ISSUE
50
Jan/Feb 2012
€5 including VAT £4 NI and UK
SCIENCE
SPIN
IRELAND’S SCIENCE NATURE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE
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BODY FLUIDS Tiny channels that maintain a healthy balance
QUASICRYSTAL Structures that defy the old rules
SCIENCE FOR LIFE
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SPIN In the annual Science Snaps competition, run by Tyndall National Institute and Discover Science and Engineering the first prize in the junior section went to Paul McKay from Wesley College for his photograph of a water drop Publisher Science Spin Ltd 5 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. www.sciencespin.com Email: tom@sciencespin.com Editor Tom Kennedy tom@sciencespin.com
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SCIENCE FOR LIFE
Choosing science for an interesting and satisfactory career
Dr How’s science wows
Contributing editor Seán Duke sean@sciencespin.com Business Manager Alan Doherty alan@sciencespin.com
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Upfront
Naomi Lavelle explores the science of sound
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City of Science
Anna Nolan talks to Professor Patrick Cunningham and reports on LIVE LINK
Design and Production Albertine Kennedy Publishing Cloonlara, Swinford, Co Mayo
plans for this year’s big international celebration of science
Glorious gastropods Anthea Lacchia writes about Irish fossils
Young scientists Picture research Source Photographic Archive www.iol.ie/~source.foxford/ Printing Turner Group, Longford
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A glance back at 2011
Controlling the flow
Tom Kennedy reports on the discovery of channels that regulate our body fluids
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Science meets art
Margaret Franklin writes about novel crystalline patterns that turned out to have a connection to the decorative arts
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Reviews
Books about insects, spce shuttles and a story from the mangrove swamps
Science Snaps Winning entries from the national competition
SCIENCE
ON AIR Go to
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Geological Survey of Ireland Suirbhéireacht Gheolaiochta Eireann
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Testing at sea
UPFRONT
Developers of marine technology are being offered free access to testing facilities under a scheme being run through the Marine Renewable Infrastructure Network. The EC funded scheme is being led by the Hydraulics and Marine Research Centre in Cork, and the aim is to make it easier for EU member state companies and research groups to undertake tests in countries that would not be covered by national grants. There are 42 testing facilities at 28 research centres spread over 12 countries, and the scheme will encourage greater collaboration between these. Applications for support should be completed by 29th February 2012 and the form is available from 222.fp7-marinet.eu
Regional differences
The Type of industries in an area have a big influence on how that region develops. The south east, with fewer multinationals than elsewhere in Ireland, has higher unemployment figures, 18.2 per cent compared to the national average of 14.3 per cent. There are 66 multinationals in the region, employing 12,650 people, and under an action plan to boost performance, the IDA and Enterprise Ireland are to ramp up promotion of support packages. In December, Minister Richard Bruton announced publication of an action plan for the south east. This is available as a PFD download from: http://www.forfas.ie/publication/search.jsp?ft=/publications/2011/title,8631,en.php
OpenHydro
The TiDal energy company, OpenHydro has gone from being a research based start-up to its present status as an international player. The company has also won a succession of awards to match that progress, the latest being selected as “Best Irish company in France.� OpenHydro has developed technology to harvest energy from tidal drift, and in France links have been established with two major-companies, EDF and DCNS. The company has been making quite a reputation as an innovator, and among its achievement was being first to install a marine energy device connected to the UK grid at the European test centre in Orkney.
Maritime cluster
a research base for marine developments has been established at Ringaskiddy involving collaboration between University College Cork, Cork Institute of Technology, and the Irish Naval Service. An enterprise centre with incubation units is planned and the cluster is to focus on emerging opportunities in such areas as shipping, energy and recreation.
Liquid storage
CHEMISTS at the University of Oregon have come up with a way to store hydrogen in a liquid. Prof Shih-yuan liu and his team worked on a six-membered cyclic amine borane, one of a number of materials that can release hydrogen, but only in solid form. By adapting the structure to reduce the number of ring members from 6 to 5 the chemists succeeded in creating a liquid carrier of hydrogen.
Technology transfer
TECHNOlOgy transfer offices from 21 research organisations around Europe have signed up to an agreement to collaborate on supporting innovation. Dominique Ristori, Director general of the European Joint Research Centre, said the agreement provides an example that others involved in technology transfer could follow. Thirteen countries are represented, France, Italy, germany, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Spain, The Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland Turkey and the UK. Ireland, however, does not yet appear to have signed up.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 2
Ground heat
ACCORDINg to the geothermal Association of Ireland, for every unit of electricity used to power heat pumps, three to four units of heat are produced. The Association formed in 1998 has been promoting the development of geothermal energy in Ireland as a sustainable source of heating power. In 2011 the Association selected a home in County Meath for their annual award. The system, installed at the McDonald household has an open loop with two wells. Thermal energy is extracted via a heat exchanger from groundwater, and this is supplemented by heat recovery from bathroom exhaust, with cooled water going back into a recharge well. In presenting the award the Association, while giving no details on installation costs, noted that heating the house would now be a quarter of the cost if oil had been used. Certificates of merit were for three other projects, two in County Kerry and one in County Cork.
www.geothermalassociation.ie
Ocean energy
In October 2012 hundreds of experts from around the world will take part in the 4th international conference on Ocean Energy being held in Dublin. icoe2012dublin@seai.ie. LIVE
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Contamination down
The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, reports that measurements of E coli in drinking water show that there has been a steady decrease in levels since 2004. E coli is the marker micro-organism commonly used to indicate the extent of bacterial pollution. During 2010 E coli was detected at least once in 20 public water supplies out of a total of 929. This is seven less detections than the previous year, and a similar decline was found with private supplies. The EPA has been monitoring supplies, and in 2008 339 were listed as in need of remedial action. Since then 166 have been taken off the list, but the largest one, the Vartry Reservoir supplying 500,000 people in Dublin and Wicklow is among those that still need to be upgraded.
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Old regulators
Scientific adviser
Professor Anne Glover, a molecular biologist from scotland, has been appointed Europe’s Chief Scientific Adviser by the european Commission. Until December Anne Glover was the Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland, a post she held from 2006. In scotland the main focus of her office was on health, but in the new position Prof Glover will have a much wider brief. In calling for the creation of this post two years ago, the eC President, José Barroso, said there was a need for someone with the authority to deliver scientific advice during all stages of policy development and delivery.
Retaining nutrients
AfTer felling of trees in forestry plantations, phosphorous is lost as remaining branches and needles degrade. The phosphorous is washed away, thereby depleting the ground before replanting. In a study by Coford, fast growing grasses were planted after clearfelling to see if this would help retain the phosphorous. At Burrishoole, Co Mayo, Holcus lanatus, yorkshire fog, and Agrostis capillaris, Bent Grass, were sown over three plots of between 100 and 600 square metres. A year later the researchers, Dr Liwen Xiao, Dr Michael rodgers, Connie o’Driscoll, Mark o’Connor and Zaki-ul-Zaman Asam from nUI Galway, found that phosphorous levels were between 2.83 and 3.07 kg per hectare, which was a good deal higher than the 0.02 kg P per ha in the unseeded areas.
Key regulators maintaining biological systems have survived since life first evolved on earth. The remarkable persistence of one such regulator was revealed by researchers who had been looking at a molecular mechanism associated with leukemia. A team led by Dr Ali stilatifard from the stowers Institute working with colleagues from the University of Michigan found that a complex that regulates gene expression in yeast is a perfect match for a complex that occurs in humans. This particular complex in involved in packaging genes, winding the DnA around protein spools. Addition or removal of methyl groups tightens or loosens these spools, turning the gene on or off. The researchers had first become interested in this mechanism because
when it was expressed in the wrong place, because of an error in chromosome replication, is caused aggressive leukemia. When the y shaped molecular structure at the heart of this complex was examined using electron microscopy, it was found to have an almost identical architecture to the corresponding structure not only in yeast, but in all the species between. About 30 years ago, Janet rowley, a geneticist, suggested that relocating of genes could be the cause of aggressive leukaemia. Her suggestion was dismissed immediately as heresy, as was the idea of finding something similar in yeast suggested by st stilatifard twelve years ago. reports on the recent research were published at the end of 2011 in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Proceedings of the national Academy of sciences.
Ignoring the neighbours
AnDy Pollak from the Centre for Cross Border studies at Queen’s wonders why so few institutions and researchers from south of the border are interested in all-island collaboration. Having held two conferences over the past few months on cross-border training and economic revival, he was surprised to find that hardly anyone from the Irish republic turned up in spite of the fact that speakers and academics from many other border regions across europe were there in force. While noting that there have been some exceptions, Andy, in his note from the next Door neighbours, said he gets the impression that the idea of cooperation has become a bit of a bore.
Growing heart cells
AUsTrALIAn scientists working with collaborators in The netherlands have announced that a supply of heart cells to support research can now be produced from embryonic stem cells. one of the lead researchers, David elliott from Monash University has published results in the journal nature Methods explaining that linking the developing heart cells to a green fluoresent marker made it possible to pick them out from a cultural mix. The greeen fluorescence, originally produced by jellyfish, has
become popular in genetic engineering, and in this case it has become a valuable marker enabling scientists to culture a dependable supply of heart cells for research. As the researchers explain, work on developing treatments for heart disease have been hampered up to now by the lack of an adequate supply of cells in culture. other members of the research team are applying a similar approach to isolate insulin producing cells and blood cells which have the potential for treating leukemia.
Stepping out
A downloadable audio guide is available to lead walkers along Dublin’s royal Canal to the spot where William rowan Hamilton scratched out his equation for a revolutionary new form of algebra. Hamilton’s quaternions extended mathematics into four dimensions, laying the foundation for the sort of calculations that are used both in graphics and in positioning of space crafts. The audio guide, developed by science writer, Mary Mulvihill, leading walkers along a four km route can be downloaded from www.ingeniousireland.ie/podcast-audio-tours/ LIVE LINK
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 3
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UPFRONT Dr Mike Hartnett from NUI Galway’s Ryan Institute
Bay watch
A rAdAr system is recording wave heights and directions in Galway Bay. The system, deployed by researchers from the ryan Institute at NUI Galway is part of a project in which the bay is being used to develop more effective ways of monitoring conditions at sea. At NUI Galway, the Modelling and Informatics Group, led by dr Mike Hartnett, is working in collaboration with the IBM Smarter Cities Technology Centre in dublin. According to dr Hartnett, complex conditions involving wind and tides make it difficult to develop a good forecast model for Galway Bay, and the aim is to beat that challenge. Ultimately, the modeling system will deliver information to sailors and fishermen, and it will help local authorities control discharges that could have an impact on the environment. Two antennae have been erected, one on Mutton Island and the other at Spiddal. The antennae pick up half hourly recordings from the water surface, which are then transmitted back to NUI Galway. The system being developed for Galway Bay is likely to result in better predictive modeling for other coastal areas.
Horizon
UNder the banner Horizon 2020, the funding of european research and development is to come under one single programme. At the same time, overall funding from 2014 to 2020 is to be higher than it has been under the current Framework 7 programme. In making the announcement, Commissioner Máire Geoghegan Quinn said that the focus is to be on innovation, and to encourage this red tape is to be cut drastically. With an overall budget of €80 billion, €24.6 billion is to be invested in making the eU a world leader in the sciences. The european research Council, which has a strong track record in supporting basic science, and is now being headed by ex IrCSeT director, Martin Hynes as CEO, is to benefit from a 77 per cent increase in funding. According to the Commmissioner, applying for support under Horizon 2020 will be a lot easier, and there will be no more unnecessary controls and audits involved relating to payments. As a result, she said, about 100 days on average in delays between applying and receiving support will be cut, so projects can get up and running faster. The Marie Curie actions, enabling researchers to become more mobile, is also going to benefit from a 21 per cent increase in funding, and this is one of the key elements in creating a european research Area.
Weather watch
IF yoU want to check weather conditions in Galway Bay, all the details about temperature, humidity, pressure, wind, rain and sunshine are available in real time from a new website. The website was developed by the Informatics research Unit for Sustainable energy at NUI Galway to display the data from an automated weather station situated on the roof of a campus building. dr Marcus Keane, who led the project, said that apart from live data, there are 12 hour and monthly trends. The website is:
http://weather.nuigalway.ie
Virus breaker
A NeW weapon to defeat the HIV virus has been discovered by scientists at Texas A&M University. The researchers, led by Zhili Chen had been screening compounds that would block a different virus, hepatitis C, when they discovered to their surprise that a synthetic compound, known as Pd 404 182, was highly effective against HIV which they had been using as one of the controls. When exposed to this compound, the virus is literally ripped open, and its lethal load of rNA is destroyed rather than being passed on into the host. Prof Chen believes that the compound must act on some component that is not encoded by the virus, so it has not evolved a defence mechanism.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 4
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While the compound is not a cure, she said, it certainly has the potential to stop the virus on its tracks. Tests have shown that the compound remains active in vaginal fluid, and this suggests that a protective barrier could be developed. In acting on the virus, the compound by passes the cell membrane, and Prof Chen observed that this could be helpful because ordinary human cells have similar membranes. This means that there is a lot less likelihood of side effects arising from anti HIV drugs based on this synthetic chemical. The findings were reported on in the scientific journal, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, November 2011.
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UPFRONT
Making use of what you already have How plants and animals could have diversified into so many forms was a mystery until it was discovered that big changes in form are often the result of small changes in basic structure. A good example of this comes from the great diversity shown in the Aquilegia species, commonly known as the Columbine flowers that grow widely in northern latitudes. Researchers from Harvard and the University of California in Santa Barbara, observing that there had been a rapid radiation into about 70 species, wondered how it was possible for closely related flowers to produce so many different variations in the length of their nectar spurs. Each is a perfect match for the tongue of a particular pollinating insect, and at one extreme is the species Aquilegia longissima with a spur that can be up to 16 cm in length to suit long-tongued hawkmoths. Until the scientists decided to study these differences it has been assumed that longer spurs were made up of more cells, but this was found not to be the case. After taking thousands of cell counting measurements, the researcher discovered that extra length was achieved by making cells longer. During the earlier stages of development, spurs were much the same, growth in length was achieved by elongating rather than by multiplying cells. The results of the study were published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Sharon Gerbode, a co-author of the paper, commented that the parallel evolution of Aquilegia species with their insect pollinators was a topic of discussion since Darwin’s time, but the mechanism by which spurs were elongated was not known.
