrated The International Day of Women and Girls in Science. To acknowledge and honour this important day we invited pupils to write a short article about different animals (and plants!) that live as part of a matriarchal society, with the title – The Most Impressive Matriarch of the Natural World.

We are very pleased to publish some of the excellent articles here. A special well done to Aggie (LVI) for her winning article!

MATRIARCH COMPETITION

GRAND CANYON

Alexandra Diez Sanchez-Tabernero, Remove

The Grand Canyon is localised in Colorado, USA. This amazing natural rock is formed of reddish hue cliffs, narrow places and a great depth that impacts. It is 277 miles (446km) long, 18 miles (29km) wide and 1 mile (1857m) of depth. And to admire it in its maximum expression you must get to the incredible Skywalk viewpoint, which is about 1,300 meters high, where you can witness one of the prettiest sunsets.

The river that passes through the Grand Canyon is the Colorado River, which is born in Wyoming and its mouth is the gulf of California. The Grand Canyon used to be a holy site and people made pilgrimages to it. The first European to be known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was the Spanish man with the surname Garcia Lopez de Cardenas in 1540. Of the 90 mammal species in the Grand Canyon, 18 are rodents and 22 bats. Of the 1737 known species of vascular plants 167 are fungi species, 64 moss species and 195 are species of lichen.

The air quality of the Grand Canyon is some of the cleanest in the USA, although as there are forests and sand in the Grand Canyon the air can be considerably

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affected by forest fires and dust storms (also called sandstorms). It also contains five of the seven life zones and three of the four desert types in North America.

The Hopi and the Navajo tribes live in the Grand Canyon, they are not the leading tribes of this wonderful place, but they do live there. Although both tribes have fought for territory, the Hopi have outnumbered the Navajo, but they have been growing a bigger population. The Hopi language relates to the ancient Uto-Aztecan language family, the Navajo language relates to the long dead Athapaskan language family. The only similarity these tribes have is that they are both Matriarchal (lead

by women).

MATRIARCH COMPETITION

MOTHERS

Phillipa Drysdale, LIV

Female dominance is surprisingly prominent in nature and many species of animal (and even some plants) show clear signs of a matriarchy.

I could talk about how trees shelter their young or how female monkeys are often the alphas of the group and form thriving social circles. However, all these characteristics are compared to our own traits, and this is how we make the observation of ‘matriarchy’, so arguably, the most impressive matriarch of the natural world is us, humankind.

The dictionary definition of matriarchy is ‘a system of society or government ruled by a woman or women’. Up until recently, and even now in some cases, males have been considered the dominant gender among homo sapiens, so how can we be the most impressive matriarchy? Well, the fact that we gave matriarchy a name, and that we recognise this trait in the first place is the first sign of the human matriarchy. Women, on average, have been shown to live longer than men, and therefore, the oldest person in a family or community is often a woman. This coincides with the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) definition; ‘matriarchy is a form of social organisation where the mother or oldest female is the head of the family and descent, and relationship are reckoned through the female line’.

Human mothers take care of their children for roughly eighteen years, longer than any other animal on the planet. Women can be surrogates for others and donate their eggs which is not seen anywhere else in the natural world. They can also adopt and foster other human children but most of all, being able to recognise this trait in others is what makes humans the most impressive matriarchs of the natural world.

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MATRIARCH COMPETITION

ELEPHANTS

Aleksandra Cork, LIV

Elephants are magnificent giants with legendary memories, thick skin and tender hearts but most people seem to overlook the fact that strong females lead their herds. Patriarchy in animals and humans seems to be the default, but for many animals in the natural world they live with a matriarch. In elephants, the oldest and most dominant females are the ones who lead the herd. Elephant matriarchs hold their complex social structures together, they are the social glue.

Elephants live a very long time (up to 70 years) this means the matriarch can connect with the younger generations, looking after her calves but also grand mothering other calves. A matriarch increases the survival rate of young elephant calves, they are always looking after the herd. The older females are often chosen to be the matriarch because they have a good memory of water and food sources they have encountered in the past. This can help the herd survive in the harshest of conditions.

The influence of matriarchs is becoming more and more important, matriarchs often have larger tusks and are therefore more at risk to being poached.

Studies have shown that if a young elephant’s

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matriarch is culled, they have decision-making problems and don’t know how to behave in the herd.

With years of experience, the matriarch is enriched with knowledge and is a necessity to the herd.

The death of a matriarch can not only traumatise the herd, but it can be a disadvantage when confronting enemies, finding food or navigating.

Matriarchs are necessary for elephants to live healthily and happily and our top priority should be to keep them safe. Matriarchs can be much more beneficial for certain animals than patriarchs and fascinating elephants definitely have the most impressive matriarch.

MATRIARCH COMPETITION

BEES

Gabrielle Yue, Remove

In my opinion, I believe that the most ordinary out all matriarchs, may just be the most impressive, and they are the bees.

A beehive is always ruled by a queen, hence the matriarchy. A beehive’s bee colony is an impressive, hierarchical organisation that focuses on efficiency and growth, which is all revolved around the queen.

If their queen was lost or hurt, the entire colony would dissolve until a new queen was found.

The queen bee in a hive would always be larger than the others and is also the only bee in the entire hive that can produce fertilised eggs for the colony.

Within her lifespan of up to five years, she can produce up to 200,000 eggs, enough to make up for any injury or loss that could happen. Most of the bee colony is made up of only infertile females, whose lifespans only last up to six weeks in comparison to the queen.

These worker bees run the hive, with chores such as processing nectar and pollen, regulating the temperature, adding to the hive by building new wax cells, so on and so forth. And what about the males? Well, these bees are called drones bees, and their only purpose is to mate with the queen once she is chosen on what is called the nuptial flight, before dying straight afterwards.

Therefore, I believe the bees to be the most impressive matriarchs in the world, as they can manage most of their lives without any males, unlike most animal species.

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MATRIARCH COMPETITION

CLOWNFISH

Gabriella Bailey, LIV

Matriarchy is the social system in which females hold the powerful positions (usually in political roles), whereas patriarchy is the social system where men hold the powerful roles, this is not something that should be encouraged and is also something that many disagree with. Patriarchy is predominant within our social system. A lot of women find this discouraging, especially those who are interested in political roles.

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An amazing and inspiring example of this is within the Clownfish community. Clownfish form a matriarchal society where the largest (normally most dominant) female is queen. Clownfish are hermaphrodites, this means they have both male and female sex organs, this can be an abnormal natural occurrence in some species. However, all Clownfish are born as males but in a clutch of Clownfish the most dominant fish will become a female and the next dominant fish will become the mate of this female. The rest will remain male until the dominant fish is deceased.

This is interesting as it shows the power position of the female in this situation, it shows that the female is the most crucial member of the clutch as the ‘queen’ of this clutch. I found this as, ‘the most impressive showing of matriarchy’ because Clownfish are such small and vulnerable animals, but they are part of the few groups that show the power of matriarchy, which makes them powerful showing that even in the smallest species matriarchy is important and something that should be derivative within other species.

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MATRIARCH COMPETITION

ORCAS

Agnes Rose, LVI

Pods of orca whales inhabit every major ocean, with each family able to survive from the help of an experienced hunter, the grandmother.

Grandmother whales can live 80 years or longer, whilst most males generally only live until the age of 30. After various studies, we have learnt a great deal about a specific population of these whales, known as the Southern Residents.

Each carf is born into a matriline (the mother’s family), where they spend most of their life hunting, eating, playing and even communicating with each other through their own specific calls. A young whale also shares a dialect with neighbouring families meaning they can socialise regularly. Once a female reaches the age of 15 these interactions become opportunities to mate with the neighbours’ young males. She and her calves return to the matriline and continue their life together, whilst the male remains with his own mother. This mother then gives birth on average every six years until the age of 40 when she enters menopause. This is fascinating as it is only known for some species of whales as well as humans for females to continue to live for years after they stop reproducing.

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Grandmothers then lead the pod and begin to hunt for salmon; during this time she shows her young where to find the most fertile fishing ground as well as sharing 90% of the salmon she catches with the pod. The grandmother’s expertise can be the difference between life and death for these families. Because most of the pod are daughters or grandchildren of these elder female whales, they focus the later portion of their lives on benefiting the whole pod, allowing younger females to concentrate on reproducing.

These populations of Southern Resident Killer Whales are critically endangered due to the rapidly declining salmon populations. We desperately need to invest in restoring the salmon populations to prevent extinctions of these impressive creatures.

SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT Daria Andreeva, LVI

In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger devised a thought experiment in discussion with Albert Einstein; a cat is placed in an enclosed steel chamber along with a vial of poison which may or may not be released according to the random decay of a radioactive isotope.

Although quantum mechanics has succeeded in being the most precise and accurate branch of any science, regarding experimental predictions and measurements, there is broad disagreement about how to interpret it all – how to understand and describe this theory.

This first analysis of the thought experiment is referred to as the Copenhagen Interpretation. In this interpretation, the observer is in absolute control over the situation and the act of opening the chamber is what ends this turbulent state by determining the outcome one way or the other. One of the most well-known scientists who is associated with this interpretation is Niels Bohr, who argued that the observer simply observes and does not determine the result. It is only in the eyes of the observer that the cat simultaneously exists in two states and that the outcome of the observation was determined well before the box was opened. The cat is not at the focus of this interpretation.

However, this is not the idea that Schrödinger wanted to promote, instead he wished to illustrate the absurd nature of this paradox and all the possible conclusions being able to exist at once. This Many-Worlds Interpretation was further formulated

by Hugh Everett in 1957. In this interpretation, the observer has less importance and the cat’s undefined state carries on even after the opening of the chamber. Yet, all these states are decoherent, meaning that all the possible outcomes do not have interactions with each other and do not affect one another, so existing in separate timelines of outcome.

Another interpretation of this thought experiment is the Relational Interpretation (first proposed by Carlo Rovelli in 1994). In this interpretation, everything in the system, including both the animate and the inanimate objects, are considered as observers of what is occurring. For example, the cat can be considered an observer of the apparatus whilst the person carrying out the experiment is considered as the observer of the entire system which includes the box or chamber in which the cat partakes. Prior to the opening of the container, the cat has all of the information about the nature of its state as well as the state of the apparatus placed with it due to it being alive or dead (i.e. if the atom has decayed or if the gun has fired, then the cat would be deceased and so aware of this fact). Despite this, the person carrying out the experiment has no knowledge of the events that may or may not have transpired within the enclosed steel chamber where the cat and the weapon are located.

