Science spin 31

ISSUE 31 November 08 €3 including VAT £2 NI and UK

SCIENCE

SPIN

IRELAND’S SCIENCE NATURE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

All island

Marine mapping

Searching for the

God (damn) particle

Understanding

Volcanoes Synthetic cannabis

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Ireland

funds great research... maybe it’s your turn!

Science Foundation Ireland, (SFI) the national foundation for excellence in scientific research is investing in academic researchers and research teams who are most likely to generate new knowledge, leading edge technologies and competitive enterprises.

SFI has a flexible grants and awards portfolio and several times a year issues calls for proposals from scientists and engineers.

SFI Principal Investigator (PI) Programme for outstanding researchers, normally ranging between `100,000 - `1,000,000 per year for a three to five year period.

SFI Research Professor Recruitment Awards for outstanding researchers, with particularly distinguished international reputations, awards normally ranging up to `500,000 per annum for up to two years.

E.T.S. Walton Visitor Awards supporting leading international scientists who visit Ireland to undertake research for up to one year, normally ranging up to `200,000.

SFI President of Ireland Young Researcher Awards (PIYRA) attracting to Ireland and supporting Irish researchers within eight years of completing their PhD, normally up to `1 million over five years.

SFI Undergraduate Research Experience & Knowledge Award (UREKA) supports active research participation by undergraduate students during the Summer.

Apply for an SFI award or learn more about our programmes at www.sfi.ie

Research for Ireland’s Future Science Foundation Ireland, Wilton Park House, Wilton Place, Dublin 2, Ireland.

Tel +353 1 607 3200 fax +353 1 607 3201 email info@sfi.ie

SCIENCE

Mount St Helen, Washington is just one of the Earth’s active volcanoes.

SPIN UPFRONT

2

Star teacher Publisher Duke Kennedy Sweetman Ltd 5 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. www.sciencespin.com Email: tom@sciencespin.com Editors Tom Kennedy tom@sciencespin.com Seán Duke sean@sciencespin.com Business Development Manager Alan Doherty alan@sciencespin.com Design and Production Albertine Kennedy Publishing Cloonlara, Swinford, Co Mayo Proofing and web diary Marie-Claire Cleary marieclaire@sciencespin.com Picture research Source Photographic Archive www.iol.ie/~source.foxford/ Printing Turner Group, Longford

Volcanoes

Gráinne Grauer tells how it was like in the lab.

7

Marine biodiscovery

Seán Duke reports on the work of a volcanologist.

Deep earth

20

Tom Kennedy reports that Europe varies in depth

25

Claire Riordan reports on harvesting novel molecules from the sea.

In search of the God particle

8

Maintaining ash

Keeping Irish strains pure.

10

Brian Dolan looks at the science behind the world’s biggest experiment.

Is maths the problem?

Sean O’Leary argues that maths should be closer to life.

12

28

Celebrating science Marie-Catherine Mousseau was at ESOF

33

Marine mapping

Seán Duke writes that progress is being made on producing an all island map.

Clare Island

13

Anthony King reports from a former stronghold of Gaelic life.

16

Cannabis

Eileen Clifford reports that synthetic cannabis could help people with MS.

34

Contributors in this issue: Eileen Clifford, Brian Dolan, Gráinne Grauer, Anthony King, Sean O’Leary, Marie Catherine Mousseau Claire Riordan.

Articles published in Science SPIN may reflect the views of the contributors and not the official views of the publication, its editorial staff, its ownership, or its sponsors.

Geological Survey of Ireland Suirbhéireacht Gheolaíochia Éireann

The ISOF EXPO planned for November 08 has been postponed.

Details for the coming year will be announced shortly.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 1

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UPFRONT Asteroid

I N 1848 an asteroid was observed from Markree Observatory in County Sligo, the ninth to be discovered. Since then many others have been found, but not from Ireland. However, in October this year, Dave McDonald discovered another asteroid from his observatory in Celbridge, Dublin. As Astronomy Ireland noted, important discoveries are still being made by amateur astronomers.

Almost 1,000 asteroids, ancient remnants of planet formation, cross the Earth’s orbit from time to time, and while there are some that pose a significant risk, this latest discovery, known only as 2008 TM9, poses no threat.

Teaching project

TEACHER, Kate O’Connell, from Tipperary, has been selected to represent Ireland in Microsoft’s Innovation Forum, an international showcase for innovation in education. Kate, who teaches at Scoil Mhuire, Kilvermnon in Tipperary, ran a project with primary pupils to build model aeroplanes from lego which were then lifted by hydraulics to simulate flight.

In November Kate is joining teachers from around the world at the Forum in Hong Kong.

Deep life

AT 7000 metres deep, in spite of pressure of about 8,000 tonnes a square metre, fishes manage to survive.

Scientists from the University of Aberdeen on board a Japanese research vessel, Hakuho-Maru, managed to record a species known as snailfish feeding at a depth of 7,700 metres in the Pacific. Prof Monty Priede said that he had been amazed so see such activities at this depth. “We thought the deepest fishes would be motionless,

solitary, fragile individuals eking out an existence in a food-sparse environment,” he said.

Although some species of snailfish live near the surface in rockpools, these deep dwellers only exist below 6000 metres where conditions for life are quite hostile. Such depths occur in deep oceanic trenches, such as off Chile and Peru, the Tonga trenches between Samoa and New Zealand, and off Japan where these ones were recorded on video.

E-books

TECHNOlOgy is driving divergence in publishing, and after a difficult and uncertain start, e-books are likely to gain a growing share of the market. E-books could prove a very attractive alternative to printed texts in education. In a pilot scheme, publisher, gill & Macmillan, is providing a class of 18 year olds at Caritas College, Ballyfermot, with e-book readers and pre-loaded texts. Apart from serving as a reader, notes can be written directly into the the iliad machines.

According to the publisher, one of the issues that needs to be resolved has nothing to do with technology. Because the content is not legally recognised as a ‘book’, e-texts incur a VAT charge.

The iliad being used in this project is one of a few different readers developed for the e-book market. Readers, priced at about €600 are far from cheap, and while they have been purpose designed, with bright screens and long life batteries, many of the texts are available for downloading as PDFs, which can, of course, be read on any PC or Mac.

Rings

THE rings around Saturn are well known, and it appears that similar, if lesser rings, circle the planet’s second largest moon, Rhea. The existence of at least one ring has been detected by the Cassini space craft.

Rhea is about 1,500 km in diameter, and the ring, which is thought to be made up of dust, pebbles and boulders, may extend up to 5,900 km from the moon’s centre. Instruments on board Cassini were able to detect the rings because they acted as a shield against a bombardment of charged particles.

The rings are thought to be made up of the shattered remnants of an asteroid collision with the moon.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 2

SPIN

www.sciencespin.com

UPFRONT Fourty-two graduate and postgraduate students are embarking on an applied science and engineering six-month internship programme.

Under the programme, run by FÁS, the students will work on research projects in the United States and Sweden.

Solar trail Leaky Earth

InformatIon collected by a quartet of satellites shows that the Earth is losing oxygen. the four ESa satellites have been monitoring the movement of charged oxygen ions over the polar regions, The movement is influenced strongly by the Earth’s magnetic field, which appears to be acting as an accelerator, flinging the particles out into space. according to Hans nilsson, who heads the team analysing the data, having four observation points made it possible to measure the strength and direction of the magnetic field over a large area.

Until recently, he said, it was thought that the Earth’s magnetic field was filled only with particles from the solar wind. However, it is now known that these particles interact with oxygen giving them the energy to escape the Earth’s magnetic field. The scientists report that the amount of gas escaping is negligible, so nothing to worry about.

Digital divide

PEoPLE that have worked with computers during their working lives often continue to use them quite intensively, but others who have never become familiar with keyboards and mice, grow into old age on the other side of the digital divide. there is nothing

particularly difficult about using a computer, but older people often assume, incorrectly, that this sort of technology is strictly for the kids. not so, but younger people have less inhibitions when it comes to learning something new.

In a project supported by Intel, microsoft and an Post, transition year students have teamed up with older

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 3

THE route from Patrick’s Bridge in Cork to Blackrock Castle Observatory has become a Solar trail. Banners, representing the planets of the Solar System have been suspended along the way, spaced according to the relative distance of these orbiting bodies from the Sun. the Sun in Cork is now at Patrick’s Bridge, and Neptune is at the Blackrock Castle Observatory. Cork artist, marianne Keating used recent and historical images to create pictures of the planets. although the trail is a temporary installation, plans are being made to make it permanent.

people who wanted to find out how to use computers. the object of the project, according to Intel, is to break the ‘fear factor’ Among the benefits of the project is that transition year students will learn how to interact with older people in their own community, and of course, older people will acquire life enhancing skills.

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UPFRONT

Winners of the ‘Intel Best Project Award’ with Minister of State for Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Jimmy Devins TD, Jerry Nolan, Education Specialist, Intel Ireland, and Sheila Porter, SciFest National Coordinator.

SciFest

SciFESt 2009 was launched with a presentation of awards to sixteen second level students at intel’s innovation centre in Leixlip. SciFest which began in 2007 as a one day science fair at the different institutes of technology has gone from strength to strength. over 1700 students exhibited more than 680 projects in nine its during 2008. Shiela Porter, SciFest co-ordinator, said the aim is to encourage interest in science through project-based experience and to give students a better chance to show their results.

Preparations for SciFest 2009 are underway, and for more details visit the web site: www.scifest.ie

Bio robot

A robot, controlled by cultured neurons has been developed at the University of reading.

Engineers and biologists collaborated to build the robot in which an array of 60 electrodes pick up impulses from the cultured nerve cells. When the robot approaches an object, sensors send signals to the “brain” which responds with signals instructing wheels to turn left or right to avoid a collision.

Prof Kevin Warwick, from the School of Engineering at reading said the harnessing of nerve cells to control a machine is a remarkable achievement. While the idea conjures up images of intelligent robots, the aim of the team was to discover how neurons in the brain remember and learn from experience.

Dr ben Whalley from the School of Pharmacy explained that “one of the fundamental questions that scientists are facing today is how we link the activity of individual neurons with the complex behaviours that we see in whole organisms. this project gives us a really unique opportunity to look at something which may exhibit complex behaviours, but still remain closely tied to the activity of individual neurons. Hopefully we can use that to go some of the way to answer some of these very fundamental questions.

Marine Institute

Foras na Mara

Great lake

A mASSivE lake, hundreds of kilometres long, once existed where the River Dvina now meanders through flat landscape towards Archangel. Geologists believe that ice dams during the last ice Age led to the formation of great lakes in the region. According to Eiliv Larsen, a geologist from the Geological Survey of Norway, the oldest lake may have formed about 65,000 years ago. the geologists, working on what is known as the SciencePub project, hope to find out more about these lakes, and also what would have happened when the ice dams finally gave way. It is assumed that this would have released an enormous volume of fresh water into the Arctic ocean.

Flowing plastics

SHAPiNG plastics on a nano scale may turn out to be easier than experience on the larger scale would lead us to expect.

