Spin 19

ISSUE 19 November 06 €3 including VAT £2 NI and UK

SCIENCE

SPIN

IRELAND’S SCIENCE WILDLIFE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

CRYSTAL CREATURES IRELAND’S UNIQUE COLLECTION LAST OF THE DINOSAURS WHEN DID REPTILES TAKE FLIGHT? SOLAR SYSTEM COUNTDOWN WHY PLUTO HAD TO GO

11th, 12th & 13th January 2007, R.D.S. Dublin

500 projects compete for the title of ‘BT Young Scientist of the Year’

See the World of Robots

The physics of break dancing with ‘Physical Jerks’

Book your School Group Visits FREEPHONE 1800 924 362 (ROI) or 0800 917 1297 (NI)

www.btyoungscientist.ie

Learn of the plight of Mountain Gorillas

BRING THE FAMILY FOR AN EXCITING DAY OUT! Thursday 11th, Friday 12th and Saturday 13th January 2007 Exhibition open to the public from 9.30a.m - 5.30p.m.

General Admission Prices Adults €10, Students/Children and Senior Citizens €5, Family Tickets €25 (two adults and three children). Parties of 20 or more qualify for the special discount admission price of €4 per student. No charge for teachers who accompany school parties.

SCIENCE

Ireland’s highest cave at Glencar, Co Sligo.

Photo: GSI

SPIN 3

UPFRONT

Publisher Duke Kennedy Sweetman Ltd 5 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. and Foxford Woollen Mills, Foxford, Co. Mayo Tel: 045 9257801 www.sciencespin.com Email: tom@sciencespin.com

Exploring the nanoworld

Editors Seán Duke sean@sciencespin.com

Geoff Wright explains how distant events shake up our ground water

Tom Kennedy tom@sciencespin.com 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 Contributors in this issue: Chris Coughlan, Danielle Barron, Tony Bazley, Anthony King, Shannon Lim, Mary Mulvihill, Gerry O’Sullivan, George Winter, Geoff Wright.

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.

Building from the bottom up

The last of the dinosaurs

6

Well shaken

11

Solar system countdown

5

Anthony King reports that birds have been around for a long time

Toraigh, Tory Island

12

Tony Bazley describes the rocky landscape

14

Earth heritage alive and well in Sligo Tony Bazley reports that geological sites are getting onto the map

16 Natural designs

Dedicated teachers learn from research

DCU pioneering diabetes treatment

28

Gerry O’Sullivan writes that cell culturing experttise is being put to good use

Crystal creatures

Seán Duke writes about endangered species in glass

30 Colours of Eve 34 Shannon Lim’s award winning story from the RDS Young Science Writers’ competition

Ireland’s high frontier

37 Cystic fibrosis 38 George Winter reports

18

Danielle Barron looks at the position of science in schools

Crops of the future

What is the stars?

24 27

Forestry epiphytes, plants growing on plants

Rock art

Choosing science

Chris Coughlan explains why atronomers demoted Pluto

22

Seán Duke looks at how UCD researchers are developing natural controls

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 3

that bacterial biofilms may be the problem

applying science to science and technology appointments

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New director

Dr Gene Wong, Emeritus Professor at the University of California, Berkley, has become interim Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at Science Foundation Ireland. Dr Wong, who has a PhD from Princeton in Electrical Engineering, is best known as the designer of the Ingres database

management system. Apart from his business interests, Dr Wong was Associate Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House.

MANY people simply see education as a stepping stone to a good well-paid career, but the rewards are actually a lot better than cash. Quoting US studies, the HEA pointed out to the Government’s Task Force on Active Citizenship, that in communities where education levels are high, there is less crime, more is given to charities and community services, health is improved, and better choices are made of consumer products.

UPFRONT Stem cells

PRECLINICAL testing on a stem cell based treatment for spinal injuries is to start at the Regenerative Medicine Institute at NUI Galway. The trials are being carried out for Stem Cell Science, an Australian biotechnology company.

Spinal cord injuries, according to the institute, affect more than 25 million people around the world, and these injuries are very difficult to treat.The Galway researchers aim to find out how cultured nerve cells can be implanted to support natural repair processes.

The Institute’s Director, Frank Barry, said this is a great opportunity to make progress in treatment of previously incurable conditions.

Initial results are expected in 2007, and if these are successful, collaboration will continue.

Water mining

DURING September, Prof Hongren Zhang, President of the International Union of Geological Sciences visited the Geological Survey of Ireland, where he gave an address on the sustainability of water resources. Prof Zhang warned against ‘mining’ of underground aquifers, some of which can never be replenished. Apart from being a short term solution to water shortages, large scale extraction can lead to land subsidence. By way of example, Prof Zhang mentioned that ground around Phoenix and Tuscon in Arizona has become fissured as a result of water mining. In China, properties have been damaged in Shanghai.

Water should only be extracted from aquifers that are continually replenished from rainfall and surface waters.

Tony Bazley, from the earth science (ES2k) group notes that subsidence due to pumping out of water is rarely mentioned in Ireland, yet it has been reported from Co Down. Prof Bob Kalin from Queen’s noted that at Newtownards the ground around a pump serving a disused factory had sunk by half a metre.

Winning scientist AT STOCKHOLM 24 participants shared in this year’s EU Young Scientist contest. Michael Kaiser and Johannes Kienl from Austria, Johannes Burkart and Alexander Joos from Germany, and Tomas Wdowik from Poland were in the lead for three first prizes. Kaiser and Kienl had worked on a de-iceing system for aircraft; Burkart and Joos had worked out flight curves for tabletennis balls; and Wdowik had worked on the synthesis of potential betablockers. Other prize winners had come from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Ireland. Ireland was represented by BT Young Scientist winner, Aisling Judge. Aisling’s project was on the development and evaluation of a biological food spoilage indicator.

According to the judging panel, headed by Prof Jane Grimson from TCD, the diverity of entries made it impossible to declare one overall winner, so three first prizes were awarded.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 2

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UPFRONT Listen in

EVER since tapes and slides first appeared on the scene, colleges have been exploring the idea of packaging lectures. Earlier attempts were often hampered by the limitations of available technology, but things have improved.

Students have computers, and they walk around with MP3 players.

Instead of music, students could be listening in to lectures. The Cork Institute of Technology has been following this idea up by launching a series of podcasts for evening students of IT and web design. The lectures can be downloaded directly into the students’ computer or iPod. One of the advantages of this approach, explained Jim O’Dwyer, head of Computing at CIT, is that the students can be on the move. They don’t have to sit down in front of a desk computer. “Flexibility,” commented lecturer Colin Manning, “is a big deal for evening students.”

The web address for the podcasts is: http://tinyurl.com/ehq9d

Weber Shandwick’s Sonya Cassidy (second from left) and GSNI’s Marie Cowan receive the PRCA Excellence Award from An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD and Paul Allen, Chairman of the Irish PRCA

PR award

THE Belfast based PR firm, Weber Shandwick, was presented with a special award by the Public Relations Consultants Association for excellence in handling the NI Geological Survey Tellus project.

A public information campaign was run to inform the public about the large scale survey. According to Conall McDevitt from Weber Shandwick the information was complex and sensitive, yet the campaign succeeded in reaching everyone in Northern Ireland where the survey is being conducted.

The three-year air and land-based survey, explained GSNI Director, Garth Earls, will produce many economic and social benefits. The survey will provide a baseline against which environmental changes can be measured, and it will give planners a better understanding of natural resources, such as gravel for construction and availability of water.

Science Week at NUI Maynooth The following public events will be held at NUI Maynooth during Science Week. All events are for the general public and are free. More information is at http://science4all.nuim.ie/.

8.30 pm - 10 pm and Friday 17 November, Science Building, 8 pm - 10 pm.

On-line Mathematics Contest for Schools School teams can register on-line at the start of Science Week and submit their solutions before the end of the week. Monday 13 Nov. Friday 17 Nov. Visit http://www.maths.nuim.ie/.

Careers Showcase in Science and Engineering Speakers from industry and from NUI Maynooth give a perspective on careers opportunities for science and engineering graduates in Irish industry. Wednesday 15 November, Hume Building, 7 pm - 8.30 pm.

Seeing is Believing Public lecture on the science of imaging by Dr. Charles Markham (Electronic Engineering, NUI Maynooth). Monday 13 November, Hume Building, 7 pm - 8 pm.

Tropical Diseases - A Safari with a Difference Public lecture by Dr. Noel Murphy (Institute of Immunology, NUI Maynooth). Thursday 16 November, Hume Building, 7 pm - 8 pm.

Near-Earth Objects: Natural Weapons of Mass Destruction Public lecture by Prof. Alan Fitzsimmons (Astrophysics Research Centre, Queen’s University, Belfast). Organised by Astro2, the Astronomy and Physics Society at NUI Maynooth. Tuesday 14 November, Hume Building, 7 pm - 8 pm.

Experience Science Hands-on Try out simple hands-on experiments, watch demonstrations, and participate in competitions, in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, and Psychology. For all ages.

Friday 17 November, Callan and Science Buildings, 7 pm - 9 pm.

Astronomical Observations Look through telescopes at the moon, planets, stars, and galaxies. Only for limited numbers of people and only if the sky is clear.

Tuesday 14 November, Science Building,

National Science Museum Come and view the finest collection of historic scientific instruments in Ireland and much more, at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

Saturday 18 November, 2 pm - 5 pm.

Image: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

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NASA

NASA

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applying science to science and technology appointments

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applying science to science and technology appointments

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David Nevins (COFORD Chairman), Deirdre Cunningham (author), Minister Mary Wallace, TD, and Dr Eugene Hendrick (COFORD Director) at the launch of “Brackloon - the story of an Irish oak wood” at GMIT Galway on 19 June 2006.

Photograph; Mike Shaughnessy

An Irish oak wood

HERE and there pockets of ancient woodland survive, sometimes in the most surprising places. One of these remnants is the 74 ha area of oak forest on the eastern slopes of Croagh Patrick in Mayo.

The woodland has a long and interesting history, which Deirdre Cunningham describes in a beautifully produced book published in September by Coford. The woodland is now a protected area, appealing both to professional ecologists and to those who just want to spent time among the ancient trees. Deirdre, now working as Heritage Officer with Mayo County Council, was a member of the Forest Ecosystem Research

Group at UCD, so Brackloon was of special interest to her. Deirdre’s doctoral research concerned the dynamics of woodland in Ireland and New England in the US. In Brackloon, Deirdre gives us the history and describes all the plants and animals that inhabit the wood.

The book itself is an outstanding production and Spin Science will carry a more extensive review of it in our next issue.

The 148 hardback is available from Coford for €35, including post and packing. Coford’s address is: Arena House, Sandyford, Dublin 18. The book can also be ordered online from www.coford.ie

Deep sea

BRINGING tiny creatures up from the depths for examination under the microscope is not very satisfactory, but researchers at Dalhousie University, Canada, have come up with an alternative. A hologram device has been developed that can form 3D images of tiny organisms at depths down to 100 metres. The US Physics News reports that M H Jericho came up with an arrangement in which a laser is focused on a pinhole, which then acts as a source of light. Light from this source illuminates the surrounding water, and waves scattered by objects are detected by a charged couple device (CCD).

The unscattered waves are also detected, and from the differences a hologram image can be constructed. Special software has been written to process the images, and the researchers are reported to have packaged the device in a pressure-resistant watertight container. According to Physics News the resolution is good, and movement can be recorded at 1024 x 1024 pixels at up to 10 frames a second. Compared to previous hologram devices, which used film, were slow, and so heavy that they could only be deployed from large vessels, the new instrument is just 20 kg and can record thousands of images in a matter of minutes.

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UPFRONT

Postgraduate Robert Healy; Dan Richardson, TfI’s Managing Director; and Dr Daniel O’Mahony, Director Technology Transfer Office, NUI Galway.

Backing good ideas

RESEARCHERS can come up with a lot of good ideas for industry, but they will never get off the ground unless someone knows how to translate theory into practice. Getting patent protection is just part of the story. Investors have to understand what’s involved, and they have to be convinced that the ideas are worth backing. An Irish company, Technology from Ideas, was set up to answer those needs. The company identifies promising ideas and packages them for presentation to customers around the world.

Robert Healy, a researcher at NUI Galway, has become the first to benefit from this approach to marketing ideas.

Robert, from the Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Department has been working on renewable energy systems. By chooosing more durable materials and modifying designs, Robert believes the performance of wave power generators can be improved. Interest in harvesting energy from the sea has increased, and as we reported in the previous issue of Science Spin, an area off the Galway coast has become a test bed for new devices.

Prize planetarium

SINCE opening in 1968 over 1.6 million people have visited Armagh Planetarium. One of the big attractions is the Armagh Story, a multimedia presentation covering the planetarium’s history and discoveries in astronomy. At Salt City, USA, Julie Thompson, creator of the presentation, was presented with the top award in a world-wide competition for users of the advanced Digistar 3 projection system. This is quite an achievement, and is the second time that Julie won the award.

What is the Stars?

Secondary Teacher Assistant Researchers are the kind of teachers who want to enhance their career opportunities and the education of their students. The kind of teachers who want to renew their interest in science as researchers, reconnect with science faculties, perhaps return to the dreams of their undergraduate years.

O

r perhaps to “Cybernia” a post apocalyptic Ireland. Four children with special powers – the Resistors! - must use their scientific knowledge and their powers to defeat an evil junta of hackers who have taken over the city and taken the Professor hostage – the Professor who gave each Resistor his or her special ability – Luc Light, Sonia Sound, Amber Electricity and Magnetism, and Dig ICT. Light years away from the Bunsen Burner and all for the sake of science. It’s what Gillian Kaye, a science teacher at Blackrock College spent last summer working on at the Centre for Telecommunications Value-Chain Research headquarters at Trinity College under Professor Donal O’Mahony. The animated TV series called The Resistors!, is due to go out on TG4 this November.

“My Stars experience was a brilliant glimpse inside the world of animation and website development. I am delighted to be involved with such a revolutionary way of teaching Science”, said Gillian.

The STARS programme is an initiative through which teachers can receive support to conduct research within an SFI-funded research team during the summer holidays while receiving a stipend equivalent of up to 8 weeks salary. Here’s how it works. SFI funded researchers submit a description of their proposed STAR research project to SFI for publication on the SFI website. “The proposed research must be an adjunct to an existing SFI award that has already passed international peer review”, explains SFI’s Tracy Moloney, Manager of the STARs programme. Potential STARs look at the research projects, identify one of interest and make contact directly with the SFI funded researcher.

The SFI funded researchers and teachers then submit their joint STAR proposal. “An award will be granted based on the quality of the proposed research project and through a clear demonstration by the teacher of how the knowledge and experience gained will be disseminated to the classroom and their colleagues to enhance second level science and engineering education”, says Tracy Moloney.

who worked under Professor Gerry O’Sullivan at the Cork Cancer Research Centre in UCC. The payback for teachers giving up 6 to 8 weeks of their holidays is that they acquire new scientific skills and knowledge that can be passed on to their students — the scientists and engineers of the future.

