44
ISSUE Jan-Feb 2011
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SCIENCE
SPIN
IRELAND’S SCIENCE NATURE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE
emotional brain death of dinosaurs science snaps smell the roses
BT Young Scientist and Technology exhibition
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SCIENCE
SPIN Bernard Dunne’s photo from the SCIENCE SNAPS competition. Publisher DKS Ltd 5 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. www.sciencespin.com Email: tom@sciencespin.com Editor Tom Kennedy tom@sciencespin.com Contributing editor Seán Duke sean@sciencespin.com
Upfront
Business Development Manager Alan Doherty alan@sciencespin.com
Claire Belcher discovers that smoke rather than fire may have led to the demise of the dinosaurs 8
Design and Production Albertine Kennedy Publishing Cloonlara, Swinford, Co Mayo Picture research Source Photographic Archive www.iol.ie/~source.foxford/ Printing Turner Group, Longford
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Smoke and no fire
THE BRAIN
Veronica Miller writes about the chemicals that trigger our deepest emotions.
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Foundation science
Tom Kennedy reports that geology underpins many of our sciences.
Young scientists
A joint TCD-UCD initiative aims to turn post-graduates into the entrepreneurs of the future. 39
SPIN ACTIVE
Graphene, a remarkable form of carbon. Links for SMEs 44
Smell the roses
Ameena Riham writes on the power of scent to bring back memories. 45
Science Snaps 18
Seán Duke previews some projects in this year’s exhibition. 21
CHOOSING SCIENCE
Innovation Academy
Seán Duke, Tom Kennedy and MarieCatherine Mousseau have been asking scientists what they do and why they choose science as a career. 23
A selection of winning images from the national competition. 48
Field trips
Humphrey Jones suggests some destinations
Stem cells
Humphrey Jones raises some issues for class discussion. 53
SCIENCE
ON AIR Go to
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UPFRONT
Powerful rays from the synchrotron revealed details from permanent teeth within the jaw of a Neanderthal child. In the lower image we see tiny growth lines inside the first molar showing that the child was just three when it died.
Extended childhood
GrowinG up too fast has its drawbacks, and prolonging childhood was one of the evolutionary steps that made us human. our closest relatives mature at a much younger age, and by taking more time to develop, humans gained an evolutionary advantage.
An international team of researchers has cast some light on when this process of extending childhood began by comparing neanderthal to Homo sapiens fossils. The researchers from Harvard University, the Max Planck institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and the European Synchrotron radiation Facility, used X-ray imaging to examine growth at a microscopic level. it was found that modern humans are slower to mature, and this difference is likely to have led to evolutionary divergence, with the slow starters becoming a new species. The researchers focused on teeth, as these provide a clear indicator of growth in much the same way as annual rings in trees. Molars are regarded as the next best thing to a birth cert because they show how old a juvenile was when it died. The X-rays used to make these examinations are extremely powerful, and they can penetrate dense fossils without causing any damage. The resolution of the resulting images is so high that microscopically small growth lines within teeth can be seen. one of the fossil remains examined at the ESrF facility at Grenoble, was that of a three-year old neanderthal, discovered more than a century ago in Belgium. The researchers found that teeth in neanderthals grew faster than some of the earliest group of humans, known to have come from Africa 90,000 to 100,000 years ago. it appears that in terms of growth, neanderthals were somewhere between our early ancestors, and an early member of our genus, Homo erectus.
Professionalism
HAvinG a professional career in science is a relatively new development. Many of the celebrated scientists from the past were not professionals in the modern sense of the word, but in these days, we tend to assume that the only way to be a ‘real’ scientist is to have an academic position. needless to say, there is a lot to be said for dedicated professionalism, but as Gerry Sharkey, from the Dublin naturalists’ Field club, points out, the good old tradition of amateur enquiry upon which the sciences were built on lives on. in January, the DnFc will be 125 years old, and in the latest newsletter to members, Gerry argues that we should not dilute or downgrade that great legacy. Many of the DnFc members are widely recognised as leading experts in identification of flora and fauna, yet for many of these experts, science is not the day-job. Like so many artists and writers, what they do best has nothing at all to do with earning an income, so as Gerry maintains, those who are privileged enough to be paid for their work in natural history should stop thinking of amateurs as something nasty they picked on their shoes.
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Regeneration
rESEArcHErS from the regenerative Medicine institute, rEMEDi, at nUi Galway, have joined the Munich Technical University and the University Hospital rechts Der isar, in developing a self-healing treatment for osteoarthritis. research groups from Germany, France, italy, The netherlands, and Switzerland are involved in this project which is based on using stem cells to stimulate and assist self-healing of damaged joints. The majority of people in ireland with arthritis have osteroarthritis, a form described as wear and tear of joints and cartilage. According to rEMEDi, the majority of people over the age 55 show some evidence of osteroarthritis in X-rays. The cause is unknown, and at present treatments mainly deal with reduction of pain and inflammation rather than addressing the underlying problem. Because current treatments do not solve the problem, osteroarthritis often leads to joint replacement. recently, rEMEDi was given a €19 million top up by SFi. The funding, according to rEMEDi, will help move research on into clinical trials.
Biodiversity
orGAniSATion involved in the study and preservation of biodiversity in new caledonia have collaborated in launching a web site, www.biodiversite.nc Except for a few brief notes, the site content is in French, so good for some language lessons as well as science.
Constraints
MAkinG decisions when faced with a number of options is difficult, and this is why constraints computing can help people who do not have all day to ponder over a bewildering array of options. The cork constraint computing centre at Ucc has been working in this area, and in november a spin out company, Think Smart was set up to commercalise some of the group’s results. According to the company, their product, intellify, can be used across a range of sectors to optimise decision making, and it integrates seamlessly into existing business and industry systems.
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Cold water corals
UPFRONT
Just as corals are just not confined to the tropics, the cold water corals are not just found in northern waters. Scientists, led by Prof André Freiwald, head of marine research at Senckenberg in Germany, have been probing a large coral bank off Mauritania. The cold coral reef is 190 km long and up to 60 metres high. From a depth of 615 metres depth, a robotic diver sent back video images of calcified Lophelia coral with orange-red polyps and gorgonias. Giant clams had made their home among the corals, and the scientists reported that what they had found was similar to the reefs occurring off Ireland and Norway. The discovery of cold water corals so far south came as a surprise, and their occurrence went unnoticed by sorkellers and scuba divers because they always kept to the brightly illuminated and warmer waters above. The cold water corals are in colder water at depth. The region below 200 metres is rich in nutrients, but dark. Working from the Maria S Merian vessel, the scientists charted the corals and reported finding a diversity of sponges and large crustaceans. Among these animals, were large colonies of the giant deep sea oyster, Neopycnodonte, described as a Methuselah among living creatures as they can live for over 500 years. More details in German from www.senckenberg.de
Sneak attack
THE North American comb jellyfish, Mnemiopsis leidyi, which has crossed the Atlantic to take up residence in European waters is a highly successful predator, consuming large amounts of unsuspecting zooplankton. The success in hunting, as scientists from the University of Gothenburg found, is due to a remarkable ability to sneak up on prey. In effect, the jellyfish is hydrodynamically invisible because, although large, it creates so little disturbance as it glides through the water. As Lars Johan Hansson from the Marine Ecology department at the University of Gothenburg observed, the copepod plankton upon which the jellyfish feeds, are well known for their acute escape response. The slightest disturbance, and they are off, and until the comb jellyfish arrived in European waters, they were relatively safe. To discover how the jellyfish could close in on prey without creating a disturbance its feeding was captured on high definition video. From this, it was found that the jellyfish created a gentle feeding current that led prey in through its two large lobes. Acceleration of the current was so slow that it did not trigger the escape response, and once in between the jellyfish lobes, there was no escape. The North American comb jellyfish Mnemiopsis leidyi has a simple structure with two large oral lobes for catching prey. Photo: Lars Johan Hansson
Left: Young Lophelia colony with outstretched polyps at a depth of 590 m. Image: Tomas Lundälv, Sven Lovén Centre, University of Gothenburg. Right: Octocoral colony with giant clams on dead Lophelia corals at a depth of 615 m. Image: Tomas Lundälv, Sven Lovén Centre, University of Gothenburg
Turtles
OVER the past 30 years the number of nesting beaches for turtles has declined. Scientists from the Spanish institute, Conseo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, have found that a soil fungus may be contributing to the decline. In a scientific paper published in FEMS Microbiology Letters, Drs Javier DiéguezUribeondo and Adolfo Marco explain that while human activities are having an impact, eggs laid in warm damp sand are open to attack by a Fusarium fungus. The scientists studied the Loggerhead sea turtle population on Boavista Island, off the West African coast. This is one of the most important nesting sites for the turtle, Caretta caretta, and a failure of eggs to hatch has been driving the population down. Egg shells and diseased embryos were found to be infected by the the Fusarium fungus.
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Walton on show
FOllOwInG postgraduate research at TCD, ernest Walton went on to work with John Cockcroft at ernest Rutherford’s lab in Cambridge. In 1932 walton and Cockcroft caused a sensation by successfully splitting the nucleus of an atom, and in 1951 they were jointly awarded the nobel Prize for this pioneering work. ernest Walton returned to TCD as Professor of natural and Experimental Philosophy, where he is remembered as an inspiring lecturer and advocate of science education. On being invited to comment on education by Éamon de Valera in 1957, ernest Walton observed that the world had entered a scientific era, and “our people should not be allowed to grow up scientific illiterate.” In 1993, Walton’s note on education and all his other personal papers, were presented to the college, and these are now on public display in the long Room. The exhibition of papers continues until 18th February 2011.
UPFRONT
Racing ahead
Teams from schools around the world were in singapore to compete in the F1 model racing car competition. The objective was to design and build a compressed gas driven racer, and following national competitions, the winners went on to compete at an international level. The Unitus Racing team from the Us were declared World Champions, and the Irish competitors all made it into the top fifteen. Team Blink from st ailbe’s secondary school, Tipperary, came 6th. Team sianide, in which students from Cambridge Grammar School, Ballymena, collaborated with O’Fiaich College, Dundalk, came 14th. Team Govannon, from Dundalk Grammar School, won the Best Pit Display, and ranked 8th place overall. Over one hundred teams from all around Ireland took part in the competition, which was managed by the Irish Computer society. LIVE www.f1inschools.ie LINK
Jumbos take flight
GIanT pterosaurs, known only from a small number of fossils, have always been regarded as much too big to fly, but this assumption could be wrong. Dr Mark Witton from the University of Portsmouth, and Dr michael Habib from the Us Chatham University, after examining the 65 million year old fossil remains, argue that the giraffe sized pterosaurs had such powerful arm muscles that they could launch themselves into the air. In a paper published in the science journal, Plos OnE, the scientists point out that the pterosaurs did not necessarily fly like birds, and instead of taking a run and flapping up into the air, they could have used their powerful forelimb muscles to jump into flight. In this radically different approach, all four limbs would have been involved, and according to Dr Witton, the forelimb muscles may have accounted for 20 per cent of the animal’s total mass, so they could ‘pole-vault’ into the air. Once in the air, these huge animals could stay aloft on wings that spanned 10 metres. In birds, bones have become light and hollow, but with pterosaurs, skeletons became stronger, so muscle mass became bigger to compensate.
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Early life
Shale rocks with remarkably well preserved fossils have been found near Table Mountain in South africa. The 450 million year old fossils have been examined by geologists from the University of leicester, and in the journal, Geology, they report that bitterly cold winds appear to have been responsible for the unusually good A 450 million year old Crustacean, completestate withoffossilized soft Sarah Gabbott and Jan Zalasiewicz looked at the microscopic preservation. parts, has been found in Herefordshire. One of the scientists composition of the Soom Shale and found that it consisted of silt grains wrapped involved in the discovery, Prof David Siveter in from University thethe remains of marine algae. From this, they concluded that fierce glacial of Leicester, said that what made the 5mm long fossil so special winds carried these nutrient rich grains in from the sea. By falling into water, they is not that it is a previously un-named species, but thatexplosive the soft growth of vegetation. as the vegetation died, the remains sank stimulated parts have been preserved so well that eyes and theinto antennae can layer. as the geologists observed, that rotting layer was an down a stagnant be made out. ideal environment for preservation of animal remains. The fossil, named Nasunaris flata, belongs toThe thefossils same group from this layer are so well as water-fleas and shrimps. Their descendants are that common preserved eyes, guts and muscles can today in lakes and oceans, and geologists often use the fossils as be distinguished. indicators of past climates. Reconstruction of Eurypterid (sea scorpion) Internal image of(sea thescorpion) fossil showing the soft parts and aeyes. Image: A Eurypterid from the chasing condont (early vertebrate). The Soom David Siveter, Derek E. G. Briggs, J. Siveter Mark D. two deposits world-wide SoomJ.Shale, South Africa. This fossil Derek is Shaleand is one of only Sutton. approximately 440 million years old. It that preserves complete conodont animals is so well-preserved that you can see its including their muscles, eyes and notochord muscle blocks, gills and paddles that it used (stiffening rod). Conodonts some of our successors, King Hezekiah, fearing that Later,are one of David’s for swimming. earliest vertebrate ancestors. Art by Alan Male.take Jerusalem using the same approach, the Assyrians would
An old water flea
Bedrock of history JERUSALEM’s fate was determined by the underlying geology. At the annual Geological Society of America meeting last Counting on maths October, Michael Bramnik from Illinois University explained
To help students get to grips with maths, engineers are that underground in the limestone enabled volunteering to go passageways back into schools to karst help with classswork. King theplanned city. Water was drawnWeek, fromwhich the Spring SchoolDavid visitsto aretake being for engineers of Gihon, lay 14th just outside runs fromwhich February to 20th. the city walls. David’s soldiers climbed downinvolved into thecontact springthe and by tunnelling under the To become STepS team at engineers walls gotrwilson@engineersireland.ie access to the city. Ireland: or call 01 6651340.
rerouted the water into the city via a 550 metre long tunnel. It proved to be a good decision, for in 701 BC, Jerusalem was the only city that the Assyrians failed to take. Water still remainshas a major factor inan shaping modern history Donna McCabe put together impressive wiki in resource the region, Michael Bramnik whentheory. he went in on and investigative learningsaid and that learning search of hydrological maps for other towns and settlements Important for primary teachers, and of relevance to heeveryone was often rebuffed a claim that such maps else with anwith interest in how children learn. do not exist. http://investigating-science.wikispaces.com
Investigating science
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SCIENCE SCIENCE SPIN SPIN Issue Issue 44 41 Page Page 54
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UPFRONT At the finals in TCD were Quizmaster, Aoibhinn Ní Shuilleabháin, Matt Moran, President of ISTA, Augustin Mangalath, Sean Donohue, Ahmad Hesham, and science teacher, Anthony Carey.
Science quiz
in the irish Science Teachers association annual quiz, teams from around the country braved the bad weather to come together for the finals at TCD in november. The winning teams were from St mary’s College, Galway, St macCartan’s College, monaghan, Summerhill College, Sligo, Blackrock College, Dublin, and the Christian Brothers Secondary School, nenagh, Co Tipperary. matt moran, iSTa President, in congratulating the participants said that this year there is to be a new award scheme to foster excellence in teaching of science.
ERC starting grants
in a listing of over 400 starting grant awards from the European Research Council five went to researchers in the irish republic, Jonathan Coleman at TCD, Gavin Collins at nUi Galway, John Kelly at TCD, Laoise mcnamara at nUi Galway, and ron Pinhasi at UCC. The awards, worth up to €2 million each, are only given for ground-breaking research being undertaken by scientists with from two to twelve years of post doc experience. in a breakdown by country, 25 awards were to researchers in israel, 25 were from The netherlands, 20 were from Sweden, and 82 were from the UK. Jonathan Coleman’s work is on semiconducting and metallic nanosheets, Gavin Collins is working on cold carbon catabolism of micriobial communities, John Kelly is working on stem cell therapies, Laoise mcnamara is working on tissue regeneration, and ron Pinasi is investigating forces that shaped Europe’s population.
Schools at sea
Primary school pupils in the west of ireland have been learning all about the sea, and during 2011 the ‘Explorer’ programme is heading for the east coast. The programme, devised by the marine institute, Discover Science and Engineering, Galway’s atlantaquaria, the Galway, mayo and Clare Education Centres, the Bray Sea Life Centre, and the Blackrock Education Centre in Dublin, helps teachers to include marine themes in class activities. ireland’s marine sector is one of the bright hopes for the future, and over the past few years exploration offshore has opened a lot of new opportunities. Commenting on this, marine institute CEO, Peter Heffernan, said that becoming more aware of the sea should be part of every child’s education. Lesson plans are on the web site www.explorers.ie and in-service courses on ecology, marine history, crafts and mathematics, are being run for teachers at local education centres L-R Pat O’ Shuilleabháin of Bray Sea Life Centre, Maria Spring - Principal of St. Clares Primary School and Dr. Peter Heffernan with two Sixth Class Pupils at the launch of the Programme - Photo, Jason Clarke Photography.
Irish studies
iriSH third level colleges are being encouraged to attract fee paying students from abroad. in general, fees for overseas students are high, so colleges have a lot to gain financially from promoting themselves abroad. Enterprise ireland is involved in promoting ‘Education ireland’ as a quality brand, and in one recent deal, several hundred Saudi students are to attend the Carlow, Cork, and Blanchardstown institutes of Technology. a working arrangement was already in place between the Saudi Technical Vocational Training Corporation and three irish institutes, GmiT, WiT and aiT. Under this arrangement, 150 Saudi students are studying construction, engineering, software and financial services.
Bioethics chopped
THE irish Council for Bioethics, a body established by the Government in 2002, has ceased to exist. The Council was set up to provide independent advice to the Government, and it also had a role in promoting public understanding of ethical issues. Before being abruptly closed down on the 1st December, the Council published a report on research integrity which recommended drawing up a formal framework to ensure honesty and transparency in reporting of results. The Council argued that there should be clear guidelines on misconduct in which serious breaches of scientific conduct, such as falsification, fabrication and plagiarism, are defined. at the time of writing, the report on research integrity was still available for downloading as a PDF from www.bioethics.ie LIVE LINK
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Smoke without fire
the last days of the dinosaurs
Claire Belcher explains that dinosaurs may have survived a massive asteroid impact, but they could not live with the prolonged aftermath.
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alaeontologists have long known that a huge extinction of Earth’s species occurred 65 million years ago bringing the Cretaceous period to an end and giving birth to a new phase of geological time called the Tertiary. The boundary between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary (K-T) marks one of the most devastating events in the history of life and most famously led to the end of the reign of the dinosaurs. This has made this time in Earth history one of the most hotly debated scientific topics for many decades. So what really happened during the last days of the dinosaurs? A 10 kilometre wide asteroid hit the Earth in Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula leaving the 200 kilometre wide Chicxulub impact crater. On impact, the asteroid blasted melted rock debris across the planet forming the K-T boundary rock layers. These rock layers can be seen at 350 locations around the globe from Mexico to New Zealand and are among the most intensively studied rocks in the world.
