Issue 5: Stay on Target

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Stay On Target SCIENCE BY NEWCASTLE STUDENTS

#5

Contents

React Magazine @react_magazine

i Contents, Get Involved! ii Editorial, Fast Facts, The Team 1 {Profile} Science Hero: William Edward Deming by Wendy Carr 2 {News} Science news by Claire Tweedy 3-4 {Lead Article} TEDx Newcastle University by Sadaf Atarod 5-6 {NCL Research} Spin-Out Companies by Calum Kirk 7-8 {NCL Research} Not Too Big Any More! by Sadaf Atarod 9 {NCL Research} Campaign To Explain The Brain by Joseph Crutwell 10 {Issue Theme} Staying On Target In International Development by Michael Alderson 11-12 {Issue Theme} Targeting Cancer Cells by Gesa Junge 13-14 {Central Feature} Olympics: On Time, On Budget, On Spec? by Elspeth K. Ritchie 15-16 {Issue Theme} Stay On Target by Ruth Rowland-Jones 17 {Issue Theme} Gene Targeting Therapy: Halt The Fault by Joseph Crutwell 18 {NCL Research} How Many Words Do International Students Learn In Year by Qianqian Tang 19-20 {Issue Theme} Homing Pigens Just Follow Their Nose by Katherine Haylor 21 {Opinion Piece} Dude, Where’s The Data? by Emad Ahmed 22 {Opinion Piece} How Much Influence Do The Media Have Over Developments? by Verity Mitchell 23-24 {Science:fiction} Extraterrestrial Life: Science Fiction Or Science Fact? by Anna Walsh 25 {Street Science} Try This At Home! by Claire Edge 26 {Puzzle Page} ‘Mazing Mathematics! by Steve Humble (Dr Maths) & Comic by Martha Snow 27 {Advert} Maker Faire 28 {Listings}

Get Involved! {react} magazine gives students the opportunity to explore science communication, and we want to make your voices heard. Scientist or not, if you’re interested we’ve got several different ways for you to get stuck in.

Prior experience is not necessary!

Budding science writer?

We want our content to be interesting, contemporary and accessible to all who care to read it.

Contributing to {react} is not about writing technical 1000 word reports; we are looking for imaginative and insightful articles, from longer features and interviews to reviews and opinion pieces. You can write for our print issues, next published in June 2014, or help to create bespoke content for our website. If you would like to get more involved in editing the magazine, or are a budding writer but don’t feel ready to submit your own articles quite yet, you can apply to be on our editorial team.

Get in touch by email: info@reactmagazine.co.uk Determined Doodler? {react} magazine isn’t just about the writing. We pride ourselves on being strongly design-led (we hope a quick flick through will demonstrate this!) and we don’t want to look like your average science magazine. {react} relies on student artists, designers, and layout editors to help bring our stories to life. You don’t need loads of experience, just an interest in the project and a willingness to learn on the job!

Get in touch by email: john@reactmagazine.co.uk Printed on a termly basis, the magazine will be distributed on campus and available to local schools, sixth form colleges, and in public venues across the city. Our online content will be updated throughout the year, so there is always plenty to do.

Editorial There is a saying that it’s not the destination that

matters but the journey. That’s all well and good as a philosophy to live by, but let us know how it goes down when your supervisor or research sponsor starts asking when they’ll be receiving results.

Careful research and project management (p.

15-16) can help prevent those awkward talks and disappointment.

The advice and tools presented work for all manner of projects from designing drugs target cancer cells (p. 11-12) or malfunctioning genes (p.

17). We wouldn’t be surprised to hear that these tools are used by Newcastle University’s spin-outs (p. 5-6), although we’re not sure we can say the same about any of the three London Olympics (p.

13-14).

There’s a lot of life outside the lab from bringing a world class TedX event to Newcastle (p. 3-4) to setting up a charity that actually helps people in a meaningful way (p. 10). It’s not all big projects either. For some students, it’s about having the words they need (p. 18).

There are times where the journey is the destination such understanding manufacturing processes. We’re all for individuality when it comes people, but when it comes to medicines or many other consumer goods, we want everything going

into a process to come out the same. Thanks to the work scientist, engineers, and statisticians like W. E. Deming (p. 1), things are, more or less, in control.

Even if we can’t reach all our targets please remember this: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” No matter how well you plan, life is full of obstacles. It can be media causing trouble (p. 22) or concerns over data validity in clinical trials (p. 21). Even birds have to find ways to stick to migration paths without Google Maps (p. 19-20).

Speaking of the stars, in the movies it seems that space is teeming with all manner of life.

Sometimes it is compassionate and willing to help mankind in the struggle to survive, but more often extraterrestrial life is cause of those struggles. How do the extraterrestrials of science fiction stack against the facts? Is there life out there, but not as we know it?

If the vastness of space is just too much to bear, trying trading in cosmic scales for the submicroscopic with nanotechnology (p. 7-8). It’s a multidisciplinary field that Newcastle University has securely in its sights. Whatever you choose to read, so long as you enjoy it, then that’s “Mission Accomplished” for us.

The Team EDITORS: Elspeth K. Ritchie, Gesa Junge

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: John Dawson

DEPUTY EDITORS: Alexander Giffen, Lindsay Gill

DESIGN: John Dawson, Hannah Scully, Hazel Brill

SUB EDITORS: Rachel Dickinson, Adam Field, Holly Holmes, Calum Kirk, Nyemahame Okwu, Sarah Rice

ILLUSTRATORS: Hannah Scully, Robyn Nevison, Hazel Brill

NEWS EDITOR: Clare Tweedy

NEW MEDIA EDITOR: Elizabeth Lewis SPECIAL THANKS: Ian Wylie, Dr Maths, Andrew Tait, Kirsty McLachlan, Amy Green

NOTES: Cover and illustrations above by Hannah Scully References for all articles in this magazine are available online at reactmagazine.co.uk Creative Commons description @ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en_GB

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Profile Science Profile: William Edward Deming

by Wendy Carr Few individuals influence as many people as the American scholar and statistician William Edwards Deming (1990 – 1993). Throughout his life Deming, the man who gave us the Deming cycle, sought to enhance the life of those around him by conveying that co-operation and recognising the value of people were the best methods to achieve any goal. In addition, he considered that people should always try hard to do their best and continuously strive to improve the quality of their performance and the performance of those around them.

Born in Sioux City, Iowa and later moving to

Wyoming, Deming grew up in frontier territory which is thought to have shaped his beliefs and ideas in future years. Beginning his education in Wyoming, he received a B.Sc. in electrical engineering, before obtaining a master’s degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Colorado. He completed a Ph.D. at Yale with a thesis on ‘Packing of Nucleons in the Helium Atom: A Possible Explanation of the Packing Effect of Helium’ while working as a part-time lecturer.

Continuing his career in science at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory as a mathematical physicist, Deming was to meet a man who would have a huge influence on his future. That man was Walter Shewhart, the recognised father of Total Quality Management (TQM), and inventor of the statistical control chart, an invaluable tool which enables prediction of the future performance of processes by observation of variations in a process.

While at USDA, Deming had the opportunity to work with some of the world’s greatest statisticians including Ronald Fisher, Egon Pearson, Jerzy Neyman,and John Wishart, and published influential papers with Raymond T. Birge – ‘On the Statistical Theory of Errors’. Deming sponsored Shewhart to give a series of lectures at USDA.

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* Illustration by Hannah Scully

This led to the publication of papers and his book ‘Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control’.

Deming began to receive recognition for work in statistics as an advisor for the United States Census Bureau and later the U.S. Secretary of War. Teaching and advising people on the use of statistics led to Deming becoming a statistical consultant throughout the world, initially in Japan, Greece, and India, before returning to Japan where his work led to him being given the title of Honorary Member of the Japanese Statistical Society. His work in Japan with the Union of Japan Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) was considered vastly significant. There is a Deming prize awarded in his honour annually, and he was awarded the Second Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure by the Emperor of Japan in 1960.

He gained recognition throughout the world before publishing his seminal work ‘Out of the Crisis’ in 1982 and ‘The New Economics’ in 1993.

Deming was recognised in the U.S. by several organisations and national awards. National awards are still given in his name by the American Statistical Association. Receiving the Medal of National Technology and a nomination for the Nobel Prize are amongst his many achievements.