This therefore means the two observers have different accounts of the situation. For the cat the current position that it is in is obvious as it is the one experiencing it. On the other hand, the experimenter bears witness to the superposition the cat seems to appear to be part of. This is only resolved by the experimenter’s observation, by opening the chamber and so, the two observers are exposed to the same amount of information as each other, allowing for a definite result.

Schrödinger was mainly concerned with the question: When does this superposition stop existing and when is the answer clear that the cat is either one state or the other? One’s initial response would be to assume that the observer cannot be in more than one state at once unlike the cat who is capable of being in this unknown state. Does this mean that the cat is a required observer for this experiment to be concluded or is an external observer required too, to provide a more well-defined state? All these alternatives seemed absurd to Einstein. He was impressed by this thought experiment and in a letter to Schrödinger (that was dated from 1950) he wrote, ‘Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the dead cat is something independent of the act of observation.’

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Photo from Pexels (full credit?)

An observer outside the chamber does not know whether the cat is deceased or not until they open the box. Although there are many variations of this experiment, such as one with gunpowder or with a non-radioactive poison which the cat has the option to consume, the concept remains the same: according to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead, in two separate timelines, until an observer opens the chamber. This illustrates what is meant by the cat existing in what is called a quantum superposition.

MATHS AND ART Mrs Michelle Hobbs

“The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order symmetry … these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.” Aristotle Many great artists have used mathematical ideas and concepts either consciously or subconsciously.

An awareness and, better still, understanding of the mathematics involved can add another layer of appreciation and enjoyment when studying a painting or a building. There are a multitude of ways that Mathematics can be interwoven with Art. Sometimes formal mathematical rules and concepts can be applied such as the Golden Ratio, Perspective and Tessellation, but often a more general appreciation of shape and pattern is present.

The intersection of Art and Mathematics can also be seen in Fractal Art. Stunning images can be produced when numbers generated by an iterative mathematical process are identified with particular colours. This article will focus on Geometry and Art by way of introduction to a much wider field.

To begin, consider the basic mathematical shapes: circles, triangles, squares and rectangles. Artists like Mondrian and Kandinsky combined basic shapes with colour to striking effect.

Mondrian ‘longed for an art of clarity and discipline that somehow reflected the objective laws of the universe’.

Kandinsky used geometric forms ‘in his quest to achieve harmony and to express a spiritual reality’.

For him coloured shapes could be identified with feelings and in Yellow-Red-Blue it is clear to see how he juxtaposes light and dark shapes.

Kandinsky and Mondrian both used the simplicity and clarity of geometry in their search for order and harmony and I feel that their paintings sit very happily in a Mathematics classroom.

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This tradition of considering abstract form and the influence of Mathematics can also be seen in the sculptures of Barbara Hepworth. Visiting her garden in St Ives is an excellent opportunity for appreciating the fusion of Mathematics and Art. It really is a multisensory and multidisciplinary experience.

Modern western art is not the only art to rely heavily on geometry in its search for beauty. Islamic artists have long been influenced by Mathematics and Science in their use of geometric shapes to convey unity and order. Tiling in the Nasir-ol-Molk Mosque in Shiraz, Iran, illustrates the use of circles, squares, stars and polygons. These have been tessellated, rotated, reflected, enlarged and translated to create intricate, complex patterns. Something to bear in mind when revising IGCSE transformations!

‘We can go on for as long as we like subdividing rectangles. And if we draw quarter circles in each square, we get a spiral. The illustration below is probably one of the most famous images in mathematics, if not in all of science. The curve is called the “golden spiral”. (Strictly speaking the golden spiral is a smoothed-out version of this curve) …’

An article on Mathematics and Art would not be complete without mentioning the fraught topic of the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio was observed by the Ancient Greek Mathematician, Euclid, and artists such as the polymath Leonardo Da Vinci may have used it in the Last Supper and other paintings.

However, the evidence for the use of the Golden Ratio knowingly being linked to what is aesthetically pleasing is not always clear-cut. Its apparent use could often be unconscious or coincidental, but it is still quite fun to explore as Dali realised in his painting, The Sacrament of The Last Supper. There are many websites that claim that the use of the Golden Ratio will enhance your art and appreciation of art history, but I will focus on explaining some of the mathematics involved.

The Golden Ratio is the ratio 1: Φ (Phi) where Φ is the solution to the quadratic equation: x2-x-1=0.

The first few digits are 1.618… but the digits go on forever as it is an irrational number. There is also an interesting link to the Fibonacci sequence as the division of successive terms tends to Φ.

A rectangle whose sides are in the ratio 1: Φ is called a golden rectangle and removing the largest square contained in the rectangle leaves a smaller rectangle, which also has sides that are in the Golden Ratio. This subdivision results in the Golden Spiral as explained here by Alex Bellos:

Overlaying this spiral on paintings like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Hokusai’s Great Wave could suggest the use of the Golden Ratio and Spiral; key features of the paintings do seem to fit spirals and rectangles.

It is even claimed that the Greeks had the Golden Ratio in mind when constructing the Parthenon in 447 BCE. An internet search will yield interesting results or come and look at the poster of Hokusai’s Great Wave in classroom M3.

Needless to say, I believe that Mathematics underpins most of our lives. Artists and architects have long understood its beauty and the interplay between Mathematics and Art can enhance our appreciation of both.

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IMMERSE PRIZE An external competition with Immerse Education, where participants have the opportunity to showcase their subject knowledge and essay writing skills, with the chance to win a full scholarship to one of their 2022 summer programmes in Oxford, Cambridge and London.

IMMERSE PRIZE: WHY DO WE NEED CYBER SECURITY? Maria Taraban, UIV

Cyber security is the protection of computerised data, networks and technological devices from potential threats, such as illegal utilisation of technology or malicious interference (known as cyber-attacks). Some forms of cyber security include, for example, cloud security offered by Microsoft OneDrive, application security to control access with a strong password, and operational security, which includes contingency planning for cyberattacks. Cyber security is vital in protecting businesses, essential establishments and individuals from cyber-attacks.

For businesses, cyber-attacks can be destructive in a number of ways. Firstly, cyber-attacks put companies’ reputations in jeopardy when the news on the security violation becomes public.

This can lead to consumers doubting the security procedures of the companies, causing a decline in purchases. Dangerously, cyber-attacks can mean precious data becomes inaccessible.

For example, Code Spaces, a code-hosting company, encountered a malware that deleted a lot of valuable data. As a result, it had to return money to customers, which made it financially unstable, bringing about the company’s closure.

According to Experian, a consumer credit reporting

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company, around 60% of small enterprises shut down following cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks are therefore responsible for unemployment rates increasing. Additionally, closure of companies means suffering of the overall economy of a country, as consumer rates decrease. Decreased consumer spending leads to weak aggregate demand and a falling growth rate. Consequently, cyber security is required to decrease the possibility of unemployment and to stabilise a country’s economy.

Cyber-attacks could severely disrupt functioning of establishments that serve society, such as hospitals, police, fire departments and other essential institutions. The cyber-attacks can cause problems, such as financial loss from theft of money and inaccessible IT systems. As an example, Springhill Medical Centre in Alabama experienced a cyberattack and could not access its IT systems for over three weeks. This affected staff communication and made maternal heart monitors unclear. The ambiguous heart monitors affected at least one new-born, as the infant died nine months after birth from ‘subsequent brain damage’. Generally, cyberattacks make vital institutions less accessible for

people in need, increasing the risks of death. Hence, we need cyber security to reduce death rates from cyber-attacks.

Finally, a type of cyber-attack called ‘phishing’ can disadvantage individual people. Phishing could be implemented by offenders trying to obtain someone’s personal information by targeting potential victims through emails, while impersonating a genuine organisation. These emails often deceive people into disclosing personal information, such as bank details, by offering money and valuables in return. According to the FBI, in the USA, there were 241,342 registered phishing occurrences in 2020. Phishing scams are detrimental because they can end in theft of identity or money. To keep safe from these menaces, cyber security is needed.

To conclude, cyber security is crucially important, as it lowers the risk of theft or loss of valuable data, guards business operations from paralysis, protects IT systems of societal establishments and makes people less vulnerable to scams. Most industries and public sectors require a degree of cyber security to ensure general safety.

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IMMERSE PRIZE: WHAT IS HISTORY’S MOST SIGNIFICANT INVENTION? Cheuk-Yi Cherie (Sage) Lau, UIV

Human beings are innovative. We love to develop and manufacture new articles, constantly flooded with the latest prototypes and items on the market to buy to make our lives easier. Amongst all of these lies the magnifying lens and, although it may not seem the most remarkable invention at first, it is easy to underestimate this product and its contributions to society.

REFERENCES Encyclopedia.com.

“Magnifying Glass.”

Medical Discoveries.

2018. [https:// www.encyclopedia. com/science-andtechnology/technology/ technology-terms-andconcepts/magnifyingglass last accessed: 5 Jan. 2022].

History.com. “8.

Magnifying Lenses” in “11 Innovations That Changed History”. Andrews, E., 2021. [https://www. history.com/news/11innovations-thatchanged-history last accessed: 5 Jan. 2022].

Classroom.synonym. com. “Who Invented the Magnifying Glass”. Stover, E. [https://classroom. synonym.com/ invented-magnifyingglass-5031039.html last accessed: 5 Jan 2022].

Brown.edu. “Historical Context of the Magnifying Glass.”

In “13 Things”. 2008. [https://www.brown. edu/Departments/ Joukowsky_Institute/ courses/13things/7334. html last accessed: 5 Jan. 2022].

Sciencing.com. “How Do Magnifying Glasses Work”. Crystal, M., 2017. [https://sciencing.com/ characteristics-planemirrors-7220163.html last accessed: 5 Jan. 2022].

