Science Spin 46

ISSUE

46

May/June 2011

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SCIENCE

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IRELAND’S SCIENCE NATURE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

www.sciencespin.com ThE balanCEd brain

armagh’s volcanic past ThE ring of gullion

Coming your Way

Europe’s biggest science event

Where creativity and great science meet SCIENCE SPIN Issue 42 Page xx E LIV LINK

www.dublinscience2012.ie

Where creativity and great science meet Call for public engagement programme proposals is now open In 2012, Dublin is the European City of Science. A yearlong programme of events will be built to highlight the role and value of science in society.

The year will engage over 700,000 people with scientists, business leaders, policy-makers and international scientific media to explore the importance of science in society.

The closing date for proposals is June 30th 2011 For more information go to: www.dublinscience2012.ie/pep Follow us on: #dub2012

SPIN

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 42 Page xx

SCIENCE

SPIN Antrim’s Ring of Gullion.

Publisher Science Spin Ltd 5 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. www.sciencespin.com Email: tom@sciencespin.com Editor Tom Kennedy tom@sciencespin.com Contributing editor Seán Duke sean@sciencespin.com Business Development Manager Alan Doherty alan@sciencespin.com Design and Production Albertine Kennedy Publishing Cloonlara, Swinford, Co Mayo Picture research Source Photographic Archive www.iol.ie/~source.foxford/ Printing Turner Group, Longford

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SCIENCE

ON AIR

2

Upfront The balanced brain

Veronica Miller continues her series on now the brain works 9

Two sides of science

Tom Kennedy reports on some differences in attitudes to science

The Ring of Gullion

Exploring Armagh’s volcanic past

17 22

Quaking plates

The Earth’s surface is on the move, and Japan is in an active quake zone.

25

Young scientists

Tom Kennedy and Séan Duke report on a selection of projects 27

The atom splitter

Seán Duke writes about the Waterford born atom splitter.

29

Local talent

Placing placques to celebrate Ireland’s scientists and enginners 30

Science Week

Science Week will celebrate chemistry

Deep water

Keeping the underground supply safe from contamination 32

Volcanist at work

Seán Duke reports that the Moon landing launched a career

34

Reviews

Looking at how evolution works, and science in the 19th century

Mayweed

37

Tom Kennedy writes about a pineaple scented weed 39

Go to

www.sciencespin.com and listen to what researchers have to say

31

Geological Survey of Ireland Suirbhéireacht Gheolaiochta Eireann

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UPFRONT

moment a swimming animal comes close, this triggers a sudden release of elastic energy. The movement is so fast that the scientists had to use a high speed camera to see how the trap door flips open just long enough for the prey to be sucked in.

Setting the trap, observed the scientists, takes some hours during which water is driven out of the sac. The sac is then under negative pressure, and elastic energy is stored in the collapsed walls. The door which acts as a valve, is a bit like a rubber ball that has been depressed inwards.

Like a ball, it can suddenly flip, reversing its curvature. The sudden release of elastic energy produces an acceleration 600 times greater than free fall, and once the prey is in, the door is sealed tight, and the plant’s digestive juices get to work.

Fastest trap

MoST plants dig in and extract nutrients from the soil, but some are carniverous, and among those feeding on small animals, the acquatic Bladderworts, Utricularia are by far the fastest to grab their prey.

As scientists at the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique in Grenoble working with colleagues at the University of Freiburg have found, this small, rootless plant can snap up water fleas, insect larvae or other aquatic animals in less than a millisecond.

While the flowers stand up above the water, leaves with tiny sacklike traps remain under the surface. The traps have sensitive hairs, and the

LIVE LINK

To see all of this in action, look at the video: http://www-lsp.ujf-grenoble.fr/ equipe/dyfcom/marmottant/ Utricularia vulgaris, common in ponds.

Photo of the trap by Carmen Weißkopf

Code overload

TheRe is too much information and not enough people to process it. “The genomics revolution of the last decade,” observed Roy Sleator at Cork Institute of Technology, “has resulted in a tsunami of genetic information.”

The billions of letters that made up the DNA code is being searched to identify genes that may be linked to cancer, heart failure, and many other disorders.

While there is valuable information to the mined from all of this information, our ability to shift through it has been limited. As Roy explained, this has been a job for highly trained and well paid bioinformaticians, experts in computer science and biology.

“There is now far too much information to crunch, and unfortunately too few people trained to crunch it, and while the DNA continues to be sequenced, our ability to read it and reveal its secrets, is dramatically reduced.”

In response, Roy said that Cork Institute of Technology has ramped up training of bioinformaticians, but that is not all. A new computer program, BioMapper, has been developed at the Institute. While not dispensing with expertise, the program can automatically read and sequence codes.

At present, said Roy, BioMapper is a prototype, but it has already been let loose on the genome of a virus. “Within eight hours, BioMapper had identified all the genes, and assigned their functions, for the virus genome — a feat which had previously taken one of our graduate students four months to complete.

“BioMapper has the potential to rapidly identify the most important information from many sequence projects currently underway in labs all over the world,” said Roy.

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Cancer killers

TO some extent the body seems to have the ability to keep cancer in check. Usually, when cells begin to malfunction, they self-destruct in an orderly process known as apothosis.

One of Ireland’s leading experts in this field, Prof Seamus Martin at TCD, said that a similar process of self destruction appears to be a natural defence against the development of cancer.

Prof Martin’s team has found that a protein, known as Noxa, triggers a self-eating process, called autophagy.

Normally, this process is set off by starvation, and the researchers found that a change in a gene, known as Ras, is involved in boosting the production of the killer Noxa protein.

In 30 per cent of human cancers, the same Ras gene variant comes into play, leading to desctruction of the fledgling tumour cells.

Other genes, known as the Bcl-2 family, can override the self-destructive action, and this suggests that knocking these out, could let the Ras variatnt get on with the job of producing Noxa.

The fact that the emergence of cancer is relatively rare over billions of replications, said Prof Martin, could be explained by the natural response of the Ras variant.

“This discovery is an important step forward in our understanding of how cells in the early stages of cancer hit the autodestruct button and suggests new ways in which we may be able to re-activate this process in cancers that do manage to establish themselves.”

Old water

A BoDy of saltwater, 3 km below the South African Witwatersrand Basin, may have been isolated for millions of years.

Traces of dissolved neon gas, high salinity, and other chemical traces suggest that this water has been isolated from the surface for a long time. Prof Barbara Sherwood Lollar from Toronto University, said that water nearer the surface and ocean water, have a different chemical signature.

The dissolved neon supports Prof Lollar’s view that this water could have been isolated for millions of years. The particular isotope of neon present in the water was produced and trapped within the host rocks at least two billion years ago. According to Prof Lollar, this isotope could only have dissolved and accumulated in the water if it had been cut off for a long time.

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Ultra slow motion

Giant dragonflies

Meganeura, a fossil dragonfly.

During the oxygen rich Carboniferous dragonfly wing spans could be as high as a human.

ENORMOUS dragonflies, with wingspans up to 70 inches, flitted through the oxygen enriched Carboniferous forests. But did all other insects become to big in response to higher oxygen levels?

Not so, as John VandenBrooks from Arizona State University points out. Present day cockroaches, he observed, are larger now than in the ancient past.

At a meeting of the Geological Society of America, John VandenBrooks described how raising insects in controlled atmospheres revealed how the affect of oxygen on insects varies according to how they breathe.

A number of different insect species were raised under controlled conditions. With elevated oxygen levels, dragonflies grew faster and bigger, while cockroaches took twice as long to develop.

The study involved raising three sets of 75 dragonflies in atmospheres with 12 per cent, 21 per cent, and 31 per cent oxygen.

Our present atmosphere has 21 per cent oxygen, and 31 per cent is the highest that it has ever been in the past.

While there has been a lot of speculation about the influence of oxygen on the evolution of animals, said VandenBrooks, no one had put put the hypotheses to the test.

Exceptional teaching

Dr Dagmar Stengel, lecturer and researcher in plant sciences at NUI Galway was praised for her approachable and emphatic manner with students when presented with a National Excellence in Teaching award. A panel including university, institute and student representatives nominate candidates for this Excellence in Teaching award. Dr Stengel said that apart from being absolutely delighted to receive the award, it is good to see that teaching can be given the same sort of recognition that we have come to associate with research. St Stengel, like many outstanding teachers, is also involved in research, and it was noted that she often includes new research in her lectures, and also relates plant sciences to areas familiar to students.

Justice, Catherine McGuinness presenting the award to Dr Dagmar Stengel.

IN A project organised by researchers at Wageningen University, high speed cameras are being used to capture the movement of birds and insects in flight. Movements that are far too fast for us to see are being revealed by cameras that can record 7,500 frames a second. By comparison, films are shot at 25 frames a second.

Led by David Lentink, the researchers have worked with artists, hobbyists and the interested public in shooting a variety of flying birds, insects and even winged seeds as they spiral down to the ground.

As the researchers observed, the project is a great way to involve everyone in scientific research. The Flight Artists project was presented with the 2010 Dutch Academic Award for excellence.

A selection of video clips, short but amazing, are available for viewing at: www.youtube.com/vliegkunstenaars LIVE LINK

The captions for each clip are in Dutch, and, the shooting speed in frames per second is ‘beelden per seconde’

Stress test

PEOPLE react to major disasters in different ways. While some are better able to survive, stress causes others to fall into a deep depression.

A study conducted by researchers at Trinity College Dublin has shown that adverse reaction can be associated with a particular gene, referred to as the epsilon 4 allele of the apolipoprotein E gene.

The findings were based on a large scale population study conducted after an earthquake in Taiwan. The quake, which occurred in September 1999 registered 7.3 on the Richter scale, and caused the death of 2,400 people.

A year before the quake a large scale population survey had been conducted, and this made the follow up study more valuable as many of the results could be compared.

It was found by Dr Michael Daly and Prof Malcolm MacLachlan from TCD’s College of Psychology and Centre for Global Health, that those who suffered most from depression and memory problems a year after the quake all possessed the epsilon 4 allele.

According to the researchers, these findings suggest that in situations, such as the Japanese quake, genetic information could be used to identify those most at risk from long term adverse reactions. While there could be ethical issues, the researchers point out that the potential benefits could be important for survivors.

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UPFRONT

Cheating orchids

hOVErFLIEs lay their eggs close to greenfly aphids so that larvae have plenty to feed on when they hatch. however, the Eastern Marsh helleborine, an orchid native to south Turkey, Middle East and Cyrpus, can fool the hoverflies to act as pollinators by mimicing a scent emitted by aphids.

The orchid, Epipactis veratrifolia, produces a concoction of three chemicals that are normally only produced as an alarm pheromone by aphids. hoverlies, sensing the fake pheremone, come into land, but instead of a supply of baby food, larvae that hatch from any of the eggs they leave behind, are doomed to starve. scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology at Jena, report that while the volatile substances produced by the orchid mimic the real pheromones, they are chemically different, and it appears that they are more generic rather than being a perfect match for any one aphid species.

Oddly enough, the plant itself is relatively aphid free, possibly because the sap sucking aphids are scared off by the false alarm.

Wild Geese

IrIsh scientists working or studying in the Us have started a wild geese network. The network was lanched recently at a reception hosted by the Irish Embassy in Washington.

An active group has been formed with Dr Nicholas Farrell, Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University as President.

Apart from providing links to each other, the network will keep Irish scientists in contact with developments in Ireland. One of the aims is to foster the formation of partnerships with Irish firms and agencies.

The network will also help Irish scientists abroad to become involved in next year’s big City of science 2012 event.

Irish scientists who would like to join the Wild Geese can contact: LIVE LINK

wildgeesenetwork@gmail.com

Epilepsy

ThErE could be as many as 40,000 people in Ireland with epilepsy, and many are being treated with carbamazepine, a drug also used to treat depression and neuralgia. The drug, which has been on the market since the 1970s has a good record, but unfortunately some patients experience an adverse reaction. The reaction can be as mild as a skin rash, or it can be severe with whole body blistering and kidney inflammation. researchers from the royal College of surgeons in Ireland, working with the University of Liverpool have now identified a marker gene that can screen out patients that react adversely to the drug.

Dr Gianpiero Cavalleri, who led the research, explained that DNA from epilepsy patients in Ireland, the UK, Belgium and the Us was examined. More than a million genetic variations were screened to see if a link to side-effects would be found. As a result, a gene, known as hLA-A¨3131 was found to be associated with the side effects. In patients with this gene, the risk of reaction to carbamazepine increases from 5 to 26 per cent.

“We hope that testing for this gene will soon become available for newly diagnosed epilepsy patients,” said Dr Cavalleri.

Science in Irish

ThE school of Education at NUI Galway has produced multimedia lessons in Irish.

According to NUI Galway, the digital resource covering a range of subects are being made available to students and teachers nationwide.

For more information, contact seán Ó Grádaigh at the school of Education. 087 6695064, or email: sean.ogradaigh@nuigalway.ie LIVE LINK

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 4

Rhythm

OUr daily rhythm is strongly influenced by a hormone, melatonin, and a deficiency in this seriously upsets sleep patterns. It appears that melatonin is also involved in how quickly we mature. As Japanese researcher, Takaoki Kasahara, observed, children with little or no melatonin, due to pineal tumours, often show premature sexual maturation.”

This strange relationship recently came to the attention of Kasahara and his colleagues at the riken Brain science Institute in Japan. The researchers noticed that laboratory mice tend to be deficient in melatonin. While wild mice were normal, several of the intensively bred lines were melatonin deficient.

While the lack of melatonin seemed to have little impact on daily behaviour, the lab mice had bigger testicals.

Giving the mice melatonin reduced testicular weight. It seems that breeders, unintentionally selected melaton deficient mice to boost reproduction.

Dr Kasahara observed that the lab mice may have been too inbred for their own good.

Grinding or sliding?

WE know that the Earth’s plates move around, but just how smooth is their progress? After studying the floor of the Aegean sea, two researchers from Dublin’s Institute of Advanced studies, Dr sergei Lebedev and Dr Celine Tirel, working with geophysicists in Germany have found that instead of grinding against the deep and relatively solid lithosphere, the movement is more like slow progress through a viscous soup.

O Y U G R N WA I M Y O C

Swinging into action, from left, Jayne Wyatt, Paul McMahon, Rebecca Farrell, Richard Bruton TD, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Jane Dollard, Dr Eamonn Cahill, Emma Critchley. Photo: Jason Clarke.

M

inister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Under the guidance of Ireland’s Chief Scientific Adviser’s Bruton, said that next year’s City of Science event will office, a programme for City of Science is being developed, and draw international attention to Ireland’s wealth of creativity. a call has been made now for proposals to extend the activities Thousands of visitors are expected to attend Europe’s biggest, into a year long celebration of science. In announcing the call, and by far, best, showcase of what’s going on in science. City Minister Bruton said this is an opportunity for all citizens to of Science follows a series of similar events developed under engage with science. The call, he said, is open to all, and the the ESOF, European Science Open Forum, banner to throw City of Science team want to work in partnership with a wide a spotlight on science throughout Europe. Previous ESOF variety of organisations and individuals in coming up with events have been held in Stockholm, Munich, Barcelona, and a programme that puts Ireland on the map for creativity and Turin, and following the upward trend, Dublin’s City of excellence in science.

Science is likely to be the biggest of them all. Some Prof Patrick Cunningham, Chief Scientific Adviser idea of how good these events have been can be to the Government, said that, “this could be a way seen from Science Spin’s continuing coverage of of promoting an existing event, activity or idea. presentations and workshops at Turin.