Throughout his career, Deming had a significant effect on the world by introducing and teaching statistical methodology. The influence his research has had on us all is still felt today, and his legacy remains in the tools and theories in use each daily in industry, in research, and in our own lives.

News Antioxidant May Protect Against Sun Damage An antioxidant identified by researchers at Newcastle University has been found to protect against UVA (long-wave ultraviolet light) sun damage. While the shorter wave UVB can burn our skin, UVA has been associated with the ageing effects of sun exposure. The antioxidant in question—Tiron—targets mitochondria, the energy supplier in our cells. UVA is able to interfere with

by Clare Tweedy

mitochondria, and the chemicals released as a result degrade collagen and affects skin elasticity.

It is hoped that with Tiron, sun damage could one day be effectively protected against, including the ageing effect of UVA. Suitability for addition of Tiron to cosmetics or food is currently being examined, as well as its full effectiveness in further trials.

Science Central "Living Lab" to Transform Newcastle A living lab to be based in Newcastle’s developing Science Central area has received £50 million to transform Newcastle into a “smart city” for the future. Combining a team of engineers, scientists and digital researchers, the lab will place the public at the heart of the research. By learning what will improve the everyday lives of Newcastle’s residents, the lab will work to improve Newcastle city centre in a number of areas. Transport, energy

and sustainability are expected to be focused on with the initiative hoping to reduce the carbon footprint of residents. By merging world class researchers with revolutionary equipment in a purpose built lab, it is hoped that a number of global sustainability issues can be tackled in the coming years. It is expected that the project will begin in 2017, with a number of other research projects in Science Central already underway.

Halving Sugar Intake Can Greatly Reduce Tooth Decay For more than twenty years, it has been recommended that daily intake of free sugars should be no more than 10% of a person’s daily calorie intake. A study carried out by researchers at Newcastle University has confirmed that when a person sticks to these guidelines, their chance of tooth decay is significantly lower. Halving their intake to 5% per day lowered risk of tooth decay

even further. This amount, equivalent to around five teaspoons a day, is counted as any sugar added to food or naturally found in the likes of fruit, honey and syrup. It is known that fluoride only goes some way to prevent tooth decay, and so the public are being urged to make healthier, low sugar choices to protect their teeth against decay.

Girls May Mature Faster Due to Brain Connections Researchers at Newcastle University, in collaboration with Glasgow and Seoul Universities, have discovered that a reorganisation that takes place in the brain as we grow older could hold the key to why girls mature faster than boys. Using MRI scanning, it was found that connections in the brain are reduced during this organisation period to streamline the communication process.

The necessary reorganisation was noted to occur earlier in life for females compared to males, perhaps providing an explanation for the earlier maturity of girls. Changes in these connections are often found in autism and epilepsy, providing a new area of focus for how these disorders may develop.

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Lead Article TEDx Newcastle University

by Sadaf Atarod and Sourima Shivhare “Oh, is there a sequel to ‘Ted’? The last one was hilarious”, replied my friend when I was just about to tell him more about TED and our TEDxNewcastleUniversity event on the 8th of June 2014. Well the confusion was partly because he had stopped me midway – if only he had let me finish my question!

TEDx is a non-profit organization and is now owned by The Sapling Foundation in the US and still continues to host two annual conferences: the TEDx Conference and TEDx Global. The TEDx headquarters are New York City and Vancouver.

The Sapling Foundation was set up by Chris Anderson who is the present curator of TEDx. The foundation was also set up as a way of “tackling the global issues” through technology, entertainment and entrepreneurship which complements the aims of TEDx.

So what is TEDx and why is there so much hype about? In short and sweet terms: TEDx aims to ‘spread ideas’ and change the way we view our world. TEDx.com is the ‘YouTube’ of the intellectual generation. Moreover, TEDx symbolizes and promotes effective communication forming an integral part of research and discovery. In fact, the progress of research is often dependent on the participation of the wider community. This demands a two-way flow of knowledge between the researcher and the community. TEDx and TEDx form the ideal platform for such a flow of knowledge, with one mission; ‘ideas worth spreading’.

TEDx talks now reach millions globally via TEDx.com which curates talks from the annual conference as well as from independently organized TEDx events. However TEDx events follow a set of general guidelines, set out by TEDx to maintain uniformity, quality and importantly to prevent any misuse of the event.

One can spend hours on www.ted.com looking through the website and watching the video clips.

Probably one of their winning points is that none of the talks are more than 25 minutes long- just about right for the average attention span of an individual. The TEDx Open Translation Project helps the TEDx talks reach non-English speakers. Talks are translated in 40 languages and are accessible via the www.ted.com/talks. Significantly, the annual TEDx Prize offers $1 million to an individual with a winning idea, to help them bring about a change in the world. Previous TED speakers include the likes of Bill Gates, former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Ben Goldacre, and our very own Sugata Mitra, who won the TEDx 2013 Prize to ‘Build a School in the Cloud’.

- Chris Anderson, from TEDTalk on Crowd-Accelerated Innovation

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“You’re part of the crowd that may be about to ignite the biggest learning cycle in human history.”

TED xstands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It was born from an idea formed 30 years ago. Richard Saul Wurman, an American architect and graphic designer, started TEDx in 1984 as a four-day conference in California. Initially, the aim of the TEDx conference was to gather individuals from the three main areas of Technology, Entertainment and Design. It has since expanded to include discussions from every field of interest.

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* Illustration by Hannah Scully

Now we have our own TEDx event at Newcastle University! TEDx NewcastleUniversity brings together some of the best researchers in their fields within Newcastle University sharing their ideas behind cutting edge research which will form the future of our health and society.

TEDxNewcastleUniversity aims to communicate powerful ideas, inspire and stimulate discussions between academics and individuals from the local community. This intends to be an annual event in the University calendar. ‘Research and Discovery’ is the theme for our very first TEDxNewcastleUniversity 2014. This theme has been chosen specifically to kick start the event, since it is broad enough to unite a diverse community, but targeted enough to seek out answers to some of the most important questions that impend upon us and our society, tomorrow.

So we’ll see you on the 8th of June?

Watch out for tickets at: www.tedxnewcastleuniversity.com Facebook: TEDxNewcastle University Twitter: @TEDxNCLUni

The TED family TED Conference TEDActive TEDGlobal TED Prize TED Talks TED Fellows TEDx TEDMED TED-Ed

What are they?

Annual conference hosted in the North American West Coast.

A gathering of inspiring leaders who watch the TED Conference, get involved in innovative activities, and then plan out actions.

Conference style but hosted at various locations across the globe.

Awarded to an inspirational and exceptional individual annually.

Online access to TED talks.

Connecting innovators globally to become part of the TED community.

Independently organized TED events that offer the opportunity to organizations, individuals and communities to host their own themed events.

Curates medical and science themed talks that are worth sharing.

Curates lessons that are worth sharing.

* TEDx logo courtesy of Radio Free Humboldt, http://krfh.net/?p=1094 Lecture theatre photos courtesy of vads, http://vads.ac.uk/

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NCL Research NCL Research: Spin-Out Companies By: Calum Kirk If you type in “spin-out companies” on the Wikipedia homepage the first suggestion you’ll be given, as you’d expect, includes several explanations of what a spin-out company is. Simply put, a spin-out company is part of a company that diverges from the parent company, usually taking with it employees, materials and any specific property or technology relevant to the new company’s venture. This new smaller company then focuses on developing a specific product or service different from that offered by the parent company. The parent company however can retain an interest in the spin-out company, usually in the form of shares. Wikipedia includes some good examples from other business areas. DreamWorks Animation for example, famed for animated films such as ‘Shrek’ and ‘Kung Fu Panda’, is a spin-out of the parent company DreamWorks Studios.

further research will appear to be clearly divided into either the ‘Industrial’ or ‘Academic’ fields.

But spin-out companies fill a third, much more niche area between these two where scientific research also takes place. Spin-out companies in this case are companies set up by university researchers intent on developing their research into a marketable product. Most often this will be because their academic research already contains an aspect where it is possible to expand upon, develop and ultimately sell.

