Spin 18

ISSUE 18 October 06 €3 including VAT £2 NI and UK

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IRELAND’S SCIENCE WILDLIFE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

Ireland’s Fossil plants

BIO MEDICAL IMAGES

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Nuclear Europe

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UPFRONT

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Tom Kennedy reports on the changing attitude to nuclear power.

Fighting disease

Bio images

Business Development Manager Alan Doherty alan@sciencespin.com Design and Production Albertine Kennedy Publishing Cloonlara, Swinford, Co Mayo Proofing Aisling McLaughlin Printing Turner Print, Longford

A selection of images from the Wellcome Trust library exhibition.

EARTH SCIENCE Mourne granite Irish earthquakes

Jurassic bark

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Computus

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Gerry O’Sullivan and Maeve nic Samhradáin write that the discovery of an eighth century textbook in Switzerland deepens our knowledge about Medieval Ireland.

In from the wild

Cornelie Kennedy explains why home pets should stay away from wild rats.

Baby brainwaves

Reducing the risk by earlier detection.

Garden wildlife, lessons from the rain forests, eco-panic books, and a guide to Aran wildlife.

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Tom Kennedy looks at plants that grew here millions of years ago.

Reviews 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.

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Contributors in this issue: Tony Bazley, Cameron Faloon, Gary Finnegan, Gareth Jones, Cornelie Kennedy, Ian Meighan, Tony McGennis, Gerry O’Sullivan, Maeve nic Samhradáin.

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Seán Duke explains how UCD researchers are on the attack.

Editors Seán Duke sean@sciencespin.com Tom Kennedy tom@sciencespin.com

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Nuclear Europe

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A blood filled mosquito, one of the amazing images from the Wellcome Trust Library. A selection from the best submissions over the last year were recently on show at the Wellcome Trust HQ in London. Photograph by Hugh Sturrock.

UPFRONT

anybody. During a long career, said André, he had submitted to a long litiny of demands. Among those he recalled were, “multidisciplinary, internationality, critical mass, promise of short-term applications, young age, female gender, FOR FOUR days in July scientists milestones, mobility, and so on, and converged on the Deutches Museum then there were the ‘chosen fields’, in Munich to present their work and such as genomics, and discuss such topics as the nanotechnology.” technology of terrorism, and Like many other the future of nuclear energy. researchers, Prof Goffean, The Euroscience Open filled in the appropriate Forum (ESOF), which ran forms, and got on with alongside Germany’s Science the work. “My best Week, was started just two contributions to science,” he years ago as a showcase said, “have been made by for European research. The fully unexpected serendipity, US already had the well and I have had to divert established American funding from other projects Advancement of Science to exploit them.”

Association meeting, and it Such views have been Lots of science, and was felt that Europe needed unpopular with policy outside the museum, a to launch a similar high-profile makers, but last year the Gershwin duet to lighten event.

European Science up the mood.

With over 70 lectures, Foundation,, representing seminars and workshops, the many of the leading research forum covered a wide range of topics, organisations throughout Europe, were and surprisingly, apart from the absence of Irish organisations, there were no translators. So, while the UK remains outside the Euro Zone, its linguistic Essay competition for schools currency has been pragmatically endorsed as the univedrsal language of THE Regenerative Medicine Institute science. Not so long ago, scientists would (REMEDI) at NUI Galway has have felt at a disadvantage if they did launched its national Schools’ Science not speak, or at least read German, but at Essay Competition 2006. Sponsored Munich, everything was in English. by medical technology company One of the main benefits from such a Medtronic, the competition is open forum is that scientists can raise issues to all students in the senior cycle. of concern to all. One of these concerns, This year’s essay topic is ‘The Quest quietly simmering away in Ireland, is for Immortality: Who Wants to Live the obsession with short-term returns.

Forever?’ Closing date for receipt of Researchers often feel that applying for entries is Friday, October 27th 2006. support is becoming like asking the bank REMEDI’s Schools’ Science Essay for a loan. Privately, many scientists Competition was launched in 2005 to admit that they are more interested in stimulate discussion on the ethical and knowledge than making a quick profit, societal implications of advances in but they know that saying this in public biomedical research. is likely to ruin their research career.

Last year’s competition generated The knowledge focused researchers a lot of interest among students, have a strong case to make, pointing with over 50 schools participating, out that many of the most economically representing almost every county in important discoveries were made either Ireland. The eventual winner was by accident, or because the scientists wanted to know why, rather than how to.

Laura Bree, from the Dominican In Ireland, Nicholas Callan at Maynooth College in Taylor’s Hill, Galway, who was hardly thinking about the electronics went on to get As in Biology and industry when he discovered, almost by Chemistry in her Leaving-Cert. Laura accident, how to step up electrical power, has just enrolled as a first-year in and the laser was also a discovery that no Biomedical Engineering at NUI one could have predicted.

Galway.

At ESOF, distinguished scientist, “Laura Bree, is a wonderful example André Goffean, from the University of of a young student with an interest Louvain, wondered if imposing prein science who is turning that into conditions is really much of a help to

Euro science

While locals basked in the Sun along the sandy banks of the Isar, scientists swere inside discussing hot topics.

successful in their bid to have ‘blueskies’ research included in the next EC Framework programme. Under the next Framework programme a European Research Council is to support curiousity-driven research through individual grants. According to Jacques Remacle from the European Commission, the selection will be based purely on basic merit.

In a few years time it will be interesting to see how the pure and applied strands compare. Who is going to have the best results, and which strand will have the best bottom line?

Quest for immortality

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REMEDI’s Schools’ Science Essay Competition 2005 winner Laura Bree success”, commented Ita Murphy, Communications and Outreach Manager, REMEDI. In this year’s competition, students will look at the whether the promise of longer life is just a myth, or, should we be coconcerned that science may yet extend the life of future generations Full details of the competition rules, helpful hints and additional information on how to enter are available on the education section of the REMEDI website www.remedi.ie.

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UPFRONT �u�er�ies and �ot�s

IN A systematic listing of moths and butterflies recorded from Ireland Bond, R Nash, and J P O’Connor, note that the absence of such a formal listing up to now has led to under-reporting of species. Captures, likely to be of considerable interest to entomologists, often remain hidden away in private collections, and the aim is to include these in the checklist.

The checklist, priced at €25 is available from Dr J P O’Connor, National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2.

TCD, UCC, and NUI Galway have agreed to work together on high profile research areas. The idea is bring up the scale of research projects and avoid duplication.

TCD Provost, Dr John Hegarty, said the aim is to have collaboration across a number of fields. In some areas one of the colleges is expected to remain in the lead. TCD expects to have the lead in nanotechnology and neuroscience, while Cork is to lead in food science.

Trading knowledge

COMPANIES can now buy and sell ideas over the internet. An intellectual property exchange portal has been set up by Enterprise Ireland. By logging onto www.techsearch.ie, firms can search for technical solutions to production problems, and if they have ideas

Natural disasters

THE tsunami of December 2004 left over 200,000 dead, and the impact on the survivors was, and continues to be, enormous. Experts at the ESOF science event reminded us that society is still ill-prepared for such events, yet disasters are going to strike again, and again. We only have to think of New Orelands to see how predictable events can take authorities by surprise.

For one of the experts, Mustafa Erdik, from Bogazui University in

Winning innovators

Cork science

THE Cork City Learning Forum, is inviting students, teachers and parents to take part in Discovery Week 2006 at the City Hall. As with last year’s popular science festival, there are to be lots of exhibits and science based activities. This year the festival, running from 14th to 16th November is part of Science Week, The Cork City Learning Forum was established with the support of industries, colleges, and other institutions to foster a cultured of learning.

STUDENTS from Loretto College in Cavan came up with a winning idea earning them the RDS Student Innovation Award. The young entrepreneurs competition involves setting up a mini-business. Teachers and volunteer advisors from business and industry give some guidance, but its up to the students themselves to make a success of their chosen venture.

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worth commercialising, they can make them available.

Trading of ideas is on the rise, and Enterprise Ireland reports that 35 deals, worth over a million euro, will be signed in 2006.

According to the agency, the users of the site come from all the high-tech sectors, and it has been designed for ease of use. Jim Cuddy, who manages technology transfer at Enterprise Ireland, said that licensing is no longer a specialised activity, and is something that many firms should look into.

The site is at: www.techsearch.ie Left: Declan Gibbons, MD of MDS Gateways, and. right; Jim Cuddy, Manager of Innovation & Technology Transfer in Enterprise Ireland

Turkey, one of these threats is uncomfortably close to home. Istanbul, he said, is growing by 300,000 people a year, the city is the hub of the Turkish economy, yet it is in a geologically unstable area. “During the last decade,” he said, “strong earthquakes along the North Anatolian Fault have migrated westwards.” As Istanbul is in the path of this movement, Mustasfa said that now is the time to think of how to lessen the impact of a quake.

Students, from 14 to 18 years old, set up companies and market their products. After 12 to 26 weeks the company is liquidated, and in many cases a profit has been made.

The Cavan team won this year for the success of their ‘Woff’ project, involving the production of a manual on puppy care. This explains all you need to know on how to keep your puppy happy and healthy.

The company consists of transition year students Niamh Rice, Managing Director; Grainne Fleming, Production Director; Miriam Phelan, Technology Director; Carolann O’Gorman, Sales Director; and, Emma Mulligan, Marketing Director.

Throughout the project the students were assisted by their teacher Carmel Dolan, and Yanky Fachler of High Octane Communications, Cavan.

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UPFRONT Dolphin watch

DURING summer about 100 dolphin watchers conducted a survey from the Stena Line Rosslare to Fishguard ferry. According to the company, scientific surveying is often carried out from the Stena Europe, and the ten-day dolphin watch was organised with the Welsh Sea Trust to celebrate the centenary of the Fishguard Rosslare route.

Keeping watch on board Stena Europe.

The dolphin is immediately recognisable from its distinctive snout.

Health home help

Gary Finnegan A NEW computer-based system is being piloted in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, that will mean patients no longer have to travel to specialist clinics.

Patients in areas such as Monaghan, Cavan, Donegal and Athlone, where there are no ear, nose and throat (ENT) clinics, previously had to travel to Dublin to see a consultant.

The new programme allows them to call the Beaumont clinic’s automated system and leave a voice sample – an ‘ahhh’ – which is analysed by a computer program. The sample is then compared to a database of 800 reference samples and doctors get an immediate snapshot of the health of the patient’s throat.

This is useful for people due to undergo throat surgery. Patients’ throat and vocal cords must be in good health before going under the knife so the computer can screen them for vocal fold paralysis – a form of nerve damage that can be caused by tumours and neck injuries.

Patients with the condition are not suitable for surgery so it is vital that it is picked up in advance.

Even those having a neck or throat operation in a local hospital, such as Cavan General Hospital, previously had to make the trip to Beaumont to find out whether they could have their surgery.

The system was developed by Beaumont ENT surgeon Peter Lacy and UCD electronic engineering lecturer Prof

Richard Reilly. PhD student Rosalyn Moran developed the computer program as part of her final year project during her engineering degree at UCD. She says she is delighted at how quickly the project has gone from the basic idea to being used in the clinic. A clinical trial involving 80 patients was due to finish at Beaumont in July, after which, the group planned to roll it out to other hospitals.

Rosalyn also hopes the system can be refined to monitor patients after surgery.

People could check in regularly with the system and leave a two second voice sample each month. The computer could then alert doctors of any recurrence of throat problems.

It could even be used to prioritise patients on surgical waiting lists by compiling a pecking order of those in most need of urgent surgery.

“It takes a month or two to see a consultant if you are hoarse. You could be having that problem due to a growth or a cancer in the throat. Most of the clinics are in Dublin so you are at a disadvantage if you live outside that area,” says Rosalyn.

“It’s a telemedicine application that we’d like to promote globally. It might work well, for example, in remote areas of Canada or Australia which has well developed services but a dispersed population.”

The group even hopes that eventually other conditions, such as asthma, could be monitored using the same principle of remote screening.

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Rare disease

ALTHOUGH the inherited Pompe Disease is rare, affecting less than 10,000 people, it is serious. Because a vital enzyme is unable to break down body chemicals, a build up of glycogen occurs, causing a deterioration in muscle function. If the disease manifests itself shortly after birth there is no chance of survival, and if symptoms occur later, patients go through a progressive decline, usually ending in respiratory failure.

The disease, also known as Acid Maltase Deficiency, is caused by a malfunction of an enzyme, acid alphaglucomaltase. Normally, this enzyme would facilitate the break down of glycogen, a complex sugar. The accumulation of glycogen disrupts cellular function, and among the most seriously affected tissues are those of the heart.

Researchers at the Genzyme Corporation are now celebrating their success in developing a drug to treat the disease. The drug, Myozyme, described as an enzyme replacer, has been approved by the European Commission.

Genzyme, a US company, founded in 1981, has a large biotechnology plant in Waterford. Earlier this year the company announced a major expansion at the Waterford plant. The Waterford plant produces a phosphate binder drug for patients on kidney dialysis treatment. At present the Genzyme product is being produced in the US, but the company plans to go into production at Geel in Belgium and at the expanded plant in Waterford.

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UPFRONT Directing SFI

HAVING led the Science Foundation Ireland’s information technology (ICT) portfolio, Professor Mark Kane is taking on the mantle of Director General, but not on a permanent basis. The intention is to appoint a permanent DG, but before this can be confirmed, Prof Kane will be in charge.

Prof Kane’s record is good, both as an administrator and as a researcher. He is a TCD Fellow, and was Chair of Computer Science and Associated Dean of Research at UCD. His has a special interest in artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and is a founding director of Smart Media, a campus company at UCD. His Cognitive Science book, co-authored with Mike Eysenck, is widely used as a college text.

ONE OF Tim Durham’s amazing photographs of thin film defraction of light. As explained in Spin 13, these vivid colours are created as waves of light interfere with each other. We often see such colours produced from thin films of oil on water. With great skill Tim, who works from Killucan, Co Westmeath, has managed to capture these bright colours on film. Last year he has an exhibition at the Draiocht Gallery in Castleknock, Dublin, and at present his series of photographs are on show at the W5 centre in Belfast. Following this, his exhibition will be on show at the Institute of Physics in London.

Constant?

HOW constant is constant? One of the assumptions in physics is the mass ratio between a proton and an electron is constant.

Why this should be bang on 1836 is another matter, but now there is some evidence to show that the ratio can change.

The Institute of Physics reports that Wim Ubachs at the Free Univerity of Amsterdam has found that the ratio, known as mu, in ancient hydrogen is not the same as in hydrogen from the lab. By looking into distance space, Wim’s group gathered data on hydrogen as it existed about 12 billion years ago. Using extreme ultraviolet spectroscopy they also examined hydrogen in the lab. They discovered that the spectral signatures, that depend on the value of mu, were not the same. From this evidence, the group concluded that the value of mu may have decreased by 0.0002 per cent over 12 million years.