During the 1980s scientists led by Prof Wendy Wolbach in Chicago, U.S.A. made an astonishing find; in the K-T rocks they found high levels of tiny particles that were bunched together like grapes that they identified as soot. This soot, they believed, might represent the ancient signature of huge forest fires ignited by the asteroid impact. The way the soot was dispersed looked very similar to that assumed for the smoke cloud of a “nuclear winter” enabling the scientists to suggest two effects of the K-T asteroid impact: (1) it ignited huge and potentially globally extensive forest fires followed by (2) an “impact winter” where the soot released from fires combined with dust thrown into the atmosphere on impact caused darkness and cold across the planet. Both having the potential to destroy and disrupt life on Earth. 10 years later Prof H Jay Melosh a renowned geophysicist specialising in asteroid impacts produced an estimate
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 8
of the potential amounts of thermal radiation (heat energy) released from the asteroid impact. This suggested that it blasted a huge heat pulse across the globe, potentially igniting extensive forest fires and burning everything, including the dinosaurs, in its path. However, this vast heat pulse and the global forest fire theory appeared to be at odds with the fossils that palaeontologists continued to find in the latest Cretaceous and earliest Tertiary rocks. Of particular interest was the survival of birds, the descendants of the dinosaurs, where around 22 ancestors of modern birds survived the K-T event along with crocodiles, snakes, frogs and turtles. Early mammals, our own ancestors, also survived this cataclysmic event. By the early 2000s these inconsistencies began to puzzle researchers at Royal Holloway University of London in the UK so they decided to test the thermal radiation theory. The team travelled throughout N. America looking for traces of ancient charcoal in the K-T rocks (such charcoal could only have been produced by burning forest) in order to test the theory that the impact released enough thermal radiation to start fires. Rock samples were
collected from eight sites from New Mexico up into western Canada. In the lab, the team searched the samples for traces of ancient charcoal (burned plant material). They were amazed when they found almost none. As interesting and important was the large amount of normal non-charred plant fossil material that they found. This new evidence suggested that there was no way that the asteroid impact could have ignited globally extensive forest fires. Prof Andrew Scott, an expert on ancient forest fires explains “This finding is significant because most people who model the effects of the K-T impact suggest that ground temperatures reached of the order of 1000ºC.” The fact that around 40 per cent of species survived the impact event had been puzzling the researchers. How a small mammal might survive temperatures of 1000ºC? They were able to use their new data to suggest that ground temperatures cannot have been higher than 325ºC, because temperatures of 325ºC are required to spontaneously ignite forest material. Therefore the fact that they found abundant plant remains that had not been burned meant that ground temperatures must have been lower than this. Such temperatures suggest that just 6kW/m2 of thermal power was blasted across North America by the impact, which is equivalent to lighting 60 light bulbs every 1 square metre of the land surface. These new temperatures likely gave some animals the potential to burrow or shelter from the heat as a thin layer of soil or a cave would easily form protective barrier against 325ºC but not 1000ºC. The next piece of the puzzle was to answer the question: if forest fires didn’t occur, then what could have formed the large amounts of soot found in K-T rocks? In 2005, some
Image of Chicxulub Crater in Mexico. V.L. Sharpton, LPI and NASA courtesy of nasaimages.org 20 years after the original discovery of the K-T soot layer the team at Royal Holloway collected soot from the burning of different materials and analysed them using a scanning electron microscope, which enabled them to see the shape of and image the micron sized (0.0001 cm) soot particles. The K-T soot was compared with soot produced from the burning of petroleum gas, coal and that formed by a natural forest fire. They concluded that the soot looked much more like soot formed from burning of fossil fuels (petrol/coal). This led to the suggestion that the asteroid must have hit rocks that contained either oil
K-T rocks in Colorado, USA. The white and orange layer are the rocks deposited by the impact. Photo: Claire Belcher.
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deposits or rocks that were rich in organic material and that the impact vaporised these blasting the soot across the globe. This idea sparked some new research by a group of biogeochemists led by Mark Harvey and Prof. Simon Brassell at Indiana University, USA who began a search for carbon cenospheres in the K-T rocks. Carbon cenospheres are balls of carbon that can only be formed by the heating or burning of fossil fuels. This meant that if they could identify carbon cenospheres in the K-T rocks this would be a clear indicator that the asteroid hit rocks that contained some fossil carbon. At the same time the team at Royal Holloway put down their fossils and went to the chemistry lab to look for chemical signs of burning of fossil fuels in the K-T rocks. They searched for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons sometimes known as PAHs. PAHs are compounds made up of fused carbon and hydrogen rings and are a common contaminant in the modern world as they are produced in large quantities by cars. The types of PAHs present are able to tell scientists what kind of fuel is being burnt. The group at Indiana and the team Royal Holloway both found what they were looking for: an abundance of carbon cenospheres and an abundance of certain types of PAHs consistent with the combustion of fossil fuels or fossil organic material in the rocks at the site of the asteroid impact. 20 years since the first thermal radiation estimate Dr Tamara Goldin and Prof H Jay Melosh at the University of Arizona, USA using the power of modern computer simulations, re-modelled the asteroid impact. In their new simulation they included how the impact debris itself
would affect the amount of heat reaching the Earth’s surface. Their results surprised them “We thought we’d just press ‘go’ on the computer and broil a bunch of dinosaurs,” explained Dr Tamara Goldin (in: Science News, 2009), “But it didn’t work. There wasn’t enough radiation getting down.” Their new estimate suggested that 7kW/m2 of thermal radiation was delivered to the ground surface, similar to suggested from the fossil charcoal and fossil plant record. It seemed that at last, 25 years since the original global wildfire idea was conceived, that scientists from across the world had got models and fossil data that matched. But how do these new findings help explain the mass extinctions seen at the time? What did really kill the dinosaurs? These new results suggest that the heat blast from the asteroid impact had a much lower destructive force. It was not great enough to ignite large forest fires and the new temperature estimates provided a way for some creatures to have survived, by sheltering from a short lived blast of thermal radiation. Dr Tamara Goldin and Prof H Jay Melosh reviewed the effects of such heat damage on human skin and found that for those animals unable to shelter from the thermal pulse the heat could have been lethal to thin-skinned animals and caused some degree of skin damage to large thick-skinned animals (e.g. dinosaurs). However, those that managed to survive this short heat blast were rapidly plummeted into the cold and darkness of an “impact winter”. The Yucatan peninsula was covered by ocean at the time the asteroid hit. When the asteroid hit it would have released large amounts of seawater, dust, soot and gases into the atmosphere. This cooled the Earth’s surface for years to decades by up to 10ºC. This “impact winter” hypothesis also appears to be backed up fossil evidence, where photosynthetic organisms (those that make their food using the sun’s energy), such as phytoplankton in the ocean and plants on the land were greatly affected. The Earth’s forests appear to have been eliminated for a short period following the K-T impact and were replaced by ferns and fungi at locations across the globe. A shut down of photosynthesis because of low light levels well matches this observation, where plants that are adapted to
K-T soot found by Wendy Wolbach Image: Wendy Wolbach
low light levels (ferns, fungi) were able to flourish at the expense of trees and larger plants that needed sunlight. The elimination of large amounts of vegetation would have had catastrophic effects on animals relying on them as a source of food (e.g. plant-eating dinosaurs). Animals that could scavenge for food or feed on detritus (e.g. crocodiles) would have had a much better chance of survival. Meat-eaters like T-rex and those at the top of the food chain would have been equally affected by a decline in their food sources as the plant-eaters died off. Research led by a team of researchers at New York Medical School, USA also shed light on why this “impact winter” may have been so deadly to the dinosaurs. Most people will be familiar with seeing lizards basking in the sunshine on
rocks. This is because lizards lack the ability to generate their own heat. The team in New York found that birds (the descendants of the dinosaurs) lacked a key gene called UCP1 which is responsible for controlling the development of heat generation fat known as brown fat. This suggests that dinosaurs lacked brown fat which in a cold dark Earth would not have been a good thing if you needed to keep warm. So, 25 years of research into better understanding one the most devastating incidents to life on Earth, has allowed high levels of thermal radiation and extensive forest fires to be eliminated as the culprits. Having ruled the Earth for 135 million years it now seems that a few years or decades of cold and darkness put an end to the age of the dinosaurs.
Dr Claire M Belcher is an Earth Scientist specialising in Fire and the Earth System at University College Dublin, Ireland and BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering, University of Edinburgh, UK She has been researching the K-T event for 9 years. http://clairembelcher.carbonmade.com
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Part six
Drug use AnD Abuse
Continuing our series of special features in which Dr Veronica Miller explains what we know about the brain and how it works.
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Ethanol can hroughout history inhibit excitatory ancient civilisations neurotransmitters in our evolved spiritual rituals brains, and at the same which revolved around time activate inhibitory magic spirits and receptors. This can result plants with magical in a snoozy sedated properties. The spiral feeling. Too much alcohol shapes on the rocks at can inhibit the hippocampus Newgrange are thought to such an extent that it completely to have been made under the obliterates memory formation and causes influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Spirals at Newgrange, and below, a four The discovery of mushroom sculptures thousand year old Egyptian model of a brewery blackouts. In the long term drinking too much can cause shrinkage of the brain in ancient ruins in Central and South and bakery from Thebes. and Korsakoff’s syndrome. America led people to speculate that native peoples there used hallucinogenic mushrooms also. Alcohol and the young brain The Aztecs used the word Younger minds are more susceptible “teonanacatl” meaning “flesh of the to the effects of alcohol than older gods” to describe hallucinogenic minds. Studies have found that the mushrooms. Under a trance like state, hippocampus of adolescent rat brains caused by the toxins in the mushrooms, is more greatly affected by alcohol. the spaced out Aztecs found themselves Cortical activity of adolescent rats is also in an altered state of consciousness decreased compared to older rats after and believed they could communicate alcohol consumption. with their spirits. We know that beer Hangovers are usually the delayed was brewed many thousands of reaction of the body to ethanolyears ago, according to the presence perceived as a poison. The “head” people of fermented hops in the pyramids. get after a hangover is usually because of Cultural anthropologists have suggested the fact that beer consumption ironically that the spread of ideas and technology prevents neurons metabolising glucose, was favoured by the ability of alcohol so drinking will tire out neurons. The and other drugs to relax us releasing metabolism of alcohol also uses up creativity and letting us communicate the body’s reserves of fatty acids and more freely and share ideas. minerals such as potassium— which leaves people feeling Now we have a variety of drugs, some legal, some not so drowsy and lethargic. legal, ranging from alcohol to opium, caffeine to nicotine, happy pills to hazel nuts. Each works in its own unique way Drug trafficking in the brain activating and deactivating brain systems, to bring us up, take Alcohol differs from other drugs because there isn’t a specific us down, and keep us busy. alcohol cell or alcohol receptor pathway in the brain. Most drugs that affect our brains hijack neurotransmitter pathways Alcohol naturally present in our body. But although drugs, from Alcohol is one of the most popular and acceptable drugs heroine to caffeine, use natural avenues to take their effects today. Taken in moderation it’s thought to be beneficial; red this doesn’t mean that they are safe. wine being one of the best drinks. It reduces stress — which Pharmacology is the study of how drugs affect our body. is highly toxic to the brain, and contains lots of antioxidants Most drugs which are legal, and used for medicinal purposes which mop up dangerous chemicals in the body, helping us have been tried and tested in studies to see both if they can do live longer. Alcohol also costs millions in missed days at work, what they claim to do, and if they are dangerous in the long hospital bills, heart attacks and blackouts. term. Ethanol is easily absorbed into the blood and once there Aspirin can be dangerous for some, but for most of us travels quickly around the body. If you drink slowly, alcohol it’s fine. All drugs have some degree of side effects — in the can be metabolised in the liver and won’t affect the brain same way that the side effect of owning a car would be a car greatly. But if you drink too much, too quickly, the liver can’t crash — but if you drive safely you’ll avoid this. And slight metabolise it quickly enough and alcohol will stay in the blood modifications can turn drugs from potentially addictive mind and enter the brain. Once in the brain alcohol can have toxic altering chemicals to less harmful chemical cousins available effects. over the counter.
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HO
CH3O
known as the catecholamine family. Drugs are illegal because their effects H O O Amine means amino acid. Catechol is at small doses can be lethal, because H H N CH3 the name of the ring shape you can see they have no known medical benefit or H H in its chemical structure. because they’re not produced in safe HO HO Depolarisation of the cell environments so you can’t be sure what membrane causes the neuron’s store drug you are getting. MORPHINE CODEINE of catecholamines to be released Recently problems have arisen for into the synapse. At the synapse the the pharmaceutical industry. Because By tweaking the chemical formula you can catecholamines can act on a variety of the price of drugs to treat malaria and change codeine into a more powerful painkiller adrenergic or dopaminergic receptors. AIDS is so high this prevents third world — morphine. These receptors can open pores in the countries from accessing them. So countries post-synaptic neurons for fast ionic activity and, or, set in are debating whether or not to ignoring patent laws and make motion a series of chemical reactions for slower chemical the drugs for themselves. reactions. Chemistry is really just cooking at a tiny level. If you know what the chemical you want should look like, it just takes a little engineering Balancing dopamine levels to make it. epinephrine CateChol Antipsychotic drugs which alleviate
Dopamine
oh
oh
ho
oh
symptoms of schizophrenia act at dopamine synapses. In general schizophrenics are thought to have hyperactive dopaminergic receptors, specifically the D2 receptors. So if you give them a drug which prevents the action of dopamine at this receptor you might alleviate their symptoms. But the problem with this treatment is that if you get the dose wrong, the patients may end up developing Parkinson’s symptoms because of having too little dopamine. You could imagine treatment for Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia as sometimes being a delicate balance of dopamine treatment, too much could result in schizophrenic symptoms and too little, Parkinson’s.
Dopamine is the brain’s motivator, hn ho Ch responsible for your movements and oh mood swings. It was discovered back in ho ho 1957 by Swedish pharmacologist, Arvid Carlsson. Prior to his discovery people nh nh ho didn’t fully understand how cells in the ho brain signalled to each other. dopamine norepinephrine Along with friends, Arvid devised experiments designed to uncover what The catecholamines are derived from the amino chemicals motivate us to move. They acid, tyrosine, are so called because they contain firstly inhibited movement in mice by a catechol group. In humans the most abundant injecting their brains with a drug called catecholamines are epinephrine, norepinephrine, Reserpine. Then they dosed the animals and dopamine. with a series of chemicals including dopamine to see which one would stimulate the brain cells and make the mice move. He hit paydirt with dopamine. Although in the beginning, Arvid’s peers were sceptical Docking bays for drugs of his work; and they largely ignored his data on dopamine There would be no point in sending letters if we didn’t have when he first presented it in London in the 1960s. Forty years post-boxes on our front doors. In order for a message to be later, in recognition of his contribution to neuroscience, and received, we have to be receptive to it, and neurons are no the important discovery he made that chemicals are important different. The outside layer or membrane of every neuron is for neurotransmission, he received a Nobel prize in 2000. dotted with millions of tiny molecules Carlsson’s data was originally ignored embedded in place, and each one has a because the experts of the day fully specialized motif or signature structure believed that electrical rather than which allows it to interact with specific chemical activity was most important chemicals floating around in the for transmitting signals in the brain. The synapses between cells. You might like experts own minds were not open to to think of receptors as docking bays for the idea of both electrical and chemical neurotransmitters. neurotransmission being important. Once the neurotransmitters binds Dopamine is made from the to the receptor, it sends a molecular amino acid tyrosine which you get shiver along the structure of the from proteins and is transported to receptor, right across the cell membrane the brain via the blood. Once in the into the neurons’ cytoplasm- which is brain, enzymes work their magic to the liquid inside. This molecular shiver covert tyrosine to L-dopa which can changes the structure and function of be converted to dopamine inside brain lots of different molecules which are cells. Dopamine can also be further attached on the inside of the cell to the converted into — norephinephrine or receptor. Once activated, they fall like epinephrine (adrenalin) by the action of dominos and send signals throughout more enzymes. the neuron telling it to become more The family of chemicals which excited, slow down or start making includes dopamine and epinephrine is new connections. Once the signal is 3
2
2
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sent, the receptors then let the neurotransmitter loose back into the synapse again and in the synapse the neurotransmitter is either broken down, or taken back up by the previous neuron that let it go.
Sugar free could make you sad
The amino acids that flow from the blood to the brain do so via transporter molecules in the blood vessel wall. These transporters are specialised for all manner of chemicals. Tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine are amino acids of similar size and shape. They use the same transporter, known as the large neutral amino acid transporter. The liver can make tyrosine from its store of other amino acids such as phenylalanine, but the brain cannot — it relies on tyrosine flowing around in the blood. Phenylalanine is the substance that makes diet cola sweet. It also competes with tyrosine to use this transporter to get into your brain. Sometimes phenylalanine can get into the brain at the expense of the other amino acids. Researchers have speculated that heavy consumption of diet drinks or food laced with phenylalanine could result in mood disorders associated with lack of neurotransmitters. But the quantities of food and drink you’d need to consume for this to happen would suggest you’d have a problem already to consume that much normally. Most likely this problem could be an addictive personality.
Researchers imaging the brains of regular cocaine users found that their memories seem to work better when taking cocaine as compared to people who never use the drug normally but did for the trial. This suggests that some cocaine users do benefit in the short term from using the drug. Regular cocaine users may also be more sensitive and get more pleasure than the average person from using it. Dublin researchers have found evidence that cocaine users accumulate damage in the areas of the brain which inhibits addictive behaviour. This suggests initial use can set in motion addictive rewiring of your brain. Naturally if the only source of pleasure in your life is cocaine — you’ll be even more likely to become addicted to it — as you’d have no other source to stimulate your ever demanding pleasure pathways. So addiction is a mixture between scientific and sociological factors.
The love drug
When it comes to falling in love, when the first flush of attraction meanders into long term bonding, our brains do have a lot to answer for. It’s difficult to study love in a lab, and could be dangerous depending on the state of the relationships you’re supposed to be studying. So one way to study love is to try to see what is it that makes people and animals want to stick together. So far it appears that two different CH H2N+ COOneuro-hormones are thought to facilitate long Addiction term pair bonding. These two hormones are Why do we become addicted? Is it just because CH2 vasopressin and oxytocin. You might have heard drugs make us happy, or does drug use simply of oxytocin in relation to the female menstrual hotwire addiction into our brains? Research cycle, but it’s also made by men in small suggests both are true. quantities, as testosterone is by women. It’s N Cocaine acts on the mesoaccumbens known that both men and women make more dopamine (DA) pathway of the midbrain. This oxytocin when they are in monogamous long TRYPTOPHAN pathway is also known as the reward pathway term relationships. because it is activated during a pleasurable The brain regions which are rich in experience such as eating, sex, or having Like tyrosine, tryptophan has vasopressin and oxytocin are also rich in an enjoyable conversation. The pathway is the catechol circle. The fivedopamine receptors. If you look at the brains of between the ventral tegmental area just under sided structure is the indole people who have just fallen in love you find the the substantia nigra in the upper brainstem to ring, and at the top is the same areas light up as when people take cocaine. the nucleus accumbens in the mid brain. This carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen One theory is that when dopaminergic pleasure circuit is in one of the oldest areas of our amine backbone. reward and pleasure centres of the brain, brain so clearly our ancestors knew how to have overlap with the centres that facilitate long fun. Anything that you associate with stimulating term bonding, this combined chemical reaction primes you for the pleasure pathway has the power to make you addicted to it. meeting somebody and falling in love. You could say you fall Normally most of the things we might like make us ill if we and stay in love with the person that makes you happy. over use them, from food, drink, cigarettes, to chocolate. Most of us reach a limit after a few drinks or chocolate bars when we don’t want any more. But some people don’t have this limit Serotonin the happy amine and crave more and more. Serotonin is manufactured within neurons from tryptophan an amino acid found in protein food stuffs like beans and fish, which flows in the blood to the brain, across the blood brain Why do we want more? barrier and into neurons. In the last chapter Freudian psychology held that it was our Serotonin is like the catecholamines because it has a catechol animal instincts, greed and desire for pleasure that motivates ring, but different because it has an extra indole ring. Foods us. For addicts it would appear that their instinctive drive which are high in tryptophan have been associated with for pleasure, however momentary, is what motivates them. happiness throughout different cultures, from Middle Eastern However addiction isn’t just a behaviour, its also a series dates eaten after Ramadan to Japanese happy beans given in of chemical and biological changes that occur in our brains the springtime to ward off evil ogres. reprogramming us.