Arctic oil
NORwAy, having gained so much from North Sea oil, is now looking towards the Arctic. According to the Research Council of Norway, the Arctic may contain more than a fifth of the Earth’s undiscovered oil and gas resources. while some would argue that we should keep our carbon locked up, the Norwegians, looking at the massive, and not very secure energy market in Europe, are being realistic in aiming to get a slice of the action. The Norwegians have gained considerable expertise from working in challenging off-shore conditions, but their experts accept that working in the Arctic is not going to be easy. A special research organisation, the Sustainable Marine and Coastal Technology centre (SAMCoT) has been established to determine how oil can be extracted without harming an extremely fragile environment. with state backing, the centre is working with companies such as Statoil and Shell, and according to Statoil’s head of research, Dr Morten Karlsen, expectations are high. In a statement to the press he commented that “we are confident (that) we will be reaping results that (will) have a major impact on the offshore industry in the years ahead.”
www.marine.ie
Plant day
on 18th May 2012 botany departments and organisations involved with plants will open their doors to the public. A European Fascination of Plants day is being organised by EPSO, the European Plant Science Organisation. In Ireland the national organiser is Dr Zoë Popper from NUI Galway. The day is being held to celebrate the great success of plants in colonising the planet. This success is due to the fact that plants have the ability to synthesise their own food, something that we humans cannot do.
www.epsoweb.org — www.plantday12.eu
institute.mail@marine.ie
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Award winners from NAIRTL’s 2011 National Awards for Excellence in Teaching (l-r): Thomas Farrell, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland; Jennifer Schweppe, University of Limerick; Aine Hyland, Chair of the NAIRTL Awards Selection Committee; Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn; Marion Palmer, Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire; Frances McCormack, NUI Galway, and Kathleen Horgan, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.
Teaching excellence
AwArds have been presented to five academics for excellence in teaching at third level. The awards were presented by the National Academy for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning to teachers nominated by their senior peers. The five winners, selected from 65 submissions, each received €5,000 to support teaching and research activities. The awards were presented to: Dr Frances McCormack, Lecturer and Vice-Dean (Learning and Assessment), NUI Galway. Dr Thomas Farrell, Anatomy Department, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Dr Kathleen Horgan, Lecturer and Coordinator of Microteaching, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick Dr Marion Palmer, Head of Department of Learning Sciences, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology Jennifer Schweppe, School of Law, University of Limerick
MARTIN HyNeS, a well known figure on the Irish science scene, has been appointed Chief executive of the european Science Foundation. The eSF, based in Strasbourg, is an independent organisation with a huge influence on research and policy across europe. The Foundation represents 78 research bodies and institutions from more than 30 countries. Martin Hynes, an engineer, formerly headed the National Metrology Laboratory in Ireland, and more recently was executive Director of the Irish Research Council for Science, engineering and Technology, IRCSeT. In this capacity Martin was a strong advocate of supporting postgraduate research, science career development, and mobility of researchers. Martin takes up the new position on the 1st January 2012 at the same time as the new President of eSF, Pär Omling, takes up office. Pär Omling, formerly Director General of the Swedish Research Council, played a significant role in developing the eU Framework programme. Martin Hynes, who was also closely involved with the eSF as a member of the Governing Council, will now be responsible for the smooth running of this body. expressing delight at being appointed to such an esteemed and influential organization, Martin Hynes commented that its openness, focus on excellence and pan-european approach, are characteristics that have always been close to his own heart.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 6
Ignoring pain
ONe OF the most remarkable aspects of pain is that it is a product of the Hippocampus mind, and as such the brain can choose to ignore it. This is why seriously injured soldiers often continue to fight and people walk away from near fatal accidents only to suffer later when the immediate danger has passed. Dr David Finn, a leading expert on pain at NUI Galway, has been investigating this curious ability to ignore pain, and in a scientific paper published in the journal Pain, he has shown that a part of the brain, known as the hippocampus, is involved. Usually this part of the brain is associated with the formation and storage of memories, but now it is known to produce pain suppressing endocannabinoids. These are similar to the active constituents of marijuana, but are much more effective. Unlike any of the drugs that people people take to suppress pain, the brain can respond to intense stress by completely blocking any awareness of pain. Dr Finn commented that this discovery could help researchers develop more effective treatments of pain and associated anxiety disorders. Working with Dr Finn, his colleague, Dr Gemma Ford, was able to show that maintaining a high level of endocannabinoids, by preventing their break down, helped to suppress stressinduced pain.
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Answers for Ireland
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Photovoltaics growth The eU Joint Research centre reports that voltaic installations around the world reached the 23.5 gigawatt level in 2010. Increasing demand, especially from europe, resulted in a doubling of photovoltaic production in that year. According to the JRc, china is the biggest producer, followed by Taiwan, Germany and Japan. A major factor in driving up demand has been a dramatic fall in price, almost halving over three years.
Professor John Boland, Director of CRANN (left) pictured with Professor Jonathan Coleman
Researcher of the year
PRofeSSoR Jonathan coleman from Trinity college Dublin was named “Science foundation Ireland Research of the Year 2011” for his work, described as developing the toughest material known to man. Prof coleman has been recognised as one of the leading material scientists of the past decade. following his PhD from TcD, Prof coleman worked on polymer-nanotube composites, and among the awards that enabled him to continue his research was a european Research council ‘Starter Grant’. This grant is only awarded to outstanding scientists. his main research focus is on the study of one-dimensional nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes, and how these can be handled in novel solvents. nanotubes and nanowires offer enormous possibilities in electrical and mechanical applications as they are highy conductive and tough. Prof coleman is credited with the development of the toughest and most conductive material ever made. Through a process known as exfoliation of graphite, graphene in solution has been produced by Prof Coleman. Graphene, just one atom in depth, has a number of unusual properties, and having it available in solution is likely to have a significant impact on microelectronics.
Science Raps
SchooL STUDenTS were invited to rap about the chemistry of Life in a competition organised by the Alimentary Pharmabiotic centre. The competition, sponsored by Discover Science and engineering and Stream Solutions, drew some highly creative entries, all of which were entered by uploading onto APc’s You Tube channel. A group of students from coláiste an Spioraid naoimh, Bishopstown, cork won the senior category of this year’s competition. James carr composed and performed the vocals and the video was produced and edited by eoghan calanan. Additional support was provided by their “actor” classmates Luke Delaney, James meeke, David o’neill and John Spillane. Watch their video on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKcZZPyeS7o Joint first prize winners in the junior category were Mistura and Bolaji Arowolo from coláiste Bride, clondalkin and moyle Park college clondalkin, Dublin. Watch their video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZQQPppJemw The other joint winners were Megan McDonald, Megan Conroy and Sinead mcDonald from Bush Post Primary School, Riverstown Dundalk. Watch their video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Gn3Boo2r0 All the winners can be viewed at
http://www.youtube.com/Pharmabiotic
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Asthma
A common mould, Aspergillus fumigatus, frequently triggers an allergic reaction that results in narrowing of the lung bronchi, thereby inducing an asthma attack. As researchers at the University of Leicester discovered, those who suffer most may already be a host for the mould which has taken up residence in their lungs. Pubishing their findings in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the researchers reported that severe asthma is linked to the long term residence of the mould in lungs. The long term residence of the mould causes permanent narrowing of the airways, and because of this many people have a higher susceptibility to asthma. Prof Andy Wardlaw from the University of Leicester said that in six out of ten people with asthma and an allergy to Aspergillus fumigatus the mould could be cultured from their sputum. It is possible, he added, that mould growing in lungs is more common than had been thought up to now. Detecting the presence of the mould at an early stage could be of benefit as it could be treated with an antibiotic. The fungus is very common in soil and decaying organic matter, and it produces a large number of airborne spores. These spores are so widespread that we would normally inhale hundreds of them each day. In healthy individuals, the immune system would eliminate those spores, but where our defence is compromised, the spores may take up residence, resulting in a fungal infection
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Change
LOSS of jobs in manufacturing are likely to be made up for by an increase in higher skilled employment. At NUI Galway, two professors, Patrick Collins and Seamus Grimes, have been conducting research on this type of change. Taking Dell as an example, they noted that the loss of 1,900 jobs as manufacturing was moved to Lodz in Poland, was not accompanied by any reduction in services. Over a short period of just months, about 10,000 jobs were lost in the technology sector, but as the researchers point out, more than 6,000 new positions requiring more skills were announced. These were usually higher paid and more sustainable positions. This trend, they note, is all part of the evolving relationship with the the multinationals, and ultimately it means that Ireland is moving up the value chain.
Bird strikes
Why do birds fly into objects that appear obvious to us? The answer, as a study published in the journal IBIS, is that birds do not use their sight in the same way as humans. Professor Graham Martin from Birmingham University said that we humans often make the mistake of assuming that birds will avoid visually obvious obstacles. however, even as biologists put up markers, bird collisions continue. “In Europe over a 16 year period, it was estimated that approximately 25 per cent of juveniles and six per cent of adult white storks, Ciconia ciconia, died annually from power line collisions and electrocutions.” Making the obstacle more obvious to humans, he said, is not the same as making it equally obvious to birds. As birds are flying, he explained, they may be examining the ground below, so they are blind to anything lying ahead. Not all species are the same, he said, but warning sounds or other suitable signals placed ahead of obstacles mght be more effective than the more usual visual clues.
Raw material shortage
AS hIGh technology has become more dependent on rare and unusual materials, security of supply has become a problem. The EU Joint Research Centre, JRC, reports that industries invoved in nuclear, solar, wind, and bio-energy faces a shortage of five essential metals, neodymium, dysprosium, indium, tellurium, and gallium. Global demand is rising, and there is a limited supply, often from countries that are regarded as politically unstable. Added to this problem is the fact that they are hard to recycle and often there are no substitutes. The JRC has estimated that if solar energy is to be deployed on as large a scale as planned, half of the world’s supply of tellurium will be required and a quarter of the supply of indium. high performance magnets require neodymium and dysprosium, and virtually all this supply comes from China. With its own rapidly developing economy, China is unlikely to continue exporting these essential materials. In response to this situation, the JRC recommends looking at reuse, recycling, and substitution in addition to considering reopening dormant mines.
Magnetic World
AS WE know from the orientation of particles in rocks, the Earth’s magnetic field is not static, and has in fact completely reversed many times. Why this should happen has been the subject of an investigation by researchers at the Institut de Physique du Globe and the French research agency CNRS. Reversal, they found, can be linked to the movement of the Earth’s plates as they drift around the surface. The magnetism is not produced by the crustal plates, but by the flow of molten iron three thousand kilometres below. However, as the researchers reported in Geophysical Research Letters, the surface plates could have an influence. As they move, they could cause a change in flow, and, as happens when continents collide, crustal material is pushed down into the depths, and this could also cause flow to change, tipping the magnetic symmetry so that we get a complete reversal of the poles.
Population waves
ThE 30,000 year old remains of a human discovered in Southern Siberia has yielded evidence to show that Asia was populated in successive waves. Remarkably, it was possible to sequence DNA from a finger bone, and some traces of this genome still occur in individuals living today. Scientists from the harvard Medical School and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology found that these traces occur in New Guinea, Australian aborigines, and some populations in the Phillipines. These traces show a pattern of dispersal that brought people into these regions in advance of a following wave, or possibly waves, for there may have been more than one. It is thought, from this evidence, that the inhabitants of Southeast Asia and Oceania represent this earlier wave, and the population of East Asia represent a later migration. The original population spread out over a huge area extending from Siberia to Southeast Asia but it is thought that they did not always mix with other populations. No matching genetic markers have been found in some populations, such as the Onge of the Andaman Islands, the Jehai of Malasia or the East Asians of the mainland, Although distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans, the researchers said that there was interbreeding before the inhabitants of New Guinea and the Aboriginals went their separate ways, and Southeast Asia was populated later by different people.
DUBLIN CITY OF SCIENCE 2012 In 2012 Ireland hosts the European open forum on science
www.dublinscience2012.ie SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 9
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Searching for gold in County Wicklow, by the late 18th century Irish landscape artist, Thomas Sautell Roberts. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.
GOLD FRENZY The story of Wicklow’s gold by Peadar McArdle
IN 1795, following the chance discovery of a nugget, there was a gold rush as people were drawn by the prospect of picking up instant wealth from Wicklow’s Goldmine River. Gold has always been mankind’s enduring passion, and long after the initial rush which the Government tried to crush, the belief persisted that great wealth remained undiscovered among the Wicklow hills. Charles Stewart Parnell was among those eager to support the prospectors, and with independence, nationalists were convinced that Ireland was about to rediscover its source of ancient gold. In his entertaining and highly informative book, Peadar McArdle, former Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland, describes how the frenzy has never really died down, and to this day, panners dream that one day they might strike it rich.
Gold Frenzy is available from the Science Spin website, Dubray’s, Kenny’, Hanna’s, the GSI store and from other sselected bookshops. Hardback €20 IBSN 0 906002 08 7 Enquiries to: mail@sciencespin.com
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Albertine Kennedy Publishing, Cloonlara, Swinford, County Mayo
SCIENCE FOR LIFE
choosing to embark on a science career
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SUPPLEMENT 2012
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SCIENCE DEGREES AT GMIT GMIT offers the following online courses: l Add-on Level 8 Honours degree in Applied Biopharmaceutical & Healthcare Science - for those who hold a relevant Level 7 qualification (B.Sc. Ordinary or Diploma in Science). l Add-on Level 7 B.Sc. Ordinary in Pharmaceutical Technology - for those who hold a relevant Level 6 qualification (Higher Certificate in Science) l Level 6 Higher Certificate in Science
Further details at: http://www.gmit.ie/science/distance-learning/ or email science@gmit.ie
FULL TIME
SCIENCE COURSES AT GMIT Science @ GMIT, Galway Campus
The reasons students give for choosing GMIT@Galway to do their Science degree include:
Field Trips
Students of the Freshwater & Marine Biology course complete numerous fieldtrips at home and abroad.
Projects
Extensive exposure to project work develops skills such as critical thinking, decision making, project management and planning – skills much sought after by employers.
Industrial Placement
Placement at home or abroad: Industrial placements gained over the years by students vary from most of the major companies in Ireland to NASA, the Mayo clinic and placements in Europe and Africa. All degree courses now have an industrial placement integrated into the programme. This gives students valuable work experience and helps them develop exciting and well paid careers.
Practicals Practical laboratory work forms a major part of all programmes – this gives students an excellent science education and helps students build up marks as they progress through each year of study.
Small class sizes – this helps provide an excellent learning environment. Excellent employment records – look at some of our graduate profiles in the college prospectus.
Due to the high level of practical work and project work and due to the applied nature of our degrees, many graduates gain employment quickly. This employment is typically well paid and in growth areas.
www.gmit.ie/science
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Isabelle Ferrain is finding out how to cram more transistors onto chips.