It could be something new, something you’d DEADLINE City of Science is a national and an international like to develop within your own organisation or event, and one of the most important aims is to 30th June 2011 institution, or in partnership with others. I would get everyone involved. The plan is to have lots of welcome activities in any format, indoor or outdoor, action all around Ireland, before, around, and after through the medium of theatre, film, exhibitions, the core scientific event which takes place in July 2012. workshops, debates, interactive dialogues, online Thousands of people from abroad are expected to register events, the list,” he concluded, “ is endless.” for the main scientific programme, and apart from attending the official sessions, many will be keen to go walk-about or To see, and respond to the call, visit: look in on the other attractions, be they scientific, culinary, LIVE www.dublinscience2012.ie/pep LINK historical, or artistic. Last year, while the main sessions were in the enormous Lingotto building, many of the associated events were held throughout Turin, and in Dublin this will be the same.

ACT NOW

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UPFRONT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSAbyT_htFE&feature=player_ embedded#at=207

Huntington’s Disease

A fAilure to remove incorrectly folded proteins is thought to be the cause of Huntington’s Disease.

Because of an inherited mutation, a build up of glutamine residues makes a misfolded protein accumulate in nerve cells. researchers at the Japanese riKeN Brain Science institute have found that, with the aid of genetic engineering, this accumulation can be stopped.

Reporting their findings in Nature Biotechnology, the scientists explained that inserting a polyglutamine binding peptide, together with a protein that targets the mutant, cleared the accumulation in laboratory mice. The researchers injected the genetically modified construction into the striatum, the region of the brain involved in control of movement. A month later, the number and size of mutant aggregates had been reduced.

At present, the researchers report, therapy based on this discovery is not possible for humans because there are difficulties in delivering genetically modified materials to the brain.

iPads and the soul

What could iPads and mobiles possibly have to do with the soul? To find out, log onto a great treasure chest of scientific and philosophical talks from the Associazione CentroScienza onlus in Turin. Since 1987 the association has been running admission free weekly presentations to the public at the Colosseo Theatre in Turin on a range of topics.

These presentations, with english translation, are available to view from www,giovediscienza.org on logging on, simply select the language for english, unless, of course you would like to brush up on your italian.

With more than 500 hours archived, and hundreds of distinguished speakers, this is an amazing resource for everyone interested in science. www.giovediscienza.org LIVE LINK

Who needs more DNA?

WHo has the most DNA? Not us, for a lung fish was found to have 44 times more DNA than humans. Now, as Kew Gardens reports, a plant has beaten that record. A plant species, Paris japonica, has been found to have 50 times more DNA by volume than humans. Known as the Canopy Plant, P japonica grows in the mountains of Japan, and while we humans are diploids, i.e. have two sets of chromoscomes, the octopoid plant is suspected of being a hybrid of four species. if all the DNA from a single cell was stretched out, it would extend for over 91 metres.

Why the plant has to pack in so much genetic material is not known. P japonica may yet be displaced as the record holder, and if the claim can be sustained, a freshwaster amoeba, Amoeba dubia, may yet beat the record with an incredible 670 million base pairs.

Rocket power

for every ten per cent increase in fuel efficiency the payload of a rocket can double. Tore Brinck, professor of physical chemistry at the royal institute of Technology in Sweden reports that a recently discovered molecule, trinitramid, could boost rocket fuel efficiency by 20 to 30 per cent.

The molecule consists of nitrogen and oxygen, and compared to solid rocket fuels in current use, it is a lot cleaner. According to Prof Brinck, each shuttle launch results in 550 tonnes of hydrochloric acid emissions.

The novel molecule was discovered while researchers were studying the breakdown of various compounds. Computer modelling indicated that the nitrogen oxide molecule should be stable. only eight of these nitrogen and oxygen compounds are known, said Prof Brinck, most of them discovered in the 18th century. This new molecule, N(No2)3 is the largest and is shaped like a propeller.

Together with Martin rahm and Sergey Dvinskikh, Prof Brinck is investigating how the molecule can be produced as a solid in large volumes.

So far, just enough trinitramid has been produced to confirm that it exists and can be analysed.

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UPFRONT

Safer wells

ConstruCting wells to provide parched communities with water can solve one problem while creating another. the water can be alarmingly high in arsenic, making it a serious health hazard. it has been estimated that over 137 million people around the world are being affected by arsenic poisoning of drinking water. the high arsenic concentration arises from bacterial action on minerals in the host rock. the action results in arsenic being converted from the insoluble to the soluble form. With oxidation, this is a reversable process, and the arsenic together with iron and manganese can be effectively removed from the water. Water, drawn from a well, is aerated at the surface, and then reintroduced back into the aquifier where the oxygen gets to work converting arsenite to the less mobile arsenate, ferrous iron to ferric iron, and managanese ii to manganese iii. the arsenate is then absorbed by the ferric iron and managanese iii to form a precipitate. oxidation is further enhanced by other bacteria that inhabit the sub-surface. the process is natural and requires very little help to convert the underground aquifier into a remedial bioreactor.

Dr Bhaskar sen gupta at Queen’s university, working with an international team have some up with a solution to that problem. the technology, based on oxidation and filtration, does not require the use of chemicals, and trials in West Belgal are reported to be giving good results. the technology has also been applied successfully in the us at Bellingham in the northwest Washington state, where high levels of arsenic in domestic supplied had been a problem. the technology was applied to a well, abandoned because arsenic levels were unacceptable. Within a few weeks, the well was reported to be yielding water with arsenic levels at or below EPA limits.

Dr gupta said that the costs involved in setting up a 6,000 litre a day plant is less than €3,000, and operation costs about €15 a month.

Most remote galaxy

Astronomers working with the European space observatory’s Very Large telescope report that they have detected the oldest known galaxy. the galaxy, known as uDFy-38135539, existed when the universe was relatively young, at just 600 million years old. the galaxy was first spotted by the space telescope, hubble, and further observations using the Eso Very Large telescope determined that this was the most remote object yet identified in the Universe. unusual conditions appear to have allowed the extremely faint light to reach observers on Earth. Matt Lehnert, from the observatoire de Paris, reported that detecting such ancient galaxies is extremely difficult. In travelling such a great distance, receeding light is stretched into the infrared end of the spectrum, and to make things more difficult, the light, although extremely intense at the source, must penetrate a fog of hydrogen. the early universe was not transparent until this fog was cleared during the first billion years after the Big Bang. it is thought that neighbouring galaxies must have cleared a window through which the light escaped. After the Big Bang of 13.7 billion years ago, electrons and protons combined to form hydrogen gas. the universe then consisted mainly of this gas and astronomers usually refer to this period as a Dark Age. that age ended with star formation, and intense ultraviolet radiation began splitting the hydrogen back into electrons and protons. spectroscopic examination revealed a redshift towards the infrared of 8.6, corresponding to an age of 600 million years.

Schizophrenia

rEsEArChErs at tCD and the san Diego school of Medicine in California, have identified a mutation associated with schizophrenia. Knowing which gene has mutated gives researchers a target to attack with drugs. there is a strong relationship between genetic factors and the development of schizophrenia.

About ten per cent of those with schizophrenia also have close relations, such as siblings or parents suffering from the same disorder. research over the past few years has revealed a connection between schizophrenia and a particular type of mutation, known as copy number variants. in these mutations, the number of times certain genes are copied differs beteween individuals. however, until now, the particular genes involved had not been identified.

Prof Aiden Corvin, from the Psychosis research group at tCD explained that the genomes of 8,290 individuals with schizophrenia, and 7,431 without the condition,

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 7

were scanned. it was found that duplications at the tip of one particular chromosome, 7q, were 14 times higher than normal in individuals with schizophrenia. these duplications affect the expression of an important regulator, known as the Vasoactive intestinal Peptide receptor 2, ViPr2. this receptor has some important functions, including regulation of neuron formation and activity in the brain. “in mice,” said Prof Corvin, “ViPr2 has been found to play important roles in behavioural processes, including learning and timing of daily activity.” it was found that expression of ViPr2 in individuals with the mutation was higher than normal.

As a result of this there was, in effect, an overload in signalling along the pathway. it is known that some synthetic peptides can modulate this activity, and Prof Corvin said the next step is to determine if these compounds can have a therapeutic effect on cultured human cells that carry the ViPr2 mutation.

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Magnetic world

The world is not flat, but neither is a perfect geoid. A geoid represents the perfect oceanic surface of a globe, shaped only by gravity.

As geologists have known for some time, gravity is not uniform, and it varies according to whatever lies below the crust. More mass means more pull, but until satellites went aloft, it was not possible to picture the gravity of the Earth as a whole.

Launched in 2009, the ESA satellite, GOCE, has now recorded the Earth’s gravity in great deail. During a year in low orbit, the satellite was able to harvest enough information for scientists to create a complete geoid.

This gravitational picture of the world can tells us a great deal about what goes on both on and below the surface.

Oceans are influenced by gravity, and the movement of magma has a bearing on the continental drifts that produce earthquakes.

Volker Liebig, director of ESA’s earth observation programme, said that exceptionally low solar activity enabled the satellite to stay in low orbit for longer than planned. In addition, enough fuel has been saved to keep the satellite going until the end of 2012.

Because the satellite is in low orbit, there is a slight drag from the extremely rarified atmosphere. By generating a stream of ions, the satellite is able to compensate for this drag which would otherwise cause it to fall out of orbit. Ion engines are no longer the stuff of science fiction.

UPFRONT

The world shaped by gravity.

Dino find

ANOTHER dinosaur has been added to the growing list of Cretaceous reptiles. Dr Dave Hone, from the UCD School of Biology and Environmental Sciences said that the fossil skull and jaw bones indicate that the dinosaur, discovered in China, would have been about four metres tall, and in life would have weighed close to six tonnes.

The dinosaur, named Zhuchengtyrannus magnus, belonged to the same group as the dino ‘star’ T rex, and at an estimated eleven metres in length, is among the biggest of the carnivorous dinosaurs known to science.

Most of these estimates are based on comparisons with other dinosaurs, and as Dr Hone observed, “with only some skull and jaw bones to work with, it is difficult to precisely guage the overall size of this animal.”

The find was made in China’s eastern Shandong Province, and one of the world’s leading dinosaur

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experts, Prof Xu Xing, was involved in the study of the fossil remains. The region is a rich picking ground for fossils, and Prof Xu from Beiing’s Institute of Palaeontology has the distinction of naming more than 30 diferent types of dinosaur.

Like T rex, Zhuchengtyrannus magnus would have small arms, two fingeredhands, and a powerful, bone-crushing jaw.

Artist’s impression of the head by Robert Nicholls.

PART EIGHT

MoveMent and balance continuing our series in which dr veronica Miller explains what we know about the brain and how it works

Y

our licking tongue, clicking fingers, blinking eyes, and grinning smile are all simply a series of muscle twitches.

From a single-celled amoeba that learned to colonize the land above the seas, somewhere along the evolutionary tree we learned how to grow muscle fibers specialized enough to allow our hearts beat, eyelids blink, toes kick and lungs breathe. Most of the movements within and by our bodies happen without a second thought. You don’t need to think to digest your dinner, or focus your eyes when reading. But your tiny thumb muscles require intense concentration when texting. In fact, not thinking about moving the millions of muscle fibers in our bodies is vital to free our grey matter to concentrate on more important tasks.

Because, despite the huge variety of tasks they perform, all muscles, whether long, short, stumpy, fibrous, red, white , blue or bruised are all controlled by the immobile mass of grey cells in our brains.

Mind over movement

Regardless of whether you’re sitting or smiling, the chemical responsible for making your cheek muscles move is actually one and the same. Motor neurons release a chemical called acetylcholine which tells muscle fibers to constrict. Botulinum toxin, or Botox, as it is more commonly known, is a chemical which semi-permanently relaxes your facial muscles and reduces wrinkle formation. An injection of Botox will inhibit the action of acetylcholine. This means that even though your brain is telling your forehead to crease up with anger, or eyes to wrinkle with laughter lines, your facial muscles cannot respond, and your face may appear frozen in time.

Once acetylcholine is released by a motor neuron, it binds to an acetylcholine receptor on the outside of muscle cell.

When it binds, the shape of the receptor immediately changes and it acts like a funnel, allowing sodium ions (Na+) on the outside to rush into the muscle cell. This sudden change in the flow of ions, which are basically charged particles, results in an action potential.

The simultaneous stimulation of thousands of acetylcholine receptors across muscle fibers triggers movement, and kicks your body into action.

Moving your body requires the interaction of several different brain regions. Movements can be split into those that use direct circuits and those that use indirect circuits. Simple movements are usually direct and slightly more sophisticated ones require indirect circuits.

Motor neuron disease When you go to the cinema, You may have heard of Motor Neuron Disease. Motor Neuron your sensory and associative cortex help you figure out what Disease (MND) comprises movie to see and where to sit. a group of severe disorders The actual process of sliding past which are characterised by the other patrons into your seat is progressive degeneration of regulated by the motor cortex, motor neurons. The disease which is a strip of cells running severity depends on whereabouts on either side of your brain, just on the body these neurons are in front of your ears. The motor situated. If the motor neurons are Triangular shaped motor neurons cortex shoots signals directly, on outside your spinal cord, you’ll a two-step pathway, firstly from lose of action of your limbs, if your outer brain to the spinal they are in your lungs you’d find cord, and secondly from the spinal cord to your muscles. it difficult to breath, and if in your throat, speaking would be While you’re watching the movie, your brain regulates fine a problem. muscle movements via an indirect pathway involving your Physicist Stephen Hawking, perhaps equally celebrated cortex, midbrain, cerebellum and spinal cord, and will make for his electronic voice box, is one of the more famous you slack jawed in terror at a horror movie, or creased up sufferers of Motor Neuron disease, others include, Chinese with laughter at a comedy.

Chairman Mao Zedong, and the actor David Niven.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 9

If you examine the spinal cord of people with motor neuron disease you find that many of the motor neurons are shrunken, missing, and that many cells of the immune system are active in the area. Frequently brainstem neurons are damaged, which can lead to problems in the autonomic nervous system. The disease is thought to then spread up through the brainstem to the motor cortex. Outside of the brain, muscles stop receiving signals to move and grow. Because of this reason, they begin to waste away and lose their ability to work. Unfortunately, as yet scientists aren’t sure why the motor neurons area affected, sometimes there are genes involved, but not always. For this reason, and because its spread can result in the heart stopping MND is one of the more dangerous neurodegenerative diseases.

fiction, but this technique has already had some measure of success. Although it’s difficult to be sure what level of electrical activity you should see in the brain. One patient who had a chip planted in his mid-brain found that his wife sometimes turned the remote control too low, and he became quite dull in his movements and expressions.

In UCD Dr Madeleine Lowery is currently modelling how deep brain stimulation works within the brain to assist patients with Parkinson’s disease. Dr Lowery is a member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and hopes to use powerful computational analysis, of electromyogram (EMG) data, which measures electrical signals in muscles, similar to electroencephalogram (EEG) for measuring brain waves, and electrocardiograms (ECG) for heart waves, to improve muscle activity in healthy and diseased people.

Tremors ticks and thought processes

If acetylcholine is the molecule motor neurons use to control muscles, then dopamine is the chemical the brain uses to control motor neurons. Dopaminergic neurons are the ones which regulate the GO! signals to your muscles. If dopamine cells don’t fire properly to motor neurons then you will lose control of your muscles. Usually dopaminergic neurons inhibit the movement of your skeletal muscles, otherwise your hands, arms, legs, fingertips and toes would flail wildly. If you lose the tonic regulation of your muscles by dopamine cells, then your muscles may develop uncontrollable spasms and twitches.

On a smaller scale your muscles may twitch or tremor if the neurotransmitters that send signals to these muscles to move are not removed from the cells that they act on.

People with Parkinson’s like Muhammad Ali have shaky movements because their dopamine levels aren’t properly regulated within the motor cortex and midbrain. Their receptors don’t react properly to dopamine stimulation and this means it’s difficult to regulate movements of muscles. If you drink too much coffee or cola you’ll notice your hand’s shaking for the same reason.