Nasa.gov. “What Is the Hubble Space Telescope”. Wild, F., 2021. [https://www. nasa.gov/audience/ forstudents/k-4/stories/ nasa-knows/whatis-the-hubble-spacetelecope-k4.html last accessed: 5 Jan. 2022]

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The Ancient Egyptians were pioneers, breaking up fragments of crystals and obsidian to view smaller objects. In addition, Roman Emperor Nero used gemstones to view performances in the amphitheatre. The Roman philosopher Seneca also described his use of water in a bowl as a magnifying tool. However, it was not until the thirteenth century when the first lenses came into use. Roger Bacon, an English philosopher, wrote about and experimented with the magnification of glass spheres to assist the weak-sighted scholars who needed to continue pursuing their teaching and research at the University of Oxford. This led him to create a magnifying glass which inspired and assisted the creation of the first spectacles in 1280 Florence. However, this is still debated as the original creator is still not found. By the sixteenth century, holding a glass magnifier to produce an enlarged image was widespread and this guided the invention of optical instruments. Telescopes and microscopes were introduced in the late sixteenth century, a major innovation that enhanced the fields of biology and astronomy. The invention of the microscope facilitated Robert Hooke, the first ever to observe micro-organisms such as cells, and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a pioneer and often regarded as the ‘father of microbiology’.

A magnifying lens is made up of a convex lens. Light rays enter the lens in parallel but refract and bundle all parallel rays to the focal point. This changes the path and enlarges the angle of incidence of the rays, appearing larger. It does not move closer or further to the eye and is only stretched in our perspectives.

The introduction of magnifying lenses has also inspired other ingenious products to be created, such as the electron microscope, a powerful tool to inspect biological specimens, and the Hubble Space Telescope, designed by NASA to explore the universe by taking detailed pictures, allowing us to observe the formation of planets in our Solar System with much more clarity and understanding.

On a much smaller scale, loupes are comprised of three magnifying lenses and are devices that assist jewellers to see gems and other precious stones to evaluate their value and help photographers to see how clear an image is when magnified. This proves that magnifying lenses can be beneficial in a vast number of fields.

The magnifying lens is often used as the backbone of other inventions. It is a tool that assisted the creation of other products that we consider essential in all fields. From photography to optometry, it has played a major part in shaping our past and we should never doubt its significance.

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IMMERSE PRIZE: THE HISTORY OF THE REFRIGERATOR Pearl (Ivie) Avwenagha, UIV

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, an invention is ‘something that has never been made before, or the process of creating something that has never been made before’. Before the eighteenth century, there have been many ground-breaking inventions to do with preserving food for the public, such as the action of canning, salting, potting and freezing. However, out of all the methods and inventions created at that time period, I think the refrigerator was the most significant.

In modern life, the refrigerator is a component used constantly every single day and, for most people, it would be very hard to imagine life without it. Prior to the 1830s, salting, spicing, drying, pickling or smoking were some of the only ways to go about food preservation. Refrigeration was not needed, because the foods it preserved, for example fruits and vegetables, were not an important part of the North American diet, as they are currently. There were also iceboxes – food was left in a box lined

B. Krasner-Khait, ‘The Impact of Refrigeration’, History Magazine, [http://www.historymagazine.com/refrig. html] J. Bandy, “How did the invention of the refrigerator have an impact on history? How did it make life easier, and what other things did it lead to?” eNotes Editorial, 14 March 2010. [https://www.enotes. com/homework-help/ how-did-inventionrefrigerator-have-animpact-147519 last accessed 31 Apr. 2021.]

The History of the Refrigerator, M. Bellis, 01 November 2019, [https://www. thoughtco.com/historyof-refrigerator-andfreezers-4072564] The History of the Refrigerator, M. Bellis, 01 November 2019, ThoughtCo. [https:// www.thoughtco.com/ history-of-refrigeratorand-freezers-4072564]

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with tin or zinc and an ice brick was placed on top to melt and cool the box. However, iceboxes’ success entirely depended on how fast the brick of ice melted. Very often, it would melt too fast.

According to The History of the Refrigerator, ‘A refrigerator produces cool temperatures by rapidly vaporising a liquid through compression’.

These household appliances have a thermally insulated compartment which transfers heat from the inside of the refrigerator to the outside, making the inside cooler.

In 1748, Scottish scientist William Cullen demonstrated the first form of refrigeration at the University of Glasgow. Despite his ingenious invention, it was never used for any practical purpose. In the mid-1800s, an American inventor named Oliver Evans designed a blueprint for the first refrigeration machine, but it wasn’t built until 1834, by Jacob Perkins. Using a vapor compression cycle, the refrigerator created cool temperatures to store food in. Ten years after this, John Gorrie, an American physician, based a new refrigerator off Evans’ design. He cured yellow fever patients, using the air from the device. Despite all of this, we owe the process of liquefying gas, that is part of basic refrigeration technology today, to German engineer Carl von Linden, who patented it in 1876.

In conclusion, I believe the most significant invention in history is the refrigerator, because many people had a more healthy and well-balanced diet than before as the refrigerators could preserve the food for longer. There were also many medical problems related to the use of natural ice: the original water was polluted. In the future, I think the current model of refrigerators could be improved even more, as the refrigerants used are very potent greenhouse gases.

Maybe a model could be developed using solar power, or other renewable energy.

IMMERSE PRIZE: THE CENTRAL SCIENCE Anya Gannon, LVI

At our most basic, we are all just a collection of chemicals reacting to produce specific responses.

Chemistry is the most important scientific field partly due to its historic significance, and its undeniable symbolism as mankind’s thirst for curiosity and knowledge being most profoundly fulfilled. However, it is not the content of Chemistry that proves its overarching importance, but the skills acquired when learning it.

Biology at a high level can mostly be explained through a chemical perspective such as the unique properties of water and the use of medicinal drugs in the body. Although biological principles and procedures are not taught in Chemistry, the transferrable skills of problem-solving and piecing together various forms of information mean that a chemist can help a biologist with ease. Physics is a more abstract science that explains everything due to principles and therefore, it lacks importance due to the constraints of these principles and their inefficiency to be showcased clearly at a real-world level. Indeed, density equals mass over volume; Chemistry allows us to understand why ice is less dense than water which the other two sciences may struggle to decipher.

Chemistry also plays a vital role in the future of sustainability and creating ways for us to adapt to the environmental crisis that is currently being experienced. The use of biofuels in Brazil as an energy source is an example of a way that Chemistry leads to a path of increasing the efficiency of our current resources and decreasing their negative impact on the world. Chemistry provides us with awe and bewildering appreciation for the world around us by both simplifying and complicating every structure and movement. There is a chemical explanation for almost every situation including those not designated to the scientific field, including the formation of addictions and emotions such as love through the release of dopamine and its chemical interactions in the body.

Nevertheless, the greatest feat of Chemistry that highlights its importance is its ability not to stand alone in ignorance of all other sciences but to utilise them to explain everyday marvels. It is the central discipline that lends skills and borrows them, to unite a plethora of principles and experiments to make sense of a world full of nonsense.

Another reason the principles of Physics cannot be reasonably compared to Chemistry is that they create a tunnel vision where there is nearly always a correct answer and correct method. Chemistry includes taking many variables into account and developing reasoning skills to explain the nature of chemical reactions or the failures of experiments, thanks to the deep understanding that there are many factors that can influence outcomes.

Chemistry can be viewed as superior to Physics as it takes the principles and can utilise them effectively to discover the capabilities of these invisible rules.

For example, pressure is a force that participates greatly in the formation and structure of nearly everything around us in a wholly passive role, yet Chemistry appreciates this power and unleashes its potential in the hydration of ethene whereby pressure is used as a key component to produce ethanol which is essential in a variety of industries.

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USING OUR NEW TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT CREATIVITY IN 3D DESIGN Mr Ben Wall

1 Amelia (LIV) ‘Make a Scene’

The teaching of Product Design at Downe House has recently moved away from the constraints of Design Technology to the teaching of the ‘ThreeDimensional Design’ strand of the Art and Design disciplines at both GCSE and A Level. This has allowed our pupils to spend more time exploring materials and processes within the workshop and to produce highly creative sculptural and product design outcomes.

2 Eliza (LIV) ‘Make a Scene’

Technical processes remain central to project work, with our new laser cutter in constant independent use by girls in all year groups. In the Lower School, projects such as the ‘Make a Scene’ project [1,2 & 3] have involved creative 2D CAD (Computer Aided Design) that have dug right down to the level of editing ‘nodes’ in the TechSoft Design software [4].

3 Charlotte (LIV) ‘Make a Scene’ 4

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At GCSE the girls have been exploring the work of artists and designers and producing sculptural work in a variety of forms. This has included use of the newly installed metalworking area and MIG welder [5, 6 & 7].

At A Level the CAD and laser have been used by Ella and Elfreeda (LVI) to create exploratory concept models for chair designs. Charlotte (UVI) has developed her ‘breakfast bar’ design through 2D CAD, 3D CAD, laser-cut models and a full-scale welding jig to ensure that all her components lined up perfectly for subsequent MIG welding [below].

5 Elfreeda (LVI) ‘Small scale model’

6 Ella (LVI) ‘Small scale model’ The new laser cutter and MIG welder have provided daily opportunities for pupils to explore creative ideas in three dimensions. In this way the new emphasis on blending a range of materials is continuing to inspire original work.

Many people see ‘woodwork’ and ‘metalwork’ as outdated, but this is a bit like saying that pencil and paint are old fashioned and cannot lead to anything fresh and new – clearly nonsense. Explored in the right way, materials and technological processes (old and new) can open the door to incredibly creative designing and making.

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DNA Phillipa Drysdale, LIV

Nearly everyone has heard of DNA. It is what we are made up of and is inside every single living being on the planet, but what is it? Well, the letters ‘DNA’ stand for Deoxyribonucleic Acid and the dictionary definition is, ‘a selfreplicating material that is present in nearly all living organisms as the main constituent of chromosomes. It is the carrier of genetic information.’

This then leaves us with new questions: What is genetics?

Why is it important?

You have probably noticed throughout your life that you may have the same eye or hair colour as your parents, a similar accent or skin tone, or you generally act or have the same mannerisms as members of your family. This is all to do with your genes. Genes are units of heredity – ‘the passing on of physical or mental characteristics genetically from one generation to another.’ Hence why you may have noticed traits that run in the family.

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DOING A PHD IN CHEMISTRY Dr Rachel Maclennan

Since becoming a Chemistry teacher there are a few questions that I have been asked repeatedly by students… ‘Have you seen Breaking Bad?’ (when I started teaching, I hadn’t!), ‘what is your favourite element?’ and finally ‘what was your PhD about?’