Switching on to more power for less energy
T
he arrival of transistors in the 1950s transformed the electronics industry by their ability to amplify relatively weak signals. Until then, every radio had to have big glass valves, looking, and glowing like dim household bulbs, but with transistors that could do the same job far more efficiently, battery powered radios became small and portable. The same transformation occurred with computers, which up to then had to have thousands of valves before they could make complex calculations, and ever since then scale has been coming down while processing power has gone up. While the original transistors were small compared to valves, they would now appear huge compared to their modern successors which are now so small that 1,000,000 or more can be packed into a wafer thin silicon microchip of under a square centimetre. Essentially, a transistor is a device with a three-way connection into a semiconductor. A semiconductor, as its name suggests, is a material that is between a conductor and an insulator. The most common semiconductor used by the electronics industry is silicon, a material familiar to us as sand. When a relatively weak signal comes in through one of these connections, the semiconductor is suddenly converted into a conductor, so a much stronger current can flow through from the second to the third terminal. While this was a good way to amplify radio signals, the impact on computers was much greater because it meant that complex logic circuits could be constructed, and the more transistors that could be packed in, the greater the processing power.
Back in those early days, Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel, predicted that the number of transistors that could be packed into an integrated circuit would double every 18 months. Amazingly, Moore’s predicted increase has been maintained for more than half a century, and since 1965 the number of transistors that can be crammed into smart device has continued to climb. At the Tyndall National Institute, researcher, Isabelle Ferain, laughs at the mention of millions. “Oh no, it’s billions!”, she declared, and her aim is to find a way to maintain that rate of progress. As Isabelle explained, we are fast approaching the limit of possibilities with current technology, so if we want to extend Moore’s Law, a way has to be found to overcome a barrier of scale. The dramatic increase has come, not from making chips bigger, but by making the transistors smaller, and, as Isabelle explained, when devices go under a certain size, problems arise. With transistors, she said, these problems had already started to become an issue in the 90s. The perfect transistor, she said, is like an efficient switch, with a clear cut on or off state, but as scale came down and terminals got closer to each other, the switching became less efficient, and one of the most serious consequences of this is that more power has to be used. Finding ways to cut down on power consumption, said Isabelle, is one of the biggest concerns for chip makers, so there is a huge incentive to solve these problems. Surprisingly, the solution to these problems is an old one. In 1925 Julius
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Edgar Lilienfeld , an Austro-Hungarian physicist, came up with the concept for a device that would be more efficient than the current design of transistor, but as Isabelle explained, the technology to turn his theory into practice did not exist until quite recently. In existing transistors, the current has to flow through a silicon semiconductor that has been “doped”, so that the two ends have different properties to the middle. Doping is a process in which impurities are deliberately introduced to change the conductive properties of the silicon. When a charge is introduced from an electrode, separated from the semiconductor by a thin insulating layer, the middle part becomes conductive, and this effectively opens a switch. This arrangement works well but only up to a point. With decreasing size, current begins to leak, and of course, getting clear cut ends and a middle in doping becomes more of a challenge in manufacturing. In the new design, the silicon is doped uniformly, and in its resting stage, it will not allow a current to flow through. The electrode above the silicon ‘wire’ is doped so that in its resting stage it depletes the electrons in the area just underneath it, a bit like squeezing a hose pipe so that no water can go through. Introducing a small current to this electrode immediately reverses that state, and the silicon wire becomes conductive. This arrangement, referred to as “junctionless” is not just simpler, said Isabelle, but a lot more efficient, and it means that chip makers can now plan to continue going down the scale by adapting their manufacturing processes. At present manufacturers can get down to about 22 nanometres in gate length, she said, but in theory this could now come down to about 3 nanometres.
Wanting to know more
When Isabelle Ferain was at home dinnertime conversations often involved electrons, for her father was teaching electricity, and he had an attentive listener. “I was fascinated by the idea of all these electrons whizzing around like billiard balls,” she said. “I wanted to know more, and when I listened to the experts I was caught up by their enthusiasm — I wanted to be part of it.” Isabelle certainly got her wish, and after schooling in Belgium and France, she began to study engineering. Her interests were wide, but as she remarked, “what I liked best were the hard facts.” While the softer, less defined subjects
did not appeal to Isabelle, she is glad that her studies did not immediately force her to specialise. For the first three years, she said, students in Belgium have to study a broad curriculum, and only then do they decide on a speciality that suits them. In France, said Isabelle, students are boxed in at a much earlier stage, and in her view this is not to their advantage. Having a broad base, she observed, gives a specialist a much better perspective and an awareness of other disciplines, and in her own case, it meant that she was in a better position to consider her options on where her career would lead. “I was very interested in other subjects such as chemistry and physics,” she said, “but my supervisor suggested that electricity would give me the challenge she was looking for.” Isabelle said this was sound advice, which she was glad to follow. Making a decision to focus on electricity was one thing, getting into research was something else. One of Isabelle’s friends, who had set up a specialised company to make chips for high temperature applications, mentioned
that their former professor, Jean-Pierre Colinge, was looking for a post-doc to work on a project at Tyndall. As Isabelle remarked, this seemed almost too good to be true. The idea of working with such a distinguished scientist was more than a bit daunting, but her husband, who had studied under Prof Colinge in Belgium, and remembered him as a brilliant teacher and scientist who never made his students feel stupid, encouraged her to apply. Isabelle could hardly believe her luck on being accepted, especially as she was
by then expecting her second child. “I had to wait six months,” she said, “and by then the project had already started.” That her arrival at Tyndall could be delayed shows how highly regarded she was by the team in Cork, and how high the standard has been set. At Tyndall, quality comes way ahead of convenience, and the attitude is that it is better to do without than try to work with people that do not quite come up to the mark. Report Tom Kennedy
High standards
Julie Dorel, who looks after external communications at Tyndall, said that the willingness to wait for Isabelle rather than accept the first available candidate is indicative of how high the standards have been set for researchers. At Tyndall, she said, there are a number of research positions open, but until suitably qualified people turn up, these posts will not be filled. As she remarked, it is sometimes better to do without because lower standards are just not acceptable at Tyndall. By definition, exceptional people are rare, and compared to many other countries, Ireland’s population is small, so there is a limited home-grown supply of suitable post-docs. This is why so many of the researchers at Tyndall come from different parts of the world, and as Julie observed, far from being a disadvantage, picking the best, from wherever they come from, gives Tyndall an international lead.
Faculty of Science and Engineering The Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Limerick invites you to share in the experience of our progressive and exciting campus near Limerick City. Six new undergraduate honours degree offerings recently launched: LM063 BSc Technology Management LM115 BE Chemical and Biochemical Engineering LM116 BE Engineering Choice LM117 BSc Science Choice LM118 BE Electronic and Computer Engineering LM119 BE Design and Manufacturing l The University Mathematics Learning Centre, the Science Learning Centre and the ICT Learning Centre offer one-to-one support, additional tutorials, a drop-in centre and a supervised study area for all students. l Co-operative Education and Teaching Practice placements in industry, education and business for all undergraduate degree programmes. l World Class Engineering and Science Laboratory Facilities, Cultural and Sporting Facilities (including a 50m pool) and on-campus state-of-the-art student accommodation for some 2,500 students further enhance this exceptional learning and working environment. l Special Mathematics Entrance Exam for those who meet the CAO requirements for entry into all of our BEng and BSc courses but who did not achieve the requisite grade in Leaving Certificate mathematics. Exam date 23rd August 2012. For a full list of all degree programmes and further information visit www.scieng.ul.ie Tel: 061 202642 or email Amy.Obrien@ul.ie SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page xx
www.ul.ie
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JRC needs scientific visiting staff… The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission’s in-house science service. Operating in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, with a headcount of over 2,700, each year the JRC recruits some 180 grantholders on fixed-term contracts and 70 trainees. JRC is currently seeking Ph.D. students, post-doctorate researchers, experienced researchers and trainees with the right blend of competence and experience to work at the cutting edge of scientific and technological developments supporting EU policies. If you have a research background in energy and clean transport, agriculture and food security, environment and climate change, nuclear safety and security, health and consumer protection, nanotechnology or ICT, you can make all the difference within the JRC’s stimulating multicultural environment. In return, you can expect a competitive remuneration package and the chance to see how your work can support European policies. To learn more, visit: www.jrc.ec.europa.eu http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/jrc/index.cfm?id=3690 (grantholders / JRC trainees)
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and as soon as you are ready to apply for one of our open positions, fill in your on-line application at http://recruitment.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ The JRC promotes equal opportunities and non-discriminatory practices in the workplace.
Serving society, stimulating innovation, supporting legislation
Angela Powers went back to college and got a first class honours for her forensics degree.
F
Establishing the facts
ive years ago Angela Powers brought her young children along to Science Week in Sligo Institute of Technology. While hauling the six and nine year olds around the stands, Angela spotted a flyer for a course in Forensics. After thinking, “that looks interesting…” she took note of the details, and decided that “this is for me.” Angela, who grew up in America, had come to live in Sligo with her young family a short time before. At school she had done well in chemistry and biology, but had also been interested in the arts, as were her parents. As Angela explained, her interests could have led her either way, but deciding on arts, she ended up with a degree in philosophy. Young as her children were, Angela sounded them out, and as she remarked, they thought the idea of their mother doing all these exciting things was just awesome. So, Angela applied as a mature
student, and to her delight, was accepted. It was a life changing decision, and at the end of November, Angela came through the course with a first class honours degree in forensics science. It was a great help, she said that the growing children remained enthusiastic. There were times, especially when projects and reports had to be submitted, that Angela had to tell the children that “I have to do my homework now,” usually followed by the promise of doing something they would all like later. However, being at school, they could relate to that, and it might even have set a good example. Having had chemistry at school, said Angela, was good, but having a background in philosophy was just as important because forensics is not just about science. It is about using scientific methods and techniques to establish the facts, especially when these are being
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 16
disputed, so it is important to know a lot about ethics and the rules of law. “I actually came into this well equipped,” said Angela. When Angela found herself among the 45 students who had been accepted for the course she was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a fair sprinkling of others who had decided to come back to college. There were also the bright young whizz kids, just turned 18, so the class was a good mix, as were the expectations. “A lot of people thought they were going to be in the next episode of CSI forensics” she said, but then they discovered that there was actually a lot of hard mathematical and scientific work involved. There was a high drop off rate, and of the 45 who started, 17 completed the course. This does not mean that most of the students failed, said Angela. Most of them deciding that forensics was not for them, went off in other directions, and a number also opted for taking a lower degree after three years. Most people probably associate forensics with the State Lab, and indeed one of their experts, Dr David Casey delivers a module at Sligo on how to deal with a crime scene. However, as Angela explains, forensics is not just about helping to solve crimes. Many graduates go into industry, and in the pharmaceutical sector the application of forensic skills are very important. For example it is essential to know that products are completely pure and free from contamination. A forensics graduate, said Angela, would know what sort of tests to conduct, and they would know how to relate their findings to consumer and health regulations. Forensics can also be important in archaeology. “This is something that I am particularly interested in,” said Angela. “The same techniques that are applied at a crime scene can also be applied to ancient remains.” This includes DNA ‘fingerprinting’. Maternal DNA, explained Angela, is particularly useful as it is abundant in all our cells, and it often remains intact for a long time. It was maternal RNA, she said, that finally resolved the uncertainty surrounding the remains of the Russian Rominov royals by making a match to their close relation, Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Prince Philip. Staff at Sligo IT are currently investigating skeletons uncovered near Ballyshannon, during the construction of a by-pass in Donegal. Apart from determining the sex, this work involves measuring the amount of lead in the
bones. Dr Ted McGowan’s expertise in inorganic analysis was used to determine levels, but with forensic insight, Angela concluded that high lead could be an indicator of wealth because only the well-off would have been able to afford to eat and drink from pewter vessels. While modern pewter is usually made from safer alloys, the traditional mix was of tin and lead. A forensic scientist, explained Angela would not necessarily conduct all these tests, but would know how they could be done. One of the advantages of running a course in forensics in Sligo, she said, is that there are a number
“One of the good things about forensics is that it encourages students to think and they have to be very flexible,” said Angela, and they have to be good communicators. If a person can’t communicate, she added, they may as well stay on the shelves like a closed book. of experts such as Ted McGowan, or Dr Fiona McArdle, a specialist in chromatography, on the staff. Achieving a first class honours degree might have seemed an impossible dream
just a few years ago, but for Angela there is no turning back. “I would love to see more happening in forensics at Sligo,” she said. There are opportunities to build up a network of connections, but getting funding to go on into post-graduate research might not be so easy because the benefits arising from forensics are not always obvious. “There is a tendency to link education to industry, and I am not altogether happy with that,” she said. Providing solutions to problems is all very fine, but where would we be now, she asks, if no one had worked out the DNA mechanism of inheritance?
Why
choose the Faculty of
Engineering, Mathematics & Science at Trinity College Dublin?
UG courses include:
• The Faculty is part of the oldest University in Ireland
• The University Library is one of the largest and best stocked in Europe
• Nanoscience – Physics and Chemistry of Advanced Materials
• You can avail of our world class research facilities and laboratories
• You will be part of a unique student body with over 15,500 students from over 90 different countries • There are aver 100 societies and 50 sports clubs for students to join
What can you study?
The Faculty has excellent undergraduate and postgraduate programmes including: • 4 year honours degrees • Taught Postgraduate programmes • Masters programmes • PhDs
Students are offered a variety of options from across 8 Schools:
Biochemistry & Immunology Chemistry Computer Science & Statistics Engineering Genetics & Microbiology Natural Sciences Mathematics Physics
• Geography & Political Sciences • Earth Sciences
• Human Health & Disease The Faculty accommodates a wide range of research interests including: Bioengineering Bioinformatics Energy Immunology Nanoscience Neuroscience The Environment Transport
• BA (Mod)Computer Science • BAI Engineering
Science in TCD
Looking for excellent training in Science with maximum flexibility & choice? See our Science course (TR 071) which offers no less than 17 specialist areas.
www.tcd.ie/Science
Why not see what we can offer YOU by visiting us at:
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T2039 STEM hp SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 17
Ivan Sullivan with his students of pharmaceutical science at IT Sligo.