These pictures show stress in Sometimes facial ticks can be due to trapped Dopaminergic Neurons grown in nerves or to unexpected firing of facial Culture. Top image is neuronal DNA nerves during stressful situations. marker, middle image is stress marker, Nerve impulses are basically electric, and above is the merged photo. By so it is thought that putting micro chips examining Dopaminergic cells in into the brains of people with Parkinson’s culture, scientists aim to understand disease, could be used to regulate the flow why dopamine is lost in Parkinson’s and of electricity through the brain, and stop other diseases. The bar is 20µm long, a their tremor. This may sound like science human hair is only 50-80µm thick.

Inner ear — hearing your movements

Just inside your ear is a second inner ear which functions to sense whereabouts in space you are. This inner ear, also known as the vestibule, consists of two bony tubes. These bony tubes, are also called the semicircular canals , the utricle and the saccule are the balance part of the inner ear The canals contain fluid, and tiny neurons which have little bits of bone on top of them. When you move the liquid in the tubes moves. When the liquid moves the little calcium bits move. The nerve cells in the tubes sense the movement of the bits of calcium tapping on them and they send information to the brain that you have moved left or right or upside-down.

If you spin round and round and stop suddenly, the liquid in your inner ear keeps swishing around. This sends mixed signals to your brain, because all the other sensory organs say you’re not moving. But your inner ear says you’re still spinning. So you get dizzy.

The nerve which sends this information also brings information from the auditory part of the inner ear, the cochlea. So it is called the vestibule-cochlear nerve.

Common sense

Ever wondered where the phrase “common sense” came from? Leonardo Di Vinci was one of the earliest neuroanatomists. He was obsessed with understanding how the world and the human body work. He sketched the brain in great detail. According to historians,

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 10

Magnetic migrating birds

12 Brain Nerves

Function

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Smell Sight Pupil and eye movement Eyeball movement Facial sensation and chewing Eyeball movement.

Facial and taste.

Hearing and balance Throat and tongue Abdominal organs Throat, shoulders and neck Tongue

Olfactory Ocular Oculomotor Trochlear Trigeminal Abducens Facial Vestibulocochlear Glossopharyngeal Vagus Spinal Accessory Hypoglossal

Sensory Sensory Motor Motor Both Motor Both Sensory Both Both Motor Motor

when he observed many different bundles of nerve fibers joining at the bottom of the brain, he called that region the “senso commune” or common sense region.

Today we know there are 12 main bundles of nerve fibers which enter the lower part of our brain at the “senso commune”. And perhaps not surprisingly, because the most important signal from our brain to our body is to move, the majority of the nerve fibers from our brains are concerned with movement rather than sensory signals!

The balanced brain

Juggling is a series of small co-ordinated movements, and can baffle most of us. Migration is a series of small co-ordinated birds flying across the skies for several thousands of miles every autumn. Their sense of direction when crossing the globe can also baffle most of us. Some of us find it difficult to remember where the car is parked after shopping. You might wonder how birds can remember to fly halfway around the world.

Migratory birds use a combination of methods to navigate.

Their methods include using obvious visual clues such as oceans or desserts, the position of the stars (like ancient mariners) and they also use the earth’s magnetic field.

In order to show how important the magnetic field is for bird orientation, German scientists in 1981 attached magnets to homing pigeons to see what would happen to their navigational abilities.

The scientists observed that when the homing pigeons had strong magnets glued to their backs, the pigeons were disoriented and flew off randomly Research suggests that cells in the bird’s brain contain magnetite, an iron oxide crystal that aligns with magnetic north in the same way that a compass needle does. These cells could act as sensors for the earth’s magnetic field and send directional information to the brain.

Sunlight might also play a part. Sunlight is at different wavelengths at different areas on the planet. You’ll know that if you’ve seen the sun set in different continents.

It’s possible that bird’s eyes can detect changes in sunlight wavelength and use this to find their way from Africa to Ireland. Luckily we have GPS to help us get around these days.

The cerebellum, or little brain, is one of the oldest structures present in the brain and controls all of our fine motor movements, including balance and juggling. Your inner ear contains sends nerve projections to the cerebellum providing Internal and external movements information on the position of the body.

If the inner ear senses your balance, it’s Mixed with these fibres are sensory The S shape is the Olive — the your hypothalamus that balances your projections from the auditory and visual juggling part of the brain. inner body. It’s essential that your body can systems. Because the cerebellum keep a constant supply of heat, receives information from a variety food, temperature, and oxygen of sources it can help you make to all the tissues. One of the co-ordinated judgements about main systems it uses to balance body movements. If you were your inner self is the endocrine juggling and took a scan of your system which is controlled by the brain you’d see that the cerebellum hypothalamus. is actively trying to help you make the movements needed to keep all The endocrine system of the balls in the air.

The endocrine system is The neurons which regulate comprised of different glands timed movements all have a including the pituitary, which similar shape — their cell bodies has independently functioning are rounded and they have lots anterior and posterior lobes. Other of fibres projecting from them, glands include the gonads in the which wrap around adjacent neurons. Three areas which Rounded neurons of the Olive. The small yellow dots are testes and ovaries, the thyroid and parathyroid, the adrenal cortex time your movements, are the glial cells of the immune system. and the adrenal medulla, the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus, which islet cells of the pancreas and the sends you to sleep, the cerebellum secretory cells that line the intestinal tract. which lets you get dressed in order, and the olive which can Once it was thought that the pituitary gland was the help with more intricate movements like juggling. master gland of the endocrine system. But now we know Their neuronal fibres form mini-circuits; like multiple cogs that the anterior pituitary cells are actually controlled by in a watch. This mini-circuitry is thought to give neurons the hypothalamic neurons. ability to time movements.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 11

HPA: The axis of equilibrium.

The Hypothalamic-Pituitary axis (HPA) is really just a series of blood vessels which only flow between these two brain areas.

Six hormones are known to pass from the hypothalamus to the pituitary via this internal blood network. The six hormones Pituitary make the Pituitary Gland secrete a variety of other hormones into the bloodstream.

You may wonder how these molecular messengers or hormones as they are called after the Greek word for messenger, work? The only difference between hormones and neurotransmitters is that hormones can travel longer distances between the organ that secretes them and the tissue they operate on. Their ability to work on a bit of tissue depends on the ability of that bit of tissue to generate the appropriate receptors for that hormone.

In general pituitary hormones regulate the ability of your bones to grow, development of your sexual organs; ability of women to lactate, the ability of your kidney’s to generate stress hormones and the ability of your thyroid to produce growth hormones.

Growth disorders

Body shock and the brain

When you’re stressed it’s vital that your body can cope no matter what the source of the stress is. A punch in the head can be just as stressful as a job interview for some..

One way the brain reacts to stress is to liberate amino acids stored in muscle proteins so they can flow to the liver and be metabolised into glucose for energy.

Cortisol is the stress messenger which liberates these amino acids. It’s secreted from the kidneys and regulated by messengers from the Hypothalamic-Pituitary axis. And at the same time that muscles are made give up their proteins, they are also made give up their fats, which can be burned up into energy too. When the liver starts using proteins and fats to make energy the process is called gluco-neo-genesis.

This stress sugar production is very different to the normal mechanisms used by the body to regulate blood sugar levels after you’ve eaten your dinner or a bucket of ice-cream.

Acromegaly if often caused by benign tumours pressing into the pituitary.

Growth Hormone (GH) is the pituitary hormone that stimulates body growth and development during childhood. Too little growth hormone can result in dwarfism and too much, gigantism.

Acromegaly is a disorder that affects middle aged people who produce too much growth hormone. Acromegaly is the Greek word for “extremities” and “enlargement”. Physically acromegaly can result in swelling of organs such as the heart or soft tissue in your arms or legs.

Ninety percent of acromegaly cases are caused by benign tumours on the pituitary gland. Because the tumour compresses the pituitary gland, the hormone production can be altered. Luckily Acromegaly is rare. It only affects about four or five people in a million.

Cause of the giants

Interestingly, the giants who built the legendary Giant’s Causeway in Antrim, may well have suffered from Acromegaly. A man from Northern Ireland, named Charles Byrne travelled to England in the late 1700s eking out a living as part of a freak show as he was over 7ft tall. His bones were preserved by the Hunterian Museum in London.

Recently, geneticists analysed DNA in his teeth remains and discovered mutations in the genes which regulate growth hormone production. Now it is known that several Irish families who have acromegaly also have similar mutations as The Irish Giant, which may well be traced back to the giants of the Giant’s Causeway!

Internal maintenance

glucose and salt concentration so that your body will never be put under any unnecessary stress.

Your autonomic nervous system, under the guidance of the hypothalamus, pituitary and brainstem has a variety of tricks to try to maintain some degree of balance in your internal bodily systems.

These tricks usually involve the secretion of hormonal molecular messengers — to maintain your blood sugar levels, to keep your heart rate and blood pressure constant, and to make sure there is enough water and salt in your blood.

The hypothalamus and pituitary are vital for helping you grow from birth right though your golden years. But it’s not only vital that your body grows throughout your life, it’s also essential that you can regulate blood temperature, pressure,

Highs and lows of blood sugar

Usually when your blood is loaded with sugars, the pancreatic islet beta cells secrete insulin. Insulin then travels about in the blood, to the liver, to muscle and to fatty tissue telling the cells to take in glucose from the blood.

If you’ve too little sugar in the blood another hormone, Glucagon, which acts in opposition to insulin is secreted by the Pancreatic Islet Alpha cells.

Glucagon was simply named because it tells the body that glucose is gone from the body. Glucagon works like cortisolIt makes tissues in the body break down their proteins and fatty acid stores to release glucose into the blood stream so that you have energy ready to use. People can develop diabetes if they can’t make insulin, or if too much glucagon is made.

Mosquitos can sense sweet blood

Apparently mosquitoes prefer the taste of sweeter blooded tourists to locals in warmer climates.

Only female mosquitoes bite because they need the blood to develop and lay their eggs. In order to get the best meal for their offspring and themselves, mosquitoes preferably bite people they think will have the sweetest and most nutritious blood.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 12

Mosquitoes can tell how it, and also in theory to make sweet your blood is; because it you look bigger and more scary can detect chemicals secreted in case a predator was about to by your skin when you sweat. attack. This may seem odd, as Some scientists have identified most of us aren’t particularly these chemicals as carbon hairy. But if you were a small dioxide, which tells that living mammal, and your fur went on skin is nearby, and lactic acid end, it could give you that added which tells them that there is few millimetres of bulk to scare food being metabolised in the away a bigger member of the skin. Your sweat gives you away pack from eating your dinner. and tells the mosquito you’re Your skin will go blue because full of nutrients ready for her to blood vessels contract to shift eat. blood away from the skin’s So, despite the fact that after surface and off to deeper organs Female Ochlerotatus notoscriptus feeding on a human arm, years of evolution our brain’s to prepare your body for fight or Tasmania, Australia. Photo: J J Harrison can regulate blood sugars in flight. The blue colour is merely response to the actual stress of the de-oxygenated blood flowing travelling, we’ve not developed the ability to control our back to your heart in your veins. blood sugar levels to avoid detection by hungry mosquitoes.

Warm blooded or cold blooded?

One thing you’ll notice when you travel is that despite the fact the locals are quite at home with zero or hundred degree temperatures you will instantly sweat or shiver. You may be surprised to know that it’s your brain that initiates this over reaction, even if it’s forgotten to remind you to bring a warmer jumper or bikini with you.

Sensors on your skin can measure the temperature of the outside world, but it’s actually sensors in the brain that make sure that your blood keeps at the right temperature inside.

It’s vital that the temperature of your blood remains around 37°C otherwise all the chemical reactions that happen in your body wouldn’t work properly.

The blood’s temperature sensors are located in thermorecptive neurons in the periventricular Zone of the hypothalamus. As you know the mid brain and brainstem are the areas of the brain which first evolved, and so they regulate most of the activities in our body essential for survival.

Experimentally the activity of these neurons was shown after people placed small thermal probes into the hypothalamus of animals and they found that the neurons near the front of the periventricular hypothalamus could be activated by a rise or drop in blood temperature.

Goosebumps and blue skin

Once thermoreceptors are activated, the autonomic nervous system responds by activating heat gain or heat loss mechanisms HAIR to compensate for the change.

When you get really cold you’ll SURFACE notice two things — you get goose bumps on your skin and your hands may go blue.

Both of these effects are a sign that your autonomic nervous SEBUM system has kicked into action FOLLICLE to preserve heat. Usually the autonomic system kicks in for SEBACEOUS fight or flight reflexes.

GLAND Goose bumps are an attempt by the hair’s on your arms to trap air around your skin, to insulate

Squeezy vessels and faster hearts

Once you’ve made sure that your blood has enough nutrients and is at the right temperature it’s essential to ensure that it’s flowing at the right speed to the right areas. The part of the brain that regulates your heart rate and blood pressure is the medulla, which is at the top of the spinal cord, and just below the pons.

Neurons in different regions of the medulla send reflexes from sensors which measure the amount of blood flowing around your body to your heart, blood vessels and adrenal medulla to help regulate blood flow.

Cardiovascular neurons activate the vagus nerve which innervates your heart, and also alter the levels of norephinephrine (noradrenalin) via reflexes through your spinal cord to your kidneys, to make your blood vessels squeeze to increase blood flow, and also to make sure that your heart beats more frequently and vigorously.

Can’t stand the pressure

Some people are born with defects in the gene responsible for converting dopamine into norephinephrine and epinephrine. This gene makes the enzyme dopamine-Bhydroxylase. Without the ability to make Norephinephrine these people have all manner of autonomic problems from an early age.

One of the most common problems is that they can’t regulate their blood flow when they stand up. They get a symptom known as orthostatic hypotension, which means low blood pressure when standing. Normally blood vessels in your legs contract and your heart will start beating more vigorously when you stand up so that the blood can keep going up to your brain.

If you stand up too quickly you feel dizzy and get a “head rush”. This is because the blood flows down to your lower half, rather than up to the brain. It can take a few moments for the blood to redistribute itself properly back up to the brain and for you to stop feeling dizzy.

An ECG showing the heart stopping for seven seconds in an older man with carotid sinus.

Speed cameras on your vessels

nucleus in the brainstem. The hypoglossal nerve projects to a variety of bodily areas including; the larynx, trachea, bronchi, If the circulatory system was a superhighway, two of the lung heart and stomach. roads that take the most traffic would be the Aortic and Carotid roads.

These big blood vessels are responsible for sending blood Falling fainting and fish & chips from the heart up to the head, and also around the body. So in The salts you smell after fainting are very different than the order to make sure there is enough blood going through them type of salt you put on your fish and chips. And yet table there are different speed cameras on them that salt can be equally as effective for combating low send snapshots of your blood pressure up to the blood pressure and faints. brain.

Low salt can be detected in the kidneys, These speed cameras can sense the pressure of which will release aldosterone — a hormone that the blood,and the amount of oxygen in it. They tells the kidneys to keep salt and not release it are known as Baro- for pressure and Chemoin urine. At the same time aldosterone can tell for chemicals, receptors. And they both shoot the kidneys to secrete vasopressin, a hormone messages up to your brainstem all the time to that makes the kidneys produce less urine and tell your body what the blood traffic is like and if keep more liquid in your blood so that the blood you need to make any change in the circulation volume and pressure increases. to prevent any accidents.

If you eat salty food and drink water these As we get older, people find it more difficult too should increase low blood pressure. And if to maintain blood pressure when standing, and your blood pressure is very high, avoiding salty fall over more often. It’s thought that if your food should help lower it. chemo/baro receptors aren’t working, or if there are problems within the brainstem, you won’t An angiogram of the carotid What happens when blood be able to regulate your blood flow to the head artery going up to the properly and this causes the falls and dizziness. doesn’t flow? brain. The arrow points Fainting is a natural reflex designed to make you A stroke is when a blockage of one of the brain’s to a dark patch which is go horizontal so blood will flow across your body blood vessels causes death of the tissue in that artherosclerosis on the to your brain. area. The tissue dies because of lack of oxygen or vessel wall.