Most students do not really know what a PhD involves, so I have written this article to help demystify things. Of course, PhDs will be different for different disciplines, but I hope my personal experience can shed a little light on what life is like for a PhD student and maybe even persuade you to consider doing one at some point in the future.

Genes do not rely on being around a particular person.

For example, you may have never seen your aunt before (maybe she lives in a different country), but you could still look exactly like her. You could have deceased grandparents and still sit or laugh in the same way, even though you have never been alive at the same time.

It was not until the final year of my undergraduate degree (the first degree after school) that I decided I would do a PhD in Chemistry. I had attended many career talks during my final year, but nothing had really appealed. I knew that I did not want to work in industry, possibly because as an undergraduate student you do not get much freedom to design your own experiments (probably sensible, because otherwise students might blow up stuff or set things on fire!) and partly because they would not be knowledgeable enough to do anything particularly interesting or useful. Two things I did know: I loved learning about Chemistry and I was good at it. So, I decided to apply for a PhD.

So, how does this work? Well, to create a fertilised egg (to have a child) you need a male and female gamete (specialised cell). Each of these contains 23 chromosomes that are unique to the individual. These chromosomes form a set of 46 which now contain all the child’s traits and appearance information, stored in the DNA. Therefore, you might look like your grandfather for example, because he passed his genes onto your mother or father, and they then passed them down to you.

I was lucky that my PhD was funded for three and a half years, so it was essentially the equivalent of a very low paid job in terms of funding. The project was a synthetic one, which meant I was tasked with inventing and making some new molecules that have never existed before. PhDs involve doing something that has not ever been done before, ever. For me, that was create some new molecules that would display non-linear optical properties.

Another acid that plays a vital role in genetics is RNA. RNA stands for Ribonucleic Acid and looks a lot like DNA, but only has one strand. Most viruses and bacteria only contain RNA and not DNA. RNA is responsible for protein synthesis (creation of proteins) as well as transmitting genetic information.

On my first day I was handed a picture of some complicated looking molecules and told that these were my target molecules for the first stage of my project. These molecules only existed on paper, and I had to try and make them real, and then subsequently get this work published for the world to see. I spent the first few weeks reading academic articles (or tried to anyway) before going into the lab to start synthesising stuff. I spent more than a year repeatedly trying and trying again to make these molecules, with no success. I didn’t know how to solve the problems I was encountering in the lab. My entire first year’s work was eventually summarised in one page of A4 in my

thesis (a huge document you write at the end of your PhD) describing these failed attempts!

Now the pressure was on – I had two years left of funding and had not synthesised any new molecules.

There were times when I considered quitting. What they do not really tell you before you start a PhD in Science, is that you really must get used to failing at almost everything you try! Things do not work as they did at undergraduate and in school because you are no longer working with reactions that are well understood. You are one of the very first people to try this stuff out (ever!), so who knows what might happen?

Within months I had successfully prepared another family of molecules, this time of brand-new rhenium complexes (not in the initial plan)! Whilst working in the lab, I was also busy working on a computational project which would eventually form another chapter of my thesis. This sort of approach is becoming more widely used as part of Chemistry research and in my case, I was investigating if computational models could be used to predict the optical properties of the molecules, we eventually compared the computer’s predictions to the results from experiments.

To try and get some inspiration to help me solve the problems I was having, I spoke with other PhD students and scientists that were working in related fields. I also rifled through the cupboards in the lab to see what molecules were lying around and started experimenting with the stuff that I found.

Towards the end of my second year, something worked for the first time! It may seem ridiculous that I did not manage any breakthroughs until the end of my second year, but this is not unusual in research.

The good news is that often when you have made one breakthrough, it can then have a sort of domino effect; I could apply the same method that I used to successfully make one molecule and modify a few things with the starting material, such as the length of a carbon chain, or the metal that I was using, and all of a sudden you have got a neat family of twelve or so brand new compounds.

(Please see the pictures below of these molecules to help you get an idea for what I mean)

Once you do manage to get something to work successfully and have fully characterised it with techniques such as NMR, IR, elemental analysis and Mass Spectrometry, it is then a bit of a race to get it published as soon as possible, before anyone else does! Otherwise, your research would not be considered novel or ‘new’. This meant long hours and often seven-day weeks, making, purifying, characterising the new molecules, and then taking any other relevant measurements too, but after almost two years of nothing, it suddenly felt great to be so busy. The written article detailing the method and data is sent for peer review, which means that other academics read it and rate it, if it is rated a good enough quality by all the reviewers (there is usually always at least some minor suggestions or queries) then it can be sent to the journal for publishing.

With a published paper under my belt, everything felt so much more achievable – I was busy synthesising the next family of molecules, this time with confidence, and I knew what I was doing, especially having read many academic articles over the years. However, time was not on my side, I had only a few months of funding left.

I would not have ever thought this at the start of my project, but by the end I had many more ideas that I wanted to explore, and I felt like my project wasn’t really finished. This was annoying, but I was told that this is often the sign of a good research project, however it did not stop me feeling quite sad to leave it behind. At the end of your project, you are essentially now the world expert in that tiny little area of research, and so, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense that you know best what to do next.

Then there is just the small matter of writing up your thesis and preparing for your viva, which is in the form of an interview with two academics who understand your area of research. They interviewed me for about two and a half hours, testing me on the work I had written about, and they also gave me a real grilling on the basic principles of chemistry, optics and the synthetic and computational procedures I used. (A Level Chemistry students should check out Suzuki coupling and HornerWadsworth-Emmons mechanisms.)

On reflection, my PhD was a positive experience, despite the many, often demoralising failures! It is a great feeling to be the first person ever to make or create something, and to be the world expert in a particular area gives you the freedom to be creative and inventive with your ideas. I also met some amazingly talented and creative Chemists from all over the world and learnt how to work as part of a global community.

Doing a PhD was kind of like having a low paid job, but without feeling like a student; there is no one telling you what to do, or how to do it, but some of the perks of student life are still there, like managing your own time and exploring your passion.

I hope this article sheds a little bit of a light onto what a PhD in Chemistry was like for me. I did not get the chance to watch much television or read anything other than peer reviewed chemistry publications, but it was a bonus that I then got to watch Breaking Bad all in one go once I had passed my viva. The students I was teaching at the time couldn’t wait to hear my opinions on Heisenberg!

REFERENCES Taken from https://pubs. acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs. organomet.5b00193 Taken from Rhenium(I) Tricarbonyl Complexes with Peripheral N-Coordination Sites: A Foundation for Heterotrimetallic Nonlinear Optical Chromophores | Organometallics (acs.org)

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CHEMISTRY

TO KILL OR TO CURE Ziqi (Jade) Fang, LVI

Chemistry is always fascinating, whether you like doing experiments or analysing results; there is almost certainly an aspect of the vast field which targets your interest and hooks your curiosity with ease. For some, it might be the colourful combustions, exciting explosions or even analysing atoms, but personally, the bait that I fell for, and I believe lots of others do, are the dangers lurking behind seemingly normal and common chemicals.

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Why can some chemicals save you when you are at the edge of losing your grip on life? Why can some take your breath away abruptly within a matter of seconds? Why can others possess the ability of both when in different quantities?

The thought of having a potential cure around in the most brutal situations is certainly very reassuring, but the thought of enjoying a walk in the woods and encountering a fatal substance is certainly less so, and the thought of potentially facing death using the same chemical that could act as a cure is confusing. So, what are some examples?

ARSENIC

Depending on the toxin, such paralysis may be very rapid (within minutes) or moderately slow (within hours). The most dangerous paralysing toxins destroy the nerves themselves. Once this type of damage occurs, it may take weeks for the nerves to repair and during this time you cannot breathe without external support.

Rivalling cyanide (a famous and deadly poison, mentioned in Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’) in both lethality and infamy, arsenic makes recurring appearances in Victorian plays and highprofile murders. The compound can be ingested accidentally through things like occupational exposure, groundwater or even rice. A small dose of the poison can cause headaches, drowsiness, diarrhoea and confusion, but a larger dose can cause death within a span of 24 hours. Arsenic disrupts cells at a molecular level. It mimics phosphorous, replacing this element in phosphates and targeting the reaction that allows cells to store energy. By displacing this necessary chemical, arsenic can block energy production and cell signalling, making it impossible for cells to keep up the basic processes that keep us alive.

Not only do venoms affect the nerves, but most venoms can also destroy factors that help clot blood.

Arguably the most dangerous venom in the world is that of the box jellyfish, Chironex fleckeri, because of its ability to kill a healthy adult human in minutes.

This remarkable lethality is attributed to powerful toxins that are injected into the skin through millions of tiny venom-filled harpoon-like extrusions on the jellyfish tentacles. Once in circulation, these toxins seem to specifically target and punch holes into the outer membrane of heart muscle cells. These holes disturb the smoothly coordinated contraction of the heart muscles.

Death by arsenic is especially horrific because the poison damages several body functions simultaneously. It also combines with sulphur groups on proteins, which are usually in charge of holding important amino acids in a specific formation.

Disrupting these basic formations can cause a wide variety of problems within the cell, which ripple out and manifest as different symptoms such as bloody vomit, convulsions, stomach pain and cramps.

A more insidious effect, particularly of snake venoms, is muscle destruction known as myotoxicity. While not as quick as the effect on blood clotting, heart function or nerve signalling, myotoxicity can also be lethal. Typically, snake venom toxins dissolve the membrane of muscle cells. Not only is this a painful experience, but it also causes the muscle protein, known as myoglobin, to leak into the urine, potentially poisoning the kidneys in the process.

The element itself can cause cancer, as well as other health problems, but that does not mean it cannot also cure cancer. Arsenic, which can be found in nature as well as in pesticides, building products and some industrial processes, has been used for medical treatment in previous eras, like to treat syphilis in Victorian times. It is still used now to treat a rare blood cancer called acute promyelocytic leukaemia. This cancer is associated with serious bleeding and clotting problems, and arsenic may be used in patients whose bodies cannot tolerate the usual route, a class of chemotherapy drugs called anthracyclines.

There are lots of animals that produce dangerous venoms, but they are not all bad. The African sawscaled viper’s venom was used to create the blood thinner tirofiban. There are also several venomderived pharmaceuticals on the international market: Captopril, which is used to treat high blood pressure, heart failure and diabetes-caused kidney problems, can be traced back to venom from the Brazilian viper. The diabetes drug Exanatide helps the body produce insulin and comes from the venomous saliva of a lizard, the Glia monster that is indigenous to the southwestern United States and north western Mexico.