Combining interests
I
van Sullivan, who teaches pharmaceutical science at Sligo Institute of Technology is a happy man because he knows that his students will have no problem getting a job. Last November he remarked that “we had graduations yesterday and all the students I was talking to were already working.” Looking around the lab, he can pick out students from Meath, Donegal, Roscommon and even a local, like himself, from Sligo. Ivan likes to be close to the students, and early on in his career he realised that teaching is as important to him as science. After studying chemistry at Sligo IT, Ivan went on to take a degree in NUI Galway, and then he worked in industry. It all went well, but as he remarked, “I just wanted to get away for a while.” When an opportunity came up to give classes in English to students in Hungary
Ivan headed off, with the intention of staying away for a couple of months. “The very first day I went into the class,” he said, “I knew this was for me — after that I could never not teach.” The couple of months turned into two years, and then Ivan thought that if he liked teaching so much, surely he should be teaching the subject he was best at and had the qualifications to match. That brought him back to Sligo, and as he recalled, that round-about journey might never have begun if he had not had great teachers at Summer Hill College. He realises just how important those early influences are, and not surprisingly Ivan was ‘volunteered’ into taking responsibility for this year’s Science Week in Sligo. Science Week has become a great tradition at Sligo IT, and Ivan was keen to build on the foundation laid down by Margaret Mulroney and other members of the staff. “This year,” said Ivan proudly, “we brought in the EPA, Bord na Móna, Tróchaire,
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 18
Bóther, the HSE, and there were lots of interactive events”, so it was all bigger than ever, but even so Ivan would like to see a big increase in older students who are about to leave school. Ivan is really pleased that his position within the college is fairly secure. When you have security, he said, you have more freedom to think ahead. Ivan has already combined his interest in chemistry with teaching, and he also has a masters in mammalian physiology. “I would like to tie all those qualifications together,” he said, and one of the areas that draws his interest is mitochondrial RNA. He is also interested in getting involved with cancer research, and as he remarked, people do not always realise it, but this sort of work involves a lot of chemistry. While seeing possibilities, Ivan is not too sure about where the divide should be when it comes to research. Traditionally, he said, the institutions have a more applied technical approach, while the universities focus on theory,
but in recent years the distinction has become less sharp, and whether this is a good or a bad thing, said Ivan is open to question. However, he is convinced that there is a need for both, and the hands-on approach of the institutions, he added has worked very well for the past forty years in matching up to the needs of industry and employers. Comparing the two, Ivan said there is a big difference in how students are taught. In the institutes,
he said, teachers tend to have a much greater rapport with students, and there is a much greater emphasis on practical work. One way or the other, Ivan thinks that the colleges need to keep on evolving, and one of the big changes is in opening the door to life-long learning. Quite a few of the students in his course, he said, are mature, and while they might not have much grounding
in science, they often have clocked up some good career experience. Having had science at school, he said, is not a strict requirement, but students who have already done chemistry or physics usually do extremely well. “They hit the ground running, so get the grades,” he said. The others have to work harder, but the idea is to get everyone up to the same level before going on into second year. Report Tom Kennedy
DCU FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH Since DCU’s foundation, its Faculty of Science and Health has maintained an enviable record of success and growth, with innovative and interdisciplinary degree courses, that now encompass academic disciplines as diverse as physics and psychology. Also many of its courses have affiliations to or are recognised by external professional bodies, for example, the Institute of Actuaries and the Teaching Council of Ireland.
INTRA , DCU’s paid relevant work experience programme continues to be a key feature of the courses offered by the Faculty, ensuring that its graduates have the experience and skills most sought after by Irish and international employers.
Mathematics
DC126 - BSc in Actuarial Mathematics DC127 - Common Entry into Actuarial, Financial and Mathematical Sciences
Health and Human Performance
DC202 - BSc in Sport Science and Health DC204 - BSc in Athletic Therapy and Training DC205 - BSc in Physical Education with Biology DC206 - BSc in Physical Education with Mathematics
Nursing
Sciences (Biotechnology, Chemistry and Physics)
DC208 - BSc in Psychology DC209 - BSc in Health and Society DC215 - BSc in Nursing (General) DC216 - BSc in Nursing (Psychiatric) DC217 - BSc in Nursing (Intellectual Disability) DC218 - BSc in Children’s and General (Integrated) Nursing
DC161 - BSc in Analytical Science DC162 - BSc in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences DC166 - BSc in Environmental Science and Health DC167 - BSc in Physics with Astronomy DC168 - BSc in Genetics and Cell Biology DC170 - BSc in Horticulture DC171 - BSc in Applied Physics DC173 - BSc in Physics with Biomedical Sciences DC181 - BSc in Biotechnology DC201 - Common Entry into Science DC203 - BSc in Science Education
www.dcu.ie
www.dcu.ie LIVE LINK
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 19
Staying within the law
S
ince becoming a chemist, Lynette Keeney has learned a lot about physics. Lynette, who is a researcher at the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, observed that many of the divisions we have come to accept in the sciences can actually stand in the way of understanding the fundamentals. Chemistry, she said, is no longer just about Bunsen burners and test tubes, and in her own research, the subject has evolved into a hybrid where a chemist’s familiarity with metal oxides is combined with a physicist’s knowledge of their electrical properties. Such a combination, she said, is now a practical reality in many fields such as electronics and biotechnology, making her think that the time has come to consider ending the overly-strict tradition of dividing physics from chemistry in schools. At Tyndall, she said, there are a number of chemists, but instead of test tubes they are likely to be using vapour deposition machines to lay down extremely thin layers of rare or unusual metal oxides. Lynette’s interest in chemistry began at home. Her mother, Maria, teaches chemistry to archaeologists at the Sligo Institute of Technology, so Lynette was following a family tradition by going to study science at NUI Galway. At Galway Lynette took a keen interest in stable radicals, which she describes as a rarity because most are so reactive that they do not stay around for long. Following her PhD, Lynette thought it would be good to get away and work in industry, so she set off for Montreal in Canada. She
enjoyed working as an analytical chemist. “It was great work, we were always busy, but you didn’t have time to be creative.” She missed that challenge, so when the opportunity came up to work at Tyndall, she moved back to Ireland. “I wanted to come back anyhow,” she said, so it was a good move, and having some experience of how industry works was a benefit. For the past three years Lynette has been working on research that will enable chip makers to maintain Moore’s famous Law which predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double every 18 months. The current flash and hard disc memory technologies, she said, are fine, they do the job, but not for much longer because they are nearing the limits in terms of performance, scale and efficiency. Lynette’s research is concerned with improving the capacity of computers to store and retrieve information. At present, she explained, computers rely on a combination of flash and hard disk memory. Flash is faster, but it is volatile. As soon as the power goes off, the random access memory is wiped, so whenever something has to be saved, it is parked away on the hard disk. Flash memory is held as an electrical charge, while the more secure, but slower, hard disk holds memory magnetically. One of Lynette’s aims, apart from bringing down the scale, is to combine the advantages of both, and this is where a knowledge of chemistry is as important as knowing the physics of how materials behave. In a hard disk the data is held magnetically, and this is referred to as the
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 20
ferromagnetic type, in which particles act as tiny magnets with a north south alignment. In another type of material, referred to as the ferrolectric type, the information is held in discrete electrical charges. Combining ferromagnetic with ferroelectric properties, said Lynette, would solve a lot of problems, and this is exactly what she is trying to do. Using materials such as bismuth titanate, bismuth ferrite, and iron-cobalt, the researchers construct a sandwich containing units with different electrical properties. While remaining discrete, the aim is to get these units working together in consort as an all-in-one memory device. This sort of research, explained Lynette, can involve searching through the properties of some very unusual materials, and trying them out. Many of them, for example, would never have been deposited before as thin films, and while computer modelling can help, no one really knows how they will perform until they are put to the test. “It’s a wide open field,” said Lynette, and that’s one of the things that makes the research so interesting. Having the machines and instruments to carry out this research, she said, is essential, and one of the latest acquisitions is important to Lynette’s work because it performs molecular vapour deposition. Manufacturers have been relying on spinning silicon wafers to spread drops of solution out into ultra-thin layers, but molecular vapour deposition will enable them to achieve much finer results. During an open day, Lynette was amused to hear the comment of a transition year school student who remarked that it takes such a big machine to make something so small. The materials for deposition are first made up into a liquid, and these are injected into a nebulizing chamber which makes them into a spray. An inert gas such as argon or nitrogen drives this spray onto the substrate. Up to four different liquids can be introduced, and a flow of oxygen can be regulated to produce different metal oxides. Heating drives off the solvent, leaving a fine film of crystals. Oxides, said Lynette, often have useful properties. With some, applying an electrical field causes their internal structure to distort. In the past, crystallographers might have noticed these unusual properties, and noted them in passing, but now such behaviour has a relevance to possible applications. Using what is known as a piezo force
microscope, a device that can resolve details on a nano scale, the information “written” onto these tiny crystals can be ”read” Molecular deposition is the technique that will make it possible to produce these hybrid “multiferric” memory devices, but as Lynette remarked, if we want to avoid breaking Moore’s Law there are still significant obstacles to be overcome, not least being the influence of temperature. The behaviour of many materials can only be controlled at near zero, she said, and before industry gears up to launch the next generation of miniature memory devices they will need to know that they will work at room temperature. Report Tom Kennedy During an open day, Lynette helps to spark off an interest in school pupils.
Following the flow
R
achel Cassidy has been looking at how water drains away from the land. Over most of Ireland, she said, drainage is poor, and in a project involving the Geological Surveys north and south of the border, she aims to find out what are the factors that help or hinder drainage. Her interest in this is not new. Growing up beside a salmon river in Donegal, Rachel always had a keen interest in nature and the environment. “Listening to the locals” she said “got me really interested,” and at school she had an inspiring teacher, Beatrice Dwan. “She wasn’t just an ordinary science teacher,” said Rachel, but would leave the text books aside to talk about things like radioactivity, aquaculture, medicine, physics and chemistry. “She was brilliant,” said Rachel. Rachel studied environmental science at the University of Ulster. “It was near, and the fees were paid,” she said, and again she encountered another inspiring teacher in the form of John McCloskey, well known for his work in communicating geoscience to the public. Rachel decided on geophysics for her PhD, and choosing to focus on hydrology, she commented “brought me back to the rivers” that had fascinated her as a child.
For a while she worked between the University’s Freshwater Group and Teagasc. “We were looking at when you should, or shouldn’t spread slurry — very glamourous!” Then it was on to Queen’s where she is now involved in the project to characterise aquifiers. A lot of people, she said, think of the ground as a big sponge, capable of taking in everything that is poured onto it. However, this is far from the reality, and as she pointed out, something like 70 per cent of Ireland is underlain by rocks that have little porosity, and the flow of water is often channeled into numerous fractures, and these in turn can branch out. Apart from surface drainage considerations, one of the implications of this is that a spillage of contaminants could move over a long distance in a very short time. Rachel enjoys being out and about. “I think being outdoors is the best part of my job,” she said. “The lab is too abstract, but with this I am applying the same complex ideas to the real world. In Summer I might spend two weeks out in the field, for one day back in the office.” Sites are being investigated in Donegal, Down, Mayo, Galway and Louth, and at Mount Stewart, on the eastern shores of
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 21
Stranford lough, 16 bore holes were drilled to help determine drainage patterns over an area of about five square km. One of the boreholes went down to the sandstone aquifier that supplies water to Belfast, and knowing how this is being topped up is obviously important. A number of the features discovered in this study could have an impact on such a supply. There are faults, compact sandstones lying up against shales, there is a raised beach, and there are drumlins, and over all of this is just a thin coat of soil. Conductivity measurements, such as those carried out during the Tellus aeriel survey, also help to complete the picture, and these revealed the impact that farming can have on drainage. In an area adjoining farmland, a high readings on conductivity were recorded, showing that spraying of barley and wheat crops resulted in contamination that spread out into groundwater over a much larger area. Apart from the outdoor life, Rachel gets a great deal of satisfaction from knowing that her work is helping everyone to get a better understanding of the environment. Report; Tom Kennedy
A shared interest in old bones, a passing dog has a look at Fiona at work.
Digging for knowledge By Anna Nolan
W
hen Fiona McAuliffe was studying archaeology at University College Cork, one of the segments of her course that she was eagerly anticipating was practical excavation. Sadly, the occurrence of foot and mouth disease in the UK led to the cancellation of the excavations, as our government moved to prevent the disease taking hold in Ireland. It all turned out well in the end for her, though, because she graduated in 2002, at a time when archaeological work opportunities were growing rapidly as a result of the building boom. This meant that she was able to get interesting work straight away. “My first site was in Enfield, County Meath,” she told Science Spin. “It was a huge cilín burial ground, with a lot of bone. We had to be very careful with the bone, cleaning round it and recording it straight away, so I learnt the importance of scientific recording of data, and taking levels on site.” She has continued to work as a consultant archaeologist since then, with companies such as TVAS (Ireland) Ltd, ACS Limited and VJK Limited, and is currently with TVAS again, as a Licensed Archaeologist. The company
is based in Crusheen, County Clare. She has worked all around Ireland, notably on sites alongside motorways and national roads. “You get loads of information from working on motorways, because they are linear projects with a high concentration of Bronze Age settlements,” she explained. “As you go along the line of construction you can see changing trends in the style of the house, and the methods of building.” While excavations are the part of archaeology with which most members of the general public are familiar, unseen research also plays a big role. “We use historical documentation to identify areas of archaeological potential when researching a site,” she said. “All data has to be recorded as objectively as possible. “We use maths and IT [information technology] to accurately record sites, and we call on the help of scientists to analyse artefacts and soil samples and provide us with factual data.” Subjects Fiona had studied at school were helpful both in studying for her degree (Hons BA in Archaeology and French) and in her career. She took Junior Cert Science and Leaving Cert biology (helpful with bones). She loved the prehistory elements of Junior Cert, and was fascinated by Newgrange. Art was one of her Leaving Cert subjects, and the art history element was highly relevant. Leaving Cert Art also proved unexpectedly helpful when she was asked by TVAS to do illustrations of the finds made during its work on the Gorey to Enniscorthy road. As part of her career development she became a Licensed Site Director in 2008. This necessitates having a certain level of site experience, and an interview with an expert panel of archaeologists, museum staff and so on. The panel assesses various skills such as knowledge of relevant legislation, site recognition and proper handling of finds. “It’s like the X factor for archaeology, and I passed first time round,” she said. The slump in road building has severely hit commercial archaeological companies. In the beginning of the slump, Fiona worked for 15 months in recruitment for the pharmaceutical and engineering sector. This wider, nonarchaeological experience is doubtless a help to her in her new role in business
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 22
development for TVAS (Ireland), which she is carrying out alongside her work for the company as a Licensed Archaeologist and site supervisor. One new avenue she is exploring is giving talks and workshops to schoolchildren. She had done some teaching of French a few years back, and used her experience there to come up with the idea and format. “TVAS has gathered a vast amount of information and knowledge from hundreds of sites over the last decade,” she said. “This information has greatly altered our perspective of the past. We have done the hard work. Now we would like to share the information.” “Many people argue that it is only by studying the past that we can properly understand the present and perhaps learn from the errors and achievements of our ancestors. As an archaeologist with a background in teaching I saw the opportunity to share our information in the form of an Archaeology Seminar, which will be not only educational, but also hopefully fun for the students too. “This offers a fantastic opportunity to explain the importance of archaeology to students, while at the same time, bringing school subjects to life.” Science Spin caught up with her on her first such event, held at Clare Museum, Ennis. Fiona explained to the Second Class children from Ennis CBS primary school about bog bodies and skeletons, and the type of information that archaeologists can gain from scientific data such as osteoarchaeology, radiocarbon dating and isotope analysis. They then busily searched trays of clay in which Fiona had hidden artefacts. They clearly enjoyed being artefact detectives, explaining what they thought the object was and how it had been used. Their teacher Michelle Shanahan said that they had enjoyed the workshop very much. Fiona’s own interest in archaeology dates back to her childhood in County Cork. She comes from a family of artists, her father Philip McAuliffe was an amateur antiquarian with a great interest in old coins, and her mother Sheila Geaney McAuliffe had storytellers and historians in her family. “There were always bits and pieces lying around the house that piqued my interest,” she recalled. “ From a young age I was out the back digging in the garden, looking for anything I could find – anything at all.”