Clinically you can test for this type of problem blood nutrients. by seeing if the sensors on the carotid artery are There are two basic types of stroke, hypersensitive. If a person is falling or fainting because their ischemic and hemorrhagic. Ischemic stroke is caused baro/chemo reflexes aren’t working, you’ll find they have by blockage in an artery that supplies blood to the a very abnormal reaction when the carotid artery is gently brain, resulting in a deficiency in blood flow (ischemia). pressed upon. Their heart’s may stop, or become a-systolic Hemorrhagic stroke is caused by the bleeding of ruptured and blood pressure becomes hugely decreased. Clinically this blood vessels (haemorrhage) in the brain. You might problem is called Carotid Sinus Syndrome. Sometimes it can like to think of them as blocked for ischemic or leaky for be caused when the blood pressure receptors themselves are haemorrhagic stroke. masked or blocked and can’t tell the brain how much blood is really going to your head.

Rusty Water and leaky pipes In St James clinic in Dublin, researchers led by Prof Rose Blood vessels in the brain can break for a variety of reasons.

Anne Kenny of Trinity College Dublin, are trying to discover A blood clot can find its way from outside of the brain what causes problems with blood pressure regulation in older into one of the vessels causing a stroke this is known as people, and if preventing these problems can also reduce thrombosis. If your blood vessels have fatty hard deposits on their risk of dementia. This is because if your brain can’t get them, these deposits can sometimes break off, and flow up to enough blood supply to keep your neurons working, then the brain blocking the vessels there. It’s a bit like bits of rust with age they are more likely to either wear out. breaking off old pipes and blocking up the filters.

These fatty deposits are known as atherosclerosis, and are usually linked to a fatty diet, smoking and decreased Smelling salts exercise. Atherosclerosis also stops your blood vessel walls If you were a lady and starred in black and white films, upon from being able to contract properly and can lead to super fainting you’d most likely be offered Smelling Salts, by a high or low blood pressure. dapper young gentleman or maid.

Hemorrhagic stroke can be caused by ruptured or Smelling salts actually contain ammonia — which is an malformed blood vessels, tumours or simple injury to irritant to the mucus membrane of your lungs. When you the brain. Another name for a ruptured blood vessel is inhale ammonia, because it’s really irritating it activates a an aneurysm. An aneurysm is a bulge or weakness in the breathing reflex which shoots up through your brainstem, wall of an artery or vein. Aneurysms usually enlarge over across the medulla and down to the muscles surrounding time. Because of that, they have the potential to rupture your lungs, which instantly cause you to breathe deeply. The unexpectedly, burst and cause life-threatening bleeding. area which controls breathing reflexes is the hypoglossal

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 14

What does a stroke do?

Every area in your brain is reliant on a constant blood flow. A stroke can hit any area that receives blood supply. Some brain areas are more vital than others. For this reason a stroke can sometimes be lethal and sometimes less dangerous. Recently people have found that if you make it through your first year after a stroke, you’re very likely to recover.

Moving memories back into place

There is hope for stroke victims. Researchers have found they can “teach” people how to move their muscles again after a stroke. The ability to move arms, legs, blink wink and wiggle our ears is controlled by the brain which also stores memories of these movements. People who lose an arm or leg can still have a “phantom” limb sensation when they still think that the arm is there and they can “feel” that it is too warm or cold because the memory of their moving limb is so strong. Like a recurring dream.

People use this ability of our brains to remember to encourage motor neurons to become active after a stroke.

One form of therapy which mines this ability is known as haptic intervention. A person who has suffered a stroke and lost the ability to move their arm or shoulder might be forced to do simple exercises and to concentrate on different movements, to literally think their muscles into action. So far for some people this haptic intervention appears to work.

And if muscles can be thought back into action, it’s not impossible that memory or cognitive/intellectual ability can be retrained after a stroke.

Imagining the future

Lack of blood flow or brain cells can result in loss of thoughts, sights, movements or memories, but these effects are not always lasting. Some people have the ability to recover from very severe strokes and brain injuries.

Neuropathologlical studies have found people who lived to a ripe old healthy age to have had brains that were shrunken and damaged. Post-mortem studies of others who had dementia and cognitive problems have sometimes struggled to find actual brain damage. One of the most common characteristics of people who recover is that they simply have a very positive mental attitude. Clearly our spirits have an influence on our synapses.

In the past one hundred years we’ve gone from speculating that the brain might control our actions, to being able to purify neuronal contents right down to individual genes.

The remarkable ability of the brain to regenerate, remodel and repair itself in spite of severe damage is only now being harnessed by researchers. The only thing that limits the brain’s ability is our own imagination. The next chapter shall focus on revealing and imagining our brain’s future potential.

Veronica Miller has a doctorate in neurobiology from Newcastle University, a Masters in Science Communication from DCU and a degree in Biochemistry from TCD. Previously she worked on “Scope” a popular science TV series for teenagers. Currently Veronica is working in the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health laboratories, researching how environmental toxins contribute to risk of disease from womb to tomb, with a focus on autism, Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

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Two SideS of Science S

cience is supposed to be international, but in practice there are big differences between countries, and within Europe efforts are being made to create a relatively seamless research zone. Europe, as a whole, is also quite different from the Far East, or the United States, but what exactly are those differences, and how much impact do they have on scientific performance?

At the European Science Open Forum last year, Ireland’s chief scientific adviser, Prof Paddy Cunningham, was joined by Alan Leshner, Chief Executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in discussing some of the underlying differences between science on both sides of the Atlantic.

As Alan Leshner explained, the government’s attitude to science is much more likely to remain constant in Europe than in the US. The reason for this is that in the US, the President has a much greater influence on policy. Under Bush, he said, science was seen as supporting policy, but under Obama, science is there to inform policy makers. There is a big difference, he said, and this is the sort of swing in both in attitude and support that would not occur in Europe.

Under Bush, he added, the role of science was downgraded. “The scientific community

Tom Kennedy reports that compared to the US, support for science is less exposed to sudden policy changes in europe.

became discouraged,” he said, but with Obama, there was a reversal of this trend. “A whole lot of distinguished appointments were made,” said Alan.

“There is now an influential office for science and technology at the White House,” he said, adding that, “this is something that did not exist before.”

While moving into centre stage has been welcomed by scientists, said Alan, policy makers still do not have to do what the scientists tell them, and Debating the differences at ESOF in Turin, from left, Irish Government Science Adviser, Prof Paddy Cunningham, CEO of AAAS, Alan Leshner, and Director General EC, Roland Schenkel.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 17

here again, some differences between Europe and the US come into play.

What scientists have to say may not come as good news to policy makers, or to politicians, who, after all, have been elected by the voting public.

Issues such as conflict of interest, and defence of firmly held beliefs can loom much larger on the voting agenda in the US than in Europe. In many areas of the US, said Alan, local authorities are demanding that creationism must be taught alongside science in schools.

“Europe has not had to deal with that kind of problem,” he said.

The belief that mankind arrived fully formed, and that we have no right to interfere with any of life’s processes, is widespread in the US, and not just in the Bible Belt, and this has an influence on many other related issues, such as stem cell research.

“These are non-scientific questions,” said Alan, but as he observed, “where scientific progress and core human values conflict, values always win.”

Some words make people light up, he said.

So, stem cell research means babies, and cloning means making humans, just like you. “The problem,” he said, “is not lack of understanding — they do understand, but they just don’t like it.”

Trying to win people over by repeating the facts is pointless, he said because people just dig in and take up positions.

The science community in the US, he explained, has been keen on public meetings, and this is the worst possible thing they could do. “Such meetings consist of three scientists giving incredibly boring lectures, and then when that’s over, the crazies on either side of the isles each grab a microphone and start yelling at each other.”

Europe, he remarked, seems to have got around that problem of public engagement more successfully.

Understanding what the public wants, he said, helps, but when all is said and done, scientists are stuck with the facts, but the public are not. The public, he said, can choose to ignore science with relatively little consequences.

This does not mean that scientists can, or even should, tell the public what to do. Their job, said Alan, is to stick with the facts and explain them as they are. His point is that public representatives, unlike scientists, were elected. “If you start telling the public what to do,” he said, “you become just like any other lobbyist.”

Don’t lock up knowledge

CompArEd to the US, Europe, while strong on diversity, is slower to apply the results of research. one of the reasons for this, it seems, is that European scientists are not that good at explaining what they do, so there is a break down in communications. prof Cunningham remarked that scientists in Europe need to engage more with those who can benefit from their discoveries or apply the results. Many researchers, he said, only think of their own immediate needs, such as where the next grant is coming from, rather than considering their responsibility to society. While scientists are happy to take public money, many feel no obligation to share their knowledge. Even within sub-sections of science, he said, there is a language that no one else but specialists can understand, and among scientists, “the debates are seldom about giving, but of taking.” That attitude needs to change, said prof Cunningham. “Scientists need to open their lab doors, metaphorically and physically, and they need to engage with people who understand how to translate jargon into plain English.”

EPA whodoeswhat? 88x130

27/03/2009

10:07

“where scientific progress and core human values conflict, values always win.”

Page 1

Ireland’s environment Who does what?

The Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency protects the environment

LIVE LINK

www.marine.ie

for everyone in the country. We regulate and police activities that might otherwise cause pollution. We ensure there is solid information on environmental trends so that necessary actions are taken. Our priorities are protecting the Irish environment and ensuring that development is sustainable. We employ 340 people who work in ten locations throughout the country.

There are many organisations working to protect and improve Ireland's environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency's guide explains who does what and who to contact about your environmental queries.

Contact the EPA to order your guide to Ireland's environment:

institute.mail@marine.ie LIVE LINK

LoCall: 1890 33 55 99 Email: publications@epa.ie Web: www.epa.ie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 18

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Greening the Campus at IT Sligo IT Sligo’s Environmental Society is leading the way with the first Community Food Project (CFP) in an Irish Third Level Educational Institution. The project paves the way as a blueprint for other schools, colleges and universities throughout Ireland. It is one of a number of similar projects that are sponsored by the Health Service Executive which are running within local communities throughout the North West. The Organic Centre in Rossinver, Co. Leitrim provides the project with a qualified organic gardener, who gives instruction to the participants on a weekly basis between March and October.

This is the second year of the project in which students and staff are working together to learn how to grow their own fruit and vegetables and to promote positive health and well-being. New participants have joined the group and this year has seen an expansion of the garden to incorporate fruit trees and bushes as well as additional space for vegetables. The crops include a variety of salad leaves, root crops, brassicas, peas, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, culinary herbs etc. ‘Eat-Well-Be-Well’ cooking sessions, with the help of professional chefs, take place over the season using the organic produce.

Last year, as part of a training workshop, a polytunnel was constructed by the CFP participants at the site in the College grounds.

The project forms part of IT Sligo’s initiative to move towards a ‘greener’ campus. The Environmental Society has been active in other areas such as winning the ‘Green Planet Award’ in 2009, bringing the first electric car to IT Sligo. The car is used for course related activities.

IT Sligo has a long established reputation in providing both full-time and part-time environmental courses. It was the first third level college in Ireland to develop environmental science courses which extend back to 1975. The courses provide environmental training and research from levels 6 to level 10. The CFP initiative will also compliment IT Sligo’s new B.Sc. degree in Energy, Sustainability and the Environment which will commence next September and has already attracted much interest from CAO More information: Dr. Billy Fitzgerald, Head of Department of applicants.

Environmental Science, Institute of Technology, Ash Lane, Sligo.

T: 071 91 55284 E: fitzgerald.billy@itsligo.ie www.itsligo.ie

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 19

SPIN ACTIVE APPLIED STI

Chemical analysis

About €80 billion a year is being spent in Europe on chemical analysis.

Most of this analysis is required to comply with regulations. In recognition of the important role being played by scientists involved in analysis, the European Joint Research Council, JRC, has brought nine universities together to deliver a European Master’s Degree in Measurement Science in Chemistry. the seven universities involved are from Estonia, Poland, France, Portugal, Finland, bulgaria, and Slovenia. the first group of graduates received their diplomas from the JRC at Geel in belgium last october.

Gateway

A buSInESS incubation centre has been opened at university College Cork to encourage the uptake of research by industry. the Gateway uCC centre is being managed by the college technology transfer office and it has the capacity to provide support for 15 start ups. the centre starts off with some existing spin-outs, one being 3PRo Energy Watch. this company has developed an energy efficient computer management system.

Putting computer systems into hibernation when not required, can result in big energy savings. http://gateway.ucc.ie E LIV LINK

Not possible

RESEARCHER, Anna Sues, from Eindhoven university of technology, argues that the Eu target of meeting ten per cent of road transport fuel from biomass is doomed to fail.

Dr Sues pointed out that there is simply not enough biomass available in Europe, and collection is also going to be a problem. Most of the woodlands throughout Europe are privately owned, and Sues, who completed her PhD at the Chemical Engineering and Chemistry department in Eindhoven, maintains that organising contracts with numerous parties is bound to be a major headache.

Her view is that the EC’s ambitions are unrealistic.

Dr Sues came to this conclusion after gathering statistics on biomass from all Eu states. Significantly, she excluded felling and specially planted woodland, but as she pointed out, Eu directives specify collection of sustainable biomass, such as straw and forestry residues. Planting energy crops, she argues, is not an obvious, or indeed universally acceptable solution, and likewise importing biomass, apart from the cost, is not desirable for environmental reasons.

Although Dr Sues believes that reaching the 10 per cent target is unrealistic, she looked at how biomass might be used most effectively. She compared synthetic natural gas, methanol, Fischer-tropsch fuels, hydrogen, and generation of bioelectricity, which can then be used to keep vehicles on the move.

In her review, synthetic natural gas came up as best suited to meet Eu targets.

Synthetic natural gas can be added to the existing supply, but according to Sues, it can only displace four per cent of the total. Methanol and hydrogen were ruled out because of expense and higher emissions.

Speed genes

At uCD, Dr Emmeline Hill has been identifying the genes that help race horses run faster. In 2009, a campus spin out company, Equinome, was set up to bring the benefits of this research to horse breeders. the company involves a partnership between Dr Hill and the Irish racehorse trainer and breeder, Jim bolger.

the company’s gene test product can help breeders predict the likely performance of thoroughbreds. naturally, in such a competitive industry, the test has created a lot of interest.

Since the launch, Equinome has gone from success to success, with clients now in the uS, new Zealand, France, Singapore, and most recently the test was launched in Australia. www.equinome.com SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 20

The new CEO, Paul Lynham, right, and Brian Flannery, who has become Chief Financial Officer for Siemens in Ireland.

Siemens CEO

Paul Lynam has taken over as CEo at Siemens Ireland to replace Dr Werner Kruckow who has returned to Germany.

A graduate of DCu and uCD, Paul Lynam worked with the Smurfit Group before joining Siemens 15 years ago.

Slimmers

A bACtERIuM that causes troublesome teenage spots could help people lose weight. this particular bacterium produces a fatty acid, known as t10, c12-CLA, and according to scientists from the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in Cork, and teagasc, this is associated with a reduction of body fat. the scientists conducted a study in which a CLA producing gene was ttransferred into a strain of Lactobacillus, a common inhabitant of our gut.

Feeding the genetically modified Lactobacillus to mice,boosted the level of the fat reducing CLA. In addition to the possible benefits in treatingt obesity, Dr Catherine Stanton from teagasc said that CLA has been found to reduce the viability of colon cancer cells. In lab tests, CLA was found to reduce colon cancer cell viability by 92 per cent .

“It is possible,” said Dr Stanton, ”that a CLA-producing probiotic may be able to keep colon cancer cells in check,”

LINKS

Notices for inclusion in LINKS are welcome, but they must be brief, to the point, and of genuine interest to Irish SMEs. Email: mail@sciencespin.com

Pilot food plant

Moorepark Technology Limited (MTL) stimulates and enhances market led Research and Development in the Irish Food Industry through the provision of high quality, cost effective pilot plant facilities.