VENOM Deaths caused by animal venom in the modern day are still being reported in the most remote places.

What power does animal venom have? Perhaps the most common type of toxin in animal venom are nerve toxins. This group can act in diverse ways to block or over-stimulate the nervous system – rarely a good thing. However, the most dangerous of these are the ones that block nerve signalling, causing paralysis of the muscles required for breathing.

So why do some chemicals possess this ability? The core answer to this question is rooted in nature itself.

The existence of these chemicals with contrasting and conflicting properties is most certainly one of the most alluring mysteries and continues to inspire many to dive into the vast field of chemistry. So, in response to my question in the title: Chemistry can be used as both a horrifying and gruesome means of attack, but also a lifesaving antidote. Yes, chemicals on their own can be dangerous and fatal but we must also acknowledge that their harm and purpose can be easily altered by the user. Thus, the next time you encounter a foreign chemical, beware of its dangers and explore its other uses.

REFERENCE: Image 3 – https://kids. sandiegozoo.org/sites/ default/files/2017-07/ gila_01.jpg

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CAN HIV BE CURED

BY GENE THERAPY? Jiayi (Ariel) Cao, LVI

The World Health Organisation had estimated that around 680,000 people had died due to HIV-related illness in 2020 (WHO, 2020). Although numbers are declining, HIV is still responsible for over half a million deaths across the globe. Over the course of medical and scientific advancement, there has been developmental drug treatments and post-exposure prophylaxis, but the battle against HIV has not stopped as there is still no cure.

REFERENCES Excision BioTheraputics.

(2021). Excision Receives FDA Clearance of IND for Phase 1/2 Trial of EBT-101 CRISPRBased Therapeutic for Treatment of HIV. Joanna Smolen-Dzirba, e. a. (2017). V-1 Infection in Persons Homozygous for CCR5-delta 32 Allele: The Next Case and the Review.

Qiaoqiao Xiao, e. a.

(2019). Application of CRISPR/Cas9-Based Gene Editing in HIV-1/ AIDS Therapy.

WHO. (2020).

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NATURAL IMMUNITY

BERLIN PATIENT

Contrasting the turmoil of HIV patients, around 10% of Europeans are naturally resistant to HIV infection. The consensus is that this is caused by a mutation in the gene that codes for the membrane protein receptor (CCR5) that HIV virus binds to to enter and infect human immune cells, which prevents the entry of HIV by taking away the ‘door handle’ to HIV’s target cells.

Timothy Ray Brown (often referred to as the Berlin Patient) had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia and tested positive for HIV infection. He was the first person on this planet to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant (which is also a treatment for his leukaemia) from a donor who possessed homozygous CCR5-Δ32. Although this is the first and currently only case of successful cure for HIV using stem cell transplantation, this idea can be considered when treating all HIV patients. Could we artificially induce this gene into HIV patients to induce immunity? The answer is that scientists are working on it.

More specifically, HIV virus binds to the CD4 receptor of the target cell along with either CCR5 or CXCR4 membrane coreceptor depending on the viral strain. The HIV-1 R5 strains, which cause most HIV infections, binds to the CCR5 molecule (C-C chemokine receptor 5) on the host cell membrane.

Among the lucky 10% of Europeans, they carry a genetic mutation termed CCR5-Δ32, which means a frame-shifting deletion of 32 nucleotides in the DNA sequence that codes for the protein CCR5.

This mutation changes the shape of the CCR5 receptor and prevents it from presenting on the outside of the cell, which impedes the binding of HIV on the membrane receptor and consequently blocks the entry of HIV into the immune cell.

Recent studies have shown that although homozygous CCR5-Δ32 is highly protective against HIV-1 R5, heterozygous CCR5-Δ32 has no effect on HIV immunity but is still related to the delayed progression of AIDS. (Joanna SmolenDzirba, 2017)

CRISPR-BASED GENE THERAPY The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to scientists who pioneered the genetic engineering technique CRISPR/cas9, which has proven to be one of the most effective techniques in gene editing. This provides potential opportunities to edit the CCR5 gene in HIV patients to intentionally induce CCR5-Δ32 and thus HIV immunity. In lab research conducted by Xiaoqiao Xiao, et al., an application of gene editing to inhibit HIV infection had been successful in vitro and in mouse models, which could potentially be performed on HIV patients to induce HIV immunity or even HIV prevention. (Qiaoqiao Xiao, 2019)

©Natali _ Mis/Shutterstock

Excitingly, the first-in-human phase 1 and 2 clinical trial of CRISPR-based therapy in chronic HIV was approved by FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in September 2021. The safety, adverse effects and efficacy of the CRISPR-based one-time gene therapy on HIV patients will be evaluated. (Excision BioTheraputics, 2021) Here, we anticipate for encouraging results from the clinical trials.

DOES THIS MEAN THE END OF HIV? Unfortunately, there has been reported cases of patients with homozygous CCR5-Δ32 (which was thought to be protective against HIV infection) who had been infected by HIV. (Joanna Smolen-Dzirba, 2017). This means that even if we induce CCR5-Δ32 gene through CRISPR/cas9, there is still no guarantee of 100% HIV immunity. As mentioned above, the entry of HIV into human immune cells not only involve CCR5, but other strains of HIV-1 may enter via another coreceptor CXCR4. Why don’t we just edit the gene coding for CXCR4 as well, just like what we are doing to CCR5 gene? The problem lies with the fact that studies have shown mice without CXCR4 die as embryos, which raises questions of whether it is safe to edit the gene. Therefore, whether CRISPR-based gene therapy that aims to edit CCR5 gene could protect us from HIV infections remains a question and is constantly being challenged with new cases and evidence.

Throughout the battles against diseases, scientific and medical advancements have undoubtedly saved millions of lives, yet we still have a long way to go. In the combat against HIV, the understanding of CCR5 and CXCR4 in HIV entry pathway has laid the basis of much research that is finding a cure and prophylaxis of HIV, and the new discovery of CRISPR/cas9 has brought exciting new opportunities and approaches to HIV treatment and prevention. Whether promising or not, every piece of new evidence adds a piece of the puzzle to the grand picture of our knowledge base and understanding of the world we live in. Although the complex living world never gives a straightforward answer to anything, scientists have never stopped striving for improvements and breakthroughs that both satisfy our curiosity and improve our lives.

THE CHEMISTRY OLYMPIAD GOLD AWARD FOR ARIEL The Chemistry Olympiad took place during the Lent term 2022.

It is a really challenging paper for any Sixth Form student (and teachers!) and Downe House open it up to all our A level chemistry students. It relies not only on an excellent understanding of chemistry concepts, but also on resilience and the ability to problem solve novel and totally unfamiliar chemistry problems.

Many of these are based on application of content from the UVI year of the A-level syllabus.

To achieve a gold in the Olympiad is extremely difficult, let alone in your first term of Lower Sixth – this is in fact exactly what Ariel achieved! Scoring in the top 9% of all candidates that sat the paper this year.

The chemistry department would like to say a huge well done to Ariel for her truly awesome achievement.

Congratulations, Ariel – we are really proud of you!

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WHY IS BORNEO SO IMPORTANT TO THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE?

Aryana Patel-Sharma, LIV

Borneo is immense. It is the third largest island on Earth, roughly twice the size of Germany. It is home to eighteen million people and over two hundred ethnic groups.

Borneo is extremely old. The rainforests are estimated to be around one hundred and forty million years old. This makes them the oldest forests on Earth and explains why such a variety of biodiversity can be found within.

Borneo is home to infinite wildlife. Fifteen thousand plant species can be found in Borneo and four hundred new species have been found since 1994.

Two hundred and twenty-two mammals live there, and forty-four of those are indigenous to the island.

BORNEO IS IN PERILOUS DANGER! Many of our leaders came together at COP26 to discuss and make a changes regarding global warming. On this topic they made claims to ‘end and reverse’ deforestation as it impacts climate change hugely. The world leaders had come up with the solution to ‘promote sustainable choices’. Frankly, it is hysterical that they believe this to be the only problem. They need to dig deeper and ask the key 46

questions: Why are people doing this? What is in it for them?

Without having answers to these questions, they can’t ‘end and reverse’ deforestation. No one can. On top of everything they plan to end this global crisis in 2030! They need to understand the world is not going to stop and wait for them to put an end to it, everyone will carry on as normal until an alternative is found that suits them. By that time orangutans will be wiped out and more than 80% of their irreplaceable habitat will be destroyed. All we can do is cross our fingers in hope they will wake up and address the real issue… or do we?

One of the dominant reasons deforestation is not receiving the recognition it deserves is because not enough people know the crucial significance it has to our future and other living species.

Deforestation is currently a huge issue in the world right now, not just in Borneo.

Whilst some people think cutting down trees is only impacting themselves and their fellow locals, others see the real global problem. It is vital for us to take immediate action on this matter and demonstrate why deforestation does matter. We need to examine the main effects of deforestation.

Firstly, orangutans are not far away from extinction.

Sadly, humans’ mercenary behaviour is the main reason and obvious cause behind this. Statistics show that there are under sixty-five thousand wild orangutans left in the world! Deforestation is by far the most serious threat to orangutans. Over the last three decades almost all their natural habitat has been destroyed. This gives them no shelter or food, leading to death.

The second far more terrifying point, the prevalence of Homo sapiens is at risk of a decrease. As we all know trees are vital to our planet for the oxygen they release. With a smaller number of trees people globally are not getting enough oxygen. We need oxygen to breathe. We need to breathe to survive. It is crucial we stop cutting down trees that sustain us.

Lastly, deforestation contributes more than 10% of the carbon dioxide emissions caused by human activity which in turn accelerates the effect of global warming. What is the reason for this? When forests are cleared or burnt, they release the carbon they store. Removing trees also diminishes an important carbon ’sink’ that takes up CO2 from the atmosphere.

Unless we want to see orangutans extinct, Homo sapiens non-existent and global warming reaching a new peak the only choice we have left is to find a viable solution. But before we do that it is important that we understand why trees are being destroyed because without that knowledge there is no way of finding a good enough solution.

The answer is simple...for palm oil. The locals of Borneo are forced to cut down trees to obtain a certain item called palm oil. Palm oil is very cheap and used by big international companies to make everyday products. The locals rely on this income to support and feed their families.