Spin-out companies can come from any scientific research area. The only essential requirements for a successful spin-out company are a good idea and a research team dedicated to developing this idea into a product. The difficult bit is then making a success of this product.

Exciting X-Rays Professor Max Robinson is currently Entrepreneur in Residence here at Newcastle University and has experienced the challenges of developing a spin-out company several times. Early in his career Professor Robinson formed a research group looking at using alternate materials to improve 3D X-ray imaging, from which his first spin-out company developed. Each subsequent

The second suggestion on the list generated

by Wikipedia is a direct link to Newcastle University’s Wikipedia page and its own section on spin-out companies. Now, this could be a clever bit of subtle promotion by someone at ISS, or more likely it is the perfect example of the emphasis the university places on developing research and distributing to the widest possible audience. Many universities often have several spin-out companies which have been formed by their researchers, using technology or intellectual property developed at that university. Newcastle University is no different and has several spinout companies in almost every scientific field , developing research and making it marketable.

It is, however, an aspect of scientific research which is rarely talked about when you start out in academia. Certainly upon graduation, any

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* Images courtesy of Martyn Dade-Robertson, Data Portraits website, http://www.dataportraits.co.uk/

Infosthetics Blog data representation

company built on the ideas and technology developed in the first research group, improving the basic technology and designing and marketing successful products around the original research aim. The improvements made by each spin-out has allowed the research Professor Robinson originally started with to be used across several fields including medicine and security.

The theory behind how to improve X-ray scanning technology has long been known by physics researchers. It is dependent on the particular molecular arrangement of cadmium telluride crystals. In its natural molecular state is the crystals are useless useless, but when rearranged to form molecular sheets, it dramatically increases the sensitivity when scanning Xrays. The resulting scanners are so sensitive that they can distinguish between diet and regular colas. The issue was manufacturing cadmium telluride crystals with the required sheets. It was Professor Robinson’s team who came up with a novel, cost effective way to produce this vital compound with the required molecular arrangement.

In developing his companies Professor Robinson encountered several stumbling blocks, one of which being simply communicating the importance of the research to non-scientists involved with the company. For researchers entering the business world, the jargon used by business professionals can be baffling at first, but it is vital to master it to succeed. For example, the difference between application and production. Researchers commonly explain their research in terms of how it’s made or the theory behind it and why this is the exciting and important part of the research.

But what is of value to a company is how the idea can be applied. While the production method discovered by Professor Robinson’s team was a major breakthrough in the physics community, it was the application of this element in improving scanning technology which made the spin-out companies successful.

The Beauty Within Not all spin-out companies using scientific research have a similarly scientific output in mind. ‘Data Portraits’ is a website headed by Dr Martyn Dade-Robertson, a lecturer in architecture at Newcastle University. Specially developed software is used to create artworks visualising links within websites.

websites for local companies like Bamburgh Castle and the Northern Stage to larger companies such as Google and WIRED magazine. The resulting portraits, even for relatively small websites, are quite stunning. The software and initial research that allow for the creation of these images was begun at Newcastle University, and while the revenue generated from the sale of commissions is channelled back into further research, the website itself is independent from the university.

Visual Complexity data representation

The inspiration for a spin-out company can clearly appear in any scientific field. However, it may be that the success of a spin-out company is, if not dependant on, then at least highly influenced by the field it appears in. For example, the biological sciences depend on the utility of their discoveries and the ease with which they are further developed into marketable products. Meanwhile the engineering sciences can actively pursue research avenues that are likely to yield such products.

Fundamentally though, spin-out companies are still conducting vital scientific research, expanding the knowledge and resources of their particular field. They just also allow for people outside of that research field to appreciate the benefits of this cutting edge research.

Operating by commission, Data Portraits has created visualisations of the traffic through

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NCL Research Not Too Big Any More!

by Sadaf Atarod Sometimes all we need to start learning about a new field is just a word or even a picture. More simply said, a spark! Well as a matter of fact, early this January a very interesting article on molecular therapy via the use of nanotechnology planted right in my inbox. Any kind of ‘scale’ science is attractive to me and probably to anyone else looking to i dentify new therapeutics for the treatment of disease as, among other things, treatments can be designed to reach previously accessible areas.

If you have an interest in the physics of the very small, you have probably at least come across the name Richard Feynman. He was one of the nanotechonology pioneers who envisioned building things from the bottom up at the nanoscale. It can be quite difficult to imagine this scale as one nanometer is one billionth of a meter.

No wonder the Greeks named this tiny scale of measurement ‘nano’ meaning ‘dwarf’ in English.

I want to build a billion tiny factories, models of each other, which are manufacturing simultaneously… The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big.

— Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner in Physics (1965)

However, it took twenty years for the word ‘nanotechnology’ to be coined by K. Eric Drexler in his paper ‘Molecular engineering: An approach

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* Image courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

Nanotechnology Now At present there are numerous groups across the world working in the field of nanotechnology and its different applications. In general, the field of nanotechnology is multidisciplinary and therefore encompasses physics, chemistry, material science, medicine, and biology. Here at the Newcastle University’s School of Chemical Engineering & Advanced Materials, the Nanoscale Science and Nanotechnology Group are active in a wide range of areas: nanodiamonds, silicon nanocrystals, gold nitride, silver nanoparticles, photon reactions on ice, ferromagnetism, biomimetics, nanotoxicology, biomineralization, optics, and carbon capture.

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to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation’. He is often recognised as the father of nanotechnology, which is sometimes referred to as molecular manufacturing or even general purpose technology due to its broad scope. Like any other disruptive technology, it has evolved from the very first generation of application and products, such as aerosols and nanoparticle coatings, to the latest generation, which includes molecular devices that can be used to aid diagnostic purposes.

Feynman, centre facing camera

As mentioned earlier, one of my favourite applications of this technology is in the field of medical sciences. The research group at Newcastle University are investigating on how to apply the properties of silicon nanocrystals in the production of cellular and genomic probes for medical applications.

There is also an ongoing collaboration between Newcastle University, University College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Imperial College London aimed at using mobile phone technologies to detect infectious diseases (influenza, HIV, etc). The multidisciplinary project utilises nanotechnology in the development of mobile diagnostic tests. Information from blood or swab tests can then be uploaded to healthcare systems using a mobile phone and used to perform further diagnostics, as well as help create an early warning system for outbreaks.

It happens that I stumbled upon the ‘nanoLAB’ here at Newcastle University while looking up nanotechnology. The nanoLAB is located at the heart of School of Electrical, Electronic and Nanotechnology geometries Computer Engineering. They too cover several main themes such as nanomaterials, nanodevices, and nanobiotechnology as well as the ethics and policies regarding nanotechnology. It is worth noting that Newcastle University has also been selected as the National Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) X-ray

Photoelectron Spectroscopy Users’ (XPS) Service (NEXUS), a technology used for analyzing surface structures and shared by researchers across the UK.

Not Just ‘Serious’ Science Did you know that the heat-resistance and smoothness of our iron and hair-straighteners was because of the nanoceramic particles used in these products?

So the next time you pick up that iron to make your clothes crease-free or to straighten your hair, remember that you too are using nanotechology!

Nanoparticles are almost everywhere.

They are in sunscreen, food packaging, and even wound dressings just to name a few! Nanofabrication is also one of the main areas that are focused on especially with regards to 3D printing electronics. Overall, nanotechnology is probably an example of one of the most widely used technologies that has touched almost every home in most parts of the world!

Extragalactic Space Balls! * Top image courtesy of Opensource Handbook of Nanoscience & Nanotech, http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Nanotechnology Bottom image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech, http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA13551

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NCL Research Title: NCL Research: Campaign to Explain the Brain By: Joseph Crutwell We’ve reached a point in the understanding of ourselves as a species where we know so much, from our origins on Earth to our genes and how they make us individuals. Yet compared to everything else, the brain is a relatively unknown entity. Can we ever understand the structure that allows us to understand in the first place?

On the 7th of October 2013 80 universities started research into how to reach a much deeper understanding of the brain than anyone ever has before, to create a computer system capable of performing tasks in a similar way to our most perplexing organ: The Human Brain Project.

But there is one issue with producing this model.

There isn’t a single computer in the world that can cover the brain’s functional capabilities, which reaches a storage capacity of a staggering one million gigabytes of information. Some people even believe, perhaps correctly, that the brain is too complex to understand; these concerns about computing are reminiscent of the Human Genome Project (HGP).