The services offered by MTL include: • Pilot plant rental

• Contract R&D • Pre-commercial manufacture •Technical assistance/advice/support

For more information please contact kieran.downey@teagasc.ie www.moorepark.net LLIVINEK

Breast cancer biomarkers

Every year approximately 1.2 million women worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer. Though most patients initially respond to treatment, approximately 40 per cent eventually relapse. Currently there is no method of predicting which patients are likely to recur following initial surgery; however research at RCSI has shown that proteins HOXC11 and S100beta are strong predictors of poor disease-free survival in breast cancer patients.

This can inform clinicians of patients likely to relapse and identify women who may need a more aggressive treatment regime.

For more information please contact Dr Aoife Gallagher aoifegallagher1@rcsi.ie www.rcsi.ie/technologiesforlicense

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Microparticle engineering

The School of Pharmacy at RCSI has developed a novel microparticle engineering (MPE) technology. The process is based on spray drying, using a specifically designed concentric nozzle system allowing particles to emerge ready-formed and easily adaptable to industrial manufacturing environments. The technology is versatile enabling the encapsulation of solid, liquid or gaseous cores and can be used for various applications. The particles can be further processed into other dose forms and compressed for example in conventional tabletting environments.

For more information contact Dr Gearóid Tuohy gearoidtuohy@rcsi.ie www.rcsi.ie/technologiesforlicense

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Orodisperible tablets

The School of Pharmacy at RCSI has developed novel drug delivery technology capable of producing fast disintegrating mechanically strong tablets, with low friability capable of withstanding conventional blisterpacking. The technology provides significant advantages for poorly soluble drugs and for indications requiring a rapid onset of action (pain, nausea, sleep, sedation, cardiovascular). Importantly RCSI has shown that the major excipient used in its ODT technology has an effect on cell membrane permeability, improving the absorption of agents administered in this way.

RCSI is currently examining further opportunities to increase the absorptionenhancing effect of the formulation, including application to large peptides and buccal/oral absorption (avoiding first-pass metabolism).

For more information contact Dr Gearóid Tuohy gearoidtuohy@rcsi.ie www.rcsi.ie/technologiesforlicense

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 21

SPIN ACTIVE APPLIED STI

Generating innovation

UCC’s technology office reports that in 2010 three spin off companies were on offer to investors, 23 patents were filed, and 17 licence agreements signed.

According to the office’s annual report for 2010 the licences were spread across a range of sectors including ICT, food and biotechnology. Companies taking up the licences also ranged in size.

Where the potential exists, the TTO office seeks out an experienced CEO to help researchers form a company.

Incubation facilities are provided for start-ups, and UCC reports that more intellectual property is in the pipeline for this year.

NanoNet

COMPAnIES involved with nanotechnology have joined forces with researchers and academic institutions to form nanonet. Chaired by former CEO of the IDA, Sean Dorgan, the group will represent and promote awareness of nanoscience in Ireland.

A significant, and growing contribution is being made to industry by nanoscience, particularly to companies involved in ICT, medical devices and biopharmaceuticals.

Apart from nanonet, there is now a nanotechnology Competence Centre under which leading multi-nationals, such as Intel, Analog and Seagate together with Irish companies such as Creganna, Aerogen, Audit Diagnostics and Proxybiomedical work in collaboration with Tyndall, CRAnn and InSPIRE. www.nanonetireland.ie

Milk

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BABIES around the world are being fed on a milk formula produced by Danone in Cork. The company is expanding production at Macroom to meet increasing demand. According to the company, the latest expansion, gives the Macroom plant a capacity to produce 100,000 tonnes a year. In addition to production, the Macroom plant is involved in R&D.

RING OF GULLION Tom Kennedy reports that neat farmhouses, well tended fields and Ireland’s highest passage grave are ringed around by the rim of a volcanic caldera.

Silurian metasediments

Newry Igneous Complex

The Longford-Down Inlier, originally sediments washed down into the Iapetus Ocean from Laurentia

The oldest mass of granite, from about 400 million years ago

Mourne, Gullion and Cooley granites About 60 million years

Carboniferous limestone

About 350 million years ago A simplified chart of the area.

T

he commanding view from 573 metres would have been a big attraction, but being able to gaze down upon a spectacular arc of ridges must have made Slieve Gullion really special to the Neolithic builders of Ireland’s highest passage grave. These people certainly had an eye for the landscape, and no doubt they were well aware that the four metre high cairn of stones they raised at the peak was central to the surrounding Ring of Gullion. That 11 km diameter circle of ridges makes an almost perfect circle around Antrim’s highest mountain, and its origin, long shrouded in mystery, goes back so far

that Ireland, as we know it, did not yet exist.

Some of the rocks at Slieve Gullion are granites that welled up from the depths about 60 million years ago, but others are much older, originating in the Palaeozoic era, about 400 million years ago when an ancient ocean, known as the Iapetus, was being pushed out of existence. Continental sized plates were on the move, and as the Iapetus ocean closed, its heavy floor was being pushed down under a land mass to the east. As the heavy ocean floor went down, the ligher sediments, washed down from the Laurentia continent,

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 22

A panorama view of the ring looking south from Slieve Gullion.

TK, Source Archive.

piled up against the surface crust.

This is the same sort of reshaping process, known as subduction, that caused such terrible destruction earlier this year in Japan.

While the Iapetus Ocean was closing, the south eastern half of Ireland was approaching the north western top, and when these land masses eventually collided they sheared off against each other to produce massive strike-slip faults.

The Iapetus suture, stretching from Clougher Head above Drogheda to the Shannon Estuary in Limerick, remains the most prominent geological features of a united Ireland.

Water charged rocks being drawn down under the crust by subduction, sparked off intense volcanic activity.

Molten magma, exploiting any weaknesses, rose up from the depths towards the surface. The nature of this magma varied and in many places great masses of material, high in silica, pooled into chambers below the surface. Cooling slowly, the minerals crystalised into the more ancient granites we see in Donegal, Newry, Leinster, and Galway.

In the Newry, Slieve Gullion area, there were several major intrusions of granite into the overlying sedimentary rocks. These intrusions are known as the Newry Caledonian Igneous Complex, and although the granites were formed below the surface, they have since been exposed by erosion.

As the intensely hot plumes of magma rose, they baked the coverering of sedimentary rocks, which now surround the exposed domes of granites as the Longford-Down Inlier.

All of this happened so long ago that the high mountains that once rose to the north and east have long since been worn away, and the shallow tropical seas that gave Ireland its limestone and northern pockets of chalk, had not yet invaded the land.

Ireland had been united, but the continental plates continued to move. About two million years later, a new pattern of land masses was beginning to take shape as the Atlantic began to open, a process that is still in progress, with Icelandic volcanoes now at the northern tip of the ever widening ridge.

This slow movement eventually led to the next major phase of intrusion in Ireland, and at Slieve Gullion there was a build up of pressure as magma explosively forced its way up through the older deposits. It appears that the underlying chamber, becoming depleted of magma, could not continue to support the build up of material above. It is thought that having being overwhelmed by fresh intrusions, the original central mass collapsed through the unsupported roof as a block.

The block formed a plug, tapering towards the surface, and as it subsided, more igneous material came to the surface. Explosive degassing pulverised rocks within the vents, and detailed examination reveals that fragments of the old superstructure in the form of Newry granite and Silurian slate fell into the mix.

As the block continued to sink, successive pulses of intrusion added to the surrounding ring,

A subduction zone. In pushing up against the continental crust the dense ocean floor goes under, a deep trench is created offshore, and molten magma rises. and geologists, by looking at the mineral composition, have been able to distinguish a number of different phases. Some of the intrusions, high in silica, came from nearer the surface, The cairn at the summit of Slieve Gullion is the highest passage grave in Ireland or Britain. In the 18th century locals searched the chamber for remains of Cailleach Beara, a female who bewitched Fionn McCool.

Excavations in 1961 uncovered some worked flint, a single scraper, an arrowhead, and two stone basins.

On the north side is another cairn, thought to be from the Bronze Age.

while others came from lower down, where the composition, like the dark basalt that flowed over much of the north, is more basic.

Geologists were surprised to find that the central mass of Slieve Gullion has something like thirteen different layers, with basic gabbro and dolerite rocks alternating with the acid granites, and it is thought that these represent a whole series of horizontal intrusions from different depths and locations in the underlying chamber, and in some places temperatures were high enough to allow the original Newry granite to melt back into the mix.

The final phase came with an intrusion of fine grained granite to the south east to form the Black Mountain, over the border into County Louth, and breaching the Slieve Gullion ring.

For about two million years these violent volcanics continued, but even in cooling down, the intrusions shaped the landscape. The immense stress had to be relieved by faulting, and one of these fractures, extending from Cam Lough to Ravensdale, is seventeen kilometres long. That fracture gave the lake its linear shape, and it displaced part of the ring by two kilometres.

Hard to imagine anything like that ever happening there again, and all those working in the well-tended fields and living in the neat farm houses that surround Slieve Gullion now have no reason to be concerned that they dwell among the roots of an ancient, complex and extremely violent volcano.

Looking south east towards Cooley.

450 million years

Iapetus Ocean closing, and formation of Silurian sediments.

410 million years

Newry Igneous Complex Ireland at edge of Old Red Sandstone desert.

200 million years

Atlantic beginning to open

65 Million years

Rifting of Atlantic continues, volcanic activity at Slieve Gullion and elsewhere, and eruption of northern basalt.

Geopark

The Ring of Gullion is of great geological interest, as are the nearby Mourne Mountains and the Cooley Peninsula. It is also an area of great natural beauty with lots of historical associations, and this combination of attractions has led to the idea of promoting the entire cross-boarder region as an internationally recognised geopark.

Apart from being a good banner under which a variety of interests could collaborate, any recognition as a geopark would bring a lot more visitors back into a region that for long as been ‘off limits’ to tourists.

A number of national and regional organisations, including the Mourne Heritage Trust, Louth County Council, Newry and Mourne District Council, Regneration of South Armagh, the Geological Survey of Ireland, and GSI Northern Ireland have been working together on a bid to achieve this recognition. One of the results of this collaboration has been the publication of an excellent geological guide, prepared by Sadhbh Baxter, A geological field guide to Cooley, Gullion, Mourne and Slieve Croob, can be downloaded from: http://www.louthcoco.ie/en/Publications/General/A_Geological_Field_Guide_ to_Cooley,_Gullion,_Mourne_Slieve_Croob_.pdf

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 24

Tunnel

Slieve Gullion, a volcanic caldera, is of intense interest to geologists, and the ring is regarded as one of the finest dykes in Ireland or Britain. Originally thought to be one uniform mass of granite, detailed mapping revealed that the whole area around Slieve Gullion is actually quite complex and that the intrusions were far from uniform. In the 1930s the geologist, J E Riche, first proposed the cauldron subsidence model and over the following years there debates on whether the granites had been produced by transformation of crustal rocks, or that they were formed by crystallisation of upwelling magmas. The granites are now known to have crystallised from the lighter, silica rich, upper magmas, and recent work by John Gamble, Professor of Geology at UCC, has shown that fragments of older crust can be brought back up with intrusions. Prof Gamble’s investigations were helped by the existence of a long tunnel, running for the best part of a kilometre into the depths of Cam Lough Mountain.

The tunnel, big enough for a truck to drive through, had been constructed in the 1960s to serve a 230 MW pumped storage generating plant. Although the project was abandoned after just two years, the tunnel gave Prof Gamble access to rocks deep inside the Ring of Gullion. Those rock samples have proved useful in determining what actually happened all those millions of years ago.

EARTH ON THE MOVE

The Earth is covered by a series of interlocking plates, moving towards, against, or away from each other. The Pacific plate, moving in against Japan is heavy and along where it sinks below the Eurasian crust, there is a deep trench.

Diagram based on charts from the US Geological Service.

T

he world ’s surface of land and oceans is made up of great plates that slowly move around. Plates can move apart, or they can collide, and where they meet, the heavier one can be pushed down to form a deep oceanic trench. There are a number of deep trenches around the world, the deepest of them being the Mariana Trench which at one point is deep enough, at 10,971 metres, to completely submerge Mount Everest. The northern part of this trench, with a maximum depth of 9,000 metres, lies off the eastern coast of Japan, and in this region, the Pacific plate continues to push its way west at about 80 mm a year.

This process of subduction has always, and will continue, to cause earthquakes until eventually, perhaps in millions of years time, the plates will drift off in another direction. As we see from the feature on Slieve Gullion, the northern half of Ireland was once subject to the same kind of enormous

forces, but now the nearest action is far out into the Atlantic, where the plates, instead of colliding, are drifting apart at a relatively modest rate of about 10 to 40 mm a year, just about the speed of a fingernail growing, Japan is in one of the most seismically active parts of the world, and since 1891 seven major earthquakes been recorded there. The quake in March was the most severe yet, and at magnitude 9, it was much larger than the one in Haiti, and has been estimated to have been 8,000 times stronger than New Zealand’s quake at Christchurch.

With the Japanese quake, there was very little warning of what was to come. Two days before there was a foreshock, recorded at magnitude 7.2, and this seems to have been the trigger that set off a whole series of earthquakes that have continued after the massive magnitude 9 shock of the 11th March. The epicentre was 130 km

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 25

offshore, 373 km north of Tokyo, and is thought to have been at 24.4 km depth.

The German Research Centre for Geoscience recorded over 428 earthquakes between 9th and the 16th March in the Honshu region. There is a very good animation of this by Joachim Saul from the Geoscience Centre at www.gfz.potsdam.de showing how quakes of different intensities followed each other in rapid succession across Japan.

It is thought that the horizontal displacement of the ocean floor may have been about 25 metres, and on land, satellite observations show that the east coast was displaced by up to five metres.

Compared to most other countries, Japan was relatively well prepared for the quake, but unfortunately, it was much harder to deal with the tsumani that followed. Having survived the quake, people living along the north east coast were hit by an even worse disaster in the form of a tsumani.

Data gathered from ESA’s Envisat satellite shows that the east coast of Honshu Island moved by about 2.5 metres. The data, analysed by NASA, indicated a movement away from the epicentre of the quake. It was possible to make the measurements by comparing satelitte observations made before and after 11th March. Envisat’s orbit repeats its coverage of Earth every 30 days. The satellite had passed over the area on 19th February, and again, shortly after the quake, on 21st March. The middle image shows how much land was moved by the quake. Before and after quake data has been colour coded to show where most of the movements occurred.

The quake caused a vertical displacement of the ocean floor over an area of about 500 by 100 km, and at the centre of this, there was an abrupt rise of about 7 metres, heaving the sea up into a great spreading mound.

Although the rise immediately above would have been considerably

Depressing findings

less than this, the displacement created waves. In the open sea, a swell of such large magnitude can spread, but on approaching land, the same volume of water can only be accommodated by rising up into a wave which gets higher and higher as it approaches the shallow shore. By the time the tsumani

IT hAS been reported that one in every four people living in the city of Montreal take some form of anti-depressant. That in itself is quite a shocking reflection on how people in modern cities live, but according to Dr Sébastien Sauvé at the university of Montreal’s Department of Chemistry, everyone else is likely to be unwitting recipients of these drugs.

As is known to be be happening with antibiotics in Ireland, the antidepressants are being flushed into sewage systems. The immediate impact is likely to be on fishes and other aquatic life, and no one knows where these biologically active chemicals end up.

As Dr Sauvé observed, “the chemical structure of anti-depressants makes them extremely difficult to remove from sewage, even with the most sophisticated systems available.”

While expressing concern, Dr Suavré said the risk to humans is quite small. “The amount of anti-depressants being released into our rivers works out at roughly the equivalent of a grain of salt in an Olympic-size swimming pool.” Trace metals, he added, are far more likely to be a health issue, but even so, flushing powerful drugs into sewage is an issue that should be of concern to cities around the world.

On Honshu GPS measurements of displacement from GeoNet have been used to chart the direction of ground movement. The numerous arrows indicate the direction of movement.

hit the north east coast, walls of water were up to 10 metres high.