Every time we buy products from companies like Nestle, Ferrero, Unilever, Colgate and Heinz we support deforestation. They have all broken their promises and illegally turned protected forests into oil palm plantations. All this exploitation is just for profit.

One thing leads to another, deforestation leads to climate change, which leads to eco system losses, which negatively impacts our livelihoods, it is a vicious cycle that we need to end. We started it; it is up to us to end it now. The solution is infront of us.

Firstly, we should prioritise finding the people of Borneo an alternative and sustainable source of

income as stopping the cutting down of trees without a plan may leave the locals in financial peril. Secondly, we need to question as to who would hire them?

Inviting the international offenders, Ferrero, Heinz, Unilever etc. to invest in Borneo would be ideal. It’s time for them to keep their promises. No more Green Washing! If they truly want to be sustainable, they should hire and train the locals to source substitute products to palm oil. Of course, the production plants must be eco-friendly and in keeping with the environment. Thirdly, we look back to what our original goal was. Re-forestation! We use all the profits to restore Borneo back to its original state, the way nature intended. Finally, we should reward companies who act as this would be a daring step for them and it is up to us to show them that we support their initiative by only buying products from companies who agree to take such action.

Finding an alternative for palm oil is of utmost importance. It is understandable that this might take some time as using other vegetable and plant-based oils might take up more land to grow then palm oil does. However, the only way to move past this obstacle is to strive forward and to act now. Knowing that palm oil is causing ubiquitous trees to be burnt, adding up to vast amounts of rainforests being destroyed, the least we can do is compromise on an alternative.

Research has shown the best substitute would be other tropical oils, such as coconut or babassu oil. They have similar fatty acid profiles and physiochemical properties to palm oil, making them more suitable than crop oils for use as direct replacements for palm oil. Other reliable sources have shown sunflower oil can also be used.

What can we do to help? This is not a choice for us to wait until next year or the year after to act – it is now or never. Many people do not realise that this is a battle for human rights as much as it is a battle to save the rainforest. We can all do our part in stopping deforestation, here are some simple everyday things you can do: Plant a tree, use less paper, recycle paper and cardboard, use recycled products, buy only sustainable wood products, don’t buy products containing palm oil, reduce meat consumption, do not burn firewood excessively, practice eco-forestry, raise awareness, respect the rights of indigenous people, support organisations fighting deforestation and join a community forestry project.

With this knowledge I hope together we can stop deforestation and along the way save many endangered species to create a brighter and better future. It starts now.

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ALUMNAE PROFILE:

CHARLOTTE WILLIAMS (DH 2001) Cléo Duterte-Delaunay, LVI

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE MEMORY AT DOWNE HOUSE? It is always great to hear that old Downe House traditions continue to be followed. Miss Williams expressed, “…good memories of Wacky-Bs.” A concept that the current Downe House pupils are familiar with. Miss Williams explained how, “…in Lower School for birthdays there was a container wrapped in wrapping paper with ribbons on it and the girls would put presents in it so that the day of your birthday it would be outside your door filled with little gifts”.

WHAT HAS CHANGED THE MOST AT DOWNE HOUSE? “Those who were in AGS and AGN, where Lower School is now, they would cycle up to their lessons with their books under one arm and then cycle back down and we used to cycle in the woods.

Apart from Mr Riddle’s cycling sessions with pupils around the campus, I have to say we no longer have the luxury of seeing girls cycling to lessons.”

WHAT A LEVELS DID YOU STUDY? “I started off with five A Levels including General Studies,” said Miss Williams. Her other classes included Maths, Chemistry, Biology and Physics.

Miss Williams eventually dropped Physics to focus on sport, photography and cookery, but it is safe to say that she was very much a STEM student through and through.

WHERE DID YOU GO TO UNIVERSITY AND WHAT DID YOU STUDY THERE? “I always intended to study Medicine, so I did a lot of work experience,” explained Miss Williams.

She acknowledged that back then it was a lot easier to get work experience and you could do a lot more. She remembers “going to operations” and “shadowing a junior Doctor” where she was able to “draw blood from real patients as [she] was introduced as a trainee” and, reflecting on it now, she acknowledges that the Doctors were a lot more lenient in the past.

Before attending Leeds University to study Medicine, Miss Williams went on a gap year: “I went travelling for eight months by myself, the first three months I was in China, and I did a placement in Shang Hai where I did two months in a hospital and a month in a school. Then from there I went to Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.”

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It does not stop there, she also travelled to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Haiti before going to America, where she went to Los Angeles and San Francisco. After travelling across the globe Miss Williams described: “I did a year and a bit of Medicine, I did well in my exams got a few awards along the way, but I just wasn’t sure, I was not 100% certain and I suppose no one really is at that age. I decided that it was not for me.”

As a result, she decided to do a degree in primary school teaching instead. However, after her first placement, Miss Williams decided to change her whole trajectory and picked a degree that incorporated all her interests. She wanted a degree that combined “sports, science and caring for people”, an element of Medicine that she particularly appreciated. This led her to Sports Therapy. Miss Williams acknowledges that she “probably should have done something sportsbased initially” and highlights how we should study what we are passionate about: “Be confident in what you really want to do.”

DO YOU REGRET NOT PURSUING MEDICINE? “When you make a big decision like that you can’t look back and think ‘what if I had carried on?’.

It would just drive you mad. It is challenging to make a decision like that because at the time everyone goes to school, you either take a gap year or you don’t, you go to university, and you finish your three years, you get a job or maybe get into a graduate training scheme. A lot of people take a linear path, and it takes guts to break the mould and not follow this perfect straight line.”

As a result, Miss Williams started working as a teaching assistant and that same year she went to the Athens Olympics for six weeks and worked in the press centre: “I was going to press conferences and asking questions, I got to interview Haile Gebrselassie and all these famous athletes one-on-one. I would not have the opportunity to do this if I had still been at university.”

ALUMNAE PROFILE:

SOPHIE ELLIOT

I left Downe House and began an MSc in Biochemistry at Exeter College, Oxford in 2019. I am now in my third of four years, which seems to have passed unbelievably fast! I found it difficult to choose what specific area of science I wanted to study at university. When I was in the Sixth Form I deliberated over medicine and natural sciences for a bit, but eventually, with the help of my teachers settled on Biochemistry because it was a good intersection of the areas of chemistry and biology, which I enjoyed.

I like to describe my course as biology at a cellular level, and I have come to realise that it is essentially all about proteins.

I learnt a lot from Downe House that has stayed with me. Particularly time management because you are always busy at school and getting involved in a huge range of extracurricular activities, which you must learn to juggle. In Science specifically, making links across topics and subjects to help ground your knowledge and trying to see concepts as a whole rather than just syllabus points, were things that were encouraged and have served me very well whilst studying my degree. I know it can feel frustrating when teachers say it is not all about the exams, because they are important, but do try to enjoy your subjects (or find bits that you really love) because it motivates you to learn more.

regulation of cell division, which sheds light on how it may be defective in cancer and specific treatment targets. Some of the investigatory techniques that I could be using include western blotting, CRISPR gene editing, live and fixed cell microscopy, as well as methods for determining the structure of proteins. The likely proteins that I will be studying are the kinases Aurora A and Aurora B. I am very excited to be putting to use the skills and knowledge I have acquired over my three years into active research.

This summer I am taking the exams that will conclude the undergraduate part of my degree.

It has not been the smoothest run, moving to online lectures, labs and tutorials has made things a little more difficult, but fortunately this year has seen a return to in-person teaching. I have really enjoyed topics such as chromosome biology, human metabolic integration and immunology, and even ones that at school I would not have imagined I would like, such as RNA biology and bacterial metabolism. Biochemistry really does take things to a deeper level and there is always more to uncover when you think you have exhausted a topic. That is why I love the subject even if it does make the revision a little tricky!

Next year I will be beginning the Master’s part of my degree. I will be contributing to ongoing laboratory work and will hopefully produce some worthwhile data. The laboratory that I will be working in focuses specifically on cell cycle and the mitotic spindle; to discover more about the

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THE USE OF STEM IN ARCHAEOLOGY Siying (Amy) Liu, LVI

The first known instance of archaeological excavation took place in the sixth century BCE when Nabonidus, the king of Babylon, excavated and tried to date a temple floor that was already over a thousand years old.

1 Ground penetrating radar in use near Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA in 2010

2 GPR depth section profile

3 Measuring 14C is now most commonly done with an accelerator mass spectrometer

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The fifth century BCE Greek historian Herodotus systematically collected old artefacts and sent them to support his view of history. By the medieval period, Europeans began digging up and keeping ancient, buried pots that had partially emerged due to soil erosion, and weapons that had turned up on farmland. More deliberate archaeology occurred more recently, when antiquarians, as they were known, excavated burial mounds in North America and North-West Europe, and this led eventually to the more meticulous and methodical archaeological excavation style that took over around the early- to mid-nineteenth century and is still being perfected today [1].

During our recent history of excavation, scientific techniques have played a key role in improving the efficiency and accuracy of the process and the results obtained. As excavation methods evolved with time, the development of technology made the excavating process both safer and more accurate.

Modern archaeological excavation often involves auguring – the process of drilling many boreholes or cores across a site – as well as using remote sensing such as ground-penetrating radar before any actual excavating starts. With GPR (ground-penetrating radar), the radar signal (an electromagnetic pulse) is directed into the ground, which is then reflected by subsurface objects and layering that will be picked up by a receiver; the travel time of the reflected signal indicates the depth of each layer [2].

During the actual onsite process, stratigraphic excavation is used to remove phases of the site one layer at a time to keep the timeline of the material.

Archaeologists can then determine the time period the artefacts are from through using the Law of Superposition, which indicates that layers of sediment further down will contain older artefacts than layers above; they also use the context of the discovery, information about the physical location where an artefact or feature was found as well as what it is located nearby.

Specific dating methods can then be used for more accurate results: absolute dating enables the numeric age to be decided, and relative dating establishes the artefacts’ relationships to other elements. The most important method of absolute dating is radiocarbon dating.