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The blood brain barrier
The brain is very important so it’s vital that as few toxins as possible find their way in the blood to brain cells. Blood vessels in the body are permeable to the chemicals carried in the blood so they can get food, nutrients and oxygen. The cells lining the inside of the brain’s blood vessels are called endothelial cells. They are tightly Serotonin is the happy amine because too little of it is associated with depression and mood disorders. People, who are suicidal, severely depressed and who have behavioural problems, like anorexia or who harm themselves tend to have unusually low levels of serotonin in the brains. Some have overactive genes for the chemicals which destroy serotonin in the synapses before it has a chance to act or to be taken up again by the neuron which secreted it.
Happy pills
packed together and where they meet the joins are much tighter — these areas are known as tight junctions and only let a few molecules through. Normally tight junctions are good, but they also can make it difficult for medicines to reach brain cells. To get around this problem, some drugs hijack the routes taken by normal chemicals found in the blood across the vessel wall in order to break through the barrier.
Making drugs work in the brain
In general the amines are either taken back up again after their release or degraded by an enzyme in the synapse. If you want the amine to work longer or better you simply just have to design a molecule to prevent the amine being degraded or being taken back up again by the cell that released it. Most drugs designed to increase the action of dopamine, serotonin or acetylcholine, for schizophrenia, depression or memory loss work like this.
The enzymes which break down serotonin are the mono amine Amino for all seasons oxidases. These are found in the synapse and their targets are Pure amino acids unmodified by any chemical reactions are the mono-amine chemicals like serotonin which are made of one very important neurotransmitters in the brain. One of the amine. They deactivate them by chopping off the amine group. most important of the simple amines is glutamate. Glutamate Drugs to treat major depression and behavioural disorders has a variety of different types of receptors and depending function by stopping these mono amine oxidases from working on which one it binds to it will have different effects. Some at the synapse, which allows serotonin work longer and of the receptors are bound to voltage gated pores, some to improve mood. Prozac, one of the more famous happy drugs is intracellular protein second messengers, thought to work by stopping the neurons and some a bit of both. One of the which secrete serotonin from taking it up SCHIZO receptors, the NMDA receptor is the one PHREN again. This means the serotonin available IA — P that is activated when people take the A R KINSO can work for longer and in theory make N’S DIS drug ecstasy. E A SE you happier.
Nicotine
DOPAMINE
Smoking might make some happy, but for others it’s a cancer on society. Yet not all the chemicals in cigarettes are bad, one chemical thought to improve memory is nicotine. Research into the action of nicotine on the brain has been heavily funded by the tobacco industry and might be biased. However it does appear that nicotine intake can increase people’s memory, and possibly delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Normally in Alzheimer’s it’s the acetlycholinergic neurons that appear to die first. So if you give somebody nicotine, in theory their brain will make more receptors. This means that even if some of the neurons die, the others can take over because they can make more receptors. It’s a bit like having fewer boats but more nets when fishing. Nicotinic receptors are so called because they can receive and react to nicotine. The drug which works on them normally in the brain is acetylcholine — the memory associated neurotransmitter. Once released into the synapse acetylcholine can bind to either nicotinic receptors or muscarinic receptors. The muscarinic receptors are like lock and key receptors, once they bind to the receptor, it twists and unlocks molecular machinery within the neuron. To have it’s effect several other molecules become involved, which require energy to be made and this takes time. The nicotinic receptors are quicker. These are ion channels. Once acetylcholine binds they open and ions can shoot into or out of the cell. This means that nicotinic receptors are much quicker. In general the muscarinic receptors are found in the brain and the nicotinic receptors on neurons that synapse, or connect with muscle tissue.
Ecstasy and brain agony
The chemical MDMA is better known as ecstasy and was originally made as an appetite suppressant in 1913. One of the side effects of MDMA was that it made people incredibly relaxed. This side effect was then used by some psychotherapists in the 60s to relax their patients and help them talk about their problems. Currently MDMA has no legal medical uses, but is commonly used in night clubs across the world. Ecstasy use is thought to contribute to development of schizophrenia in the long term because if you use it frequently, it will keep overwhelming the brain’s natural glutamate resources. Normally glutamate synapses can act to modify the effects of dopamine on the same neuron. Over time the overuse of ecstasy could disrupt the activity of dopamine and contribute to illnesses related to dopaminergic disruption — ranging from schizophrenia to Parkinson’s disease.
Parkinson’s disease and dopamine
Parkinson’s disease in general can be identified by a tremor in the leg or arm and a lack of facial expressions, muscle control and, or, memory loss as the disease progresses. In the laboratory if you look at the brain of a person who had Parkinson’s disease, you see that the areas of the brain which should have lots of dopaminergic neurons, actually have very few. One area affected is the substantia nigra. The substantia nigra is so called because it contains a dark substance, nigra — dark. If you add on some oxygen and hydrogen molecules to dopamine molecules it becomes neuromelanin, a naturally dark coloured chemical.
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The neurons in this area usually Natural high regulate your movements. Without Endorphins are what are known adequate neurons here people as our endogenous opiates, and lose control of their muscles. Some they give you a natural high. different forms exist of Parkinson’s When you laugh, meditate; depending on the reason that these become deeply relaxed or neurons die. happy your brain will secrete If neurons die because of a these endorphins. They work genetic problem, then this disease like the opiates and generate the will show itself earlier in life, at 35+ Dopamine cells in the mouse brain feeling of euphoria. years rather than the usual 65+. The cells which contain If it’s because of a problem with making dopamine, the person endorphins are located mostly within the hypothalamus. From may also have a problem making the other catecholamines here the cells project fibres to the amygdala and brainstem. because dopamine is the first in the cascade of catecholamines to Via these connections the endorphins can excite our pleasure be made. In that case many other problems would coincide with centres and alter our heart rate and blood pressure to relieve Parkinson’s including problems in the autonomic system — an pain and induce a state of euphoria. inability to regulate blood pressure or dilate pupils. High levels of endorphins are linked with decreased stress If the problem is because of damage to the nerves that flow levels, active immune systems and general health and well to dopamine containing areas of the brain, then the disease being. When people say that laughter is the best medicine, could spread to other areas these nerves flow into . One nerve they’re not wrong. sometimes affected is the Vagus nerve — so called from the Latin verb vagare to wander, because it wanders around Pain killers the body, from the heart, stomach, intestine to the brainstem Endorphins can be released when we feel pain. But the chemical and midbrain. People with problems in this nerve will which tells our bodies that pain is there is the cannily named have all manner of other problems, not just the symptoms Substance P. Substance P is the chemical which transmits the of Parkinsonism but also, difficulty controlling their blood burning impulse from your tongue to your brain when you eat pressure or digesting food. a chilli pepper. It was discovered in 1937, and was one of the One treatment for Parkinson’s relies on the fact that some first neuro-peptides to be isolated from the brain. patients simply lose the ability to make dopamine from the If your ability to secrete Substance P is hypersensitive or tyrosine available in the blood. So these people are given insensitive you can become hypersensitive or insensitive to L-dopa a precursor molecule in their blood. This molecule pain. Without feeling pain, life would be more difficult as can swim to the dopaminergic neurons and get processed into you could accidentally hurt yourself, bruise, bleed, or become dopamine there. For some patients this can mean that their infected with fatal consequences without symptoms aren’t so bad. ever knowing. The ability to feel pain is important for us to stay alive. Opiates There are a variety of painkillers Once upon a time coffee was an illicit available to us. Some decrease illegal drug and opium was freely inflammation if we’ve had an insect available. One famous opium user was the bite or burn. Some act on the brain to fictional character, Sherlock Holmes, who dampen down pain sensing pathways, frequented the opium dens of London, to increase the pleasure pathways or to before it they were made illegal. Opium is decrease our perception of pain. One dried juice obtained by making incisions common analgesic or pain stopper is in the green capsules of the opium poppy laughing gas. (Papaver somniferum), which grows in the Balkans, Persia, India and China among other countries. Laughing gas The opiate family of drugs includes Laughing gas is anther name for nitrous morphine, codeine found in many oxide, N2O. For years it was used by common pain killers and of course opium. dentists to send patients off to pain The opiates tend to work slowly acting free sleep and as a recreational drug. as a co-transmitter with faster acting Laughing gas enters the blood stream neurotransmitters and modulating their and works on NMDA and glutamate action in the synapse. The area of the brain synapses, resulting in a state of euphoria. they most effect is to inhibit the locus coeruleus Many other inhalants that people use as where catecholamines are secreted. recreational drugs work because they starve In order to work out what opiates did, the body of oxygen and replace them with investigators tried to purify compounds from noxious drugs. With little or no oxygen the poppy flower, which is where opium comes in the blood, the brain stops functioning from. They purified a compound and found it properly and the user becomes dizzy and bound to opiate receptors in the brain. disorientated. When blood flow comes back This led people to understand that morphine again the user experiences a rush when their and other opiates work by simply hijacking the senses come back to normal again. Naturally this receptors for the brain’s opiods. This led to the question as is highly dangerous and can cause death of vulnerable to what the brain’s natural opiods are. neurons.
Most inhalants are used by people because they disrupt the normal supply of blood to the brain. Some can work on the blood vessels themselves, making the small muscle cells in the blood vessel wall relax, thus expanding the space inside the blood vessel and letting more blood in. For some people this leads to a feeling of relaxation.
Migraines and blood flow
When you have a migraine it can simply be because the blood vessels in your brain constrict too much. If you were to take a drug to relax the blood vessels, the migraine could subside. People who have severe headaches often feel nauseous, sweaty or have visual problems. These symptoms can be because the blood vessels which are constricted are in the areas of the brain which control these functions Anther reason can be because of problems within a specialised part of the autonomic system, the parasympathetic system which innervates blood vessels, skin sweating areas.
Altering the levels of these can induce euphoria, increase alertness, reduce fatigue, increase energy, decrease appetite, increase movement and speech, and provide a sense of increased personal power. This is the high people feel when take speed, and it can last for up to eight hours unlike cocaine which has much shorter effects.
But naturally what goes up must come down
Once the effects of speed wear off, people become irritable, anxious, paranoid, their heart rate and blood pressure increase. This is what’s known as crashing and results in total physical and mental exhaustion and depression. With long term use speed, will like other drugs overuse your natural neurotransmitter reserves and result in any number of psychological problems.
Marijuana
In China, the mind altering and pain relieving effects of marijuana were well known, thousands of years ago, yet marijuana wasn’t grown for these properties so much as the strength and versatility of the plant itself for making rope and sails. In Egypt marijuana was used as a relaxation aid, and after Napoleon’s occupation of Egypt it became used in Europe as an inebriant. Initially people thought it had its mind altering effects by nonspecifically reacting with chemicals in our brains, then researchers found that there are specific cannabis receptors in our brains. These receptors are dotted around the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus, cerebellum, basal ganglia, brain stem, spinal cord and
Sweating, breathing, beating, pulsing and fighting
The autonomic system is what controls all of the activity in our body outside of the brain. The autonomic system is divided into two different bits, the parasympathetic and sympathetic systems. The sympathetic system enables the body to be prepared for fear, flight or fight. Sympathetic responses include an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and cardiac output, a diversion of blood flow from the skin and digestive blood vessels to those supplying skeletal muscle, increased pupil size, contraction of sphincters and metabolic changes such as the mobilisation of fat and glycogen. If you were really freaked out the sympathetic system would kick into action. The main neurotransmitters of choice in this system are the catecholamines — namely adrenalin. The parasympathetic system in contrast works to conserve and restore energy. It can cause a reduction in heart rate and blood pressure, and facilitates digestion and absorption of nutrients, and consequently the excretion of waste products. The main neurotransmitter of choice in this system is acetylcholine. If your parasympathetic system is hypersensitive, you’re more likely to have the kind of migraine that is mostly on the left side of your brain, and also be quite sweaty and feel queasy at the same time.
Speed up then slow down
Speed is the name given to the drugs which act as a stimulant, or an upper. Speed is the name for the amphetamine class of drugs which includes caffeine. Amphetamines are stimulants of the central nervous system and have a chemical structure similar to adrenalin. Amphetamines increase the levels of different chemicals; norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin.
amygdala. It’s thought that the reason that marijuana isn’t lethal to us, is because it doesn’t bind very tightly to the receptors and so won’t have an effect for too long. Because the receptors are found all over the brain it can have a variety of different effects.
Freeing your mind
Research into how marijuana works opened the door to a new understanding of how neurotransmitters work in our brains. Unlike normal neurotransmitters which only take effect on the second neuron, marijuana actually works on the neuron that secreted it. Once released it binds to the second neuron’s receptors and then comes back and binds to the first neuron and inhibits its inhibitions. Such backward, or “retrograde,” signalling wasn’t known to occur in the adult brain before. Inhibiting the neurons inhibitions basically means that the neuron is free from normal synaptic pathways that it follows. This results in the neuron being temporarily released and allows it to generate all manner of temporary new connections. This unconventional short term loosening of synaptic circuits is thought to result in the mind opening experiences associated with taking marijuana.
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A pregnant pause
In the 1960s pregnant women in Europe and Canada were advised to take a drug called thalidomide to prevent morning sickness. The drug itself was tested in adult rodents for side-effects, prior to being recommended for human use. However, soon it became apparent that women who took the drug in early pregnancy gave birth to children with severe birth defects. Within a year of birth 40 per cent of the children had died. And survivors of thalidomide exposure faced a multitude of health problems including missing or deformed limbs. Some children developed severe autism and mental problems. An estimated 10,000 children in Europe, including Ireland were affected. In the US however, thalidomide was not approved for use in pregnant women, thanks to the eagle eye of a pharmacologist working for the FDA; Francis Kelsey. After reading a study, which suggested some nervous system side effects of thalidomide, she refused to approve of it, in spite of pressure from the companies marketing the drug. Her fears were vindicated when news spread of birth defects associated with the drug in Europe and Canada in the early 60s. Soon it was clear that the original studies on thalidomide effects in animals were not conducted properly. Moreover, whether the drug had neurological side effects or defects in pregnant rodents was largely ignored. Nowadays it is well recognized that the developing brain is exquisitely sensitive to changes in the environment, drugs and stress, much more so than the adult brain. For this reason pregnant women are advised to cut down on caffeine or alcohol consumption and avoid cigarettes and stress. Developing brains lack simply lack the protective structures needed to metabolize toxic drugs into safe by-products and to prevent drugs from entering cells and interfering with their processes. So even though although as adults tiny doses of chemicals can be beneficial, as babies we are super-sensitive to their sideeffects.
The brain as liver
Most of us consider our liver is vital for detoxifying dinners, drugs and drinks of various persuasions. But interestingly your brain also acts as its own liver, and contains all kinds of chemicals; enzymes, which can detoxify noxious substances. The main enzymes, which detoxify drugs, are part of a family called the Cytochrome p450 or CYP molecules. CYPs take their snappy names from their location; Cyto: the cytoplasm, and the fact they absorb light at 450nm.
Cytoplasm is the liquid material between the outer protective cell membrane and the inner, controlling, nucleus. The CYPs in various forms and structures can metabolize man-made and foreign chemicals into safer forms and are mostly found in the liver. However, immune cells, and the cells which line the blood-vessels in your brain also contain CYPs. In the brain CYPs act as the first-line of defence and help to detoxify drugs before they can enter your neurons and cause problems. For example, smokers have a greater density of CYPs than non-smokers to protect their brains from tobacco poisons. There are also natural differences in CYP expression between people, which mean some of us can metabolize, or tolerate toxins well, whereas others don’t do so well. And its important to remember your supply of CYPs is finite. At some point, after chronic exposure to a drug or poison, or after receiving super high doses of chemicals, you will exhaust your capacity to detox the drugs. So by exposing yourself to drugs at younger ages, although you won’t notice it, at older ages your brain may be more sensitive to toxins.
Eat well feel well
In Irish mythology the hazelnut tree was considered to be the ‘Tree of Wisdom’. To cut down a hazelnut tree was to commit a terrible crime. The hazelnuts themselves were considered to have magical properties and give the person who ate them great wisdom and knowledge. Hazelnuts are actually filled with amino acids and B vitamins perfect food to help maintain brain activity. You wouldn’t normally consider going into a chemist, wandering through to the back room grabbing the cheapest medicines before boiling, burning, roasting or micro waving them and then wolfing them down. Yet after a visit to the supermarket that’s what we normally do. By boiling, micro-waving, heavily salting and roasting foods you can lose a lot of nutrients. But amino acids are very resilient molecules, and are the most difficult to leach out of foods, not matter how badly you treat them. This can make some foods into potent “drugs”. It’s no surprise that the sleep inducing properties of Christmas dinner can be related to the high quantities sleep inducing tryptophan in the turkey dinner you eat. Food can make us sleepy, but what our dreams are made of is another story. The next chapter will tell you how your dreams are made, why sometimes you sleep walk, and why some people can exist with little or no sleep. Hazel nuts are high in amino acids and B vitamins.
Veronica Miller has a doctorate in neurobiology from Newcastle University, a Masters in Science Communication from DCU and a degree in Biochemistry from TCD. Previously she worked on “Scope” a popular science TV series for teenagers. Currently Veronica is working in the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health laboratories, researching how environmental toxins contribute to risk of disease from womb to tomb, with a focus on autism, Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
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SPIN ACTIVE APPLIED STI
FOUNDATION SCIENCE Tom Kennedy reports on the growing importance of geosciences to the Irish economy.