Life science support

www.marine.ie

Foras na Mara

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

A platform to channel funding into the life sciences has been established with backing from the European Science Foundation. According to ESF, the bio-forum is to foster networking and brokerage. A steering committee, made up of experts from a number of European bodies, includes Frank Gannnon, Director of the European Molecular Biology organisation. Annual conferences are being organised, the first to be in Helsinki on the 14th and 15th December 2006.

More information from Dr Fiona Kernan at ESF: fkernan@esf.org

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Nuclear Europe Should Europe go nuclear? Dr Roland Schenkel, who heads up the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, certainly thinks so. At the recent Euroscience open forum Dr Schenkel argued that the only way we can continue to enjoy a reliable and sustainable supply of energy is to go nuclear. Tom Kennedy reports that Dr Schenkel’s statements can be taken as a fairly reliable indicator of how nuclear power is being viewed at European level.

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grounds that this information t present, about 441 was classified. nuclear reactors are The continued tradition producing 17 per cent of secrecy, said Dr Schenkel, is of the world’s energy, 32 new harmful, it creates a climate of reactors are under construction, distrust, and besides it has become most of them in Asia. Closer un-necessary. In Europe, he to home, 173 ageing reactors explained, dual-use reactors have are producing one third of become a thing of the past, Europes electrical power, but so there is nothing to hide. the industry is not exactly The current generation of reactors in the best of health. Public simply cannot produce weapon opposition, fuelled by mishaps Dr Roland Schenkel aims to clean up the grade material. and finally big scale disaster, has forced nuclear image.

Military use, and secrecy, said the nuclear industry into a decline.

Dr Schenkel, were just two of the At present only two reactors, one in the post-war level of secrecy was so problems that have to be addressed Finland, and one in France, are either high, that when the reactor fires broke in cleaning up the nuclear image, planned for the near future or are under out in the 1950s, the US authorities but they are not the only issues. construction in Europe. refused to give advice to the British, For example, there are concerns about Dr Schenkel, who heads the who at that time were frantic, on the safety; people wonder if nuclear power European Joint Research Centre (JRC), is sustainable, and of course argues that this decline should there is the issue of waste not be allowed to continue, but management. he also believes that nuclear On safety, Dr Schenkel said power cannot be forced on an we can’t just ignore the awful unwilling public. The public, disaster at Chernobyl and he said, need to know the pretend it never happened. facts, and, as he admitted, the Unfortunately, reactors of this industry’s record in telling the type are still in operation, but truth is not great. In his role as Dr Schenkel explained, the as a nuclear inspector, Dr European Union has put Shenkel said that he had plenty pressure, backed by aid, to get of first hand experience of them all shut down. “None of being denied access to essential these reactors would have been information, and he explained licensed to operate in Europe,” he that this secrecy is an said, adding that, “with German unfortunate legacy of a military reunification, all the old Russian past. The denials from reactors were shut down.”

Sellafield, he said, are a prime In the aftermath Chernobyl, example of what we have claims about improved safety, come to expect from dual-use even if true, were bound to plants. The plant at Windscale, be greeted with sceptism. “It Sellafield, was originally built paralysed decision makers for to produce weapon grade decades,” Dr Schenkel said, plutonium, and generation of creating a climate of suspicion power was simply a bonus. On that will be extremely hard to visiting Windscale some years Generation 4s are hot enough to produce abundant hydrogen. overcome. ago this writer was told that

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However, as he pointed out, we are not comparing like with like. The early reactors, such as those at Windscale, had serious flaws because no one really knew enough to control, or contain the processes. In every new industry, said Dr Schenkel, there has to be a learning curve, and in these cases military considerations often overcame serious reservations about safety.

In Europe, first generation reactors from the 1950s and 1960s are almost gone, second generation light water reactors from the 1970s are on the way out, third generation European pressurised reactors are in operation, and with a fourth generation on the way, Dr Schenkel is convinced that we really have little to worry about. As he explained, the level of acceptable risk has become surprisingly low and it will become lower. Already with the second generation, he said, “safety was being given all the attention it deserved,” and in the third generation, designs were modified so that a core meltdown would have no impact on the environment, and the structures were hardened against any possible terrorist attack. So plunging a plane into a reactor now would be a localised disaster, and there would be no plume of radioactive dust. A decade ago, said Dr Schenkel, no one would have thought it necessary to have such a high level of security.

Dr Schenkel believes that nuclear reactors are now a lot safer than

Generation one plants are on the way out. most people think. In overall terms, he said, the environmental impact of reactors is low, lower in fact than many other industrial processes, and negligible compared to the impact of coal, gas and oil.

Direct comparisons, said Dr Schenkel, are not always easy to make.

“A lot depends on who you talk to,” he commented, but one of the more reliable measures is impact on life

expectancy. The nuclear industry, he said, has possibly the lowest fatality rate of all sectors. To put this in perspective, about 10,000 coal miners die every year in China. Oil and gas extraction, refining, and transportation are all high-risk activities causing a large number of accidents and deaths every year. In 1952, the famous ‘London Smog’ killed 12,000 people, and in the 1970s, Baggot Street Hospital in Dublin

SECURITY OF SUPPLY AT PRESENT, the European Union imports fifty per cent of its energy, and within twenty years this figure is likely to reach 70 per cent.

In Ireland the situation is even worse. Imported fossil fuels are a serious drain on the Irish economy, emission controls are being ignored, and there is a marked reluctance to invest enough in renewables, such as wave power.

The situation for Ireland is not quite the same as it is on mainland Europe, or indeed Britain. Nuclear plants are fairly big in scale and Ireland might not have the demand to justify starting a home-grown nuclear programme. Alternatives, while part of the mix on mainland Europe, might be even more

important to Ireland. We happen to have some of the best conditions in Europe for wind and wave energy, and with low population, our demands, while rising, are relatively modest. Some experts, such as Brian Hurley, an early champion of wind, believe that Ireland could actually become an exporter of green energy provided conditions for feeding into the grid were right, and there are other developments that suggest that the supply situation could change, perhaps dramatically. If Coford and Teagasc have their way, some of our heat in future is likely to come from wood chips and pellets, but this source of renewable energy pales into insignificance compared to the potential of wave power. As we

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reported in the last issue of Science Spin, the Marine Institute has set aside an offshore area for wave energy trials. Strangely enough, the biggest problem with harvesting energy from the sea is not one of extraction, but of reduction. There is, literally, too much energy in Atlantic waves, and the main challenge is to come up with robust enough designs.

While circumstances might make it easier for Ireland to stand aside from the nuclear debate, we can forget about being a nuclear free island. Whether we like it or not, the EU is going nuclear, and as long as there are interconnectors we will be contributing our share as nuclear energy consumers.

was kept busy with patients suffering, and sometimes expiring, from the city’s polluted atmosphere.

No other activity, observed Dr Schenkel, has been subjected to the same degree of scrutiny as the nuclear industry, and no other industry, he added, has yet to set a standard of safety based on one hundredth of natural exposure. Carcinogens and other substances are usually accepted as long as they are at, or just under, naturally occurring levels, but with radioactivity the scale goes right down, so the risk of exposure is actually much higher in the natural environment.

Not only did Dr Schenkel think it strange that people who regard nuclear as risky are quite happy to work or

live in high-risk environments, but he is surprised at the number who fail to see that the alternatives are often not as green as they have been led to believe. Wind farms have a high impact on the environment, and apart from consuming about as much power as they are likely to produce over a life-time, chemicals, such as galinium arsenide, are required in manufacturing solar panels. Not that Dr Schenkel wanted to knock the alternatives, and as he explained, this is not a contest between one source of energy and another. He simply wants the public to take a balanced view, and far from dismissing wind, wave, and solar, Dr Schenkel said they are actually an essential part of the mix.

The ultimate aim, he said, is to break our almost total dependency on imported fossil fuels. Renewables, on their own, he claims, cannot deliver enough power to get us out of trouble, and while we can look forward to the great promise of fusion power (see Science Spin issues 1 and 17) we need energy now. In spite of efficiency drives and penalties on carbon emissions, consumption of energy continues to rise, and Dr Shenkel argues that the only way to satisfy that demand is to start building generation four reactors now. “It takes eight to ten years before a reactor comes into action,” he said, “so it is important now to plan ahead.”

DUAL-USE MUST END LIKE OIL and gas, predictions about remaining supplies of uranium vary, but Dr Schenkel said there are actually no big worries about reactors running out of fuel. But, like oil and gas, uranium is a finite resource, so could it run out? Known deposits, he said, could last for several generations; more deposits are likely to turn up, and if they fail, billions of tons are available, admittedly at very high cost, from the sea.

When a reactor is built, a lifetime supply of fuel is built into the contract. For new reactors this is usually 60 years, so fluctuation in price is not an issue, and the supply is fairly secure. With oil, gas, and coal burning plants this is not the case.

Although relatively cheap to build, the cost of fuel is high, and prices are rising. Europe, said Dr Schenkel, has hardly any control on fuel prices, yet, with 460 million citizens, it should be the largest integrated market for energy in the world. The lack of a co-ordinated strategy on energy has seriously weakened Europe’s bargaining position, and failure to take decisive action on how we generate power has eroded our independence. With an 80 per cent dependence on oil, gas, and coal for energy, Europe is far from secure, and, as we see, when supplies come under threat, major energy consumers are quite prepared to kill for oil.

Having a unified policy on energy would be a big improvement, but

as Dr Schenkel pointed out, the real issue is not just to get prices down, but to end a dependency on unreliable, environmentally harmful, imported supplies.

The other aspect of security concerns the enrichment of fuel. The current generation of reactors simply do not have the capacity to separate out enriched plutonium, so there are no possible military applications. Even so, not all want to abide by a non-proliferation agreement, and the big fear internationally, is that some countries will initiate or continue dual-use programmes. Some of these countries are under immense pressure to defend themselves, so the prospect of having the ultimate weapon must have its attractions. Iran, for example,

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where the threat of attack is very real, keeps insisting that the country needs nuclear power for civilian use, but Dr Schenkel rejects that argument. As far as he is concerned, if a country only wants energy, why should they embark on a dual-use programme?

Any country going for dual-use, he said, is going the way to the bomb.

Dr Schenkel is in favour of restricting supplies of uranium and nuclear technology to countries with a tradition of high technology. While he would like to see a total ban on dual-use reactors, he argues that there has to be strict control on the movement of nuclear fuel backed by international agreements.

One of the dangers in imposing conditions is that a large part of the world, such as Africa, could be excluded from the nuclear club, and indeed one of the major complaints among developing countries is that they are being dictated to by an unsympathetic west. Preventing proliferation, however, is a deadly serious issue, but for developing countries there does seem to be promise of a solution. Among the half dozen designs being put together for generation four reactors is a special model with a replaceable core. This, explained Dr Schenkel, is a bit like the reactors in nuclear submarines, which once installed work with no external intervention for years.

Working nuclear reactors around Europe marked with red circles. Map from International Nuclear Safety Centre.

WASTE THE European Commission, like some national papers here, often seems to have an obsession with conducting opinion polls. One of the questions people on the streets of Europe were asked was what they thought of nuclear power, and it seems that the biggest worries were about waste. According to Dr Schenkel, if people were satisfied that the long term waste problem could be solved, the opinion polls show that they would then be in favour of displacing oil and gas with nuclear power.

On this question of waste, Dr Schenkel had some significant comments, suggesting that this problem is not going to get worse, but that treatment and disposal of radioactive material will improve. Don’t forget, he said, that many other industries had to go through a similar phase of finding out what to do with their waste.

In Dr Schenkel’s opinion, low and medium level waste is not a huge problem, and there are fairly conventional engineering solutions to secure containment. Medium level waste is fairly low risk, and covered with earth it is safe after two to three hundred years. At this level, Dr

Schenkel commented that safety is not an issue. The real problem comes with highly active wastes containing highly toxic and long life radionucletides, uranium and plutonium.

Different approaches have been tried to reduce this waste. In the UK and France reprocessing of waste has been favoured. Uranium and plutonium is recovered for reuse in the reactors, and the remaining fission products, which cannot be separated out, are encased in glass. The vitrified waste is then stored until it can be consigned to a deep depository. This waste is not just dangerous, it remains so for thousands

Generation four reactors are hot.

Compared to existing reactors, which operate at 330°C, the new ones will work at 510°C up to 1000°C. One of the expected benefits is that the higher operating temperature can be used to produce an abundance of hydrogen from water in a thermochemical reaction.

The significance of this is that hydrogen has the potential to displace oil as a transport fuel.

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of years, and this is why so many people say that nuclear power is unacceptable.

However, as Dr Schenkel explained, there is some light at the end of that particularly gloomy tunnel. The actual volume of waste is not that big, and this is one of the main reasons why the UK and France have been slow to build the deep depositories. Initially, the glass blocks can be stored in a surface bunker, and over a period of about 50 years they literally cool down. At that stage the blocks can be packed tighter, so the space required for deep underground storage decreases.

Other nuclear countries, such as Finland and Sweden, have decided against reprocessing, and their solution is to bury spent fuel pellets 500 metres down in special containers, designed to contain the waste for thousands of years. Dr Schenkel explained that the pellets are like porcelain, leach resistant, and they are contained in an iron and copper clad canister. At depth, they are surrounded by a special type of clay, Bentonite, which swells with water, therby sealing the canisters under air-free reducing conditions. No one expects this containment to last forever, and it is assumed that the canisters will eventually corrode. When they corrode away, and this could be thousands of years later, the host rock will then provide a final barrier. At 10,000 years the waste will have been completely naturalised.

Planning ahead 10,000 years seems a bit bizarre. Lots of the artifacts archaeologists dig up for study are less than a tenth of this age, but as Dr Schenkel argues, the volume of waste is quite small, and there is no earthly reason for it to be disturbed.

As for leaching of waste in the short or medium term, archaeology provides fairly good evidence that the canisters are not just going to rot away. In 1961 an amazing find was made at Inchtuthil in Scotland of iron nails, buried by the Romans as they abandoned their hold on Britain. Thousands of nails were dumped in a five metre deep pit and covered with earth, presumably for safe keeping until the Romans could return, and to hide them away from the Caledonians. The Romans never came back, but the 875,000 nails proved to be made of sterner stuff than their empire. The top layer had suffered from corrosion, but deeper down, the nails were still in good condition.

Deprived of oxygen, corrosion is a very

slow process, and at another site in Sweden, archaeologists calculated that at the current rate of corrosion, a brass cannon recovered from the Vasa warship, which sank within a nautical mile of its launch in 1628, would have lost one cm over the next 70,000 years.

Nuclear scientists have also been looking at what becomes of natural waste, and as Dr Schenkel explained, geology has provided some interesting evidence. Uranium is a natural element, and for fission an isotope, uranium 235, is required. Over time this isotope decays, so there is less in the world now than there was in the past. Millions of years ago, when levels of the uranium 235 isotope were higher than they are now, it was possible, when conditions were right, for fission to occur naturally. For some years, physicists predicted that these conditions must have existed at some stage in the ancient past. As in a modern reactor, these conditions were that a three per cent, or higher, level of uranium 235 occurred together with water or organic materials that serve to slow down neutrons so that they can trigger off a chain reaction.