Developed during the 1940s at the University of Chicago, this method is used to determine the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. Through measuring the amount of 14C in a sample from any organic matter (e.g. a piece of wood or a fragment of bone) [3], calculations can be made to find a numeric age. The older a sample is, the less radiocarbon can be detected, the less 14C there is to be detected; and because the half-life of radiocarbon is about 5,730 years, the oldest dates that can be measured would thus date to approximately 50,000 years ago. For this remarkable work, the researcher Willard Libby received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960.

After excavation, digital methods are used to record the process and its results, which is crucial as archaeological excavation is an unrepeatable process. To achieve this, highly accurate and precise digital methods are often used by field archaeologists, with some of the examples being GPS, digital cameras and 3D laser scanners. After high quality digital data have been recorded, these data can then be shared over the internet for open access and use by the public and other archaeological researchers.

Although some criticise archaeological excavation to be unethical as it always faces the risk of damaging the artefacts without being able to repair them, it is undeniable that the advance in scientific discovery and improved technology have helped make the process more efficient and secure.

As researchers continue exploring the incorporation of STEM into archaeology, it can be possible that the excavation and preservation of the relics will become even easier and more acceptable to the public.

SMART TEXTILES

Rahma Qizilbash, LVI

Imagine walking down the street in the dark, only to find your jacket has lit up, paving the way for you to walk. With a touch of the fabric, you can then change the volume of the song that is playing on your phone. Bluetooth and conductive fibres are used to communicate with your smartphone, thus allowing it to be connected to the jacket and its applications accessed through the fabric. in the movement of the ankle and knee joints, relaying this information to a medical expert who can treat the patient remotely. Similarly, neurological diseases such as epilepsy, psychiatric illnesses, or autism can be monitored using smart watches. This technology is used to guide an autistic child, by sending them special instructions and commands to carry out their daily tasks. Hence, by incorporating e-textiles into the healthcare industry, the treatment of diseases is becoming expedient and more effective.

As unbelievable as this sounds, it is all done using smart technology; this is the integration of digital components and electronics into textile fabrics.

With recent developments in the fields of medicine, athletics, aesthetics, aerospace, etc., this cutting-edge technology is transforming the landscape of ordinary life as we know it.

Besides their appeal to the eye in the form of colour-changing clothing, why do we need smart textiles? Firstly, they are employed extensively in the healthcare industry. Smart gloves, for example, can be used to monitor the progress of a patient with Parkinson’s disease. This wearable technology can collect data regarding the patient’s symptoms, via the use of embedded sensors in the gloves, which are stimulated by, for example, hand tremors. As the gloves are connected to smart phones, this enables the processing and transmission of data, eliminating the need to visit a hospital, as a physician can keep track of the disease by surveying the data. Moreover, specific software woven into a textile can gather information about a person’s gait or movements, which is effective in monitoring a patient who has recently experienced a stroke. Socks integrated with this technology can be used to detect abnormalities

Additionally, smart textiles are slowly revolutionising the sports world by improving athletic performance.

Watches integrated with sensors, such as the Nike, Apple and Garmin watches, as well as golf clubs, belts and wristbands, can gather data regarding an athlete’s heart rate, body temperature or the distance covered by them. Athletes frequently carry a box which is connected to a heart rate monitor; this is aimed at collecting information which can be viewed by their sports instructor. It also helps them avoid injury and maintain good health. Furthermore, sensors within baseball bats can record the speed at which a baseball player hits the ball, allowing the athlete to adjust this to improve their performance.

Despite the benefits of smart fabrics, there are drawbacks to using this technology. Washing e-textiles can cause them to degrade, corrupting the data within the digital components, as well as leading to a loss of conductivity, which will affect the function of the fabric; aesthetic fabrics may not be able to light up any longer. One of the technologies used in e-textiles is the use of silver nanoparticles, which are not very adhesive and can be removed easily, thereby affecting the function of the textile. Silver or copper nanoparticles may be inhaled by the person wearing this technology, which may cause them lung damage and respiratory problems. However, the fusion of textiles with technology to form smart fabrics undoubtedly has the potential to transform a wide range of industries, consequently leading to endless possibilities of innovation.

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SYNCHROTRON RADIATION Sayuri, LVI

In our life, we are supported by a wide variety of things from vehicles to oxygen that we inhale to make our life comfortable.

All these matters are made of nano-scale particles that we cannot see. However, to develop our knowledge and solve problems that we still face, whether it is environmental impacts or social impacts, researchers are always seeking a new solution and discovery.

During my summer holiday, I had a wonderful opportunity to visit one of the most famous synchrotron radiation facilities, Spring-8 in Japan.

Synchrotron radiation facility is one of the crucial scientific facilities for all sorts of research and experiments. It offers noticeable advantages to expand our vision. So, what is synchrotron radiation and why are synchrotron radiation facilities important?

In the simplest form, at a synchrotron radiation facility a very intense X-ray, also known as synchrotron radiation and synchrotron light, is produced to penetrate materials and reveal the inner structure of matter down to the level of atoms.

The most famous synchrotron radiation facilities, ESRF (shared with European countries, located in France), SPS (USA), and Spring-8 (Japan) are the only ones that the electrons reach above 6GeV. These facilities are often referred to as ‘hard or large-scale X-ray third-generation synchrotron radiation facilities’. In Spring-8, which was founded last out of three, the electrons are accelerated up to nearly the speed of light (3 x 10^8) with a maximum of 8 giga electron volt on electrons which is the highest in the whole world now.

Therefore, it is named Spring- ‘8’. Anything between 1 and 5 GeV is classified as a 3GeV-third generation synchrotron radiation facility. This includes Diamond Light Source situated in Rutherford, UK.

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The main characteristic of the X-ray produced at a synchrotron radiation facility is that it is very high in brilliance. Brilliance is a term used to describe how bright and angular the spread of the beam is. As the X-ray is bright and has great precision in diffraction, scientists can detect them clearly and it is easy to record them and to analyse the material being tested. This X-ray has more amazing characteristics which attract scientists in the study of various fields.

For instance, having high energy permits the beam to penetrate deeper into the matter, and having a small wavelength can take us into the world of the nanoscale. Fun fact, the X-rays produced in ESRF are 10,000,000,000,000 times brighter than the X-ray that is used to take a picture of our bones in the hospital!

To produce this incredibly useful X-ray, electrons are accelerated and diffracted. In any facility, the process begins by emitting electrons out of an element. If you take Physics A Level, you might be familiar with this first step, electron gun. By heating a wire of an element, thermionic emission happens which is when the electrons in the element wire fire themselves out as they gain kinetic energy. The high potential difference is applied between the element wire and anode which turns the element into the cathode.

Freed electrons accelerate towards the anode by gaining more kinetic energy which becomes a beam.

These electrons are sent to the next section of the facility, the Linear Accelerator (Linak)/Acceleration Tube. Here, the electrons are gradually accelerated using electric fields until they become close to the light speed. In the next section, athletics track shaped Booster Synchrotron adds extra energy to the electrons and accelerates to the final speed before they are sent to the storage ring.

As electrons must bend to travel through this section, dipole bending magnets are used.

Finally, the storage ring. If you search up Synchrotron Radiation Facility, this is the section you often see. Here, the electrons that are close to the speed of light travel around and around until they lose their energy. To prevent electrons from hitting the wall of the tube, losing all their energy and dropping their speed down, the tube is under ultra-high vacuum conditions (around 10^-9 mbar).

As they travel through the ring, the electrons are diffracted due to going through different types of magnets. As they are diffracted, they lose energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation known as ‘synchrotron radiation’ and emit the X-ray for good use. A few examples of magnets used are bending magnets, undulators and focusing magnets. Bending magnets simply force electrons

to change direction. This leads to electrons emitting synchrotron light tangentially to the curved path of the electrons. The undulators are a collection of a series of small magnets with alternated polarity.

Due to this, electrons are diffracted multiple times, producing a million times more intense and bright X-rays which are close to laser, compared to X-rays produced by electrons travelling through bending magnets. The focusing magnets make the electron beam as narrow as possible which could be as narrow as 1 micrometre (0.001mm).

Now that electrons are in the condition that they can produce synchrotron light, how does this reach each scientist for them to use? When the X-ray is emitted tangentially to the storage ring, it directly travels towards the individual beamlines where each group of scientists have their own space. In Spring-8, there are 62 beamlines around the storage ring with a circumference of 1435.95m.

Most of these individual beamlines are used by RIKEN; Japan’s largest research institution which is in charge of the whole Spring-8, industries such as automotive companies (e.g. Toyota, Nissan) and electronic companies (e.g. Sony, Panasonic, Mitsubishi Electric), universities for professors and students to research, and also companies and groups of researchers from Taiwan as they have banned from using large-scale Synchrotron Radiation Facilities). At the end of the beamlines, there is a special machine suitable for the specific research, where the scientists can place the material or substance to be analysed. Most of the machines have a similar feature, for example, the sample to be tested would sit in the middle of the machine and the part of the machine which detects the X-ray that was been diffracted or spread can rotate around the sample. As the X-ray that travels through the beamline is very narrow, the sample must sit in a specific place and stay there so that it does not miss the X-ray. These machines require skilled experts for each research asked by the researchers. I am sure it is not surprising that there are only a few companies that deal with these machines in synchrotron radiation facilities, for instance, most machines in Spring-8 are from a company in Germany that specifically create and fix machinery for synchrotron radiation. On the other hand, it is astonishing that such a familiar substance, aluminium foil takes an important role in lots of experiments. In experiments that require very precise temperature, aluminium foil maintains the temperature of the beamlines and other machines by wrapping aluminium foil around them tightly so that the temperature stays constant.

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Another research that is ongoing, which I think is very relevant and important for the future generation, is on the porous medium. The porous medium is a material containing pores and scientists in the field of particle physics believe that finding out their specific nano-scale structure, can lead to creating new materials to tackle environmental issues, such as carbon dioxide and methane gas.

If the research is successful, it is predicted that the new materials can selectively decompose greenhouse gases, remove them, or even store them and convert them into new materials.

On the picture above, you can see the thin tube going through various machines. This is the beamline where the X-ray passes through.

On the left end of the picture, it is not clear, however, the shiny grey object is where the machines are wrapped with aluminium foil.

On the way to Spring-8, I pass through a highway that is famous for being the most financial deficit.