“I will be able to use the Microbiology and Molecular Biology experience for the benefit of my own students in the school laboratory”, said Cian O’Mahony. “The STARs programme has facilitated this for me in a most enjoyable and beneficial way.”

O’Mahony’s work in the Cork Cancer Research Centre involved investigating the development of novel strategies for cancer therapy. “The work carried out during this STAR project tested an alternative means of delivery of genes to tumours using Bifidobacteria to both transport and target plasmids to the tumour site, and the results are extremely important to the gene delivery group.”

Two fifth year biology students also decided to commit half their summer holidays to work with O’Mahony in the lab. “One of the students completed a report on his work, which he will use as part of his university entrance application, while the other student is going to use his work to enter the ESAT BT Young Scientist Exhibition”, said O’Mahony.

Stars in her sight

Anne O’Connell of Galway Community College used the high-level interpreted language of the computer program ‘Matlab’ to create her own software program to carry out psychophysical analysis on the students.

“It was a great opportunity to return to NUI, Galway and work with the cutting edge research group. Under the guidance of Professor Chris Dainty and Eugénie Dalimier I was successfully able to compute and run a calibrated test that would automatically determine the student’s visual acuity and contrast sensitivity threshold. It was very

Cutting Edge Cancer Research

UCD Conway based STAR, Caroline Devitt, science and biology teacher at Castleknock Community School preparing an electrophoresis experiment

beneficial to the students as it gave a result that they could personally identify with. It truly was an invaluable experience and I would highly recommend the STAR programme to every science teacher.”

STARS on Stars

Adrian McCormack and Sean Foley worked under the direction of Dr. Paul Callanan of the Astrophysics Dept in UCC. They produced a practically focused 16 lesson course in astronomy aimed at transition year students. “The STARS project provided me with fresh astronomy material which I am currently teaching to my transition year students. I believe that this material will serve to whet at least some of my student’s appetites for the sciences and encourage them to pursue a career in this area”, said Adrian. “I have learned that astronomy can be unrivalled as a way of attracting students into science.”

Boyle: An’, as it blowed an’ blowed, I ofen looked up at the sky an’ assed meself the question -- what is the stars, what is the stars?

Joxer: Ah, that’s the question, that’s the question -- what is the stars?

Boyle: An’ then, I’d have another look, an’ I’d ass meself -- what is the moon?

Joxer: Ah, that’s the question -- what is the moon, what is the moon?

It’s the kind of collaboration that will give teachers unique and exciting opportunities to work at the cutting edge under world class researchers. “After spending a few years in the school laboratory, it is very easy to lose touch with the ever changing world of research and academia”, said Cian O’Mahony of Douglas Community School

Left: Molecular modelling at the Centre for Synthesis & Chemical Biology, UCD STARs on the UCD Conway Institute’s 2006 ‘Research Survival Skills’ course

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 5

The last of the

Dinosaurs

Anthony King

reports that living birds have been found to be a lot closer to their dinosaur ancestors than we thought.

“Dinosaurs as a group are not extinct.”

T

his is how UCD’s Dr Gareth Dyke began his talk at an Alchemist Café event earlier this year. “Maybe ninetynine percent of the lineages went extinct when a meteorite hit Mexico

about 65 million years ago, but not all.” There hasn’t been an astounding discovery of a Jurassic hideaway on a remote island, however. The living dinosaurs, he explained, are the birds, which palaeontologists now recognise as descendants of a group close to ferocious bipedal dinosaurs such as Velociraptor in Jurassic Park.

Fossil evidence uncovered in China in recent years revealed that birds weren’t unique in possessing feathers.

Dinosaurs weren’t scaly reptiles, said Dyke. “They were fluffy, covered in feather and down.” Animals like Tyrannosaurus rex and the big longnecked sauropod dinosaurs had downy feathers, he added.

“Most of the flesh eating dinosaurs had feathers,” agreed Mike Benton, Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at Bristol University. “Some of the earliest dinosaurs probably had a fuzz of wispy feathers. Early on the tail and neck were covered, but more advanced ones had complete cover all over the body,” he said.

Feather preservation in fossils is so rare that palaeontologists still aren’t sure about the extent of feathers in many groups. No feathers have been found on T. rex, but other tyrannosaurids have been found with feather-like covering. According to Dr Matthew Wilkinson of the University of Cambridge, T. rex would therefore be expected to have some kind of feathers, but this is complicated by its large size. If it was covered in down and warm-blooded in the modern sense, it may have suffered from overheating, he said.

What is certain is that feathers evolved for a function other than flight. “We don’t know why feathers first evolved,” explained Wilkinson.

“Insulation is a strong contender, but display and defence are also possible explanations.”

Ancient Wing – Archaeopteryx

Greate care being taken at the Natural History Museum, London, to recover details of ancient life.

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Two years after Darwin published The Origin of Species, a 150-million-year-old fossil marvel turned up in a limestone quarry in Germany. Archaeopteryx (“ancient wing”), as it was called, had feathers and was definitely capable of flight. But the fossilised skeleton looked like a dinosaur, and it had teeth, claws, and a long bony tail.

Archaeopteryx — a 150 million year old marvel. Photograph: Natural History Museum, London.

A new bird

A unique Enantiornithine (“opposite bird”) has just been described by Gareth Dyke and Luis Chiappe of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. The fossil bird is unique in that it is the only member of the group that shows evidence of flightlessness. Many flightless birds, including the ostrich, evolved from flighted ancestors—loosing the ability to fly is a recurring theme in bird evolution. Chiappe noted: “Enantiornithines are considered to be good fliers; in fact, they are the first birds to have evolved flying capabilities comparable to those of modern birds. Yet this new fossil belongs to a lineage that was clearly on its way to loosing its ability to fly.”

Evolutionary divergence with one branch leading off to our modern birds.

“Key anatomical features show these early birds were much more similar to dinosaurs, especially Velociraptor and other small predatory ground-running dinosaurs, than to living birds today,” said Dyke, who is one of the world’s leading experts on bird evolution.

A nearly complete specimen of Archaeopteryx described in the journal Science in late 2005 offered yet more evidence, from the skull and feet, to link birds to dinosaurs.

It’s now widely accepted that birds evolved from a small carnivorous dinosaur in the Jurassic, some 150 million years ago. The feathers, large sternum, hollow limb bones and possibly warm bloodedness of birds were already present in the dinosaur ancestor, so flight was a story of co-opting existing structures to new purposes. Kevin Padian writes in The Dinosauria that flight—evolving in one lineage of dinosaurs (Maniraptorans)— involved “a transition from the predatory forelimb slash-grab of a vicious predatory dinosaur to the graceful stroke of birds taking wing.”

Subsequent bird evolution has been all about reducing the amount of bone in the skeleton to make it lighter.

For some fossil animals, palaeontologists are uncertain whether to class them as birds or dinosaurs.

One example is Mononykus (meaning “single claw”), a long-legged, lightly built animal with a well-developed breast bone, large eyes and tiny arms.

Common sense dictates that birds and dinosaurs must be closely related if the experts have trouble telling them apart.

Above the heads of dinosaurs

Images of the Cretaceous period (144 to 65 million years ago) depict dinosaurs with reptilian pterosaurs soaring above their heads. Missing from these pictures are flocks of colourful birds.

“I would say that birds during the late Cretaceous, say 80 to 65 million years ago, were just as common as they are today,” said Dyke. “The birds at the end of the Cretaceous were very similar to modern birds. They differed in some anatomical details, such as the shape of some bones, but

Terror birds

After the K-T extinction, some birds appear to have taken over the role of some of their dinosaur ancestors. The radiation of mammals at this time did not include large carnivores, and birds seem to have become top predators in some parts of the world. The Phorusrhacids, possible relatives of cranes, reached heights of three metres or more and have been pictured seizing horselike mammals. These giant flesh-eating terror birds lived on in South America longer than anywhere else and were eventually replaced by predatory cats and dogs in the Pleistocene, less than two million years ago.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 8

the differences were very small,” he said.

The “opposite birds” (Enantiornithes), named for their foot bones, were a common group in the earlier Cretaceous and have been compared to modern songbirds in terms of their diversity. The first “opposite bird” was identified in the 1980s, but many more fossils were discovered in the 1990s.

They could perch on branches, were good fliers, and had the extra winglet (the alula) seen in modern birds, which is used to prevent stalling at slow speed. Many also had primitive features like teeth and clawed hands.

Dyke has been carrying out field work in Kazakhstan for the last number of years and will shortly publish a description of a new “opposite bird” from the Gobi Desert.

He also recently reported a marine bird from Kazakhstan that is a Hesperornis (“western bird”). These were large, flightless diver birds that could be over a metre tall. They too had teeth, but were more closely related to modern birds than the “opposite birds.” Until the recent spate of discoveries, Hesperornis and one other Cretaceous seabird formed the basis of studies into the origin of modern birds.

The K-T Extinction

Almost all bird groups died out during the famous K-T (CretaceousTertiary) extinction event 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs

Fossil problems

Reptilian ancestors had a lot in common with modern birds, exploiting similar ecological niches.

and pterosaurs. The modern birds (Neornithes) were the only group to survive. “This one lineage radiated rapidly after the extinction and gave rise to the 10,000 species we see today,” explained Dyke. Modern birds appear to have been rare during the Cretaceous, and few of their fossils have been found. Why this group of birds survived the extinction but all others died out is a mystery.

Stig Walsh, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, has proposed a solution. Walsh has a theory that “modern birds survived the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event due to enlargement of certain parts of their brains.” This would have set them apart from the more archaic lineages of birds. “We’re trying to test the idea,” he explained, “using high resolution computed tomography of fossils, but we don’t have anything conclusive as yet.”

Dyke outlined another theory: “Two of the three lineages of birds went extinct at the K-T boundary.

The fact that one survived may have been for ecological reasons.” Perhaps the fact that they lived in specific habitats, such as shorelines, allowed them survive in small numbers, he said. Research into this area continues and may well depend on new discoveries of fossils in the field.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 9

The thin-walled bones of birds don’t fossilise easily. As Dyke explained, the entire fossil record of birds from the Cretaceous could fit on a large dining table. “Even T. rex is known from just twelve specimens, only two of which are complete,” he said. Yet this large dinosaur was on Earth for 10 million years. Limited data is a fact of life in vertebrate fossils, and many records of modern birds from the Cretaceous are based on a single bone.

Molecular clock studies have indicated that the modern bird lineage originated over 100 million years ago, but there are no anatomically modern birds found before the terminal stages of the Cretaceous. Even those fossils are problematic. “Most of the specimens are fragmentary and we do not understand the characters well enough to place most of them,” said Joel Cracraft, ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History.

The number of archaic and modern bird species discovered from the Cretaceous has more than tripled since the 1990s. The net is also widening, taking in new areas of the world.

This summer, a team including UCD’s Gareth Dyke scoured remote areas of Kazakhstan for fossils. Other areas of the world await exploration. The fossil record in the Southern Hemisphere has received less attention and it could be that evolution of modern birds during the Cretaceous took place there.

Fossilisation requires particular conditions. For a feather to be preserved, it must be buried quickly, gradual sedimentation must occur, and the carcass must remain undisturbed.

Consequently, the fossil fauna is predominantly from marine and lake environments.

Another problem with the fossil record is that fossils often say little about the behaviour of an animal or the ecology of the time. Strikingly visual features in modern birds, such as the brilliant plumage of birds of

A long history

paradise, may have been present in Cretaceous birds, but such delicate traits do not fossilise easily.

Field work, such as Dyke’s surveys in Kazakhstan, may yield important new finds of dinosaurs and birds.

And ongoing research on the feathered dinosaurs of China and Mongolia is critically important to our understanding of the origin of birds.

But it is clear that birds have a longer history than many of us would have imagined. Equally, the image of dinosaurs as scaly reptiles was all wrong. There has been a renaissance in dinosaur research in the last three decades and bird evolution is now very much part of this story. “At least anatomically, birds are one kind of dinosaur,” Dyke said, “So you can go look in the garden and see dinosaurs

flapping around.” Next time you see a bounding magpie, just picture a scaled-up toothed version with claws.

Flying dinosaurs?

The Maniraptorans

Microraptor is a small feathered dinosaur that recently featured in the TV series Prehistoric Park. The feathers of this dromaesaurid were asymmetrical—important since asymmetry generates lift. The long feathers in the forelimb of Microraptor form a wing of essentially modern design which suggests that the animal was capable of flight. Whether it glided or actively flapped is a source of controversy. Writing recently on the subject, Dyke and Chiappe noted that such new discoveries not only document the presence of feathers outside birds, “but they also suggest that some non-avian theropod dinosaurs may, to some extent, have been able to fly.”

The group that most palaeontologists believe gave rise to birds is the Maniraptorans (“seizing hands”).

Exact membership of this dinosaur group is debated.

Maniraptorans had a specialised wrist and forelimb that was later used for the flight stroke in birds. In the 1920s, Oviraptor (“egg thief”) got a bad rap when it was discovered lying above a nest of eggs. Further finds of Oviraptors in the 1990s, including an unhatched embryo, showed these dinosaurs were protecting their nests in an avian brooding position. Some experts place Oviraptor with the birds.

SPIN

COLOUR

What we see and the science behind sight All you ever wanted to know about colour — chemist, Margaret Franklin, and science writer, Tom Kennedy, explain all about the chemistry, the physics, and the perception of colour. Fully illustrated, and including charts to test your sight.

Recommended price €15, but available direct from Science Spin for just €12 post included. 112p paperback.

Bewley’s

A reprint of Hugh Oram’s original paperback giving an entertaining and informative account of how Bewley’s became a nationaql institution where everyone was welcome.

Recommended price €12, but available direct from Science Spin for just €10. 112p paperback.

Cheque with order to:

Science Spin

5 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. Email: tom@sciencespin.com

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 10

Well shaken

Dr Geoff Wright of the Geological Survey of Ireland explains why water was shaken in wells all around Ireland

Shaken up

Despite the raw power and ultimately tragic consequences of the Asian tsunami of Boxing Day 2004 it still seems extraordinary that the earthquake causing it was actually registered in Ireland.

But it’s true, as reported by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in the article (page 23) in Issue 18 of Science Spin. Here I report that the shock wave also caused underground water to shake. Three Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI) groundwater level monitoring wells (operated by the Office of Public Works) in Co. Kilkenny showed significant fluctuations of water levels on the 26 December 2004. These fluctuations occurred as a direct result of the earthquake off the coast of Sumatra that caused the catastrophic tsunami.

Why monitor wells?

There are several wells and boreholes monitoring groundwater levels across the country, each penetrating different aquifers. Aquifers are rocks that store and transmit groundwater in significant quantities. With groundwater providing 20 per cent to 25 per cent of drinking water supplies in Ireland, it is a major natural and national resource. In rural areas not served by public or group water schemes, groundwater is usually the only source of supply - at least 10,000 wells and springs are in use throughout the Ireland. With such a reliance on groundwater, it is imperative that the resource is understood and protected, the latter achievable through appropriate land use planning and practice.

The story…

Back to the Asian earthquake.