O
ne of the aims of the Geoscience 2010 conference, held in Dublin last December, was to draw attention to the enormous significance of earth sciences in Ireland. As the outgoing Director of the Irish Geological Survey, Peadar McArdle, observed, the geosciences underpin many economically important activities, so they must have prominence in our national plans for development. Over the past few years, he said, there has been a steady build up of capacity, and two developments in particular have galvanized interest in the earth sciences. The Tellus project, combining field work with low altitude surveying, and the INFOMAR mapping of Ireland’s extensive marine
territory, have already opened up a whole new world of opportunities. Both of these projects are big in scale, and the yield in terms of delivery of practical results has been remarkably high. In Northern Ireland, the income from exploration licensing to date has exceed the cost of setting up and running the Tellus project, and INFOMAR is literally pushing our boundaries out into the mid-Atlantic. The long term benefits from offshore mapping are immense, and apart from revealing resources that we did not even know about before, better assessment of our natural resources is paying off. In one single development, the company, Vattenfall, is to invest €30 billion in Irish offshore wind
INFOMAR
Aggregates
OVER 2,000 sq km has been covered so far, and programme manager, Koen Verbruggen, said that INFOMAR is now at the half way stage. Among the finds are a number of previously uncharted outcrops, erratics and shipwrecks, and as Koen explained, while charting outrops enables larger vessels to avoid dangers, there is strong interest from divers in the wrecks. Everyone wants to extract different information from the survey, said Koen, and the aim is to make this as easy as possible from INFOMAR’s deep pool of data. At present, he said, there are over 1,000 downloads a month from the web site, and the volume of information through this is expanding all the time. In one of the more recent developments, the near shore vessel, the 15 metre long R V Keary, has gathered data from shallower waters, such as Dublin Bay and Kinsale, and this has been supplemented by aeriel surveying of the difficult and dangerous Broadhaven, Achill and Blacksod areas in Mayo. Between the deeper sea surveying from the Celtic Voyager and Celtic Explorer, the near shore work of R V Keary, and aeriel coverage, everything from shore to the outer reaches of Ireland’s marine territory will ultimately be covered in one seamless digital chart.
AlThOUGh construction has taken a dive, there is always going to be a strong demand for aggregates. As geological consultant, Phelim lally explained, the primary source of aggregates in Ireland is crushed rock, most of which ends up being used with a binder such as cement, bitumen or tar. Ireland is not short of suitable rocks, but as Phelim pointed out, there is a danger of cutting off the supply. For every one off-house, he said, there is an exclusion zone of 50 square metres. Failure to control development could put resources permanently out of the reach. Phelim has been working on a six year long aggregate mapping project, now in its third year. Data for the mapping is being gathered from a variety of sources, including county council quarrying records, some of which, he said, are not that good, or even complete. The mapping is not just being done to provide an indicator of where suitable rocks occur. Rock types are described and the likelihood of commercial extraction is being ranked from high to very low potential. A lot of factors, said Phelim, can come into
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 18
and wave energy. By 2030 Ireland is expected to be a major exporter of power into the UK and Europe. Traditionally, geology would have been associated in many people’s minds with with oil, gas, and minerals, but through collaboration, the connection and relevance to a whole array of other sectors and sciences has become much more apparent. Much the same could be said for marine science, which to many people might be just another word for fisheries, and important as these might be, this is certainly not the case. INFOMAR is yielding impressive results mainly because it is a joint project between the Marine Institute and the Geological Survey. Organising the Geoscience conference, said Peadar McArdle, was of great value because it brought the diversity of players together, so it is to continue as an annual big science event.
Roadstone currently extracts material from 40 sites around Ireland. play, including access and the overlying surface material. having to remove a lot of commercially useless material adds to costs, and in some cases appearances can be desceptive. For example, the presence of pyrites, as house builders recently found to their cost, can render a rock useless as a foundation material. One of the benefits from these maps, said Phelim, is that planners can take resource conservation into account, and conflicts of interest can be avoided. These conflicts of interest are already a prominent issue, but with planning, future sterilising of valuable resources can be avoided. The maps are being offered to local authorities as downloads, and the aim is to have this data integrated into county plans.
ImagIne a world where clothes don’t stain, screens are as thin as paper and the world’s strongest materials are as light as air. new technologies emerging from nanoscience are set to yield the next generation of communications, drug delivery systems, medical imaging techniques among many other areas. Trinity College Dublin has recently restructured the content of its established Physics and Chemistry of advanced materials honours degree course to focus more sharply on nanoscience. Students entering Trinity College in September 2011 can embark on a voyage of discovery of the laws of physics and chemistry that govern the exotic ‘nano’ world. Those who choose to study the course will be fascinated, like many other scientists, with the materials that can be made from objects and structures that are so tiny that millions would fit on the point of a pin. The ‘nano‘ in nanoscience refers to the minuscule scale of the materials studied. Typically, nanoscientists study objects of less than 100 nanometres, where a ‘nanometre’ is one thousand-millionth of a metre. In comparison the human hair is about 50,000 – 100,000 nanometres wide. nanotechnologists are concerned with the behaviour of materials at these small dimensions and how they can be manipulated to do useful things.
Why Nano?
That’s all well and good but is it important? Dr Dónall mac Dónaill, the course director of nanoscience – Physics and Chemistry of advanced materials (n-PCam) in Trinity says: “nanotechnology is being used to develop smaller and more powerful electronic devices, lasers, medical diagnostics and materials with completely new properties.”
the nano revolution. Some laboratory training is provided in CRann, the leading institute for nanoscience research in Ireland (www.crann.tcd.ie). This degree programme will equip students to work in a fascinating scientific area, including a diverse range of industries that employ nanotechnology. The course provides a solid foundation in Chemistry, Physics and mathematics for the first two years and progresses to more advanced courses in Physics and Chemistry in combination with specialist courses in nanoscience for the final two years.
He adds that nanoscience is contributing to product innovation in virtually every field of manufactured goods, enabling nearly €180 billion in products in 2008, on track to exceed €2 trillion globally by 2015. “many of the leading growth industries in Ireland are underpinned by nanoscience including technology, biomedical, pharmacy and electronics and companies like Intel, HP and Boston Scientific work with Ireland’s academic institutions,” he said. “In Ireland we are well positioned to play a lead role in this worldwide social and economic revolution and are ranked 6th globally for the quality of the nanoscience research carried out in our universities, especially at TCD in CRann, the leading institute for nanoscience in Ireland.”
About N-PCAM
nanoscience – Physics and Chemistry of advanced materials (n-PCam) is a fouryear degree programme, run jointly by the Schools of Chemistry and Physics at Trinity College Dublin. Students will gain a deep and lasting understanding of the science of advanced materials that underpins
and so the students who study in the course, nanoscience, Physics and Chemistry of advanced materials, could play an important part in shaping Ireland’s technological future.
Who Should Consider N-PCAM? according to Dr mac Dónaill students who study either physics or chemistry at second level would enjoy the course and those who study both are particularly well suited. a reasonable level of mathematical skill is required as it underpins both subjects – a minimum of an a2 at ordinary level or C3 at Higher level. “The ideal n-PCam student,” he says “Is one who has a great curiosity about the world, why and how it works. If you are the type of person who asks how that works and how can I make it work better, and would enjoy using the most cutting edge technology to make it happen, then you should strongly consider applying for the course.” Further details may be found at http://www.tcd.ie/Chemistry/nanoscience/ and at LIVE LINK www.tcd.ie/courses/undergraduate
Top left: Transition year students Paddy Finley, and Ella Connaughton during an open day at CRANN. Right: TCD students Shokri Raoof, Maria O’ Brien, and Ian Godwin making Ice-cream, using nano technology, for visiting secondary school students at Maths and Physics Open Day. Centre: Tungsten filament of a burnt out lightbulb. The image was taken using backscattered Helium ions with CRANN’s Helium Ion Microscope.
SPIN ACTIVE APPLIED STI Tracing debris
a GrOWinG number of projects are being run under inFOMar, fourteen of which were launched last year. among these projects is one in which geologist, shane Tyrrell, is tracing the origins of marine deposits, a study that tells us where the sand, silt and rocks that now lie in deep water came from. as shane explains, the ice that once covered ireland, extended out into the sea, and when it retreated, rocky debris was deposited. The ice was pushed out from different centres, and examining the debris gives an indication of where these centres were located. Greenland was a centre, as was the north of Europe, and determining where and how these masses of ice interacted can tell us a lot about how the equivalent of our landscape undersea took shape. The mineral content of rocks originating in Greenland and those from northern Europe differ, but shane was looking for a high degree of certainty, so, using the mass spectrometer at UcD’s geology department, he looked at the isotopes. Because the isotopes indicate age, he had a fool-proof way to distinguish where the debris came from, even in deposits where rocks might be mixed. as he found, the irish origins become more diluted as we go out into the atlantic, and there are outliers, like fingers of reworked material. in a related study, shane is looking at marine sedimentary rocks, and tracing them back to their origins. These were formed many millions of years before the ice age deposits, and they represent flows of a different kind. Great rivers, running down from massive mountains that no longer exist, carried sand down into the ocean bed to consolidate into basins of sandstone. “We have to think of the entire pathway,” he said, “from formation to consolidation into sandstone.” This kind of work, he explained is of great help in reconstructing landscapes of the past. “We can find out what Ireland was doing in the Pangea contentinent, and the Jurassic, when we were deep in the interior of an arid continental desert. We can get a better idea of where the ancient plates were, and we can also get an idea of how modern systems, such as the nile and amazon took shape.” if all this seems highly academic, shane points out that these ancient sandstones often act as aquifiers and as reservoirs of oil. Knowing more about how and when these sandstones formed can help pin point some of the world’s most valuable resources.
LOOKING FOR SIGNATURES OF THE PAST IN SAND Basically, said, shane Tyrrell, “what i do is look at sand grains, and by examining them, i can tell where they came from.” He is driven by curiosity, and even at school he remembers trying to work out how the landscape around his home in arklow took shape. living by the sea, with the Wicklow mountains close by provided shane with a stimulating environment, and although his parents did not have a scientific background, they did encourage his interest, as did his teachers. By the ripe old age of 15 or 16, shane had made his mind up. “i wanted to be a geologist,” he said, “which was strange really as i did not know any geologists, and never even encountered one.” shane is happy to have made that decision, and studying the origin of sediments for his PhD came as a natural progression. “i wasn’t thinking about careers,” he said, “i was following my passion,” and he counts himself lucky that his interests were encouraged. He also said the upgrading of facilities at UcD came at a good time for him. about three years ago, he said, the geoscience community got a boost in the shape of a state-of-the-art analytical lab. shane was already working on isotopic analysis, and up to then he had to send his samples off to Denmark. He described the mass spectrometer at UcD as “absolutely fantastic, as good as anything in the world.” He also said being able to share these facilities with other geology departments is a great way to foster the development of the geosciences in ireland. Each university has something different to offer, he said, and exchange of expertise is particularly important when it comes to post-graduate work. This sharing of expertise and facilities
Strong position
has been helped by the formation of a common graduate school, a move promoted by the former Prof of Geology, Ben Kennedy, and shane, an enthuiastic supporter of the development, is already lined up to give a module in micro-analytical techniques. “i like teaching, i like sharing knowledge and passing it on,” he said, and he also acknowledges that there is an applied side to research. “The new buzz word,” he said, “is innovation, but to me, all research is innovation. i think that when some people use the word innovation, what they really mean is commercialisation.” shane is among the many scientists who argues that this emphasis on application is alarmingly short sighted, and it misses the point that curiosity driven research is more likely to deliver results of real value. “it just takes a bit longer,” he said, remarking that is sometimes the private rather than the public sector that is prepared to wait a bit longer for a better return. In his own field, he said, “It is the oil companies that are now more likely to fund blue skies research than government agencies.” The emphasis on commercialisation, he said is actually a threat to research, and there is a need to take a more balanced long term view of what we want to achieve. apart from his fascination with sediments, a study incidentely of great practical interest to the oil and gas industry, shane likes to strum a guitar. When not immersed in geology”, he said, “music is one of my greatest passions,” but, as he adds, his scientific expertise seems to be a lot more acceptable to friends who are inclined to consider his taste in music to be “weird.”
in emphasising the capacity of the geosciences to deliver results, Gsi’s acting head, Pat O’connor, said that geology based activities are now contributing up to €2 billion a year to the economy, and we can expect this to continue, and indeed rise. For this reason, he said, all those who are aware of the benefits have a collective responsibility to make sure that geology is included in the next national Development Plan.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 20
PREVIEW
2011 BT young Scientist and Technology Exhibition Seán Duke highlights some of the projects included in this year’s exhibition THE story begins with a male caller Many of us are interested in music, phoning into the Ray Darcy show and would love to play an instrument, Mothers on Today FM to describe his disgust but never found the time to put in vary on at having seeing a mother breast the hard hours to learn the necessary skills. breastfeeding feeding in Dundrum Shopping Centre. Then one of the girls at For many then, it will be of interest Presentation Secondary School, to learn that a group of students in St Thurles, recalled her father’s discomfort at seeing a woman Mary’s College, Rathmines, Dublin are breast feeding. developing an instrument anyone can play. That did it, and a group of students at Presentation The idea is that the instrument will be so simple, that a Thurles decided to find out exactly what Irish attitudes were musical novice, or a disabled person, will quickly be able to to breast feeding compared to another country. produce music of a decent quality. The country they decided to compare with was Germany, David Howard, Gavin Wynne, and Emmet O’Toole, all 5th by virtue of the fact that their own school had long standing years, and keen musicians are developing the idea, under the connections with a school in Rosenheim, Bavaria. supervision of teacher, John nisbet. The plan was to conduct a survey of attitudes among The students want to develop a brand new instrument Irish mothers and German mothers to the ‘emotive’ issue of based around electronics and physical principles. The idea, breast feeding and the results were fascinating. simply put, is for the person ‘playing’ the instrument to put In general terms it appears that German women are more their hand in a box and control the music in that way. enthusiastic for breast feeding with more than 90 per cent It is very visual, and very clear, says John nisbet, and of women surveyed in Rosenheim adhering to World Health it can be thought of as one step up from the musical mats Organisation guidelines that young children can step on to make to breast feed for the music. first six months. The inspiration for the idea came from However, this things like the ‘light harp’ which is based doesn’t apparently on breaking up a beam of light, and the tell the whole story as degree of breakage, creates the sound. many German women The students are getting help also said that the from their teacher to develop the breast fed, despite the programmable integrated circuits that fact that they didn’t control a set of three musical notes and process particularly like it. them. The reason, it The broad idea is that a person’s hand, or a tool of some seems, is a strong sort, can be used to control the amount of light being Alison Kelly, Sara Jane O’Riordan, desire to do the right allowed into a square that controls the notes. Orlath Quigley, and teacher, Emma thing, and follow the This is dependent on the use of an LDR, or light Kavanagh. rules. dependent resistor, which ensures that the level of light as we know in Ireland, people are not as bothered by allowed into the square, controls the music. rules, and the issue for women here was a sense The students are currently designing and It is, quite simply, a of guilt when a decision was made to bottle manufacturing their instrument at their phenomenon. The BT Young feed. school on the Lower Rathmines Road, Scientist and Technology Exhibition, The survey, conducted among 50 Irish in Dublin 6, in advance of the now in its 47th year, continues to grow, and and 50 German women was conducted Exhibition. in 2011 has attracted more entrants than ever, with by students alison Kelly, Sarah Jane However, they already have projects entered from 32 counties, and 346 schools. O’Riordan, and Orlaith Quigley. their sights set well beyond Ireland’s scientific future, it appears, is in very good hands The survey was done with the January and the RDS, as they indeed. guidance of their teacher Emma believe that their instrument The trends this year – as with every year – make for Kavanagh. could be commercially interesting reading. There were more female entrants this The aims of the survey were developed. year than male, with 56 per cent being girls. The number of to determine the percentage “They have a vision for technology, as opposed to science, projects, has soared by of mothers that initiated this, it is not just for a 35 per cent this year. This year also sees a continuing push breastfeeding; the average laugh,” said John. “They to help students turn their research ideas into commercial length of time breastfeeding have a vision for its use in a opportunities, by teaching them business skills. was continued; the emotional, concert performance, or in a The Exhibition will take place, as usual, in the RDS in Dublin social and physical difficulties kids bedroom as a performing from the 12th January. To find out more in the meantime faced by breastfeeding mothers; tool, as well as a training thing people can contact the Exhibition through how mothers were supported, and by for musicians. They have thought Facebook, Twitter and Bebo as well as at whom. Clear differences emerged. about all this.” www.btyoungscientist.com.
a musical instrument anyone can play
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The survey determined that 100 per cent of the German women had initiated breast feeding with at least one child, while 56.25% of Irish women had done so. The survey found that, for the first child, 84 per cent of Irish mothers did not feed beyond three months. The mothers continued longer with breastfeeding for subsequent children, with 70 per cent not feeding their second child past three months, and 56 per cent deciding not to feed their third child past three months. The results that came back from the students’ survey correlated closely with the Irish and German national statistics on breast feeding. A 2009 report in Ireland found that 47 per cent of women tried breast feeding to begin with, but that the figure had fallen to 28 per cent after four weeks. In Germany, meanwhile, the statistics indicate that 90 per cent start breast feeding and are still doing it six months later. That is despite the fact that many German mothers don’t like it. In Ireland it appears there are huge pressures on women to breast feed, and that they are made to feel guilty when they decide to bottle feed instead. Then, for those mothers that do breast feed in public they are often met with open hostility.
Preventing volcanic ash damage to jet engines
We all remember the chaos caused by the eruption of the volcano in Iceland earlier in the year, and how fearful airlines were of the resulting ash cloud. Therefore, it is very timely that Ahmed Saeed, Seán Power and Craig Laurie, three transition year students at Castletroy College, Limerick, have been investigating how to prevent damage to a jet engine from volcanic ash. The students had been exploring a number of ideas for the BT Exhibition, and eventually started thinking about environmental problems in the modern world. The biggest environmental problem Ireland faced in recent years, of course, was the disruption caused when the cloud of ash erupted out of the Icelandic volcano. The idea was also triggered by a relative of one of the students getting caught, and being unable to travel into or out of Ireland following the eruption. Their teacher, Leonard Coughlan, says the students are running a test at the moment that aims to replicate what happens in a jet engine when ash enters. The idea then will be to design a system that can render the ash harmless to jet engines. One danger is to avoid creating a problem worse than the initial problem. The students are realistic and believe that he problem will not be easily solved. However, they are determined to come up with a solution to a ‘real world’ issue. Certainly, should the students come up with a solution to this problem, they have an idea that could be potentially commercialised and sold as a product in future. This could help ensure that flights are no longer grounded following eruptions, and geologists believe that more eruptions are a possibility this year, or next. As for the importance of the BT Exhibition to the students, Leonard said: “In my opinion I think the show is quite important to them, as it gives them a look at how other teenagers approach science and their curiosity affects their investigations.”
EIGHTEEn people die from cardiac arrest every day in Ireland, with two per week under the age of 35, and a whopping 70 per cent of those die outside hospital. That’s according to figures from the Sudden Cardiac Death Support Group. This means there is a significant number of people that collapse from sudden cardiac arrest at home, on the street, playing football, or any number of places. These people may have had a chance of survival if a defibrillator device was applied to them quickly to get their heart going again, but that wasn’t available. Therefore, the idea of two Belvedere College students, Owen Killian and Lucas Grange, to use a mobile phone as a defibrillator is a potentially life saving one. The idea is that when someone collapses, a person – ideally with medical training – would arrive on the scene carrying their smartphone defibrillator. The first thing the smartphone user would do would be to attach a small peripheral device, a little larger than a matchbox in size, to their phone. This device would have electrodes already attached and ready to go, and it would easily fit into a coat pocket, doctor’s bag, or someone’s briefcase. The operator would then attach pads to the person in trouble, and a special phone ‘app’ would be opened that would analyse the rhythm of the heart. At the same time, a call could be made to the emergency services to inform them of the situation and ensure that they would arrive for backup if required. The phone then comes back with a reading which tells the operative if the heart rhythm is ‘shockable’ or not. If the answer is yes, the device applies the shock, and talks the user – if a Lucas Grange, left, and non medical professional – through Owen Killan. the use of CPR (cardio pulmonary resuscitation). Owen Killian said that there are other AEDs (automated external defibrillator) on the market, but they are not light, with the lightest right now being 400g. The Belvedere lads say that their AED is much lighter than what is available right now, cheaper, simpler, more portable, and not designed just for doctors’ use. The boys have ambitions to develop their AED into a real world commercial product, and they have got it as far as the ‘proof of concept’ stage just now. At the moment they are working on developing the parameters for the device to analyse heart rhythms that are shockable and not shockable. The students are modest enough to state, meanwhile, that being lucky enough to be in a school with such great science facilities and teachers has helped greatly. “The reputation the science department has built up over the years of being an innovative, accessible and driven section of the school is greatly deserved,” said Owen.