In 1972 such a natural reactor was indeed found at the uranium mine at Oklo in Gabon. Uranium 235 had been

Generation one reactors are on the way out.

concentrated on the bed of a stream.

The 2 billion old reactor, believed to have generated 15 gigawatt years of energy, was self regulating. As heat made water evaporate, the moderating effect on the neutrons declined, so fission stopped, only to start again after about two and a half hours when the water came back. For millions of years this self-regulating reactor continued to generate heat, yet the impact on the area was a lot lower than expected. This was welcome news to the nuclear industry as waste was, and remains, one of the major safety issues. James Lovelock, author of The Ages of Gaia, remarked of the discovery that; “The distribution of stable fission products around the reactor site is also valuable evidence to suggest that the problems of nuclear waste disposal now are nowhere near

so difficult and dangerous as the feverish pronouncements of the antinuclear movement would suggest.”

If this is good news, Dr Schenkel said there is better to come.

Generation four reactors, he said, are designed to recycle most of their radioactive materials before they ever become waste. The reason why high level waste is such a problem is that it still contains long life radioactive materials. The difficulty, up to now, has been that separation processes were not advanced enough to recover all these materials. Separation is improving.

“Separation processes, in the order of 98 to 99.5 per cent,” said Dr Schenkel, “have now been developed at laboratory level, and if these can be harnessed, the efficiency of the new reactors will be very high.” This improvement cannot be expected to occur overnnight, but a considerably higher level of recycling is to be an integrated part of generation four designs.

Apart from reducing the volume of waste, these advances will have an impact on the length of time required for secure storage. Instead of 10,000 years, said Dr Schenkel, we are likely to be looking at 2,000 years. If 100 per cent separation could be achieved, the waste would be safe after 270 years.

SPIN

Does nuclear energy make economic sense?

DR SCHENKEL argues that it does, but he said that some of the figures quoted in favour of nuclear power are misleading. The costs given for Germany, for example, are low for the simple reason that the plants are old, so the capital costs have been written off.

A more accurate figure, he said, comes from countries, such as Finland, where reactors are new. In these countries the costs are between 3 and 5 cents a kilowat hour. Cost comparisons to other sources of energy are not always easy to make because so many factors are involved, such as age of plants and environmental impact. With some of the alternatives, such as wind, the situation is not as simple as it might first appear because these sources of energy, at present, cannot stand alone.

They need to feed into a grid, stabilised with back up power.

A more fundamental question concerns environmental impact and disposal of waste. As we all know, generation of power in conventional oil or gas burning plants has a high

environmental impact, and only a portion of this is actually reflected in the price to the consumer. While the prospect of storing radioactive waste for thousands of years is far from attractive, Dr Schenkel argues that the risk of contamination is extremely low, and it might come as a big surprise to many that disposal is factored into the costs. Thus, when customers are billed for electrical power from nuclear plants, part of the charge is for waste disposal and long term storage. Asked by this writer if the next generation is going to be paying for disposal of our

waste, Dr Schenkel said no, storage has already been paid for.

Dr Schenkel said he had recently looked at how this works in the US, where large scale underground storage facilities had been constructed. All the utilities, he said, contribute to a central fund, and at the time of his visit, this had reached $14 billion, and this was without a military contribution. The big scale storage facilities had cost $7 billion, so, as he observed, the current provisions seem more than enough to cover the long-term costs of storage.

Europe has an ageing population of reactors, many of them working on well past their design date, so until new plants are built we are stuck with generation elderly twos and threes.

In other parts of the world, where nuclear power is new, plants are often more advanced than those in Europe. China has embarked on a big nuclear programme, and because the reactors are new, they incorporate all the advances we can expect to see in generation four.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 10

A new approach to modelling forest growth in Ireland

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orestry is a long term enterprise in which trees are planted as saplings and mature as timber crops over a period, typically, of forty years. In such a scenario, it is imperative that accurate models are available to predict what volume of timber can be expected and how it is affected for different species by different management systems and site types.

Until recently, forest growth and yield modelling in Ireland was carried out using Forestry Commission Yield Models for Forest Management developed in Britain. In the absence of Irish models, these models served the Irish forestry sector well. However, since 1999, the Irish forest industry, with support from Coillte and COFORD, has led a project to develop dynamic yield models which are based on Irish research data and which offer greater flexibility in terms of both inputs and outputs. More specifically, dynamic models use individual site data as input, and generate output based on user-defined forest management regimes. This greater flexibility is of huge significance to foresters and forest owners who can now model the potential effect of managing their forests in different ways.

To date this project called DynamicYield, which is part funded

by COFORD, has delivered a dynamic yield model for Ireland’s principal commercial timber species, Sitka spruce. In addition, models for lodgepole pine, Norway spruce, Douglas fir and Scots pine are at an advanced stage, and are undergoing a validation and refinement exercise prior to their launch. Most of the modelling work was carried out in Coillte by Dr Lance Broad and Ted Lynch.

Coillte is currently integrating the new dynamic models into its forest inventory and planning system. For the private sector, COFORD has funded the development of a PC-based, user-friendly interface which allows users to access and utilise the full functionality of the

An example page of the user interface of the Dynamic Yield Model generated for Sitka spruce in Ireland. models. The Sitka spruce model and user interface were launched at a series of workshops held during 2005.

The interface is being developed to add other features, including a forest valuation tool.

The development process for the dynamic models has involved the use of extensive data from Coillte managed forest research plots, collected over the last 40 years. This illustrates the long-term nature of forestry and the importance of strategic research such as this.

The project is now entering a new phase with dynamic models planned for a wider range of species and species mixtures. There is also

A clearfelled stand of Sitka spruce, Ireland’s principal commercial plantation species.

Dynamic yield models are based on actual data collected at sites such as this.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 11

work planned to develop a goal programming function, whereby users can set targets for forest output and use the models to propose an optimal strategy towards achieving such targets. It is also planned to explore the potential for further model development and validation using data from the National Forest Inventory (NFI) which is currently being conducted by the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture and Food.

For further information contact: Paddy Purser, Purser Tarleton Russell Ltd., 36 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin 2.

Telephone 01 6625621.

Infectious diseases

UCD scientists lead the ght-back

and Veterinary Science in this area. Dr McHugh is interested in looking at what happens, at the level of the genome, to macrophages that have been attacked by liver fluke.

Viruses

Human and animals offer Prof Mulcahy’s group is on the way to developing a vaccine share the same, or very similar viruses. One example against liver fluke of this is FIV (Feline Despite huge advances in science, Immunodeficiency Virus) in cats, and its infectious agents – viruses, bacteria or close relation, HIV in humans. Professor viruses from the same family, infecting parasites – still cause millions of deaths Sean Callanan, School of Agriculture, two very different mammals, we hope to worldwide each year. But science is Veterinary Science and Food Science, is understand better the biology of those fighting back, and at UCD researchers working on FIV in conjunction with viruses,” said Dr Jacqué. across many fields are working together Dr Jean-Marc Jacqué, Conway Institute In terms of the ‘big picture’ fight on to combat infection, writes Seán Duke .

Investigator based at the Centre for the ground against HIV in Dublin — Research in Infectious where the vast majority of he adaptability of infectious microDiseases, or CRDI, who is HIV/AIDS cases are located organisms to their surroundings, and interested in HIV. in Ireland — things have their ability to change as the Dr Jacqué is a recent improved recently thanks circumstances dictate, means they are recruit to UCD (he joined to the work of Professor difficult to eradicate. As soon as science in February). He explained William Powderly, Head of finds a way to deal with them, the the background to the Medicine and Medical infectious agent finds another way to collaborative work set up Science. cause disease. But, there are signs between himself and Professor Powderly that science is developing methods and Professor Callanan. has been at the forefront of strategies that will bring infectious “In the brain, the main, if efforts to establish a Dublindisease – in both animals and humans not exclusive cell type found wide HIV/AIDS database to – under control. And UCD is at the to be infected by HIV is pool information from all forefront of this. the macrophage,” said Dr hospitals in the capital. That Jacqué. “Sean has developed Prof Sean Callaghan aims project is up and running. an in vitro system to study The HIV database, Parasites to find out how the HIV the blood-brain barrier in the Prof Powderly points out, has One of the most common parasites in virus can get through the context of the FIV infection, been set up with the consent Ireland, and one that thrives on the blood-brain barrier. and cats do also suffer from of those people with HIV, and cold, damp, moist climate here, is the neuronal damage in some cases”. their confidentiality is assured. He expects liver fluke, or Fasciola Hepatica. It is so “We intend to study in parallel, FIV that the database will benefit patients by common, that experts estimate that up to and HIV, in their ability to induce providing new information for researchers 70 per cent of the cattle slaughtered in neurotoxicity. By comparing those two in the next few years. This is a model, he Irish abattoirs have been infected by it. believes, that could be used to study Veterinary scientists have long a range of other diseases. suspected that infection with liver Dr Virginie Gautier, based at the fluke impairs the immune response Centre for Research in Infectious of cattle, and that makes them Diseases, or CRID, is part of more susceptible to Salmonella or Professor Bill Hall’s, Director of Bovine TB infection. Professor Grace CRID, group. Dr Gautier is also Mulcahy, School of Agriculture, working on HIV, and she is Food Science and Veterinary Science, interested in identifying the nature and her co-workers confirmed this of the interaction between host suspicion. “The immune response cells and HIV. The virus is small, has been found to be impaired in and must get inside cells to hijack Liver Fluke infected animals,” said the cellular machinery. It cannot Professor Mulcahy. “In vitro we have survive alone. shown that liver fluke alters the The interface, between the virus action of the macrophages, which are and host cells, said Dr Gautier, is key cells involved in the immune called the ‘interactome’. The idea, response”. she said, is to characterise the Prof Mulcahy is collaborating Dr Jean-Marc Jacqué is looking at how different animals react interactome, and design a drug to with Dr David McHugh, also of the to a viral attack. destroy it.

School of Agriculture, Food Science

T

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 12

important to monitor what is happening in animals – this is where the Veterinary Sciences Centre at UCD comes into play. This is the ‘coal face’ where sick animals come through the doors and are treated by veterinaries. Professor Sean Callanan is interested in this area and is working on surveillance programmes.

Growing algae to feed the parasite carrying snails “Constant disease surveillance, so that the life cycle can be studied in the lab. through our diagnostic laboratories continue to highlight emerging infections, some with clear aetiologies, are certainly part of the deal, but not the others more complex,” said Professor whole deal,” commented Prof More on Callanan. He cited a recent case in Vaccines this important finding. “There is wildlife point: “We are researching a novel Vaccines can either be to cattle transmission, there is cattle to neuroinflammatory disorder in administered to prevent a cattle transmission. What needs to be greyhounds, not recognised future infection — done to put a stranglehold on both of anywhere else in the world. We prophylactic vaccines- or they those routes”. believe that the cause may be can be used against a disease complex, involving infectious already present, in which case In silico agents, autoimmunity and they are called therapeutic One of the important emerging genetics”. vaccines. technologies in the fight against Professor Simon More, Prof Mulcahy and infectious disease is the use of ‘in silico’ Director of the Centre for colleagues are working to technology. This is a tool that science in Veterinary Epidemiology and develop a so-called general is going to see more and more of Risk Analysis is a key person ‘immunoprophylactic’ vaccine in coming years, according to Professor in national animal disease against Helminth, or worm Cliona O’Farrelly, Research Director of surveillance strategies. parasites. This vaccine would the Education and Research Centre at St “We work on a very close prime the immune system of Vincent’s University Hospital. basis with the chief veterinary the animal or the human to be Professor O’Farrelly, heads up the and deputy chiefs in the ready to deal with any worm Innate Immunity Research Group, and Department (of Agriculture parasite that comes along. has used the ‘in silico’ approach to narrow and Food) and our role is At present, drugs are used to Liver fluke infestation is down leads, and speed up the search for to provide them with better deal with parasitic infection by anti-infectious agents. too high in Ireland. information to make Helminths such as liver fluke, “It is bioinformatics,” explained Prof decisions,” said Professor but there are problems with this O’Farrelly. “You have in vivo, in vitro and More. approach. The use of such drugs has led now in silico.

Prof More, for example, was involved to the build up of drug resistances among ”Things done on computer chips, recently in monitoring the outbreak of the parasite population. There is the added analysis which is done without ever infectious equine anaemia and providing problem of drug residues remaining in food touching the living thing, or a sample of government with independent advice of producing animals, such as cows, and these the living thing, but merely looking at it’s how best to tackle it. getting into our foods. sequence”.

In terms of TB, a perennial and Prof Mulcahy and her group are well Prof O’Farrelly is working closely with persistent problem in Ireland, Prof More on the way to developing a vaccine David Lynn, School of Medicine and and his colleagues produced a milestone capable of protecting cattle and sheep Medical Science, who began to see the paper last year proving the role of the against liver fluke. possibilities of this approach as far back badger in transmission of TB. “Wildlife The Group is a participant in an as 1990.

EU Framework 6 Project that has The two, along with other the aim of providing sustainable colleagues have worked together to methods of controlling liver fluke identify new anti-microbial peptides infection across Europe. The — these are short little peptides development of vaccines is part that pierce into microorganisms, in of that project and trials are chickens. currently being set up in Spain, “The general principle of the Peru, and Bulgaria to evaluate the whole approach is using software new vaccines. to analyse genomes and to look for things that we are interested Surveillance in,” said Prof O’Farrelly. “In 10 New diseases are constantly years time, 50 per cent of all emerging, and often these are seen research groups will be using in in animal populations before they silico technology,” Prof O’Farrelly become a problem in humans. predicted.

Surveillance is important for human and animal health.

Prof Simon More has been looking at how diseases are spread SPIN The outbreak of Avian Influenza from animal to animal. recently shows why it is very The problem with HIV has been that it is constantly mutating, so that drugs designed to combat it can become less effective as mutation proceeds. However, if the interactome is targeted, and the links between virus and host destroyed or prevented, then it doesn’t matter how much the virus mutates because it must die if left on its own.

If you able to find a drug which is aimed specifically at this interaction between virus and host, then you have a better chance, in theory. of killing the virus, said Dr Gautier.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 13

Wellcome Trust

Biomedical Image Awards 2006

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cientists often cross the cultural barrier into art by generating amazing images.

Many of these images, produced by a variety of techniques, capture the underlying patterns of life, that is a large part of their appeal, and like the best black and white press photographs they have the strength of reality.

These images were among those selected by the Wellcome Trust for this year’s Biomedical Image Awards. According to the Trust librarian, Catherine Draycott, these award winning pictures should challenge the idea that scientists don’t have an artistic side. If painting, as one great 20th century artist once exclaimed, is only a way of seeing, scientists can claim to have a distinct advantage, as least in what is known as ‘found art’. The traditional artist has pen, paints and brushes, but the researcher has the tools to see deeper and look beyond the horizons of time and scale.

The winning image in this year’s competition was the colour enhanced electron micrograph of aspirin, above, by Anne Cavanagh and Dave McCarthy.