In the case of the HGP, a combination of computing and human genetic research helped to achieve something no one was sure could be done. Something people hope to see from this potentially pioneering project.

If this venture returns even a fraction of information it has proposed, it would lead to a huge advancement in understanding the neurological basis of many conditions, especially diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The knowledge gained could potentially lead to earlier diagnosis techniques, more novel research ideas and a number of new treatment methods.

The benefit to the science community does not just stop at biological information. As mentioned, there is no technology currently available to produce a full brain simulation. However, there is a computer with a large enough memory capacity as well as potentially enough processing power to run a basic brain. Known as “Tianhe-2”, it is used by the Chinese government to store all their important

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* Background illustration by Hannah Scully, illustration insert by Robyn Nevison

information, though I doubt they’d wipe it for the sake of a science experiment.

This means that along with the worldwide biological research, computer scientists are also working to develop supercomputer technology in a much more compact form than it currently exists, which can only benefit other fields that also rely on superfast computer processing such as finance and industry. It is also thought that the software used to simulate the brain can be used for other simulations and maybe even robotics.

The creators of the HBP have said it’s not possible to run a live simulation of the entire brain and that this project simply looks to construct an overarching simulation of the brain’s processes, as opposed to each individual cell. But nobody knows what this research will inspire in the fullness of time.

So what is the “end goal” of this endeavour? No one is quite sure, but it may be that what is learned along the way will be just as important as the final outcome.

NCL Uni Science Issue Theme: Staying on Target in International Development By: Michael Alderson Environmental Scientist and Engineer Michael Alderson (Newcastle University Alumni class of 2009) talks about his charity, EcoSwell, and how he hopes that by staying focused his organisation will be able to sustainably develop Peruvian rural and semi-rural communities.

As Peru’s recent economic boom spreads through the country, there is a sense that it is exacerbating economic and social inequality, and degrading the country’s natural wealth. Together with a group of friends, I set up EcoSwell one year ago. Each of us is concerned with the way in which our country’s future is unfolding and want to contribute towards making it more positive. Our charity’s aim is to extend the reach of Peru’s economic growth to those who would usually not benefit from it, whilst simultaneously enhancing and/or protecting the local natural environment.

This is certainly easier said than done. Proofs of this are the countless international development projects carried out by well-meaning charities all over the world that have proved unsuccessful –which in turn, have given charities a bad name in many parts of the world. The reason for these constant failures can be linked, in general, to a loss of focus.

Many charities and development projects tend

to jump into technological implementation as a solution to a specific problem (i.e. building latrines in a town without a sanitation scheme) without fully understanding the social context in which they are being applied. If a charitable project is to improve the life of the intended beneficiaries, the needs of those people need to be properly understood in order that they can be adequately met. At EcoSwell we believe that an interdisciplinary approach is crucial for successful projects. The social aspect of a project needs to complement

the technical, and vice versa. This means that social scientists and engineers need to work handin-hand to come up with relevant solutions.

With this philosophy in mind, EcoSwell has been working in the town of Lobitos, Northern Peru. A social assessment has been undertaken to determine the wants and needs of the local community, involving interviews and focus groups with ordinary community members, decision makers and local businesses. In response to these needs we have developed relevant technical solutions intended to improve the social, environmental, and the economic wellbeing of the community.

One such possible solution is a wastewater treatment plant which we have designed to allow the reuse of wastewater for crop irrigation, with the potential for creating microbusinesses through the cultivation of tilapia (aquaculture). The plant will also improve the sanitation situation of the town, which currently has no sewage treatment works, and most importantly, will allow for the reuse of a resource which would otherwise be wasted and which would pollute the surrounding environment. This project is particularly suitable for Lobitos’ community as it makes use of a cheap technology to treat the wastewater, is dependent of the climatic conditions of the locality (high temperatures), is not technically complex to implement and is easy to maintain.

By continuing our focus on the development of relevant projects such as this one by using an interdisciplinary and bottom-up approach, we will ensure that the benefits of Peru’s economic growth is further extended and the lives of those living in Lobitos, and other rural and semi-rural communities like it, are improved.

For more information, please visit www.ecoswell.org

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NCL Uni Science Targeting Cancer Cells

by Gesa Junge The concept of targeted therapies goes back to Paul Ehrlich’s idea of “magic bullets” that kill one specific type of cell while not affecting any healthy ones. This was in 1906, and it has taken almost a hundred years for technology to catch up with Ehrlich’s ideas. While those magic bullets were originally thought up in the context of antibacterial therapies, it is probably cancer therapy that the concept is most applicable to today. Chemotherapy can be effective and sometimes even curative, but it is infamous for its horrible side effects which often prevent patients from receiving effective doses. Developing therapies that are more tolerable for patients yet still effective in treating cancer is one of the main objectives of cancer research everywhere.

missing one. Cancer cells that are lacking one of these pathways, -for example due to mutation in the BRCA gene in some breast and ovarian cancers - are therefore much more sensitive to drugs that inhibit a second one compared to healthy cells, a concept knows as synthetic lethality. PARP inhibitors such as Rucaparib and Olaparib are currently in late-stage clinical trials for the treatment of BRCA mutated cancers, and, as with Imatinib, have shown much fewer side effects than previously used drugs.

The concept behind targeted therapies is to

design a drug that specifically kills cancer cells and leaves all other cells alone by exploiting features that distinguish a cancer cell from a normal cell.

Glivec is an example of a drug where this has worked out well. It is used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia, a form of blood cancer which is caused by a DNA change (the Philadelphia translocation) in bone marrow cells. Thisleads to the creation of the bcr abl fusion protein which deregulates cell cycle control and DNA repair, allowing the cell to grow out of control and thus become a cancer cell. Glivec is a specific inhibitor of this fusion protein and as its target only exists in cancer cells, the drug has little to no effects on other cells, making it much more tolerable than conventional chemotherapy.

A different approach to achieving specificity to cancer cells is that of DNA repair inhibitors. This may sound counter-intuitive, as defects in DNA repair are often a cause of cancer in the first place; however, cells have multiple pathways of repairing DNA damage and can usually compensate for one

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* Illustrations by Hannah Scully

Of course, not all cancers have such features that could be used for drug targeting, at least that we know of. Some drugs can be administered locally where they are needed, avoiding effects on other organs, but most are given orally or intravenously and will distribute via the blood to everywhere in the body with often only a small proportion reaching the site at which they are needed. To deliver drugs exactly where they need to go, they can, for example, be packaged into vehicles that remain in the blood for longer by avoiding metabolism and excretion and accumulating in tumours. Tumour tissues show enhanced permeability and retention (the EPR effect) compared to other tissues, which means they are more likely to take up substances from the blood. This is also true for sites of infection and

inflammation. The vehicles used for this are often liposomes (or, more recently, stealth liposomes which evade detection by the liver) which consists of a phospholipid bilayer much like the membrane of a cell arranged around a water-based centre containing the drug. Liposomal formulations are available for a few drugs already, including the cancer drugs doxorubicin and daunorubicin as well as morphine.

In contrast to passive targeted delivery such as local administration or exploiting the EPR effect, active targeted delivery does not rely on the characteristics of the disease or disease site but on the modification of the drug given, for example by coupling it to an antibody which recognises specific cell types. The drug monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE) is an effective antimitotic agent (i.e. it prevents cell division) used to treat lymphomas. On its own, MMAE is highly toxic to all tissues (cancer and otherwise), but by linking it to an antibody targeting CD30, a molecule expressed on certain lymphoma cells, it can be given in low doses that go straight to the lymphoma and is much less toxic to surrounding tissues.

There are numerous ideas of how to target drugs, but unfortunately, the interesting molecules tend to be hidden among many other uninteresting molecules. While drug discovery used to be very much about serendipity and educated guesses

of which molecule might have which effect, this is now being replaced by high-tech approaches such as high-throughput screening and rational drug design. A high-throughput screen identifies chemicals that interact with a drug target (often proteins, specifically sites on a protein that bind to and/or activate something else) from compound libraries which often contain thousands of small molecules. Anything that interacts with the target site is called a “hit” and will then be looked at more closely to figure out whether it is actually specific to a target and would make a good drug.