12th to 14th January 2012
VE I T C A NTER
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Exhibition Halls crammed with exciting things to see and do!
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Amazing Projects competing for BT Young Scientist(s) of the Year
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Outdoor science
James Hodgson has been taking a remote view of Ireland’s rocks.
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hile the hammer is enshrined in geological tradition, James Hodgson is a geophycicist, so he takes a more remote view of rocks. The tools of his trade are instruments that measure properties such as gravity, magnetics and conductivity. As he explained, these are the sort of non-intrusive measurements that can tell us a lot about what lies below and out of sight, and for this reason geophysicists are often called in to check if the ground is solid enough to support roads and buildings. At school in the UK, James had always been keen on science and also on the outdoor life, so having completed his A levels in maths, physics and geography, going on to study geophysics at Liverpool University was a natural choice. For his doctorate, James then moved on to the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and following this, he decided to apply his knowledge as a consultant. As a geophysical consultant, James said he worked on a variety of projects, most of them connected to large scale constructions. Road schemes, he said, were typical, but there were also surveys for quarries and mining operations. More often than not, the survey was conducted to determine the distance to bedrock or to detect underground cavities. In limestone areas, for example, cavities are common, and as James explained, this is one of the reasons why road planners usually consider a few alternative routes. “A lot depends on what you are building,” he said, “and anything requiring a big foundation would need this kind of information.” More recently, another opportunity came up for James to apply both his knowledge and his experience. In Northern Ireland an ambitious project, combining low level aeriel surveying with ground work, had been completed. This was the Tellus project, and the success of this was such that a decision was recently made to extend the area of coverage into the Republic’s border counties and Sligo. James now works on this Tellus Border project, which literally took flight earlier this year. A specially adapted twin propeller surveying plane, based in Enniskillen, is equipped with sensors that can measure conductivity and gravity while flying 60 or so metres above the ground.
The plane, said James, goes up and down tracks 200 metres apart, a bit like a lawnmower covering the ground. Readings are recorded every 0.1 of a second, and that gives between 10 and 15 metres ground cover between each pulse. To complete this project the plane will fly the equivalent of a line 48,000 km in length, and as James commented, this will result in a massive yield of valuable data. The readings will reveal a great deal about structures both on the ground and down to about 100 metres below. Differences in conductivity, for example, will show where a conductive rock, like shale, passes into the muchless conductive sandstone. The magnetometer measures variations in the Earth’s magnetic field, and this can reveal deep structures that would otherwise remain hidden, such as faults and dykes formed from intrusion of molten material into overlying rocks. With higher frequency probing, near surface features can be made out, but with lower frequency it is possible to chart structures down to 100 metres, so a much greater understanding is gained of how an area was originally formed. Deep features are also of great interest to mineral exploration companies as they may, for The Tellus Border project is a joint initiative between the Geological Survey of Ireland, the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland, Dundalk Institute of Technology, and Queen’s University, Belfast. Funding for the project comes from the EU INTERREG IVA programme, Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in the Republic, and the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 24
example, reveal possible routes for the passage upwards of hot mineral rich fluids. Conductivity can reveal surface features that are not apparent, or would be difficult to trace on the ground. Plumes of high conductivity, for example, can show leaching of pollutants from old dumps making it possible to define and deal with the problem. The aircraft is also fitted with instrumentation to detect natural radiation from the ground. Some rocks, such as granite, can be more radioactive than others, and as James explained, levels vary greatly, and where they are high there is an associated health risk. Mapping background radiation is just one of the outcomes of this project, and as James observed, results will more than justify the five million euro investment. In Northern Ireland, he said, a cost benefit analysis was able to show that the fees already earned from exploration licences have more than paid for the survey. The same kind of return can be expected from the border project, and as James pointed out, these are just the short term gains and the easiest to calculate. The Tellus surveys will continue to deliver benefits, and the data is likely to provide a platform for others to build on, such as the researchers who are using measurements of peat thickness to investigate the ground’s capacity to capture carbon. Many other studies are likely to follow. Over the coming six months data from the Tellus Border project will continue to flow in and James is quite pleased at the prospect of being kept busy, for as he thought when choosing his subject, “geophysics seemed to be a perfect fit”, and since then he has had no reason to change his mind. Report: Tom Kennedy
ATHLONE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
New Forensic and Environmental Toxicology degrees at AIT
T
oxicology is the branch of science which studies the effects of drugs and chemicals on living systems. The Swiss-German physician and alchemist Paracelcus (1493-1541) is widely recognized as the father of toxicology for his recognition that all substances are potential poisons and it is the size of the dose of the substance that make it a poison. For example, a standard adult dose of paracetemol (1000 mg) is generally regarded as safe. However, a single dose of 5000 mg of paracetamol may be enough to cause irreversible liver failure in humans. There is an ever-increasing demand from industry for highly trained toxicologists to ensure that products are safe and that they satisfy regulatory standards. Toxicologists work to develop safer chemical products, drugs and medicines. They determine risks for chemical exposure. They play a major role in industries which are critical for the Irish economy such as food, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
populations and communities. Environmental toxicology which is a sub discipline of ecotoxicology studies the harmful effects of chemicals on individual organisms of which man is just one species. As the Native American Chief Seattle after which the city of Seattle is named, eloquently said “The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.”
Toxicology can be further sub-divided into various specializations, for example, forensic toxicology, ecotoxicology and environmental toxicology. Forensic toxicology applies toxicological principles with analytical and clinical chemistry techniques to assist medicolegal investigations into drug use and suspected poisonings. The forensic toxicologist will analyze body fluids and tissue samples such as hair, urine, blood and sometimes even the fluid within the eye (the vitreous humour) to determine the identity and quantity of drugs and chemicals that may be present. A forensic toxicologist will know the rates of absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of drugs and chemicals along with a variety of other features about the nature of the interaction of toxins with the human body. As well as possessing specialist scientific knowledge, forensic toxicologists will possess strong communication and interpersonal skills (written and oral), IT skills, time management skills and the ability to work as part of a team.
Ecotoxicologists typically find employment in industries managing wastewater facilities or ensuring that companies comply with various environmental regulations . Important aspects of an ecotoxicologist/environmental toxicoloigist’s training are an appreciation of the natural world and the ability to solve “real world” environmental problems. The School of Science at Athlone Institute of Technology has offered undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in toxicology for over 30 years. In response to student demands, Athlone Institute of Technology is offering two new three year level 7 ordinary degrees through the CAO commencing in September 2012. They are the BSc in Environmental Toxicology (AL732) and the BSc in Forensic Toxicology (AL733). AIT also offers a four year level 8 honours degree in Human and Animal Toxicology (AL839).
Ecotoxiocology is a hybrid science of ecology and toxicology and involves the study of the interactions between humans and ecosystems and the potential damage human activity can inflict on the natural world. The relatively new science of ecotoxicology focuses on the toxic effects of substances on animal/plant
For further information see www.ait.ie/science.
Science programmes at AIT AL630 AL631 AL632 AL730 AL731 AL732 AL733 AL734 AL830 AL832 AL836 AL837 AL838 AL839 AL840
Higher Certificate in Science (Pharmacy Technician) Higher Certificate in Science in Dental Nursing Higher Certificate in Science (Bioscience/Chemistry) BSc in Biotechnology BSc in Veterinary Nursing BSc in Environmental Toxicology BSc in Forensic Toxicology BSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Drug Design and Development) BSc (Hons) in Nursing in General Nursing BSc (Hons) in Nursing in Psychiatric Nursing BSc (Hons) in Health Science and Nutrition BSc (Hons) in Sports Science with Exercise Physiology BSc (Hons) in Biotechnology BSc (Hons) in Human and Animal Toxicology BSc (Hons) in Pharmaceutical Sciences
www.ait.ie LIVE LINK
NUI Galway offers innovative and career-led science degree courses for the job market of today…and tomorrow. Overview
Science has contributed significantly to the development of the global economy and NUI Galway scientists are at the forefront of this development. The cutting edge, innovative research feeds into teaching, giving students the best possible learning experience. The requirement for scientific solutions to the problems mankind faces is as great as ever, and industry leaders repeatedly point to the need for more science graduates to retain and build on Ireland’s economic competitiveness.
Programmes
www.nuigalway.ie/courses/undergraduate-courses NUI Galway’s Science courses are structured, yet flexible, so you can explore your interests and passions.
GY301 Undenominated Science
The most popular choice for Science. The programme allows you to take a variety of science subjects before deciding to specialise in one scientific area. It is the ideal choice for students who want to study science, but are not yet ready to narrow their options to a specific topic. In the final year 14 topics are on offer, ranging from Applied Mathematics, Chemistry, Microbiology to Zoology.
Denominated Science Programmes
These programmes are ideal for students who have already decided which direction to take for their scientific careers.
BSc Biotechnology
Celebrating its 20th year as one of Ireland’s leading Bioscience degrees. Its strength is the unique merging of strong foundations in science with applied perspectives and real career skills. A business module has students pitching biotech products that they have brainstormed. Students acquire extensive practical experience with lab training, individual projects, and an opportunity for an international research placement, leading to a wide variety of graduate jobs in research, R&D, and technology management.
BSc Mathematical Sciences
Programmes for careers in Biology GY303 Biomedical Science GY304 Biotechnology Programmes for mastering Mathematics GY309 Financial Mathematics and Economics GY319 Mathematical Science Programmes focussed on Physics GY315 Physics and Applied Physics GY316 Physics with Medical Physics GY317 Physics with Astrophysics
www.msam.nuigalway.ie/GY319 This programme covers diverse aspects of mathematics and its applications, giving students a solid foundation in the mathematical sciences. As students progress through the programme, they have the opportunity to specialize in particular areas, including Pure and Applied Mathematics, Statistics with Bioinformatics, Theoretical Physics, and Computing. It is an ideal programme for students that are strong in mathematics and seek an opportunity to develop their potential in an area with many exciting career possibilities.
Dates for your diary
www.nuigalway.ie/about-us/open-days
Programmes in specialised subjects GY308 Environmental Science GY310 Marine Science GY313 Health and Safety Systems GY314 Earth and Ocean Sciences GY318 Biopharmaceutical Chemistry
Enniskillen Information Evening – 19th January Athlone Information Evening – 26th January Derry Information Evening – 8th March NUI Galway Open Day - Saturday, 28th April
Science Experience Summer Event!
Opportunities to do your own lab experiments Tours of the research facilities at NUI Galway Find out about careers in Science Hear about the latest discoveries and inventions For 5th and 6th year students
Get a taste of life as a scientist with two days of hands-on practical experience
Application information available from April onwards at
www.nuigalway.ie/science/experience LIVE LINK
CITY OF SCIENCE 2012 European Science Open Forum
What is it? ESOF is a showcase for the best in European science. Previously held in Stockholm, Munich, Barcelona, Turin the European Science Open Forum is being held in Dublin during 2012. Thousands of visiting scientists will come to hear some of the world’s most distinguished speakers and to attend workshops at Dublin’s Liffey side Conference Centre. In addition, scores of supporting events will take place throughout the country.
What’s on the programme?
Among the numerous subjects to be discussed by leading scientists will be the most recent findings about exoplanets, where we stand now on stem cells, vaccines to combat diseases, understanding volcanoes, the future of nuclear energy, scientific archaeology and communicating science in more effective ways. During each day several topics will be covered in a number of parallel sessions, so there will be lots to choose from. From hundreds of submissions, an international programme committee has selected 95 for inclusion in the final programme. Each of these 90 minute presentations will conclude with questions and answers.
CAREERS
Early career researchers from Europe and beyond will be much in evidence during the City of Science event. Career development has become an issue of growing importance both to young researchers and for the asdvancement of science in general. Increased mobility, networking, and aquisition of additional skills are just some of the topics that concern early career researchers. Up to 1,000
There will be workshops, debates and panel discussions on some of the most important issues facing humanity now. Some of the questions that will be open to debate will be: l Will we starve, and can the world strike a balance between growing crops for fuel or harvesting for food? l Can we eliminate some of the world’s worst diseases, and what sort of cures can we expect from stem cells? l Can we live with climate change, and what is more likely, another ice age, or are we all going to roast? l What makes us human, are we still evolving, or will information technology leap ahead of our intelligence? l How does Europe compare to the US and Asia in terms of science and research? Are we different, and can Europe compete?
young researchers will be discussing these and other challenges during a special Careers Programme in ESOF 2012. The Career Programme will focus on three main themes: l Is the 21st century researcher fit for purpose? l The diversity of opportunities in career development. l International mobility.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 27
What’s it all about? FOOD l HEALTH ENERGY l ENVIRONMENT CLIMATE l SCIENCE & CULTURE FRONTIERS OF KNOWLEDGE INFORMATION EDUCATION & INNOVATION
Who will be there?