Animation of the quake Animation of the quakes http://www.japanquakemap.com www.gfz.potsdam.de

Back to life

LIVE LINK

CeNTury old spores of diatoms from sea and freshwater are being revived by researchers at the university of Gothenburg. Diatoms with their elaborately patterned skeletons, form a large part of the phytoplankton growing at sea and in lakes.

When conditions become difficult, diaztoms form resting spores that can lie dormant for a long time.

Anna Godhe, from the Department of Marine ecology at the university of Gotland, explained that the project to revive old spores began from a study of Mariager Fjord. The floor of the fjord is effectively dead for oxygen breathing organisms because of eutrophication.

When samples of this sediment were transferred to more favourable conditions, spores , many of which had lain dormant for a long time, revived. Among the hundreds of spores to revive, some were recent, and others were a century old. As diatoms normally divide once a day

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 26

YOUNG SCIENTISTS

Maeve Butler and Anna Delargy from Ursuline College, Sligo, have been investigating our ability to multitask.

Multitasking

Is It true that girls are better at multitasking than boys, or is multitasking just a matter of making a mess of several things in one go? ursuline College sligo students, Anna Delargy and Maeve Butler decided that the best way to get answers to these questions would be to put not just some, but all of their friends to the test.

As Anna and Maeve explained, they took fifty girls and fifty boys, roughly in their own age bracket, from 15 to 17, and from each group 25 were given multiple tasks to perform, while the rest were only asked to carry out one task.

What’s a task? “these were tasks that teenagers do in everyday life,” said the girls, ” so, not surprisingly that required some texting, and emailing.

“We had them listening to, Hallelujah,” they explained, and for those who are not familiar with this song, the word Hallelujah is repeated lots of times. those who had to multitask were asked to listen to the song, count the number of Hallelujshs, while

typing an email and sending a message, all at the same time.

“People got flustered in different ways,” said the young scientists, who remarked that once the boys heard that they were in competition with the girls, “they really got into it.” the most curious finding was that having enthuiastically completed the tasks, the boys, proud of their keyboarding skills, were inclined to pause and ask, “eh, what song?”

As Anna and Maeve were quick to point out, this is not to suggest that the boys are just dumb, but they tend to approach tasks in a different way, and what they do, they tend to do well.

“We are all natural multi-taskers,” said

the girls, “we all do it all the time,” but it seems that boys tend to focus more intensely on one task to the exclusion of others.

Anna and Maeve’s survey certainly gives educationalists something to think about. As they remark, “there are always those questions about who is better at science,” and what they point to is that our concept of “better” might be seriously flawed. “It could be that boys pay less attention at school because they don’t think it’s important enough to give it their attention,” they said, “but when they do give it their attention, they give it their full attention.”

As the girls observed, all of this has big implications not just for how we learn, but for the sort of work we do.

Anna and Maeve are in transition year, and would love to continue this line of research. However, with the Leaving Cert looming up school studies will take most of their full attention and there will be less time left for multitasking. (tK) Shane Forde from St Patrick’s High School, Armagh.

Meteor trains

sHAne ForDe from st Patrick’s High school in Armagh has been looking at what happens when meteors enter the earth’s atmosphere. While most of us probably think of meteors falling down in a perfect arc, their trajectory in not, in fact, that easy to predict. As shane explained, a meteor travelling at 70 metres a second can drift sideways by 6,000 metres in just six minutes. “so when you see something coming down through the sky, you can’t really tell where it’s going to land,” he said.

SPIN

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 27

shane was able to study the fall of meteors by getting access to an archive of images at Armagh observatory. By looking at images, step by step, he said, you can see the progress of a trajectory. “Its not a simple process,” he said, “because at the same time, the meteor is disintegrating.” that showering of dust makes up a large part of the earth’s surface.

Shane is now in his final year in school, and from following meteor trains, his ambition is to go on to study physics at Queen’s, and ideally he would like to combine this with programming and computers. (tK)

What attracts people to a career in science?

Seán Duke reports that interest in science depends on its relevance to everyday life.

W

hy do some people want to become scientists, while others avoid science subjects in school at all costs? Laura Brennan and Megan Oliver, Transition Year students at Dominican College Drumcondra, sought some answers to these important questions.

Both Laura and Megan are keen on science, and come from a school that is keen on science, judging by the number of projects at the BT Show this year from Dominican College. They are also at a crucial juncture in education, as they are about to enter the Leaving Cert cycle and need to make subject choices that will influence their careers.

The girls are ideally placed to judge what it is they like about science, what it is that others don’t like about science, and how can science be made a more attractive option for students at secondary level. The government should pay attention to their findings.

The first thing they are keen to ‘put to bed’ is the notion that teenagers are turned off science because of the perception that it is ‘nerdy’ and not something for the ‘cool’ set. They found, in their survey of their peers, that 80 per cent plus were not in the least put off by the perception of science as nerdy. One urban myth shattered then.

The reasons that science is not attractive to many, they believe, have more to do with the perception among some students that science is not relevant to their daily lives. For example, the students said, the group of students disaffected with science, don’t see why an understanding of the atom and its parts, has any relevance to their lives.

Another problem is that science is perceived as being hard, and that it is hard to get into university to study science subjects. This perception doesn’t stand up, said Laura and Megan, and they compared journalism and science at DCU. In 2010, they said, it took about 375 points to get in to study on a science course, while the journalism course was far more difficult to get into with, as it

required 445 points. If people knew that it wasn’t so hard to get in to science in college, more might aim for it they said.

It was once the case that girls’ schools didn’t do science subjects, or perhaps only biology, and while things have changed in recent years, things are still not ideal for girls interested in science. They said there was not technology or technical graphics on offer at their school, while both were available at the boys’ school up the road.

A lot more girls would be interested in technology than home economics, they said.

Ireland can learn from other countries in the teaching of science, the girls believe. For example, in Sweden, students have 800 hours of taught science per year, whereas Irish students do 600 hours. That extra exposure makes a big difference, the girls believe.

It is vital, the girls believe, that greater effort is made to spark an interest in science, and how the world works generally in students at a young age, before secondary school.

For example, they said, people like to know how things work, so perhaps one way for primary teachers to ignite an interest in science would be to take things apart, such as a clock, and demonstrate how the pieces interact to make the clock tell time.

E=MC 2

Laura Brennan and (right) Megan Brennan from Dominican College, Drumcondra, at the BT Young Scientists and Technology Exhibition.

Also, it is important that students are taken out of the classroom situation more, and shown how science is relevant to their lives. For example, a trip to a science museum, or some other place could demonstrate the importance of science to all of us, they say.

The girls have some specific suggestions to increase the numbers of people taking science subjects at second level, as well as wanting to do science as a career.

Some suggestions to encourage more people to aim for a career in science:

l Science should be mandatory up to the Junior Certificate.

At the moment it is possible for students to pass through secondary school without doing any science whatsoever. l There should be less Biology and more Physics and Chemistry on the Junior Certificate curriculum to encourage more interest in the latter two subjects. l There should be at least one 40 minute class per week dedicated to understanding the mathematics behind a science concept, and vice versa. l There should be less emphasis on rote learning and more on understanding Girls should be encourage to take science subjects and especially honours maths as many might still not be confident enough to sign up for these subjects.

Ireland’s Greatest Scientists

THE ATOM SPLITTER Seán Duke writes about the Waterford born scientist, Ernest Walton

I

n 1932, aged 29, Waterford-born Ernest Walton did something remarkable – he split the atom, or the atomic nucleus to be more precise, and the news stunned the world.

This colossal event in the history of science took place in Cambridge, UK, in the Cavendish Laboratory, a worldfamous laboratory run by Lord Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford had won a Nobel Prize for physics in 1908 and was a huge figure.

Walton was a brilliant apparatus man, a hands-on physicist, and he had personally built the particle accelerator machine that enabled the nucleus to be split.

He worked closely with John Cockcroft, who was a theoretician. They were a perfect team. Cockcroft proved it could be done, and Walton then went and did it.

Newspapers around the world reported the news, and the Albert Einstein himself called to the Cavendish Lab to congratulate Walton and Cockcroft.

For Einstein, this experiment was the first solid evidence to support his famous equation e = mc2 which held that energy and mass were linked, and that it was possible to release enormous amounts of energy — if mass could be split apart.

protons would need to be accelerated to very high speeds, at astronomically high electrical voltages — perhaps as high as one million volts - to make it possible for them to slam into atomic nuclei and split them.

Walton had done his PhD in the generation of high voltages and this was a continuation of that work. He got the voltage up towards 800,000 volts and they decided they would try and experiment and see what happened.

two helium nuclei, also known as ‘alpha particles’ which had been first discovered by Rutherford himself three decades earlier. Walton immediately called Cockcroft to come, he knew something was happening. He later described what looked like ‘twinkling stars’ – lots of them.

Cockcroft arrived, and Rutherford then appeared. The two younger men manoeuvred Rutherford into the small observation hut, which wasn’t easy, as he was a big man, it was a tight space, and, at this stage, the great man, wasn’t young either.

Philip, Ernest’s son, and himself a Professor of Physics at NUI Galway (recently retired) recalled what his father told him happened next.

“He (Rutherford) was shouting out instructions — ‘turn up the voltage’, ‘turn down the voltage’ and whatnot. He got out, and without saying anything at first, he walked across the room, perched himself on a stool and said: “Those look mighty like alpha particles to me – I should know, as I was in at their birth.”

The atomic age had begun.

Figure

Walton was an unlikely figure to be thrown into the media maelstrom that occurred after the 1932 experiment. It changed his life forever, and at a time when most scientists are only getting their careers started he had reached his pinnacle.

He was a strongly religious man all his life — the son of a Methodist preacher who had travelled all over Ireland and lived in many towns on both sides of the border, including Experiment Cookstown, Bambridge, The key to the success of Dungarvan, Armagh and the famous atom splitting Drogheda. experiment was perhaps Dr J Cockroft with the apparatus which he and Dr Walton Sunday’s were for religious the inspired decision by Lord split the atom in 1932. service and nothing more, Rutherford, Head of the whereas every other day was all Cavendish, to pair the hands-on about work. He was also a nonWalton got the machine going and Walton, with the theoretician drinker, with a few close, loyal friends. crawled back across the floor of the Cockcroft.

He had attended Methodist College lab towards a lead-roofed observation Rutherford, recognised the talents in Belfast as a border, where he was box – to protect against x-rays and of the two young geniuses at his ‘Head Boy’ and he had developed a high voltages. The protons were being disposal, and put them together. They strong affection, which was returned slammed into a piece of lithium metal were very different, but complimented for the school’s ‘Head Girl’, Breda. and he took at look now at the impact. each other.

On leaving school they went their He immediately began seeing little At this time, The Cavendish and separate ways, but after a chance flashes. other labs, particularly in the US meeting the relationship was re-ignited He was elated, as the flashes, he were in a race to see who could split and the letters flew back and forth. knew could be an indication that the the atomic nucleus first. The general He returned to Ireland in 1934, lithium atoms were being split into thinking at the time was that particles,

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 29

Ireland’s Greatest Scientists not least because he wanted to marry Breda, who was working as a teacher in Waterford. They were duly married in Dublin, and set about raising a family from their home in St Kevin’s Park, in Dartry, Dublin 6.

Walton returned from Cambridge to head up an ailing Physics department, with just three staff. His workload was huge in terms of administration, and teaching. This all meant that from the time he returned Ireland, to TCD, he did little research.

He died in 1995, aged 92, and is remembered fondly by his colleagues and family as a quiet man, who had no interest in the limelight. Often he would sit in the staff room at TCD

quietly humming a tune, when a visitor would come in, and be stunned to be introduced to Ernest Walton, the giant of Physics that split the atom.

Many students will remember him as a brilliant teacher, who often performed experiments on the bench, in front of the students during a physics lecture.

His son Philip, the recently retired Professor of Physics at NUI Galway, recalls that his father spent many long hours in the attic at home, after dinner, preparing his lectures.

Others will remember him at the Young Scientist Exhibition in the RDS for many years, when he could be found in teacher mode surrounded by an enraptured audience. For ETS

Walton, teaching was a very important part of the scientist’s job.

To this day he remains the only Irishman who has been awarded a Nobel Prize in any field of science.

That was in 1951, 22 years after the atomic nuclei was split.

Waterford Scientists ElEvEN Waterford scientists are described in a book based on the work of the National Plaques Committee. This is a body that has erected memorial plaques to both well known and long forgotten or neglected scientists and engineers throughout Ireland.

The book, published by Donal Brady, begins with a scientist from the 16th century, Thomas Herriot, and brings us up to the 20th century with Ernest Walton. The scientists in between are Robert Boyle, Henry Eeles, Thomas Grubb, Margaret Aylward, John Horn, Robert Manning, John Palliser, Richard Josh Ussher, and Mary Strangmen. Apart from Boyle, who everyone knows from the law, and Walton, who we feature in this issue of Science Spin, how many people know much about the others? The fact is that, to most of us, the names of poets, writers and artists are more familiar, and this is the main motivation behind the Plaques Committee. As they remind us, we should be celebrating these scientsts for their enormous contribution to our cultural heritage. Over the past few years the Committee has erected more than 60 plaques, and more are to come. The ultimate objective is to have over two hundred plaques up all around the country.

The book’s author, Donal Brady, is the former Waterford County librarian, and, as he observed, the eleven from Waterford are just a few from the many who have distinguished themselves in the sciences throughout Ireland, and other counties should consider publishing similar studies.

Norman McMillan, one of the guiding lights on the National Plaques Committee, said the launch of the Waterford book and the inclusion of information on the County library web site, marks the advance of the project to a new stage. “Our committee, “he said, “wants to extend the project county-by-county, and to persuade every county manager to set up websites and erect plaques.”

Waterford Scientists, preliminary studies.

Richard Brady, 2010. www.irishscientists.ie http:/www.waterfordcountylibrary.ie/en/localstudies/waterfordscientists LIVE LINK

(TK)

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 30

Some plaqueS to Watch out for Athlone East Station – the railway bridge, designed by George Willoughby Hemans Conway Institute, UCD – Edward Conway, pioneer in the study of electrolytes.

Edgeworthstown, Co longford – novelist and educationalist Maria Edgeworth, author of “Practical Education”, and her father Richard lovell Edgeworth, engineer and inventor Leighlinbridge, Co Carlow – John Tyndall, the first scientist to explain why the sky is blue.

Sligo Institute of Technology – mathematician George Gabriel Stokes, whose research revolutionised hydrodynamics Valentia, Co Kerry – Maude Delap, marine biologist specialising in plankton life.

Roscommon, below, Aleen Cust, Ireland’s first women vet.

The Chemistry of

Life

Science Week 2011 ChemiCal attraCtions keep us together, everything around us is made up of atoms, either as elements such as gold, or in more valuable combinations such as hydrogen and oxygen to make water. Beauty products, microchips, and even the food we consume are among the chemicals that sustain us throughout life, and chemistry has made ireland a leading exporter of pharmaceuticals. science Week 2011 will celebrate the the importance of chemistry with a nationwide theme, “The Chemistry of Life.” events will highlight the role of chemistry in such areas of green energy and the fast emerging field of nanotechnology.

2011 is also the international Year of Chemistry, and as part of Science Week, ireland’s significant contribution to the growth and development of chemistry around the world will be explored.

During Science Week 2011 we’ll be looking at what lies ahead in chemistry. issues such as stem cell research, nuclear energy, water quality, GM foods, and disposal of waste all involve a lot of chemistry. We weave all our materials from atoms and molecules, so chemistry is the fabric of life.

What does chemistry mean to you?

During Science Week you can help us ask that question by becoming involved in organising events.

As the co-ordinator of Science Week, Discover Science and engineering, DSe, is making online resources available and will support regional partners in regional events. events can be in universities, institutes, in industry or community groups, and these will be part of the national programme on the website www.scienceweek.ie At this site, organisers can register their interest, download activity packs and order free merchandise.

Becoming involved will help stimulate an interest in science among young people and the public, and it can help build valuable relationships between local partners and the media.