Aspirin crystals. Aspirin was originally extracted from willow bark but is actually produced widely in plants as a defence mechanism in response to damage or attack. Much higher levels are therefore found in less than perfect fruit and vegetables. Aspirin is used to treat pain, reduce fever, and prevent heart disease and cancer. Some people think it should be reclassified as a vitamin. Colour-enhanced scanning electron micrograph by Annie Cavanagh and Dave McCarthy from the School of Pharmacy, University of London.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 14

Vaginicola, a single-celled creature found in pond water. The cell secretes and lives within a protective casting, into which it can contract. The cell at the bottom of the casting has hair-like cilia at the end, which it uses for feeding.

Colour-enhanced scanning electron micrograph by David Furness from Keele University.

SPIN

Section through a region of the inner ear called the vestibular organ. It is part of a complex arrangement of tubes and chambers that work together to enable us to keep our balance. As our heads move, fluid flows over the hair bundles (red) pushing them backwards and forwards.

The nerves (green) connected to the base of the hair cells then send messages to the brain. By interpreting these movements the brain enables us to make any compensating movements and so keep our balance. The cell nuclei are stained blue.

Confocal micrograph by Dawn Davies from her research at Bristol University.

A look inside a cup fungus called Peziza. It grows on decaying wood and organic matter and reproduces itself by producing ascospores.

This thin slice through the fungus shows its spore containers (asci) each with eight ascospores (shown in brown). As the spores mature, fluid builds up behind them; when the pressure gets too much, the tops of the asci open and the spores are flung out into the air. Light micrograph by Spike Walker, a qualified zoologist, who said that microscopes have been part of his life since he was a small boy.

Human embryonic stem cell (gold) growing on a layer of supporting cells (fibroblasts).

Stem cells are derived from very early embryos and can be either grown to stay in their original state or triggered to form almost any type of human cell. The fibroblasts provide special factors that maintain the stem cells in their original state. The stem cell appears to be grasped by the underlying fibroblast. Stem cell research could lead to cures for many diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes, where cells are damaged or absent. Colour-enhanced scanning electron micrograph by Annie Cavanagh and Dave McCarthy.

Stem cells were grown by Jessica Cooke in Stephen Minger’s labs at King’s College London.

Stinging hairs of the nettle. The hollow silica hairs act like syringes, delivering a stinging mix of formic acid, histamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin. Colour enhanced scanning electron micrograph by Liz Hirst from Nat Inst of Medical Research, Mill Hill, London.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 15

A mosquito, Anopheles stephensi, in flight with its abdomen full of blood. Through its role in the transmission of malaria and yellow fever, it is claimed that the mosquito has killed more than half the humans that have ever lived, and it continues to kill between one and two million people a year, mainly young children.

Photograph by Hugh Sturrock. Hugh combines a passion for science with photography, and following a stint with a TV company making nature documentaries he is back in research, studying malaria in penguins.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 16

The fruiting body of bread mould. As the mould grows, it propagates itself by forming spores that are released into the environment and grow into new mould colonies.

Colour-enhanced scanning electron micrograph by Liz Hirst who also produced the nettle image.

A source of lubrication. Goblet cells are packed full of mucous globules (blue), which they release to provide lubrication and protection to the inner surfaces of the intestine and the respiratory system, among others. The mucous globules are condensed inside the goblet cell but expand hugely once they are released, absorbing water within 20 milliseconds.

This rapid release occurs in response to many different stimuli and allows the mucus to get to work instantly.

Colour-enhanced transmission electron micrograph by Derek Penman from Edinburgh School of Veterinary Studies.

Branching brain cells. These specialised cells named Purkinje cells (red) are found in a part of the brain called the cerebellum. They send out vast numbers of branches that make connections with other cells in the cerebellum. This part of the brain coordinates your voluntary movements and keeps you oriented in space. It also plays a part in learning physical skills – such as riding a bike or playing the piano.

Confocal micrograph by Ludovic Collin who is currently working on migration of neurons at the University College London.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 17

IRISH GEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION/GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF IRELAND The photographs entered may be recent images but older, historical photographs, especially ones not in any archive and liable to be lost, would be welcomed and so conserved.

Entrants may submit photographs [prints, slides, digital images etc. are all acceptable] illustrating any aspect of field geology

Total prize money of€600 will be awarded.

A panel including representatives of the IGA, the GSI and external nominees, will judge the competition. Its decision will be final. Entries will be exhibited and prizes awarded at the GSI Awards ceremony in December. Entries will be returned after the competition.

Entries should be sent to: The General Office, Geological Survey of Ireland, Beggars Bush, Haddington Rd, Dublin 4.

Mark the envelope “Du Noyer Competition” 8th DU NOYER GEOLOGICAL PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION -

ENTRIES INVITED George Victor Du Noyer, who served as a geologist with the Geological Survey of Ireland from 1847 to 1869, was a skilled field artist whose numerous sketches and pictures, with their combination of artistic skill and technical accuracy, were the “field photographs” of their day. This competition seeks to encourage the same blend of artistic and scientific skills through the medium of photography.

All photographs entered must be clearly labelled with the following information: Name, address, telephone number, Email [if available] of entrant/ photographer. Short title description of geological/historical content of photographs. Place and Date when taken.

[Please write on a label and stick it onto the back of the photographs]

The closing date: Friday, 18th November 2006

SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 18 Page 18

So, how does it differ from the 1928 map. Surely the rocks don’t change?

No, rocks don’t change, but our understanding of them certainly does.

I

t is a bedrock map, so it shows the hard rock you would see if you stripped away all the soil and other superficial deposits. But remember these superficial deposits can reach 30 metres thick. They mostly come from weathering of the rocks by water and ice over the last 100,000 years or so. They include glacial stony clay, river alluvium, peat and soil – and they effectively form a blanket over more than 90% of the bedrock.

Varied, twisted and contorted

In Ireland the bedrock is very varied, and in many places twisted, contorted and broken. Working out how the rocks ‘run’ beneath the superficial deposits and at greater depths is an expert job. It is necessary to carry out exploration on foot to identify every rock outcrop in the country and to record data from the drilling of boreholes. Over the past 20 years, however, new techniques have been added to the geologists’ bag of tools.

Satellite imagery, aerial photography and other remote sensing techniques all helped the expert interpretations that are the basis for the new map. Because of this interpretation the map evolves as we learn more. The new version shows how we understand it today and there are big changes from the old days, in fact and detail.

As an example of a change there are rocks that were depicted on the old map as aged 400 million years but the new map shows as only 320 million years old.

What is 80 million years between friends?

Well, there might have been time in the 80 million years difference for an oil reservoir, coalfield or gold deposit to form, and exploration geologists will now look at such ground again.

The first geological map of all Ireland since 1928 has recently been released. It is a complete revision and a real milestone for the Earth science community.

both share roots in the same, oldest, geological survey in the world. The co-operation between their scientists has rarely wavered and the new map is a fine example of that continuing collaboration.

Dr Brian McConnell and Dr Sarah Gatley are the main compilers but they paid tribute to the many colleagues who had helped.

The map was launched in June

by Mr Noel Dempsey, TD, Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and Ms Maria Eagle, MP, Minister for the Department of Industry, Trade and Investment. Mr Dempsey noted that studies in a number of countries have indicated that the benefits of geological mapping exceed their costs many times over, ranging up to 20-fold returns.

L-R: Mr Noel Dempsey TD, Dr Peadar McArdle, Director GSI, Mr Garth Earls, Director GSNI, Ms Maria Eagle MP.

Most convenient database

Map of many colours

There are 83 colours on the map compared with just 23 on the old one. Truly a map of many colours and far too many changes to say more. What is certain is that such changes are significant for anyone looking for or using natural resources, from minerals to road aggregate or underground water to waste disposal sites. This map at 1:500,000 scale leads into much more detailed maps and other practical data held by the Geological Surveys who are responsible for its production. It will be a starting point for anyone responsible for the development of the country’s infrastructure, including planners, engineers and local authorities.

It will become a standard item in their offices.

It should be on the wall of all geography classrooms and, in an increasingly discerning tourism market, will help the public interpret the landscape and its origins.

The Geological Survey of Ireland and the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland

Wherever you are in Ireland you can now look at this map and check the sort of rock beneath your feet. Just note the colour and its accompanying number on the map and check with the index alongside.

There is given the rock type and age. A simplified cross section is given along a line from Wexford to Mayo and for the more intellectually adept reader, a spacetime legend is given for the oldest rocks.

In spite of information technology it is still hard to beat a map like this as a convenient database.

Ireland has such a variety of rocks that whether you are a serious fossil hunter or just a pretty pebble picker, the map will attract you. Ireland has to be special in the rocky world with such marvels as the Geoparks of Waterford Copper Coast and Fermanagh Marble Arch Caves, the granites of Galway and the Mourne Mountains, the famous Connemara Marble, the fabulous limestone pavements of The Burren in County Clare, the white quartzite mountains like Errigal in County Donegal and Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, and, not least, the Giant’s Causeway of County Antrim.

The map is now available from the Geological Survey of Ireland at a cost of €10, the GSNI at £7.00 and can be obtained through a number of bookshop outlets.

Geoscience section sponsored by GSI and edited by Tony Bazley for ES2k SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 18 Page 19

THE GRANITE STORY Ian Meighan & Cameron Faloon

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nce upon a time, deep down in our planet, the rocks became so hot that they melted to form a liquid ten times hotter than boiling water. Unlike water this liquid did not flow easily. It was more like hot, very sticky porridge! 56 million years ago it rose slowly from the depths towards the surface of Ireland – but did not quite reach it. If it had, there would have been a nasty, dangerous volcano throwing out clouds of hot ash and gases over our homeland. Instead, the liquid stopped moving upwards and cooled just beneath the Irish land surface. In cooling, liquid crystals of glassy-looking quartz and pink feldspar started to grow. Eventually all the liquid was used up in making these crystals. It had hardened into the lightcoloured rock we call granite.

As time went on the, granite rock, composed mainly of large crystals of quartz and feldspar but also with a little black shiny biotite mica, became cold. It lay, still entombed in the old sandstone rocks it had intruded, a short distance from the surface. At the land surface, however, the wind and rain were battering the sandstone rocks and wearing them down. Rivers carried their sand grains down into the sea and eventually the granite itself was revealed. It poked out at the surface of our planet in the place we call Ireland. As more time passed, the winds and rain, and also ice, carved the granite into the Mourne Mountains.

A long time after all this, men walked into these mountains looking for a strong, handsome rock to use for building. They found the Mourne granite and started to quarry it. They cut it into slabs and blocks. Some of the blocks were taken up to Belfast and used to edge our pavements. These are still there today. Other slices of the granite were polished and used to front some of our big city shops, since Mourne granite is really a rather attractive-looking rock.

Photographs by David Kirk So when you walk around Belfast, remember there is quite a story to these granite kerbstones and shopfronts. Do pass this on to your friends. It’s really quite an old tale as all this began 56 million years ago – not very old in terms of the history of our planet and our Sun but, very, very old in terms of our families!

For an unforgettable experience take a walk in the Mourne Mountains. It is something everyone should do once and many then cannot keep away. You will see the old granite quarries and understand why ‘the heartbreak hills’ inspired the famous Percy French song saying how the London streets are nothing compared to where “ the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea”. (Tony Bazley)

Right: Silent Valley reservoir in the middle of the Mournes.

Left: Remains of a quarryman’s shelter looking over the Irish Sea.

SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 18 Page 20

Tree trunks

DATING ROCKS

How old is that rock?

Gareth L. Jones of Conodate, Dublin, explains how we estimate the age of rocks.

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o the best of our present knowledge, the Universe is about 10,000 million years old, the Earth is four thousand six hundred million years old and the oldest rocks found on Earth so far are three thousand eight hundred and fifty million years old.

But how can you tell? For a long time geologists could only tell the relative age of rocks, i.e. which ones are younger than other ones. However, people also wanted to know the actual or absolute age of the rocks.

Geological era Millions of years ago Neogene Palaeogene Cretaceous Jurassic Permian Carboniferous Devonian Silurian Ordovician Cambrian Precambrian

23 65.5 134.5 199.5 299 359 416 443.5 488 542

Young rocks on top

Like layers of wallpaper, we know that the latest layers are on the top, and that the oldest, hard awkward ones, are at the bottom. The same is true for rocks; generally the rocks on top are younger than those below. This is how the science of geology came into existence, when people realised that you could put rocks into an order. It was called the Law of Superposition, and geologists used it to work out a column of ages.

A tree trunk is made up of lots of rings, each one representing a year’s growth.

Just count them, and we have the age of the tree. Common trees such as oak and beech may live for over 200 years but yews, usually found in churchyards, may live much longer, and a few, like the Bristle Cone Pines of North America, live several thousand years.

Tree rings vary in thickness depending on how good or bad the climate was in a particular year, and the pattern is distinctive. So a tree that lived from 1600 to 1800 and a tree that lived from 1750 to 1900 have the same pattern of tree rings from 1750 to 1800, during that 50-year period when they were both alive. People who study this are dendrochronologists and they have put together a continuous record of overlapping tree ring patterns that date from 11,000 years ago to today.

Annual rings in a tree over 40 years old – you can count them!

Lake sediments

Lower Carboniferous molluscs, Pugnoides.

Evolution of fossils

Geologists also noticed that the fossils in the rocks changed as the rocks got younger – over time, the fossils evolved. The really old rocks had less evolved fossils, so the fossils could act as indicators of age.

This method of dating is useful back to 600 million years ago, though the oldest fossils are about 1,800 million years old. It is a very important tool for oil and mineral geologists who know that riches are found in certain layers associated with key fossils. When they drill a borehole deep into the earth, fossils can tell them when they are approaching the target rocks.

Sand, silt and mud settle down in lakebeds, and the amount varies by season. These layers on the lake floor are called varves. Just as the tree rings can be counted, so the varves in the mud can be counted. Really big old lakes, such as Lough Neagh or Lough Allen, or Lake Superior in North America, have a great thickness of sediments going back hundreds or thousands of years. The immense Lake Baykal in eastern Russia has a record of varve layers from about 12 million years ago up to the present.

Loess deposits

These are deposits of wind-blown silt and clay that accumulate on arid continents, especially Asia. In China they form layers up to 300m thick and give a continuous record for 7.2 million years.

Stalactite and stalagmite rings In caves, stalactites and stalagmites grow because drips of calcium carbonate-rich water degas carbon

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dioxide and deposit a layer of calcite every year producing rings. By drilling into the calcite, a tiny core can be extracted and the rings counted.

The method is not foolproof but radio-isotope dating is also used, see below. Cave sites are important time capsules, preserving this and other information about our recent past.

The Wedding Cake Stalagmite, Mitchelstown Old Cave, Co Cork.

Ice cores

If you go to the high snowy mountains such as the Alps and look at the side of a glacier, you will see that the ice is composed of very many layers. Fresh snow compacts the layers below into ice.

Once people understood that you could see the history of the last few hundred years in the ice of glaciers, they decided to go and look at places where the ice is really thick, such as the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland. Immensely long boreholes up to 3km deep were drilled, and solid cylinders of ice were pulled out, which could then be stored in freezers for examination later. These cores showed great variations in patterns going back as far as 700,000 years. The ice-core layers not only detail the variation in snowfall each year but also record times when there was a lot of dust about, caused by events like volcanic eruptions or meteorite impacts. They also show the huge increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to human activity.