Dr Graham cross from the Dept of Physics in tcD and his collaborators at the University of illinois, have found that when the scale goes down to the nanoscale level, polymers flow into shape without molecular tangling. As Dr cross explained, polymer chains are normally tangled up like cooked spaghetti, but when squeezed down into a thin film, the long molecules lie down neatly into a plane. in the untangled state polymers are less viscous, so they flow more readily.

www.marine.ie Marine Institute Rinville Oranmore Co. Galway telephone 353 91 387 200 facsimile 353 91 387 201 email institute.mail@marine.ie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 4

Foras na Mara

New exhibition based on the geological collections of the National Museum of Ireland – Natural History

Young science writer

THIS year’s winner of the RDS McWilliams Young Science Writers’ Competition was Aaron Elbel from St Brendan’s College in Killarney. As overall winner, Aaron came away with a digital camera, a laptop prize from the Marine Institute and the perpetual trophy which will be passed on to the winner next year.

Fourteen year old Aaron spun an imaginative yarn in which a botanist set out to hunt and exterminate every form of plant life.

The competition, which has been running for many years, encourages young writers to take a creative look at science.

Details for next year’s competition will be available on the RDS web site: www.rds.ie

Asthma

A study conducted by 26 research centres, members of the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network, has concluded that people who take paracetamol once a week or more often, are three times more likely to have asthma. the study was conducted on 500 adults with asthma and 500 controls for comparison. According to the group, paracetamol reduces the levels of glutathions in the lungs, an antioxidant that defends airways against air pollution. One of the scientists involved in the study, dr seif shaheen from Imperial College London, said that evidence linking paracetamol to asthma is growing. “We have shown that ashtma prevalence is higher in children and adults in countries with higher paracetamol sales,” he said.

“Considering that asthma is a common disease and paracetamol use is frequent, it is now important to find out whether this association is really a causal one.” He concluded that the only way to be certain is to conduct clinical trials.

The National Museum of Ireland – Country Life, Turlough Park, Castlebar, Co Mayo.

Tuesday 4th November 2008 This exhibition includes a collection of meteorites, many of which fell in Ireland, that tell us more about the origins of our planet.

A highlight is the Limerick Meteorite that fell near Adare, County Limerick in 1813, Ireland’s largest ever meteorite weighing in at 27 kilos.

The exhibition will also feature some of the folk traditions associated with the moon and the stars.

Admission to the exhibition is free.

Opening times: Tues-Sat: 10am – 5pm; Sun: 2-5pm.

Closed Mondays (incl. Bank Holidays) Tel: +353 (94) 903 1755 Email: tpark@museum.ie www.museum.ie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 5 nm_science_spin_mag_ad1.indd 1

16/10/2008 11:07:04

Flash flooding on Mars

A HIGH resolution view of the 1,000 km long Mangala Fossae area on Mars shows channels thought to have been formed by sudden flash floods. The water may have come from underground, released by volcanic activity melting ice. The Mangala Fossae region is just south west of the highest known volcano in the Solar System, Olympus Mons.

In this image, obtained in March 2007 by Mars Express, the extensive smooth area of 100 metre thick basaltic lava has few craters, showing that it is much younger than the upper region.

Two of the impact craters, apx 30 km across, have eroded flanks, and are partially filled by lava, and this shows that they predate the lava flow and water erosion.

Science Week

at NUI Maynooth

THE native pigmy shrew has been joined by another, bigger, species, Crocidura russula, the Greater White Toothed Shrew. The recent arrival was noticed by David Tosh, who had been studying Barn Owls for his PhD at Queen’s. In going through some owl pellets which had been sent to him from Tipperary, David noticed a larger than usual skull. It was too big to be from a native pigmy shrew, so David decided to have a look at other owl pellets. The pellets are little packets of undigested remains that owls cough up, so they are useful in determining diet.

Following this, a number of Greater White-toothed Shrews were captured at four locations in Tipperary.

Up to now, the nearest these shrews had come to Ireland was the Channel and Scilly islands, so they may have arrived here quite recently.

mber e LHC: 11 Nove ics and th ter Tuesday ticle Phys at ar M P f : o re ce u n Public lect arch for the Esse The Se m p 30 8. ilding, 7.30 ations Hume Bu al Observ ic m o n ro Ast 30 - 10 pm uilding, 8.

Science B rmitting) pe (weather g? vember es’ Clothin ay 12 No p in Wolv Wednesd : GM Crops: Shee ure Public lect - 8.30 pm ilding, 7.30 Hume Bu ow You ember Never Kn y 13 Nov ur Pet Can Thursda Yo y h W : ure Public lect - 8.30 pm ilding, 7.30 Hume Bu er Novemb en labs) Friday 14 rself ! (op u Yo ce n gs, 7 - 9 pm in ild Try Scie u B d Science ns io at Callan an rv ical Obse Astronom ing, 8.30 - 10 pm uild Science B rmitting) pe (weather

Events sponsored by:

mber 15 Nove Saturday useum M ce n Scie National 2 - 5 pm e, g lle s Co St. Patrick’

All events are open to the public and are free.

More information: http://science4all.nuim.ie/ Photo: CERN CMS, Arpad Horvath 2005

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 6

Star teacher Secondary school teacher, Gráinne Grauer, tells how she joined a drugs delivery research programme.

For the last three years Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) has been running a summer programme for teachers, which allows them to reconnect with their scientific roots. The Secondary Teacher Assistant Researchers or STARs Programme enables teachers to work with an SFI funded research team in an Irish third level educational institution for a period of between six and eight weeks during the school holidays.

The goal is to help teachers renew their interest in science as researchers, connect them with faculties in the universities and institutes of technology, and enhance the teaching of science across the educational system. The primary aim of the programme is to disseminate new skills and knowledge to teachers, which can be passed on to their students — the scientists & engineers of the future.

My experience of the STAR programme was working as part of the Irish Drug Delivery Network (IDDN) in the UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine under the supervision of Professor David Brayden. Professor Brayden leads a team of scientists across four academic centres: the UCD Conway Institute,

and the Schools of Pharmacy in Trinity College Dublin, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), and University College Cork. The IDDN aims to advance research efforts to replace injections with oral and inhaled versions of biotech molecules (e.g. proteins and gene-based medicines). I had a small project, which investigated the interaction of a specific polymer used in drug formulation on the cells of the large intestine. This was done in a hope that the polymer would block a certain pump found in the large intestine that hinders the absorption of orally administered drugs. I found that this pump could be blocked with a specific sized polymer, however much more work would be required on this project than was possible during my eight weeks. It is a great feeling knowing that you are contributing to the work being done by a multidisciplinary inter-university body such as the IDDN, even if it is only a minor note in a much larger symphony.

The STARs programme does not only cater for teachers of Biology like myself however, teachers from all of the science disciplines are catered for including Maths and IT. A visit to the SFI website will show the array of projects on offer to teachers. In addition to becoming a member of a research team, teachers were given the opportunity to attend five workshops, which were primarily organized by

The Exemption

Vera Hajnal’s gripping account of survival through the horrors of World War II and the Soviet take over of Hungary. Vera’s story tells how nothing can defeat hope and faith in the better side of people.

Case bound €25

David Knowles of the UCD Conway Institute. These workshops took place in UCD, the Science Gallery in Trinity College Dublin, the RCSI and Dublin City University (DCU) and ran for five weeks in June and July.

These workshops addressed various issues for example; discussions on how science is reported in the media and the changing face of science at third level (in UCD). These workshops also gave each institute a chance to showcase their individual outreach initiatives, which were wide and varied. These workshops gave us the opportunity to view and experience campuses and facilities on offer that we may not otherwise have encountered.

I for one was really impressed by the outreach programmes of UCD and the Science Gallery and will definitely be getting my students involved in some of the activities on offer.

Overall, I found the STARs programme an interesting and stimulating experience. I have taken from it new skills and been reminded of old ones. It has provided me with links to third level faculties that will be an invaluable resource in my teaching career. I would highly recommend that teachers partake of a programme such as this as it will revive the scientist in them.

St Vincent’s Hospital, Fairview An illustrated history

by Aidan Collins describing how a payout to an informer led to the establishment of a hospital for the mentally ill .

Softback €20.

Casebound €35

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 7

SPIN

Seaweed and sea urchin photo: David Brannigan, Oceansport.

Marine

Biodiscovery Claire Riordan reports that the Biodiscovery chances of finding novel molecules is Marine Biotechnology is a higher at sea than on land. technological application that uses marine organisms or their derivatives

to make or modify products or reland’s extensive marine territory processes for specific uses. For Ireland is home to a diverse range of novel to move forward in this new and species of plants, animals and bacteria. exciting arena, it’s essential that we These species survive in deep, hostile develop the necessary capabilities in environments resistant to extremes biodiscovery: the process by which of pressure, temperature and the marine based organisms are collected, presence of toxins. Some exist in total identified, screened for bioactive darkness while others languish under components, purified and validated. the sun’s rays. All contain complex (The ‘bioactivity’ of a substance chemical and genetic properties to describes its beneficial or adverse allow them to survive and thrive in effects on living matter). their individual environments. Why Marine Biotechnology finds doesn’t seaweed get sunburned? applications in almost every major What does it have in its make up that industry, including food, chemicals, protects it and could we use this to pharmaceuticals, medical devices, develop better sunscreens? Do other advanced materials, energy, marine species hold the key to cancer environment and ocean engineering treatments? and electronics.

The potential of sourcing natural products for commercial use from the diverse habitats in Irish territorial Current status waters is huge. The challenge however, The Marine Institute, in partnership lies in accessing, collecting and with a range of national and cultivating these sources. international centres of expertise,

I

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 8

has developed a national Marine Biodiscovery Programme.

“The objective of the Programme is to develop interdisciplinary partnerships to study marine organisms, their taxonomy, distribution, their complex chemical structures and adaptive mechanisms” says Eoin Sweeney of the Marine Institute. “Ultimately we hope this will provide for the development of new bio-products, drugs and other materials.”

The Beaufort Marine Research Awards provided a grant of €7.3 million to develop a distributed national centre of excellence in Ireland in Marine Biodiscovery. In partnership with the Marine Institute, the Awards were granted to three institutions: NUI, Galway, University College Cork and Queen’s University Belfast. In addition, the Marine Institute funded three IRCSET PhD Scholarships in Marine Biodiscovery in DCU and UCD. Ireland has a relatively strong and growing research base and a high output of trained graduates.

SPIN

The Marine Institute’s two national research vessels the RV Celtic Explorer and RV Celtic Voyager, as well as the new deep water remotely operated vehicle (ROV) which will come into service during 2009, provide the facility to collect samples and explore deepwater habitats anywhere within our territorial waters. There also exists a small group of Irish marine and biotechnology companies that could develop the outcomes of the marine biotechnology programme into commercial opportunities.