Helga Nowotny, President of the European Research Council, the body that funds frontier research. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the astrophysicist born in Northern Ireland who discovered radio pulsars. Peter Doherty, the Nobel Prize winning immunologist and 1997 Australian of the Year. Rolf-Dieter Heuer, particle phycist and Director of CERN. Huanming Yang, a leading geneticist from China who was involved in the Human Genome Project. Tania Singer, German neuroscientist and world expert in human empathy. Jean-Jacques Dorain, Director General of the European Space Agency. Máire Geoghegan Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science. The Careers Programme will include face-toface engagement with potential employers. There will also be a Marie Curie Fellowship satellite meeting where more than 400 researchers funded under this mobility programme will attend a special conference prior to the main ESOF event.
www.dublinscience2012.ie LIVE LINK
Renewable energy, nanotechnology, space technology, computer animation and game development: A career for you? MyScienceCareer.ie is a new website which aims to provide resources for students, career guidance counsellors, teachers, parents and people of all ages who are interested in finding out more about a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Check out career profiles written by young professionals from all areas of science, along with useful resources such as video interviews, for some valuable insights into a career in science. Find out the difference between various sciencerelated jobs, what subjects you would need to study, what a typical day involves and what other areas could be open to you in the future by pursuing a career in STEM. Use the Resources section to direct you to some important websites that will help you to get more information on what colleges to consider, what points you may need and what options are open to you. Read about Ireland’s rich scientific history and famous Irish scientists of the past, as well as finding out more about our brightest Science Ambassadors of today. LIVE LINK
www.MyScienceCareer.ie is an initiative of the national integrated awareness programme Discover Science & Engineering.
COMPUTER MODELLING FOR SHELLFISH FARM FORECASTING
By Eimear Doyle A COMPUTER MODEL that could advise shellfish farmers and regulatory authorities of the potential for shellfish cultivation in coastal environments and its impacts on water quality is being created at the Marine Institute to support sustainable development of the marine shellfish farming sector. The international INTERREG-funded project involves mathematical modelling of ocean conditions and is designed to harmonise procedures between a number of modelling centres in the Atlantic Arc EU member states in terms of hydrodynamics, trophic levels, and shellfish modelling. Tomasz Dabrowski has been working fulltime on the EASYCO project, which links the Marine Institute with partners in Portugal (project leaders), France, the UK and Spain. He is being assisted by Kieran Lyons and Glenn Nolan who devote part of their work schedules to EASYCO at Oranmore, Co. Galway.
The project aims to feed information about a specific area into the EASYCO programme for public dissemination of oceanic forecasts through dedicated servers. Expansion of the Marine Institute’s modelling capacity to include ocean biogeochemistry also forms the basis for the development of the predictive models of toxic algae blooms, which pose serious hazards to the shellfish industry, with Ireland’s south west coast being particularly vulnerable. These models are currently being developed within the framework of the EU project ASIMUTH, in which the Marine Institute are also partners. Once completed, the EASYCO physical and biogeochemical models, will be run in an operational forecasting mode and will constantly update their predictions by calling on MERCATOR global ocean predictions, as well as information from the GFS (Global Forecasting System) of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in the USA to inform them about the state of the ocean and of the atmosphere. This will create a picture of sea conditions in real time, and also predict waves, currents and tidal effects, as well as the occurrence of algal blooms three days in advance.
EASYCO is ‘a transverse project which aims to produce an infrastructure for Operational Ocean Modelling in the Atlantic Space’, combining research capacities from the five countries involved to forecast hydrodynamics and biogeochemistry on a regional scale with a geographic accuracy of a few kilometres. Models solutions are then downscaled to the local scale models, such as the Irish south west, to provide forecasts at high spatial resolution, typically in the region of 200m. According to Tomasz, “the practical implications of this project mean that informed decisions can be made on aquaculture licensing in order to maximize harvesting yields and minimize environmental impacts of the shellfish farms, with the focus on mussels and oysters.” An Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler
Groundbreaking research is taking place with the development of the shellfish model with EASYCO, according to Tomasz, and once finished it will be able to predict the carrying capacity of Bantry Bay (i.e. how much farmed shellfish it can support), and to examine the effects on nutrients and phytoplankton dynamics in the seawater by the inclusion of shellfish ecophysiology. The EASYCO mathematical model is still under development and needs to be calibrated and checked or ‘ground truthed’ against existing data which, according to Tomasz involves the checking of “thousands of lines of computer code” and tweaking the model to verify its findings against local conditions. A year-long sampling campaign in Bantry Bay has recently concluded from a number of sources including advanced Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) units to record water currents at a range of depths, and a multitude of in-situ data has been collated for the model’s calibration and validation. The project produces a newsletter, and further information can be found at
Together they have been focusing on the shellfish modelling aspect of EASYCO, in terms of the life cycle of farmed shellfish and their impact on the ecosystem. In Ireland the main area of interest is the shellfish growing areas in and around Bantry Bay.
www.project-easy.info LIVE LINK
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 29
Dr. How's
What is Sound? Sound is a type of energy made by vibrations. These sound vibrations move through the air (or other matter) to our ear and our brain can then work out what we are hearing.
Science Wows!
Did you know... During the making of the film Jurassic Park, Stephen Spielberg wanted a dramatic effect to signal the arrival of the T. rex. Inspiration finally came while he was driving home listening to Earth, Wind and Fire and noticed the vibration effect of the base rhythm. In the film we see ripples in a glass of water, caused by the T. rex‛s footsteps. This special effect was achieved by someone plucking guitar strings under the dash board!
...exploring Sound!
Did you know... sound waves travel in water at a speed of Sound vibrations travel as a type nearly one mile a second, of wave that we cannot see. These sound waves need something which is more than four containing molecules (particles) times faster than sound travels to travel through. through air!
Lets learn more!
Feel it!!!
The molecules carry sound waves by bumpimg into each other, just like dominoes knocking each other over. Can we hear in space?
Junior science by Dr. Naomi Lavelle
Why do we need two ears? We need two ears to work out exactly where a noise is coming from; our brain can compare the level of noise reaching each ear and calculate the position of the source of the noise.
Make sound with bottles! Fill one of the bottles two thirds full with water and the other bottle one third full. First blow across the top of each of the bottles, which one makes a higher sound? Next tap each of the bottles with the spoon; now which on makes the higher sound?
Did you know... thunder is the sound made by lightning? Sound travels in air at a speed of about one mile in five seconds. If you count the seconds between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder you can work out the distance from the source of the thunder! For example, if you count ten seconds between the lightning and the thunder then you can tell the storm is about two miles away!
You will need... two identical bottles, water, a spoon.
So what is happening? Blowing across the top of the bottles makes the air inside vibrate. The bottle with less air will make the higher sound. When you tap the bottles it is the water that vibrates. The bottle with less water will make the higher sound! it!!!
See
Watch sound waves travel! Experiments you can try
So what is happening?
Make it!!!
Use the scissors to carefully cut the
Plastic bottle
Ask an adult to light the tea-light for you, and remove the bottle cap. Hold the narrow end of the bottle near the flame and then tap on the plastic at the other end of the bottle. What happens to the flame?
The sound coming from the radio makes the air near it vibrate. The air molecules in the balloon are squeezed more tightly together making them vibrate more strongly. We feel these vibrations in our hands.
Small amounts of air or water vibrate more quickly, making a higher sound
Echolocation
Did you know... An echo is made when sound waves you a bat can detect make bounce off a solid object and travel back to your ear. an object as small as a human hair Some mammals use echoes to help to using echolocation! navigate and to find food - this is called echolocation!
end off the plastic bottle (or ask You will need... an adult to do it for you). Stretch A small plastic drinking So what is happening? bottle (empty), a scissors, the piece of plastic over the open end of the bottle and secure a small piece of plastic When you tap the plastic it acts it using the elastic band. (i.e. a plastic bag), an like a drum. The sound waves it (See the diagram below). eleasic band, a creates make the air molecules tea-light, vibrate. These vibrating molecules Elastic band matches. then make the molecules beside Piece of plastic
Experiments you can try
Sound waves need molecules to travel through so, as there are no molecules in space (or very little) there is no sound in space!!
Blow up the balloon and tie it. Turn on the radio to a song with low base music. Hold the balloon between your two hands and hold it very near the speaker of the radio. What can you feel? Change to a different radio station and see if the vibrations change.
You will need... a balloon, a radio.
Experiments you can try
Feel Sound Waves!
Sound waves can travel through solids, liquids and gases (air), because they are made up of molecules.
Bats use echolocation to fly and hunt at night; they send out high pitched squeaks and clicks almost constantly. These sounds are called untrasonic, they are too high for humans to hear. A bat can tell from the echoes bouncing back to it, where an object is, its size and shape and wheter it is moving or not.
them vibrate. The vibrations travel through the air in the bottle and blow out the flame.
LIVE LINK
Whales and Dolphins use echolocation just like bats, but the ultrasonic sounds they make travel through water instead of air.
If you want to know HOW something works why not write to Dr. How and ask? Send your e-mail to naomi@sciencespin.com
Global partnerships for City of Science ESOF2012 Professor Paddy Cunningham spoke to Anna Nolan about the innovative addition of global partnership symposia to the ESOF programme in Dublin.
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ublin’s Convention Centre will have an intriguing visitor moored opposite its doors for two days in July during ESOF2012, the Euroscience Open Forum. Celtic Explorer, Ireland’s flagship research vessel, will be there to add extra interest to the event as a whole, and in particular to a symposium on the Atlantic as a shared resource of North America and Europe. ESOF2012 is running this symposium with the help of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) of the US Department of Commerce, and Ireland’s Marine Institute. Dr Peter Heffernan, Marine Institute, is to chair the event. The symposium is one of a set of four, one each day, run as partnerships between Europe and the rest of the world. It’s the first time that ESOF will have a global reach like this. “Our thinking is that we want to go global with this ESOF, reaching out to certain other parts of the world, with four partnership themes where we can learn from each other,” Ireland’s Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Paddy Cunningham told Science Spin. “We are putting our own stamp on it – getting ESOF is like landing the Olympics.” “Within the Euroscience vision of putting science at the heart of Europe’s common future, Ireland has something beyond the ordinary to offer,” he stated. “The people of Ireland are enthusiastic Europeans and have played a full part in the development of the new Europe.” He said that Ireland’s unusually close historic links across the Atlantic, its status as the most globalised economy in Europe, and its good record in reaching out to he developing world, mean it is ideally placed to promote fair and fruitful links for Europe with the rest of the world. He is also hoping that running ESOF2102 in Dublin will help in restoring Ireland’s international image. “When we bid for ESOF, the Celtic tiger was in town, and we were claiming our place in the world,” he commented. “The irony is that now we have had three years of recession, so there is the added importance of rebuilding Ireland’s reputation.
“Ireland has built a solid science infrastructure and we want the world to know about it,” he added. “The future prosperity of this country depends on being the best in the knowledge economy, based on tomorrow’s knowledge rather that yesterday’s.” The other three partnership symposia will be with Africa, China, and the ASEAN countries in South East Asia (not including China). The Europe and Africa symposium will discuss the value of science for development in both continents. “It will look at the lessons we can learn from each other, and look beyond development issues to business,” said Professor Cunningham. Professor Ismail Serageldin, Librarian of Alexandria, will chair the session. The audience can expect to gain some unique insights from speakers such as Dr Lidia Brito, former science minister in Mozambique, and currently head of science policy at UNESCO, and Professor Romain Murenzi, former science minister in Rwanda and now Executive Director of TWAS, the Academy of Sciences for Development, Trieste, Italy. The theme of the Europe-China symposium is science and the city of the future. With so many futuristic cities in China, this is an apt topic. The event is being organised in partnership with several Chinese institutions, and the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology is nominating two experts on development of cities to take part. Dr Lisa Amini, Director of IBM Research Ireland, Smarter Cities Technology Centre in Dublin will be flying the Irish/European flag. The four symposia are at various stages of preparation. It has been decided that the fourth partnership is to be between Europe and ASEAN countries, but at time of writing the theme has not been decided. The closing ceremony is still under discussion, but it will be impressive, according to Prof. Cunningham. “We will be handing over to Copenhagen for 2014, and we hope to have something spectacular at the quayside.” Also very much at the planning stage is the final programme for the year of celebration of science, research and innovation, with publication due soon. Readers can keep up with developments on www. dublinscience2012.ie. LIVE LINK
IRISH FOSSIL SERIES
Glorious Gastropods Anthea Lacchia looks at some more Irish fossils.
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astropods are a diverse class of molluscs with a fossil record extending back to the Lower Cambrian (about 500 million years ago). From slimy slugs to sluggish snails, the gastropod class includes the greatest number of Perfectly preserved details, this Straparollus pentangulatus fossil cracked living molluscan species. Alliteration open like a book. From the Irish Lower Carboniferous aside, familiar examples of gastropods include land and freshwater snails, gastropods have separate sexes, while commonly found fossilized. Therefore whelks, conchs and periwinkles. The most land gastropods are hermaphrodite. palaeontologists rely on shell structure majority of gastropods are aquatic, with Curiously, in some species of snail, the and morphology to identify different most living in the shallow marine realm. sex changes during the lifetime species. In fact, it is extremely rare But these animals are found in a range of of the animal. Many gastropods for soft parts to be preserved in different environments, from freshwater are grazers and a large number the fossil record. lakes and streams, to both shallow and of living species are predators. One such lucky strike deep oceans, as well as to land. The animal can retreat into the occurred in 2006, when a team of Originally, gastropods were entirely safety of its shell researchers working on Silurian marine. The invasion if threatened rocks in Herefordshire, England, of non-marine waters and many reported the finding of gastropod is thought to have species protect soft tissues, including digestive first occurred in the themselves tissues, radula, mouth and foot. Carboniferous (about 360 by closing the Deposits with extraordinarily to 290 million years ago), operculum, well-preserved fossils such as but relatives of living land a structure Much the same those in Herefordshire are referred snails are rare before the resembling a to as Lagerstätte. as we would Cretaceous (about 145 to 65 trap door, used Gastropods probably diverged see today, million years ago). to close off the from the other molluscs late in Murchisonia The animals can carry aperture of the the Precambrian and the most from the a single calcareous shell. primitive of all known gastropods Carboniferous. A flanged gastropod, Phanerotinus, shell, which is usually So, how have a non-coiled cup-shaped from Co Roscommon Carboniferous. helically coiled, or they can you tell shell. may have no hard parts, your snail In Ireland, gastropods have been which is the case of the from your slug? The morphology of the found in the following localities, among slugs. The shell can vary in size from radula is an important tool used in the others: the Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland; a millimetre in length to several tens classification of gastropods and molluscs Ferriters Cove, Co. Kerry; Belshaw’s of centimetres and can be coiled in an in general; however, it is the shell that is Quarry, Benson’s Road, Co. Antrim. upward spiral, in a flat plane or simply So, gastropod à la carte, anyone? Whether be cap-like in form, as in limpet shells. The new glides by the old in the Burren. you come across them as they are The shell is often decorated with being savoured in the best French elaborate sculpture, such as ribs and restaurants, or as they munch their spines. way through your best garden salad, Gastropods have a flattened foot gastropods are much more than that is employed in locomotion. The garden pests or dubious delicacies. eyes and tentacles, as well as the Personally, I like mine on the rocks… radula, a rasp-like feeding organ with pointed teeth, are positioned To find out more… on the head, which is the mobile, Introducing Palaeontology: A Guide anterior part of the body. The eyes to Ancient Life by Patrick N. Wyse can be positioned at the tip of the Jackson tentacles or at their base, while Fossils: the Key to the Past by Richard respiration is achieved through Fortey gills in the body. Some marine
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BT YOUNG SCIENTIST AND TECHNOLOGY EXHIBITION — A GLANCE BACK AT 2011
Why do science?