A ‘smartphone’ based defibrillator
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Think rt a m s g n i y d u t s f d o n a g n i k n i h T e s o ? o h e c g e l l o c n i e c n e i sc GMIT ! The Department of Life & Physical Sciences at GMIT offers the following honours degrees: l APPLIED FRESHWATER & MARINE BIOLOGY
GA 780
l APPLIED BIOLOGY & BIOPHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCE GA 781 l CHEMICAL & PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCE
GA 782
l PHYSICS & INSTRUMENTATION
GA 783
l MEDICAL SCIENCE
GA785
l FORENSIC SCIENCE & ANALYSIS
GA786
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While other colleges may have a few hundred students in year 1, we target approximately 100 students for our first year intake for the above courses combined, and furthermore students are in groups of 16 for laboratory work. This ensures the best of both worlds – the low student numbers provide an excellent teaching environment and help ensure that you are successful in your studies. While, at the same time, you are in a college of over 6000 students in the student capital of Ireland!
DO YOU WANT TO GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY ?
In GMIT our courses are unique in that students do project work from year 1 onwards. With many miniprojects and a number of major projects completed over the course of your degree you will learn vital skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and project management – skills much sought after by employers. Practical work also forms a large element of our courses, and students gain excellent experience in
completing laboratory practicals in state of the art laboratories. Also, with many marks going for lab work, you can have accumulated a large percentage of your final mark before you sit any exams. Other features of our courses:
WORK PLACEMENT IN ALL OUR COURSES
Paid work placement is extremely valuable in providing work experience and job opportunities – many companies recruit the students that they have taken on for industrial placement.
APPLIED NATURE OF OUR COURSES
The course material is designed in conjunction with employers and our courses are all applied in nature – giving our students an advantage when starting their career.
MODULARIZED COURSES
This allows students more choice in which subjects they study.
JOBS
Our students continue to enjoy a relatively high employment rate upon graduation. The applied nature of our courses, the high amount of project work and practical work and the fact that industrial placement is a feature of ALL our courses ensures that our students are best placed to gain employment and develop rewarding careers upon graduation. More Info? Phone: 091 742178 E Mail: science@gmit.ie Web: www.gmit.ie/science
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THE BRAIN CHEMIST
John Lowry, Prof of Chemistry at NUIM, had planned to become an astrophysicist like his hero Carl Sagan, but then, as Seán Duke reports, he became more interested in the chemistry of the human brain.
D
epression, Alzheimer’s, and schizophrenia are all diseases of the brain, and can destroy the lives of sufferers and their families. Drug therapies exist – though not for Alzheimer’s – but these are far from perfect. The drugs work for some, not for others, while side-effects can be severe. A huge road-block preventing the development of better drugs for brain diseases is the fact that little is known about the chemistry of the brain in general or the chemistry of the diseased brain in particular. For example, little is known about what is happening – chemically – in the brain of a person with schizophrenia as he walks around experiencing symptoms. This ‘knowledge gap’ is something that John Lowry, a softly spoken, talented, and far-sighted scientist is addressing at his laboratory at NUIM. The first step to developing better drugs for brain disease, said John, is to develop a far better understanding of what is happening chemically in the brain, and in the diseased brain, to lay the groundwork for the development of new, and much better, treatments. This is the area that John is working in, and his lab is one of the few in Europe, and even worldwide that is capable of analyzing brain chemical concentrations in ‘real time’. To do this it is essential to work with animals, typically rats, to get true ‘in vivo’ readings.
PERSONABLE
John is the type of scientist that would give Irish scientists a good name. He is open, personable, accommodating, and understanding of the importance of the media and communicating science to the public. He understands that TV in particular has the power to ignite an interest in science, in young minds. He is a superb researcher, certainly one of Ireland’s best, and works in an area that has the potential to improve real people’s lives beyond measure. His work is recognized internationally, and his lab is wellfunded and resourced. Some in this position might be arrogant, or aloof. John is the polar opposite.
Perhaps this modesty stems in part from his origins, born into what he describes as a ‘working class’ family in Tullamore. His dad had planned that young John would be signed up sometime shortly after his Intermediate Certificate (now called the Junior Cert) to become a plumber’s apprentice. His father meant well, of course, and wanted the best for his son, but John had other ideas. He wanted to be a scientist, and that was that. His dad didn’t argue the point, and his education continued to Leaving Cert and on to college.
PASSION
From 6th class in primary school John wanted to be an astrophysicist, studying the great mysteries of the Universe. The inspiration for this ambition came from watching the US TV show, Cosmos, presented by Carl Sagan, the great astronomer and communicator. The show was watched by an estimated 500 million viewers worldwide, and John, like many others, was held spellbound by the skills of this brilliant populariser of science. He also watched repeat showings of BBC’s Horizon show on RTE on Saturday mornings. But, it was Sagan, more than anyone that lit the fire and passion for science in young John. He devoured any books he could find written by Sagan, including Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science and Dragon’s of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence and pestered the local library to order in more. The brilliance of Sagan, and people like him, such as David Attenborough, says John, are crucial, to generate interest in a subject among young people. It has to be the right person, he says, and TV can provide students with access to these brilliant, gifted communicators. So, John was already fired with a passion for science by the time he entered secondary school at the CBS in Tullamore. After the Intermediate Cert, where he took science as a single subject, same as today, he decided he wanted to take all three main science subjects for leaving certificate, but
John collaborates with scientists from abroad, and on his visit to China he was presented with a ‘good luck’ cake. he ran into opposition. The school authorities felt that no-one should take on the three science subjects as it would be too much, and John was pressurized into dropping physics in favour of economics. That decision stood for a week, after which John went back and took physics, supported by the school Principal, who was also his athletics coach and a friend. He went on to prove the doubters wrong, and did very well in his Leaving in all three science subjects, something he puts down to his love of science.
OPTIONS
After the Leaving, it was time to consider where to go to university. By this time, John, while still interested in astrophysics, was not 100 per cent sure what branch of science that he would ultimately focus on. Wisely, as it turned out, he decided to go to UCD where he felt the ‘Omnibus’ degree on offer, which was broader than what some other universities were offering, would provide him the opportunity to consider all his options. At UCD, he took physics, chemistry, biology, maths and computer science in his first year. He dropped physics after first year, something he would have never anticipated, and kept chemistry, biology and maths in second year. In third year he chose, chemistry and maths Already it was clear he was gravitating towards a career in chemistry rather than physics or astrophysics as he might have expected, given his early fascination with Sagan’s work. John got his degree and was certain then that he wanted to go on, and do
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 CHOOSING SCIENCE
more research. He loved the idea of working in the lab, and discovering new things, and began looking around for interesting post-graduate opportunities. He went to listen to a few lectures on the subject of neurochemistry by Robert O’Neill, an Irish scientist that had come back to UCD after a period in Oxford University. “He sold it to me,” John recalls.
RESEARCH
John’s problem-solving skills were needed immediately when he went to Robert’s lab. Today’s PhD candidates expect, from day one, to have access to equipment and start gathering data when they enter a lab. In the late 1980s and early 1990s things were very different. John recalls that he spent the first six months of his PhD working hard, just setting up his equipment, and writing software so that everything would work together, before he collected any data. If he didn’t do this then his PhD wouldn’t happen, he said. The focus of his PhD was to develop a sensor that could gather information on glucose levels in the brain, in ‘real time’. This was something very new, and potentially very important. He applied for a Marie Curie fellowship, a European Commission funded scheme to encourage post-graduate students to work in a laboratory abroad, and bring the knowledge they gain back to their host country later. It provides the funds for the student, so the university that agree to take the student, do not need to financially support him. John wanted to go to Oxford University. He wrote an application and was successful, and joined the lab of the “phenomenally inspirational” Dr Marianne Fillenz. For a while, Dr Fillenz didn’t know what to do with John. He told her that he had developed a method to do ‘real time’ measurements of glucose in the brain, but the Oxford lab had their own methods. After he was trained up so that he could do experiments, John started to collect data. He sat down with Dr Fillenz to analyze the data, and she then realized that what John was doing was a huge step forward, as it provided ‘real time’ data on brain chemical levels.
FUTURE
John does believe that better drugs for brain diseases will be developed in coming decades, but that issues need to be addressed in the pharmaceutical
industry for that to happen. At the moment, the drug development business model is under threat, as even ‘big pharma’ giants cannot sustain losses, should a drug fail in clinical trials. If a drug fails at a late stage it could mean losses of well over €500,000, which is too big a risk. What will happen in future years, he believes, is that big pharma will only want to develop drugs that have excellent pre-clinical data, so that the risk of a drug failing at an advanced stage of the clinical trial process – where drugs are tested with humans – is reduced. It is likely that the pre-clinical drug development work will be done by smaller biotech companies, and this represents an opportunity for future ‘biotech’ entrepreneurs. John himself has got involved in the commercial side of things, with the setting up of Blue Box Sensors, a spinout from NUIM, based on his research work, in 2009. The company declares on its website: “We produce implantable micro sensors that allow long-term measurements of NO, O2 or glucose in awake and freely moving animals.”
ADVICE
His advice for anyone that is considering doing science in college is, firstly, to be sure that there is an interest, and ideally, a passion for
science. If that is in place, then science is a good career option, and can help students get a job, or to get interviews, even in the current climate. A postgrad degree can move someone up even a notch higher, he says. In hindsight, he says, he might well have signed up to do astrophysics, had there been an astrophysics only degree option available in 1984 when he entered college. In light of what direction his career later took that might well have been a mistake, he says. For this reason, he advises students today to be careful about choosing highly specialized single subject degrees. If an 18-year old knows exactly what he wants to do, then fine, but if a person has a general love of science, but is not sure what he likes best, then a broader degree is the way to go. That way a student can ‘test the waters’ and specialize later. Back in 1984, entering college, John couldn’t have predicted his career path to date. He started out wanting to be an astrophysicist looking at the Universe on a large scale, and ended up studying a smaller Universe, said John. “Because the complexities of the brain, I think, certainly equal the complexities of the Universe. It is a Universe in its own right,” he said.
THE MATERIALS MASTER
By working on fundamental physics, Seamus Davies is preparing the way for a significant break-through in delivery of electrical power. Seán Duke reports how a scientist from Cork has become a high level researcher in the US .
I
magine a laptop that works 1,000 faster than today? Or an electrical power grid that loses almost no electricity during power transmission, and is 99 per cent energy efficient? These things will become possible in the future if scientists can develop superconducting materials that operate at room temperature. These materials have a number of amazing properties, that can be exploited, but now they only operate at very low temperatures. This is the kind of problem that Seamus Davies, Prof of Physics at Cornell University, and a native of Skibberean works on each day – a challenge he finds incredibly exciting.
Sadly, mass emigration has returned to Irish shores, but Seamus was part of the last great huge exodus out of Ireland in the 1980s. He attended UCC from 1979 to 1982, where he recalled the coursework as challenging and where the students took their studies very seriously. He left Ireland in 1983, heading for the University of California Berkeley, in the city of Oakland in the ‘Bay Area’. This move followed a well-trodden path for many UCC physics graduates. Seamus was collected at the airport by Stephen Fahy, who was then studying for his PhD at Berkeley, and today is the Associate Prof of Physics at UCC.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 CHOOSING SCIENCE
Seamus remembers being first interested in science at the age of six. The trigger was curiosity about the world, and how it operates as it does. By the time he was 13, an aspiration to become a scientist had turned into a definite goal. He got his secondary education at St Fachtna’s in Skibbereen and recalls science teaching there as superb. He was specifically interested in physics. He applied for and was accepted into UCC, which had earned a reputation for having an extremely high quality physics program. The success of Seamus, and many others like him of the 1980s generation, shows that emigration, while perhaps not what most Irish scientists want to do, does, at least, open up the possibility of a new life, and achieving great things. There are many un-heralded Irish-born scientists abroad, doing superb work and Seamus is definitely one of those. His experience shows that a science degree and PhD from Ireland are a license to the world.
BERKELEY
Certainly, there are worse places an ambitious young Irish scientist could have ended up than Berkeley, a truly
world-class university, famous in particular for its prowess in physics, astrophysics and engineering. When an opportunity arose to go there, Seamus grabbed it, and he recalls the time he spent there from ’83 to ’89 as “wonderful” and “the best opportunity of my life”. Seamus was interested in ‘fundamental physics’, the type of physics that doesn’t necessarily have a ‘real world’ application. In many countries, including, Ireland funding for such work doesn’t exist. The US is one of the exceptions. Seamus completed his PhD in Berkeley in 1989. He had a tremendous time, and loved every minute. Now, with the doctorate finished, it was decision time. Should he return home to Ireland or stay? He was offered a job as an Assistant Professor at Berkeley, and that made his mind up to stay in the US. In any case, if he returned home, it would have been virtually impossible to get funding to support his ‘fundamental’ line of research. There were growing opportunities for scientists in Ireland, even back in ’89, but the research being funded, then as now, was research that could yield an economic return in the short or medium term. But for researchers like Seamus, who want to explore
‘basic’ science that might only have a long term pay-off, if at all, there were few opportunities. The approach in Ireland, despite all the talk about innovation and becoming world-class research leaders, is the same today as it was 20 years ago. The agencies that fund science
DCU FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH Since DCU’s foundation, its Faculty of Science and Health has maintained an enviable record of success and growth, with innovative and interdisciplinary degree courses, that now encompass academic disciplines as diverse as physics and psychology. Also many of its courses have affiliations to or are recognised by external professional bodies, for example, the Institute of Actuaries and the Teaching Council of Ireland.
INTRA , DCU’s paid relevant work experience programme continues to be a key feature of the courses offered by the Faculty, ensuring that its graduates have the experience and skills most sought after by Irish and international employers.
Mathematics
DC126 - BSc in Actuarial Mathematics DC127 - Common Entry into Actuarial, Financial and Mathematical Sciences
Health and Human Performance
DC202 - BSc in Sport Science and Health DC204 - BSc in Athletic Therapy and Training DC205 - BSc in Physical Education with Biology
Nursing
DC208 - BSc in Psychology DC209 - BSc in Health and Society DC215 - BSc in Nursing (General) DC216 - BSc in Nursing (Psychiatric) DC217 - BSc in Nursing (Intellectual Disability) DC218 - BSc in Children’s and General (Integrated) Nursing
Sciences (Biotechnology, Chemistry and Physics) DC161 - BSc in Analytical Science DC162 - BSc in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences DC166 - BSc in Environmental Science and Health DC167 - BSc in Physics with Astronomy DC168 - BSc in Genetics and Cell Biology DC170 - BSc in Horticulture DC171 - BSc in Applied Physics DC173 - BSc in Physics with Biomedical Sciences DC181 - BSc in Biotechnology DC201 - Common Entry into Science DC203 - BSc in Science Education
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 CHOOSING LIVE SCIENCE www.dcu.ie K LIN
here do not want to support research that is considered expensive, risky and doesn’t pay off quickly. They are not prepared to risk funding truly innovative research. This is why for researchers like Seamus, Ireland has nothing to offer, both back then and still today. Perhaps wisely then Seamus stayed on in the US, and spent 20 years in Berkeley. “It was fantastic, it felt like 3 or 4 weeks, but it was actually 20 years,” he said. “I met my wife, who is English, from Walden in Essex. She was a Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Then we got married and had two boys.” The boys changed everything, as now the couple, neither of whom was from a big city decided they wanted to leave the Bay Area and work in a less expensive area that was ‘better for the kids’.
ITHAECA
That ‘better place’ became Ithaca — a beautiful university town that lies nestled in idyllic countryside in upstate New York, and home to Cornell University. This was a university that had just as famous a reputation in physics as Berkeley. Seamus became Professor of Physics at Cornell, and the family settled quickly finding Ithaca a far easier place to live. Here Seamus became associated with Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, another world-class physics institution, as well as St Andrews University, in Scotland. Soon, he recommenced his researches into the nature of exotic materials such as super solids, super fluids, and super-conductors. These materials had astonishing properties, he said, with huge potential. Superconductors should not be confused with semi-conductors – the latter being famously associated with microchip manufacturers such as Intel. The semi-conductors made by Intel are based on silicon, and their physical characteristics can be altered by adding impurities, for example. The semiconductors are governed by the laws of physics as we know them, but superconductors do not obey any such laws. The potential is there, for example, explained Seamus to develop an electrical grid, using super-conducting wires, that is capable of transmitting electrical power with no losses, and absolute perfect efficiency. The current grids lose a lot of power during
transmission, and this, of course, is a waste of a valuable resource, and results in more power usage. Similarly with laptops, there is substantial leakage of electrical power. This is why a laptop tends to heat up over time. A superconducting laptop would not heat up at all. It would be super power efficient, and it would vastly quick in performing computations. It might come as a surprise to learn that superconductors have been known to scientists for almost 100 years, but researchers have not been able to harness their amazing capabilities in al that time. The reason for that is that superconductors only work at extremely low temperatures, something in the region of -250C. Until a way can be found to make them operate at room temperature, they will be of little practical use to society. Seamus says that making super-conductors operate at room temperature is a “profound problem of physics”, but not so profound that it can’t be solved in coming decades. When that happens then superconductors could be used for all manner of electrical devices, such as computers, laptops, and mobile phones and replace semi-conductors as the material of choice in most devices. But, the breakthrough in super-conductors is highly unlikely to be made here in Ireland, as there is no support for longterm basic research.
Ireland, or any country that is serious about its science, should have part of its ‘spend’ supporting research set aside for new ideas with potential, that might just as easily not yield an economic return, says Seamus. “You need some fraction of the portfolio to be associated with risky efforts based on new ideas that haven’t been explored before. There is no guarantee, but if you do nothing, there is a guarantee that you won’t succeed.”
ADVICE
Meanwhile, Seamus’ advice to students that are interested in science, and about to sit their Leaving Certificate in 2011, or 2012 is to be disciplined and focus on an objective. He says there is no better job in the world for providing the means to pursue one’s own curiosity and interests. His least favourite of the job is searching for funding for research. He adds that professional scientists must be prepared to be highly mobile, and that he has Irish, Chinese, Korean, Israeli, Canadian, German, Portuguese, Taiwanese, Swiss, Scottish, and Indian nationals in his research group at Cornell University. So, his advice to students considering science is to worry about emigration issues. “I would ignore them because any highlevel scientist will have to move from country to country anyway.”
Earth shaking work
Grace Campbell likes to makes the connection between science and education. Tom Kennedy reports.