To find out more visit the Resources section of the www.scienceweek.ie site and sign up for the newsletter to keep up to date on all the latest news and information.

Water A ViTAL ReSOURCe

During the international Year of Chemistry 2011 (iYC 2011), school students around the world are invited to explore one of earth’s most critical resources, water. The results of their investigations will contribute to a Global experiment, which will possibly become the biggest chemistry experiment ever.

There are four components to the experiments, Ph determination, salinity measurements, construction of a solar still, and how chemistry can provide clean drinking water.

Teachers are welcome to register themselves and their schools, and activity materials, including teacher guides, are downloadable from the web. in June a world chart based on all the material subitted up to then will be up on the web, and from then on it will be updated as more data is submitted.

To find out more and register, go to: http://water.chemistry2011.org/web/iyc LIVE LINK

During science Week 2010 over 115,000 people participated in over 505 events throughout the country Graphic and view of Earth from space, NASA

Deep water

At the Geoscience conference 2010, Orla Murphy from Tobin Consultants, explained how Ireland’s vulnerability to groundwater contamination is being mapped so that engineers, planners and local authorities can identify where In Ireland thousands of homes and there are likely to be problems. a number of factories draw water Mapping, she said, involves taking directly out of the ground. The a close look at each area, and assessing Geological Survey of Ireland estimates the risk of contamination reaching local that there are at least 100,000 wells aquifiers. The underlying bedrock and in active use, and in some counties, subsoil have a big bearing on how the such as Roscommon, over 80 per cent run off will behave. Lots of particles in of the drinking water comes from the soil usually means that drainage underground sources. The national is poor, but in other areas water can average dependency on groundwater is percolate quickly through sandy soils. In between 20 and 25 per cent. karst areas, surface contamination can Groundwater is an important reach groundwater quickly and without resource, but it is also at risk from any benefit of natural filtration. contamination, but being out of sight The mapping of vulnerability, she usually means out of mind, at least that said, has been in progress since 2007 is until the tap supply becomes unfit to as part of the Groundwater Protection drink. At that stage, once compromised, Scheme. By 2008 surveys of Sligo, cleaning up the supply, if possible at all, Leitrim, Longford, Louth and Dublin is likely to be extremely costly. had been completed, and this year Unlike a river or stream, Tipperary and Mayo will be covered A pump in County groundwater is diffuse and its passage Roscommon where most with Cork and Kerry to follow. through the soil is much slower. In practical terms, Assessing a location involves a mix of desk of the supply comes from this can mean that contamination might not even work, on site observation, and laboratory analysis. groundwater. be noticed at first, but once it is present, the supply On site investigation sometimes involves drilling, will remain unusable or, at least, compromised for but more often field observation plays a more a very long time. important role. “We drive around looking for exposures,” said Contamination can come from a variety of sources, Orla. “These can be new roads, pits or other developments.” some natural, but increasingly the pollution is from human They also keep an eye on the vegetation, for plants such as activities, such as discharge of sewage. Based on GSI estimates, juncus reeds and willows indicate poor permeability. The there are three septic tanks for every groundwater well. underlying geology, and how far bedrock is below, are A large number of pathogens arising from faecal also factors that have to be taken into account. Sandstone, contamination, such as Cryptospiridium, have a remarkable for example, will give rise to soils with coarser particles, ability to find their way into groundwater supplies. Spreading while limestone yields a more silty material. The soil type is of agricultural chemicals is also a problem, and according to important, said Orla, and out in the field this can be assessed the Geological Survey of Ireland, the run off of contamination by a simple, but very effective test. Plasticity, she explained, from the land has increased, and not alone does this harm shows that the high clay content is high, and if slapping a existing supplies, but it is likely to cut us off from, as yet, rolled up sample against your hand makes a splash, then the untapped reserves. permeability is definitely poor.

Charting the vulnerability for groundwater All of these observations are categorised and in contamination in County Westmeath. combination with bedrock mapping, the areas can be ranked as high, medium or low risk.

As Orla explained, the assessments are quite broad, and while they are not a substitute for the sort of detailed study that might have to be made at individual sites, the maps do show planners, engineers and local authorities the areas where groundwater quality is at most at risk. In North Tipperary, for example, where one third of the country has been classed as having ‘extreme vulnerability’ the local authorities now have a groundwater protection scheme. Under this, developments can only proceed when it can be shown that they pose no risk to groundwater. As part of any planning application, developers have to give details on how grease, oil and other detrimental materials will be removed before discharge of waste water.

Run off from farms and buildings can put our supplies of groundwater at risk. Tom Kennedy reports on how the risks are being mapped.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 32

A Northern Bottlenose Whale was seen from Pulleen Harbour, Beara, Co Cork in August 2005. It is extremely rare to see beaked whales inshore as they are usually confined to deeper waters of 2500m.

Photograph by Conor Ryan.

Weather Buoy platform used to study Beaked Whales

By Cushla Dromgool-Regan, Marine Institute

t

he Irish Weather Buoy network, which celebrated its tenth birthday recently, has established itself as a key service provider in generating information used for producing accurate weather forecasts, ensuring maritime safety around Ireland’s coasts and more recently facilitating access to other researchers seeking information about the sea.

The first weather buoy M-1, was launched west of Inishmore in the Aran Islands ten years ago followed by five other buoys forming a ring around the coast of Ireland. Each buoy is anchored to the ocean floor in waters ranging from 90 to 3,000 metres deep, supporting a large steel superstructure that carries equipment feeding back a stream of information on wind speed,

sea and air temperatures, wave height and direction to the Marine Institute, Met Eireann and the UK Met Office and the Department of Transport.

“While the weather buoy network’s primary function is to provide information to increase safety in Irish Waters, the buoys have also been able to provide marine scientists with a means to conduct research, where they would not have had continuous access to the deeper parts of the ocean in the past”, explained Dr Glenn Nolan of the Marine Institute.

Studying deep water animals such as beaked whales, that spend most of their time underwater at depths of 1000m, has been difficult for scientists to monitor using the standard visual and

Deep C Pod being attached to the mooring wire of the M6 weather buoy.

Photograph by Dave Wall, IWDG & GMIT

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page xx

towed hydrophone acoustic surveys.

This has led to a deficiency of data to gauge the conservation status of deep diving cetaceans such as the beaked whale.

In a project known as PReCAST, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group and the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology have deployed a deepwater microphone system called “Deep C-Pods” from the M6 weather buoy. This will allow them to detect porpoises, dolphins and other toothed whales, far from the clutter of ocean surface noise, in a quiet deep-water environment, where beaked whales are known to vocalise and feed west of the Porcupine Bank.

“The Deep C-Pod’s battery pack has a recording duration of 4-5 months.

Therefore, when the data is recovered and analysed, it will provide vital information on the daily activity of beaked whales and other deep diving whale and dolphin species in the area of the M6 Buoy,” explained Dave Wall, who is responsible for offshore surveys under the PReCAST project.

The existing evidence, based on modelling data and surveys suggests that beaked whales have a distribution that is restricted by habitat requirements.

Survey data also suggests that beaked whale distribution is more habitat-specific than that of other deep diving species such as sperm whales or pilot whales.

“We hope to establish the extent of the beaked whales occurrence in Irish waters and whether they are resident or migratory or the extent to which they rely on specific habitat types such as sub-sea canyons. This data used with other surveys will help establish information used for future conservation purposes,” said Dave.

PReCAST is funded under the Sea Change strategy with the support of the Marine Institute and the Marine Research Sub-Programme of the National Development Plan 2007-2013 (Grant Aid Agreement No. PBA/ ME/07/005 (02)).

Above: Sowerby’s Beaked Whale is among those inhabiting Irish waters.

THE VOLCANOLOGIST

In the field, Chris Bean in Tenerife

Seán Duke reports that watching the Moon landing in 1969 opened Chris Bean’s eyes to the world of science.

S

cience led Chris Bean into unexpected and exciting directions, such as finding himself the top of a volcano in Costa Rica, ‘listening in’ for signs of activity.

The first time Chris Bean recalls being interested in science was as a young boy, watching the historic 1969 moon landings. His father got him out of bed to watch the events unfold on what he remembers as a very speckly black and white TV. He was totally captivated – hooked – and he followed all the other Apollo missions in detail.

The interest in science continued from there, and by the time he was in 6th year in school he had begun to develop an interest in the Earth and its natural processes. That interest was triggered at that time by visits to the geology museum at TCD. A friend of Chris’s was interested in physical geography – the study of the Earth’s natural features - and his friend’s brother was studying physics in TCD. “We used to go down there to hang out after school in 6th year to play snooker, sometimes popping into the geology department for a look around,” recalls Chris. “Yes, officially we probably shouldn’t have been there, but nobody ever tried to stop us.”

SCHOOL

Neither of Chris’s parents were scientists, and rather there was a strong interest in classical music in the house.

He did a lot of music as a boy, and for a time he might have thought that his

ultimate destiny was to be a classical musician. The boarding school he went to for a time specialised in music, but, he changed schools after the Junior Certificate when he realised that he was not going to follow a career in music.

At primary school there wasn’t much science taught, he recalls. This was before there was a proper science curriculum at primary level. There were nature studies, but even that was “on the light side”. He remembers being interested in the physical aspect of geography, learning about rivers and so on, but it’s a bit hazy, he says. Primary school students today have a more interesting programme he believes.

Nevertheless, by the time he entered second level his interest in science was gaining strength, and after Junior Cert he decided to take physics for the Leaving Certificate. He went to two different secondary schools, St Finian’s in Mullingar, a school renowned for music, but that also had good science labs, and later to Synge Street in Dublin, which is a school with a great reputation for science and has produced several winners of the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition over the years.

COLLEGE

He went to UCD to study science, and headed in a decidely mathematical direction. His subjects were maths and maths physics, after also taking physics in first year. There was no clear career path in his mind at this point, he

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 34

just ‘followed his nose’ and did what he was interested in doing.

He loved the college experience, and enjoyed it much more than school.

There was much more freedom, and it was much more open, he says, in terms of the learning experience. It required taking control of things for yourself, but that’s a good thing, he says, and college is a fantastic experience for students that “fully engage” with it.

By now, he found himself watching Earth Science documentaries on television and he realised he was interested in using maths as a way to study how the Earth’s natural processes, such as volcanoes and earthquakes, work. He started down this road by doing an M.Sc. in Applied Geophysics at NUI Galway. Next he did a PhD at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), spending a lot of time in Karlsruhe University in Germany as part of that. This was a really exciting time for Chris, doing research and travelling the world to present his finding at various conferences. Some of the people he met abroad during this time are still among his best friends.

JOB

Chris says that he was “pretty lucky” to get a job at UCD immediately after he finished his PhD at the DIAS. Since then he has also had several visiting positions in France, Spain and the US. One of the great things, of course, about being a scientist is that it offers the chance to work and live abroad, meet new people and learn about different countries, but still then be able to come back to a job in Ireland afterwards.

In terms of his work, Chris says that he studies several aspects of geophysical science, that is the physics of the Earth in all its aspects. This includes learning about volcanoes, says Chris. Volcanoes are interesting, he says because we don’t know how they work. The goal is to figure out how volcanoes actually work, which is not to be confused, he says, with describing how they seem to be working.

The volcano work involves going to exciting places and collecting data on volcanoes. It also involves lots of computer simulations of volcano processes. Chris and his colleagues develop new models and write their own software to apply these models.

The work on volcanoes is interesting, but it can also be dangerous, even fatal. Some of Chris’s colleagues were killed in the 1993 eruption on Galeras, Columbia, but he says, such deaths are very unusual.

He doesn’t worry too much about the dangers, but neither is he reckless. He cancelled a field experiment due to take place on a volcano in Costa Rica last year, as he was not happy about the safety arrangements.

He also likes to make the point that there is more to geophysics than studying hazards such as volcanoes and earthquakes. There are aspects that are important to civil engineering and building projects, mineral exploration, petroleum exploration, and, increasingly, in the renewable energy area.

ADVICE

Science is exciting, and fun, but like most things it requires dedication adn there is no quick or easy route to success. For someone that is very

interested in science, then a career in science can be very rewarding, says Chris.

“The best thing is that fundamentally you are searching for ‘the truth’, for how things work and fit together,” says Chris.

“If you are doing your job properly you will be open to changing your ideas as new evidence requires and you certainly will not toe the partly line, instead you will think independently. The worst thing is that it is hard to switch off. When you walk out of the office your job often walks with you with stuff swirling around in your head.”

In terms of monetary rewards, he says that scientists might have been exploited somewhat in the past because they were so committed to their jobs.

This meant that they didn’t have to be incentivised financially, as a lot of them were driven first and foremost to discover new knowledge.

Spacebots In an annual competition students completed to build a space robot using kits supplied by the Cork Electronics Industry association. This year, the winners from the Christian Brothers College, Sidney Hill, had to fend off stiff competition from the girls’ Ursuline Secondary School, Blackrock.

Sian ní Sheoige, science teacher at Coláiste an Phiarsaigh, Glanmire, said the competition has a lasting positive influence on how students perceive maths and engineering.

Many of the previous participants are now studying electronics and engineering at third level.

UCC, CIT, Tyndall and electronics companies in the Cork region collaborate in running the competition, and this support includes a high level of mentoring.

More information from Deirdre de Bhailis 086 2228339 deirdre.debhailis@ceia.ie

www.ceia.ie LIVE LINK

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 35

The upside of this, he says, is that science must therefore be a career with very high levels of job satisfaction, as people are not going into it for purely financial reward.

This situation might be changing, said Chris, and the future looks bright for science.

The best advice he would give is to for students to do what they love best.

“Do law or medicine of you are really interested in law or medicine,” he says.

“If you are interested in science and creative new discoveries, do science and it can lead you so some very strange and interesting places.”

“When I was an undergraduate, I never realistically thought that I would be hiking up volcanoes in Costa Rica and getting paid to do it.”

How and wHy evolution works

The book’s author, Wallace Arthur, Professor of Zoology at NUI Galway.

H

ow we came to be here remains as big a mystery as ever, but at least we now have a much better idea of how evolution happens. Creationists, who are still with us, especially on the other side of the Atlantic, might like to know that the devil, they do not wish to know about, is in the details.

How, they ask, can one animal possibly become another, with no clear stages in between? Thus, the mad scramble to find all those ‘missing links’.

Evolution is not, however, a slow progressive morphing of one external form into another, and indeed if this had been the case, the Creationists might have been right to suggest that time could never have been long enough for us to stumble upon the equivalent of a fully functional wound up watch lying by the seashore.

External appearances, like symptoms of diseases in medicine, while important, are only end results, and to find the underlying causes we have to delve a little deeper. When we look at a monkey, zebra, snake, or human, what we see are the final expressions of inherited sets of instructions, known as genes. These instructions can be rearranged, copied, tagged to suppress or enhance expression, and they can even be transferred. Every cell, of which there are billions in a

body, had thousands and thousands of these genes, and the fact that they can be turned on or off, or organised into functional groups, makes the whole process of evolution much more flexible than previously imagined.

In his text book, Evolution, a development approach, Wallace Arthur, Professor of Zoology at NUI Galway, describes just how complex this process is now understood to be. As he notes, there are so many genes, processes, and proteins involved, that it can be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, yet

delving deeper has given us a much clearer view of how evolution in general actually works.

Although this is a text intended for third level students and professional biologists, Prof Arthur’s book brings anyone with more than a passing interest up to date on the mechanisms involved in evolution, and as he notes, we should go easy on the assumptions.

For example, evolution is not necessarily a one way route to higher things, and lots of parasites have done quite well for themselves by discarding most of their organs. Another common view is that geographical isolation is necessary for the emergence of new species. It certainly can, and does, but it is not the only factor involved. Because of a fairly common process, known as allopolyploidy, two parent species can produce viable progeny that cannot breed back but remain fertile as a completely new species. The common spartina by the seashore, Spartina townsendii, is just one of the many examples, and for thousands of years farmers have been making use of this ‘evolutionary jump’ to breed new and better crops.