WhAT makes students want to study science? As transition year students, Anna Delargy and Maeve Butler, from the ursuline college in Sligo, found, the underlying attraction is curiosity, and this desire to know how everything works, is the basic motivation that makes students do well at science. Rather than take this for granted, Anne and Maeve decided to find out if this is simply an assumption or is it really true? If so, stimulating curiosity at a young age is far more effective as the carrot than compulsion can ever be as the stick.
For their 2011 Young Science project, Anne and Maeve surveyed four hundred students who had already made the choice to study science at university. With two hundred replies, the response was quite good, and it revealed that the desire to learn, rather than anything else, was the main reason why these students wanted to study science. While a number of students said that science fiction had stimulated their interest, many commented that they found many of the stock images of scientists annoying, and indeed misleading. As Anne and Maeve found, those cartoonish characters actually seem to have very little
influence on the scientists themselves. Almost all the students surveyed thought these characters were completely irrelevant and had no connection at all to what they themselves were doing. As Anna and Maeve observed, parents that encourage children to ask questions provide a stimulating environment, and having inspiring teachers at school makes a big difference in how students view science. Expectations are also a big influence, and as Anne and Maeve pointed out, there is still an assumption in many schools that girls are not interested in technology.
Rotating stars
Much as we like to think that we are at the centre of everything, the Earth revolves around the Sun, and our Sun is really just an ordinary sort of star. Not only is the universe sprinkled with countless stars, but many are a lot bigger than our Sun. Aisling Begley and clara O’Reilly from St Vincent’s Secondary School in Dundalk, have been looking at stars that are not just twenty times bigger than the Sun, but they rotate much faster, once every two hours compared to 27 days. Sometimes these spinning giants explode giving out massive blasts of gamma rays as they come to the end of their life, but fortunately for us, they are far away. The stars that Asling and clara are interested in are in fact 7,000 light years away, outside our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and to observe them, the young scientists were able to gain access to a powerful telescope in hawaii via the Armagh Observatory. By booking observing time and entering the co-ordinates, data from these distant stars can be collected and downloaded for analysis later. The data of interest to these young observers are the variations in the intensity of light.
Clara O’Reilly, and Aisling Begley, right, from St Vincent’s Secondary School, Dundalk. By looking at the same distant spot time after time, these variations arise from rotation. Such rotation was predicted as a possibility, but the observations confirmed that these stars do indeed rotate rapidly.
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Seeing the live feed from the telescopes, they said, is very exciting, and both agree that as far as astrophysics is concerned, they are now well and truly hooked.
European Sscience Open Forum — TURIN
Peter Agre and the modelled structure of the aquaporin water channel showing the central opening that allows molecules of water to pass through.
Controlling the flow Tom Kennedy reports on how curiosity led to the discovery of channels that regulate our body fluids
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f Peter Agre had not become such a distinguished scientist, he might well have enjoyed some success as an entertainer. When invited to speak before an international audience at ESOF Turin, Peter surprised everyone by launching energetically into a song all about the elements. He also delivered some serious science, but his tuneful aside made a good point, that really serious science is far from dull. Since his boyhood, Peter has been passionate about science, and eventually his research on how protein channels allow water flow through our cells won a Nobel prize, an award that made his mother quip, “that’s nice, but don’t let it go to your head.” Peter could see the value of that advice, and asked by a large cosmetic company to cash in on his reputation by endorsing a moisturising product he had no hesitation in saying no. As his mother said, it was nice to get the award, but for Peter, the main value is that this sort of recognition helps to foster a public understanding of science. Public understanding is important to Peter
Agre, and this is why he was so keen to act as a former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The Association’s annual showcase event has sometimes been described as a “press conference” for science, and indeed it served as an inspiration for the launch of the ESOF events. One of the main purposes of these events is to show the public at large what is going on in the sciences and why science is worth supporting. “There is a lot of good science going on,” said Peter, “but visibility is of concern.”
A journey of discovery
Peter’s progression through the sciences began as a child growing up in Minnesota. His father, a professor in a small Norwegian college, St Olaf’s encouraged his interests, and that led Peter to conduct a risky experiment. The idea, he said, was to show how dropping alkali metals into water released energy. He set up his school project. “Lithium, OK … sodium, a bit more interesting, and then potassium, more spectacular …
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great,” so experiment over, Peter dumped everything into the sink. The resulting reaction in which the hexane solvent ignited singed his eyebrows, and as Peter remarked, “a scientist was born.” As with many things in life, being at the right place at the right time could be helpful. In 1957 the Russians launched their satellite, and in response funding for science in the US went up. His father secured a position at Berkeley, and one of the giants of science, Linus Pauling became, not just a family friend, but a hero in the eyes of young Peter. “He was a brilliant and very productive scientist,” he said, “but he also had a conscience, and this was an inspiration.” In Pauling’s view science was not just confined to the lab, it was an essential part of life. “For every scientific lecture he gave,” said Peter, “he gave a second one to the public.” Peter was impressed by Pauling’s courage in standing up against the abuse of science. Pauling was a strong opponent of nuclear testing, which in the 50s and 60s had reached alarming proportions with the Russians and the Americans regularly setting off explosions a thousand times more powerful than Hiroshima. On being invited to the White House, where there was to be a reception for Nobel laureates, he took part in an anti-nuclear demonstration outside
Peter Agre with the jubilant research team at Hopkins University.
before going on in the ceremonies. President Kennedy, in greeting him, remarked with a hint of amusement, “Professor Pauling, I understand you have been around here earlier today.” Peter Agre saw how important it is for scientists of such distinction to take a stand. “One of Kennedy’s last acts was to sign a limited test ban treaty,” he said. Another of Peter’s hero’s was Schweitzer, the scientist who spend years in the jungle, and this inspired him to study tropical diseases at Hopkins University. “I had no preconceptions on where that might lead,” he said, “but I found the work being done there very exciting.” He was also very impressed by how science is like a universal language, crossing cultural divides. “One brilliant scientist there had started life in a Palestinian refugee camp,” said Peter, “and he became a colleague, and best of friends, with the son of a Jewish rabbi.” Peter’s work at Hopkins led him into the field that has brought him international recognition, and as is so often the case, asking questions about one topic opened a door to others. In trying to understand how the Rhesus factor works at a molecular level in blood cells, the researchers isolated small polypeptide fragments. At first they thought these were just as they appeared, fragments, but then they noticed that they were, in fact one of the most abundant protein structures in red blood cells.
There was some speculation about their possible significance. It was thought they might serve as a channel, but a channel for what? No one knew. Finding an answer was just the sort of challenge that Peter could not resist, so at the Carnegie Institution he got up to speed on DNA technology, cloned the fragments, and found that similar structures occur widely in other cells. Even so, he was no closer to finding out what they actually do. The question was still on his mind when he went on a holiday break. During this he thought of calling into his old mentor and friend, John Parker. As they were chatting, Parker, an expert on cell membranes, observed that the tissues that Peter was talking about are among the most water permeable of all. As Parker explained, how they could be so permeable had been a controversial topic for over one hundred years. Some researchers had suggested that there had to be special channels, but the majority view was that diffusion explained everything. “Until then,” said Peter, “I had not realised that there was a controversy,” but all of a sudden, he saw that his polypeptide fragments could resolve that problem, and that passive diffusion could never be a satisfactory explanation for the passage of water through cells. That impression was backed up by an experiment in which the expression
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of this protein was blocked to see what would happen. Using the eggs of frogs, Peter’s colleague, Gregory Preston, discovered that without the protein, eggs dropped into distilled water burst, while the controls, with the protein, did not. This was the first proof that the tiny protein fragments had a controlling function, and this was big news. Years later, said Peter, Gregory Preston was still celebrating the breakthrough discovery, and, he added, that sort of satisfaction is one of the great rewards of doing research. The next step was to determine the structure of this protein, for, as Peter observed, form follows function, and if they knew what the protein looked like, the researchers could probably see how it worked. This was not something that could be done overnight, and that aspect of investigation took a few years of collaborative research. The effort was worthwhile, for it revealed that the protein has an opening pore at one end, and a channel, just wide enough for molecules of water to go through. This acts as a gateway, actively separating out the water molecules from the proteins and passing them through to wherever they are needed. As Peter remarked, these controllers, known now as aquaporin water channels, have an enormous impact on our health. “Two thirds of our body is water, and as we sit here, we are all secreting and re-absorbing cerebrospinal fluid, aqueous humour, tears, sweat, saliva, and concentrating our urine into a smaller volume.” If things go wrong, he said. we get diseases. Increased cerebro spinal fluid leads to hydrocephalus, aqueous humor is involved in glaucoma, and the list goes on. The problem can be an absence or an over-expression of the protein, and an excess, for example, can lead to fluid retention. Aquaporins control water, and as the researchers discovered, there are other homologs, twelve of which have been identified in humans. Some transport water plus glycerol, and others are concerned with sweat, tears, or cerebrospinal fluids, but they all constitute a family that we did not even realise existed until just a few years ago.
Dan Shechtman against a quazicrystal background revealed in a metal alloy by using electron diffraction.
SCIENCE mEETS arT T
margaret Franklin reports on the Nobel Prize winner, Dan Shechtman, quasicrystals and the Golden ratio
his year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Dan Shechtman for discovering quasicrystals. When Shechtman, back in 1982, saw an unusual pattern on the screen of his electron microscope, he couldn’t believe his eyes and put three question marks in his laboratory notebook beside the record of his observation. What he discovered would change the way chemists describe crystal structures, but it was hard to convince the scientific community of his findings. His first paper on the discovery, submitted to a learned journal, was promptly returned by the editor, who dismissed it out of hand. Crystals have a fascination for mineralogists and nonscientists alike. Particles of crystalline substances, such as salt and sugar, or minerals like quartz and calcite, have characteristic shapes. A crystal was originally defined as a fragment of solid material bounded by plane surfaces, which intersect at definite angles. These angles determine the shapes of crystals. Abbé Haüy (1743-1822) the ‘Father of Crystallography’, proposed that the regular shapes of crystals were due to a periodic, repeating, internal structure. He accidentally dropped a piece of calcite and was amazed by the way it shattered into smaller crystals of similar shape. This was what inspired his theory. At that time, there were no techniques available to verify his hypothesis. It was not until the development of X-ray diffraction, at the start of the 20th century, that the internal structure of crystals could be studied experimentally. This method was used by Max von Laue in Germany to determine the structure of common salt, which has a repeating cubic arrangement of sodium and chloride ions, accounting for the cubic shape of its crystals. Max von Laue won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1914 for the discovery of X-ray diffractionm by crystals. X-ray diffraction was further developed by father and
son team, William and Laurence Bragg, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915. For most of the 20th century, crystals were described in terms of a three-dimensional lattice, consisting of a repeating unit, known as the ‘unit cell’. The angles and dimensions of the unit cell can be measured by X-ray diffraction and from this the entire lattice can be described. Many two-dimensional patterns, for example on wallpaper or floor tiles, are also based on designs that repeat periodically. But what Shechtman discovered in the 1980s was a pattern that didn’t repeat. It seemed to defy the laws of crystallography and geometry. However, almost ten years before Shechtman’s discovery, the British mathematician Roger Penrose had shown, using rhombic shaped tiles, that it is possible to create a mosaic pattern based on pentagonal symmetry, which never repeats itself. Such a pattern is referred to as being aperiodic. Solid materials with an aperiodic structure are now called quasicrystals. (Roger Penrose is perhaps better known to the general public for his work with Stephen Hawking on black holes.) Daniel Shechtman was born in Tel Aviv in 1941. Having obtained his Ph.D. from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, he went to the USA to study the metallurgy of aluminium/titanium alloys. In 1975 he returned to Technion to work in the Faculty of Materials Engineering. In the early 1980s he was conducting research in Johns Hopkins University and it was there that he made his amazing discovery. Shechtman had prepared alloys of aluminium and manganese by rapidly cooling molten mixtures of the two metals. He used electron diffraction to examine the resulting solid. This is similar in principle to X-ray diffraction, but uses an electrons beam rather than X-rays.