Q
uite a few students will have met up with Grace Campbell, for she has been doing the rounds, visiting teacher centres and schools to explain all about earthquakes. Grace is involved with the outreach programme run by the Institute of Advanced Studies, a body established just over 70 years ago to foster basic research physics, cosmology and celtic studies. Although Ireland is not a hot spot for earthquakes, the Institute has always followed a tradition laid down by Dublin born engineer, Robert Mallet, a 19th century pioneer of seismology, the scientific study of how waves are propagated through the Earth’s crust. Seismology is of enormous international importance, and Grace
became aware of the Irish connection when Tom Ray from the Institute gave a presentation to students at DCU. At the time, Grace was studying environmental sciences. “I was quite interested in science, teaching, and science education,” she said, and when Tom Ray talked about an outreach programme, she remembers asking if there was any prospect of working in that area. As luck would have it, an opportunity to work on temporary placement at the Institute did come up, but then Grace had to finish her studies, going on to take a masters in environmental management. At that stage, just as Grace was beginning to wonder what came next, she received
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 CHOOSING SCIENCE
a totally unexpected call from “out of the blue”. The Institute. “Would I go back?” Grace jumped at the chance, and until next May she will be working with teachers and going out to schools to show how instruments can trace the shudders as quakes sent waves around the world. “I am impressed by the dedication of so many teachers,” she said. There is great satisfaction in helping students to learn about science, she observed, but is also a bit disappointed that it is not so easy for a scientist to become a qualified teacher. “I am definitely going to stay with science,” said Grace, but she likes the idea of staying close to education, and she remembers how important her own teachers were in shaping her attitude to science. At St Louis in Rathmines, said Grace, “we had great teachers, they were quite young, and they loved what
they were doing.” Students were encouraged to do well, and in first year everyone had to take up science. “Chemistry just grabbed me,” she remarked, and “I had an amazing teacher, Miss Hollorhan.” Going to university was the next logical step, but as Grace explained, she wanted to keep all her options open. “With common science,” she said, “you get a taste of everything within DCU.” The broad range appealed to Grace, so she went for environmental sciences as it involves a mix of chemistry, physics and biology. “I went for it, and have not looked back since,” she said. As Grace said of herself, “I love talking, I love debating,” so she enjoys going out and about to fire up interest in science, but take care not to annoy her. Grace has a black belt in karate.
Why
choose the Faculty of
Engineering, Mathematics & Science at Trinity College Dublin?
• • • •
The Faculty is part of the oldest University in Ireland The University Library is one of the largest and best stocked in Europe You can avail of our world class research facilities and laboratories You will be part of a unique student body with over 15,500 students from over 90 different countries • There are over 100 societies and 50 sports clubs for students to join
What can you study?
The Faculty has excellent undergraduate and postgraduate programmes including: • 4 year honours degrees • Taught Postgraduate programmes • Masters programmes • PhDs
Students are offered a variety of options from across 8 Schools: Biochemistry & Immunology Chemistry Computer Science & Statistics Engineering Genetics & Microbiology Natural Sciences Mathematics Physics
The Faculty accommodates a wide range of research interests including: Bioengineering Bioinformatics Energy Immunology Nanoscience Neuroscience The Environment Transport
NEW UG courses include:
• Nanoscience – Physics and Chemistry of Advanced Materials • Geography & Political Sciences • Earth Sciences • Human Health & Disease
Science in TCD
Looking for excellent training in Science with maximum flexibility & choice? See our Science course (TR 071) which offers no less than 17 specialist areas.
www.tcd.ie/Science
Why not see what we can offer YOU by visiting us at:
www.ems.tcd.ie
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 CHOOSING SCIENCE
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Study Science at Something for everyone! – – –
Benefits in ITT Dublin • • •
Great social life - small – class sizes enable you to – build a great social life in addition to the academic benefits We are committed to all aspects of the student life – academic, personal, social, cultural and sporting. We provide study clinics to help you understand academic issues that may be confusing you or holding you back. We don’t just deliver a course we support you through your course.
A flexible ladder system of programmes leading to nationally recognised qualifications Take it at your own pace! High employment potential and strong earnings
Requirements Honours Maths NOT essential Leaving Certificate Science subjects are an advantage but NOT essential
Choose the programme that is right for you! TA321 BSc Hons Pharmaceutical Science
TA324 BSc Hons Applied Chemistry
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TA311 BSc Science (Chemical Analysis OR Bioanalysis)) TA314 BSc Pharmaceutical Science TA315 BSc DNA and Forensic Science TA316 BSc Sports Science and Health
Progression Pathway
3 year direct entry
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TA301 Higher Certificate in Science (Applied Biology OR Applied Chemistry)
2 year direct entry For further information please log onto www.ittdublin.ie or e-mail ken.carroll@ittdublin.ie LIVE LINK
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THE CODE-BREAKER Prof Richard Reilly aims to by-pass our disabilities by using nothing more than thought to command devices. Seán Duke reports.
T
he decision to become a ‘biomedical engineer’ was prompted by witnessing how machines helped a family member cope with kidney disease while he was a teenager. These days, Richard Reilly, Professor of Neural Engineering at TCD, and a ‘stat’ of the Irish research scene, wants to de-code and intercept the language of the brain and then interact with it, so that people that can’t move their limbs can simply ‘think’ an action, and a machine will perform it. This work will entail gaining greater insights into how the brain communicates, and how that communication might change with age, or disease. In the future, thanks to people like Richard, it is possible that disabled people, seriously injured people, and people suffering from a range of diseases and disorders, could lead
more independent lives. Studies show thoughts can now be ‘read’ with a high degree of accuracy. This means that when a person thinks a word, such as ‘yes’, that brain scanning machines can — with an accuracy of up to 90 per cent — translate that thought as ‘yes. It seems reasonable to suppose that the accuracy levels will soon approach 100 per cent. Right now, a person that has, for example, become completely paralyzed from the neck down, following a car accident, has to rely on others to move their wheelchair or even to turn on the TV and change the channel. In the not-to-distant future, thanks to Prof Reilly and others, it is likely a person could move their own wheelchair
themselves, by thinking ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘forwards’, or ‘backwards’. Likewise the TV could be turned ‘on’ or ‘off’. It might seem basic to the rest of us, but for a paralyzed person this is a huge advance. There is a growing area of science that is seeking to explore ‘brain computer interfaces’. This can be broadly described as systems that allow the brain to control devices. Richard describes himself, somewhat surprisingly, as a “big critic” of work on such interfaces, as he believes that most of the researchers doing this
Faculty of Science and Engineering The Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Limerick invites you to share in the experience of our progressive and exciting campus near Limerick City. Five new exciting undergraduate honours degree programmes recently launched: LM087 Bsc Energy LM088 BSc Mathematics and Physics LM115 BE Chemical and Biochemical Engineering LM116 BE Engineering Choice LM117 BSc Science Choice LM118 BE Electronic and Computer Engineering l The University Mathematics Learning Centre, the Science Learning Centre and the ICT Learning Centre offer one-to-one support, additional tutorials, a drop-in centre and a supervised study area for all students. l Co-operative Education and Teaching Practice placements in industry, education and business for all undergraduate degree programmes. l World Class Engineering and Science Laboratory Facilities, Cultural and Sporting Facilities (including a 50m pool) and on-campus state-of-the-art student accommodation for some 2,500 students further enhance this exceptional learning and working environment. l Special Mathematics Entrance Exam for those who meet the CAO requirements for entry into all of our BEng and BSc courses but who did not achieve the requisite grade in Leaving Certificate mathematics. Exam date 25th August 2011. For a full list of all degree programmes and further information visit www.scieng.ul.ie Tel: 061 202642 or email Vicky.Kelly@ul.ie LLIVINEK
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kind of work are only focusing on the applications end of things, the devices or end products, rather than trying to explore and understand more about the neurology of the brain itself. The understanding of the brain must come first, before products Richard believes or it risks giving false hope to people.
SCHOOL
From Dublin, Richard attended St Conleth’s College, Clyde Road, Ballsbridge for both his primary and secondary education. He recalls some fantastic teachers, and small class sizes, with a great physics and chemistry laboratory. Richard’s dad, James Reilly, was an architect and his parents instilled in him from a young age, a love of architecture, and the history and legacy of ancient Greece and Rome. He vividly recalls visiting his father’s office and being fascinated by the set squares, huge drawing boards, and people putting their ideas down on paper. But, something was to happen to spark an interest in science. When he was 13 or 14 a close family member began to have difficulty with her kidneys, and Richard recalls visiting the hospital with her and seeing how machines purified her blood, transforming her from a lethargic state, to being full of ‘pep’ and ready to go. It made a lasting impression on him. He decided there and then that he would find out about how to get involved with machines that would interact with the body like that. This was the moment when his career path changed from architecture to biomedical engineering. The family member went on to have a kidney transplant. That was 1982; the year Richard did his Leaving Certificate. The operation was successful and the family member is alive and well today. That year of ’82 was also a year when Ireland – not unlike today – was in the grip of a savage recession, with an unstable government and cuts and job losses everywhere. However, for the teenage Richard none of that mattered. He was determined to pursue his passion, which he had identified by now as the emerging field of biomedical engineering. He recalls that it would have been far easier for him to do architecture, as with his father he had a route in to the profession and many excellent contacts. But, he chose to follow his passion. He did his research, in the pre-
Internet era, and discovered that there was a UCD electronic engineer called Prof Annraoí de Paor, doing research into how machines could be adapted to help humans. He wrote him a letter of introduction.
COLLEGE
Richard had great expectations of college, and perhaps because he had done extensive homework in advance, in terms of selecting his college and his course, it lived up to his expectations. His first year was in Belfield, but after that he was based in Merrion Street, in the city centre, where all the 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students lived in close proximity, almost “almost falling over each other”. This closeness meant he could see what others were doing in the projects, could ask questions, and decide who he’d like to work with. He enjoyed Merrion Street greatly. He chose a final undergraduate research year project working with the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire – which was to prove the start of a career-long connection – in the area of speech and language. He worked with stroke victims, people that often lose some power of speech. He built a ‘splint’ that could measure the impact of a person’s tongue on the alveolar ridge on the ridge of the mouth. This indicated how well a person could articulate ‘b’ and ‘c’ sounds. It was an objective measure of articulation that assisted the work of speech therapists. Richard won a prize for his research project from Hewlett Packard. It was a pivotal moment. Suddenly he was considering further research after his undergraduate degree, rather than going out immediately into the workplace. “That changed everything and I thought maybe this research side of things is interesting,” he recalled. He stayed on at UCD to do a M.Sc. with Prof Annraoi de Paor, the man he wanted to work with since his final year in school. They worked on an Irish language speech and language synthesizer.
NASA
At this point, Richard’s abilities had started to be noticed, and he was approached by a company called Space Technology Ireland, run by the famous Prof Susan McKenna Lawlor, now retired, at NUI Maynooth. He was offered a job in Paris to work on ‘signal processing’ for scientific satellites – to
be launched by NASA. He was based at the CNRS (Centre national de la recherché scientifique) in Paris at the Observatoire de Meudon. This was “incredibly exciting” and Richard went on to work on two space satellite projects. In Paris he enjoyed working on big scale projects, with big budgets, and huge planning — where everyone’s work impacted directly on everyone else, and all team members had to work backwards from a launch date. He spent two and a half years working in Paris, but, after a time, he decided he wanted to get back to his passion — biomedical engineering. He returned to Ireland to work on a PhD again with Prof de Paor. His research focused on determining whether he could ‘record’ communication signals from the brain. He again worked with the National Rehabilitation Hospital, primarily with people suffering from Motor Neuron Disease. Richard was now set clearly on the path to an academic career, and a post at UCD followed, and now he is Prof of Neural Engineering, based at TCD.
RESEARCH
Over the past decade or so, Richard’s research has been linked closely with St Vincent’s University Hospital, St James’s and The Mater hospitals, all in Dublin. Recently he has been working with Prof Tim Lynch at the Mater in the area of ‘deep brain stimulation’. This involves the implantation of a device, something like a pacemaker into a person and linking that device with the brain. The device stimulates the brain with electrical signals. Though researchers don’t fully understand why, this stimulation can greatly improve the physical symptoms of people suffering from Parkinson’s Disease and Essential tremor and Dystonia (the latter being a disease often associated in Ireland with Christy Brown, the writer of My Left Foot). This research is all part of trying to better understand how the brain processes information, and how the various parts of the brain communicate with each other. This understanding could lead to the development of systems that could help disabled people to control machines around them simply by ‘thinking’. The technology to facilitate this happening could be implanted in people’s brains, or connected externally.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 CHOOSING SCIENCE
AIT Relaunches its BSc (Hons) in
PHARMACeuTICAL SCIenCe James Roche
T
he PharmaChem industry is undoubtedly Ireland’s most valuable and stable industrial sector. It had exports of €42 billion in 2009 and employed more than 25,000 directly, with a similar number in support roles. With eight of the top ten global PharmaChem companies located here, the industry has an ongoing demand for graduates, frequently offering starting salaries of c€28,000. Based on the increasing demand for graduates who are qualified in pharmacology, biological sciences and chemistry, Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT) has revamped its honours degree in pharmaceutical science.
The BSc (Honours) in Pharmaceutical Science will now:
l Feature novel student-centred teaching approaches l Integrate teaching with the research activity of AIT and industry researchers l Utilise new state-of-the-art laboratory facilities l Comprehensively impart all aspects of product development activities l Impart hands-on, life-long skill sets in synthesis, formulation and analysis of all pharmaceutical ingredients l Uncover the challenges faced daily by industry scientists and present solutions, as well as methodologies to apply the
optimal experimental designs to address such challenges l Accept applications from holders of appropriate Level 6 and Level 7 awards for entry to year 3 and year 4 as appropriate
Learn answers to fundamental questions such as:
l Why are some drugs addictive and others create no such dependency? l How are drugs named? l What does strength or potency mean? l How is aspirin made? l How is it made into a tablet or other dosage form? l How does aspirin differ from ibuprofen or paracetamol? l How is it tested and certified for safety?
A Case Study – Would Aspirin Pass Muster Today? In an early expression of ethnopharmacology, a version of aspirin was extracted from the bark of the willow in medieval times for use as a painkiller. But this form was overly acidic for many uses and a more benign version is now chemically synthesized since the late 1890s. Aspirin is a widely used analgesic (painkiller) and also has antipyretic (fever reducing) and
anti-inflammatory properties. Despite its longevity and simplicity (it is structurally one of the smallest drugs), it continues to surprise and was recently cited to have certain anti-cancer (colon) effects, to go with earlier reports of anti-stroke properties. It is something of an anachronism in that many experts in toxicology would agree that were aspirin to be discovered today, it would possibly fail to satisfy the strict safety criteria laid down and requiring to be satisfied prior to drug approval. AIT’s BSc (Hons) in Pharmaceutical Science will comprehensively equip the student with the relevant skills to answer, or indeed manage a team of scientists, in seeking to define critical properties for such drugs. This course is unique in providing an integrated platform for the study of the preparation and fate of drugs in the body.
What Career Paths are Open for Graduates of Pharmaceutical Science?
Previous graduates are currently: Conducting PhD and MSc research in: l Pharmacognosy l Forensic anthropology l Formulation development l Pharmaceutical analysis
In full-time employment as: l Synthetic chemists l Active pharmaceutical ingredient characterisation l Preformulation screening l Chromatographic scientists l Toxicology and bioanalytical specialists
Application to the BSc (Honours) in Pharmaceutical Science is through the CAO (code: AL053). For further information visit
www.ait.ie/science James Roche is a lecturer in the Department of Life and Physical Science, AIT.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 CHOOSING SCIENCE
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Already, it is possible for disabled people to control machines, or devices, by thinking, albeit in a limited way. For example, it is possible to change the channels on the TV, or to turn something on or off. In the USA, it is ethically possible to do research on human volunteers – which is not possible in Europe – and this has enabled researchers to implant dense electrodes in the cortex of living people and ‘translate’ brain patterns. In Europe, researchers must work with electrodes on the skull of human volunteers. This reduces the options for researchers in Ireland like Richard, but he believes he can still make progress. In Europe research tends to use 512 electrodes placed around the heads of human volunteers – in a skull cap kind of arrangement. Then experiments can be set up using EEG and fMRI brain scanning – brain imaging methods that have improved greatly
in recent years. These brain scanning machines are providing more and more precise information on the way communication happens within the brain. The idea now is to intercept this information as it travels back and forth around the brain and ‘decode’ it.
therefore, always in close proximity to his students. It is also very satisfying that many of his former students are scattered all over the world, and that this network provides new research opportunities.
JOB
Despite Ireland’s current woes, Richard still believes there is “no comparison” between 1980s and today, in terms of the infrastructure available to support science and the opportunities for researchers to pursue their passion. “When you are at the lab and writing papers and reading papers it is immaterial what is happening outside the door, said Richard. “We may not have as many opportunities for new grants and new things, but there will always be interest and passion for doing things. That won’t change at all.”
Richard loves his work, and to say he simply enjoys it would be inaccurate. The great thing about being a scientist, he said, is that the scientist can define his own destiny, that there is always an adventure, and when experiments are set up and performed, it is never possible to know what is around the corner. It is important to select research projects carefully, he added, as there is simply not enough time in the day to do everything. One of the things he enjoys most about his job is interacting with postgraduate students, and being in the lab. He has an office in his lab, and is,
FUTURE
The eternal stove
Marie-Catherine Mousseau reports that Séamus O’Shaughnessy has been developing a way to generate power while cooking.
S
éamus O’ Shaughnessy is working in TCD on a challenging but exciting project: Designing, developing and manufacturing a device that could be used by people in the developing world to produce cheap electricity . Basically, the idea is to directly exploit the energy that they use to cook their food – that is the heat emitted during biomass combustion in a stove; hence the name of the project: ‘The Eternal Stove.’ “Approximately 80 per cent of the heat generated in a stove is released to the atmosphere,” said Séamus. The device, integrated in the stove, would use what is called a thermoelectric generator (TEG) to convert some of this waste heat directly to electricity. A TEG module is similar to a solar photo voltaic cell, in that it is used to produce electric current directly from energy. When it is connected to a heat source, some of the heat is absorbed by the material and converted directly to electricity (an effect discovered by
a German, Thomas Johann Seebeck, in 1821 but only exploited in the last 25 years). Séamus ‘s resesearch is all about creating a device which would transfer heat through the TEG to generate electricity , and provide the most amount of electricty for the lowest cost. He explained: “the device will transfer waste heat to the hot side of the TEG. Swift removal of heat from
the cold side of the TEG maintains a flow of energy through the device.” This flow of energy prevents the TEG from overheating and breakdown. But most importantly it is some of this energy flow which is converted to electricity. Séamus enjoys what he is doing. As he put it, “there is a sense that this research and development could
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 CHOOSING SCIENCE
Science @ GMIT, Galway Campus The reasons students give for choosing GMIT@Galway to do their Science degree include:
Field Trips
Students of the Freshwater & Marine Biology course complete numerous fieldtrips at home and abroad.
Projects
Extensive exposure to project work develops skills such as critical thinking, decision making, project management and planning – skills much sought after by employers.
Industrial Placement
Placement at home or abroad: All degree courses now have an industrial placement integrated into the programme. This gives students valuable work experience and helps them develop exciting and well paid careers.