Medicine and food

There have been some significant successes internationally in the area of marine biotechnology. Marine bacteria and invertebrates have yielded Marine organisms are a rich source of pharmaceutical products such as novel The future biomolecules. Photo: Andrew Downes. anti-inflammatory agents, anti-cancer “Ireland’s seabed has several unusual, agents and antibiotics. Anti-virals if not unique, sources of organisms, — the type of medicines used to treat Cost and benefits including carbonate mounds and coldviral disease such as aids, rubella and Traditionally only 1 out of 10,000water reefs. There are indications from influenzas have been created from 20,000 molecules extracted from international sources that marine algae, marine sponges. land based micro-organisms, plants and invertebrates are a rich source of The Marine Institute and Teagasc are or animals finally reach the market. novel compounds,” says Eoin “It’s also working in partnership with five Irish Development can take 10 to15 years thought that temperate organisms are universities on a national functional food and costs can go up to $800m before likely to produce more usable toxins research initiative that will target marine a single cent can be earned from a than tropical organisms.” species which are commonly found in commercial product. The chances The Marine Biodiscovery Irish waters to secure ingredients that of finding successful candidates Programme creates an opportunity can be incorporated into Irish food in the marine environment are to work collaboratively where products. Functional foods (for example considered to be much higher than disciplines from marine science to essential oils like Omega -3 or foods with from the terrestrial environment. food science and even economic and antioxidant properties) have the ability This is because of the greater level engineering sciences can come together to contribute beneficially to human of biodiversity in the oceans and the to combine expertise and develop body functions by way of improving extreme environments in which these the opportunities in this emerging the state of well-being and reducing the species survive. industry. risk of disease, as well as meeting basic nutritional requirements.

Claire Riordan is Communications Officer with the Marine Institute.

In a lavishly illustrated paperback, Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy explain how we live in a colourful world. The physics, the chemistry and the art, all is revealed. €15 (112pp)

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Keeping Irish ash trees pure!

sh is a hardwood crop with a good economic potential for farm forestry. Today about 4 million ash trees per year are planted in Ireland, most of which are produced from local seed sources. However, during the period 1993 to 2000 home production of ash transplants failed to meet the full demand and it was necessary to resort to imports. Although the imported plants appeared good, many plantations from this period have produced crooked stems and poor growth. Contact with European colleagues indicated that common ash can form hybrids with a related species that shares its geographic territory on the continent. The poorly performing material may be progeny from the hybridisation of common ash (Fraxinus excelsior) with the narrow leaved ash, (F. angustifolia). Alternatively, it may be from a source of pure F. excelsior that is not capable of performing well under Irish environmental conditions.

The COFORD-funded ASHGEN project is examining putative hybrid ash plantations, to find distinctive morphological, physiological or molecular characters and to estimate the risks for genetic contamination of native ash by interbreeding.

The trickiest problem is the identification of a ‘typical’ hybrid because there is no single hybrid type!

Even within a hybrid population, individuals can exhibit different degrees of character combinations. Our study is developing a set of markers,

A

Above: seed production in ash.

Right top: flowering buds of ash in spring.

Right: suspected hybrid ash trees with crooked stems. observed on individuals in Irish plantations and on reference European material, to be able to more accurately identify the hybrids.

Because the common ash and the narrow leaved ash can hybridise on continental Europe, it would appear that they have not evolved complete reproductive barriers. Therefore the project is also examining whether the imported trees can interbreed with native Irish ash trees, which would lead to the spread of genetic material with poor quality traits. Successful interbreeding would require an overlapping of the flowering periods between the imported ash and the local common ash. In spring 2008 it was observed that the flowering period of imported trees was earlier than native trees; however, it also overlapped with native ash in two plantations.

Subsequently, the trees produced seeds. We are now examining whether the seeds were produced by pollen from within the stand of imports or by pollen from native trees around the stand. Similarly, we are examining seeds on native trees in hedgerows around plantations to see if they were sired by pollen from the imported trees.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 10

To avoid the risk of planting of poor quality material in future, a secure supply of Irish ash seeds with improved genetic quality is needed. The best approach is to select parental trees with good growth rates and straight stems at maturity. The interbreeding of these trees can take place in dedicated seed orchards.

The COFORD report ‘Sustaining and Developing Ireland’s Forest Genetic Resources’ states a need for 10 ha of ash seed orchard to supply the demand for ash seed. Selected parent trees have been vegetatively propagated by grafting, and the numbers are being scaled up to establish the much needed seed orchards. This will ensure the provision of planting material with enhanced genetic potential for future plantations.

For further information contact:

Dr Gerry C. Douglas (Gerry.Douglas@Teagasc.ie) Dr Juan F. Fernández-M. (Juan.Fernandez@u-psud.fr) Dr Trevor R. Hodkinson (hodkinst@tcd.ie) Prof. Nathalie.Frascaria-Lacoste (nathalie.frascaria@u-psud.fr) M. Muriel Thomasset (muriel.thomasset@teagasc.ie)

SPIN

Corporate Partners Programme Open Call for Science Week 2008 The Science Week Corporate Partners Programme is a Discover Science & Engineering initiative whereby companies from various industries are invited to participate in science week. The companies are united by their interest in promoting science, engineering and technology to young people and to the general public.

Perhaps you are already doing science outreach throughout the year? Why not schedule these plans to happen within Science Week?

U Highlight your support to the local community U Reflect positively on your organisations name

We ask your company to carry out an U Connect you to youth groups activity during Science Week such as hosting a workshop, holding an open U National media attention day, speaking in local schools, or even U Increase exposure to specific to provide sponsorship for other local target groups events and carry Science Week branding.

For full details of our corporate partners please log on to www.scienceweek.ie or contact Ellen Byrne at ellen.byrne@forfas.ie Sci week (CP's) spin ad.indd 1

09/10/2008 12:53:03

Rock around Ireland A guide to Irish geology

In this colourful book Peadar McArdle, Director of the Irish Geological Survey explains how all the rocks we see around us came to be there. Words and photographs help us to explore and understand Ireland’s varied landscape. From granite hills we cross a limestone plain to the western coast and some of the most ancient rocks in the world. From the black columnar basalt in the north Peadar brings us south to red sandstones, formed when Munster was the edge of a desert. There is a wealth of information here for everyone with an interest in rocks and the Irish landscape.

Rock around Ireland available NOW from independent bookshops and direct from Science Spin. 112 pages A5 landscape, full colour. Price €15 (£12 in NI) A case-bound edition of Rock around Ireland is also available, price €20. (£15 in NI) Rock around Ireland is a companion volume to Colour, what we see, and the science behind sight, in which Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy explain how we live in a colourful world.

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Is maths really the problem?

Dr. Sean O’Leary argues that maths in school lacks appeal because it it too far removed from everyday life.

concrete materials will not only help these pupils to solve a problem but will also help them progress onto more analytical or abstract maths.

Once a concrete problem is solved, the been worrying about something for exercise could be opened up by simply the last few years and it seems that restructuring the question. ‘How many it’s not just me who worries about it. Every coins does it take to make 36 cents?’ Another year, this problem grabs media attention, Albert Einstein question might be: ‘I have 5 coins, four are usually at the end of the school Summer the same but one is different. What is the holidays. most money I could have?’ These questions could also be After the Leaving Certificate results come out in August, supported with concrete examples. everybody seems to worry about it. Yes, it’s the failure rates in In the classroom, I was always struck by the ability of my maths that concerns me. I’m not sure if everybody else worries pupils to solve maths problems once they had been provided about it all year long but I assure you that for pupils, teachers with concrete examples. The effort in planning these lessons is and parents, it’s a year long issue and may even be a life-long worth it because pupils show a real interest in maths. issue.

The learning and teaching of maths can provide pupils Maths is a problem not just because it can be inaccessible but with the confidence for solving new problems. It can empower because many people don’t like talking about it. When I express pupils to find innovative solutions. It is this simple fact that can the source of my concern, most peoples’ eyes glaze over as they liberate us from alienating so many pupils from learning and utter “I was never any good at maths.” enjoying maths. Of course, it also makes maths a critical subject From an economic point of view, I understand that we need for our economic future. proficient and clever mathematicians to help solve many of the We have to include all pupils regardless of their ability, problems that confront modern society. In recent times we’ve interests or background in the learning and teaching of maths had reports from the Programme for International Student in our classrooms. We can do this by differentiating the Assessment (PISA), which confirm that we’re not as proficient curriculum for all learners. Maths is for everyone. in maths as the Chinese, Finnish and Koreans. This should We have to show all pupils that maths is a way of thinking concern us all. about the world and give them opportunities to apply But what can we do about it? Well, we have to stop repeatedly mathematical skills to solve problems that are of interest and relying on the argument that we need proficient mathematicians relevance to them. We have to give all pupils opportunities to for our future economy. In my opinion, very few teachers and be creative in the maths classroom. pupils are motivated by this fact.

How can we make maths accessible to all pupils? If we Why do we live in a country full of people who believe that begin to think about teaching and learning with this question in they are no good at maths? There are even educational experts mind, we will be able to improve maths learning and teaching around nowadays who talk about ‘maths anxiety’. We have to for all pupils. Who knows, at the same time, we might even look at why pupils fail maths and why many pupils consider produce capable and enthusiastic mathematicians for our themselves ‘no good’ or ‘bad’ at maths. We could begin by future economic needs. asking people who struggle with maths how we could improve There is hope on the horizon. The National Council for maths learning and teaching in the classroom.

Curriculum and Assessment (www.ncca.ie) is piloting Project Then we need to give maths an image change so that we can Maths in twenty four schools this year, which places more get past the ‘expert’ view of the mathematician and start talking emphasis on student understanding of maths concepts, with about what maths is really about. In the real world, which increased use of contexts and applications that will enable includes the workplace, mathematics isn’t just about sums. students to relate mathematics to everyday experience.

It’s not just about adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing The Project Maths initiative will also focus on developing and manipulating algebraic equations. Instead, maths is about students’ problem-solving skills. In parallel with changes in logical thinking, problem-solving and creativity. curriculum, there will be changes in the way mathematics is Most mathematical problems that we encounter outside assessed, to reflect the different emphasis on understanding school are nothing like those that we have been ‘taught’ to solve and skills in the teaching and learning of mathematics. in school. So perhaps we have to show students of maths how The Special Education Support Service (www.sess.ie) will to solve problems in a flexible and creative way. be delivering seminars for teachers throughout the year on Most problems that we come across in the classroom are adapting learning and teaching in maths for pupils with special closed problems and have one specific answer, which can have educational needs. a limiting effect on pupils’ learning. A simple way to make the I was infinitely worried about maths but now that I’ve classroom more exciting and realistic is to open up problems so shared my concerns, I’m feeling a bit better. You know what that pupils must become real problem solvers. they say, a problem shared is a problem halved. But I wonder For instance, a typical maths problem may read ‘How many 2 can you calculate what half of infinity is? cent coins would you need to get 36 cent?’ Some pupils reading this problem will know that they have to do something with the numbers. Most will figure out that they have to divide the 36 Dr. Sean O’Leary is Deputy National Co-ordinator, Special by the 2 to get 18 coins. However some pupils will multiply the Education Support Service. numbers and some might even subtract the 2 from the 36.

Another way to teach this problem is to give pupils the coins.

Pupils that have previously shown difficulty will have a much greater chance of solving a concrete problem. In fact, including

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“Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”

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SPIN

All island marine mapping Seán Duke reports that progress is being made on producing an allisland marine map. he Republic of Ireland is right up with the very best in the world when it comes to marine mapping.