Radioactivity

The method of counting layers usually only gets you back a few hundred thousand years. So how do we find the age of the really ancient rocks?

The answer is by using radioactive elements. They are present in many rocks in very small amounts. They change over time from one form of isotope to another by radioactive decay at a constant rate. The rate at which the original element decays is measured by its half-life. That is how many years it takes for the original element to be reduced to half its original mass. If we know the relative percentage of the isotopes when the rock was formed and compare it to what it is now, we can calculate how old that rock is. This is popularly known as the atomic clock.

The main elements, known as parent and daughter isotopes, that are used are: Carbon14/Nitrogen14, Potassium40/Argon40, Rubidium87/Strontium87, Thorium232/Lead208, Uranium238/Lead206, Uranium235/Lead207.

Carbon14 decays into Carbon12 and the proportion of these in any organic remains tell you the age. The half-life of Carbon14 is 5,730 years, so it is only useful for relatively recent times. The method is used for archæological dating and can be extended back to the last Ice Age. Uranium/Thorium-series measurements in stalactites, taken from micro-drilling can be used to date back about 600,000 years. Techniques to allow mass spectrometric UraniumLead dating of older cave deposits from Ireland are being developed.

Oxygen isotope data will be used to compare the results.

The Potassium40/Argon40 method, with a half-life of 1,250 years, can be used for rocks from just a few thousand years old to Ireland’s oldest rocks.

The Findelgletcher ice-layers data bank.

The other mother-daughter series are used for older rocks, such as Uranium238/Lead206 that can date rocks from the Archæan up to 1 million years ago. They are particularly useful when dealing with the sites of early Man in Africa, which are of the order of 4 million years old.

Some examples of the atomic clock results include dating an Egyptian pyramid cloth to 2,050 years old, which matches the historical record. Volcanic ash that overlies the remains of early Man in East Africa dates to 1.75 million years ago. Some gneissose rocks in Finland have been proved as 2,700 million years old.

Dating precision varies according to the type of rock and its history, so it is normal to use more than one method to cross-check results. Ages of rocks are commonly quoted with an indication of the degree of precision. Young rocks might be quoted as plus or minus a few thousand years whereas it might be plus or minus a few million years for an ancient rock. If you were 500 million would you be too worried about 20 million years here or there?

Fission track dating

An allied method involves the decay of uranium, when charged particles fly off in all directions at a constant rate.

As the particles pass through some minerals, such as zircon, apatite and garnet, they leave a minute track. By counting these and by measuring the uranium concentration in the mineral, the age can be calculated.

Getting better

Ireland’s oldest rock (1,710 million years) from Inishtrahull, an island off the north Donegal coast.

Inishtrahull gneiss, about 1,700 million years old

There is now a range of ways to date rocks. They are producing an evermore accurate calendar into which can be slotted the events of our rocky world since the Earth was formed. New techniques are still being developed and, all in all, we can now be pretty certain of the age of any rock that we are looking at in Ireland.

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INTO THE PREMIER DIVISION Tony Bazley talked to Thomas Blake of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

Ireland must have a complete and up-to-date network of earthquake recording stations, so we can safely design and build for the future.

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ou wake up in the morning and switch on the local news. There has been an earthquake a short distance off the Irish coast. — felt by light sleepers or late party-goers — from Roundwood in County Wicklow to Portmarnock in County Dublin.

This happened on Wednesday 14th December last year and resulted in a minor cliff collapse on Killiney Beach in South Dublin. Just 2.8 magnitude, no-one hurt – not something to worry about? Or an alert to something more damaging around the corner?

Who tells us whether it was a genuine earthquake (seismic event) rather than a quarry blast or aircraft sonic boom? Who is studying Ireland’s seismicity and seismic hazard potential? Just how safe are we in our beds in Ireland from one of nature’s most devastating natural phenomena?

The answers come from a remarkably small group of experts within the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS). They operate highly sensitive motion-detectors (seismographs) set in the ground in parts of the country. This equipment records our earth-shaking events from local earthquakes and also from larger earthquakes around the world.

In the ‘old days’ an ink pen tracing on paper continually turning on a drum would have made the record of ground shaking. Now the tremors are recorded digitally on discs that are retrieved from each recording station every fortnight. So the system has been modernised – but only to an extent.

Epicentre of December 14th 2005 earthquake, shown by red star.

In fact Ireland is unique amongst its European partners in not having a nationally funded regional network of recording stations reporting back in “real-time” and analysed automatically at a national data centre. Despite

the antiquated infrastructure DIAS continues to supply essential seismic data to the State, to the International Seismological Commission and to its EU partners. It cannot continue to work in line with these European and other international partners without a significant injection of capital spending on modern comparable systems such as those used throughout the EU and in all First World countries around the globe. Is being unique in this way a claim to fame Ireland wants or should allow? Does it matter if it remains in a lower division? Let’s look at some of the facts.

The DIAS network is currently made up of just four active recording stations in the eastern part of the country, one south of Dublin in the Dublin mountains (operated in association with GFZ Potsdam,

Irish earthquakes 1980 to 2006.

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Germany) and three to the north and west of Dublin. These operate continuously, every day of the year.

The Irish Meteorological Service operates another station near Valentia in County Kerry. Then there are two stations in Northern Ireland (north and south of Belfast) operated by the Seismic Monitoring Service of the British Geological Survey (BGS). There is close cooperation between DIAS and the BGS. The seven stations in Ireland compare with over 140 stations in Britain - there are even 2 on the Isle of Man. The types of recorders also vary and in Britain we learn that the system is currently being upgraded. Currently, we are operating in the second division Contrary to popular belief, seismic events occur each year in and around Ireland. Most are so small they are only picked up by the sensitive recording instruments and are not ‘felt’ by people. There are two distinctive areas of activity. These are the southeast and the northwest of the country. Some of the events occur offshore and are felt here, like the 14th December incident mentioned at the start of this article.

The offshore earthquakes tend to be linked to fault structures in the Irish Sea Basin that cause the tremors in North Wales. The Donegal tremors can be linked to rock structures (or should we say fractures) that come through the Highlands of Scotland where there are regular minor earthquakes. There are also events off Ireland’s west coast in our national territory beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. However, the poor quality of the sensors in the State means that we have no information of low level seismicity (up to events about the size of the 14th December one), which is a serious handicap to potential hydrocarbon exploitation of the region.

A network of recording machines in various places on the Earth’s surface allow the origin (epicentre) and depth (focus) of earthquakes to be determined; the rock structures causing them are usually obscure and require a lot of research. There is still much to learn before the reasons for an earthquake at a particular place or time are understood. Only then will prediction of future events become a possibility.

Earthquakes in Ireland are generally of low magnitude – 0.5 to 2.0 on the Richter Scale although magnitudes of up to 5.4 are known to have

Actual Dublin recording of the Sumatra earthquake, Boxing Day 2004.

occurred since recordings began – there could have been larger events prior to 1962 when the Valentia station started operating. They are mostly shallow events, usually 10-20km down. In fact the low magnitude and frequency of events in Ireland compared with Britain is surprising. Could it be that our lack of recording sites means we are missing things?

You might well ask if a network of recording stations is needed if the shocks are so small they usually cannot be felt? People have not been killed

and buildings have not collapsed — yet.

Around the world it is estimated that there are on average over 8,000 events in the ‘minor to very minor’ range (1 to 3 magnitude) each day.

In the ‘moderate’ range (5-5.9 range) about 800 events per year and in the ‘great’ range just 1 per year. The Sumatra earthquake of 26th December 2004 that caused the devastating tsunami is one of the latter.

The Sumatra earthquake was recorded by the Dublin recording

Sumatra earthquake showing seismic waves.

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How many of our offices and factories were built with quakes, however minor, in mind? station and the seismogram is a good example of the nature of the different seismic waves that travel through the Earth. The Primary (P) wave is observed first, followed by the slower Secondary or Shear (S) wave. The difference in time of arrival in the two waves allows DIAS to measure the distance of the earthquake from the recording station. Finally, the surface waves arrive. The latter are seen on all earthquakes but arrive at almost the same time as the S waves for local earthquakes that come from a depth of less than 5km. In engineering terms it is the S - wave component that poses the greatest threat to buildings, although the longer-period and larger amplitude surface waves also are a danger to infrastructure. All these waves travel at different rates through different sorts of rock so a study of arrival times from different places can tell us new things about the rocks and rock structures that lie at depth beneath and off-shore Ireland.

Two terms that are important in talking about earthquakes are intensity and magnitude. Intensity is a measure of ground shaking estimated from its observed effects. It will vary from place to place depending on how near you are to the origin (epicentre) of the earthquake. It will usually be greatest close to the epicentre and less as you move away. For example, the 1984 earthquake on the North Wales coast caused minor damage to a few chimneys and walls near the epicentre but in mid-Wales (Aberystwyth) about 60km south it just caused leaves on plants to rustle and produced a sound like a lorry passing. Intensity can vary from I - not felt (only detected by

instruments) - to XII - catastrophic (everything destroyed).

Magnitude is a measure of the size of an earthquake and the scale is logarithmic – which means for every increase of 1 on the scale the ground moves 10 times more. This is the Richter Scale and the one usually reported on newscasts. The amount of damage and loss of life for an earthquake of similar size will be far greater in poorer countries, where buildings are not designed to withstand movement, than in the richer nations – assuming of course that the richer nation has had an appropriate national building code in place that considers earthquake risk, which Ireland doesn’t.

This brings us back to the dangers at home. Ireland, historically, hasn’t suffered a really damaging major earthquake in our collective memory.

It has seen the effects of more distant earthquakes, such as the 1st November 1755 event that destroyed Lisbon and that generated a tsunami wave that caused damage on Ireland’s south and west coasts. There is no reason why there should be large earthquakes within its national border because, like Britain, it lies on a relatively passive continental margin. Even so, it is not immediately obvious why it appears to be seismically quieter than Britain, such a short distance away. Perhaps it will, itself, one day suffer an event like the 1984 North Wales earthquake – 5.4 magnitude – or even a little bigger. Are the high-rise buildings now being planned and built designed to withstand such a shaking? Are our dams, some quite old, designed so they do not fail and cause flooding?

What magnitude earthquake should we be designing for? If toxic substances

are being buried anywhere could the chambers be split open by ground movement? Are our chemical factories designed so they wouldn’t be caused to leak? Might landslides be triggered?

And finally, should we be joining the network being set up by UNESCO to give an early tsunami warning in the NE Atlantic? We know there have been tsunamis that have hit the Irish coast in the past. Michael Williams of the Department of Earth & Ocean Sciences, NUI Galway, graphically described one at Kilmore Quay in Wexford in Issue 11 of the ES2k magazine. The question must also be addressed what would be the seismic risk and likely damage for a large population centre such as Dublin had the 1984 event occurred at a shallower depth of say 10km?

Such events in Ireland will be rare but as our knowledge and technology improves, so we will get better at determining truly safe levels of design and be able to provide better early warning systems. Our greatest threat is indeed ourselves - our own complacency whereas in reality we should get no comfort from our deep lack of knowledge of Ireland’s seismicity and seismic hazard.

Accordingly, it is good to see the Royal Irish Academy Committee for Geosciences supporting the proposal to upgrade and extend the seismic network being operated by DIAS in Ireland. We hope the financial support, not huge in modern terms, can be found and that in Northern Ireland a similar network will be installed.

Let’s move up to the Premier Division.

SPIN

Tom Blake is Experimental Officer in the Geophysics Section of the School of Cosmic Physics in DIAS. He has degrees from TCD and NUI Galway, has experience as an industrial geologist and worked in DIAS since 1984.

Currently, he is responsible for maintaining and developing the Regional Seismic Network.

Contact him via email tb@cp.dias.ie or for information on Irish Seismicity see www.dias.ie/ index.php?section=cosmic&subsection=seismic_network&school=geophysics and for British earthquakes look up www.bgs.ac.uk/education/earthquakes .

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Jurassic bark

The giant plant eating Diplodocus, 28 metres long and weighing an estimated ten tonnes, is thought to have been the largest animal that ever lived At ‘Jurassic Bark’, a recent exhibition at the Botanic Gardens in Dublin, geologists and botanists brought living plants and their fossil ancestors together. Tom Kennedy reports on how much rocks can tell us about the rise of plant life.

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hink of fossils and images of fishes and trilobites quickly come to mind. Yet, these animals are just part of the story, for without plants, life on Earth would have evolved in quite a different direction. What we see around us now is the result of a long established, but cosy co-existence that began, as legal people would say, in time out of mind. We have to wind back the clock about 3,000 million years before the roots of life began to show clear signs of branching into ever more complex forms.

To us, surviving in these early days of the pre-Cambrian would have been quite impossible. It was a raw, hostile world. Nothing but bare rocks on land, and no free oxygen. Yet the Earth was not dead. The ancient seas were teeming with single celled micro-

Back from the brink of extinction, the Wollemia Pine, Wollemia nobilis.

Originating 200 million years ago during the Jurassic, the 40 metre high tree was thought extinct until discovered growing in North South Wales, Australia. organisms, bacteria and blue-green algae. Like the strange inhabitants discovered around deep sea volcanic vents in the mid-Atlantic and elsewhere, they could thrive under extreme conditions, feasting on chemicals that would kill us.

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Amazingly, given that these life forms were microscopically small, we have hard evidence to show that they once existed. Single-celled, micro-organisms have always liked to clump together into colonies, and while the cells themselves are ephemeral, the sediments trapped between them can remain long after they are gone. Some of the oldest fossils in the world, the stromatolite mounds, were formed this way.

Stromatolite mounds are still being formed off western Australia.

From accumulation of silt to deliberate gathering of support materials is not, in evolutionary terms, such an enormous step. By the next great geological era, the Cambrian, some algae had become adept rock builders, pulling minerals out of the water to constuct coral reefs from billions upon billions of tiny skeletons. The Lithothamnion cold water corals off the Irish coast are maintaining that old tradition, and many of our limestone rocks originated as billions upon billions of skeletons settled down into silt.

The micro-organisms, far from being insignificant low-life, laid down the foundation for all that came later.

Their chemical pathways are still with us, genetically embedded as part of our toolkit for living, and they made the breakthrough that enabled us to emerge up out of the depths and into the air. Life is always on the hunt for something new, usually to eat, competition is fierce, so at some time in the Cambrian, a few micro-organisms changed their chemical diet, and in the process of trapping energy directly from light, started adding oxygen to what was once a methane saturated atmosphere.

Needless to say, that bit of biochemical innovation was a big success, such a success in fact that it led to the retreat of the anaerobics who now happily survive in the airless pockets of our environment, such as our stomach. Up to then, micro-organisms relied on a variety of chemical tricks to extract energy from their environment, but with the light trapping oxygen generators, we can see the start of the great divide of life into plants and animals. By the Cambrian era green algae were well established, and prolific, but they had not yet found a way to invade the land.