Practicals
Practical laboratory work forms a major part of all programmes – this gives students an excellent science education and helps students build up marks as they progress through each year of study.
Small class sizes
– this helps provide an excellent learning environment.
Good employment record
– look at some of our graduate profiles in the college prospectus. The applied nature of our courses, and the high level of practical and project work that are an inherent feature of our courses, puts our graduates in a great position to develop exciting careers in a range of areas.
www.gmit.ie/science
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significantly improve the lives of so many people. I would like to think that my research would be responsible for a positive change in somebody’s life.” He continued: ‘When you consider how many people hate their job, I’m lucky to like mine so much.’ But was this really luck? Séamus O’Shaughnessy did not go into science by chance. “I have always been interested in science. From an early age I was interested in subjects such as astronomy and physics. I’ve always enjoyed mathematics, but mostly I like the discovery aspect of science — everything can be questioned or improved or redesigned,” he said. “ Science is pretty much essential to everything...” he added. Following his taste for design and improvement, Séamus studied engineering in Trinity College Dublin. Like all engineering students, for the first two years of the course he studied aspects of civil, electronic, mechanical and computer engineering. “But of all the branches of engineering on offer in Trinity, mechanical engineering appealed to me most,” he reckoned. And in my opinion, it also offers the widest range of career paths.” So mechanical engineering was his choice for the final two years, before starting a PhD in the field of heat transfer and fluids. Séamus’ idea of doing a PhD was to work on his own project. But as he put it, “I was conscious that a PhD can constrain or pigeonhole a researcher to a specific field,” he said. After four years, he aspired to work on something new. As it happens, his PhD supervisor Dr. Tony Robinson was also working on something new; what’s more, it was right up Séamus’ street, the area of heat transfer. As Séamus’ PhD was nearing completion, ‘the eternal stove‘ project was still in its infancy. The idea of electrification from biomass burning stoves came from a trip that Tony led to Malawi. “An earlier project of ours looked at how we could generate electrical energy from the heat of the sun to power a small light for studying or socializing at night in rural Africa,” explained Tony. “We could not engineer this device to make it affordable for our target market,” he continued”, “but the trip gave us high insight as to how real people in the field might use a stove generator.” After they returned to
Dublin, Irish Aid realised that a device like this could play an important role in reducing some of the negative impacts of cooking. “The stove burns more cleanly, producing significantly less particles, which has a big impact on health. It could reduce indoor air pollution caused by unvented stoves associated with diseases such as bronchitis, or lung cancer”, Tony said. Irish Aid asked them to develop and produce some demonstration devices for evaluation. But designing such a device means having to tackle many different tasks: 1 — heat exchanger design ( for both heat capture and removal) 2 — computational modelling of the heat exchangers, 3 —experimental investigation of the effect of device integration with the stove up 4 — Lab validation, and manufacture of a prototype. Séamus described what all these tasks mean on a day to day basis: “Mostly our work concerns stove characterisation and heat exchanger modeling.” This part would be done on computers, but they also conduct experiments where they actually burn wood to investigate the thermoelectric generators themselves. “In a typical wood-burning experiment we perform a water boil test. This allows us to measure how efficient a particular stove design is in boiling water, and thus ‘rank’ various stove designs,” Séamus explained. “We have also conducted some emissions testing to calculate the amount of certain types of pollutants produced during the burn,” he continued. “Ultimately, we need to discover the best place within a stove to fit our device, and whether this has any undesired impact on the usability of the stove in general.” Of course they don’t want their device to increase the time it takes to cook nzema , the local food staple. Séamus is glad that this project involves the design and development of a product. “Essentially it’s R&D, and that’s where I see my career heading,” he said ” I was given a lot of freedom in my research project to investigate the aspects that interested me, and I really enjoyed it.” This doesn’t mean he loves everything he is doing. Conducting experiments of course is not always a piece of cake. “I don’t like how a stove-
burning experiment means I stink of smoke for the rest of the day!”. But he reckoned there are other practical aspects that are much more enjoyable: “During my PhD I had the opportunity of travelling to conferences worldwide and present my work to audiences of my peers. It was wonderful experience and I got to see so many amazing places and meet a variety of people from all types of backgrounds and cultures.” The Eternal Stove should give him the opportunity for more travel. Soon the device will be presented to the US governement, as part of a global project, called the ‘Global Alliance for Clean Cookstove’.” This is a UN sponsored programme to deploy up to 100 million price subsidised stoves in the developing world in order to reduce pollution, deforestation and increase health and nutritional diversity,” said Wayne O’Connell , the Project Manager. “The Irish Government (through Irish Aid) are playing a leading role and the School of Engineering in Trinity College is proud to be technically supporting this effort,” he pointed out. Then once fully ready ( in three to four months), the prototype will be shipped to Malawi where a three month study will be undertaken to measure both its techncological and societal impact. As Wayne put it, “it is all well and good if we design a stove that works very efficiently in a lab, but what is important to the users is how the device performs in their and home improves their cooking experience.” As for Séamus, he’d like to continue in R&D; “obviously working for a well-established company would be great. Long term I’d like to start my own consultancy company once I’ve got some more experience.” He has one regret though. “Not a regret as such, but I think that to further my career I’ll have to leave Ireland in the next couple of years as the opportunities here for quality R&D are so limited.” He’s probably like so many others, who feel that travelling is fun and stimulating but need to know they have a home to come back to and settle down. Hopefully one day he will.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 CHOOSING SCIENCE
Institute of Technology Carlow At the Institute of Technology Carlow (ITC), every effort has been made to combine a stress-free location with top-level tuition and facilities that are state of the art in a number of key disciplines. Located less than an hour from Dublin and serving a catchment area of 700,000 people, ITC had the third highest number of CAO applications of any Institute of Technology in the country this year. The Institute has a student population of approximately 5,000 with a diverse portfolio of taught programmes in science, engineering and business.
Department of Science and Health
The Department of Science and Health (DSH) at ITC is a dynamic, focused and innovative Department providing a flexible suite of courses from levels 6-10. The Department is characterised by its niche areas of expertise, student support and practical career focussed programmes. Lectures are supported by practical classes with group tuition giving students unparalleled access to academic staff, all of whom are active in research or curriculum development. Graduates from all of our programmes have the opportunity to continue their studies at postgraduate level. The Department is delighted to accept applications from school leavers, mature students, and part time applicants.
Biological, Biopharmaceutical, Forensic and Analytical Science DSH has been providing science programmes for almost 40 years and our graduates are working around the world as biotechnology, pharmaceutical, environmental, educational, analytical, and managerial professionals. The Department focuses on its’ strengths in biology and chemistry based streams and all programmes have an applied, practical, career orientated core. At level 8, we provide honours degrees in Environmental Science (CW168) and Biosciences with Bioforensics or Biopharmaceuticals (CW108). We also have level 6 and 7 awards in Analytical and Forensic Science (CW107), Biosciences (CW117), Pharmacy Technician Studies (CW116), Applied Biology or Applied Chemistry (CW126). All of our final year degree students undertake a commercially orientated research project and develop skills in project planning, team and individual research work, presentation skills and work place planning to prepare graduates for employment. In addition, final year students will also take part in a work placement module where they have the opportunity to apply their skills a real life context.
Sport, Exercise, Athletic Therapy and Rehabilitation
ITC has a long history of Health studies which began with the launch of its Higher Certificate in Physiology and Health Science (CW106) over twenty years ago. This programme remains one of the most popular level 6 courses in the country, providing a unique opportunity to study for a career in the applied health sciences. The vast majority of graduates go on to further study in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, sports rehabilitation, osteopathy, radiography, nutrition and dietetics. With growing participation in competitive and recreational sport the college launched its honours degree in Sport Rehabilitation and Athletic Therapy (CW188) in 2000, training graduates to become competent in supporting the
medical and para-medical professions in the rehabilitation of the injured athlete. Students benefit from a work placement, individual research project, and working in a real life on campus sports rehabilitation clinic. Graduates of the programme are eligible for membership of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), Athletic Rehabilitation Therapy of Ireland (ARTI) and the British Association of Sports Rehabilitators and Trainers (BASRaT). In 2008 the college launched a suite of degree programmes in Sport & Exercise – GAA, Rugby and Soccer (CW807, CW907, CW927) in association with Comhairle Laighean and the GAA, Leinster Rugby, the Irish Rugby Football Union and the Football Association of Ireland. These programmes combine coaching, fitness, player development and club administration with a broad based academic business or communications curriculum relevant to the development of the sport. Graduates are eligible to progress to the honours degree courses in Business or Communications and Public Relations at IT Carlow and will work in sports related business or public relations environments, games development, sports management; club development; personal coaching or fitness. An honours degree in Sports Science (CW178), which is the study of physiological, biomechanical and psychological influences on performance in sport and exercise is now available at DSH and it welcomed its first class of students in September 2010. Students study the application of scientific principles and techniques with the aim of improving sporting performance and the programme is suited to students with a genuine interest in the science of sport.
Postgraduate research at the Department of Science and Health
The Department of Science and Health also has an international record of MSc and PhD research and development in a range of areas including biotechnology, molecular ecology, environmental science, Mens’ health and rehabilitative sciences. Research scientists are examining different aspects of Mens’ health in Ireland to develop innovative and multi-disciplinary research and training programmes and the critical evaluation of the therapeutic practices and procedures employed by therapists in clinical practice. They also focus on cutting edge environmental research for pollution control, biofuel production and biomolecular monitoring and these active research groups ensure that undergraduate students are exposed to the most recent developments in science. Institiúid Teicneolaíochta Cheatharlach
INSTITUTE of TECHNOLOGY
CARLOW
At the Heart of South Leinster
www.itcarlow.ie LIVE LINK
Renewable energy, nanotechnology, space technology, computer animation and game development: A career for you? MyScienceCareer.ie is a new website which aims to provide resources for students, career guidance counsellors, teachers, parents and people of all ages who are interested in finding out more about a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Check out career profiles written by young professionals from all areas of science, along with useful resources such as video interviews, for some valuable insights into a career in science. Find out the difference between various sciencerelated jobs, what subjects you would need to study, what a typical day involves and what other areas could be open to you in the future by pursuing a career in STEM. Use the Resources section to direct you to some important websites that will help you to get more information on what colleges to consider, what points you may need and what options are open to you. Read about Ireland’s rich scientific history and famous Irish scientists of the past, as well as finding out more about our brightest Science Ambassadors of today.
www.MyScienceCareer.ie
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is an initiative of the national integrated awareness programme Discover Science & Engineering.
ReInventIng thInkIng Laura Tobin, Jessica Jones, Benedikt Minke, Jack Prenderville, and Binh Dang describe their experience at the recently launched UCD-TCD Innovation Academy. These PhD students were among the first to enroll in a module designed to foster innovation and creativity.
I
nnovation and entrepreneurship have, in the past, been mainly the domain of those enrolled in Business Studies. Increasingly however, universities are finding it necessary to ensure that their doctoral research students are sent into the real world with not only the new title of PhD to brag about amongst their friends and family, but also to have an education that has actual commercial value. This could not be more true for Ireland. There is an enormous opportunity in this country to kick-start the economy by utilising the specialised minds of local university research students, and by encouraging them to think innovatively and creatively in their research and beyond. This is the remit of the Innovation Academy and the business sectors, as well as the State and its agencies. The Innovation Academy is the educational centrepiece in a collaboration between TCD and UCD.
Top: The initial group of PhDs preparing to increase their capacity for innovation. Above: The authors with their sketch design for a better buggy. With little knowledge of what to expect, we, thirty curious multidisciplinary PhD students, enrolled in the inaugural module of the Academy on Creative Thinking and Innovation under the guidance Prof. Suzi Jarvis (UCD) and Prof. Paul Coughlan (TCD). So what was it actually like to be the guinea pigs in this brand new programme? Did we actually increase our capacity for innovation and creativity, and will it all be of any use? Nothing was promised but
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 39
Study makes a scholar; creativity and innovation make a difference.
“an innovative journey, no wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete creativity, constant risk, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success.” Unlike traditional classes, there were no rigid lesson plans, no previous knowledge required and thankfully no exams. The module has been designed to give the students the practical tools that they will need to set their research apart by being creative and innovative. The students were cross-pollinated into five-person teams comprising of both TCD and UCD students, coming from different research areas that are as diverse as archaeology and quantum mechanical physics. Throughout the week numerous guest speakers from various fields were invited to impart their knowledge. First up was Dr. Deveril from SMARTlab (University of East London) on using media to present a research point of view. The exercise given to us involved filming a short and yet coherent story about random objects from each group member and then showcasing the movie to other groups, making them guess what the story was about. For some ‘true’ science and engineering students, it was initially our instinct to resist these type of ‘artsy’ activities – some
to the extreme of questioning what the purpose was and even calling it a “total waste of time”. Yet, throughout a few hours of working together, we experienced the advantages of ‘creating’ collectively as a team (instead of locking ourselves in a lab and diving into our own works). More importantly, we came to realise that doing research itself is also an ‘artsy’ activity and our projects are like movies that need to deliver a message and make an impact, albeit big or small, to an audience. From coming up with (sometimes crazy) ideas to putting them into practice, researchers, just like film-makers, have to centralise their ideas around the audience that they are targeting, thus adding values to their works. This simple point, however, is often neglected by doctoral research students. In the real world beyond laboratories, unfortunately, not all products of creativity are given a positive reception even when they are commercially oriented. As a result competent PhDs must be able to present his/her products to the public effectively, and in many cases defend his/her products against the harsh critics. On the second day of the module, science journalist Seán Duke – contributing editor of Science Spin magazine – introduced us to the ‘cruel’ world of journalism and prepared us with strategies on how to make the best of a situation, even a bad one. Seán instructed each of the six teams to create a fictional product that could be presented later in a press conference. One of the teams founded EcoPlastiks, “a wonderful new indigenous company that manufactures oil-free plastics – Plastastic!” while another team came up with XtraLife as a magical longevity medicine. Each company then wrote a press release and held a press conference while other groups (perfectly) played the role of those journalists with an occupational disease of being doubtful about everything, including the company’s product. The harsh reality certainly did not end when Seán decided to create a fictional crisis for each company to see how we handled the situation. Another press release and disaster press conference had to be conducted, again with the presence of the ‘doubtful journalists’. As one member of Eco-Plastiks said, “Oil price drops down to 10c per barrel
Innovation depends on letting the ideas flow to come up with creative solutions which then have to be explained and defended against harsh critics. and it is not profitable to make oil-free plastics? That is simply crazy!” And yes, just as crazy as the idea of making oil-free plastics (for now), anything can happen and a PhD student really has to step out of his/her laboratory to be exposed and prepared for any possibilities and benefits they can hold. Next we were challenged with a task to redesign a baby stroller. (You hear it right! Biophysicists, neuroscientists, and the likes were asked to redesign a baby stroller!). Each team was given a specific area to focus on like hygiene and safety issues or style and comfort; to carry out this task, we were first required to perform a rather daunting mission of transporting a “child,” i.e. a 7kg bag of potatoes, on a sample stroller through the streets of Dublin city centre on a wet and not-so-pleasant day. Needless to say, this proved difficult and highlighted many of the set-backs with the modern-day baby stroller, as well as drawing some puzzled looks from passers-by. Upon returning to base, the students’ imagination went wild and the room soon became littered with post-its and white boards filled with radical new baby stroller designs. When it came to presenting the ideas, the students amazed their peers with ground-breaking innovative ideas from Segway-inspired strollers designed to carry mother and baby for the length of the M50, to strollers containing airbags for safety and pin codes to prevent kidnappings. Overall, the task inspired the students to get in touch with their creative sides as well as having a lot of fun.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 40
On to the next exercise, Prof. Suzi Jarvis handed out to her apprentices a mysterious brown envelope marked “Seed Funding” with strict instructions to make as much money as possible within two hours of opening the envelope. All sorts of schemes were drawn up and subsequently scrapped when it was realised that only €5 was the initial fund. One group turned to investing on a card-selling business while another invested the paltry sum into the London Stock Exchange. Yet, some groups thought outside the box and challenged the traditional assumption by not using the seed money at all. Instead of limiting themselves on “What can I do with €5?” they asked the question of how to make money if all they have are themselves and their skills. One group wanted to make use of their “common property” – The Innovation Academy – and ‘sold’ their story of being the guinea pigs in this brand new programme to a science magazine. At the end of the exercise, it was revealed that ‘thinking outside the box’ was indeed the take-home lesson. The students were encouraged to identify problems, challenge assumptions, leverage their limited resources (time and money), and most importantly: be creative. The last two weeks of the Academy comprised of individual projects assigned to each of the six groups. The projects were offered and mentored by institutions and companies with a focus on the Irish economy such as: ESB; Kila; Ceol; Dublin City Council;
“How the hell knows,” he answered (laughing). But, the decision was taken for very clear reasons, and he believes it was best for his career. At NASA, he would have gone up the ladder in a big “I was fascinated by atoms and molecules, but realised in college organisation, and could have ended up managing a spacecraft, for that physics told you more about atoms and that I could use my example. few opportunities for research. Covidien; and Sustainable Energy On reflection, positive resultsBut arethere werecold,… constant risk and safe return maths. In chemistry, I found it too abstract. The chemicals in the “It was a dream job at Goddard, but there was a barrier Authority Ireland (SEAI). From these still not guaranteed and no glossy doubtful,” but the distinction liestoin bottles didn’t help me understand how atoms worked.” me scientifically to be honest. I wanted to set up a research group projects, group chose their is promised; yet, there is one their willingness to try and in their That each first year in college, as for many people, future was a momentous that answer questions like, howinthe Sun produces explosions and favourite and then had ten days thing that is certain and it is the fact belief the power of creativity and one for Peter. He met the two loves of his life - Physics, and his solar flares? How do they affect the Earth when they go off ?” Heis totalented explorescientist and exploit project that the are now more innovation in making a change. That wife Drthe Emma Teeling. The love-life is athirty story students returned to Ireland in 2006, and first lectured at UCD. Then came opportunities. Most teamsofstarted thanasinspired on this new just what the Innovation Academy had for elsewhere, but in terms physics, Peter realised soon as to embarkthe chance to set up a group at TCD, he took it and now he is doing their projects a shotgun approach bitter wanted to achieve. he did physicswith in first year that he wanted to be ajourney. physicist.Still Thewith “no wages, exactly what he wants to do. toexam ideas, whiteboards were results, and reading thefilled ‘Brief History of Time’ by Stephen “I am constantly changed and have the opportunity to pursue during brainstorming Hawkins, lit his fire evensessions further. with my own interests. If you are driven by a question, then as an mind diagrams, andenough. He devoured Hemaps, read Hawkins, butpost-its, that wasn’t Jessica L.books Jones, PhD thesis, “Irishscientist fisheriesyou in the andtoearly modern period: The academic havemedieval the luxury pursue that question. pictures, which were then replaced and causes of decline” Trinity Long Room Hub, TCD relating to Physics. “I launched into astronomy andscale astrophysics,” travel is the fluff. I travel to Hawaii for meetings, but the stuff that with printouts more focused he said. “I took and books out even during the summer, and worked keeps awake the science paper beside Jack Prenderville, PhD thesis,you “The role at of night, endocannabinoid signaling in the bed because approaches. ByI the end of theI first through them. loved physics, couldn’t put them down.” That you don’t understand something – that’sInstitute the joy ofof the discovery of hippocampal dependent learning and memory” Trinity College week, all teams had singled out the kind of passion and commitment would lead him to do great things new things.” Neuroscience & Department of Physiology, TCD most feasible, most innovative and in coming years. The advice Peter would give to students considering science is most urgent problem to tackle, and Benedikt A. Minke, PhD thesis, fail to form that, aside“Why from do thecancerous academicepithelial life, therecells are many career options, produced a report. A presentation organized 3D structures?” Systems Biology Ireland, College of Life Sciences, UCD and many of them are rewarding. A recent astrophysics graduate of NASA and poster were also prepared for his, he said, is now working in a financial trading firm. There is the Peter chose to do a post-grad in opto-electronics at Queen’s the big launch on Friday the 19th of Binh H. Q. Dang, PhD thesis, “Development of visible light-active materials for IT sector, or teaching, or jobs in Ireland growing space industry. University in Belfast (QUB) after graduation. This was a hot area November, with invitations sent out hydrogen production by photo-electrochemical water splitting” SFI-Strategic Research He finishesSchool on an of optimistic note, from a person that describes the great time, back in 1996, and he learned optics,inlasers, Cluster Solar Energy Conversion/ Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering, toatthe and good. The launch was about fibre himself as ‘an unrelenting optimist”. “I am very optimistic about CCD cameras and the like. It was also a stimulating time to be UCD also open to the public as it formed the future for Ireland. I think we are going to explore new markets, in Belfast, and he was there for the signing of the Good Friday part of the Innovation Dublin Festival Laura L. Tobin, photovoltaic cells (Dyenew “Optoelectronic science and thatproperties ultimatelyof that will bring growth and Agreement in 1998. He came first in his class, and was offered a PhD thesis, 2010. solar cells)” SFI-Strategic Cluster in Solar Energy Conversion employmentResearch back to Ireland. I am very positive about the/next five PhD at QUB. The clincher was that the PhD wouldsensitised involve travel School of Electrical, Electronic years.” and Mechanical Engineering, UCD and interaction with NASA’s Goodard Flight Centre.