A new joint mapping project with Northern Ireland, in an area off the northwest coast, could extend that level of expertise to all of Ireland, and be the forerunner to more north south co-operation in marine mapping. The JIBS (Joint Irish Bathymetric Survey) Project, off the coast of Donegal and Derry, has brought the mapping agencies closer together, and has helped build momentum towards the aim of producing a marine map for all of Ireland’s offshore waters, whether Irish or British.

€2.1 million joint-venture, funded from the EU INTERREG Programme.

That programme supports many activities that can benefit Northern Ireland and the six border counties of the Republic.

The MCA and the Marine Institute submitted a joint proposal to undertake the JIBS project, which proposed to survey the seabed off the coastline of Northern Ireland and the Republic. The survey revealed detailed seabed features, and enabled the UK Hydrographic Office, and the Marine Institute to update their old marine charts. Remarkably the last time the survey area had been surveyed was in the 19th century by the British Admiralty, who used lead lines and sextants as their basic technologies.

Background

Context

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The Joint Irish Bathymetric Survey Project, or JIBS, started last November, and now completed, was led by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, or MCA, of Northern Ireland, with the Marine Institute of Ireland. It was a

In the Republic responsibility for marine mapping rests with the Marine Institute and the Geological Survey of Ireland. Both these agencies were involved with the hugely successful Irish National Seabed Survey

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Preliminary bathymetric data acquired off the north Antrim coast during JIBS using a Multibeam Echosounder (EM3002).

The image is colour coded gradationally to illustrate water depths. Red colours represent shallow areas, blue colours represent deep areas.

(INSS) as well as the more recent Integrated Marine for the Sustainable Development of Ireland’s Marine Resource (INFOMAR).

These surveys of harbours, the continental shelf, and the deep offshore canyons of the Irish offshore have revolutionised what is known about the waters off our island. The surveys, the first since the days of the British Admiralty surveys of the 19th century, have opened a world of opportunity for both Ireland’s researchers and its entrepreneurs. In Northern Ireland, as part of the UK, the marine mapping efforts have, up to now, not been as focussed, as the responsibility for this work lies with many different agencies, including the Maritime Coastguard Agency, the Department of the Environment, and UK HO (the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office), and individual large ports, such as the Port of London.

John Evans, Marine Institute, said that JIBS had been successful, not just in terms of gathering data, but in developing stronger north south relationships. “We have been working SPIN

with the Department of Environment NI and the Maritime Coastguard Agency in the UK. What we are hoping is that it will be a precursor to enabling a Northern Ireland equivalent of the INFOMAR programme that we would co-operate with the agencies on, and have an entire map for the whole Ireland,” John said.

INFOMAR stands for Integrated Mapping for the Sustainable Development of Ireland’s Marine Resource. It is Ireland’s national marine mapping programme. It is a widespread and detailed mapping programme, one that has helped propel Ireland to the top of the European marine mapping league, matched only by Norway, and to a position that

experts estimate to be in the top five in the world. Originally, Ireland looked to Canada for help in establishing a marine mapping programme, now, the Canadians, one of the world’s leaders in this area, are looking to Ireland for help.

Survey

The work focused on a three nautical mile coast strip, going westward from around Rathlin Island to Inishtrahull Island, off Donegal. The contract

The Multibeam Echosounder revealed a previously unknown underwater crater situated off the north-east coast of Rathlin Island. It possibly represents a submerged lagoon which was exposed at a prior sea level low-stand. survey vessel used by the MCA was the MV Jetstream, while the Marine Institute deployed one of its own vessels, the Celtic Voyager.

Multi-beam echo sounding technology was used. This is where an instrument sends and receives beams of sound that are fired from beneath a survey ship, and are then reflected up off the seabed survey, to indicate the structures on the seabed. The signals from the seabed are received by the multi-beam instrument, processed Another find was this shipwreck, lying off the north Antrim coast.

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Megaripples on the seabed. by computers and converted into water depth data in order to produce ‘bathymetric maps’.

Another technology used was the Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers, or ADCPs. This is a type of sonar that attempts to produce a record of water current velocities over a range of depths. This is used for tidal information on charts, for example.

Rob Spillard, Hydrographic Manager of the MCA and Project Leader, commented on the survey work: “The MCAs contractors have been working since the beginning of the

year in this area and, although at times hampered by severe weather, data has shown that there are some remarkable features on the seabed which were previously not known about – including caves and what may have been a lagoon.”

“The data also shows a wreck, which is thought to be that of the SS Diamond, a steam coaster which sank after a collision with the SS Lily near Rathlin Island in 1918.”

“All survey operations are now complete. The data will be sent to the UKHO in order to begin work on updating nautical charts and publications. Work will also now be undertaken to serve the data up on the web, so that all interested parties can gain access to it. The project is due to finish around the end of August.”

Benefits

It is expected that the findings from JIBS will contribute towards increased safety for commercial and recreational sailors and fishermen and an enhanced knowledge of the biological, geological and archaeological features of this underwater area.

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Modelling one of the potential hazards, Limeburner rock, which comes close to the surface.

The project will also help to unify the marine survey standards on both sides of the border, and facilitate technology transfer between the MCA and the Marine Institute. *To view a 3D fly through of the seabed surveyed by JIBS visit: www.focusbiz.co.uk/mca/video/ rathlin.wmv

Clare Island

The lost civilizations

The scientific data being gathered by the new surveys of Clare Island is being used to draw conclusions on the character of Irish settlement from prehistoric right down to modern times, writes Anthony King in this the second of a series of two articles. he medieval inhabitants of Clare Island lived within the realm of the clan of Grace O’Malley (Gráinne Ní Mháille), a powerful pirate queen that ruled the seas around the west of Ireland. This was a rich Gaelic world full of wrestlers, harpists, cattle raiders, saints and hunters. The island’s

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colourful medieval society, however, is recent compared to its far earlier megalithic culture. The megalithic islanders, archaeologists believe, would have lived in rectangular timber houses, grown cereals and raised cattle, sheep, as well as goats. Researchers are providing insights into these important periods of island history.

Abbey

The abbey at Clare Island, which dates from the medieval period reveals much about the nature of Gaelic society in which it existed. The paintings which

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adorn the Abbey’s walls portray dragons, hunters and soldiers. For some today, these images might not be considered appropriate for placement on church walls. However, the reason is clear. The paintings date from a medieval period when the Gaelic lords held power in Ireland, and the images depict their world of hunting, war and music.

The abbey was a very important one, as it was a ‘royal chapel’ belonging to the clan of Grace O’Malley. Legend has it that the famed 16th-century female buccaneer had her headquarters on Clare Island. The

SPIN

ornately painted Abbey, situated on a rise a mile or so from the island’s harbour, signalled her family’s power and wealth.

Today it has probably the most intact medieval ceiling in the country. “It is of national and arguably international importance,” said Dr Paul Gosling, an archaeologist and editor of the Royal Irish Academy’s recent volume on the abbey. Its colourful wall and ceiling paintings depict an odd farrago of wrestlers, harpists, cattle raiders, animals of the hunt and saints.

The ruined tower houses and castles around the country were not always so grey. In fact, the medieval world shone with colour, the buildings festooned with paintings and tapestry. But, few wall murals survived Ireland’s tortuous history.

Paul Gosling said the abbey paintings are particularly important since they offer a Gaelic worldview: “Most medieval paintings that survive in Ireland would be in the eastern part of the country and would tend to be more Anglo-Norman, old English, whereas these are patently late Medieval Gaelic paintings.” The nature of the art is quite rustic, insular and derivative. “You get a Gaelic world view on that ceiling of the pastimes of a seafaring, partially mercantile family, but very much a family based in Gaelic law, traditions and family organisation and politics,” said Paul.

Across from a gothic walled tomb in the Abbey, visitors can see the plaque of the O’Malley heraldic arms. The limestone slab depicts a hunted boar along with a ship and a horse at full gallop. The ship represents the clan’s maritime power, which was noted for raids by sea on neighbouring territories, such as in 1513 when the

“Gráinne Ní Mháille was not a chief and she is not mentioned in any Gaelic sources; she exists only in English writings, where she appears in a negative light” O’Malley fleet attacked Killybegs. The family’s moto on the plaque, “Terra marique potens,” means ‘Powerful on sea and land’.

According to the New Survey of Clare Island, the boar may recall a sovereignty myth in early Irish texts, when candidates for kingship hunted a wild animal and the young man who captured the quarry became the new ruler.

Medieval wall paintings survive in the Abbey giving a glimpse into the Gaelic world.

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The Abbey was built and granted to the Cistercian order some time after 1224, with a twostorey chancel added in the 15th century. It wasn’t large enough to be a true abbey, but rather was a Cistercian cell. “It’s a most peculiar structure; effectively a small parish-like building with a chancel added,” said Paul.

That the Cistercians ran this “abbey” was unorthodox.

The ethos of their order was to withdraw from the world and live in rural areas, so it’s perplexing that Cistercians stayed on Clare Island, where they had to provide parochial and pastoral care to the community from its only church.

“It makes the whole thing quite intriguing,” said Paul, but the Cistercians did do some unusual things in Ireland and may have gone native.

The discovery in 1992 of a mounted warrior on the church wall emphasised how far the Abbey strayed from monastic ideals. In the Abbey volume of the New Clare Island Survey, medieval art expert Dr Roger Staley writes that the Abbey is more a celebration of lordly power than Cistercian spirituality. He points to the image of the mounted knight, with his mailed armour, as a common embodiment of aristocratic authority in medieval art.

Castle

The O’Malley’s wealth and influence was tied to their lightly built galleys, which allowed them to trade, exact taxes and carry out raids. Clare Island’s harbour offered an ideal naval base from which to police and harass the coastal traffic around Clew Bay. Grace O’Malley’s Castle, probably built in the sixteenth century, guarded

the harbour – it still stands today.

Though named for her, whether the Pirate Queen ever stayed in the castle is uncertain. Gráinne Ní Mháille was not a chief and she is not mentioned in any Gaelic sources; she exists only in English writings, where she appears in a negative light.

It was her defiance of England that probably elevated her to the status of Gaelic heroine, particularly during the 18th century when the Gaelic way of life was being eclipsed. Her abilities as a leader of fighting men and seafarer became part of our folklore. She undoubtedly visited Clare Island, but discerning between the legends, truths and fictions that surround Gráinne Ní Mháille is difficult for fact-tied historians.

Bronze Age

That the island was occupied long before the O’Malley’s is evidenced by the prodigious number of mysterious Bronze Age mounds. Fifty-three of these “fulachtaí fia” are known on the island and four have been excavated.

Unearthed from the mounds were piles of heat shattered stones and wattle troughs. Two were radiocarbon dated to 2,000 B.C. and two to around 1,000 B.C., so whatever they were used for continued for a millennium.

“Fifty-three doesn’t indicate a large population, said Paul, “but a long line of centuries where there was continuous settlement and cultural uniformity.” Professor John Waddell, an expert in prehistory at NUI Galway, said it remains a mystery why hot stones were used to heat troughs of water, but the fulachtaí fia possibly had a range of functions.