Onto land

At this stage, clumping of single cells into some form of structure, such as a colony, was nothing new, but before plants could begin to invade the barren land, they had to solve one or two fairly basic problems. Supported by water, naked cells did not need much in the way of mechanical support, and of course there was never any danger of drying out.

Carboniferous ferns in Irish coal. Sphenopteris hoeninghausi, from the Slieveardagh coalfield, Glengoole, Co Tipperary.

Leaving the depths, however, was a bit like us going out into space, we need to bring a bit of our familiar environment to survive, and the pioneer plants needed their own form of comfort blanket. This was not a problem to solve, overnight, and it seems to have taken something like 50 million years before plants came up with a workable set of solutions.

The Jurassic Bark exhibition at the Botanic Gardens in Dublin took up the story of how recognisable land plants first begin to appear during the Silurian era. One of the significant developments, explained Peter Wyse Jackson, Director of the Botanic Gardens, was that plants began to produce tough spores. This breakthrough meant that they could reproduce in a dry environment. We are accustomed to thinking of the land as clothed under

Internal details of a 400 million year old plant perfectly preserved in Rhynie Chert near Aberdeen.

Cooksonia, Ireland’s first known plant, discovered in Silurian rocks of Tipperary, and later found at different locations around the world. Above, from Wales, and a sketch of how it might have looked like in life.

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greenery, but in those harsh times the Earth’s surface would have been more like that of Mars, so, like invading Normans, plants needed an extremely tough coat of armour. Spore coats are among the toughest materials in the world, better than steel, and being virtually indestructable they often survive long after the plants which gave rise to them have been wiped out of existence. The earliest traces of land plants come from 475 million year old spores recovered from boreholes in Oman. These spores are thought to have come from Ordovocian era liverworts.

Already these early pioneers had developed an outside coat to contain their plumbing, and over the next few million years, stiff tissues evolved to serve as struts and girders, to give us forms, recognisable to us now as clubmosses.

As Peter Wyse Jackson pointed out, Ireland has the distinction Aberdeen, are so well preserved of being home to the earliest that internal structures can be macroscopic land plants. A few resolved down to cell level. years ago, in the 1970s, John Considering that it took so Feehan discovered these 425 long to conquer the land, the million year old plants in the pace of development during the Silurian rocks of the Borrisnoe Devonian was rapid. Plants began Mountains, Co Tipperary. It was to diversify into branches we an amazing find, all the more so recognise today, such as because the plants are so tiny, Rhacophylton, a fossil plant from only being distinguishable under Belgium, which is thought to have a microscope. Named Cooksonia given rise to the ferns. By the to commemorate a distinguished middle of that era, larger plants palaeobotanist, Isabel Cookson, the had become as big as bushes, scales fossil, just a few millimetres in had spread out into leaves, and length, is Ireland’s oldest plant.

by Late Devonian there were real Cooksonia, with its sporangia 18 metre high trees. Among these tipped branches, is now known was Archaeopteris, ancestor of all from several locations around the the conifers. world, and its existence shows that One of the big milestones, some of the features we associate which Peter Wyse Jackson with modern plants, such as water Gingko, a 270 million year old survivor. Once thought to highlighted in the exhibition, was conducting xylem vessels, had the evolution of seeds. Spores may be extinct, but protected by Chinese Buddhists, the tree already evolved over 400 million be tough as old boots, but without was brought to Japan in the 12th century, where it was years ago. Roots have never been a lot of moisture, male and female found by European botanists in the 17th century. found, so it is thought that the gametes could not link up in the fossils must have come from first place. Reproductive success were small, seldom more than 50 cm, fragments washed down into came with the development of pollen. and as yet there were no leaves, just marine sediments from relatively Male gametes could now breeze up to photosynthesising scales and spines. barren land. the females, and they in turn could Why spines should have become so Once the land had been conquered, hold onto the developing seeds until prominent at this stage is a mystery, for plants began to diversify, and Cooksonia they were ripe for dispersal. At first predatory animals had not yet arrived was far from being alone among the seeds were not enclosed, but this on the scene.

The plants, it seems, grew the spore bearers. Some, such as has never been much of a disadvantage in large but lonely mono stands, and Nemathothallus, grew in patches up to to the naked seeded gymnosperm thanks to volcanic activities 400 million 6 cm across, and north of Dundee conifers. Of all the plants to be years ago, we know a great deal about in Scotland, Parka grew in globes in suppressed, sometimes to extinction, their inner details.

Hot geysers spewed which were found sporangia packed by the success of later generations, out silicon enriched water, and plants with about 35,000 spores. conifers stand out as long-term immersed in this have been preserved By the next great geological era, survivors. in remarkable detail.

The silicon fossils the Devonian, the race to diversify from Rhynie, forty miles north east of accelerated, and many new types of plant came into existence. At first these Precambrian Cambrian Ordovician Silurian Devonian Carboniferous Permian Triassic Jurassic Cretaceous Palaeocene Eocene Oligocene Miocene Pliocene Pleistocene Holoecene

540 500m 500 430m 430 410m 410 345m 345 280m 280 225m 225 210m 210 150m 150 65m 65 57m 57 34m 34 23m 23 5m 5 1.6m 1.6 10,000 years 10,000 years on

Fossil fern from Carlow Carboniferous. Photo: UCD Geology Dept.

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Carboniferous fossils from the Geological Survey of Ireland collection.

Top: Palaeopteris hibernicus, Kiltorcan, Co Kilkenny.

Alethopteris lonchilides, Drumagh collery, Co Cork, Alethopteris loachitica, Ballynastick, Killenaule, Co Tipperary. Carboniferous, Root of Lepidodendron, and Calamites approximatus, Towerton, Co Laois, Carboniferous SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 29

However, back in the Devonian, they were just one of many branches, and just a few million years later they could still have been, literally, lost in the woods among strange looking trees. In Ireland, the Devonian rocks of the South convey an image of hot desert conditions, not great for proliferation plant life, but about 300 million years ago there was a climatic shift on a world scale. During the mid Carboniferous the Earth became a giant greenhouse, and with the onset of hot, humid conditions, plants grew in great profusion. Never since then has the world been covered by such an abundance of dense forests, but most of the trees bore little resemblance to those we see now, except as fossils.

The ancestral conifers could have been insignificant among the giant clubmoss trees, enormous horsetails, and ten metre high ferns. When fossil fragments of Lepidodendron, a club moss tree, were first discovered, it was, at first, assumed that they belonged to two or three different species. Then, when the differently named pieces were put together, it was realised that they all belonged to a single tree reaching up to 30 or more metres.

Geologists often refer to the Carboniferous as the age of the ferns.

Most were destined for extinction, but even so, we are left with about 12,000 different species now, which gives some idea of how varied they must have been then. Among the ferns there were shrubs, climbers and trees, and one seed, rather than spore producing branch, gave rise, eventually, and only much later, to flowering plants There were extensive deltas and swamps, hot and humid, and as plants died, their remains accumulated into what we now have as thick beds of fossil rich coal. The world now has enormous deposits of coal, and while Ireland’s share is small, the Kiltorkan measures in Carlow have yielded a number of fine specimens, including Archaeopteris, the first type of tree, and various lakeside plants.

Whatever the cause, the great swamps dried up, temperatures fell, and by the late Carboniferous many of the plants that had done so well for so long, dwindled into insignificance or simply disappeared from the fossil records. As is usually the case in evolution, death for some means opportunity for others, but this was no mass extinction — there were notable

One of Peter Wyse Jackson’s objectives in bringing a display of fossils into the Botanic Gardens was to show the link between these ancient species and living plants. Peter’s brother, Patrick, is a geologist in Trinity College Dublin, and, like many good projects, the exhibition began as a chance conversation about rocks and plants. survivors, and we still have our club mosses, ferns, and pigmy horsetails.

The long leaved lycopod trees are now represented by three genera of herbaceous plants, Lycopodium, Selaginella, and Stylites, and like the horsetails in the ditch, they now exist as scaled down versions of the originals.

In Peter Wyse Jackson’s view, the conifers are the real survivors, perhaps because they are so conservative. They never seem to have a pressing life or death need to change. Across large areas of the world, the dark and gloomy conifers, continue to thrive under conditions that later trees would find hard to tolerate, and they are likely to retain their dominance for a long time to come.

Plants prepared the way, insects had already followed a long time ago, and the larger terrestrial animals, having crawled out onto land as amphibians during the Devonian Era, began to appear in ever increasing numbers. For four footed tetrapods, the next few million years was a time of explosive growth, fuelled by the abundance of plant food. Not that the tetrapods had it easy. Most of them were wiped out at the end of the Devonian, and while the survivors enjoyed another 100 million years of relative stability, almost all of them were killed off about 245 million years ago, at the end of the Permian era, in what is now understood to have been largest the mass extinction of life ever. Another mass extinction followed about 40 million years later at the end of the Triassic, clearing the Sometimes, as here, a rock can split to expose two halves of a fossil. This one, from the GSI collection is Neuropteris heterophylla from a former coal pit in Co Laois.

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decks for the unimpeded expansion of the dinosaurs, and once again, plants were there to feed the recovery.

Dinosaurs were a mixed lot — big, small, hunter and hunted. Those not feeding directly on the vegetation were busy hunting the herbivores. For the exhibition at the Botanic Gardens Peter Wyse Jackson included a few plastic dinosaurs, the sort we come across when tidying up the toys. A nice touch, because they bring home the connection between plants and animals. The models are quite accurate, and one of the most popular of them is the giant Diplodocus. With its long tail and tiny head, this ‘classic’ dinosaur, 28 metres long and weighing an estimated ten tons, is thought to have been the largest animal that ever lived. As Peter Wyse Jackson was pleased to point out, this classic monster was a herbivore.

This was still 60 million years before anything even vaguely resembling a human appeared on the scene, and there were no flowers either. The dinosaurs would have foraged among horsetail Calamite trees, big ferns, conifers, monkey puzzles, cyclads, and Maidenhair Ginkgos, with not a single bloom in sight.

It appears that the dinosaurs were already extinct before the first flowers unfolded. Flowers seem to be a Cretaceous innovation, designed to attract the pollinators, and by nature ephemeral. Soft petals were unlikely to survive long enough to become fossils, and this explains why flowers suddenly burst into bloom, apparently out of nowhere.

By now the fossils had become a lot closer in appearance to the living plants around us, and as Peter Wyse Jackson remarked, we could now leave the rocks inside and go out into the gardens. One of the Director’s aims there is to arrange the plants into evolutionary order, and in this he is being guided by the genes, these being the softest yet most resilient fossils of them all.

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Study science in the US Each year the Irish-US Fulbright Commission provides grants to postgraduate students and postdoctoral scholars to enable them to study and research at top US colleges. Science and Technology has always been a strong award category, as seen in the following profiles of two of the 2005-06 Fulbright scholars.

Tara collecting samples for water quality analysis at the South Platte river in Colorado.

Dr Tara Higgins University of Colorado at Boulder

T

he University of Colorado at Boulder is truly a unique place.

The town of Boulder has been famously dubbed as “the little town nestled between the mountains and reality”, a reference to the high quality of life enjoyed by residents of this unbelievably picturesque, affluent and very liberal town.

As an environmental scientist specialising in water quality, Colorado has been an excellent place for me to study and conduct research. Water conservation and management are hot political topics in this part of the US which, despite the snowy winters, is extremely arid and essentially a desert.

It has been interesting to witness at first hand the different challenges that are faced in this part of the world compared with Ireland, where land is intensively irrigated rather than drained and the scarcity of water (and vast distance from the ocean) means that even small streams are revered for fishing, boating and other waterbased activities. Equally interesting has been the opportunity to experience the different challenges faced when studying lakes in a mountain environment, where it is often necessary to drill through several feet of ice in order to collect water samples! During my time at CU, I have had the opportunity to work with world renowned scientists, given talks to colleagues and undergraduate students on my Irish-based research, attended a Fulbright enrichment

seminar in Denver, visited the Grand Canyon and have met with members of the local Fulbright alumni at lunches and other social events.

I think one of the most valuable aspects of the whole Fulbright experience for me is that it gives foreign visitors a true, unbiased insight into ‘ordinary’ American life, culture and attitudes, which I have found to be very different to those popularly perceived by most Europeans.

Tara completed a PhD in Aquatic Science at NUI Galway in 2005 and was the recipient of the Fulbright – Teagasc Scholarship in Science.

John in the research lab with Professor Max Snodderly.

Dr John Nolan Medical College of Georgia

M

y Fulbright year was spent at the Medical College of Georgia’s Vision Science Laboratory. My area of research concerns macular pigment, a dietary pigment found at the back of the eye,

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 31

and its potential role in preventing age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness in the Western world. Given the evidence available to date, it is possible that appropriate dietary modification or supplementation may help prevent, or delay, the onset of the leading cause of blindness in the Western World.

My placement involved a number of projects. Primarily, I was responsible for the implementation of a study entitled Spatial Profile of Macular Pigment and its Relationship with Foveal Architecture. In brief, this study is designed to investigate how the spatial profile of macular pigment in healthy subjects (subjects with no ocular disease) is affected by their retinal architecture. This research followed on nicely from my PhD thesis which I completed at the Waterford Institute of Technology. My day typically involved recruiting and testing subjects for inclusion in this study. This entailed the measurement of macular pigment, using specialised equipment specifically developed to measure and map the spatial profile of this potentially important dietary pigment. I had the opportunity to present some of the research findings at the annual conference of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The extensive training I received on the novel technology has enabled me to install a similar device in the Macular Pigment Laboratory at the Waterford Institute of Technology where I am now working as a senior scientist.

John completed a PhD in Macular Pigment at Waterford Institute of Technology in 2005.

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e r u t u f r u o n i e e Science in our futur Scienc REACHING OUT

“Science in our Future” is the theme of this year’s Science Week, which will be looking at emerging technologies and predicting what science may discover in years to come.

This year’s Science Week runs from 12-19 November, and the revamped website Scienceweek.ie will be available this month to allow you to read about events in your area.

Functions such as submitting an event will become available in mid-September.

This year we will be putting most of our Science Week information on the site, instead of into a printed guide as in previous years. Visitors to the website will be able to search for up-to-date news of events in their area.

Keep in contact If you have articles and press releases related to Science Week activities, email them to info@science.ie as soon as possible. Your own events do not have to be linked to the “Science in our Future” theme of course, but it may be useful for you to use it as an angle if you are still at the planning stage.

List the talks taking place in your area, and why not profile the speakers, or write about a prominent local scientist?

If you are running a science competition, send us photos of the winners for the site’s photo gallery.

The Science Week website is a great opportunity for you to showcase what’s going on in your local community to promote science, engineering and technology.

When submitting events you can order the special Science Week posters.

Good luck with your Science Week events!

Science Foundation Ireland has been encouraging prominent researchers to go back to school. By going into primary and secondary schools researchers and members of their teams can explain what they are doing, and why science has become so important to them. Real life scientists can become an inspiration to young students, opening their eyes to career opportunities, and stimulating an awareness that science is part of everyday life.

The programme of visits has been highly successful, welcomed by teachers and researchers alike as bridging the gap between education and science in action. Many researchers have remarked that they enjoy the visits, and gain great satisfaction from the contribution they can make.