Drug design approaches involve taking a molecule, or sometimes even just a fragment of a molecule, that was found to interact with the target and optimizing it to be more effective and more “drug-like”. These are both really important points, as not any molecule can be a drug. The drug needs to actually make it into the blood and then into cells, which involves surviving in an acidic stomach, being absorbed in the intestine and not deactivated in the liver (which is designed to do just that, and everything absorbed into the blood from the gut goes there first) and then eventually crossing cell membranes. Therefore, drug molecules need to be the correct size and solubility to get across cell membranes. With some very clever chemistry, it is often possible to build up a molecule that fits into the target site as perfectly as possible while being stable in the body. Remember Tetris? always try and keep the gaps to a minimum.

Targeted therapies have several advantages over conventional, cytotoxic chemotherapy, mainly their higher tolerability which means they can be given at higher doses. Most cancer drugs are administered at their maximum tolerated dose to have the best chance of killing off all tumour cells, including the ones that surgery might have missed, and avoid the cancer coming back and the patient relapsing. However, even the most specific drugs still have side effects, and there are patients becoming resistant to Glivec already – and of course targeted therapies are not (yet) available for all types of cancer. But even though targeted therapies are a work in progress, they have revolutionised the treatment of cancer and improved the outcome for thousands of patients.

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On Time; On Budget; On Specification

by Elspeth K. Ritchie The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics are firmly behind us, but the people of Russia still have a headache of a bill to pay off. Somehow Sochi 2014 managed to rack up the highest bill of any Olympics, an estimated $51 billion, beating previous “Most Expensive Olympics” record holder, the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, by around $7 billion.

Add in complaints about hotels not being completed to an acceptable standard or, reportedly, not completed at all, it seems that Sochi didn’t stick to any of the three project management goals: on time, on budget, on specification. We thought we’d have a look at three times summer Olympics host London’s track record to see if they managed better.

Budget 1908: £75K (Then), £7.64M (Adjusted for 2012) 1948: £760K (Then), £23.39M (Adjusted for 2012) 2012: £9300M While the post-WWII 1948 games are often referred to as “The Austerity Games” in part due to rationing still be in effect, they were still triple the cost of the pre-WWI 1908 games. However, both budgets pale in comparison to the 2012 behemoth that managed to rise above £9 billion.

How could that happen, even with the increase in events being held? It turns out quite a bit of that value depends on what you count as part of the 2012 Olympics budget. According to the budget announced in the House of Commons in 2007, that £9.3 billion included over £5 billion in infrastructure and venues, £400 million for the 2012 Paralympics, £1.7 billion for regeneration of the Lower Lea Valley, as well as regeneration funds for London’s East End. Meanwhile the only major infrastructure cost in the 1908 budget was building White City Stadium, and the 1948 budget for non-absolute essentials was even more restricted.

Moral: Keep an eye on what’s actually going in your budget and not just the bottom line.

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* Illustration by Hannah Scully

Sports & Events 1908: Sports - 22 1948: Sports - 23 2012: Sports - 26

Events - 110 Events - 136 Events - 302

While the number of sports in the summer Olympics has increased, the number of individual events has nearly trebled. The argument can be made that this is because women are participating (essentially doubling event numbers), as well as the sheer number of participants. True, finals may still feature the same number of contestants as in 1908, but there are a lot more athletes competing to get into that final in the first place.

As the Olympics sports line up can change slightly with each Games, some sports have featured in one, two, or all three London Olympics. Several have disappeared for a good reason, such as 1908’s figure skating moving to the winter Olympics, it is sad to say that the 1948 games were the last to feature an arts competition and that water motorsports were dropped after 1908.

We’re still trying to figure out what 1908’s “Jeu de paume” is.

Duration 1908: 187 days 1948: 16 days 2012: 16 days From opening ceremony to closing ceremony, 1908 had the longest Olympic Games on record thanks to figure skating events taking place well after the rest of the Games were complete. The 1908 Games were the first to feature winter sports, and a separate Winter Olympics wouldn’t be created until 1924.

The People 1908: Countries 22, Athletes 2008, Men:Women, 53.3 : 1 1948: Countries 59, Athletes 4104, Men:Women, 9.5 : 1 2012: Countries 302, Athletes 10568, Men:Women, 1.3 : 1 One of the specifications for the Olympics is equality.

While the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics will likely be forever linked with homophobia and hate, it’s nice to see that between 1908 and 2012, the ratio of male to female athletes plummeted from 53.3 men for each women to almost equal 1.3.

That’s in addition to the roster of participating nations increasing from 22 to 302. Sochi 2014 did feature a wonderful moment of global harmony and the power of technology. The Dogecoin digital currency community and crowd-funding website Crowdtilt raised the funds need to send the Jamaican bobsleigh team to Russia, who had qualified but lack the travel funds.

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Issue Theme Stay On Target

by Ruth Rowland-Jones As scientists and engineers, we think strategically and systematically with our research, but do we look at the bigger picture? We are renowned for thinking logically yet many of us struggle to plan and stay on target. Technical ability and problem solving are essential skills for research, but an area that must not be forgotten is planning and managing our research.

I asked individuals from a range of backgrounds

including oil and gas, biopharmaceuticals and I.T. what skills they believed someone needs to have for good project and research management. The same characteristics came up: planning, flexibility and communication.

One of the key areas for effective planning of a project or research is setting targets. To begin, you need to know what your overall aim and objective of your work is. This could be a dissertation for your undergraduate degree, an annual report or, more technically-based, the implementation of a new technique. With a final goal in mind you can then set small aims and targets to help you organise your work and stay on track to reaching your final goal. One tool which can be used to help with this is SMART. This was first conveyed in business by Peter Drucker in the 1950s. It is an acronym to help you set realistic targets:

Specific This means that you need to be focused. It may help going through the ‘what?’, ‘where?’, ‘how?’ and ‘who?’

Measurable This means that progress should be quantified so that you know how well you are doing.

Attainable/Achievable Even though goals should stretch you, they must also be achievable. One example used is increasing customer satisfaction. Stating a goal of ‘reaching 100% satisfaction’ is not realistically achievable, however stating an improvement of 20% might be.

Realistic/Relevant This links with the previous factor however it focuses more on whether the chance of success is small. Saying that you are going to run 20 assays a day when it takes an hour to run one assay is not realistic. Some literature also stresses the importance of your targets being relevant. Ask yourself whether this goal is worthwhile; is it a priority right now?

Time-Based This final factor gives you a timeframe. Give yourself milestones and take these opportunities to reflect upon and review your work and your progress.

SMART helps you to set out realistic targets that have a time-frame. Using this tool will help you to start managing your research effectively and efficiently.

So, having successfully set your realistic targets, you start planning your experiments. You may plan several months’ worth of experiments and then the inevitable happens: equipment or materials don’t arrive on time, your work gets contaminated, or the results you get mean you have to focus on another area. Don’t panic! Flexibility is key to research management. Research, by definition, means coming to new conclusions and with it an element of the unknown. Having the ability to be flexible with your work will cause you much less stress in the long run.

The final skill that will be addressed in this feature is communication. Communication encompasses a number of separate areas. Firstly, asking for advice. If you feel panicked with your work, stop,

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take a deep breath, and ask someone. Someone else is bound to have been through the same thing and probably knows the answer or has some form of advice.

Communication is also required for teamwork.

If you are leading a project you need to communicate effectively in order to maximise the performance of your team. This is also a trait required in research as often you will be part of a research group.

This feature highlighted the importance of effective management in order to carry out research efficiently. Three key skills were discussed— planning, flexibility and communication—are seen as fundamental for a range of industries in order to manage a project or research successfully. Be smart with your targets, flexible with your plans, communicate your ideas and results, and you will reach your final goal successfully.

Take a deep breath, and ask someone. Someone else is bound to have been through the same thing and probably knows the answer or has some form of advice.

Communication is also required for teamwork.

If you are leading a project you need to communicate effectively in order to maximise the performance of your team. This is also a trait required in research as often you will be part of a research group.

Finally, communication also means to tell others about your work. Generally with science and engineering research, you will usually have been awarded funding in order for you to carry out your work. You therefore need to develop your communication skills in order to keep stakeholders up to date as well as presenting your work to others, as at the end of the day is there much point in research if you just keep it to yourself?