The three wells mentioned above have been monitored (using Ott R16 recorders) since

the early 1980s. A pen on a chart on a clockwork-driven rotating drum records the fluctuations of water level. The recording ratio (movement of pen: change in water level) is normally 1:10 or 1:20. The three wells simultaneously registered abrupt water level fluctuations in the early hours of 26 December 2004. The maximum fluctuations ranged from about 50 mm in one well to 240 mm in another and as much as 280 in the third. The differences probably relate to the differing ways the water is held (the storage coefficients) in the three aquifers.

But there is more…

Similar effects were registered in another borehole in Carboniferous limestone in Co. Roscommon and in wells and boreholes monitored by the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland — as reported in ES2k Issue 12 by Peter Bennett. A review of all the water level charts from the four mentioned Irish wells has now shown traces of over 100 seismic events since 1980. Comparison of the event dates and times with earthquake records on the United States Water level movements in wells in Roscommon (14/91) and Kilkenny (31/72) coincident with recorded earthquakes

Kilkenny well chart showing water level change due to the Asian 26/01/2004 earthquake.

Top left: train shaken off the rails in August 1886, and, right, collapse of the General Hospital in Mexico city, 1985. Such events cause ground water to fluctuate all around the globe. Photos, USGS.

of America Geological Survey website (www.usgs.gov) indicates that the event magnitudes range from 5.7 upwards, most of them being above 7.

The large water level fluctuation (280 mm) in the third well by the 26th December 2004 earthquake (Magnitude 9.2) was, in fact, exceeded by that produced (304 mm) by the smaller (Magnitude 7.7), but nearer, Algerian earthquake of 10th October 1980, just a few weeks after the recorder was installed. A brief examination shows that, as might be expected, the amplitude of the water level fluctuation depends largely on the magnitude of the seismic event, the distance from Ireland, and the aquifer storage coefficient. For a given part of the world, an approximate relationship can be derived between the earthquake magnitude and the response in a given well (see diagram). The list to date includes earthquakes in Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Alaska and NW Canada, Oregon, California, Siberia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Iceland and other parts of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Macquarie Islands, Taiwan, China, Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and Romania.

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Geoscience section sponsored by GSI and edited by Tony Bazley for ES2k SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 19 Page 11

TORAIGH — a geological gem

Tony Bazley gives an impression of this north-western isle.

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loomy, threatening, louring, weatherworn, battle-scarred, evocative of past centuries but at the same time vibrant, thrilling, beautiful, inspiring and a welcome haven. All these words can be used to describe Tory Island, lying 12 kilometres off the Bloody Foreland on the north Donegal coast. If you get caught in rough seas on the way across other adjectives might spring to mind but that makes it all the more of an adventure. However you find it, sunny and bright or windy and dull, Tory has a fascination that you find hard to forget.

It still supports a small community of over 100 people, now relying mainly on tourism with fishing and agriculture almost occupations of the past. The island was once a very tough place to eke out a living. In modern times it is probably a little easier although the weather is still as fierce as ever. There is now a good ferry service, a small hotel that boasts an Egon Ronay Award and a successful group of painters. Derek Hill inspired the painters, known as the primitives. He was, surprisingly in this Gaeltacht region, an English landscape and portrait painter… but he fell under the spell of Donegal and Tory Island.

All this — the culture developed since the founding of the monastery

by Colmcille in the 6th Century, the mythology and even the tradition of appointing a king - is well described in the visitors’ guide. It is a beautifully illustrated little book titled Toraigh, oileán iargúlta, stairiúl; Tory Island, a remote and historic outpost. Irish and

English are used because the book is cleverly written with the languages side-by-side.

So, praise for a guidebook that professes to ‘answer the questions you are most likely to ask…’ Praise just a bit reserved by a geologist because it misses out on any real description of the basis of the island, its rocky heritage. And Tory is a little geological gem in its own right.

Yes, the word ‘granite’ is mentioned twice, ‘quartzite’ once and ‘mica slate’ once but this is an island where the whole landscape oozes questions about the rocks.

TAU CROSS

The boat journey from Magheraroarty brings you past three other islands, Inishbofin, Inishdooey and Inishbeg before the final 6 km to the pier at West Town. Standing above the pier is the

Granite scenery looking west to the lighthouse.

Tau Cross that dates from the 12th Century and is one of only two in Ireland. Legend has it that the marks near the base of the cross were made by the sword of a Cromwellian soldier but we, the geologists, spoil that story by insisting that the marks are natural.

It is a very large single slab of micaceous slate, a rock type not found on the island. No rocks of this type or anywhere near this size carried by ice (glacial erratics) were seen, which suggests our forebears carried it here. Maybe one of our readers will recognise the rock-type and know where it came from? A carrying job of some magnitude and dedication!

GRANITE BLOCKS EVERYWHERE

A remarkable 6th Century Bell Tower, an old graveyard, the ruined Church of the Seven and other old relics are all built of granite. Indeed, walking to the Lighthouse at the western end of the island and then back to East Town it is clear that the foundation of most of this 4 km X 1 km island is granite. Granite blocks, weathering into rounded forms, litter the ground.

The early inhabitants of the island would have easily collected them. Then used them for building cottages and walls, as well as the religious edifices.

In many places, where the turf has been stripped away by people and the wind, the ground has almost a moonscape appearance.

The granite is one of the oldest of the Donegal granites, the molten magma moving up from deep in the earth’s crust just about 420 million years ago. It pushed up along a huge tear in the rocks. The bit on Tory is just the northern end of what is called the Thorr Granite pluton, which extends all the way south to Dunglow. An earlier article in the ES2k magazine (Issue 9) described this granite on Gola Island where it was dominantly pink.

Here it is mostly grey with large white feldspar crystals that you cannot help but notice. The large crystals means the molten magma cooled quite slowly giving the crystals time to grow. In places bits of other rock have fallen into the granite and small ‘rafts’ of black material (metadolerite) up to 30cm long can be seen around Derek Hill’s hut.

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Standing on Ard Lárthain, near Derek Hill’s hut, and looking east the view is of spectacular cliffs facing the might of the north Atlantic. The ground behind the cliffs slopes gently back towards the southern shores, where some shelter is provided for the inhabitants. The slope is similar to the slope (or dip as geologists call it) in the obviously bedded rocks on the east side of the island at Dún Bhaloir. So the granite must have pushed up and along the bedding planes of the preexisting (country) rock and its surface now mimics the dip of the rock it invaded.

SANDSTONE OF AN ANCIENT OCEAN

The rock it invaded, these days called the Ards Quartzite, is the same quartz-rich sandstone of Neoproterozoic age (about 650 million years old) that makes up the mountain range from Errigal (555m) to Muckish (666m) and the steep promontory of Horn Head that are all so clear from Tory — when it isn’t raining.

The Ards Quartzite above the granite has now all been eroded away and the only bit left makes up the eastern end of the island. Whilst not much remains, this is the rock that seems to defiantly resist the ocean when the island is viewed from the mainland to the east. Its form on Tory is simply remarkable. It lies against the granite and is intruded along bedding planes by the granite. It is clearly cut by north to south fractures (faults) in the rock the broken nature of which the sea has taken advantage by carving deep gullies and today giving it a sculpted look.

As might be expected, the molten granite magma has ‘cooked’ the quartzite into which it was intruded.

Some years ago Bernard Anderson, another geologist, visited the island by helicopter. It seemed an easy way across but the wind was blowing force 9 at the time! He kindly gave me details of the Ards Quartzite around Port An Dúin and northward to An Tinneoin (The Anvil) as follows: ‘The individual beds of rock are

Old road wth granite setts 0.5 to 2m thick and although largely composed of quartz sand also have significant amounts of feldspar. They dip gently at about 14 degrees to the east-southeast. Compared with mainland outcrops of the Ards Quartzite the rock is much harder and more obviously crystalline. It is commonly of a pink or red colour compared with the white or cream colour seen on the Errigal-Muckish Ridge. The colour seems to accompany an

unusually high potassium feldspar content. At and around Port An Dúin many beddingparallel veins or sills of pink granite up to 1.5m thick intrude the quartzite. The hardness, colour and crystalline nature of the quartzite are a consequence of intense heating (thermal metamorphism) and probably introduction of potassium (metasomatism) from the nearby granite.

The contact of the granite and the quartzite on the north side of the island is steep but there are many near horizontal veins of granite extending into the quartzite.’

Northward from The Anvil is the spectacular An Eochair Mhór (the big key) that lives up to its name. The crags making up the ‘prongs’ of the key are known as Saighdiúiri Bhaloir (Balors soldiers). It is a fine example of erosion along planes of weakness in the rock and ends in a crag called An Tor Mór (the big rock).

The beds of quartzitic sandstone, some with pebbles when you study bits closely, are beautifully displayed. It is fascinating to think they were first deposited in an ocean of their own that then laid near the South Pole all those millions of years ago. The other side of The Anvil is a lovers’ stone (Leac na Leannán). It is dangerous to approach so you may not get your wish granted but what more could you want than just being in this natural, unspoilt little bit of earthly paradise?

Left: a closer look at Tory granite, and below, the view east from Derek’s Hut

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Diarmuid and Grainne’s cave.

Thought to be the highest cave in Ireland.

EARTH HERITAGE ALIVE AND WELL IN SLIGO Tony Bazley reports that Sligo County Council Heritage Office is making an audit of geological sites.

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here are few counties that have a landscape feature quite as distinctive as Benbulben Mountain in Sligo. The Giant’s Causeway can compete, of course, but the form of Benbulben immediately strikes anyone entering the county from the north.

It almost seems to follow you around as you go to Sligo town and beyond.

It imperiously faces west with King’s Mountain on the southern side and Benwiskin on the north. Early geologists would have immediately thought, ‘here are thick and complete rock sections that will allow us to unravel the history of the time they represent’. Such proved the case and these rocks, once ocean sediments of Carboniferous age (around 300 million years old), have become key sections for the whole of Ireland.

Serpents or snakes?

The rocks in the steep hillsides are limestones, mudstones and some sandy beds, still nearly as flat-bedded as they were when first deposited.

They formed as soft muds in a tropical ocean that then lay at the equator.

The knowledge of the tropical ocean comes from the ‘life’ found within the sediments. The fossils are truly spectacular. None more so than the ‘serpents’ - really ancient corals that snake their way through rock

The distinctive steep sided mass of Benbulben.

bedding planes along the shore at Streedagh. There is an abundance of life represented by the fossils and it is the perfect place to catch people’s imagination. It is ideal for teaching and will interest many visitors.

Legendary stone

The county, like most of Ireland, was once buried in ice probably one or two kilometres thick. When the ice melted away about 14,000 years ago it left oversteepened slopes around some of the higher ground, like King’s Mountain and Glencar. These collapsed leaving major landslips and canyons visible today. Also, apart from sands and clays deposited as the ice melted, the ice dumped some very large blocks of rock, known as glacial erratics. None more spectacular than Split Rock that has cleanly broken in half along a natural plane of weakness - unless you would rather believe the legend that the giant Fionn MacCumhail threw the

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Crinoid stems at Streedagh Point.

boulder from the mountains in a fit of rage, missed the sea and then became so furious that he cut the stone in two with his sword.

Highest cave

Limestone rocks mean solution by water and that means caves. Sligo has its share, including Diarmuid and Gráinne’s Cave that is reputed to be the highest in Ireland. Cave systems will always attract cavers, for the beauty of the underground carbonate formations as well as the thrill of perhaps going where no-one has gone before. It is, however, a specialist sport not to be undertaken without proper training and equipment.

Oldest rocks

Not all the rocks in Sligo are as easy to see and understand as those so far mentioned. Go south of Sligo town and there lie the Ox Mountains, an elongate rugged ridge of hills, 300 to 500 m high. They are made up of rocks that are probably the oldest on mainland Ireland. The rocks were once shallow sea sediments deposited between 1,500 and 600 million years ago. They are not so easy to understand because they have been heated up, twisted and broken by strong earth movements when buried deep in the earth’s crust. It is difficult to unravel the processes to which the Ox Mountain rocks have been subjected but the spectacular small fold patterns and unusual minerals make close study worthwhile. These metamorphic rocks are well exposed in the Slishwood Gap where gneiss and serpentinite can be seen. If you are not a geologist you might well ask, “What is gneiss and serpentinite?” If you go to see them

you will understand but it is hoped that there will soon be the help of an explanatory booklet.

Leading conservation

Sligo has many attractions, with the rocks and landscape by no means the least. So it is appropriate that it is one of the first counties to have had the foresight to make an audit of its geological sites. The main aim of the study was to ensure the best sites are conserved. Matthew Parkes and Claire

Viewing the fossil crinoids along the shore.

McAteer of the Geological Survey of Ireland have led the audit and as a result sites are already being protected within the county development plans.

A shortened, non-technical version of the report is likely to be made available to the public. Earth scientists look forward to its publication. It is bound to attract interest from teachers, tourists and, of course, the local people. It will show how much County Sligo appreciates its earth heritage and puts it at the leading edge of geological conservation in Ireland.

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If you want more information contact Siobhán Ryan, Heritage Officer, Sligo County Council Heritage Office, County Hall, Riverside, Sligo; www.sligococo.ie

The ‘Head’ (calyx) of a fossil sea lily (crinoid).

Landslips at Glencar.

The split rock, an erratic.

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Prehnite, chemically described as a calcium aluminium silicate hydroxide.

Right: Olivine - commonly found in basalt lavas and gabbro.

Above: projected images in a club setting.

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cott Engering, a UK based designer, makes extensive use natural designs, such as these produced from microscopically thin slices of rock. The projected patterns have been described as ‘bizarrely futuristic’ and Scott has exhibited these images as works of art. These amazing images, explain why some people are so attracted to studying rocks under the microscope. Geologists look at rocks under high magnification, using intense light and polarazing filters to determine structures and composition, but the images are not just useful, they can be appreciated as works of natural art.

Scott Engering comments that there was a time when engineers, naturalists, and geologists were more open to an exchange of ideas, and admiring designs from nature would not have been thought at all odd by the Victorians. How else, he observes, could we have had the character of Sherlock Holmes, detective, and student of medicine, who could so easily detect the provenance of a mud stain within a 50 mile radius of the crime scene?

For those who are prepared to look at their chosen subject matter askance and pursue a lateral way of thinking, many opportunities abound outside the strict scope of a scientific, engineering or artistic training.

“Speaking for myself, it has taken the best part of 25 years to discover that, unless one is truly dedicated to the science of geology, or any other discipline for that matter, and is prepared to grind through the rigorous academic requirements of an MSc or PhD, there is nowt to come… as they say in Yorkshire”.

“At the age of 45, I am still scratching my head and wondering what to do with all of the experience and knowledge that I have accrued

Perthite, produced as an ingrowth of two alkali feldspars. over the years, especially when it comes to earning a few Euros or pound notes!

If I was starting out again, I would make sure that I took a degree in Engineering Geology, studying the links between solid rock and building foundations, because the world is crying out for such expertise…

especially in the earthquake zone around the Pacific Ring of Fire For me, I still look at the microscopic world, take note of the meeting of minds between John Ruskin and Henry Sorby, and continue to follow my own ideas with Glowing Edges Designs.” (www.glowingedges.co.uk).