LIVE SCIENCE The RDS Science Live series of demonstration lectures are designed to bring science to life for primary and secondary level students and their teachers. Last year around 5,000 students attended the 22 demonstrations, on topics as diverse as forensics and entomology. This year’s programme includes 28 demonstrations and promises to be more exciting than ever. The lecture Primary Cycle 11 October, Bright Sparks, 10am & 12noon 13 October, Super Furry Animals, 10am & 12noon 17 October, The Circulatory System, 12noon & 2pm 26 October, Diagnostics through the Ages, 10am 13 November, The Incredible Edible Sun, 10am 14 November, Rocket Workshop, 10am & 2pm 20 November, The Magic of Chemistry,10am 21 November, Food & Our Bodies,10am & 12noon Junior Cycle 12 October, Seeing is Believing, 10am &12noon 16 October, The Wonders of Wave, 10am & 12noon

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 32

T SFI Funded research groups from all these institutions are willing to come and talk to schools: • University College Cork • University College Dublin • NUI Galway • Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland • University of Limerick • Trinity College Dublin • Dublin City University • NUI Maynooth • Cork Institute of Technology • Dublin Institute of Technology • Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies To request a speaker to come to your school, simply visit the SFI webpage , where you can find details to email the researchers directly.

Don’t forget to indicate the age group of the class, and approximate dates and times that would be convenient. The researcher or member of their team will contact you by email to make any arrangements and check availability.

series has been made possible by support from the RDS and the Discover Science and Engineering programme.

To book or for further information contact: Dr Claire Mulhall Science & Technology RDS Foundation Department Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 Tel: 01 240 7217 Email: science@rds.ie 26 October, Diagnostics through the Ages, 2pm 13 November, The Incredible Edible Sun, 12noon 20 November, The Magic of Chemistry, 12noon Senior Cycle 18 October, Murder & Mayhem in the Natural World, 10am & 12noon 25 October, Inflame your Brain, 10am &12noon 27 October, Fantastic Fluorescence, 10am & 2pm 15 November, From Molecules….to Man!, 10am & 2pm

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NOTICEBOARD For inclusion contact Alan Doherty at 01 2842909 or email: alan@sciencespin.com

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 33

The monastery at Einsiedein

The moveable feast — the science of

Gerry O’Sullivan and Maeve nic Samhradáin write that the discovery of an eighth century textbook in Switzerland deepens our knowledge about Medieval Ireland.

F

ourteen hundred years ago, this country was a world leader in the field of computus – the science of time reckoning with particular reference to the calculation of Easter. Today, Ireland is once again breaking new ground in this area at the HEA-PRTLI funded Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies (formerly the Centre for the Study of Human Settlement and Historical Change) at NUI, Galway.

Recent research by PhD student, Immo Warntjes, at the Institute has unearthed a unique Irish computistical textbook of the late seventh or early eighth century. Since only two Irish computistical textbooks from this formative period were known previously, this discovery will contribute greatly to the knowledge of Irish pioneering work in this medieval science. Immo discovered the text in the library of the Benedictine Monastery at Einsiedein in Switzerland and has named the text the Computus Einsidlensis.

The discovery will not only support learning in this discipline but will also enhance the study of the Irish language. The newly discovered text contains a considerable number of Old Irish words and since witnesses to the Irish language from this early period are extremely rare, the Computus Einsidlensis will also have a prominent place in the study of the history of the language at the Department of Old and Middle Irish at NUIG. The announcement of the discovery comes shortly after a major International Conference at NUIG on the Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe organised by the Foundations of Irish Culture AD 600-850 project at the Moore Institute. The project is under

the leadership of Prof Dáibhí Ó Cróinín and it aims to establish in a scholarly and scientific way the contribution of Irish learning to the development of early medieval Europe.

At the Conference in July 2006, scholars from Belgium, England, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the USA, and Canada had a rare opportunity to present new research to qualified peers, and to assess the status of the discipline in contemporary scholarship. Topics aired included: � The Irish role in the development of Computistical Mathematics � The transmission of Late Antique Mathematical Knowledge in Ireland and Europe � The Development of Astromomy in Early Medieval Ireland and Europe � The Irish contribution to the development of the European Science Curriculum in the period AD500-AD850

It’s a little known fact that in the 7th Century AD, Ireland was the leader in computus in the world. It makes sense that the island of saints and scholars be known for the calculation of the feast days in the Catholic Calendar. Now, thanks to the work of the team in the HEA-PRTLI funded Moore Institute, Ireland is once again the focus for the calculations.

The science of Computus straddles the fields of mathematics and astronomy, biblical interpretation and cosmology, empirical astronomical observation and the perennial quest to understand the concepts of time and time-reckoning. It regulates the date of the most important festival of the Christian Calendar, Easter, according to principles designed to harmonise the solar and lunar calendars Since many other liturgical feasts depend on the date of Easter (e.g., the ‘moveable feasts’ Septuagesima,

NUIG Conference on Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe: (from left to right) Professor Bruce Eastwood (University of Kentucky, USA), Dr Marina Smyth (Notre Dame University, USA), Dr Dan McCarthy (Trinity College Dublin), Immo Warntjes (NUI Galway), Dr David Howlett (Oxford University), Dr Eric Graff (NUI Galway), Dr Leofranc Holford-Strevens (Oxford University Press), Dr Masako Ohashi (Nanzan University, Japan), Professor Menso Folkerts (University of Munich), Professor Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (NUI Galway), Professor Paul Butzer (University of Aachen), Professor Stephen McCluskey (University of West Virginia, USA), Professor Wesley Stevens (University of Winnipeg, Canada)

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 34

Quadragesima, Rogationes), it has always been considered essential that all Christians celebrate Easter at the same time. For this reason, debates over the reckoning of Easter often highlighted the regional and cultural differences within the medieval Church, just as the difference between Orthodox and Catholic calendars today reflects the separate heritage of Eastern and Western Christians.

The practice of time-keeping differed from one kingdom or principality to the next, hindering travel and commerce as well as liturgy and ‘secular’ public services. The importance of changes in the medieval computus can therefore be compared to the modern introduction of timezones, except that the discourse about time in the Middle Ages combined the astronomy and mathematics necessary for time-reckoning with the theology required for supporting biblical sources of world chronology.

The variety and significance of computistical learning are attested by the survival of thousands of Latin manuscripts of this kind.

Several competing systems for the calculation of Easter are to be found before the 9th century including a version of Columbanus of Bangor,

who had brought an Irish Easter table with him when he travelled to the Frankish kingdoms in the 590s. The Irish reckoning was based on a system they had received prior to the calendar reforms of the 450s. This 84-year table was followed in Ireland and Northumbria until the 660s, when the Synod of Whitby rejected it in favour of conformity with Rome. The Welsh Church held to this table until 768.

Others like the Venerable Bede and Pope Gregory XIII had influential roles in this area in succeeding centuries.

At the start of the 20th century, scholars took a renewed interest in the sources of the early medieval computus. Bartholomew MacCarthy’s introduction to the Annals of Ulster (Dublin 1901) is a seminal text in this field and the discovery in the late 1980s

by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín of the ‘lost’ Insular 84-year table is of major importance.

Its subsequent elucidation by Daniel McCarthy produced a restored 84-year Easter table connected ultimately with the third-century figure Anatolius of Laodicea.

In the last ten years, scholars have produced a variety of works that have extended the range and depth of the history of the science of computus. Faith Wallis’ translation of

Bede (Liverpool 1999) has opened the field to a broad range of students in medieval studies, while the edition of Anatolius by Aidan Breen and Daniel McCarthy (Dublin 2003) has supplied a valuable early authority that had previously been mistaken for a forgery.

Kerstin Springsfeld’s monograph on Alcuin’s role in the Carolingian schools (Stuttgart 2002) examines the period of computistical consolidation during the early ninth century. Scholars of the early medieval computus look forward with special interest to Arno Borst’s forthcoming monumental edition of 20 computistical texts from the period 721-818.

Following from the work at NUIG and the recent Conference, several new publications will appear over the next few years to build upon and to challenge earlier work in medieval computistics. As part of the work of the Galway project, the proceedings of this conference will be published in an effort to advance the scholarly discourse about time in the early Middle Ages.

The discovery of the manuscript in the Benedictine Monastery at Einsiedein will contribute greatly to our knowledge about Medieval Ireland.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 35

SPIN

In from the wild

s rural communities become commuter suburbs, lots of changes can noted — hip cafes, gyms, and the not so popular traffic jams are all becoming things of the present. It’s becoming an environment surrounded by constant building activities, housing on once lonely fields, and roads cutting through the countryside. Everyone notices the changes, and vets are no exception.

With housing extending out into previously rural areas, pets are brought into contact with more wildlife, and there is more migration of wildlife into the suburbs. While there is a positive side to the greening of the grey and dreary suburbs, there is also a downside, particularly with rats because they are carriers of a disease called leptospirosis. The incidence of infected dogs has been increasing in vet practices.

Leptospirosis, also known as Weil’s Disease, is caused by a spiral shaped bacteria, Leptospires, and it is common throughout temperate and tropical regions. It occurs both in wild and domestic animals, and it is what we call a zoonotic disease, meaning that it can spread to humans. No need to panic, but a bit of caution is called for. Leptospirosis can be serious. In 1995, after widespread flooding in

Nicaragua, an epidemic of leptospirosis killed at least thirteen people.

More than 2,000 humans became ill, and no one knows how many animals died, but numbers would have been high.

The bacteria are spread in the urine of infected animals, and these include rodents, cattle, pigs, horses, dogs, badgers, stoats, and otters. The wet soil conditions and moderate temperatures of autumn and spring favour the survival of the leptospira, and they can lie in wait for months until a flood or heavy rain washes them into the wider environment. This is when your pet is likely to drink from or swim in a contaminated pool, ditch or canal.

The leptospira can gain entry through broken skin, or through the mucosal linings, and dogs are far more likely to become infected than cautious cats. That might be a lifestyle thing, and it applies to humans too. Leptospirosis is an occupational hazard for people who work with animals. It is also a recreational hazard for campers and those who enjoy outdoor sports such as swimming, wading, rafting, or indeed, caving.

Now comes the hard bit — the symptoms, which start to appear five to fourteen days after exposure, are non-specific, so, not so easy to diagnose. However, infection is

LIKE many bacteria, there are lots of different strains, hundreds are known. Most of these free swimming spiral shaped Spirochates are species specific, and not all are pathogenic. One particular strain, L. hebdomadis, occurs in the Japanese field mouse, and it was identified as the cause of a relativly mild seven-day fever among farmers there.

The diagnostic test requires expertise and lab facilities, all of which we have access to in Ireland, but abroad it’s a different story. In

many countries people, caught in the poverty trap, can not afford the test, so control of the disease can be a problem. In Britain up to 30 per cent of the sewer rats were found to be infected, yet while most were found to show mild symptoms, they were all carriers, and at one stage the disease was endemic among sewer workers. Although Weil’s Disease is serious, and can be debilitating, it is rarely fatal in humans, and we do not, like rats and our pets, become transmitters. Human to human transmission is unknown.

While everyone is drifting off into the green suburbs, Cornelie Kennedy writes that some disease carriers are coming back in from the wild.

A

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 36

serious because Leptospirosis can result in chronic kidney or liver failure.

Younger animals are more likely to show signs of infection, and the symptoms to watch out for include fever, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoes, depression, and severe muscle pain. Liver damage can lead to yellowing of the eyes and skin. Refusal to eat, always a bad sign, is another indicator that something serious is wrong. Quite a list, but there is only one way to be sure, and that is to get the vet to carry out a blood test, and the sooner this is done the better. The disease is highly infectious.

If caught in time, leptospirosis can be treated successfully with antibiotics.

If the kidney and liver have been damaged, support therapy can be given, but it does not always work.

During treatment, the pet has to be keep away from other animals, and the urine treated as biologically hazardous waste. Even with treatment, dogs continue to shed viable leptospira for up to three months, so this is no overnight cure.

As usual, it’s a case of prevention being better than the cure. So, what can you do?

For starters, keep the rodents under control, and when you get a new pet get it vaccinated against leptospirosis.

Get a booster shot every year.

Vaccination is not a 100 per cent guarantee against infection, but it does at least give your dog a good fighting chance.

As for the happy campers, don’t drink stagnant water. Swim and wash up in running rather than still water.

Cavers, creeping through the muck, are among the people at risk, and they are advised always to clean cuts immediately with antiseptic.

Cornelie Kennedy went from Science at UCD to Utrecht in the Netherlands where she qualified as a Veterinary Surgeon. She currently works as a vet in County Kildare.

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to interpret, and that provides reliable roundbreaking, interdisciplinary accurate information is developed. research is taking place at the This research is important because Department of Paediatrics & seizures are more common in the Child Health, University College Cork. neonatal period than during any other The Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) time throughout life. The incidence of funded research is pushing signal seizures in babies born at full term processing in a direction that will (40 weeks) is 1.5 - 3.0 per 1000 live benefit the smallest and most vulnerable births; the incidence is even higher in members of the population, according premature babies, ranging from 50 - 150 to Dr. Geraldine Boylan, Lecturer in per 1000 live births. “These figures Paediatrics. are probably underestimates as they A multidisciplinary team of clinicians, only include the seizures that can be scientists and engineers from the observed”, says Dr. Boylan. departments of Paediatrics & Child A recent recipient of SFI’s Principal Health and Electronic & Electrical Investigator Career Advancement Engineering at UCC are investigating Award (PICA) , Dr. Boylan’s research the use of EEG (measurements of will develop a biomedical signal brain activity) and other physiological processing system to help medical signal analysis to investigate brain injury staff identify all seizures in newborn and seizures in newborn babies. The babies without the need for complicated interdisciplinary work led by Dr. Boylan equipment or an expert to interpret the aims to create a synergy between results. medicine and engineering by using the The performance of individual EEG skills and techniques of engineering signals and a combination of EEG signal processing research to address and other physiological signals will important medical problems such as be measured for their reliability and automated seizure detection. reproducibility as a seizure detector.

Seizures or ‘fits’ in newborn babies “It is hypothesised that fusing the can be caused by problems such as lack information from multimodal signals of oxygen around the time will allow the automatic of birth, brain haemorrhage, detection of seizures as well meningitis, infection or as reducing the number of strokes. Although sick EEG monitoring electrodes newborn babies in neonatal required”, explains Dr. intensive care units already Boylan. “We will use a have continuous monitoring unique data set of prolonged of many physiological multimodal recordings variables including already collected from over Baby in intensive care electrocardiography (ECG), respiration, oxygen unit with EEG electrodes 100 newborn babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care saturation and blood attached for brain Unit. Early detection of pressure (BP), brain activity monitoring seizures will allow prompt is rarely monitored. Dr. and effective treatment, Boylan is concerned about which should translate into better long the failure to detect newborn seizures term neurological outcome for the which can, if untreated, lead to further smallest and most vulnerable members brain damage and in severe cases, death. of the population.”