Paul sees sauna bathing as most likely. “It is difficult to believe they were effective cooking places,” he said, as you’d need to boil about 100 gallons of water in these troughs and large amounts of meat. But why would people go to so much trouble to heat water? Sauna is an integral component of cultural life in Nordic countries, said Paul: “So it may be that Ireland had cultural traditions in which washing and bathing were done as part of ritual activity.” He said it could be part of Bronze Age rites of passage, marriage, or linked to religious observance.

“There are all sorts of reasons why people bathe in other countries.”

Thomas Westropp wrote the archaeology paper in 1912 for the original Clare Island Survey. He

was the leading field archaeologist of his day, said Paul, but you get the impression that he was a little disappointed in the island. It hadn’t got as nice promontory forts as other islands and had no ring forts; he only got excited when he encountered the church paintings.

“It has a ruined castle, a ruined signal tower, a lighthouse, a small church and graveyard, a scattering of huts and houses, a number of enclosures and a megalithic tomb,” said Paul. If you take the Abbey out, nearly everything is typical, but Paul is far from downbeat: “From the point of view of the Clare Island survey it’s absolutely brilliant. The data on Clare Island can be used to draw conclusions on the character of Irish settlement from prehistoric right down to modern times.”

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Megalithic tomb

From the island’s harbour you will see signposts to a megalithic tomb.

This dates from 4,000 to 3,000 B.C. and is a court tomb, the earliest type of megalithic tomb in Ireland; they are common along the Mayo/Sligo coast.

These tombs had a roofless forecourt before a compartmentalised burial chamber. John Waddell explained that ancient ritual practices were performed in the forecourt, with the tomb acting as the ceremonial centre for a small agricultural community.

The island’s farmers would have lived in rectangular timber houses, grew cereals like wheat and barley and raised cattle, sheep, and goats.

The tomb suggests that Clare Island had a settled farming community as early as 4th century B.C. There are no archaeological monuments dated between 3,000 and 2,100 B.C.,

however, and archaeologists are unsure whether the island was continuously inhabited during that time. There are also few remains from the first millennium and early Christian period. “This doesn’t mean they weren’t there. The building of the Abbey might have removed an earlier foundation,” said John. A standing stone and holy well close by the Abbey suggests it was a place of worship before medieval times.

The island’s promontory forts are not as ancient as we might like to imagine and date from around 1400 to 1500. Recent excavations failed to uncover their social role, and Paul’s best guess is that they were built on promontories for reasons of status.

John describes Westropp as an extraordinary energetic and competent field archaeologist, yet he failed to find the tomb or the fulachtaí fia. He visited during the summer months when heather grew to the height of a man’s shoulder and possibly concealed these monuments, said Paul. What can seem obvious today may not be obvious at another time.

Top: approaching the harbour guarded by its tower.

Above, carrying on a tradition of study.

Review

Biologists have been able to examine museum specimens collected during the first survey, though much material was lost. Professor Martin Steer, chairman of the Clare Island committee, said the Royal Irish Academy will keep a database on collections from the recent surveys.

Dr Matthew Jebb of the National Botanic Gardens is seeking notebooks

and materials from the scientists who’ve worked on the New Surveys of Clare Island. “We are very aware nowadays, with impending climate change, that the smallest observations could gain huge value later on.

You cannot predict what that is going to be. So to review people’s notebooks in detail is going to be very important.”

The Abbey fell into disrepair during the twentieth century. In an attempt to prevent damage, a concrete roof was put on, said Roisín Jones of the Royal Irish Academy, but it was the wrong thing to do. A master church painter has since come along and helped restore the paintings. He used UV radiation to clean away algae and all sorts of fine dental tools to restore the paintings. Westropp’s drawings from the original survey were helpful in these efforts.

The Office of Public Works made great progress in restoring the abbey and visitors can now gaze on a special view from medieval Ireland. There’s been no official opening, but you may collect a key from the nearby cottage and view the restored medieval artwork with its peculiar mix of secular and religious themes.

SPIN Anthony King studied science at TCD and has a Masters in Communication from DCU.

GEOLOGY

Volcanoes How do they work?

A greater understanding of deadly ‘super volcanoes’, how the Giant’s Causeway was formed, and the possible links between two Krakatoa eruptions, reports Seán Duke are just some of the research goals of John Gamble, a top volcanologist and UCC Professor of Geology. or volcanologists the parts of the world that are by far the most interesting are those where volcanic eruptions regularly occur. These are places like Indonesia, Iceland, Japan, the Philippines, the west coast of North America, and the west coast of South America. This is where it’s at, where volcanoes do their stuff, typically erupting at the boundaries between massive ‘tectonic plates’, where huge chunks of the Earth’s crust collide, and hard rocks melt due to the temperatures and pressures generated

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by these huge collisions. Much is known about volcanoes, but much too is still to be learned.

Professor Gamble at UCC has two SFI-funded projects currently running, both of which involve studying volcanoes — the chemical processes associated with the generation of molten rock, or magma, as well as how exactly eruptions occur. The big question that lots of people want answered by volcanologists is when — exactly — will a particular volcano erupt? In recent decades, said Prof

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The 1980 eruption at Saint Helen’s, Washington.

Photograph: US Geological Service.

Gamble, scientists have become far better at predicting eruptions, but there is a lot still left to understand.

Krakatoa

One area of the globe that Prof Gamble has spent a lot of time in, and is a centre of volcanic activity, is Indonesia.

He has a PhD student just finishing up a project that involved studying ‘Anak Krakatoa’, or ‘Son of Krakatoa’. This is the name given to the young cone emerging from the sea, at the site of the catastrophic, 1883, Krakatoa eruption in a remote region between Sumatra and Java. The aim was to establish links between the eruption products of Anak Krakatoa and the great eruption 125 years ago.

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Mount Ruanehu (2,797 metres), the highest mountain in New Zealand’s North Island, which is shown here erupting in June 1996. The explosions depicted here led to the closure of Auckland International Airport more than 100 km to the north, and to the closure of the ski slopes on this, the most important ski venue on the North Island. Prof Gamble has been using geochemistry to better understand the plumbing systems of this type of volcano, research he terms: “measuring the pulse of an arc volcano”.

Photo: John Gamble.

Another important project takes place much closer to home and involves studying basaltic rocks in Co Antrim. These rocks were formed about 60 million years ago when lava flowed across the surface of Antrim, cooled and hardened into rock. The Giants Causeway was formed during this period, and the unusual shape of the rocks there was a result of the way the basalt magma cooled. This is a cross-border study involving Prof Gamble, Dr Paul Lyle in the University of Ulster, and people based at the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland. It is now into its second year of funding.

Volcanic eruptions involving basaltic rocks, such as those that occur in Hawaii, are typically not as explosive as those involving andesite rocks — a far more viscous rock that forms slower moving magma.

Andesite volcanoes occur around the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ in, or near to New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia, for example.

Prof Gamble is investigating the links between andesite volcanoes and what have been termed ‘super volcanoes’. The typical andesite volcano might erupt once every hundred years, or perhaps even once every 25 years and produce a few cubic kilometres of magma — a small amount in volcanic terms. The ongoing eruptions

on Soufriere Hills Martinique, in the French West Indies, are typical of an andesite volcano. It has been erupting for the past decade or so, but has produced just a few cubic kilometres of magma.

‘Super volcanoes’

Contrast that with a super volcano.

These might erupt only once every 100,000 years, but when they do erupt they can produce vast, almost unimaginable amounts of magma — thousands of cubic kilometres.

These are of a size that they have cause a ‘volcanic winter’ or global cooling in one fell swoop. The enormous eruption that occurred at what was Mount Taupo — all that remains of it is a large lake — in New Zealand 26,500 years ago is one example of a super volcano.

Although spectacular, the volcanic eruptions on Hawaii are mild compared to those that occur near Indonesia.

Hawaii, 2002, photograph J Kaurhikana.

The ‘cargo’ that magmas arising from andesite and super volcanoes are being compared by Prof Gamble and his team. The cargo is made up of crystals and rock fragments, and using microanalytical methods, a link has been found between the two volcano types, as the composition of the magmas have been found to be similar.

This micro-analysis of magma has enabled Prof Gamble to state that super volcanoes will erupt again in the future, but when exactly, he can’t say. These super eruptions could take place at many locations around the ‘Ring of Fire’, western USA, or western South America.

If something like this occurs, everyone should be worried, said Prof Gamble, even if they are living on the other side of the world to where the eruption occurs, as the effect on global climate could be sudden and quite dramatic.

The location of the super eruption, should one occur, would have a major bearing on the effect it would have on mankind. If it occurred in the Arctic or the Antarctic, it wouldn’t have a huge impact, as the nature of the spin of the Earth around its axis would mean that material would fall off and not be spread around the equator. However, if such an eruption occurred near the equator, such as happened with the Toba eruption — located in modern Sumatra — 70,000 years ago, the consequences would be serious.

Landsat satellite image of Lake Toba, on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. The lake seen here was formed following the colossal eruption of a ‘super volcano’ 70,000 years ago – and the subsequent formation of a large crater that later filled with water. This eruption was so large, that some scientists theorise that it almost wiped out Earth’s human population at the time. The island seen in the middle of the lake, called Samosir, is a resurgent volcanic dome.

There is a theory that this eruption almost wiped out mankind at the time, leaving perhaps a few thousand people alive. That’s not surprising given that Toba produced 1,000 cubic kilometres of magma onto the Earth’s surface. As well as the magma, tonnes of ash would have billowed into the stratosphere, along with gases and sulphates. The combination of all this eruption material in the atmosphere would have lead to the absorption of infra-red radiation from the Sun and global cooling.

Waterloo

In more recent times there have been no super volcanoes, but in 1815 there was the very large eruption that occurred in Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa. This eruption started on the 5th April that year. This was the same year as the Battle of Waterloo, which occurred in Belgium on the 18th June 1815. The impact of the volcano on climate was such that just a month after it erupted, it was reported that the summer in Europe was very, very cold, with many soldiers at Waterloo dying of exposure rather than of their wounds.

Another very large eruption, but not a super volcano, occurred in 1783 in Iceland – the ‘Laki fissure eruption’.

This produced 14 cubic kilometres of basaltic lava, and killed 50 per cent of Iceland’s livestock and 25 per cent of its people. That was with 14 cubic kilometres, so imagine the impact of a super volcano that produces 1,000 or more cubic kilometres of material. The impact would be almost unimaginable.

Predictions

On the big question, Can geologists predict volcanoes? Prof Gamble said yes, in recent decades such predictions have become possible, but only where sophisticated monitoring equipment is in place. Even then the prediction cannot be made to the minute, but it can be made to the week, or even the day. The clue that something is up is when movement of fluid is detected underground. This indicates that magma is on the move up to the surface.

For example, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in the early 1980s erupted within a day of two of what was predicted.

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The ‘precursor activity’ became clear.

This pre-eruption activity can involve earthquakes – the result of rocks breaking – or the release of particular gases. Sometimes with small volcanoes — the andesite type volcanoes — eruptions can’t be predicted. They just ‘go off’. But, with the larger volcanoes, the pre-cursor activity is clear and indicates an eruption is on the way.