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been developed as a means of investigating crystal structure and it was this method that Dan Shechtman was using when he for light waves by Thomas Young made his discovery in 1982. The crystals (1773 – 1829), who was also famous he examined had pentagonal symmetry for having partly deciphered ancient and were aperiodic, like Penrose’s Egyptian hieroglypnics. Young tiling. Such patterns are found in passed a light beam through very Islamic art, for example in mosaics narrow slits and obtained a pattern in the Alhambra palace in Granada, of light and dark bands on a screen. A 450 million year old Crustacean, complete with fossilized soft Spain and in shrines in the Middle This caused scientists to abandon the parts, has been found in Herefordshire. One of the scientists East. The pattern involves the so-called theory, proposed a century earlier by involved in the discovery, Prof David Siveter from the University ‘Golden Ratio’ which is the ratio of the Isaac Newton, that light was a stream of Leicester, said that what made the 5mm long fossil so special diagonal to the side of a regular pentagon. of particles. But Einstein’s discovery of is not that it is a previously un-named species, but that the soft It is also related to the Fibonacci sequence. the photoelectric effect in 1905 showed parts have been preserved so well that eyes and the antennae can This is a sequence of numbers in which each term that light does behave as a particle. It is now be made out. is obtained by adding together the two previous accepted that light has a dual character, havong The fossil, named Nasunaris flata, belongs to the same group both wave and particle properties. X-rays A penrose often a feature of Islamic art. terms. It starts off like this: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, as water-fleas and shrimps. Their descendants arepattern, common 8, 13, 21, 34, ..... Fans of Dan Brown may are electromagnetic waves similar to today in lakes and oceans, and geologists often use the fossils as light, having the same speed as light in a A Fibonacci sequence with each being the sum remember it from his novel The Da Vinci indicators of past climates. Code. Leonardo Da Vinci himself made vacuum, but with a shorter wavelength and of the two previous numbers use of the Golden Ratio in many of his greater energy than light. The wavelengths Internal image of the fossil showing the soft parts and eyes. Image: paintings. A picture divided according of X-rays are comparable in magnitude to David J. Siveter, Derek E. G. Briggs, Derek J. Siveter and Mark D. to this ratio (1.618 approximately) has the spacing between atoms in crystals and Sutton. a very pleasing composition. It is now can, therefore, be diffracted by crystals, used by crystallographers to calculate the producing a diffraction pattern which can Later, one of David’s successors, King Hezekiah, fearing that positions of atoms in quasicrystal from their diffraction pattern. be used to determine the positions of atoms in the crystal. the Assyrians would take Jerusalem using the same approach, Electrons are tiny negatively-charged particles. But like light, This is an area where art meets science. the water into the city via a 550 metre long tunnel. It rerouted Apart from being a scientific curiosity, quasicrystals have JERUSALEM’s fate was determined by the underlying geology. they have a dual nature. They also exhibit wave characteristics proved to be a good decision, for in 701 BC, Jerusalem was the useful applications in new materials. They can impart strength At the annual Geological Society of America meeting last and can be diffracted by crystals in a similar way to X-rays. This only city that the Assyrians failed to take. to special types of steel and are being tested for uses as diverse October, Michael Bramnik from Illinois University explained was first demonstrated by two Americans, Clinton Davisson Water still remains a major factor in shaping modern history as non-stick frying pans and diesel engines. that underground passageways in the karst limestone enabled and Lester Germer in 1927. Since then, electron diffraction has in the region, and Michael Bramnik said that when he went in King David to take the city. Water was drawn from the Spring search of hydrological maps for other towns and settlements of Gihon, which lay just outside the city walls. David’s soldiers he was often rebuffed with a claim that such maps do not climbed down intoFor more information on Shechtman’s discovery, see the official website of the Nobel Prize: the spring and by tunnelling under the exist. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2011/ walls got access to the city.
Diffraction, the bending of waves www.sciencespin.com around obstacles, was first demonstrated
UPFRONT An old water flea
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34
Bedrock of history
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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 41 Page 4
REVIEWS
A book of insects
tHiS Book is like a milestone for the long established Royal entomological Society soon after it departed its central London HQ to settle in pastures new at St Albans. Publishing an all embracing reference book on insects that would appeal both to amateurs and professionals was a long term aim of the Society and it seems that the move helped by releasing funds to undertake such projects. the author, Peter Barnard served his time classifying insects at the natural History Museum in London, and now, apart from being responsible for this book he is the Society’s first full-time entomologist. All of the insects in this book are British, more or less. As the author points out, the term British, which often appears in natural history titles, is a geographical rather than political statement. Whatever flag they come under, there are, he informs us, about 24,000 different species of insect have been described as inhabiting these islands. If this seems like a lot, europe as a whole has about 72,260, while the world has 1,011,740, and no doubt, a lot more are awaiting discovery. Perhaps needless to add is that spiders and crustaceans are excluded, for while they can be small, they are not insects because to be classed as such they need three body segments and three pairs of legs. the book helps readers to make some sense of the bewildering array of creeping, crawling and flying creatures around us and the hundreds of close-up photographs provide a great short-cut to identification. After leafing through the book, and being
shown something brought in from the garden, you should be in a position to impress everyone by declaring wisely “oh, yes of course, its one of those.” insects have been around for a long time and they have often survived when all the other animals around them died out. Perhaps this explains why there is such a diversity, and why insects manage to fill every available niche. Most of us have seen those tiny springtails hopping about on the beach, but how many know that there are about 250 different springtail species all wingless but able to fly through the air because they are equipped with, yes, a spring. We tend to be more familiar with the larger, or more beautiful insects, such as butterflies, but an enormous number are tiny. As the author points out, those little ones are not to be dismissed as “bugs” because that term strictly speaking refers to one of the biting and sucking Hemiptera, most of which feed on plants, but one, the Bed Bug, Simex lectularius, was once a serious pest of lodging houses. While earwigs, daddy-long-legs and beetles might steal the show for most of us, the smaller insects often have a bigger impact on us as pests. These are the insects that have been most intensively studied, yet, while ones such as the common woodworm, Anobium punctatus, makes lots of appearances in the scientific press, how many of us have actually seen the little pale brown adult beetle creep out, spread its tiny wings and take flight. Dainty but destructive, as are a number of its relations. in his introduction to this book on insects, Peter Barnard makes a very good point about sharing of knowledge.
the study of entomology, like many other scientific fields, is, in effect, being hidden behind a price barrier. While scientists might subscribe to the notion that knowledge is there to be shared freely, the papers they write are far too expensive for most people to read. Only a dedicated specialist, with access to journals through a library, is likely to see those articles, and as Richard Barnard observes, putting knowledge out of reach that way is not going to help create interest in insects. Review; Tom Kennedy British Insects the Royal entomological Society Peter C Barnard Wiley Blackwell
FICTION
The hungry tide
Set in among the ever changing mangroves fringing the coast of Bengal, Amitav Ghosh tells of what happens when a young woman, Puiya Roy, born to indian parents in America, arrives with her GPS and her notebooks to study the Orcaelle snubfin dolphins. Discovering that locals know far more than her about these animals, she is then shocked to find just how different their attitude to wildlife is from her own. Not only has she lost the language of her parents, but her world view, like those of the international conservation agencies, has become completely disconnected from the reality of living next to man eating tigers that can swim from island to island, crocodiles that make it dangerous to go out in small boats, and storms that are so powerful
that a great port, built by the British to rival Singapore, was swept away before it could ever come into use. As Puiya continues to track her dolphins, she finds it difficult and disturbing to find just how big a gap exists between the poor who have no influence with hostile authorities and the distant policy makers, who inhabiting a completely different world, are reluctant to even acknowledge that people inhabit the mangrove fringed islands. Amitav Ghosh provides us with a window into an unfamiliar world, but in many ways, the story he tells so well could be set in many other parts of the world. Review: Tom Kennedy Amitav Ghosh The Hungry Tide Harper Collins
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GOLD FRENZY Peadar McArdle’s fascinating account of Wicklow’s gold rush. Hardback €20
Available from Dubray bookshops, Kenny’s, Rathgar Bookshop, GSI, Manor Malahide, Hannas’s and others bookshops, or order post free from Science Spin.
Those wonderful flying machines EvEr sincE people began to go out into space there have been concerns about how to get back. By the 1970s it was already possible to launch astronauts out into space and men had landed on the Moon, but what was needed was some sort of craft that could come and go, ferrying materials and people back and forth on a regular basis. The space shuttle was designed as the solution to that problem, launching like a rocket, and landing like a conventional plane. in over 135 missions the five Shuttles that were sent into space proved that this can be done, but at too high a price. As the author of NASA Space Shuttle, an owners’s workshop manual, Dr David Baker, explains, the struggle to develop such a craft quickly and within budget was such that safety was compromised, yet it was expected to fly all the time, and every time. Engineers, who like to make these sort of calculations, estimated that the crew might be lost once in every 1,000 missions, but as it turned out two crews lost their lives horrifically in just over 100 flights, and far from being a cheaper way to put satellites up into orbit, expendable rockets are still a lot less expensive. However, the shuttles did, eventually succeed in achieving the main original aim of providing a link to an islandlike colony in space. The russians got their first with the space station, Mir, in 1986, a remarkable achievement, that eventually led to co-operation between a number of countries to embark on the most ambitious engineering project ever undertaken, the construction of the international space station. The shuttle played a major role in this project, bringing essential components, and as David Baker comments, “this is why they were built, and this remains their greatest legacy.” As the title of the book suggests, there are lots of technical details on how the
shuttles work, and how their thousands of components were designed. All of these developments progressed against a background that at times made it look as if that the shuttle would never get off the ground at all. Perhaps most strange, at least to non-Americans, was the bidding war between rival contractors. if ever a system was devised to cut corners this one would surely win hands-down, and the pressure to deliver at the cheapest price was intense. For starters, nAsA had to ‘sell’ the idea so that it could get presidential approval, and then the military had their own shopping list. At nAsA there were, no doubt, some sleepless nights when the Air Force demanded an increase in lifting capacity from 15,000 pounds to 40,000 pounds, otherwise they would not give their support. That particular difficulty, at first thought to be impossible to solve, was addressed by abandoning plans to use liquid fuel and use solids in the booster rockets instead. As the author points out, there were very good reasons to avoid solid fuels, but what happens depended on what constitutes an acceptable risk to the crew. Liquid fuels can be cut off, but a solid fuel is like a firework. Once a solid fuel goes off, that’s it, bang. Accepting that possibility knocked about $8 million off the overall $5.5 billion budget. Many people think that the shuttles, which had already taken years to develop, were not really ready to take off, and when first launched they were certainly not good enough to withstand the intense heat generated by re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere. David Baker describes how many of the 30,759 heat protection tiles had to be stuck on again after a shuttle was moved from one location to another. in December 1988 the shuttle, Atlantis, came close to disaster when some tiles were damaged during re-entry, but the crew were in luck because, just at that point, the supporting structure was just that bit thicker than the rest so the outer layer remained intact and the craft survived. in spite of this,
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 39
a lesson was not learned, or the risk was considered acceptable, and fourteen years later in 2003 columbia and its crew of seven did not make it back. Whether we are comfortable or not in accepting such risks is no longer a question because when Atlantis landed on July 21st 2001 the shuttles came to their final halt. While it is still uncertain what nAsA will do next, the current plans are to follow up with a solid fuel rocket system, and while that might lack the appeal of recycling, the promise, this time, is that it will bring us further out into space. so, having had a good look at Mars, ask the soldiers for a flag to plant, for here we come. Review, Tom Kennedy NASA Space Shuttle, owners’s workshop manual By David Baker Haynes Columbia was launched for 28 missions, the last one ending in a break up during re-entry on 1st February 2003. Challenger went on nine missions, but exploded on the tenth launch on 28th January 1986. Discovery went on 37 missions, three to Hubble, and ten serving the international space station. Atlantis went on 31 missions, seven to Mir, nine to the international space Station, and one for a final service of Hubble. Endeavour went on 24 missions, one to Hubble, one to Mir, and 11 to the international space station.
Yes, it is true. After a huge demand from the Star Trek viewing public, the first Shuttle was named Enterprise. As if often the case, fact is a follower of fiction.
Iodine on corrugated iron by Cliodhna Murphy
SCIENCE SNAPS I
n the annual Science Snaps competition, run by Tyndall National Institute and Discover Science and Engineering the first prize in the junior section went to Paul McKay from Wesley College for his photograph of a water drop. Second in the same category was Cliodhna Murphy from St Mary’s Secondary School Macroom, for her photograph, ”iodine on corrugated iron.” First prize in the senior cycle schools category went to Anna McCarthy from Coláiste An Phiarsaigh, Glanmire, Co Cork, for her photogrtaph ‘love is sweet.” Second in this category was “Lunchtime” by Eoin Duggan from Colaiste Chioilm in Cork. First prize in the general public category went to Christina Ní Dheaghaidh from Dublin for her ‘pollen fest’ photograph. Second in this category was “The Chemical Origin of Life” by Tommie McCarthy from Cork. Aoife O’Donoghue, outreach officer with Tyndall, said that the challenge had been to come up with images that illustrated the Science Week theme, “The chemistry of Life.” The judges, including Judith Moffett of CPL, Darragh Shanahan from the Gallery of Photography, and Tom Kennedy, Editor of Science Spin, selected the winners from over 200 entries received from around the country. Prizes were sponsored by Dell, CPL, Vodaphone and the NanoScience platform, INSPIRE, and the winning photogaphs went on display at Cork City Hall, the Gallery of Photography and a number of public libraries.
Water drop by Paul McKay Lunchtime by Eoin Duggan.
Pollen fest by Christina Ní Dheaghaidth
Chemical origin of life by Tommie McCarthy. Love is sweet, by Anna McCarthy.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 50 Page 40
Presenti ng the b est of Irish s cience to thousan ds of peo ple from hom e and abroad
IRISH SCIENCE
HANDBOOK SCIENCE
CHARTING THE STRUC
S P IN
2012
TURES, STRENGTHS AN D SEC TORS OF IRISH SCIEN CE
Biotechnology Pharmaceuticals IT and communications Environmental sciences Medical devices Energy Engineering Food sciences Agricultural research Health care Marine science Geology and earth scien ces Education and training Mathematical sciences Physics Astrophysics Nanotechnology Science careers
Science Spin will publish The Irish Science Handbook to coincide with the Dublin ESOF Dublin City of Science Event in July 2012. It will be a shop window for all aspects of science and innovation in Ireland and will serve as a valuable promotional tool both at home and abroad.
The Handbook will help everyone understand who is doing what in science and where the researchers are based. Many organisations are now deeply involved in science, and at most of the third level institutions there are large, well equipped research centres, such as the Tyndall National Institute, REMEDI in Galway, and Conway at UCD. Ireland has become the research base for a growing number of multinationals, and in all sectors, growth is coming from innovation. Thousands of visitors will be coming to Dublin for the 2012 City of Science event, and apart from a high level conference in the capital, partner organisations from all around the country will be involved in an ambitious national programme of local events.
Includes an A-Z of organisations involved in science and research in Ireland, third level colleges, research institutes, state bodies, associations and organisations Also, an OUT and ABOUT section giving a county by county listing of places to go and experience science throughout Ireland. To book space in The Irish Science Handbook contact Alan Doherty at
alan@sciencespin.com
The Irish Science Handbook will be distributed at City of Science events, low cost copies will be available to the public, and the digital edition will be free-to-view on our websites www.sciencespin.com and www.sciencespin.eu SCIENCE SPIN Issue 48 Page xx LIVE LINK
Join the Smart Futures ICT careers campaign! Smart Futures is a national competition open to all second level students in Ireland, inviting you to create a piece of digital content reecting the theme 'Smart Futures'.
There are eight categories including best video, music, animation, podcast, game, mobile app and tech article. There are great prizes on offer, including Xbox, HP Photosmart Printer, iPad, cameras and even company placements! The Smart Futures online careers fair will take place from 23-27 January where companies will answer live questions from students and guidance counsellors about working in information communications and technology. The website www.SmartFutures.ie and competition will be launched on 12th December 2011 with full details and lots of careers videos and resources. www.Facebook.com/SmartFutures www.Twitter.com/SmartFuturesIE Email: smartfutures@forfas.ie for more info.
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