The characteristics of seizures in “The vision of our research group is newborn babies are very different from to promote the development of patient those in older children and adults. In focussed solutions, based on interfacing newborns, seizures can be very difficult physiological signal acquisition and to detect because of little or complete digital signal processing. The research absence of clinical seizure activity. The activity is required to be highly only accurate tool for diagnosing all interdisciplinary and will provide the seizures in babies is simultaneous video platform for interaction and and EEG, but this equipment is collaboration between clinical, industrial expensive and requires highly and academic partners to achieve this specialised technical and medical vision for biomedical signal processing personnel to acquire and interpret the at UCC”, says Dr. Boylan, who is studies. Most neonatal units in Europe also Visiting Lecturer at the School of lack this expertise and therefore have to Medical Technology, City of Westminster rely on clinical judgment alone, which is College in London. known to be inaccurate. It is therefore Dr.Boylan has published some of imperative that a seizure detection the first studies of EEG and cerebral system that is simple to operate, easy

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 37

Dr Geraldine Boylan

Baby brainwaves G

blood flow regulation in the brain during seizures in sick newborn babies undergoing intensive care. In the last 3 years, she has continued to develop this research in Cork, attracting funding from the Health Research Board, the Irish Institute of Clinical Neuroscience, Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland. She has also set up Ireland’s first 24-hour neurological monitoring service for newborn babies at risk of brain injury, located in Cork.

Dr Boylan became interested in EEG when she was a student in the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology at Cork University Hospital. She later moved to London to develop a research career in Neurophysiology and she obtained her Ph.D in Neonatal Neurophysiology - EEG and cerebral blood flow velocity in the sick newborn baby from the University of London.

Her work is now attracting national and international attention.

The Women in Science & Engineering Research Initiative is a pilot programme.

The recipients of the Principal Investigator Career Advancement Award (PICA) for 2006 were announced last July. SFI will undertake an assessment of the PICA programme before any further calls are announced.

Details of SFI award programmes are available on the following website – www.sfi.ie

SFI’s Principal Investigator Career Advancement Award (PICA) helps ensure that Irishbased researchers who have interrupted their careers to take maternity, adoptive, parental or carers leave have an equal opportunity to compete. Applicants needed a Ph.D. or equivalent, and a proven record of internationally recognised research.

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REVIEWS Ken Thompson, lectures at the University of Sheffield, and in this book he explains how this garden project turned into a investigation on urban biodiversity. 61 fairly average back gardens were investigated, and the surveyors were astounded by the abundance of wildlife. 40,000 invertebrates were trapped, and scientists are still trying to classify most of them. As the author notes, ecologists can’t wait to get away to the

Deep jungle

Suburban wilderness

PEOPLE throw up their hands in horror at the spread of suburbs into the countryside. Tut, tut, how awful, and then the planners join in, saying that the days of having a garden back and front are gone!

Actually, its not as bad as that.

The alternative can be worse. Intensive mono-culture over thousands of acres, golf courses dosed to death with weedkiller, and sitka forests. If it’s diversity we want, then look no further than the back garden. Suburban gardens, especially when they have been there a few years, are havens of wildlife. As Ken Thompson writes in his delightful book, “No nettles required”, there is far more wildlife in settled suburbs than in open countryside. Just think of the usual, untidy, back garden. Bit of lawn, tumbled down garden shed, a rusting bike, and some sort of undefined twig and leaf covered heap. Hard to beat that for diversity, and this led Jenifer Owen in the suburbs of Leicester to have a good look at her own garden.

No less than 8,000 different insect species turned up, but of course, Jenifer did look closely. Many of these insects were so small that we would hardly notice them.

One of Mary Claire Smith’s drawings from No Nettles Required.

IT IS REALLY amazing how little we know about the world beyond our immediate area. The word jungle brings to mind all sorts of images, dark, wild, and unexplored, yet a lot of these assumptions are false. In his entertaining and highly informative book, Deep Jungle, science journalist, Fred Pearce, demolishes some myths, and also paints a picture that is, indeed, much darker than most of us would care to acknowledge. A great deal of the biodiversity we hear about is actually due to human intervention, and as the author points out, we only have to look deep into the wilderness to see the proof. In South America, in Africa, and in Asia, there is clear evidence to show that vast areas, now covered by tropical rain forest, were once cultivated. Not so much by the plough, but by people who lived fairly close to nature. The so called ‘slash and burn’ approach, which so horrifies the armchair ecologists, was, and is not, the disaster it is made out to be. Wholesale logging and clearing of forest, however, is, and this is where Fred Pearce, finds the darker side of jungle life. The horrors inflicted on people living in jungle areas defies belief, and ironically, one of the individuals responsible for the term ‘darkest Africa’ was the explorer, Stanley. As Fred Pearce explains, Stanley was more of an exploiter than an explorer. Thanks to people like Stanley, Africa, and indeed other parts of the world, did become dark.

While the accounts of exploitation, from the arrival of those brutish Conquistadors in the sixteen century onwards, make unsettling reading, the author suggests that this could be history repeating itself. Not alone did

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 38

Amazonian forests, because they are supposed to be ‘more natural’, yet we have plenty of biodiversity at home in the back garden.

No nettles required Ken Thompson Published by Eden Project Books.

Hardback, €10.

Tom Kennedy great and vibrant civilizations exist in many different parts of the world, but they almost totally disappeared. Their re-emergence from the jungles, like the ’lost city’ Angkor, takes us totally by surprise. This in turn suggests that society can move back as well as forwards, and one of the controversial arguments is whether the inhabitants of Borneo, or the inhabitants of the deep upland jungles of Peru are really ‘primitive’, or, as seems more likely, they are the survivors from the break down of a more structured society.

Fred Pearce gives us some good examples of where the ‘stone age’ stories can be shown to be a myth. Massive earth works in Nigeria, millions of acres under cultivation in South America, and how many of those anthropologists trekking off into deepest New Guinea, in search of savages, realise that these people’s ancestors gave us the banana, one of the most important crops in the world. Totally unknown in the wild, and the result of sophisticated cultivation.

Why did these societies fail? I don’t think we need to back in history to see some of the same forces at work right now. War is destructive, but so is disease. It is now believed that disease caused an almost total collapse of South American society.

A handful of European thugs could never have conquered the highly organised Incas and the Aztecs, and we cannot rule out the suggestion that much of the Amazonian forest, as it exists today, is just a by-product of defeat.

Deep Jungle, Fred Pearce. Eden Project Books. Paperback £9.99.

Tom Kennedy

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REVIEWS

Fear of change AS THE author admits, he’s scared of change. Fear of change is a weary old tradition, and the end of the world has been a long time coming. In fact it was all supposed to end a while ago, that was before the last time, but then we got another chance, and here we all are, still waiting, and still as anxious as ever. Do people really enjoy being afraid? Looks like it, for nothing, except a real disaster, has the appeal of an impending disaster.

Bad news sells. We’re going to run out of oil, we’re all going to die from bird flu, we’re going to be hit by a comet, and guess what, its all our own fault.

The author, Dave Reay, certainly has got his facts right; we are spewing out greenhouse gases, we are cutting down the rainforests, but let’s not be so hasty as he is in jumping to conclusions.

Marshalling facts to convince us that we are hell bent on sowing the seeds of our own destruction has become an eco-industry. My goodness, have we suddenly become so powerful? Well, yes, and no. We only have to look at the landscape around us to realise how humanity has shaped the environment, but let’s not forget that it only takes a relatively minor quake to wipe the slate clean. True, there is fairly

good evidence to show that greenhouse gases are having an impact on climate, but does no one ever stop to wonder how lucky we have been to have lived so long in a relatively benign interglacial.

The fact is, be it brutal or natural, according to your point of view, that climate has never remained stable for long. We’re a youthful species, not much more than 2 million years more or less in our present form, and in that time massive floods, upheavals, and ice ages, have forced us to move around, often with devastating results. Why, for example, was there a flowering of art 30,000 years ago, followed by a long long silence? 10,000 years ago it would have been hard to find anything at all growing in Ireland, yet 4,000 years ago a thriving community lived along the west coast basking in near Mediterranean conditions, and Greenland was indeed green. It is not a bit silly to think that putting out a few fires will enable us to avoid similar changes in the future? Far better, in my view, is to accept that, no matter what we do, some of the most expensive real estate in the world is ultimately destined to sink under the sea. Fine, let’s not dirty our nest, and we certainly never want to get

back to the choking smog that made Baggot Street Hospital have one of the highest admission rates in Europe for pulmonary distress, but there is no need for us to become guilty victims of an eco-preacher cult. Ah, but what will happen when everyone in China gets a car? Sorry folks, that’s highly unlikely to happen, but you can bet your inheritance that something else, something we probably never even though of, will have a much bigger impact on our environment.

Dave Reay’s book ‘Climate change begins at home’ is one of several that share the core message that it’s all our own fault. We are threatened with dire consequences for our ‘inaction’, a very negative, and I would say destructive message. It is true that we are facing the sort of changes that led to the mass movements of people in the past, but instead of feeling guilty or apprehensive about this, would it not be more positive, and ultimately more useful, to be thinking about how society can survive by adapting to climatic change?

Climate change begins at home, life on the two-way street of global warming.

Dave Reay, published by Macmillan, 2005.

Tom Kennedy

SPIN

Nature guide to the Aran Islands

WITH THE Aran Islands a big part of the attraction is the big contrast to the settled blandness of the eastern counties. People go west for the fresh air, the wind and the rain, and as German back-packers like to put it, for the joy of suffering. The rocky Aran islands are unique in Europe.

This is the west, but more so. The sea is wilder, the rocks rockier, and of course it has everything the Burren has. Botanically and geologically it is an extension of the Burren, so it’s a good hunting ground for naturalists, and as a group of three islands, everything is more or less in the one place.

Among the biologists drawn to the Aran Islands is Con O’Rourke, and he is keen to share his enthusiasm for its wildlife. Over the past few years he has been organising natural

history courses there for teachers, ecotourists, and students. Con is a former president of the Institute of Biology and in the 1980s it was decided that summer time courses for students and teachers should be brought out of the lecture theatres. Con was instrumental in assembling a team of biologists to start off outdoor courses, as gaeilge, on Inis Meáin, and they have continued since.

This has made Con quite familiar with just about every nook, cranny and ecological niche on the islands.

As a former editor with Teagasc, Con is also no stranger to print, and now he has distilled his knowledge of the flora, fauna, and geology of the islands into a colourful guide. Naturally we get the Irish names, and the colour photographs make it quite easy to identify species.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 39

It’s an attractive book, and not just something to carry around the Aran Islands. As a guide it would be useful anywhere along the western coast.

Nature guide to the Aran Islands, Con O’Rourke. Lilliput. Paperback.

Tom Kennedy

MATHS PROBLEMS

Tony McGennis presents some puzzles

Sudoku Solution

Football Crazy

It’s half time in a soccer game and the home team are losing 1-0. The weather conditions are dreadful, and the markings of one of the penalty boxes cannot be made out, although the end-line is still perfectly visible The groundsman is called on to rectify the situation and mark the three outside lines of the box. He has enough chalk for 64 metres. He also knows that the home team – his beloved Rovers - are attacking the end in question in the second half, and he wonders if there is a chance to make the penalty area as large as possible so as to maximise the chances of Rovers getting a penalty kick.

Can he do this? How can he mark the three sides of the penalty box to maximise the area within? What would the dimensions of this box be, considering that he has enough chalk for 64 metres?

On the buses

Siobhan travels to work by bus each morning. She has a choice of two buses, the 15A and 15B, which both stop at her stop. Each of these buses has the same frequency (every twenty minutes) all day. Moreover, each already follows the same route into town before reaching Siobhan’s stop.

Siobhan arrives at the bus stop at a random time between 8.00 and 9.00 every morning, and always gets the first bus. The buses are never full when they arrive at her stop. After some time, Siobhan notices that she seems to get the 15A more often than 15B, and she decides to make a note of which bus she gets.

After six months, she can confirm that she gets the 15A twice as often as the 15B. How can this be?

In the issue dated December ‘05/ January ’06 readers were invited to work out how many Sudoku-type solutions are possible from a grid made of a pair of 2x2 sub-grids, as shown.

The left 2x2 sub-grid has 24 possible permutations for the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4, because any of the numbers can go into the first position, leaving three chances for the second position, two for the third and one for the fourth.

In Mathematics, the number of possible arrangements is given by 4-factorial (written 4!), which is: 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24.

And for each of these 24, there are 4 possible arrangements for the sub-grid on the right. In the example shown, the order is 3,4,2,1 and this could also be 4,3,2,1 or 3,4,1,2 or 4,3,1,2.

So the answer is 24 x 4 = 96 Sudoku solutions for the grid shown.

1 2 3 4 3 4 2 1

Funding for Study in the US The Irish - US Fulbright Commission’s annual awards support students and scholars to undertake study, research or lecturing at a college in the United States.

Applications are now invited for the Fulbright Awards 2007/ 08.

SCHOLAR AWARDS are available to post-doctoral scholars and to established leaders of professional, academic and artistic excellence to undertake advanced research or lecturing at a recognised US institution. Awards are available for independent research in all academic disciplines. In addition there are a number of sponsored awards in specific colleges and fields.

STUDENT AWARDS in the range of €15,000 to € 20,000 are available to students who wish to pursue post-graduate study or research at a recognised college in the United States. Awards are available in all academic disciplines as well as in the visual and performing arts. In addition there are a number of sponsored awards in specific fields.

Further information on the awards, the terms and conditions and application forms are available on www.fulbright.ie.

Closing date for receipt of completed applications is Friday 17 November 2006.

TEL + 353 -1- 660 7670

EMAIL admin@fulbright.ie

WEBSITE www.fulbright.ie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 40

SPIN

Ireland funds great research maybe it’s your turn President of Ireland Young Researcher Award (PIYRA) 2007 The President of Ireland Young Researcher Award (PIYRA) is a prestigious award for outstanding early career researchers in science and engineering from around the world to carry out their research in Ireland.

Awardees will be selected on the basis of exceptional accomplishments in engineering and science disciplines that underpin Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Biotechnology (BioT), and creative research plans that are built on work that has attracted international attention.

The award is valued at up to î Ľ1 million / $1.25 million (direct costs) over five years.

Applicants for the PIYRA 2007 competition must have been awarded a PhD or equivalent within the last 5 years. Full details of the award criteria are contained in the call for proposals which is available on the SFI website.

Proposals for PIYRA must be submitted through one of the Irish Research Bodies listed on the SFI website. Researchers interested in submitting for a PIYRA award should make direct contact with a Research Body and request consideration by the institution to be one of their nominees.

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 www.sfi.ie

The deadline for submission by Irish Research Bodies is Wednesday 18th October 2006, with offers being made in March 2007.

For information on SFI awards programmes visit www.sfi.ie

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)

Science Week Ireland offers people of all ages the chance to explore, discover, experiment or invent their way to a better understanding of science.

Science Week 2006 takes place from 12-19 November.

Log on to www.scienceweek.ie for regular updates on events and happenings and make sure not a moment is missed from Ireland’s most exciting and diverse week.

www.scienceweek.ie