In Ireland, Prof Gamble is looking at igneous rocks, formed when magma cools, for more information about where the magmas came from — the Earth’s mantle. He is interested in the time when the North Atlantic Ocean opened up — it was always there — and during this period there was volcanism in the land now known as Ireland. The idea is to use basaltic rocks as a chemical probe to better understand what happens in the mantle, and the chemical processes going on there that lead to magma formation?

The work into assessing the link between the andesite volcanoes and explosive super volcanoes is ongoing.

The samples necessary for this work have been collected, and Prof Gamble states that it is now a question of

going to the laboratory and making measurements with the various types of instrumentation to further prove the link.

Benefits

There are a number of benefits to the public that can arise from their support for research into Geology and volcanism in particular, said Prof Gamble. This work can contribute to global efforts to understand more about the interior of the Earth and how volcanoes work, including the nature of the very dangerous ‘super volcanoes’.

There are economic benefits too, as scientists can learn more about how ore deposits, most particularly Irish gold,

have been deposited. Most of Ireland’s gold that has been mined to date is of volcanic origin, and understanding more about volcanoes can help with understanding how, when and where gold might have been deposited in Ireland.

Also, understanding more about volcanoes that erupted in the past, particularly the very large volcanoes, and the super volcanoes, we can learn more about how these volcanoes made a past impact on global climate, and could do so again in the future.

The Kilauea volcano, Hawaii.

Photograph J P Eaton, USGS.

Science Week 2008: New Online Guide and Resources Section

2008 is the International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) and to celebrate this, Discover Science and Engineering have decided to go green by changing the Science Week event guide to an online guide. Check out the Science Week website to create your own personalised digital diary of Science Week events happening in your area.

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Whether you are organising or attending an event, or just want to find out what all the fuss is about, everything you need can be found in our new resources section! Visit the homepage to submit your events now!

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Rock around Ireland

Peadar McArdle explains about Ireland’s geology. A popular but comprehensive guide to Irish geology describing how Irish rocks were formed. Lavishly illustrated. The author Dr McArdle, is Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland. Of general interest, and useful to students.

Casebound €20 A5 landscape, 112 pg, full colour Paperback €15

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Bewleys

Hugh Oram A reissue of the original paperback in which Hugh Oram recalls many of the characters that made Bewley’s their home.

Paperback €12 Order direct and price includes mailing

www.sciencespin.com SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 24

SPIN

How thick is Europe?

A clearer picture is beginning to emerge about how the rocky foundations of Europe are far from uniform. Tom Kennedy reports that geoscientist, Siert Cloetingh, has been leading an international Deep Earth project to probe below Europe’s crusty surface. ome parts of Europe are going up, and other regions are going down.

Terra is not so firma as we usually like to assume, and if the Earth could be compressed to the size of an egg, the crust we stand on would be a lot thinner and more fragile than the shell.

The Earth’s diameter is 12,800 km, and the solid crust is, on average, just 40 km thick.

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Last month, one of the world’s leading geoscientists, Prof Sierd Cloetingh, from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, was in Ireland to talk about the deep structure of Europe, and as he explained, the continental crust is far from uniform, and while some parts are on the rise, other regions are sinking under their own weight.

The study of the Earth’s crust began in the oceans where geoscientists first discovered a great cycle of renewal as molten material welled up from below to fill the voids left by plates drifting apart. Plate techntonics, said Sierd Cloetingh was quite a revolution, but it took a while before geoscientists began at investigate how similar forces are working on land. As he explained, the

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 25

The plus signs show where Europe is on the way up, and the minus signs show where it is going down. The mass of red dots are seisimically active sites.

Chart from Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. situation on land is a lot more complex, and by comparison, the ocean floor is a lot thinner and younger. Parts of the continental crust could be up to 4 billion years old, and on average Europe would be about 32 km thick.

Ocean crusts are typically just 6 km thick, and the older edges might be just 200 million years, so in some respects they can represent less of a challenge to a geoscientist than land.

Revolutionary discoveries at sea, said Prof Cloetingh, have now been followed by another revolution in understanding the deep structure of Europe and other continents. That understanding has come about through the amalgamation of data from a variety of sources. For generations, geologists have been mapping and observing near surface features of Europe, and in recent years this information has not just been added to, but enhanced, by satellite imagery, deep drilling, and charting of magnetic variations. The Deep Earth project now involves input from geoscientists from 23 countries, including Alan Jones from the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies in Ireland.

The picture that emerges now is one of high contrast, with the continent being stretched apart in some areas to create thin skinned basins, as in the southern Pannonian Basin, and elsewhere, as in the far north, mountain ranges rest on a much thicker crust. One of the significant findings from this ongoing study is that crustal movements occur in three dimensions, and sometimes features that we have long assumed to be due exclusively to weathering and erosion, such as the steep sides through which the Danube flows on its long journey east, may have, in fact, been shaped more by uplift.

Out in the oceans most of the action is concentrated along the plate boundaries, but in a continental mass caught between colliding masses, a bewildering number of forces are at work, and as Prof Cloetingh commented, “that makes Europe a great place for geologists to work.”

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Crustal thickness varies enormously around Europe.

Based on chart by Meisseur.

The Auvergne region in central France has been shaped by geologically recent volcanics.

The area has over 80 extinct volcanoes.

Photo: Tom Kennedy, Source Archive.

Deep basins

In places where the crust has been pulled apart large basins, such as the massive Pannonian Basin, through which the Danube and Tisza rivers flow, have been created. This opened up about 18 million years, it once was a great lake or sea, and as Professor Cloetingh observed, “the basin is not just a hole in the ground.”

For starters, the extension was far from uniform, and while around the rim sinking was followed by a marked vertical bounce back movement, the deeper parts are still being pulled down. “Uplift,” remarked Prof Cloetingh, “can be just as dramatic as subsidance.”

After formation back in Miocene times, geo forces were far from spent.

Folding resulted in 50 km long waves, creating huge synclines and the anticlines that serve as the traps for oil and gas that are now being drained.

Quakes and volcanoes

In what is known as the European Cenozoic Volcanic Province, there is a lot of stress caused by sinking of the Alpine mass as it is pushed down by the the advancing Adriatic plate.

Sometimes it takes an earthquake to relieve the stress, such as one that destroyed the city of Basil in the Middle Ages. Earthquakes, apparantly, can be easy enough to trigger, and Prof Cloetingh recalled how deep drilling for geothermal energy managed to set off an earthquake that registered 4 on the Richter scale.

One of the odd geological features in Europe is that it has an area of volcanism in the middle, and this appears to be be related to the Alpine

subduction zone. However, unlike thin crust areas such as Hawaii, the volcanism has a different origin.

Fingers of hot magma flow up from relatively a shallow depth of 400 km, whereas the upwelling in Hawaii comes from much deeper to penetrate a much thinner crust.

Nothing similar has been found on other continents, said Prof Cloetingh, adding, “but maybe that’s because no one has yet looked.”

Features like this are more likely to occur in Europe, he explained, because with a large continental land mass, the crust can become decoupled from the upper mantle. In oceans, he said, there is just one layer, but in the continental situation there can be lateral flow between upper and lower levels. At first, he said, its all like we learned from the book, but then when

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 26

upward plumes starts to interact with middle layers, the situation becomes a lot harder to describe, and instead of uniform motion, we can get a wave, perhaps several hundred kilometres long, and out of tune with the upper layer.

To understand some of what’s going on, a sandwich model was constructed in Prof Cloetingh’s Amsterdam laboratory. As in the field, each layer was made up to have different consistencies and flow properties.

By applying different forces, the researchers were able to make observations that helped them explain what was happening on a giant scale.

Sierd Cloetingh was at Trinity College Dublin recently to talk about the Deep Earth project as one of the Planet Earth lectures organised by GSI, RIA and other partners.

Chemistry newsletter

Second level students are invited to submit a four page A4 newsletter on the theme Chemistry in Ireland in a competition organised by the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland and its journal Irish Chemical News.

Content should make suitable reading for non-scientists.

Four printed out copies of the newsletter should be submitted and one copy in electronic form.

First prize is €500, and the runner up receives €250 Submissions to to The Institute of Chemistry of Ireland PO Box 9322, Cardiff Lane, Dublin 2.

Email: info@instituteofchemistry.org Closing date 12th December 2008 www.instituteofchemistry.org

Birds, bees and platypuses AFTER fifteen years of writing about science in magazines and newspapers, Michael Gross picked out a selection of his favourite articles for this book.

Michael went from being an aspiring writer into science, and from science he went back into writing. For many science writers that’s a familiar enough career route.

Michael has written for a whole range of publications, both in English and German, and as his selection here shows, he has enjoyed delving into just about everything that can be called science, hence the title. In this book we can read about how spiders spin fibres stronger than steel, quantum dots, diatoms, the genome of Neanderthals, and Cupid’s chemistry. Having a good excuse to probe into just about every branch of science is probably what drives science journalists to work long hours on articles that a reporter could match in length in thirty minutes.

Another thing that motivates science journalists is the belief that people actually want to read what they

write. That’s an assumption that every writer has to make, but with science, ironically given the subject, its not that easy to prove, especially to editors and publishers, so in mass media, science stories tend to fall into a narrow crack between the disasters that drive up circulation, and commercial reports that bring in the advertising income.

Most of the articles here seem to have been published in science journals and magazines rather than

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 27

Catalogue of Ichneumonidae

The Irish Biogeographical Society has issued a listing of the Ichneumonoidea known from Ireland. These are small winged insects, and of the 1135 species listed, 222 have not been recorded before in Ireland.

The specialised catalogue is available from J P O’Connor at the National Museum. Price €10.

Mind the gap

Fourteen papers from a conference on postglacial Ireland have been published as a special supplement to the Irish Naturalist’s Journal. Included are papers from a number of specialists in this area describing changes in the fauna and environment following the retreat of the ice.

Mind the Gap, published by the INJ is available from Dr D P Sleeman, Dept of Zoology, UCC, Distillery Fields, Cork. Price €18

newspapers, and that raises a question on how well are readers with a general interest in science being served?

Admitedly this is a biased view, but it would be good to read more articles like these in newspapers rather than in special interest journals with limited circulation, and while this book is not the first attempt to jump over that particular barrier to reach more readers, I am not completely convinced that a collection of science articles, no matter how good and interesting, can ever have quite the same kind of appeal as an anthology of poems or short stories. Having said that there are lots of topics to dip into here, such as Fritz Harber’s attempt to pay off the German national dept after the Great War by extracting gold from seawater, or why South Americans should think twice about their supposedly European origins.

Tom Kennedy The birds, the bees and the platypuses Michael Gross, published by Wiley.

248pp hardback.

The Large Hadron Collider and the God(damn) particle Just what are physicists doing in a tunnel deep under the French–Swiss border? Brian Dolan explains the science behind the world’s biggest experiment. magine trying to figure out how to bake a cake by slamming two together at high speed and then analysing the crumbs? Yet, physicists are doing something just like this at CERN’s LHC in a bid to understand the structure of matter. Smashing protons together at almost the speed of light, they hope to confirm their current theories about matter and mass, and perhaps make new, even unexpected discoveries.