How the GEOBUG got me Anne M.G. McComb, geo-enthuiast and Forest Guide with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development writes that: “it was coal that lit my fire”

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was approximately 10 years of age and home from school with some childhood ailment. Our family had just purchased its first television set and I was allowed to watch the school programmes while I convalesced.

Until then all my information about evolution, dinosaurs etc. had come from a few books in our local library.

Suddenly, on television there was a programme about rocks and how they were made and about fossils and how they could be found in rocks… but of special interest to me were the leaves and plant remains to be found in coal.

My pocket money task of bringing in the buckets of coal would never be the same again. Each knob was dusted, washed and examined, some were split, but alas over the years no

leaf imprints were found. In my task I got lost in time and was shouted at for taking so long to bring in the coal. The range fire was often nearly out by the time I finished.

When I was older and allowed to roam, it was the colour and texture of the stones of the shore, the smoky quartz of the Mourne Mountains, the shell fossils of the County Antrim coast and how ancient peoples have utilised stone that has delighted me through my days.

You ask my position; well, it is stooped from years of walking with my nose to the ground, and my position with walkers is usually unpopular as few want to keep stopping and starting and heading off in random directions for no obvious reason.

But I wouldn’t relinquish the rock bug for the world. As in my childhood my window ledges remain piled with dusty stones that constantly get re-examined and are eventually given away and replaced.

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Enthusiastic students at an electronics workshop during last year’s Cork’s Festival of Science.

Choosing science Danielle Barron looks at the position of science in schools and reports that teachers do not always have the right background, and many students consider chemistry and physics to be difficult.

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he murmurs of collective disquiet about the lack of Irish students willing to consider a career in science have steadily become more audible in staff rooms around the country. Since the early 1990s there has been a steady decline in take-up of the so-called “hard-science” subjects among second-level students. This year’s results show that while 60 per cent of Leaving Certificate students studied at least one science subject, just 14.7 per cent of these studied physics, compared to one fifth of students in 1994. Just 13.6 per cent of this year’s Leaving Cert students opted to take chemistry and both subjects experienced high failure rates. Despite significant interest in science as a subject for the Junior Certificate, this interest is not enough to affect students’ subject choices as they look to maximise their performance in the points race.

Chapter 5 of the Government’s recently published Strategy on Science Technology and Innovation was devoted to what it

Every year the Young Scientist Exhibition continues to grow, science workshops are popular, the RDS Young Science Writers’ competition draws hundreds of high-quality entries from all around Ireland — yet, while the interest is obviously there, not enough students continue to study science. called “Science Education and Society.”

Analysis carried out at an early stage in the strategy’s formulation identified the low numbers of students studying science subjects to Leaving Certificate level as a key weakness in Ireland’s international research in science and technology performance.

The continuing poor uptake of science among school and college-goers is a major focus of the new strategy, with the Government promising to boost funding for programmes aimed at increasing student participation in sciences at primary, post-primary and third level.

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The document contains measures aimed to halt the decline and bring the proportion of students taking physics and chemistry back to 20 per cent by the time of its conclusion.

Points race

Students seeking courses with high points requirements have traditionally steered away from physics and chemistry, says Mary Freyne, a teacher of maths and chemistry from Waterford. “One of the things that we are up against is the perception of the points being more difficult to obtain in these subjects,” she admits.

In fact, a joint UCD School of Physics and School of Education survey found that 69 per cent of teachers believe that students actually avoid physics because of the general perception that it is harder to achieve a high grade in than in other subjects. “Students believe that the points system militates against the physical sciences and higher mathematics,” says Mitchell.

The persistent problem with science education received a major analysis by the Taskforce for Physical Sciences in 2002, says John White, head of the ASTI. “That set forth a road map on how we should

Consequently, the low numbers choosing to study physics for the Leaving Cert means that classes are getting smaller and smaller. “Some teachers are just about on sustainability, in other words they may only have six or seven students in a class,” says Nugent. The resources involved in running classes with such small numbers mean that the subject can be dropped from the timetable, and Nugent admits that once this happens, it is incredibly difficult to get it reinstated. “There are quite a few schools that don’t offer physics at all,” he says.

Curriculum changes

Physics is needed for R&D in electronics and related sectors. Here, Pat Creighton from NUI Galway is working with Convertech in Wexford on a magnetic suspension system. Future transport systems are likely to be based on friction-free magnetic levitation. Photo: NUIG. develop science education. But only one “Science is a mode of dealing with the major aspect of that has been implemented, world, which has both a vital economic that is the new Junior Certificate syllabus in dimension and a human dimension but the science,” says White.

Government needs to show a commitment Freyne agrees. “There were some to resourcing science in schools.” brilliant suggestions but unfortunately a lot of them were not accepted and have since A teacher’s view been gathering dust,” she says.

Long standing stereotypes still contribute On the bright side, science has become to the lack of students studying physics, extremely popular for Junior Certificate says Paul Nugent, who teaches the subject students, with almost 90 per cent of them in a north Dublin school. “There has always opting to study the subject. The amount of been a gender bias in relation to physics, practical and “hands-on” experimentation with more boys studying the subject than is thought to account for this. However, girls,” he says. a survey carried out by ASTI In general, however, earlier this year revealed that Only a quarter of physics is seen as a difficult only a quarter of Irish Irish secondary and challenging subject that secondary schools are schools are students aren’t often willing adequately equipped to teach science and just one in 10 adequately equipped to tackle. “There is an image Junior Certificate science to teach science and that physics takes a lot of work and that it’s not for teachers is adequately trained just one in 10 Junior everybody,” he admits. in the safe execution of Certificate science Another aspect of the science experiments. problem is that physics teachers is “Major aspects of the taskforces recommendations, adequately trained doesn’t necessarily conjure up such as the provision of in the safe execution notions of glamorous and highly paid careers. “There’s laboratory technicians to of science a saying that ‘physicists don’t support science teachers, experiments. drive Porsche’. It just doesn’t have not been implemented seem to attract the big salaries, and the new strategy doesn’t whereas in the past when we commit them to were on the threshold of technology and implementing these recommendations,” the likes of HP and Intel were moving says White. “In the Junior Cert syllabus into the country, people who had physics, there are now 30 mandatory experiments engineering and maths were more in but there is no assistance given to science demand than students possibly think they teachers in helping with the preparation would be now,” says Nugent. and clean-up,” he adds.

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“A degree in the sciences is an international qualification that opens a huge number of doors, at home and abroad. It is the international passport and I really think we undersell that,” says Dr Carol Gibbons, who is deputy to the Chief Science Advisor and based in the Department of Education and Science.

Gibbons explains that there are significant endeavours underway to ensure there is “interest and excitement” in science. “If we are looking at doubling our researcher numbers in the third level system, then we have to look at the pipeline of students. We have to foster and grow the interest in science at a very early age,” she says.

There will be a major review of the science curriculums for the Leaving Certificate, which the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) are currently undertaking, says Gibbons. “This is a huge progression in the right direction and we are tackling the changes that are needed within the science curriculum and ensuring there is not the step change between primary and secondary that we are seeing at the moment,” she explains.

Anna Walshe, Education Officer for Senior Cycle Science with the NCCA, says that a major review of the Leaving Certificate syllabi in all three science subjects, but especially physics and chemistry, is currently underway. This latest review is being carried out in a bid to bring them up to date and make them more accessible as subject choices to students.

The topics covered in each syllabus won’t change, says Walshe, but the approach to teaching and learning will, such as imparting skills including information processing and creative and critical thinking. “When teaching science, students will not just be taught Boyle’s Law and Ohm’s Law, but they’ll also be shown how to apply the skills gained in learning about them.”

“The key thing is to include authentic investigation in the lives of students so that

they are not just doing recipe practicals,” she adds. “If it’s real and it applies to them they will have more interest.” The NCCA is also looking to introduce a more flexible program of study, with short courses in subjects such as mathematical modelling, biochemistry and psychology being developed for teaching at senior cycle.

Walshe admits that revitalising physics and chemistry represents a huge challenge but adds that the ultimate aim is to have a population of teenagers that are scientifically literate when they leave school.

“If we get it right, not only the numbers will increase, but more importantly the range of students doing science, especially physics and chemistry. The aim is to make science more relevant and understandable and to make the Leaving Certificate a more pleasant experience.”

Science teachers

The lack of science teachers with appropriate qualifications is another problem facing science education at second level. Biology graduates can often find themselves teaching Leaving Certificate higher-level physics or chemistry, even if they have not studied the subjects since the first year of their degree.

Last year, a study carried out by the UCD School of Physics and School of Education showed that only 29 per cent of physics teachers hold a ‘physics dominated’ primary degree qualification (with approximately 50 per cent physics content in final year). Even more disturbing was the fact that school principals believed 60 per cent of their teachers to hold such a qualification, when asked the same question.

This situation is inadequate but by no mean unique to Ireland, says Professor Peter Mitchell of UCD, who was involved in carrying out the survey. “The situation in England and Wales is similar to ours, with about a third of all physics teachers teaching A-level physics not having physics as the major component of their primary degree. But in Scotland you will not get a job teaching physics at second level unless you have majored in physics,” says Mitchell.

This issue was addressed in the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation, which acknowledged the problems facing the future supply of science teachers.

Traditionally, very few science graduates go on to study the Higher Diploma in

“There are quite a few schools that don’t offer physics at all.”

Teaching. The introduction of a quota system has now been suggested, whereby a hitherto stated number of science graduates must be given highly sought after places on the popular course.

Furthermore, support for second-level teachers who do not feel confident teaching the physics component of the Junior Certificate science syllabus is on its way in the form of a piece of computer software.

The IOP have invested in a computer package called Supporting Physics Teaching (SPT) 11-14. Originally designed at nonspecialist teachers, every science teacher can benefit from the package, as its content looks at combating common misconceptions and teaching physics in interesting and unusual ways.

Initiatives/careers

“I don’t think anyone would dispute that there is a problem with the numbers taking physics; you’ve only got to look at the numbers at Leaving Certificate to see that this is the case,” says Dr Sheila Gilheany, Policy Officer with the Institute of Physics in Ireland.

It’s not all negative, however. “Having said that, you tend to get a very positive response from those that actually do it.

There are good job opportunities, as well as good opportunities for postgraduates, especially in the last couple of years,” she adds.

Physics is certainly suffering an image problem, says Gilheany. “There is a perception that it’s not quite clear what career a degree in physics will get you; whereas if you do medicine you know you are going to become a doctor,” she admits. The IOP therefore work closely with guidance counsellors and careers offices within the universities trying to demonstrate the range of possible careers available to physics graduates.

The problem with physics is one that is common across all developed nations, says Gilheany. Germany, however, is one nation that has seen a marked turnaround in the numbers studying physics in schools, as have certain areas of the United States. “This has followed on from a very consistent approach to plugging physics and not giving up. In Ireland we have now recognised that it is not enough just to say things once, you have to keep reiterating the message – every year there is a new crop of students who may not have heard it before,” she explains.

Physics at work in the Tyndall National Institute. Many of our future developments, and jobs, will depend on the application of results from Tyndall.

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“The key thing is to include authentic investigation in the lives of students so that they are not just doing recipe practicals.”

Applied research in biotechnology and information and communications technology (ICT) had previously been identified as priority areas for the allocation of funding and the numbers entering thirdlevel courses relating to these fields have risen accordingly. However, the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation has now addressed the need for basic research in physics, says Gilheany. “Hopefully with a lot more money going into research in physics we will see a knock-on effect and therefore increased numbers at both second level and third level in the way that we’ve seen it with the biological subjects.”

According to Gilheany, efforts need to be made to address the uncertain career prospects for physics graduates who wish to carry out basic research. “Within a business context, a physics background can take you to very high levels of salary.

However, if you stay in basic research, then you will be working for quite a long time before you make money, with only short-term contracts of two or three years available initially. A firm career structure needs to be put in place,” she says.

The IOP are also commencing a campaign directed at human resources or personnel managers within companies that traditionally would not have considered employing physicists. Entitled “Think Physicists”, the campaign aims to encourage these employers to avail of the skills that physics graduates have to offer.

“We want them to think about physicists in spheres which you wouldn’t normally associate with them. Physicists generally have good analytical skills and logic, and this is the type of thinking that would apply to a wide range of jobs,” says Gilheany.

Hollywood science

Recently, in an attempt to address students’ growing indifference to science, employer’s federation IBEC paid for eight secondary school teachers to travel to the United States to learn “Hollywood science” techniques. Inspired by the popularity of television shows such as CSI Miami, forensics experts have designed “crimescene” investigations aimed at stimulating students’ interest in science subjects. The teachers are now developing lessons that

can be taught in schools around the country. IBEC has also financed “chemistry magic” shows where chemists visit schools and give demonstrations.

The success of the schemes mean that more teachers will be travelling to the US next year, and also forensics experts will be visiting these shores to give classes to a group of 40 secondary school teachers.

Mark Glynn, Education Executive at IBEC, says that schemes such as these seem to be having a positive effect on students’ attitude to physics and chemistry.

Glynn does admit that the number of prospective chemists and physicists may be smaller but says that this can be attributed to a dip in the population, and once it begins to rise again, the numbers will increase accordingly. “I think the situation is improving; it was desperate a couple of years ago,” he says. While “The increase in the proportion of students taking chemistry in the last five years indicates that promotional activities are working but we in the pharmaceutical industry and IT have to address the problem on an ongoing basis.”

Higher Education Authority

A recent statistical analysis, conducted by the Higher Education Authority, reported that initiatives to attract more students to science at third level seem to be working.

The number of students applying to take honours bachelor degree science courses as their first preference in higher education institutions grew by nearly 13 per cent in the period 2000-2005. There are now more than 8,300 students enrolled on science courses in universities and Institutes of Technology at honours bachelor degree undergraduate level) and a further 1,100 taking certificate and general degree courses.

At second level, the proportion studying chemistry for the Leaving Certificate has gone up by 3 percent from 11 per cent in 2000 to 14 per cent in 2004, while physics has remained the same at 15 per cent. The number of students enrolled on Science PhD courses increased by 15 per cent from 1,300 in 2000/01 to 1,500 in 2004/05. This bodes well for the Government’s plans to double Ireland’s annual output of PhDs by 2013.

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“This country must continue to attract more students to science studies but it is encouraging that the efforts over the recent past to heighten awareness of this issue appear to be bearing fruit,” says Dr Vivienne Patterson of the HEA Statistics Unit.

Students

Sixth year student Mairéad Stafford from Co. Meath says she now regrets not picking a science subject for the Leaving Certificate.

“I enjoyed science for the Junior Certificate up to a certain point, but not all three subjects together, just biology,” says Mairéad. “Physics and chemistry were just too complicated; they were all to do with numbers and maths.”

Stafford says that it seemed studying physics or chemistry for the Leaving Certificate would be a lot of hard work. “I remember my sister doing chemistry and she had to get grinds and put in loads of extra work.”