Peter Drucker strikes a pose

Finally, communication also means to tell others about your work. Generally with science and engineering research, you will usually have been awarded funding in order for you to carry out your work. You therefore need to develop your communication skills in order to keep stakeholders up to date as well as presenting your work to others, as at the end of the day is there much point in research if you just keep it to yourself?

This feature highlighted the importance of effective management in order to carry out research efficiently. Three key skills were discussed— planning, flexibility and communication—are seen as fundamental for a range of industries in order to manage a project or research successfully. Be smart with your targets, flexible with your plans, communicate your ideas and results, and you will reach your final goal successfully.

* Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drucker5789.jpg

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Issue Theme Gene Targeting Therapy: Halt the Fault

by Joseph Crutwell Medicine is a cornerstone of modern society. With it, humanity has been able to successfully overcome so many problems that have literally plagued us for centuries. But as more and more diseases are cured, it is logical that the ones still affecting us must be the ones that are the hardest to combat. How then are scientists finding potential cures for diseases like cancer and cystic fibrosis? The answer may lie, as so many of the recent biological and medical discoveries have, in our genes.

word in an instruction booklet and solving the problem by ripping out the whole page, only the body’s instructions aren’t as simple as an Ikea cabinet. Without that specific information, the cells that lose the DNA have no idea how to create that protein again. The master copy, so to speak, has been lost.

For years scientists have been capable of

As of late 2013, the only commercially available treatment of this kind is the elaborately titled “Alipogene Tiparvovec”, used to treat Lipoprotein Lipase Deficiency which causes a build-up of fat in the blood stream. The name is only the second most startling thing about this drug, as it comes with a price tag of €1.2 million for a course of treatment (which is the equivalent of just under £1 million). Despite this hefty price tag, the authorisation of this medication for use in Europe is seen as a huge step forward, paving the way for approval of gene-targeting treatments for other diseases, such as diabetes and cystic fibrosis which are still undergoing rigorous testing.

targeting a specific gene in a person’s DNA and saying “Yes, this is the bit causing the problem”. It would seem then that the obvious solution to this issue would be to get rid of the offending region or replace it with a functional copy, thereby stopping the gene producing the faulty protein which ultimately leads to disease. But this is harder than it seems.

So scientists developed a more refined solution.

By introducing correctly functioning DNA into a cell in a large enough quantity, the new more prevalent copy will be made into the required protein more often than the faulty original. This technique is clever as it mimics a virus, using a protein shell containing labels which tell the body’s cells to take in the packet containing the gene.

However, even with this approval and promising research, there are still some drawbacks to these potential treatments, such as potentially damaging the body’s DNA repair system and causing increased cancer risk. But once these problems are solved, you can be sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of these types of treatment.

As you might guess, our bodies would not be too fond of losing a piece of their DNA, even if it is faulty. Additionally, the chances of eliminating the exact piece of problem-causing DNA is unlikely and could possibly remove other pieces of functional genes. It’s like finding an incorrect

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* Illustrations by Hannah Scully

Issue Theme How Many Words Do International Students Learn in a Year

by QianQian Tang Any international non-native speaker (NNS) student who studies in an English-speaking country can expect to improve their English language skills over the course of their studies. Indeed, over one 12 week semester of a taught postgraduate study program in a UK university, a typical NNS student learns on average 55 new academic words.

Therefore, an international NNS student can learn and use about 165 new words a year! These results come from researchers at Nottingham University, who collected data from one student over three semesters, and from more recent research by myself using data from two students over two semesters.

In spite of the difference between the data, the results from the two studies are strongly related.

But where does the student learn the new words

from? Generally, the student learns words from both implicit sources in an incidental manner and explicit sources in an intentional manner. The implicit sources mainly include academic reading, lectures and peers, while the explicit sources are oral and written feedback from teaching staff, dictionaries, and courses. Furthermore, studies show that the NNS student learns the majority of new words from implicit sources. Believe it or not, the student learns those words mainly from academic reading materials.

During their course, the student is required to read a large amount of academic textbooks and journals for lectures, assignments and their dissertation. This new vocabulary is highly likely to be repeated in different reading materials, and the repetition of the new words can promote learning.

In addition, reading is a flexible activity, so learning can occur during private study time.

of listeners, comprehensibility and the length of the content. In the lectures, the student has to focus on the content due to study need, and it is a regular study activity. As the student’s English language proficiency has already reached the required level before studying in the UK University, there should be no difficulties in understanding the lectures.

Each lecture usually lasts for about two hours, so the student will hear the same new words repeatedly and infer their meaning in such a long talk. Interestingly, the student also learns new words by interacting with peers in seminars, group discussions, and group tasks and so on. During the conversation of the interaction, the peers can be the supply of new words and the student has difficulties in producing unfamiliar words.

Now we know where international students learn the majority of their new vocabulary, it is easier to answer the question how to expand it further. Firstly, the student should be exposed to an even larger volume of reading materials, to encounter even more new words and more repetition to enhance the learning and memorizing.

Secondly, the student should be more engaged in the lectures and attend as many lectures as possible. Last but not least, being more active in the conversation of group discussions to absorb new words from other students will allow the NNS student to maximise their learning. In other words: socialise!

Lectures are the main spoken source of learning new words. The occurrence of learning words from spoken source has requirement on involvement * Image by Hannah Scully

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Issue Theme Homing Pigeons Just Follow Their Nose

by Katherine Haylor My zoologist flatmate once romantically recounted avian navigation as “following the stars”. However, their journeys rely rather more on the physical than the poetic. Many animals have highly advanced navigational skills.

Some follow scent trails and identify landmarks. Ants commonly leave behind trails of pheromones (chemicals secreted for social interaction) for others to follow, and many species can identify one place from another.

Bird navigation is somewhat more complex.

Birds can migrate in either a loop or a line fashion.

A loop migration forms a circular route and will ensure they haven’t depleted their food supplies from an area on their outward visit. A line migration simply involves taking the same route on the return journey as the outward journey. Whichever route they choose, it is the integration of local knowledge with directional ability that is so impressive.

research has shown that these birds can still return to their home area.

Other breeds of birds have been used in scientific research to study navigation, including starlings, catbirds and songbirds to name a few. One varied behavioural mechanism is the so-called ‘internal compass’. This makes use of the sun, other stars, the Earth’s magnetic fields and polarised light to assist navigation. Birds migrating during the day can orient themselves with the sun; their circadian rhythms (or biological clocks) follow the 15 degree per hour movement of the sun across the sky. During the night, migrating birds learn star patterns from a young age to within 35 degrees of a reliable reference point, for example Polaris; the North star. This was demonstrated in the 1960s by U.S. scientist Stephen Emlen using indigo bunting birds that had only been exposed to a planetarium sky. By altering the star map, they would to orient themselves around a different star than Polaris.

But what happens on a cloudy day or night when our sun or other stars cannot be easily observed?

Birds are capable of sensing the Earth’s magnetic fields and can use these field lines to orient themselves from a latitudinal perspective. Whereas bees can ‘see’ the Earth’s polarity, birds are aware of the angle of the planet relative to its magnetic field lines. The magnetic compass cannot be solely relied upon however, as knowledge of this angle alone does not equip birds with the ability to navigate North and South. So the magnetic compass must be integrated with other mechanisms.

Polarised Light for Polar Opposites

This pigeon has a camera

The homing pigeon is a model bird for understanding navigation mechanisms and has been used for hundreds of years in attempt to understand avian abilities. When fitted with translucent contact lenses that obscure landmarks,

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The polarised light compass is thought to work much like polarised lenses in sunglasses. White light (what we humans perceive as visible light) can become polarised when reflected off particular surfaces, such as water droplets, dust and ice crystals. Polarised light resonates in only one plane in comparison to the direction it is travelling in, so the ability to detect this enables birds to pinpoint the sun’s location and then travel in their intended direction.

* Image courtesy of Julius Neubronner, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pigeoncameras-2.jpg

Birds have sophisticated internal compasses for establishing direction, once they know which way they should be going. But how they know this in the first place is determined by olfaction – the sense of smell. Many navigation studies have been done on pigeons whose sense of smell has been abolished (e.g. by cutting nerves). In familiar conditions, un-cut pigeons rely on olfactory navigation and knowledge of local landmarks to guide them.