The LHC, or Large Hadron Collider, is the world’s newest and most powerful particle accelerator.

It sits in a circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border, is 27 km in circumference, took eight years to build -- fortunately, they could re-use a tunnel from a previous accelerator -- and, all told, cost nearly €7.5 billion.

Switched on in a blaze of publicity in September, it was switched off a few

days later when an electrical fault caused a helium leak. Glitches like this are inevitable, given the experiment’s complexity – it is, arguably, the

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Top: simulation of how the elusive Higgs particle would appear.

Above: testing the performance of superconductor magnets for the LHC.

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biggest and most expensive scientific experiment ever – but it could be Spring 2009 before the machine is back in action. (It takes weeks to warm the super-cooled magnets from their chilly operating temperature of -271.3°C ( 1.9° above absolute zero), before repairs can begin, and several weeks more to freeze the magnets again.)

When fully operational, the LHC will take science into new and unexplored realms. It is nearly 10 times more powerful than the current record holder, Fermilab’s Tevatron accelerator in Chicago, where the top quark was discovered in 1995. Colliding particles at higher energies brings physics into terra incognita, akin to exploring the far side of the Moon . . . and we usually find interesting and unexpected things in new and unexplored territories.

So why did 20 European countries spend so much money building this high-tech facility? Why are thousands of scientists around the world waiting for the data to start pouring in? And just what are they looking for amid the ‘crumbs’ of subatomic collisions? After all, they must have some idea of what SPIN

to look for, not least so that they could design and build this experiment.

Theoreticians play a vital role here, but in truth the two go hand in hand: without a theory there is no context, without experiments there are no data.

Science is not random, and fortune favours the prepared mind.

Missing jigsaw piece

Over the last 50 years, physicists carefully pieced together a detailed picture of matter at the subatomic level, called the “Standard Model” of particle physics. It’s been very successful – predicting the existence of the top quark, for instance — and agrees with all the experimental data to date. The model is like a jigsaw, and crucially it is built on the principle of symmetry. Physicists have exploited this symmetry, together with experimental data, to figure out how the jigsaw fits together and even to predict the existence of new jigsaw ‘pieces’ or new particles.

But a piece of the jigsaw is missing.

The theory, and the symmetry, both predict the existence of something called the Higgs particle. Except, despite repeated experiments, no one has yet seen the ‘Higgs’ in any particle collision. So scientists designed and built the LHC to look for it, with more energetic collisions than ever before.

The Higgs particle is so elusive that Nobel physicist Leon Lederman called it “the goddamn particle”, but it is now popularly (and perhaps unfortunately) called “the God particle”. It was first suggested in 1964 by Peter Higgs, a professor of physics at the University of Edinburgh. Higgs was building on work by Yoichiro Nambu, who shared this year’s Nobel physics prize for his work on ‘broken symmetry’.

But what is the Higgs particle? To answer that, we need to think about fields and particles. And in quantum theory, the two go hand in hand: a particle accompanies every field, and a field accompanies every particle.

Think of the photon, or particle of light, associated with the electric and magnetic fields. The Standard Model actually has a veritable zoo of ‘fundamental’ particles and associated fields: the electron, various quarks, neutrino and photon, to name a few (protons are not fundamental, being composed of three quarks).

No particles (a vacuum) usually means there is no field, but the Higgs

Checking electronics on the LHC dipole magnet.

Below: Keeping watch on performance at one of the control centres.

Creating the giant 35 metre span cavern for the Atlas particle detector. With the detector installed there was no room for supporting pillars, so the roof is held up by a series of giant inverted anchors.

Below: an escape tunnel for dumping of high energy beams. The energy in each beam has been estimated to be the equivalent of an aircraft carrier travelling at 12 knots.

field is different: it is everywhere, we believe, even in a vacuum, even when there are no particles; it permeates inter-galactic space, surrounds you as you read this article, is in the centre of the Sun, and yet has never been detected directly. Although we cannot see it or feel it or smell it, we believe it is there and, if it is, the LHC should detect its associated Higgs particle.

One reason for believing the field exists, is that we think we see its indirect effects on electrons and quarks: the Higgs field hinders these fundamental particles as they move through the vacuum . . . it slows them, and they cannot move as fast as they would if the Higgs field were not there.

Or, as the Standard Model would put it: the Higgs field gives these particles their mass, and they must travel at less than the speed of light.

In contrast, because the Higgs field is electrically neutral, it is transparent to photons: these pass effortlessly through at the speed of light, and so have no mass. The Higgs field is not the source of all mass though, only the mass of fundamental particles such as electrons or quarks. (Protons and neutrons are composite particles and their mass arises from their composite nature.)

So why have we never seen a Higgs particle? Especially as the Higgs field is all around us, and physicists have been smashing particles together for nigh on 50 years? The answer lies in the particle’s weight and life expectancy. The Higgs is, we predict, very unstable, living for a tiny fraction of a second before decaying into other, more familiar particles. You’d have to be very lucky to see one naturally, and ready with an extremely sensitive ‘camera’ or detector to capture the event. Our best hope is to ‘make’ and detect them in a particle accelerator, by smashing protons together at almost the speed of light. Because Higgs particles are heavy, we haven’t been able to produce them in a particle accelerator until now: it takes an awful lot of energy to produce a heavy particle in the fireball explosion that happens when particles collide (the energy, E, being determined by Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2).

The LHC collisions will hopefully be powerful enough to produce Higgs particles, albeit fleetingly, though it could take several years of sifting through data to find and confirm this.

CERN

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN is a French acronym) is the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics.

Founded in the 1950s, there are 20 member states, and India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have observer status.

Ireland is one of a handful of smaller European countries that is not a member state.

Engineers keep fit cycling around the 35 km ring.

Black holes and big bangs

There is more to the LHC than making and photographing Higgs particles, however, and physicists have a host of other predictions -- or ‘suggestions’ -- of things to look for with this powerful new accelerator. So, even if the Higgs particle is found quickly there will still be plenty to do. Some suggestions come from string theory and super-symmetry (SUSY), and include supersymmetric particles (heavier partners of every particle already seen in the standard model plus some more), and even mini-black holes. The latter led to concerns that the LHC could create a black-hole, that might swallow the planet. But rest easy — cosmic rays from outside the

Keeping everything cool, the cryogenic system for the LHC.

Solar System have been raining down on us for billions of years, often with energies much greater than the LHC will ever achieve, and we are all still here.

And what about recreating the Big Bang? When high-speed protons collide in the LHC, the resulting fireball could reach temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the centre of the Sun, about a trillion degrees centigrade. The last time temperatures like this were seen in our Universe was a few microseconds after the Big Bang. This picturesque language is rather misleading, however. The LHC ‘fireballs’ last for such a short time and disperses so quickly that we couldn’t say that it has a definite temperature.

The LHC will however also collide lead nuclei, producing larger fireballs that are a soup of quarks and gluons. This also lasts for such a short time that it may never reach thermal equilibrium, and again we probably cannot associate any definite temperature with it. Conditions in the quark-gluon soup or ‘plasma’, while involving energies similar to those present 100 microseconds after the Big Bang, are unlikely to be identical.

Nevertheless, the LHC is designed to probe this unusual state of matter and hopefully shed light on the physics of the very early Universe.

Irish physicists are involved in another LHC experiment, the LHCb detector, which is exploring why there is more matter than anti-matter in our Universe. This experiment will probe the phenomenon of ‘time reversal asymmetry’, for which this year’s

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 31

Nobel physics prize was awarded.

Experimentalists at UCD, led by Dr Ronan McNulty, are involved in developing this detector.

Dark matter mystery

The elusive Higgs particle is not the only piece missing in physics. There are also the twin mysteries of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. Evidence for these comes from astrophysics: by watching how peripheral stars orbit around galactic centres, and how galaxies waltz around one another, we can infer that there is more stuff out there than just the protons, neutrons and electrons described by the Standard Model. Because we cannot see this unknown stuff, it is sometimes called “dark matter” (though “mystery matter” would be a better phrase,

The Web, the grid and you

ONE of the most useful tools of recent years, the World Wide Web, was invented at CERN to enable scientists around the world to share documents and files. Now, CERN staff and researchers worldwide are developing the next generation web, called The Grid, to handle the vast volumes of data that the LHC experiments will generate. Use the Web to learn more about CERN and the LHC, by visiting www.cern.ch

Then Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895, and a year later Becquerel discovered radioactivity. There followed a virtual revolution in physics: Einstein’s theories of relativity, quantum theory in the 1920s, quantum electrodynamics in the 1940s and the standard model of particle physics in the 1960s. The standard model has proved extremely successful to date.

The Higgs is the only experimentally missing piece, and the only theoretical problem is to include gravity.

Except, now there is the problem of mystery matter and dark energy.

Perhaps these will lead to another major revolution, as their nature, origin and properties are unravelled? And the LHC may prove to be be the first step in this revolution.

Lowering parts of the detector into one of the underground caverns. since a lot of ordinary matter, protons and neutrons, is also dark). We know only that mystery matter is electrically neutral and seems to be almost inert to all the other known forces, except gravity.

Only about 4 per cent of the energy in the observable Universe is due to ordinary matter (protons and neutrons), about 23 per cent is ‘mystery matter’, and the remaining 73 per cent is something else again, that is often called ‘dark energy’, to distinguish it from mystery matter. Dark energy exerts a force that counteracts gravity, and is accelerating the rate at which the Universe expands.

So, despite the phenomenal success of the standard model, we still do not know what 96 per cent of the Universe is made of! It’s not unlike the state of the physical sciences at the end of the 19th century: gravity, electricity and magnetism were the only known forces then, and Newton’s laws, together with Maxwell’s equations

(combining the dynamics of the electric and magnetic forces into the unified framework of electromagnetism), successfully explained a huge range of phenomena. Many people felt that Nature held no more secrets, it was only a case of calculating the next decimal place to get more accurate answers.

Dr Brian Dolan, a theoretical physicist at NUI Maynooth and a research associate of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), counts himself lucky to have been taught by Prof Peter Higgs as an undergraduate at Edinburgh University.

All photographs courtesy of CERN

The Higgs field is everywhere surrounding you as you read this article

Simulation the decay of a Higgs particle.

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Celebrating science in Barcelona Marie-Catherine Mousseau was in Barcelona for ESOF 2008, the international showcase for European science. Here, she gives some impressions of the big biannual science event which Ireland hopes to host in 2012. was there, not really to influence the future of science, but as a curious lay person who liked to know more about where we are now with regards to the understanding of the world we live in. And on this I was not disappointed. The programme did tackle all the big scientific problems on the most fundamental unanswered questions of the universe – such as the origin of dark matter and dark energy, or the possible futures of the Universe – in a session called ‘the very big and the very small’. In that session, a number of particle physicists debated along with cosmologists on matters so extreme that both fields of physics get confounded.

Special attention was of course granted to the topical Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which at the time was on the verge of being launched. The world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex should help identify elements critical to our understanding of matter – the Higgs boson for the mass, and the neutralino for the dark matter. But physicists from the CERN were also there to put things in perspective so that you wouldn’t get too excited too soon.