When Mairead’s class were choosing their subjects for the senior cycle, just three students picked physics and as a result there was no physics class put on that year.

Having chosen no science subjects for the Leaving Certificate, Mairéad says she now wishes she had picked biology as she is a fan of shows like CSI Miami and would possibly have liked to pursue a career in forensic science.

Seán Kinsella, a sixth year student from Waterford City, picked biology and says this was because he thought it would be the easiest science subject to study.

Although he found some of the physics and chemistry difficult, overall Seán liked science for the Junior Certificate. “With physics I wasn’t great at the maths involved, and with chemistry there are too many things to remember,” he says. “I also wanted to do a good mixture of subjects for the Leaving Cert, so I picked biology, as well as business and German.”

Seán says he hasn’t decided whether he will do a physiotherapy or business course in college, but is glad he has kept his options open by choosing at least one science subject.

Danielle Barron recently completed an MSc in Science Communications at DCU. She researched the issues behind the numbers taking science at secondary school as part of her MSc thesis.

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CROPS OF THE FUTURE UCD is sowing the seeds In the future crops will be capable of adapting to suit the local climate, and will have better resistance to pathogens.

Future crops will be grown for many purposes, some to produce medicines cheaper than ever before, others as biomass for biofuels. Some crops may even be used to slow global warming.

In the future the trend will also be towards producing crops of similar yields to today, but without chemicals or fertilizers. That is the future vision and crop scientists at UCD are already making it reality, writes Seán Duke.

In 2001, Dr Ng was involved in pioneering research when he identified a group of signaling molecules in plants, called Sphingolipids. These molecules had previously been recognized in animals, where they had a key role in regulating cell survival and programmed cell death, but they were unknown up to that point in plants and crops.

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lants like animals suffer from a range of environmental stresses, such as, for example, drought or the impact of toxins. Dr Fiona Doohan has a major grant from SFI to investigate plant stress in wheat and the role of genes in stress response in particular.

Dr Doohan and colleagues have discovered a whole range of genes that are involved in stress response, and are in the process of characterizing exactly what proteins they produce.

“Some of these genes confer resistance to very toxic compounds, such as the mycotoxins produced by fungi,” said Dr Doohan. This is important in Ireland, she adds, because the fungi that produce mycotoxins are present in Ireland.

The EC now requires control on the levels of mycotoxins present in foods, so we cannot afford to risk growing infected crops. Identifying any genes that confer mycotoxin resistance has become very important indeed.

Dr Carl Ng is another researcher at UCD working on understanding plant and crop stresses. Specifically he is interested in the role of the stomata, the gatekeeper regulating what goes into a cell and what goes out, such as water and carbon dioxide.

Dr Ng is finding out what regulates the opening and closing of gatekeeper, stomata, cells.

One of these molecules, Sphingosine1-Phosphate, known as a very important regulator molecule in animals, was also found in plants. There it was found to be involved in the opening and closing of the stomata. The fact that the molecule that controls the gatekeeper cells into plants and crops has been found is highly significant.

This knowledge could help scientists in the future develop crop systems that are tuned closely into to the stresses in any particular climate around the world, said Dr Ng. “Once we know what’s happening and how these gateways are regulated, it’s easier for us to breed for varieties that are more drought resistant for example, or have a more efficient functioning of the opening and closing, so the plant will be able to fine-tune and respond to the environment, quickly,” said Dr Ng.

Wheat infected with Fusarium Ear Blight

Department of Agriculture and Food to investigate organisms that have the ability to control diseases.

Dr Doohan said that the primary candidates she is looking at are bacteria, present in Irish soils that have a natural ability to tackle a variety of crop and plant pathogens.

For example, the most significant plant diseases in Ireland are those caused by the Septoria fungus. Bacteria can be used to control Septoria, rather than pesticides.

Dr Doohan said that crops can be provided with induced immunity to Septoria by being given the compound produced by anti-Septoria bacteria, or given the bacteria itself.

The work is now focusing on what specific bacteria are present in Irish soils that can be used to fight pathogens on a regional basis. The idea is that a bacteria that tackles Septoria very well in Donegal, might not be the best bacteria to tackle Septoria in County Cork.

Inoculation

In humans and animals, one of the wellestablished methods of tackling disease is to inoculate against the disease. By exposing the person, or the animal, to a small part of the disease the otherwise dormant immune system is triggered into a response. Inoculation also works

Bacteria

Dr Fiona Doohan is investigating stress in wheat.

The EC has moved in recent years to severely limit the use of chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture across all member states. This means that natural or biological methods must be found to maintain crop yields.

Several UCD scientists are working on this area, including Dr Fiona Doohan who has a research grant form the

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Professor Mike Cooke is developing methods to inoculate wheat

Dr McCabe’s is looking at how programmed cell death can halt the spread of a disease.

in plants, and Professor Mike Cooke is developing methods to inoculate wheat, one of our most important commercial crops, against its deadly pathogen, Fusarium Ear Blight, or FEB. FEB is a serious problem for agriculture, and it occurs in all the major wheat growing areas of the world, causing yield losses of up to 70 per cent.

There are other issues too.

This is a disease that reduces wheat yield and may also act to contaminate the grain with fungal toxins. FEB produces a ‘complex’ of mycotoxins that get into the food chain and can cause people to get sick. The controls to protect public health have become more strict, and food producers, including brewers, are now obliged to reject infected crops.

This makes it imperative for Irish wheat growers to introduce biological controls for FEB. In the past, FEB was controlled by chemicals, but this is no longer an acceptable practice. The biological method of control relies on the stimulation of the host defense response, which involves the harnessing of bacteria that produce compounds against FEB. This is the approach that Professor Cooke is taking and it is proving a successful way forward.

two of the leading researchers into programmed cell death, or apoptosis, in animals.

Dr McCabe’s research, in collaboration with Dr Fiona Doohan and others, is now primarily focused on identifying the mechanism that regulates programmed cell death in plants.

He has found that fungi, which release mycotoxins are very keen to switch off the plant’s ability to perform programmed cell death. This confirms that the process must be an important part of the plant’s defence mechanism against disease.

“This research shows that some fungal toxins can disable the plant cells internal suicide mechanism allowing the fungus to colonise, and contaminate, crops such as corn and wheat,” said Dr McCabe. “Understanding the role of these toxins is an important advance in the battle to control fungi, and to understanding the mechanism that drives cell suicide”.

Dr McCabe has also found that cell death in plants is triggered by the presence of reactive oxides. This implies that controlling the level of such compounds could regulate the process.

An ability to control cell death offers plenty of future promise in helping crops to fend off disease.

Trees

It is a well known fact in forestry that some trees, like humans, grow taller and stronger than others. The problem is — again like humans — that it can be difficult to identify those trees that will become ‘elite trees’ at an early stage.

A better understanding of the genetics involved would make it possible to identify elite characteristics at an earlier stage.

Dr Tommy Gallagher is interested in answering these questions, and he

Cell death

Programmed cell death is defined as the deliberate suicide of damaged or redundant cells, either plant or animal.

It differs from necrosis, which is death resulting from tissue injury, provoking an immune response. Programmed cell death is, in contrast to necrosis, a regulated, deliberate process, initiated by the organism itself. Programmed cell death can be initiated for a variety of reasons, one, apparently being to protect the organism from the spread of disease.

By sacrificing the cells around a point of entry, a pathogen can be cut off, preventing the spread of disease.

UCD’s Dr Paul McCabe developed an interest in cell death when working at NUI Maynooth. At that time NUIM was home to Seamus Martin and Tom Cotter,

Dr Tommy Gallagher wants to know how genetics can help us sselect elite trees.

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Professor Bruce Osborne is working on two large ecosystem projects.

is involved in an EU project, looking at Birch, which aims to find ways to improve the quality of commercially important tree species. Wood quality is important, but not everything when it comes to trees. “The big issue with trees is what sort of trees do you want?” said Dr Gallagher. “Do you want great big trees for some sort of recreational environment? Are you thinking of trees in terms of biomass, then that’s a different requirement? Or if you are thinking of trees as feedstock for the paper industry? Then you will want to reduce the lignin content”.

A tree genome has just been produced by a US-Europe co-operative research group based in Ume, Sweden, said Dr Gallagher. This means in the future it will be easier to see what genes are important in trees, and UCD researchers will be very much part of this.

Professor Bruce Osborne is also working on trees, or more specifically forests, which are important as holders of carbon, a factor that is crucial in strategies to control climate change.

Professor Osborne is involved in two large ecosystem-based projects that relate to climate change, and both projects are involved in looking at carbon sequestration, which is the ability of plants to remove and retain carbon from the atmosphere.

One project is looking at improving the ability of forests to sequester carbon.

The other, related, project is looking at how the management of forests relates to this process. “The drive for this is to provide experimentally verifiable numbers for the amounts of carbon that can be retained in particular ecosystems,” said Professor Osborne. “This is essential because of our commitments to the Kyoto Protocol” Trees, like other plant crops, have a lot more to offer, and with more understanding, we can, for example, look forward to natural control of diseases, and healthier foods.

SPIN

Solar system recount named after the Roman God of the Underworld, was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh and until recently was thought to mark the outer boundary of our solar system. Along with Pluto three other objects have been promoted by being designated dwarf planets, Charon, Ceres and 2003 UB313 that has become popularly known as Xena. Discovered in 1978 hile astronomers and Charon was originally considered a cosmologists continue to moon of Pluto. However, both bodies debate fundamental have now been designated questions about the origin a “double dwarf planet of the Universe, another system”. Ceres, located seemingly simpler question between Mars and Jupiter, has arisen, which may prove was discovered in 1801 and just as controversial and at the time it was declared to divisive… how many planets be the 8th planet. However, are there in our solar system? later it was demoted to an This has come to the fore due “asteroid” and in 1846 to a recent announcement by Neptune became the 8th the International planet and later in 1930 Pluto Astronomical Union (IAU). became the 9th planet.

The IAU’s new historic In fact the origins of the and controversial guidelines current controversy, and the were recently decided in need for a strict definition, Prague by about 2,500 became apparent when, on astronomers when they Jan. 5th, 2005, Prof. Mike voted to adopt a new Brown and colleagues from classification scheme for the Californian Institute of planets. They have decided Technology announced that that a “classical” planet has Above, the line up of orbiting bodies, with Pluto out that the edge. they discovered a new planet three basic characteristics, it Above, the view of Pluto and its moon, Charon, from the Hubble Space beyond the orbits of Neptune orbits the Sun, it is large Telescope. Until we get closer, our view of Pluto will remain indistinct. enough to be nearly round Images: NASA and Hubble. in shape because of its own Although only known since the 1930s, Pluto had become familiar as one of the planets. Now that other celestial bodies have been discovered at the edge of the solar system, Pluto has been demoted, and Chris Coughlan explains why astronomers wanted the change.

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gravitational field, and finally, and probably most importantly, it is the sole or dominant occupant of its orbit. A lesser planet designated a “dwarf planet” must meet the first two characteristics and cannot be a satellite. Finally, all other objects in the solar system are designated “small solar system bodies”.

As a result Pluto has been controversially reclassified and demoted to a dwarf planet. Pluto

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SPIN

and Pluto. At the time these were the most distant planets from the Sun. Code named Xena, the IAU’s current designation 2003 UB313 is determined because the data from which the object was discovered was originally collected during the second half of October 2003.

Although it could be seen using high spec amateur equipment, the actual size could not, at the time, be accurately determined from the optical measurements because the surface reflectivity (albedo) was unknown.

However, this year Prof Frank Bertoldi and researchers at the University of Bonn measured the heat radiation from the object and in combination with the measured optical brightness they were able to calculate that its diameter was approximately 3,000 km, 700 km larger in diameter than Pluto.

The Bonn team used the IRAM 30-metre telescope in Spain, equipped with the sensitive Max-Planck Millimetre Bolometer (MAMBO) detector to measure the heat radiation of the object at a wavelength of 1.2 mm. At this wavelength, light reflected from the Sun is negligible and therefore the object’s brightness only depends on its surface temperature and size.

The temperature can be estimated from the distance to the Sun, and thus the observed 1.2 mm brightness allows a good size measurement to be made.

2003 UB313 is the largest of a vast band of thousands of icy objects lying in the “Kuiper Belt” beyond Neptune at distances of over 4 billion km from the Sun. Up until the discovery of 2003 UB313, Pluto not only was regarded as a planet but also as being the largest object in the Kuiper Belt. The objects or planetoids forming the Kuiper Belt circle the Sun in stable orbits with periods of around 300 years.

The Kuiper Belt can be regarded as containing the “archaeological remnants” from the solar nebula that formed our solar system over 4.5 billion years ago. Although the existence of such a belt or ring of small planetary objects was first predicted by astronomers Gerard Kuiper (1905-1973) and Kenneth Edgeworth (1880-1972) the first Kuiper object was not discovered until 1992.

Now over 700 have been identified.

These objects are referred to as “transNeptunian’s”. In recent years the study of the trans-Neptunian’s has become a rapidly evolving field. It is widely believed that the Kuiper Belt is the

An impression of what the view from Pluto’s frozen surface might look like, with its three moons visible. NASA/ESA and G Bacon (STSci.

source of the short-period comets (SPCs) with orbits less than 200 years. Some Kuiper Belt objects are occasionally deflected and then enter the inner solar system where they may appear as short period comets. It acts as a reservoir for these bodies in the same way that the Oort Cloud around the Sun acts as a reservoir for the long-period comets (LPCs) with orbits greater than 200 years.

2003 UB313 has the distinction of being the most distant object ever seen to orbit the Sun, being more than 3 times distant from the Sun than Pluto. The orbit of 2003 UB313 around the Sun takes 560 years and is more eccentric than Pluto, which takes 250 years. It is 45 degrees inclined to the ecliptic plane of the other planets and the Kuiper Belt, this is possibly because it is deflected to its inclined orbit by Neptune. Its surface is composed of solid methane at 405 degrees below zero while its interior is most likely a mixture of rock and ice, similar to Pluto. Recently it was discovered that 2003 UB313 has its own moon, which has been nicknamed Gabrielle who is Xena’s travelling companion in the popular TV series.

Our teaching will now have to be revised and our textbooks will have to be rewritten to describe our Solar System as having just eight major planets. Without a new classification or definition the possibility existed of considering more than fifty objects

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as planets. Therefore, although correct and practical, the IAUs decision to demote Pluto is most likely to cause either upset or confusion amongst the public, as it has been historically, culturally and scientifically enshrined in the popular mindset. The decision is best summed up by Prof Iwan Williams, chair of the IAU panel that made the decision, “we have to describe the Solar System as it really is, not as we would like it to be”.

Dr Chris Coughlan, is a senior manager at Hewlett-Packard, Galway and an adjunct Professor in the Department of Management, National University of Ireland, Galway.

The recent discovery of 2003UB 313, made astronomers rethink the use of the term ‘planet’.

Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its three moons in summer 2015. The craft’s miniature cameras, radio science experiment, ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers and space plasma experiments are to characterize the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and large moon Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures, and examine Pluto’s atmosphere in detail. The spacecraft’s most prominent design feature is a 2.1-metre dish antenna, through which it will communicate with Earth from as far as 7.5 billion kilometres away.

Image: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/ Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI)

Reaching out to the God of the Underworld IN SPITE of its standing, Pluto is relatively small, and the recently discovered body beyond it is actually larger.

The name Pluto was borrowed from ancient mythology. When Clyde Tombaugh, an American astronomer, made his discovery, an 11 year old English girl, Venetia Burney, heard the news and it made her start thinking of what it must be like to be so far from the Sun. Venetia, now 87 years old, had an interest in the ancient Greek and Roman

stories, and the idea of a cold and lonely body orbiting so far away made her think of Pluto, God of the Underworld.

Through family connections, Venetia’s suggestion for a name was put forward and adopted officially by astronomers.

By coincidence, Walt Disney named the cartoon dog in the same year, and many people think this is where the name originated.

We still only have a hazy impression of how Pluto must look, but, all going

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well, the surface details will be revealed to us in summer 2015. This is when the Horizon spacecraft is due to makes its approach. The spacecraft, now on its 7.5 million km journey, is equipped with a range of sensors, and when it arrives at Pluto, scientists expect to receive lots of data about the structure, the temperature, and the atmospheric composition.

(TK)

Exploring the nanoworld can you escape from the nanoworld?

Discover that size really matters in an epic 3D adventure through the tiny world of nanotechnology

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y the time you have finished reading this sentence your fingernails will have grown by about a nanometre! A nanometre is one million times smaller than a millimetre or one billion times smaller than a meter. A human hair, for example, is about 80,000 nanometres wide, a red blood cell about 7,000 nanometres across, a typical virus about 100 nanometres wide, and a strand of DNA a mere 2 nanometres long. The prefix ‘nano’ derives from the Greek word for dwarf.

Nanoscience is concerned with the study of objects ranging in size from about 100 nanometres downwards.

This often involves looking at and working with individual atoms and molecules or minute particles.

Nanotechnologies involve the design, characterisation, production and application of structures, devices and systems by controlling shape and size at the nanometre scale. In fact, by creating nanometer-scale structures, it is possible to control fundamental characteristics of a material, including its melting point, magnetic properties, and even colour, without changing the material’s chemical composition.

Although nanotechnology is a relatively new research area mankind is already reaping its rewards.

Nanotechnologies are currently emerging that will change our lives in unforeseeable ways in the coming decades, and the range of possible future applications is constantly growing. Nanotechnologies are set to yield the next generation of microelectronics to meet the evergrowing demand for smaller and smaller electronic devices. Novel drug delivery systems are anticipated, which can deliver medication directly to the source of pain or illness.

Other potential applications range from medical imaging techniques and prosthetics to computer memory and fuel cells.

Nanotechnology is already being used in products all around us.

Log on

and win an iPod Nano!

NanoQuest is an interactive 3D video game exploring the world of nanotechnology developed by Discover Science and Engineering in partnership with CRANN (Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices) at Trinity College Dublin. It is being launched during Science Week (Nov. 12-19) and made available to every second-year student in Ireland, to stimulate interest in the emerging research area of nanotechnology. To play nanoquest, visit www.nanoquest.ie CRANN – Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices Trinity’s new Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices, CRANN, will be Ireland’s first purpose-built research institute with a mission to advance the frontiers of nanoscience. The Centre, supported by Science Foundation Ireland, TCD, INTEL Ireland, Hewlett-Packard Manufacturing Ltd. and other industrial partners, and the private philanthropic interest of Dr. Martin Naughton, already has 80 researchers working on the latest nanoscience research. They are due to move to the distinctive new building when it opens in late 2006.

What sort of people work there?

One is Chris MuChris Murray joined CRANN in September 2004 as an Intel Researcher-in-Residence under the guidance of Prof. Mike Coey one of CRANN Principal Investigators.

Previously he has been working with Intel Fab24 for over 3 years as Senior Process Engineer, 2 years of which were spent in Portland Technology Development, Oregon. Prior to that, he worked as a research assistant at the Technical University of Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany. He also spent 4 years at the NMRC, Cork, Ireland researching magnetic materials and novel applications. In college he carried out short projects on magnetic thin films with Sony Applied Magnetic Research Labs, Tokyo and Thomson Central Research Labs, Paris.

Can you explain what you do in the simplest terms?

I carry out reseach in the area of spintronics. This means using the spin of the electron to code information rather than just the charge, which is how transistors work today. My job is to understand how we can use spin to make faster, more efficient computer chips. This involves experimenting with magnetic and semiconducting materials on the scale of nanometres. Perhaps one day, you might be able to buy an Intel chip based on these ideas!

What qualifications and experience did you need to get it?

I studied Science of Materials followed by an M.Sc. in Physics in TCD. In the final year of my degree I had the chance to do my final year project in a research lab in France in thin film magnetic materials.

This started my interest both in magnetics and working abroad! I can say that the experience gained abroad proved very valuable to my career.

What’s the best thing about your job?

We are trying to do things in the lab that have never been done before. The best part of my day is the moment I measure a new sample - it could just be the result we are looking for. Of course, most of the time it isn’t, but you always learn something new even from negative results. It can be hard work, but there are plenty of clever, interesting people here to keep me motivated. I have the freedom to try new ideas and I manage my own work. It’s a great job.

If you would like to find out more about nanoscience and nanotechnology you can contact us on crann@tcd.ie.

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DCU Institute pioneering diabetes treatment in Ireland Gerry O’Sullivan reports that cell culturing expertise at DCU is being applied to development of a revolutionary new treatment of diseases such as Type 1 diabetics.

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he National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology (NICB) at Dublin City University was established in 2002 under the Higher Education Authority’s Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (HEA/PRTLI) and already it is making a major contribution to research advances in treating and diagnosing disease as well as supporting industry. In addition to DCU, researchers in IT Tallaght and NUI Maynooth are also contributing across a range of areas in cellular biotechnology, molecular cell biology and biological chemistry One area where the NICB is charting new territory in this country is in the field of diabetes treatment.

Diabetes mellitus is now considered to be the leading public health problem in all developed countries with an estimated 200m people with the condition worldwide. This figure is projected to grow to 333m by 2020 according to the Diabetes Federation of Ireland.

The condition stems from the absolute or relative lack of insulin, the hormone secreted by the beta cells in the pancreas gland. As a result, the amount of glucose in the blood is too high because the body is unable to use it properly. Normally, the amount of glucose is carefully controlled by the hormone insulin which enables sugar in the blood to enter cells where it can be converted into energy. When there is a shortage of insulin or if the available insulin does not function

At work in the National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology

correctly, glucose will accumulate in the blood and diabetes will develop.

Poorly controlled diabetes over many years can lead to damage to the eyes, feet, kidneys and the heart.

There are two types of diabetes Type 1 - Insulin dependent diabetes which develops when the beta cells in the pancreas cease functioning. This type is most commonly found in children and young people under the age of 25. The treatment is a daily course of insulin injections. Some

10% of those with diabetes have the Type 1 strand. Type 2 - Non-insulin dependent diabetes develops when the body can still make some insulin, though not enough for its needs, or when the insulin that the body does make is not used properly. This type usually appears in people over the age of 40. Diet and exercise are the usual treatments for this type.

In Ireland, there are roughly 15,000 people with the Type 1 condition and some 200,000 people in this country

Mary Hanafin TD, Minister for Education and Science performs the official opening of the NICB in the presence of Prof Ferdinand von Prondzynski, President of DCU and Prof.

Martin Clynes, Director of the NICB.

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have Type 2 diabetes. A further 100,000 have high blood glucose levels and will only be diagnosed with the condition when they present with a complication of diabetes.

There is currently no cure for diabetes but there are effective treatment options to reduce complication development and at the recently opened €34m PRTLI-funded National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology at DCU, a revolutionary treatment promises to give those with the Type 1 condition the prospect of a much improved quality of life.

Researchers at the NICB along with medical specialists - transplant surgeon David Hickey and endocrinologist Diarmuid Smith have set up an islet transplant programme to treat Type 1 diabetes. This work is being pursued by the NICB in partnership with Beaumont Hospital in Dublin and it is estimated that some 1,500 of those with the Type 1 strain could benefit from this new procedure.

Professor Martin Clynes is Director of the Institute explains; “People with Type 1 diabetes have lost most of their pancreatic beta cells (located in the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas) due to autoimmune destruction. These cells are the only source of insulin, a hormone which is essential to regulate blood sugar levels. Most people with Type I diabetes can control their blood sugars with a combination

With HEA/PRTLI support researchers are equipped to combine expertise across a number of disciplines.

Diabetes mellitus is now considered to be the leading public health problem in all developed countries with an estimated 200m people with the condition worldwide. of insulin injections and diet. But some cannot. A revolutionary new treatment, available in the US over the past 6 years in a few specialist Centres, can help them. In this procedure, cell culture methods - in which NICB scientists are well experienced - are used to isolate and maintain alive in culture, the islets from pancreas organ donors. After suitable biochemical evaluation that they are functioning well after isolation, the islets can be injected into the hepatic (liver) portal vein of the diabetic person under a simple local anaesthetic procedure. Once implanted the cells start producing insulin. This can allow the patient to be free of daily injections for several years, and even when injections re-start, the blood sugar levels are much better controlled.

Funding is currently being sought to set up the infrastructure and a cohort of trained personnel to make this ground-breaking procedure available to Irish patients.”

Professor Clynes adds; “From the time we get the green light on funding we could have transplants starting in about 18 months.”

The research work is one of a number of areas where the NICB is applying its expertise in cell culture.

NICB scientists are also working with Dr. William Power and Dr. Andra Bobart of the Eye and Ear Hospital, Dublin and Dr. Sandra Shaw of the Irish Blood Transfusion Board to

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develop eye stem cell therapies for corneal repair. Another group in the Institute is working closely with Dr. John Crown and Dr. Susan Kennedy at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin to bring the results of the NICB-based research programme on drug resistance in cancer into clinical trials to benefit cancer patients; and also with Dr. Michael Moriarty, (St. Luke’s), Dr. Peter O’Gorman (Mater), and several other Dublin hospitals to identify proteins in blood which could be used for early detection of cancer and monitoring of progress of therapy.

This vital work would not be possible without the state-of-the-art building and core facility equipment provided under HEA/PRTLI. Professor Clynes adds “the first class facilities funded by the HEA and the NICB staff’s long standing expertise in cell and molecular biology have brought the NICB to a truly competitive international standard.”

SPIN

The radiolarian, Aulosphaera elegantissima. These animals are marine, unicellular organisms and the model representation is magnified several hundred times. This model is a good example of the modular nature of the Blaschka models. The yellow colour that is visible is the glue that holds the model together. This particular model would have been pieced together by Leopold Blaschka in his workshop.

Crystal creatures

Endangered species in glass Zoology students from decades past might remember handling some exquisite glass teaching and demonstration models of soft-bodied marine animals. A selection of these ‘Blaschka’ models held by Irish universities and the Natural History Museum make up the ‘Crystal Creatures’ exhibition now on at Kildare St., writes Seán Duke.

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he study of soft-bodied marine animals was problematic - prior to the 1866 - because the animals easily lost their shape and colourful appearance once preserved in alcohol.

The year 1866 was a key turning point, as that was the year that a brilliant young craftsman, Leopold Blaschka, began to produce marine animals - sea anemones first of all - manufactured in glass, from his workshop in Dresden.

From 1866 until 1890 hundreds of glass marine animals were produced,

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 30

with Leopold branching out into new species areas all the time, latterly with the help of his son, Rudolf (born 1857).

The quality of these models became renowned, and collections were purchased by many museums and universities worldwide, including here in Ireland. The models were produced from detailed studies of anatomical drawings. They had the original colours, all the intricate physical details, and could be looked at from all angles.

The Blaschkas stopped producing animal models in 1890. That was the year they were offered a full-time contract by Harvard University to produce glass plant models for their Botanical Museum. Both men produced only plants from that time on, until they died, Leopold in 1895, aged 73, and Rudolf in 1939, aged 82.

The glass animals, however, were still used here as Zoological teaching tools until about 20 years ago.

Ireland

“We often refer to these amazing models as endangered species in glass as over time these delicate glass pieces have become more fragile and many other collections have failed to stand the test of time,” said Catherine McGuinness, local organiser, Dublin Blaschka Congress. “We are lucky in Dublin to still have intact the largest known European collection, and one of the largest collections in the world.

Crystal Creatures is an important exhibition as it raises awareness of the Irish collections of Blaschka models and tells the intriguing story of the father and son team, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka,” added Catherine.

When the Natural History Museum in Dublin became aware of the Blaschkas and their talents they decided to buy some models. The first models — 85 of them — were purchased for £15 in 1878. There were a couple more purchases by the Museum over the next decade with the final acquisition — a small number of sponges — bought in 1888 for £10.

The Museum today has 530 Blaschka models. Over 300 of these have been on display in recent years on the ground floor, middle gallery and upper gallery.

The ‘Blue Dragon’ sea slug, Glaucus atlanticus. These slugs live together with the deadly jellyfish, the Portuguese Man O’ War. These slugs eat jellyfish, and absorb the Man O’ War’s deadly sting for themselves. The slugs keep their stingers in special sacs at the end of their cerata, which are the feather-like tips at the end of their appendages. The Blue Dragon, although small, is actually more deadly than its famous food.

Also, during this time, new museums — places where the public could be shown these new plant and animal species — were being built throughout the world. They needed collections to put on display, and the Blaschkas were only too willing to supply this demand. Birds, mammals,

Timing

The timing was perfect at the end of the 19th century for the Blaschkas to produce glass models of animals (first) and plants. This was the colonial period, but it was also a time when huge parts of the globe were opening up for scientific study for the first time. There was a great appetite among scientists and the public for descriptions and illustrations of new plant and animal species from far-flung parts of the globe. The Blaschkas were clever enough to make their models appear exotic by reproducing models based on reports of new species send back from scientific expeditions.

and reptiles could be — quite easily — skinned, stuffed and mounted for display, but there was a problem with put soft bodied marine animals on display — animals such as jellyfish and sea anemones. There were attempts made to make wax or papier-mâché models of these animals, but these proved unsatisfactory. The colours of such models faded quickly, they lost their shape, and they did not manage to convey the amazing appearance that some of these animals had in life. The Blaschkas provided a solution to these problems, and that was the key to their success.

The Blaschkas, in fairness to them, did not rest on their laurels and were always looking to extend their catalogue of species. It has been noted that later Blaschka models are more scientifically accurate, and that is largely due to their study of Zoology and anatomical drawings, as well as their content with leading Zoologists.

Harvard The Sea anemone, Actinoloba tenticulata

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A turning point for the Blaschkas came when Professor George Lincoln Goodale, of the Harvard Museum of

Blaschka experts at UCD

No-one knows how exactly many Blaschka models exist in the world, and one aim of the Dublin Blaschka Congress was to bring together people that have the expertise to address this issue, and to determine a suitable conservation plan.