A key study in 1971 showed that upon releasing intact and nerve-severed pigeons from an unfamiliar location, the latter ones never returned. Another study aimed to test whether a view of the horizon was important in pigeon navigation. The birds were raised in aviaries either with a full view of the horizon through glass screens or a view impaired by a wall. The researchers expected the birds with the impaired view to be worse navigators, but the result was the opposite. In fact, the glass screens, which entirely shielded the birds from the wind, blocked the odours they would have used with which to identify the aviary. Conversely, the group raised with a wall had been exposed to constant air flow, so they were able to recognise the smell and return to the aviary after being released.

changing migration times and patterns because evolution dictated strict timings to maintain reproductive success. Yet changing migration times and patterns may be necessary in order for birds to keep in sync with food sources, such as insects and plants, whose development may have responded to changing temperatures. Furthermore, because birds rely on odours for navigation, increased urbanisation along migration routes may be disruptive due to strong human odours such as exhaust fumes and sewage.

Birds navigate with a plethora of physiological mechanisms. Interestingly, it has been suggested that smell is the oldest of the human senses, which is why we can invoke memories with such clarity via smelling things like perfume or food. Whilst the complexity of birds’ internal compasses is impressive, to me, the endearing knowledge that birds can just follow their nose, reinforces the need for appreciation and conservation of these remarkable animals.

Why Does This Matter?

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has classified certain areas in the UK as under special protection. This affords avian inhabitants protection against environmental disruption and poaching. These areas are particularly important for migratory species, which depend upon returning to the same areas year after year for food and breeding. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) offers advice on assisting disoriented sea birds that have been blown off course by strong gales.

There are concerns that the effects of climate change will be more severe for long-distance migratory birds than for local ones. A 2006 climate change risk report summarised that long-distance migrators may be less capable of * Blackbird illustration by Robyn Nevison, all other illustrations by Hannah Scully

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Opinion Piece Dude, Where's the Data?

by Emad Ahmed There’s something comforting about being able to buy paracetamol with my weekly groceries. I can quickly nip out and get something to treat that headache that’s been bothering me for two days. Of course, I have to be careful. Taking too many pills can do some serious damage to my liver and have other unwanted effects, such as death. We’re restricted from buying more than two packs in a single transaction, and there are studies still investigating what else the tablets can do, more than 50 years after they were first sold.

A different kind of caution may be needed with

new drugs being developed today. In a report released a few days into the new year,the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee blasted the government for spending £424 million stockpiling Tamiflu, the antiviral drug, in case of a potential outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu virus.

A staggering £74 million had to be written off because of poor record keeping.

The reason for the criticism? MPs didn’t know why the Department of Health was buying a huge amount of Tamiflu when medical experts couldn’t agree how effective the drug was in the first place.

The reason they couldn’t agree was that important

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information from clinical trial results was (and is still) being held back. In December 2009, Dr Fiona Godlee, editor of the British Medical Journal, was highly critical about the uptake and stated, “Governments around the world have spent billions of pounds on a drug that the scientific community has found itself unable to judge”.

As a science student, I would say more information about the effectiveness of new drugs should be released, especially details of clinical trials, even if strict government regulatory bodies are satisfied.

Extra pairs of eyes, whether those of a doctor treating a patient or those of a university research unit, will always help to judge the effectiveness and characteristics of a new drug. It would allow doctors and health bodies to make better and more informed decisions about patient healthcare.

If more information was available on the latest drug development, millions of pounds might not be wasted by government health bodies. It could be worse. Thalidomide was an “over the counter” drug (first made available in Germany) for pregnant women and resulted in thousands of birth defects and disabilities in newborns around the world.

Thalidomide is a rare case of things going horribly wrong in recent memory. However there is a reason why clinical trial information is withheld by pharmaceutical companies: money. The bottom line is that drug companies are businesses just like any other. They have to hire excellent technical expertise and invest, invest, invest, until eventually something might suddenly come along which treats a specific disease. Pharmaceutical companies fear revealing too much as they are all ultimately competing against each other in the hope to find the next new wonder-drug. After all, they can only survive if they solve our medical needs and provide effective medicine.

New EU legislation is set to kick-in in the future, when companies are required to share more clinical trial data and provide a small boost to the European Medicines Agency, the EU drugs regulator. As long as pressure is applied to governments to bolster regulatory and advisory bodies, patients should be able to make more informed decisions about their medical treatment.

We just need to move this issue higher up on the political agenda.

* Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medikamente.jpg

Opinion Piece How Much Influence Do The Media Have Over Developments?

by Verity Mitchell Millions of people in the UK are registered bone marrow and organ donors, and still people are being actively encouraged to register and save lives as we currently have a chronic shortage of donors.

Researchers at Newcastle University have spent thirteen years and millions of pounds pioneering an IVF technique that is seen by some doctors as similar to a bone marrow or organ transplant.

This technique has the potential to completely eradicate mitochondrial disease; however, it has been criticised and questioned ethically by the public due to negative media coverage.

the press has fashioned it as a “three parent baby” technique. This could suggest that the child will have an equal genetic contribution from three parents which is not the case. A declaration by one group in the human right and ethics organisation the Council of Europe holds that “the creation of children with genetic material from more than two progenitor persons [...] is incompatible with human dignity and international law.” This clearly questions the ethical nature of the technique despite it being fully approved by the British Ethics Commission.

Mitochondria are the “power houses” of cells

and produce ATP energy which is essential for cells to function. Mitochondria have their own genome which is passed down by the mother and codes for 0.002% of human genes in comparison with the nuclear genome which codes for 99.998% of genes. These mitochondrial genes will not have an effect on what makes us individuals, such as appearance or personality, because they are only involved in ATP production. Dysfunctional mitochondria that cannot provide sufficient levels of ATP due to damaged DNA can cause a large range of debilitating symptoms throughout the body which includes epilepsy, neurodegeneration, liver disease and heart disease.

The IVF technique in question uses the shell of a donor egg that has had its nuclear DNA removed but still contains mitochondria. A nucleus from one of the mother’s eggs can then be inserted into the donor egg so the child will receive healthy mitochondria from the donor and inherit its mother’s nuclear DNA. This allows all of the mother’s genes to be expressed in the child with exception to the dysfunctional mitochondria.

In all of the Newcastle University press releases regarding this technique it has been termed as a mitochondrial transplant IVF technique. However,

Patients who receive a bone marrow or organ transplant carry the donor’s DNA with them for the rest of their lives. Mitochondria can be seen as an essential organ which produces energy; therefore, I think the ethics of these transplant procedures aren’t very distinguishable. The benefits outweigh any drawbacks because it can allow a child to have a long healthy life.

“Three parent babies” was a term created by the media in order to stir up controversy and a good news story. As a high proportion of the public do not have a full understanding of genetic techniques, why should they not believe what they read in the media? This amount of influence over public perception is concerning as we may miss out on some amazing medical developments due to the media creating a negative spin on a positive advancement.

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Science: Fiction Extra-terrestrial Life - Science Fiction or Science Fact?

by Anna Walsh The ubiquitous search for extraterrestrial life has been explored through science fiction films since the early twentieth century. Films such as “A trip to the moon” in 1902, and the more recent box office hit of Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus”, show how films of this genre continue to be popular.

These ideas have captured audiences’ imaginations and integrated themselves into popular culture leading to major movie franchises such as “Star Trek”. It is telling that the highest grossing film in history – James Cameron’s “Avatar” – is also a science fiction film, about a group of humans undertaking an epic journey to the fictional exoplanetary moon, Pandora. Not only have these concepts been the inspiration for subsequent science fiction stories, but also for scientific research in specialized areas focussed on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be common rather than rare.”