I wondered why Spring-8 was situated in Sayo district in Hyogo prefecture which was isolated from large cities. To build the facility, it requires a large space to accelerate the electrons to an enormous speed and to keep it in a circular tube to send X-rays off to individual beamlines. However, I also found out that due to safety reasons, it also requires stable ground. In the case for Spring-8, Sayo district was chosen as it is an upland area with stiff soil and has a low chance of liquifying. From these factors, it is predicted that there is only a 30% risk of experiencing magnitude 5 and a 0% risk of experiencing magnitude above 6. According to the professor who has worked at the Spring-8, Hyogo prefecture offered the land to hand it over to RIKEN for free which was a big factor as even if it is in the countryside, the cost will be enormous with the large area to be dealt and to construct the whole system.

Indeed, the facility itself, including beamlines and lots of different types of machinery around the beamlines to gain scientific proof for research is hugely fascinating. I also found it incredibly amazing that all sorts of different fields of research, from aerospace to bio-research, are using synchrotron radiation facilities.

One of the popular research projects in the field of life science is analysing protein structure in humans.

It is said that a human is made from roughly 6x10^13 cells. Most of these cells are still unfamiliar to us, and to find out what each cell does we need to analyse the DNA inside and the structure of the protein.

By using this specific X-ray, it allows scientists to gain a clear image of this nano-sized structure of proteins which is impossible in other facilities. These specific structures of proteins permit us to easily find what disease the person has and the ability for researchers to do further research to treat and cure the illness including creating new medicines.

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I have mentioned two examples out of millions of research that took place or is taking place at the moment, but here are some other achievements from the past. A thin layer at the bottom of the mantle, which was not known what the compounds were, was finally identified (earth science). Similarly, in industrial research, a new catalyst that is more efficient in cleaning exhaust fumes that the cars produce was discovered and the reason for it became clear. The conventional catalyst decreased in their performance as the distance the car travels increased, however the new catalyst, ‘intelligent catalyst’ regenerates itself continuously. This is due to the electrons of the metal in the catalyst.

In the previously used catalyst, the electrons of metals repetitively exit and enter the metal causing neighbouring metals to combine whereas intelligent catalysts can maintain their original state. The graph below represents the change of performance in purifying exhaust fumes by the catalysts.

From all the past discoveries and more researchers using synchrotron radiation facilities, I strongly believe that it has a very promising and optimistic future use to improve our knowledge and make the planet a better place for us. Even if you are not interested in physics, research that takes place at the synchrotron radiation facility does not necessarily relate to physics, for example, I have mentioned research in the field of biology and geography/geology. As expressed, the synchrotron radiation facility is a hot topic in STEM and should be discussed further.

CODING CLUB Mrs Siobhan Mcclure

This academic year has seen the launch of Coding Club at Downe House.

Like-minded girls from all year groups are invited to come together and work collaboratively on an exciting range of problem-solving activities.

The aim of the club is to provide an opportunity to explore and extend areas of computing and robotics, beyond the classroom syllabus.

A variety of hands-on activities have taken place this year, with the highlight being our group entry into the annual PA Raspberry Pi Competition! In keeping with this year’s theme ‘innovations to save the planet’, the DH Code Club team produced an educational role-player game (RPG) called ‘Save the Planet Dash’.

The girls designed and developed this idea entirely by themselves, coding their solution in Python, using the Raspberry Pi devices provided. Their code was modularised, so that it could be worked on and tested concurrently by different team members.

The idea behind the game is to have fun while learning important facts and how to make planetsaving decisions!

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RANDOM FACTS QUIZ! The Editing Team

DID YOU KNOW? Did you know, you used to be able to walk from the UK to Norway?

Did you know, some animals, such as Axolotls, can regrow limbs?

Did you know, there is a plant known as a ‘corpse flower’ that is carnivorous and releases an odour that smells like a rotting corpse?

Did you know, 50% of your DNA is made up of sequences from viruses?

JOKES? A neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender how much for a beer?

The bartender replies, “for you, no charge.” ex was very lone at a party.

Someone else advised him to try integrating, and he replied, ‘I tried but it made no difference.’

TRY SOME EXAM QUESTIONS FROM THE 1930S

Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board School Certificate Examination GENERAL SCIENCE 1.

Wednesday, December 6th, 1939, 2 Hours [Not more than six questions are to be attempted. These must be selected in such a way that at least one question is chosen from each section. All the questions carry equal marks. The answers to each of the three sections must be given up separately.]

Section A.

11.Give an account of one method by which compounds of nitrogen can be obtained from the air. Why are such processes important?

12.Describe the preparation and properties of carbon dioxide. Explain two common uses of carbon dioxide.

4.Explain the following observations:

Section C.

(a)Hoar-frost is not usually found under trees even when the fields around are covered with it;

13.Draw a longitudinal section of any one flower, naming the various parts. How is pollination secured?

(c)It is harder to drink a hot liquid from a silver cup than from one made of porcelain.

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Draw a labelled diagram of the apparatus you would use.

10.Describe experiments, one in each case, in which manganese dioxide is used (a) as a catalyst, (b) as an oxidizing agent.

(b)A note emitted by a vibrating tuning-fork has a different quality from a note of the same fundamental frequency emitted by a vibrating organ-pipe;

Science Is Fun (@sciencefunn) • Instagram photos and videos

8.Explain how hydrogen and oxygen can be made by the electrolysis of dilute sulphuric acid.

The specific gravity of ice is 0-92, and that of sea-water is 1-025. What is the minimum depth of sea-water in which an iceburg, cubical in shape and 50 metres long, will float?

3.What is meant by surface tension? Describe two useful consequences of the phenomenon.

Memes Network (@memesnetworks) • Instagram photos and videos

Section B.

9.How is lead obtained from its ores? Describe two physical and two chemical differences between lead and iron.

Why does an air-bubble become larger as it rises from the bottom to the top of a pond?

REFERENCES:

What are the essential parts of a dynamo?

1.Under what circumstances will a body float in a liquid?

2.Describe two methods of measuring atmospheric pressure.

Science Is Fun (@sciencefunn) • Instagram photos and videos

7.Describe the fundamental principle of the dynamo, and a simple laboratory experiment to illustrate it.

14.Either give an account of the effect of wave action on (a) rocky shore, (b) sandy shore, (c) shingle beach.

Or Explain carefully how new land may appear.

5.What is the difference between the magnetic properties of soft iron and hard steel?

15.Explain the following: (a) milk goes sour, (b) cheese, if kept too long, develops into grubs, (c) jam “works” and becomes “bubbly”.

Explain how the characteristic properties of each are utilized.

16.Describe the features of geological interest in any district known to you.

6.Give an account, with diagrams, of one of the following instruments:

17.What do you understand by transpiration?

What are the functions of the transpiration stream?

(a)A sextant; (b)A magnifying glass; (c)A projecting lantern.

18.What is meant by the term “soil erosion”?

Give an example of the phenomenon. What steps can be taken to combat it?

ARE BRAINS NEEDED IN ECONOMICS? Cléo Dutertre-Delaunay, LVI

In the simplest sense, economics looks at the choices made by human beings, thus leading one to think that it naturally implicates the human brain.

However, to a certain extent, economists have achieved successfully to create models and theories without studying the workings of the human brain.

These models have been good at predicting some market behaviours, such as how supply for specific products will change after a subsidy hike. However, it is not so good at describing more complex phenomena like why people gamble against odds.

You might ask how it is possible for some economists to have turned the blind eye, but the answer is quite simple. It is not that they thought economics should completely avoid looking at the brain, it is that economists in the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century did not have the technology to do so. As a result, the foundation of economic theory was built on the basis that the functioning of the brain could not be quantitatively measured.

In 1871, William Jevons wrote, “I hesitate to say that men will ever have the means of measuring directly the feelings of the human heart. It is from the quantitative effects of the feelings that we must estimate their comparative amounts.”

The assumption that feelings predict behaviour and can only be measured from behaviour allowed economists to eliminate the step of directly measuring ‘feelings’. It is important to note that although the technology did not exist and many shared Jevons’ pessimistic view, it did not stop economists like Irving Fisher, Frank Ramsey and Friedrich von Hayek from discussing the role of the complex inner workings of the brain, nor did it stop others from suggesting the creation of brain scan equivalents. In 1881, 10 years after Jevon argued that the functioning of the brain would not be known, Francis Edgeworth came up with the idea of a ‘hedonometer’. In theory, it would have measured the utility gained by each individual from their decisions. David Colander, an Economist at Middlebury College in Vermont, stated it was the “equivalent to a neuroeconomics brain scan.”

One might protest that economists have already been taking the brain into account through behavioural economics. It is true that the idea that the brain can inform economics is not new, as for 20 years behavioural economists have argued that psychology should have a greater influence on the development of economic models. What is new is the incorporation of new technology. It is safe to say that Jevons was incorrect, as a result of technological advances in

the medical field, it has given us a way to directly measure thoughts and feelings. New impressive tools, such as the functional magnetic resonance imaging more commonly known as ‘fMRI’, have been around since the late 1980s and have just recently been used to study decision-making. The introduction of these machines and research have allowed for the newly emerging field of ‘neuroeconomics’ to exist.

Brain imaging is by far the most used neuroscientific tool; it allows us to see which regions of the brain are activated by different tasks and involves the comparison of the brain performing an ‘experimental’ task and a ‘control’ task. There are three imaging methods: electro-encephalogram (EEG), position emission topography (PET) and of course the ‘good-old’ fMRI. Although neuroscience is sometimes criticised as essentially it just indicates which parts of the brain are working during a specific task, this could allow economists to make the link between how the brain interacts when making different economic decisions. In fact, in a paper researched by Stanford psychologist Brian Knutson and psychiatrist Richard Peterson, it reports that individuals seem to use different parts of their brains when considering and processing financial gains and when they consider financial losses. Neuroeconomics are also optimistic about the impact and influence they may have on public policy. They hope to make models that incorporate information from brain scans to create a mathematical theory of addiction. A theory that would for example allow us to determine the probability that a recovering alcoholic will drink, depending on the location and placement of alcoholic beverages in a supermarket. This could in turn lead to more thoughtful legislations from policy-makers.

Neuroeconomics is a new and exciting field that has the potential to offer the answers to questions that have been debated for centuries, such as: why do we make the choices we make? With technologies improving as we speak, we might get closer to the answer. However, neuroscience leaves us with one question in particular: should we completely rethink the economic theory and start from scratch? But this time economists consider the inner workings of the brain.

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BONDING ON IONA Yichen Li, UIV

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