CoBiD, or collections based Biology in Dublin, is the joint research and teaching programme that links the Natural History Museum with the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences in UCD. The Blaschka Congress is facilitated by CoBiD and hosted by the Museum.

Significant collections Harvard Botanical Museum 4,400 glass flowers, plants and fungi Cornell University 570 zoological models, mostly held in the Corning Museum of Glass National Museum of Ireland 530 zoological models University College Dublin 130 zoological models NUI Galway 120 zoological models

The Sea slug, Syphonota viridescens

Trinity College Dublin 70 zoological models University College Cork 60 zoological models

The white spotted octopus, Octopus macropus

An Abalone shell is pictured here. The Blaschkas used real shells fused to a glass body when making models of shelled molluscs such as this. Some shelled models, however, have a glass shell rather than a ‘real’ shell. The smooth inner surface of the ‘real’ shells and their open shape, perhaps made it impossible to fuse, or glue, glass to the inside surface

The Stalked jellyfish, Lucernariopsis campanulata. Stalked jellyfish such as these species live attached to the ground under the ocean, and spend most of their time rhythmically opening and closing to eat microscopic particles of food floating past in the water. Although they are sessile, some stalked jellyfish can get up and move around if they need to.

They attach to seaweed or the seabed by means of a suction coup, which is located at the bottom of their stalk. If this jellyfish is attacked, or if their favourite piece of seaweed moves, they can detach themselves from where they are, and wiggle away to a new home.

Comparative Zoology decided that glass would be the ideal medium in which to fashion plant models for new galleries in the Harvard Botanical Museum. Professor Goodale went to visit the Blaschkas in the Dresden studio in 1886 and persuaded them to produce models of plants, initially on a half-time contract.

The production of plant models took up more and more of Leopold and Rudolf’s time. Then, in 1890, Harvard offered them an exclusive, full time, 10-year contract in 1890 with Harvard to produce plant models. The accepted and the animal worked stopped. For the rest of their lives, both men produced only plant models. Leopold died in 1895 and Rudolf

Nigel Monaghan, the Natural History Museum Keeper, pictured here crosschecking a Blaschka storage model with the museum acquisition register

in 1936. The work stopped with Rudolf — he had no heir — who worked up until three years before his death, leaving 847 life-size Blaschka model plants behind.

The Blaschka flowers have been well preserved in the Botanical Museum of Harvard and the Corning Museum of Glass, also in the USA, but the earlier animal models have not fared so well. These models were scattered to the four winds, but there are some significant collections remaining at several third-level institutions in Ireland.

The exhibition of Blaschka models never before seen on display runs at the National Museum of Ireland (Natural History), Dublin, from September through December. There are pieces from UCD, NUI Galway, TCD, UCC, as well as the Museum itself.

The Dublin Blaschka Congress, with presentations from some of the world’s leading glass experts, was held at the end of September.

See www.ucd.ie/blaschka or contact Catherine McGuinness at email: blaschka2006@ucd.ie or telephone: (01) 6486396

The Stalked jellyfish, Haliclystus auricula

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

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 18 Page 33

SPIN

The Colours of Eve

By Shannon Lim

Shannon Lim from Carrick-on-Shannon was the winner of the 14 to 16 year old fiction category in the RDS Young Science Writers’ Competition. Shannon is a talented writer, and the judges commented on her clever use of scientific concepts in creating a story on the musings of an introverted teenager.

E

ve liked science. She had always fostered a passion for cold hard facts, facts that nobody could deny. During all the hard, lonely times of her life she found herself looking more and more to science, with her worn science book serving as her Bible. It was comforting to have something stable and certain in her life. In the hard and lonely times of secondary school where everything was based on first impressions, Eve was constantly relating things in her life to science. How could she be afraid of anything threatening if, like solid facts it could be dealt with logically. But Eve was still afraid. Every moment inside the zoo called school seemed as if Eve was acting as prey to a hundred or more ravaging carnivores within their own distinct herd. The only reason for avoiding a schism was interdependence, where different species need each other for survival. Eve was a fearful herbivore fleeing at any sign of the top predator, Rachel.

A consumer was probably the best description for Rachel, that is, an organism that cannot make its own food, but obtains food by feeding on other organisms. However, in this case, the food was happiness, and Rachel sucked dry the happiness of any unfortunate who crossed her path. Rachel’s position in school could definitely be placed in the fourth trophic level, that of the higher carnivores. Rachel was never seen without her two cronies, Emma and Michelle. Eve could only compare them to snickering hyenas that fed on any poor soul which held no interest for Rachel. Eve did not like to think of it as one large, cruel food chain, because to dwell on these thoughts brought tears to her soulful, brown eyes. Instead, she forced herself to compare school life to her favourite chapter, which the science book titled Core of Earth Science.

Rachel operated as the sun, the centre of the schools solar system. She was good to look at, but Eve didn’t want to get too close because Rachel would burn up all of her happy thoughts and make Eve wish she was as far away as Pluto.

Everything revolved around the Sun and one of the many planets subject to her gravity was the friendly planet of Eric.

He was being pulled in by her force of attraction but was too nice for his own good. He was blind to all her cruel intentions.

Eric was coveted by everything in the solar system, if not in the larger magnitude of the galaxy.

Now, going undiscovered and unexplored was a little insignificant satellite, Eve. This pathetic moon lacked gravity.

People wondered how she managed to move at all. Universal gravity is defined as the force of attraction that all objects in the universe exert on each other. Eve liked to think herself, pretty. If having large, liquid, brown eyes, a slender figure

and long fair hair draped around a usually pale face could be called pretty.

Eve did not blame Eric for orbiting Rachel. Rachel was, after all, a Sun, a powerful entity which others relied on.

Rachel with her tall, toned body and fashionable dark hair complimenting her dark smoky eyes and framed by long black lashes. Eyes that were so intense they burned fear into the heart of lesser beings ... It seemed Rachel was Eric’s centre of gravity. He the planet, she the Sun. The centre of gravity of a body is the point at which its whole weight may be considered to act. So how could Eve blame Eric for constantly circling and acting about Rachel? A planet is after all the primary satellite of a star. ‘It’s not his fault’.

These were the thoughts that passed through Eve’s mind on that sunny day, the day which would change her life forever. Her only friend in the entire world, Sophie, lay beside her on the soft grass of the football pitch. It was lunchtime, the only time of the day when Eve could escape the dreaded Rachel, that is, if she happened to be confronted by her.

Coincidently, as Eve’s thoughts about earth science were running through her head, she spotted the hyena, innocently named Emma, walking up to Rachel, exclaiming Rachel’s starlike qualities.

Disgusted, Eve turned to Sophie, an outcast like Eve. Except Sophie demonstrated a deep inner strength that Rachel couldn’t diminish. Sophie was Eve’s protector from Rachel, but this did not quench the fear and dread Eve felt whenever Rachel was around.

Eve burst into conversation with Sophie. “Do you know what my mother said to me this morning?!” Eve was staring at the ground while savagely ripping pieces of grass from the ground. Sophie glanced at her, accustomed to the effect Eve’s mother had on Eve. She was trying to sketch a crow, which had perched itself high above on a lamp post. Eve continued talking while Sophie listened without saying a word.

They had been friends long enough for Eve to understand that one look from Sophie conveyed a whole message. “She asked me what I wanted to do for the rest of my life” Eve said, and when I started to get frustrated, she only made things worse by trying to compare my position in life with the different states of matter! How am I supposed to know what I want to do for the rest of my life, if I’m apparently too young to know what I want now?! Like wanting to do art instead of home economics? My mother had dared say, “Look at Sophie, she’s like liquid. Can you define liquid dear? Well, it is particles moving, constantly changing positions, rapidly and randomly rolling over each other. You see darling, Sophie can adapt and use the position she finds herself in, to her advantage. However, Sophie shares another trait with liquid, she stay’s in contact with other particles, or in her case, people.

You on the other hand are a complete tearaway. Why can’t you go and make some more friends like Sophie?”

Sophie chose this opportunity to grunt and cast another glance at Eve. Eve continued. “Oh! That’s not all she said! She brought up the subject of our glorious Eric.” At this, Sophie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 34

SPIN

The Colours of Eve looked properly at Eve and decided to speak. “No offence, but your mother doesn’t know how to talk to you.” Sophie gently put down the crumpled piece of paper and the chewed pencil and sat more comfortably, in order to engage in the conversation. Eve took a well needed breath. “Eric is like a solid,” she said. He isn’t moving and is in a fixed position with everything else. Mum even said I should go pursue him. Of course she didn’t fail to mention his sandy coloured hair and his blue eyes, or his muscles. Eve stared away into the distance, feeling the flutter in her chest at the thought of Eric’s gorgeous features.

Suddenly, the memory of the morning’s conversation flashed again to the forefront of Eve’s mind, and she continued on an exasperated frenzy similar to that of her mothers.

“Then she went on to rant about how I’m like gas. Like a bunch of particles flying randomly and rapidly, not in contact and very far apart from everything.” A broad smile spread across Sophie’s face, revealing white straight teeth, contrasting against her tanned skin and dark hair. “That wasn’t fair to say you were like gas. The only times I have known you to be gassy is after you’ve gorged yourself on a whole tin of Bachelors baked beans!” At this, the two girls rolled around on the grass in a fit of laughter and for one blessed moment, Eve’s troubles were forgotten.

Sophie soon regained her composure and Eve quickly calmed down. “Here is something for you to think about,” Sophie said with a glint in her eyes. “Suppose Eric has this magnetic field around him which is attracting Rachel. If Eric is a magnet, that means he has two centres of attraction, equal in strength, right? The like poles repel and the unlike poles attract. Now if Eric and Rachel are alike to some degree, i.e. they are both popular, gorgeous, and excel in sporting activates, then at some stage they are going to attract each other. Then, there’s you’re chance.” Sophie gave Eve a comforting wink. “You see, apart form being, decent, honest people, you two have nothing in common. So maybe, he might become attracted to you.” Eve looked sceptical and spoke gazing at her knees. “But Eric isn’t a magnet. He is an unpredictable boy who is completely out of my league. I don’t think I even have a league!” Sophie just smiled, grabbed her bag and stood up. It’s amazing what can be achieved by a little hope and imagination. Sophie started to walk back to the school building in her usual enigmatic and confident manner.

Eve paused a moment, then walked slowly behind her.

All through the remainder of the evening’s classes, the sun shone through the dusty windows, casting an array of light onto the usually dull, plain walls. Eve could think only about light, after all it was shining directly into her eyes, preventing her from doing anything constructive in class. She arrived at another of her many life scenarios.

Eve imagined that she was light. She imagined that Rachel was a medium that subjected her to refraction. Refraction is the bending of light when it passes from one medium to another. Eve was trying to ‘shine’ in front of Eric, but she was being bent and distorted by Rachel, being forced and manipulated into something less desirable.

However, Eve then thought of Sophie. Sophie was her lens, her specially shaped piece of transparent material which refracts light in a known measurable and useful way. Eve dreamed of being known as useful. Sophie was like her translator for the rest of the world. She understood Eve and tried to show the world the wonderful way, in which she

viewed her. Today, Sophie was working as a convex lens which works to bring rays of light closer together by bending them towards the principal axis. Eric was Eve’s principal axis and Sophie was helping to bring them closer. However, on a bad day, Sophie acted as a concave lens, spreading Eve as far apart from Rachel as she possibly could, so as to avoid an ugly confrontation.

Eve knew that dispersion was the splitting up of white light into the seven colours of the spectrum.

When people looked at her, Eve got the feeling that they saw only one thing. A deluded white light, like that of an artificial fluorescent light that hurts your eyes when you look at it. The teachers pet, the nerd and the freak all rolled up into one ugly package that had the name Eve stamped onto it, right beside the warning label.

It was because of these horrible feelings, that Eve sometimes dreamed that she could be dispersed. Eve thought that if she could be dispersed, than people would see all the different parts of her, all her different colours. The spectrum contains the seven colours of red, orange, yellow green, blue, indigo, and violet. They would see her violet for intelligence, the blue for her truth, yellow for the imagination buried deep inside her and the red for the strength she might possess if given a moment to ‘shine’. But now, Eve felt as if all her magnificent colours were spinning rapidly on a Newton’s disk and they were reforming white light. Eve felt just as dizzy sometimes, as if she really was being spun around quickly, when she seemed most white and plain around Eric or Rachel.

Some days Eve sunk into the depths of despondency, feeling as though she would drown under the weight and confusion of teenage life. That sometimes she wasn’t even the plain, boring, white light of Eve. That somehow, she wasn’t even there, that she was a mere shadow, total darkness behind an object blocking light. That she, Eve, was the darkness behind Rachel, or even Sophie. That they were all suns, wonderful, luminous entities emitting light and colour, giving life! Eve would be some reflective organism, shunning the light, or being void of it and being a shadow.

“Oh how confusing and hard life is!” Eve thought, exasperated by the days train wreck of thoughts and ideas.

Just then the bell rang and students began to pack up torn, neglected books and exit the classroom in the usual robotic and stiff manner.

On Eve’s journey along the path outside, looking at her feet so as to avoid eye contact with anybody, she heard Rachel’s voice in front of her. ‘Can I not escape that girl!’ Eve thought desperately. Fuelled by panic, she chanced a quick glance upwards. Sure enough, there was Rachel, hair shimmering under the summer sun and mesmerizing innocent students with her laugh.

Eve thought about the spectrum and more deeply about dispersion. Dispersion is possible because different colour lights have different wave lengths.

Eve thought about the different colours being longer or shorter than each other. She thought about how the different colours could represent the different personality traits in people. During some darker moments of Eve’s teenage life, she had cried and wondered why she couldn’t be like everybody else.

Why couldn’t she be cool or overwhelmingly beautiful or profoundly happy with herself? She longed for people to come and talk to her because she looked interesting. She had wished

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 35

The Colours of Eve for her opinions to be valued, but on that day, walking in the sunlight behind her arch nemesis, all the colours of the spectrum filled her mind. The stronger qualities of people could be seen as the different wavelengths of colour. Eve began to think what if only she had different lengths of colour than everybody else?

When Eve reached the second building of the school, something dragged her back to reality. She had been so engrossed in her thoughts that she had not noticed a dull ache in her shoulder, her bag on the floor and a student standing beside her. ‘Hang on a minute, those shoes look familiar.’

Alarm bells sounded in Eve’s head. They were Eric’s shoes.

Eve struggled for something to say, but the words caught in her throat. Gazing into Eric’s eyes, standing so close to him, all Eve could do was smile. Even though the meeting had been unintentional, they were now experiencing their first, undeniable contact. Then Eve’s stomach plummeted. Eric was looking at her…..really looking at her. ‘Oh God,’ Eve thought, ‘now he will see something wrong with me, now he will see how dull I am, how I’m just a shadow.’

Eric just stared at her and Eve was helplessly trapped in his gaze. Time dragged on, but Eve seemed to be the only one that was uncomfortable. Finally she managed to cough out the word “sorry”. Eric seemed to snap out of the trance. “Oh! Eh, it’s my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going… sorry.”