They warned us that it could take one year or more for these discoveries to materialise.

First of all the LHC has to check out the things we already know, just to be sure that the largest piece of scientific equipment ever built works properly – in particular European particle physicists are extremely keen to check out the top quark, because this very elusive particle (the final quark to be discovered) has only been observed once, and only by Americans.

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In another session on the human mind and behaviour, ESOF 2008 explored some of the deepest human mysteries in biology by highlighting new advances made on the understanding of the working of the human mind. This included very practical approaches such as the neurophysiological principles of brain scans and more nebulous ones such as the nature of consciousness including attempts to find out whether animals are conscious (apparently chimps might be…).

You would also be happy or scared to learn that appropriate brain scanning can interpret your thoughts and intentions correctly about 50 per cent of the time or so. This means we are still quite far from reliable telepathy, but in the near future this technique could be useful for patients with stroke who can’t move or talk — they would just need to think about it and a machine would be able to do that for them instead!

More practical issues where also addressed — including means of engineering the body, or down to earth

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 33

questions such as what we shall eat and how we should look. Other questions had a more global scope, tackling burning issues such as means of enhancing energy security or fighting global warming.

Science also mingled with politics when science policies were debated, or with art with topics encompassing science and poetry or ‘drawing science from Leonardo to Edison’.

To close each day, ‘X-change’ sessions where people could interact and debate with each other and the speakers in a more relaxed setting were also part of the programme.

The scale of the event was huge; with some 4000 participants, it was twice as big as last ESOF (2006) in Munich and is expected to get bigger again in two years time. The bad side was that it was quite easy to get yourself lost in the abundance of topics going on at the same time. With so many rooms and floors you ended up loosing people you just met. On the bright side, scientists, members of the public, young and old were all satisfied, as there were enough variety and complexity levels to provide food for thought for everybody.

There was a bit of discrimination though.

The event cost something like 70 euros if you were under 35, and over 300 euros if you were 35 or over! It was free for journalists, which was good for me. But still, this was nearly a reason for me to boycott the event – what kind of science event is it that seems to consider older brains lost for science and not worth stimulating? Unless this segregation just reflects the eternal study cycle that science students have to undergo before they can get a proper job…

Hosting ESOF 2012 in Ireland would be a great challenge and a fantastic experience.

More on ESOF: www.esof2008.org/

To keep up to date on Ireland’s bid to host ESOF 2012 visit the web site:

www.esof2012dublin.eu

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Synthetic

cannabis A wonder drug for MS? Cannabis is illegal in Ireland for good reason. It can cause dizziness, paranoia and even psychosis. Against that it has been shown in several studies to alleviate certain symptoms of multiple sclerosis, or MS. Scientist at NUIM have produced a synthetic form of cannabis that they believe has all the positive benefits to MS patients, but none of the negative side-effects normally associated with the drug, writes Eileen Clifford.

he notion of using cannabis as a therapeutic agent is nothing new. It has been used for centuries as an agent for symptom relief in inflammatory and neuropathic (central nervous system) disorders. Even as early as the 1840s, European and US medical journals had published more than 100 articles on the therapeutic use of cannabis.

People with MS have known about the benefits of cannabis, and have been taking cannabis for many years.

In fact, the history of the medical use of cannabis, remarkably, dates back to 2,700 BC. However, the illegal status of cannabis in the US and elsewhere means that clinical research into its positive effects has been limited – to the detriment of medical science and the wellness of patients. However, in some countries, there is a more liberal approach and cannabis today is available by prescription in The Netherlands and in Canada.

Several new studies have been published in recent years in peerreviewed journals that demonstrate cannabis has medical value in treating patients with serious illnesses such as AIDS, cancer, MS and epilepsy.

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The focus of my work is in the area of multiple sclerosis, and research here carried out with MS patients has shown that cannabis can alleviate symptoms including pain, blindness, muscle spasms, muscle stiffness and the disabling fatigue that MS patients frequently experience.

MS

Over 7,000 people in Ireland are affected by MS and sadly this number is increasing annually. It is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS), which means it is a disease characterised by the body’s own immune system attacking the CNS. The CNS is made up of the brain and spinal cord, and this is where many nerves are found. In a healthy person, nerves function to transmit signals or nerve impulses to particular ‘target’ cells around the body. These signals enable use to move our body parts.

However, in a person with MS, the nerves are damaged and this means that the transmission of nerve impulses, or signals, is either stopped, staggered or delayed.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 34

The question that researchers want to answer is what exactly triggers the nerve damage in people with MS? An axon is a slender projection or a nerve cell – a neuron. Surrounding the axons there is a smooth insulating material called the myelin sheath.

Nerves are like an electric cord.

An electric cord contains wires and surrounding the wires is the plastic insulation material. The plastic contains the transmission of electrical impulses through the wires. Similarly, with nerve cells, the ‘wires’ are the axon, and the plastic is the myelin sheath. The sheath, like the plastic of the electric cord, functions to contain the transmission of nerve impulses to target cells around the body.

MS, as already stated, is an autoimmune disease. In people with MS, the body’s own white blood cells – the cells that are normally in the front line fighting disease – begin to attack the myelin sheath. When that starts to happen, holes soon appear in the myelin sheath, the layer protecting the axons.

The axons are, thus, exposed, and begin to suffer damage. The attack on the myelin sheath is called an ‘MS attack’.

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Impact This attack will start to have an impact on the brain. The human brain is divided, roughly, into four lobes; the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe and the temporal lobe.

Each lobe has different functions. For example, the frontal lobe is involved with speech and muscle activity, and the occipital lobe’s function is to provide us with the ability to see. If the white blood cells attack the nerves of the frontal lobe, the person with MS will begin to experience problems with their speech and muscle functions. The nature of the MS, thus, is determined by the nature of the MS attack.

MS is a progressive disease consisting of four main stages, where each stage is characterised by periods of relapses, where symptoms appear, and remissions, where symptoms disappear. The severity of the disease and a person’s progression into the more chronic stage depends on the intensity of the attack on the myelin sheath. This means that those unfortunate people who experience several intense MS attacks, can rapidly progress from stage one to stage four of the disease within a few years.

There is no cure, at the moment, for MS. The majority of treatments that are out there at the moment work by decreasing the intensity of the attack on the myelin sheath, and, thus, can reduce a person’s progression into a more chronic relapsing stage. There are also treatments available to target the specific symptoms experienced by people with MS. But, there is nothing to inhibit disease progression that also targets MS symptoms.

Cannabis In the 1960s, the active ingredient of the cannabis plant was discovered, and named delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or ∆9-THC. This is what gives cannabis users the ‘high’ associated with inhaling cannabis smoke.

Later, other active substances were found in the cannabis plant. These included cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabinol (CBN). These two active substances belong to a group of lipid soluble chemical messengers called cannabinoids.

Scientists then discovered that cannabinoids bind to receptors in the brain which are called cannabinoid receptors (CB). This binding induces a signalling cascade in the brain, which ultimately leads to the ‘high’ sensation and the enhancement of appetite that cannabis users often experience after ingesting cannabis.

It was presumed that these receptors didn’t just exist for providing people with a ‘high’ and so scientists went about searching for the real function of CB. These investigations in turn led to the discovery of two cannabinoid receptors called CB1 and CB2 in the early 1990s. CB1, it was found, is predominantly expressed in brain cells, while CB2 is mainly expressed in cells of the immune system, for example the white blood cells.

Benefits

Research has shown that MS patients who smoke or ingest cannabis orally have reduced muscle spasms, sleep better, therefore have less fatigue, have an increased appetite and also a reduction in their joint pain due to lack of mobility. In mouse models, it has also been shown that t ∆9-THC exerts anti-inflammatory effects.

Against this, there are side effects to ingesting cannabis that must be taken into account, and people with MS need to weigh these against the proven benefits. The side effects include dizziness and paranoia, and there is some evidence that people with a history of schizophrenia might experience a worsening of their symptoms. There is also a high risk of cancer from smoking cannabis.

This is not due to the presence of cannabinoids, but because cannabis cigarettes are smoked without filters, and thus carcinogenic chemicals are not being filtered out at all during the smoking process.

Researchers have wondered, whether, given the many positive effects of taking cannabis, could the negative side effects be eliminated? The other thing to consider was the legal issues related to acquiring cannabis. Would this be a barrier that would prevent scientists investigating the therapeutic effects of cannabis in MS patients?

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 31 Page 35

Synthetic Cannabinoid researchers at the Institute of Immunology at NUIM got around the issue of acquiring cannabis by producing synthetic cannabinoids that would form the basis of research.

Synthetic cannabinoids are structurally similar to herbal cannabinoids, and the synthetic cannabinoids have been found to possess many of the same therapeutic properties as herbal cannabinoids.

But, and this is the key, the structure of the synthetic cannabinoids can be changed to eliminate the side effects that are associated with herbal cannabis. It is possible for researchers to design a synthetic cannabinoid where none of the negative side-effects caused by the herbal cannabinoid are displayed.

A team of researchers, including this author and led by Professor Paul Moynagh have demonstrated that a synthetic form of cannabinoids, namely R(+)WIN55,212 can decrease the levels of certain proteins involved in the migration of the white blood cells into the CNS. Blocking the migration of the white blood cells ultimately leads to a reduction in the MS attack on the myelin sheath.

It has also been shown that the drug can decrease the activation of various transcription factors (these factors are proteins that regulate gene expression) that are involved in the production of proteins that contribute to an MS attack.

Ultimately, the goal of researchers would be to carry out similar research in humans. Numerous groups at this point have demonstrated the beneficial value of cannabinoids in the treatment of MS patients, including those who have failed to improve on current treatments.

Eileen Clifford is a PhD student at the Institute of Immunology at NUI Maynooth. She is also the winner of the 2008 ‘Science Speak’ contest at NUIM. She represented NUIM in the national Science Speak event at the RDS.

The 55 million year old parrots are likely to have been a close match to those that now live only in warmer parts of the world.

Ancient parrot The Mopsitta humerus.

Graphics by Dr David Waterhouse.

arrots thrive in the tropics, but 55 million years ago they were quite at home in Norway and Denmark. The evidence comes from a single fossil bone discovered on the Isle of Mors in the northwest of Denmark. Officially named Mopsitta tanta, it became better known as the Danish Blue, not because of its colour, but because it became associated with a dead parrot in a well known Monty Pyton comedy sketch.

Dr David Waterhouse, who published the findings earlier this year in a joint paper with Bent Lindow, Nikita Zelenkov, and Gareth Dyke, reported that although all that remains is a single humerus bone, it is enough to establish that it belonged to a member of the parrot family, and that it would have been about the size of a Yellowcrested Cockatoo.

At the time northern Europe was a lot warmer than it is now, and the environment with its large shallow tropical lagoons is likely to have been packed with wildlife. According to Dr Waterhouse, who worked on the project from UCD with support from IRCSET, the age of the find is significant. “No Southern Hemisphere fossil parrot has neen found older than about 15 million years old, so this new evidence suggests that parrots evolved right here in the Northern Hemisphere before diversifying further south in the tropics.�

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