These sci-fi films conform and adhere to ideas that extra-terrestrial intelligent life forms share a similar phenotype to humans. The Na’vi in “Avatar” and the Romulans and Vulcans in “Star Trek” are all humanoid and walk on two legs. If there is other intelligent life out there somewhere in the universe, it may well have a similar biochemistry to the inhabitants on Earth, but it should not be assumed that they also share superficial characteristics. Even if planets are found with very similar conditions to Earth, it is still likely that small differences in gravitational forces and composition of gases in the atmosphere would have significant impacts on the potential life forms found living there. The force of gravity varies on every planet and has a major influence on the development

NASA’s astrobiology program is a hot

new research area in biology, formed by a multidisciplinary team of scientists whose aims are to uncover the origin and abundance of life in the universe. This is similar to an early version of the missions carried out by the fictional starship USS Enterprise in the futuristic “Star Trek”.

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is a part of the SETI project (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), and is currently searching for planets dwelling in the habitable zone of their stars, in the hopes of finding liquid water and signs of life. After analysing material taken from the comet Wild 2 by NASA’s Stardust spacecraft, the amino acid glycine was found. This find supports one of the theories regarding the origin of life on Earth: comets and meteorites crashing into earth containing the organic ingredients of life. The director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, Dr Carl Pilcher, announced “The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental

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of multicellular organisms. This is reflected when comparing the sizes of land and sea creatures.

Marine animals experience a supporting buoyancy force which reduces the apparent strength of gravity, they are therefore able to grow to greater sizes than land creatures without the weight from their own bodies crushing them. The levels of atmospheric oxygen also have a significant effect on the appearance of organisms – 300 million years ago when the oxygen levels were 50% higher than present day levels, some flying insects, including dragonflies, were able to grow to well over two feet in length!

* Illustration by Hannah Scully Image courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Correa-Martians_vs._Thunder_Child_-_no_border.png

The first obvious step in the quest for extraterrestrial life is to find other Earth-like planets because our planet hosts an incredible diversity of life. However, we are the product of billions of years of evolution and adaptation to these specific conditions. If the environment were different, we would have adapted differently to suit it! Many microorganisms are known as extremophiles due

to their incredible ability to survive and thrive in conditions of extreme temperature, pressure, pH, radiation and other unbelievable conditions. An example of this is bacteria growing and flourishing in the volcanic Lake Mono in California, which contains highly toxic levels of arsenic and has a bleach-like pH. Similarly, hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean are immersed in total darkness with temperatures well above boiling point, but numerous organisms are still able to survive here using hydrogen sulphide as a source of energy instead of sunlight. The film “Prometheus” is about a team of explorers who travel to a hostile planet, and the peculiar life forms found in Earth’s hostile environments are not dissimilar to the alien creatures found in this film which were resistant to intensive heat. Therefore life could exist on planets or moons that were initially assumed uninhabitable. Are we looking in the wrong places for the wrong things?

Life finds a way to survive in the most unexpected places and conditions, so why hasn’t any sign of extra-terrestrial life been found yet? One possibility is that there is life deep below the surface of some planets, much like the terrestrial bacterium Bacillus infernus, which has been found living in cracks in stones three kilometres underground. Another idea, inspired by these science-fiction films, could indicate why extra-terrestrial life has not yet been found. “Prometheus” shows a discovery of the remains of an ancient alien civilisation, and in “Star Trek Into Darkness”, they come across a primitive culture on the planet Nibiru, which showed a vague resemblance to early human tribes, suggesting we could be separated from other intelligent life forms by time as well as distance. Human civilizations have only existed for less than 0.0003% of the history of life. This adds to the challenge of finding extra-terrestrial life – not only are we looking for a specific location in space, but we also have no way of knowing if other life even exists in the same time frame as us.

Life as we know it will one day be a thing of the past. There may have been other intelligent life at some point that is now gone, and other planets or moons may become habitable at some point in the future, allowing complex life forms to dwell there. Therefore it is possible that we are separated from extra-terrestrial life by millions of years. Furthermore, we have barely even begun to explore the immense vastness of space. Jill Tarter, from the SETI institute said “If you dip a glass in the ocean and don’t collect any fish, is your conclusion that the ocean doesn’t have any fish in it?” Could what we today consider to be the substance of science fiction ultimately reveal the truth about the mysteries of the universe? Only time and space will tell.

* Illustrations by Hannah Scully & Hazel Brill Image courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:War-of-the-worlds-tripod.jpg

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Street Science Try This At Home!

by Claire Edge Newcastle University’s Street Science Team brings science, technology, engineering and maths to life, through the medium of street performance.

With an exciting repertoire of over 60 demos to perform, we can show you that science and engineering is truly all around you and that scientists aren’t just the guys in white coats!

How Did You Do It?

We aim to bring science to the masses, so why

You can catch the Street Scientists in action at the Great North Museum every Saturday as well as around the city and at major events and festivals.

don’t you have a go at home?

Try This at Home: Diving Ketchup What you will need: • An empty 2L bottle • Water • Pinch of salt • A sachet of ketchup

Instructions: 1. Drop the ketchup sachet into the bottle.

2. Fill the bottle right to the top with water, so there is no air left inside (or very ittle) and screw the lid on.

3. Try to make the ketchup drop to the bottom of the bottle. What will you try? (No cheating! Don’t look at the solution before you have a go.)

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* Illustration by Hazel Brill

Hopefully you discovered how to make the

ketchup sink by squeezing the bottle. The bottle is filled with water, which is an incompressible (non-squeezable) liquid. When you squeeze the bottle, you’re compressing the small pocket of air that is inside the ketchup. As air is compressed, it becomes denser and dense. In this example, the ketchup sachet actually becomes denser than the water surrounding it, and so it sinks.

Find out more on Facebook or follow us @ NUstreetscience

Puzzle Page 'Amazing Mathematics by Steve Humble a.k.a. Dr Maths Comic Strip by Martha Snow Direction Maze The objective is simple! Start at the arrow in the top left-hand corner and find your way to the “X� in the bottom right-hand corner. The catch? You can move any distance in the direction indicated by the arrow, but whenever you stop, you must change direction to match the arrow you stopped on.

Comic Strip

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Listings WHAT

WHEN

WHERE

23 Nov 13-27 Apr 14

Robot Exhibition

DU

08 Feb 14-05 Oct 14

Toon Times

DM

31 Mar 14

AV Festival 2014

AFH

01-06 Mar 14

Newcastle United: A Remarkable History

DM

8 Mar 14 - 21 Apr 14

Brick City

LSC

11 Mar 14

Public Lecture: Vera Baird (Police and Crime Commissioner)

NthU

15 Mar 14

Walking Tour: The History of Newcastle United

22 Mar 14 - 22 Jun 14

Magic Worlds

02 Apr 14

Behind the scenes: The Arcs and Sparks store

04 Apr 14

9th Newcastle Upon Tyne Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics

PBNU

04 Apr 14

Newcastle Law School Postgraduate Conference 2014

NLS

04-06 Apr 14

Gateshead International Jazz Festival 2014

GQ

07-09 Apr 14

National Student Radio Conference 2014

NU

18-21 Apr 14

Easter @ Life

LSC

25 Apr 14

Banff Mountain Film Festival

WB

26-27 Apr 14

Maker Faire

CFL

26-27 Apr 14

Medieval Monsters: St George’s Weekend at Belsay Hall

BH

30 Apr 14

Public Lecture: Professor Roy Sandbach

01 May 14

Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers

PW

02-04 May 14

Gateshead Beer & Music Festival 2014

LF

03 May 14-07 Sep 14

Mariner 9

13-16 May 14

10 European Dependable Computing Conference

16-17 May 14

The Late Shows

16 May 14

Ghost Stories After Dark

BH

17 May 14-02 Nov 14

Body Worlds Vital - Exhibition of Real Human Bodies

LSC

26-30 May 14

Northern Chords Festival

19-21 Jun 14

The British Scholar Society

DM GNM DM

NthU

Laing Art Gallery NU

th

LSC = Life Science Centre

Newcastle

North East NU

PBNU = Percy Building, Newcastle University

GNM = Great North Museum (Hancock) NLS = Newcastle Law School Event

CFL = Centre For Life

GQ = Gateshead Quays

Exhibit

DU = Durham University

NU = Newcastle University

Lecture

LSC = Life Science Centre

WB = Whitley Bay

Conference AFH = Alderman Fenwick’s House DM = The Discovery Museum Tour NthU = Northumbria University

BH = Belsay Hall, Northumberland PW = Playhouse, Whitley Bay LF = Low Fell, Gateshead

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