He bent down and picked up his bag indicating at the same time that they were to walk and that he would carry her bag.

“Your shoulder must be sore, I’ll take this.”

Eve’s heart was nearly singing and she couldn’t stop smiling. This was turning out to be a good day. “Hem, your name is Eve isn’t it? We haven’t really met before.”

Considering that they had been going to school together for the last four years, it wasn’t a good sign that he was unsure of her name but Eve could not have been more delighted. “No we haven’t.” Eve looked down at her feet again. Eric was casting glances at her. He seemed apologetic. “I suppose it’s because your one of the smarter people around. I’m not too bright myself, so I wouldn’t be very good at intellectual

conversation.” He smiled at her. Eve was in awe. This was not normal.

She was crossing the line of ‘total reject’, into the ‘alright’ category or to put it scientifically, she was moving up the food chain into the second trophic level. The first trophic level consisting of the most harmless organisms at the bottom of the food chain.

Eve felt sick but happy, all at the same time, she thought, ‘is this really happening’. Eric continued to talk “this place is so dull”, they had reached her classroom door and he handed Eve her bag, “though I suppose you’re one of the more colourful characters around here. I’ll see you around Eve.” With that, Eric spun around and strode off, taking large strong steps with his arms swinging freely by his sides. Eve called after him shouting, “Thanks”.

She stood rooted to the spot in total disbelief of the events that had just occurred. For the first time she felt as if she was a bright shining light, splashing the most vibrant of colour against the cold walls of the monotonous life that was school.

Eve opened the door and entered the classroom where she was now expected to sit and give geography her full attention.

Smiling broadly feeling like the most colourful person living, Eve whispered excitedly to herself; ‘This was not written in any of the science books I have ever read.’

References: Less Stress More Success, Leaving Certificate Physics Leaving Certificate Biology, By Michael O’Callaghan Shannon Anne Lim attends Carrick-on-Shannon Community School, and her teacher is Mrs Walsh.

Since the launch over ten years ago, the RDS Young Science Writers’ Competition has been popular with students and teachers. One of the strengths of the competition is that the standard is high, yet any young writer, between the age of 14 and 19 can enter.

The 2006 winner was James Bennett from CBS Secondary School, Wexford. His beautifully written short story, entitled Changing the Universe, chronicled Galileo’s much troubled relationship with the Vatican during the 1600s as he attempted to convince Pope Paul V that his pioneering and heretical theories about planetary science were correct. James is the youngest ever overall winner in the history of the Competition and a very worthy recipient of the RDS Young Science Writers’ perpetual trophy.

Minister Mary Hanafin congratulates the youngest ever overall winner of the RDS Young Science Writers’ Competition, 14 year old James Bennett from Wexford.

The 2007 Competition will be launched in February, and if you would like more details, look up the RDS website, or contact Dr Claire Mulhall, RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.

Tel: 01 2407217. Email: science@rds.ie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 36

Ireland’s high frontier epiphytes in plantation forests Linda Coote, George Smith and Daniel Kelly explain that trees are not the only plants to grow in our forests.

Tree climbing: Photograph George Smith.

Hypotrachyna revoluta: © Stuart Dunlop.

F

orest occupies only approximately 10% of the land area of Ireland, giving us one of the lowest forest covers in Europe. Almost all these forests are recent plantations of exotic conifer species, of which more than half are Sitka spruce plantations. The Government aims to increase the area under forest substantially in the next two decades. Until recently, there was little information about whether these plantations could provide suitable habitats for species normally found in native woodlands or whether they are in fact ecological deserts, as is popularly believed. The BIOFOREST project (http://bioforest.ucc.ie) was set up in 2001 to fill this information gap, and over the last five years, communities of birds, hoverflies (syrphids), spiders and plants have been studied in over one hundred plantation forests across Ireland.

As part of the research on the plant communities of these forests, we studied the epiphytes growing on conifers.

Epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants; they get their name from the Greek: epi, ‘upon’ and phyton, ‘plant’.

Epiphytes are different from parasites because they get their water and nutrients from the air and not from their

host plants; they are sometimes known as ‘air plants’. While tropical forest trees can support a diverse range of orchids, bromeliads (related to pineapples) and other flowering plants, in Ireland the main groups of epiphytes are mosses, liverworts and lichens. Epiphytes are good indicators of the environment they grow in and are particularly sensitive to air pollution. They can provide food for forest animals and their chemical compounds are used in dyes, perfumes and antibiotics. Knowledge of epiphyte communities in Ireland is limited, and no previous studies of them have been done in plantation forests. Because epiphytes can be found at any height in a tree, studying them can pose a problem. We overcame this by climbing the trees using a rope, harness and climbing spurs/spikes. We climbed 40 trees in 28 Sitka spruce and Japanese larch plantations, in the east and southwest of Ireland, and recorded the epiphyte species occurring on both the trunks and branches.

Plagiothecium laetum: © 2002 Kent M. Brothers.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 37

We found that the trees supported a reasonably diverse range of moss, liverwort and lichen species, with ninety different species recorded. There were no differences between spruce and larch in the number of moss and liverwort species they supported on average, but more lichen species were found on larch trees. Two relatively rare moss species were found on Sitka spruce: Daltonia splachnoides and Plagiothecium laetum. The latter had only been recorded twice before in Ireland.

Trees in the southwest of the country supported more epiphyte species, most likely due to the more humid climate of this region; humidity is particularly important to epiphytes which get all their water from the air. Mosses were most abundant at the bases of the trees while lichens mostly occurred higher in the trees. Our data gave some support to the traditional advice for finding your way in the forest, as there was greater moss cover on the north sides of the trees in larch plantations; however, in spruce plantations there was no difference between the north and south sides. These non-native conifer plantations lacked a number of epiphyte species normally found in semi-natural woodland in Ireland and are not likely to develop an epiphyte flora as rich as in native woodland.

However, some older larch plantations (>60 years) were found to support some of the lichen species found on pine in native Scottish pinewoods. Scots pine was once native to Ireland, but is believed to have become extinct here around 100AD (ongoing research at Trinity College hopes to shed more light on this). Studies of epiphytes in plantations of other tree species would add greatly to our understanding of the value of plantations as habitat for this diverse and fascinating group of plants.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Saoirse O’Donoghue, Deirdre Ninaber, Siobhán McNamee and Bastian Egeter and Erika Buscardo for their assistance with fieldwork. We thank T.H. Blackstock, Dr B. Coppins, Dr H. Fox, Dr D.T. Holyoak, G.P. Rothero and R. Porley for identification of difficult specimens. The BIOFOREST project was jointly funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Council for Forest Research and Development (COFORD) through the National Development Plan.

For further information, contact Linda Coote: email cootel@tcd.ie, tel: 087 2108328.

CROSS BORDER CO-OPERATION ON TACKLING

CYSTIC FIBROSIS

more reaching their fourth decade and beyond. One reason for this has been a steady improvement in symptomatic treatments. These include: • Pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy replacing the digestive enzymes of the pancreas unavailable to CF sufferers • Improved airway clearance techniques include chest with CF are infertile) and raised physiotherapy, postural drainage concentrations of chlorides in their and mechanical percussion vests sweat. So far, at least 1,000 mutations • Mucus-thinning drugs, such as of the CF gene have been described, Pulmozyme, to ease breathing some of which are associated with problems relatively mild disease. People with • Advances in antibiotic therapy CF develop thick, mucus secretions • Advances in lung transplantation. resulting from disruption of the saltThis is the only treatment available water balance. These secretions clog for adult and paediatric end-stage bronchial tubes in the lungs and lung disease secondary to CF. plug exit passages of the pancreas Cumulative international postand intestines, making CF patients transplant survival figures for the prone to constant chest infections and period January 1990 to June 2002 are malnutrition. The cause of death in reported as being around 78% at 1 the overwhelming majority of people year and 49% at 5 years, the latter with CF is progressive pulmonary being lower for recipients aged 11– disease leading to respiratory failure.

17 years-old.

Each year in the Republic of However, there is no doubt that Ireland about one in 1,600 babies is specialist care in dedicated born with CF, which equates to regional CF centres is about 30–40 babies per year. associated with improved According to the Cystic Ireland survival and quality of Fibrosis Association of life. In this respect it Ireland, CF is Ireland’s has the was encouraging to most common highest hear the Health life-threatening proportion of CF Minister, Mary Harney, genetically inherited announce that the disease, and with people in the Department of Health upwards of 1,100 CF world is to provide nearly five patients, ‘ … Ireland has million Euro in additional the highest proportion of funding this year for the CF people in the world.’ In development of CF services.

Northern Ireland there are currently 380 patients living with CF.

‘The child will soon die whose forehead tastes salty when kissed.’

George Winter reports that bacterial biofilm might explain why cystic fibrosis is the most common inherited lethal disease among people with a Caucasian or European background.

T

his appeared in an 1857 ‘Almanac of Children’s Songs and Games from Switzerland’, and anticipated by about 100 years, the sweat test, which was first used in the 1950s to help diagnose cystic fibrosis (CF).

Although there are records dating from the 1650s of infants who almost certainly had CF, the first report describing the disease as a distinct clinical entity was published in 1938

by Dorothy Andersen, a pathologist at the Babies’ Hospital in New York.

CF results from mutations in the CF gene, a gene which was first identified in 1989 and is located on chromosome 7. The CF gene codes for the production of a transport protein (made up of 1,480 amino acids) called cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), whose main function is to channel chloride ions across the cell membranes of epithelial cells. Mutations of the CF gene alter the structure and function of CFTR. The most common mutation is called Delta F508, caused by a deletion of the amino acid phenylanaline at position 508, and is found in 72% of Irish CF chromosomes (66% worldwide).

Patients who are homozygous for Delta F508 will sustain pathological changes in those tissues and organs that express CFTR, resulting in lung disease, pancreatic insufficiency, reproductive problems (98% of men

Treatment

The ultimate cure for CF would be the restoration of CFTR function using gene therapy, but although much progress has been made in this area, it is not yet a treatment option.

However, in spite of the absence of a cure, CF is no longer a shortlived disease of early childhood.

Worldwide since the 1960s, the median estimated survival for CF sufferers has increased from around 10 years to almost 32 years, with

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 38

Cross border

Specialist CF centres, with their multi-disciplinary approach, necessarily rely on teamwork. But an example of cross-border teamwork in the fight against CF was recently reported in the British Journal of Biomedical Science and involved researchers from the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Tallaght , the Northern Ireland Public Health Laboratory, the University of Ulster and the Northern Ireland Regional Adult Cystic Fibrosis Centre.

Their investigation focused on the microbial ecology of the CF lung, prompted by the fact that the commonest complication of CF is the recurrence of chronic chest infections usually caused by a group of bacteria called the pseudomonads.

This group includes Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Burkholderia cepacia complex (BCC) and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia.

Most CF clinics monitor the microbiological status of their patients’ lungs by qualitative examination of sputum samples i.e. are microbes present or not? But few centres attempt to quantify the number of microbes in sputum from CF patients. The aim of this collaborative study was twofold: (1) to examine the association between the varieties of culturable microbial species forming the microflora of the lung in CF patients and microbial loading i.e. types versus numbers (2) to examine qualitative combinations of the microflora present in 139 patients attending a large adult CF centre.

The quantitative study found that (a) most patients (53%) were colonised by a single organism, P. aeruginosa, 38% of patients were colonised by two organisms and only 4% of patients colonised by three organisms (b) the mean bacterial count was 108.25 colonyforming units per gram of sputum (c) having a variety of bacterial types present in sputum did not produce a higher bacterial count in sputum. The qualitative study found that 122 out of 139 CF patients were infected/co-colonised with 25 different microbial combinations and that the most commonly isolated pathogens were P. aeruginosa and BCC, accounting for 47.1% and 22.5% respectively.

The Northern Ireland Public Health Laboratory’s Dr John E. Moore, principal author of the study’s report, stated that this was not the first such cross-border collaboration and he is confident that planned future combined efforts will help lead researchers towards a greater understanding of the microbial ecology of the CF lung.

Although combination antibiotic therapy is the mainstay of the

treatment of chronic chest infections caused by organisms such as P. aeruginosa and BCC, high levels of antibiotic resistance are often found. According to Dr Moore’s team, ‘ … other approaches are being sought, such as promoting the disruption of biofilm formation in B. cepacia and P. aeruginosa through alteration of quorum sensing mechanisms, in order to help control bacterial infection.’

Biofilms

So what are biofilm formation and quorum sensing? A biofilm in a chronic P. aeruginosa infection occurs when the bacteria aggregate into microcolonies in the bronchioles of the lung. Oxygen radicals produced by the body’s inflammatory response to these microcolonies induce mutations in the bacteria causing them to produce a mucoid substance called alginate. The bacteria remain inside this alginate matrix where they grow, depleted of oxygen and protected from the patient’s immune response and from the effect of antibiotic treatment. For example, P. aeruginosa forms biofilms that have three times more bacteria and contain 1.8 times more live cells than dead cells when grown in the absence of oxygen.

But how do P. aeruginosa microbes organise themselves into biofilms?

Until recently, bacteria were thought to be self-contained and selfsufficient organisms, lacking the sophistication to organise themselves into groups. It was also assumed that they lacked communication skills, an essential function for group activity. However, we now know that many bacteria use cell-to-cell communication to control gene expression. P. aeruginosa releases signal molecules called acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs), the concentration of which increases with cell population density. This enables the bacteria to determine how many of their own kind surround them – a phenomenon known as quorum sensing. At high cell densities there is sufficient signal to instruct individual bacteria to, for example, form themselves into a biofilm – something they would not do at a low population density. As

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 19 Page 39

when humans sit on committees, it seems there can be no action without a quorum.

One avenue of research to come out of work on biofilms and quorum sensing is the investigation of the idea that AHL analogues might be devised which could interfere with bacterial communication. According to Daniel Hassett, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine: ‘If bacteria don’t know what the message means, they will undergo this process of poisoning themselves.’

Most CF patients develop chronic P. aeruginosa infection of the respiratory tract during childhood and adolescence, resulting in a slow but progressive decline in respiratory function and nutritional state.

Looking to the future, a possible cure might reasonably be expected in the form of gene therapy. Given this possibility, it is important to delay what has been described as ‘the point of no return’, when the patient passes from ‘CF disease’ to chronic ‘lung disease’ where infection and inflammation lead to progressive destruction of the lungs.

Future

We have seen how bacteria use teamwork to gain footholds in the CF patients, but we have also seen how teamwork, be it through collaboration between the North and South of Ireland or in specialist CF centres, is helping to fight back. In a wider context, CF registries have been set up in many countries and are a source of many valuable data which can be accessed by researchers wishing to compare, for example, different treatment strategies in different centres. Ireland was the first European country to be awarded government funding in late 2000 to set up the Cystic Fibrosis Registry of Ireland, and the first patient entered the database in July 2002.

Hopefully, the coming decade will see even more progress being made to reduce even further the impact that CF has on the lives of individuals and families.

George Winter is a freelance writer and senior biomedical scientist based at the Microbiology Department of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh SPIN

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