One of the significant findings in evolutionary biology was the discovery that genes often exist as sets. Studies of those mutant fruit flies, Drosophilia, so beloved by geneticists because of their fast breeding and super sized chromosomes, revealed that it is possible for entire body parts, such as an eye, or a wing, to develop in the wrong place. Follow up studies in the 1980s confirmed that these genetic groups, known as HOX genes, exist in all animals, and that genes, and their clusters, are not just expressed at random, but become active in an orderly progression.

In many ways, these sets of instructions are like modules, and while they are highly conservative, they can be adapted so that features that are important in one species might be enhanced, or suppressed, in another. The author gives a good example in how some mammals have longer necks than others. The underlying pattern, almost without exception, is for mammals to have just seven neck vertebrae. While long necked birds can add vertebrae, mammals, such as the giraffe, must stick to the basic pattern, but make the seven vertebrae longer.

The fact that the underlying rules can remain quite strict, while being expressed in different ways means that plants and animals are almost like those shape changers of science fiction.

This is particularly so of adults, and with embryos the common origins are so much easier to spot because not everything has yet been expressed.

External change is not always the result of a novel mutation, and it is often much easier, more efficient, and quicker to co-opt existing genes to perform a different function.

This is a fascinating and fast moving field, and as the author suggests, always keep an open mind. It is not that long ago that scientific journals refused to consider publishing papers on the so called ‘jumping genes’, yet we now accept transpons as perfectly normal, and I am sure Lamark, the 18th century scientist who spent so much time chopping the tails off mice to see if he could breed a sort of manx mouse, would love to have known about epigenetics. Modifying the expression of genes by attaching a methyl group

Science and technology in the 19th century

W

hile the title might suggest that we are going to read all about scientists and engineers, most of the authors in this book are more concerned with the social environment in which they worked. Tyndall, for example, lived at a time when the idea of rational progress could bring order to the world was strong. As Thomas Dudley in his chapter, writes, Tyndall had no time for Plato or Aristotle. His heroes were scientists such as Coppernicus and, of course, Darwin. Tyndall was, of course, a great scientist, but his immediate popularity undoubtedly lay in his being completely in tune with the improving attitudes of his day.

Coupled with this belief in selfimprovement and ‘progress’ was the notion of ‘purity’. This was the era of Father Matthew and the temperance movement, and when a self-styled Captain Claridge began promoting cold water cures in Ireland, the scientifically aware upper classes eagerly flocked to his lectures and demonstrations. Elizabeth Neswald, in her contribution to the book, explains how hydropathy, originating in Austria, swept like a cult across Europe. Like phrenology, these cold water cures had all the appearance of being scientific, while satisfying the desire to attain some kind of inner purity.

Naturally, there were those who said the mere appearance of being scientific is just not good enough, among them, Dr John Murphy from the Royal

College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Interestingly, the hydropathic physicians, who had by then established themselves, fought hard to maintain their position and income.

Pointing out, that conventional ‘drugging’ often did more harm than good, they warned that on no account should untrained practitioners be allowed apply hydropathic cures. Selfprotection, it seems, is nothing new.

At the time, professions are a lot less clearly defined than they are now, and as another section in the book indicates, that lack of formal constraints could have its benefits.

Ian Elliott, in his account of the telescope making firm, Grubbs, notes that the founder, Thomas, had no

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 37

to the nitrogenous bases, a process in epigenetics, known as methylation, has often been described as a form of genetic memory.

Evolution, a developmental approach Wallace Arthur Wiley-Blackwell Tom Kennedy There is a companion website for the book with figures and tables for downloading, www.wiley.com/go/arthur/evolution

formal training in engineering, yet by the age of 32 he was well on the way to making an international reputation for the excellence of his work. His interest in optics was sparked off by a request to improve the mounting of Edward Cooper’s 13.3 inch telescope at Markree Castle in County Sligo. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for someone to follow their interest in quite the same way today, and it seems that Thomas was never convinced that formal training could make up for his own kind of hands-on experience. When a big order for a four foot reflector came in from Melbourne, he promptly withdrew his son from his third year of engineering at TCD so that he could oversee the setting up of the workshops.

The story of Grubbs is fascinating, and Ian Elliott’s account of how the firm grew and how it eventually failed, is well worth reading Men had more freedom to do what they wanted, but if women wanted to follow their interests, they usually had to do it in a roundabout way. Éadoin Agnew gives the example of Mary Ward, who at the age of seven, was smart enough to appreciate her father’s birthday gift, Buffon’s Natural History. That interest led on to her becoming an expert in exploring the world of nature through the microscope, but although socially well connected, her husband was not well off, so she eventually made her mark by self-publishing books about teaching with the microscope.

During the mid nineteenth century there were moves to improve the teaching of science, and contrary to the usual perception, Ireland was in the lead with the establishment of the Royal College of Science in Ireland in

1867. Clara Cullen in her contribution to the book, explains that the College, based an existing School of Science and Museum of Industry, was the first comprehensive attempt by the United Kingdom government to promote scientific and technical education. This again, is a bit of history that deserves to be better known, and of course, it was not all smooth progress. At one stage the Royal Dublin Society was being considered for the role, and when Sir Robert Kane was confirmed as Dean, he complained bitterly that “nothing was ready, not more than one-half the professors were appointed.” Even so, the legacy of that college survives in the sciences at UCD. Whether or not the Royal Dublin Society would have been a suitable body to take charge could well have been controversial because of their

former opposition to Sunday openings.

Amazingly, for a society that has done so much for science in Ireland, the 19th century Council, was completely opposed to having the Botanic Gardens open on Sundays. As Vandro Costello explains in her section on practical science and religion, there were fears, apart from keeping the Lord’s Day sacred, that the humbler classes, lacking the refinement to appreciate the better things in life, would run riot.

True, not everyone in the Royal Dublin Society subscribed to this unfortunate view, and as Vandro Costello pointed out, there were those who argued that the same humbler classes would benefit from a clean, healthy uplifting alternative to drinking, dog fights and boxing.

The Royal Dublin Zoo had already opened to the public on Sundays in 1841, but it was not until the House

of Commons threatened to withdraw their annual grant of £6,000 that the Royal Dublin Society, claiming that their stance represented “educated opinion” gave in to popular demand, and as we know know, there were no riots in Glasnevin.

The collection of eleven sections, mostly written in an academic rather than popular style, and quite pricey at €55 hardback, was edited by Juiliana Adelman, a post-doc fellow at TCD, and Éadaoin Agnew, lecturer in English literature at Kingston College, London.

Science and technology in nineteenth century Ireland Editors: Juliana Adelman and Éadaoin Agrew.

Four Courts, Dublin, 2011.

Hardback, 192pp. €55 Tom Kennedy

Books from Albertine Kennedy Publishing Rock around Ireland Peadar McArdle shows us the structure of Ireland Colour The science and art of colour explained by Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy The Exemption Vera Hajnal has an extraordinary story to tell of survival through one of the world’s darkest periods.

St Vincent’s Fairview Aidan Collins describes the history and the literary associations.

Bewley’s Hugh Oram account of how the café became a national institution in this facsimile of the original book.

.... and more to come.

Watch out for new titles this year. l Coming soon — the new Science Spin book store. Buy a bigger selection of books on line, and subscribers will qualify for substantial discounts.

www.sciencespin.com SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 38

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Sweet scent of daisy relations A fruity scented alien has taken up residence, and although with us for over a century, Tom Kennedy writes that it lacks the historical associations of its longer established relation.

T

here was a time when the cows, coming in from the fields to be milked, tramped by the back of this house in Mayo. The dun brown and glossy black cows are long gone, and with them went the spreading patches of sweetly scented pineapple mayweed.

Just a few stragglers come up every year, and that is the way with wild plants. Most are quite fussy about where they choose to grow, and I am not sure if it was the lack of cow pat nourishment, or the undisturbed ground that has made these plants retreat.

As a child I always associated the scent of these plants with bubble gum and cows. In a way, the association with bubble gum could be a closer, for both have an overly sweet fruity fragrance.

The scent, and the fact that the greenish yellow flower heads even look like pineapples gave us the common name for a plant that most botanists know as Matricaria suaveolens. Like the common daisy, it is one of the Asteraceae, a family that includes a number of aromatic species, and botanists do not always agree on how these plants should be classified. Look up Pineapple Mayweed, and you might find that the genus, Matricaria, is given as Chamomillia, but the species, suaveolens is the same.

Low growing, and lacking the distinctive ring of white ray florets, Pineapple Mayweed is not showy but it is quite common, especially on well trampled broken ground, and surprisingly, it is a fairly recent blow-in. It originated in north east

Top: Pineapple Mayweed. Photo: Krzystof Ziarnek.

Above: Low lying Pineapple Mayweed on disturbed ground in County Mayo. Photo: TK Source Archives.

Asia, and was first recorded in Dublin just before the end of the 19th century, about thirty years after it appeared in England. Now this alien is like an old native, but without much of a past in local folklore, and I am not sure if it even has a proper rather

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 39

than an invented Irish name, unlike its better known, and longer established relative, the Common, or Roman Chamomile, which has at least two names, Camán míolla and Comán meall milis.

Roman Chamomile, known to botanists as Anthemis, or Chamaemelum noblis, is undoubtedly better known because it has been around these parts for long enough for the Saxons to have included it as one of the nine sacred herbs, together with mugwort, plantain, watercress, nettle, crab apple, chervil, fennel, and one named ‘atterlothe’ which no one has yet been able to identify.

As a useful herb, Roman Chamomile has undoubtedly been given a helping hand in its spread, but even if accepted as a true native, if not all that common, and it seems that where it could not be found, Pineapple Mayweed might even have been pressed into service as a substitute. It is, after all a very close relation, and it shares a similar aromatic character. In their book on the ethnobotany of Britain and Ireland, David Allen and Gabriella Hatfield record that Pineapple Mayweed was being used in Wales to treat boils during the early years of the 20th century.

No knowing how long it takes for folk cures to develop, and while the Pineapple Mayweed arrived centuries too late for that to happen, Roman Chamomile comes to us with an established history as a useful herb. As with so many useful herbs however, folklore, especially in Ireland, is not that good at informing us what Roman Chamomile was actually useful for.

However, the terpenoids, flavonoids, coumarins and a long list of other biologically active constituents that have been found through analysis, suggest that the plant’s reputation as a good pick-me-up tonic is well deserved. Besides, it makes a pleasant enough tea and it smells good.

Roman Chamomile is popular with gardeners, who, of course are always looking out for ways to improve on nature. Gardens are, in fact, filled with colourful freaks, and among them is a fairly expensive one, known as ‘Treneague’, a non-flowering sport of Roman Chamomile first spotted by Dorothy Sewart growing in her Cornwall garden. As a genetic oddity, the flowerless sport can only be propagrated from cuttings, but when planted out, Treneague grows into a scented lawn, one of which was later laid out at Buckingham Palace, and there is also one by Springhill House at Moneymore in Northern Ireland.

While the botanical nomenclature is already confused enough, the name Chamomile is a bit like chocolate, the sort we all know as Cadbury’s, and the sort we get from Switzerland.

We can enjoy both, but according to European law, only the continental

German Chamomile with its daisy like flowers and finely divided leaves. chocolate is real chocolate. The ingredients are different, and in the case of Chamomile, our Roman plant is not even the same species as the one cultivated and harvested widely on the Continent.

While both species are used for much the same purposes, German, or Genuine Chamomile, Matricaria chamomilla, is regarded as the real thing, and it is regarded as more potent. This is the Chamomile that comes in little tea bags, and its also the herbal ingredient in a whole range of shampoos that promise to put the gold highlights back into dull and listless blond hair.

Chamomile is certainly popular in Germany where thousands of tonnes of the herb are grown and processed into consumer products every year. About half a million kilos a year are exported to the US, mainly as herbal teas. In England, Norfolk Oils has fields of German and English Chamomile, and the company distills the volatile oils for the world market. It is certainly a big business, involving harvesting of high yielding strains, and as a valuable crop, researchers have found it worthwhile to look at the plant in detail. About 120 different chemical constitutients have been described, and at the University of Piza, a group of researchers, Andrea Andreucci, Daniela Ciccarelli, Isabella Desideri and Anna Pagni, found that the stems, leaves and ovaries are covered by microscopically small hairs, each just a stack of eight cells, six of which secrete active constituents, which are stored at the tip under a fragile cuticle cap. Any disturbance is likely to break that cap, releasing the constituents. Most other parts of the plant, including the roots were found to have secretory ducts, and it is thought that while these co-exist with the hairs, they may play a different role in the complex processes that maintain the plant.

While Pineapple Mayweed has needed no deliberate encouragement to spread far and wide from its original home in Asia, German Chamomile, native to mid and southern Europe, has spread throughout the rest of Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia through cultivation.

SPIN

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 46 Page 40

The Brownshill Dolmen in Co Carlow, dating to circa 3000 BC, is the largest in Europe with its granite capstone weighing over one hundred and fifty tons.

Photograph by Ian Michael.

Du Noyer Geological Photography Competition 2011 Entries are invited for the 13th Du Noyer Geological Photography Competition George Victor Du Noyer, who served as a geologist with the Geological Survey of Ireland from 1847 to 1869, was a skilled field artist whose numerous sketches and pictures, with their combination of artistic skill and technical accuracy, were the “field photographs” of their day.

This competition seeks to encourage the same blend of artistic and scientific skills through the medium of photography.

Prizes will be awarded in two categories, Irish and Foreign, and a prize fund of €800 applies.

Entrants may submit a maximum of 4 photographs, print or digital, illustrating any aspect of field geology or scenic landscapes. Previously published photographs are not eligible for entry, and the organisers are not in a position to return entries.

The competition will be judged by a panel including representatives of the Irish Geological Association, the GSI and external nominees and their decision will be final. Entries will be exhibited and prizes awarded at a GSI Cunningham Awards ceremony in early December 2011.

We will acknowledge all entries by e-mail. Winners only, will be notified directly in November 2011 and results will be posted on the GSI website in December 2011.

GSI reserves the right to reproduce entries in its publications and promotional activity with due acknowledgement.

Print entries should be posted in an envelope marked “Du Noyer Competition” to: Cartography Unit, Geological Survey of Ireland, Beggars Bush, Haddington Rd, Dublin 4 or digital entries should be e-mailed to info@planetearth.ie

What are the judges looking for?

Creativity, technical skill, and above all, good geological content.

Closing date for entries: Friday 7th October 2011

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1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 10100 101010 001011 01100 101011 01 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 STEM 0 0 0 0 1 110 Communicating 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 01100 Conference 1 0 2011 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 100110 0000 10101 11100 01010 11 01 1101010 100010 100110 101010 0010Success 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 Through Synergy 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1101 100101 010010 1001101 0101100 010 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 01101 000 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0010 111010 11000 10110 0 0 0 0011 10101 10101 0010 10010 10 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 10 VENUE: 0 1 1 1 0 RIVER LEE HOTEL, WESTERN ROAD, CORK. 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 01 DATE: 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 TIME: 9:45 - 5:15 101 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 001100110 1010101 101001 11101010 110 10 0000 01111010 011000 101000 0101100 1 100110001011010101010 1010100 010101110001110101010 001 10101011 010 “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress.

Working together is success.”

– Henry Ford

The goal of this conference is to provide delegates with the tools required to create and develop partnerships that promote science, engineering, technology and maths. Case

studies of successful partnerships between education, science outreach organisations and industry on a European, national and local level will be shared and discussed. Practical ways for industry to integrate these activities into a corporate social responsibility programme will also be presented.

At a time of limited resourses, the conference will focus on leveraging existing networks as a means to develop quality initiatives that engage a greater number of students, educators and families with STEM outreach activities.

Register before May 23rd, and receive an early bird discount rate of €50.

For more information, contact Caitríona Geraghty at cgeraghty@engineersireland.ie, or log on to www.steps.ie.

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 42 Page xx