IDEAL FOR THE SCHOOL LIBRARY Rock around Ireland
Peadar McArdle describes the geology of Ireland. Paperback €15
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Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy explain all about colour. Paperback €15
SCIENCE SPIN What’s happening in Irish science? Who is doing the research? What’s happening in Europe and around the world? What’s it like to be a scientist? Answers to these and lots more in Science Spin, all Ireland’s magazine about science, nature and discovery. Great value sub, just €18 for six issues in print, and the on-line digital edition is free.
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SCIENCE Issue that 42 aPage mathematical talents. In addition, ESF SPIN report argues high 43 levelSchool Spin
Connecting industry with mathematics THE European Science Foundation wants maths to play a more prominent role in innovation. In a report just published, the Foundation recommends setting up a European institute for mathematics. Such an institute would help overcome the fragmentation that currently weakens mathematics research in Europe. The
institute would also act as a magnet for excellence and innovation. One of the problems with mathematics is that it is not so visible as other sciences, yet, as the report points out, mathematics is the essential ingredient in many consumer products. At present, SMEs find it hard to tap into mathematical expertise, and ESF maintains that having a high profile institute would make it a lot easier to get access to
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 41
ESF recommend allocating some of the forthcoming Framework 8 funds to applied mathematical projects. In Germany and Sweden support is given to start-ups based on mathematics, and the report suggests that this approach be adopted in other countries of Europe. The report is available at:
www.esf.org/publications
LIVE LINK
The Institute of Immunology, NUI Maynooth
P
icture the scenario! You get out of bed and immediately know that all is not well; pains all over, lethargic, feverish and the immediate desire to get back into bed. Ahhh!! The dreaded flu has struck again! You stay in bed for a few days and gradually recover to full health. So have you ever stopped to think about why you felt bad for a few days, then you get better and usually stay better. And yet presumably you are still being exposed to the virus that caused the flu symptoms in the first place. The answer lies in the world of Immunology, the study of our immune system. So if you want to study or perform research in this area then The Institute of Immunology at NUI Maynooth is the place for you. The Institute is a flagship research and education institute with collaborators stretching across the globe. The Institute is Ireland’s representative to the European Network of Immunology Institutes (ENII). The Institute currently constitutes 7 research groups comprising of ~40 researchers at Principal Investigator, postdoctoral fellow and PhD student level. The research in the Institute relates to the everyday lives of Irish people and ranges from studies on inflammatory diseases that are highly prevalent in Ireland, such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and asthma to early clinical studies on new vaccines and to learning how to fight infections. The Institute of Immunology is a national leader in PhD training and is the lead Institute in the only structured PhD programme in Immunology in Ireland. Directed by Prof. Paul Moynagh (Director, Institute of Immunology), the HRB funded programme represents a partnership of The Institute of Immunology (NUI Maynooth), The School of Biochemistry and Immunology (Trinity College Dublin) and Division of Infection and Immunity (Queens University Belfast). This Tri-Institutional programme contains 25 research groups encapsulating some of the best basic and clinical immunology in Ireland. Industry strongly supports the programme with active participation from companies spanning interests in drug discovery and development, diagnostics, biopharmaceutical/vaccine manufacturing and antibody-based therapeutics and services. HRB has committed funding of ₏5 million to the programme to support the training of 24 PhD students.
One of the emerging strengths in the Institute of Immunology is in the area of Global Health and the study of diseases that devastate the developing world. To this end the Insitute of Immuniolgy offers the only national MSc programme in Immunology and Global Health. This programme was recently awarded the 2010 Winner of the GradIreland Postgraduate Course of the Year in Science and Engineering. The MSc programme is targeted at biological and health science graduates who are interested in the major challenges in health and development today and who wish to broaden their understanding of immunology, its importance in global health and the factors that impact on immunological intervention strategies in health and disease. An important component of the course covers emerging and re-emerging diseases including diseases of poverty. This has proved a very popular programme with demand for places on the course increasing year on year. The Institute of Immunology is also a lead partner in The Combat Diseases of Poverty (CDP) Consortium. Co-led by the Institute of Immunology and the Department of Anthropology at NUIM, the Consortium was awarded major funding from Irish Aid under the Programme of Strategic Cooperation between Irish Aid and Higher Education and Research Institutes, 2007-2011. CDP constitutes a unique cluster of scientific, academic and NGO professional expertise, along with partners in the private sector, working together to build educational capacities for combating diseases of poverty, with the initial focus on east Africa. The programme covers trainer training and exchanges between Ireland and East Africa and dissemination of information on global health and development to the broader public. At the Institute of Immunology our goal is to perform world class research and be an internationally recognised centre for posgraduate education in Immunology. However we also want to integrate with the wider community. If you have an interest in Immunology or in any of our activities call us! We would be delighted to chat. For more information see http://immunology.nuim.ie/. http://research.nuim.ie/
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 42
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SPIN ACTIVE APPLIED STI
Graphene raphene is an amazing
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material, transparent, just one atom thick, yet so dense that atoms of helium cannot pass through it, an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, and stronger than any other material. No wonder scientists are excited, yet, as the two researchers who won the 2010 Nobel Prize for their work on this material were able to demonstrate, graphene has always existed, but everyone assumed that it was impossible to isolate. For some time, the two Russian born researchers, Konstantin Novoselov, and Andre Gelm, had been collaborating, first in The Netherlands, and then in the UK, where both are now professors at the University of Manchester. Graphene is a form of carbon, in which the atoms are arranged in a sheet, forming a pattern of hexagonals. If we could see graphene, it would look just like a sheet of chicken wire. Sheets are so thin that three million layers would only stack up to one millimeter. Because the layers are barely held together, it is relatively easy to strip them off, and this is more or less what we all do when drawing with a pencil. We actually write with graphene. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, suspecting that it might actually be quite easy to strip off thin sheets of graphite, were undoubtedly
amazed to find that a bit of adhesive tape could do the trick. By repeatedly applying adhesive tape, the scientists stripped away the layers, until they were left with some sheets that were, indeed, just one atom thick. Examination of defraction of light under the microscope, confirmed that they had isolated a truly twodimensional crystalline material, and although it was made up from billions of carbon atoms, they were locked into stable one-dimensional pattern. The scientists, of course, had not discovered graphene, like diamonds and buckeyballs it is a naturally occurring form of carbon, but what they did reveal is that it is possible to isolate and manipulate this material. Up to then, it was thought that graphene could not be produced in isolation, and if it could, the single atom sheets would be so unstable that they would simply crinkle or roll up. Since the sticky tape success in peeling off microscopically tiny flakes, various other methods of stripping off sheets have been developed and
If you ever wondered by carbon is such a remarkable element, science communicator, Jonathan Hare, has produced a short video explaining how we get diamonds, buckeyballs, nanotubes, and the form that has created such enormous interest recently, graphene. Jonathan’s video, produced for the Vega Science Trust, is at: LIVE http://www.cost.eu/library/videos/Graphene-and-the-Carbon-Revolution LINK
Pocket anatomy
A software application enabling viewers to navigate around and through the human body has won a major media award. The Galway developers of Pocket Body were presented with with the Special Award for Media in Education at the MEDEA 2010 event in Brussels. The awards attracted 141 entries from 31 European countries with the finalists coming from Belgium, Estonia, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the UK. The award, said Pocket Anatomy CEO and founder, Mark Campbell, is a real honour and a great credit to a talented team. Developing the application involved close collaboration between the company, GMIT graduates, NUIG medical students.
refined, and using techniques applied to make semiconductors, rolls of up to 70 cm have been produced. The carbon bonds are extremely strong, yet they are flexible enough to allow the network to be stretched by 20 per cent, and because the material is pure, electrons do not have to bounce around as they travel through, so graphene is an excellent conductor. Electrons travelling though graphene behave as if they have no mass, so they pass along at the speed of light, and for this reason alone, scientists believe that they will be able to study the sort of phenomena that up to now required the use of a large particle accelerator. Among the many potential uses of graphene is as a replacement for silicon. Chips are getting smaller, and as scale goes down, silicon will cease to perform, but graphene has a much lower limit. On a larger scale, graphene is likely to appear in transparent touch screens, and solar panels, and the mechanical properties are likely to lead to tougher, conductive, plastics. As is usually, if not always the case of significant discoveries, Geim and Novoselov did not set out to come up with any practical applications, but were driven by curiosity. Their sense of play is strong, and creative. Before the Nobel, there was the Ig nobel, a tongue-in-cheek award for researchers who come up with seemingly daft ideas that make people laugh first, and then think. By making a frog levitate in a magnetic field, Andre Geim came up with an attention grabbing way to illustrate some basic physics.
Dr Brendan Wilkins, anatomy lecturer supervised third and fourth year medical students, Robyn Concannon, John Duignan, Jacqueline Driscoll, Mark Gurney, and Paula Wrafter in preparing the content. The application can serve as a teaching aid, and provides anatomical content on demand from portable devices. The musculoskeletal anatomy is presented in a series of multi-layered photo-realistic illustrations. The application, which sells for about â‚Ź8, is available for different platforms, including the Mac iPad, and is available for downloading from the iTune store.
SPIN ACTIVE APPLIED STI
Sourcing products
Investing in R&D
The target of investing three per cent of our gross domestic product in R&D is not good enough, claims Dr Craig Barret, chairman of the Irish Technology Leadership Group. The group, established in 2007, is made up of senior company executives from the US and Ireland, and is based in California. The former CeO of Intel, speaking at an innovation seminar at NUI Galway in November, said that without a serious commitment, we cannot expect to keep up with the world’s more business savvy nations. Microsoft, he said, had a research budget of about $8 billion a year, and that is more than the whole of Ireland spends on R&D. Israel is spending five per cent of its GDP on R&D, and as Dr Barret observed the investment is paying off. Compared to less than 40 new companies from europe listed on the US stock exchange (NASDeQ), Israel has 140.
LINKS
AS Dr David Kavanagh from UCD has observed, buying scientific products is not as easy as it could be. his view, based on his own experience as a researcher is that sourcing of lab and scientific supplies is not efficient, and for many products prices are excessively high because there is no real competition. For scientists, he said, this is a serious problem because it reduces the amount of funding available for research. The same sort of economic rules that apply in a supermarket simply do not exist for scientific products.
To solve that problem, Dr Kavanagh has been working on a computerised product discovery engine, and he has been reviewing supply listings. As he explained, the initial focus is on products for the life sciences, and the aim is to provide a one-stop web-based shop window. This has now been launched as Scrazzle.com, and is being run by a NovaUCD campus spin off company, set up by Dr Kavanagh and Paul Phillips. Dr Kavanagh said that further development will bring in specialised services and broaden the coverage into other areas of science.
Andy Pollak at Queen’s University Belfast is Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies, and in a recent issue of the Belfast Telegraph he came across some telling figures. The figures, comparing earnings in the Republic and Northern Ireland, are all in £s Sterling. ROI NI Contributory pension £195 £97 Jobseekers allowance £166 £65 Child benefit, 1st £127 £88 hospital consultant 1st year £156,000+ £74,000 Secondary School Principal £80,500+ £55,800 University professor £100,000+ £60,000
Ignite
GRADUATeS who aim to set up a business are being offered professional guidance through IGNITe, a new centre based at University College Cork. A twelve month programme, backed by the Cork enterprise Boards, the Cork Chamber and others is open to all recent graduates from any third level instutution. There are a limited number of places, and the plan is to select just 10 participants every year. http://ignite.ucc.ie LIVEK LIN
Looking for a partner to help with expansion here or abroad, or have you technology that would help an Irish SME to expand?
Mobility sensor
SeNSORS can detect when elderly people fall, but current designs are not efficient and they are intrusive. Visible devices stigmatise users as ‘needy’. To overcome these problems, an unobtrusive wireless fall sensor has been developed at the University of Limerick. The new sensor can accurately differentiate normal activities from genuine falls. For full information contact Conor Morris, Technology Transfer Officer, University of Limerick. LIVE conor.morris@ul.ie LINK Tel: 061 234842. email: conor.morris.ie
Herbal drinks
ReSeARCheRS at UCD would like to share knowledge and expertise with commercial producers of herbal beverages. The researchers have developed production processes that can be used to make safe and healthy drinks. For more details contact: Kieran Downey at Teagasc Moorepark. email: kieran.downey@teagasc.ie LIVE LINK
Notices for inclusion in LINKS are welcome, but they must be brief, to the point, and of genuine interest to Irish SMEs. Email: mail@sciencespin.com
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 44
Food pathogens
ReSeARCheRS at Athlone’s Institute of Technology have demonstrated that high-intensity pulsed electric fields (PeF) is capable of killing food any pathogens present in highenergy sip feeds and infant formula. The process has been optimised to produce a 5-6 log reduction of a range of food pathogens under different conditions in test feeds. PeF offers an alternative to thermal treatment of food products. Details from Dr John Rae, Food Research Centre, Teagasc, Dublin 15. Tel: 01 8059564. email: john.rae@teagasc.ie LIVE LINK
Wake up and smell the roses By Ameena Riham
D
Wake up and smell the roses, a highly commended essay from the RDS McWilliams Young Science Writers’ competition.
oes the softly floral and yet sophisticated and sultry Chanel No.5 perfume make your heart skip a beat? Would you prefer the rejuvenating and feminine Chanel Chance Eau Tendre, which is bound to leave you on a fruity note? Or is it the purely masculine Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue pour homme with a hint of Mediterranean sensuality that does the job? In essence,what I’m trying to unveil is the mysterious properties of the mere bottled package of scents that takes you to a place far away or makes you more aware of your surroundings. Makes one stride along with their head held high, and a beat to their steps, or brings out the refreshingly unique and young at heart. All this, subsequently begs the question, how can something like smell possibly affect us to such a degree? According to Wikipedia, Olfaction, also known as the sense of smell, is the ability of humans and other animals to perceive odours. However, we are often misled, as to how gravely it can affect us. For example, did you know that onion’s and apple’s tastes resemble closely, once nose plugged and blindfolded? Have you ever wondered why food seems flavourless when you’ve caught a cold? It must’ve been your taste bud’s fault, right? Wrong! Once food is inserted into your mouth, odour molecules from that food travel through the passage between your nose and mouth to the olfactory receptor cells. If mucus in your nasal passages becomes too thick, air and odour molecules can’t reach your olfactory receptor cells. Thus, your brain receives no signal identifying the odour, and everything you eat tastes much the same. You can feel the texture and temperature of the food, but no messengers can tell your brain, “This hot, liquid substance is in fact Knorr Chicken soup.” So, who was to blame in the first place, your stuffy nose of course.
As a matter of fact, Seventy to seventy-five percent of what we call taste, is smell. Taste buds allow us to perceive only four basic taste sensations - salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and a fifth sensation called Umami (savoury). Flavour is the term used for the sensory impression of a food or other substance, and is determined mainly by the chemical senses of taste and smell. Since the ability to distinguish various foods relies predominantly on the sense of smell, we can conclude that smell not only influences but is an integral part of flavour. Once an odour is experienced along with a flavour, the two become associated; thus, smell influences taste and taste influences smell. For example, vanilla is often associated with something sweet. Smell has also been known to affect people’s moods. When we smell something, we don’t only perceive the sensation of odour itself but we mainly associate it with experiences and emotions. “For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories and it is a pity that we use it so little”- Rachel Carson (American nature writer). Because of the unique way in which our sense of smell delivers stimuli, the incoming aromas first trigger an emotional response, which is then followed by an analytical recognition. This is the reason why we first respond to the calming effect of lavender before we can identify the specific scent. Pleasant smells such that of freshly baked cookies and cakes in Marks and Spencer are used to encourage customers. I know this for a fact, because of the many times I have foolishly followed my sense of smell, and ended up buying a selection of white chocolate chip cookies, milk chocolate chip cookies, pistachio and almond cookies, toffee and pecan cookies and even more
Burning incense at a temple in Beijing. Wikepedia.
chocolate chip cookies, and I can assure you that wasn’t the only time that has happened before. Yes! I was a victim of what is known as scent marketing. It is a new way of enforcing a company’s brand identity on the memory of the consumer as not just a logo but an olfactory experience. Smells can trigger certain bad moods too that could lead to migraines and headaches, but some smells can just turn your day right around. For example, sinking into a warm chamomile scented bath. This is also called Aromatherapy. Although we may not realise it, many of us use aromatherapy, whether it is in the form of a scented candle, perfume, scented body lotion or the use of incense. It consists of using the concentrated essences of aromatic plants, called essential oils. When inhaled, the properties of the oil determine what stimulation occurs and in which system – memory, breathing, blood circulation and the endocrine glands. Studies have actually shown marked differences in brain waves and physical activity after people have been exposed to different scents. But, since we start making olfactory memories as a child, just one whiff of a familiar smell, is all it can take, to trigger a very distinct reaction, good or bad. Although olfactory sensitivity generally declines with age, pleasant fragrances have been found to have positive effects on mood in all age groups. Scent experts use physical and emotional reactions along with scientific research to determine the effect of certain smells. The truth of the matter is that the experience of smell in itself is subjective. The global fragrances and perfumes market, projected to reach US $33.6 billion by the year 2012, as stated by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., is striving to cater for the growingly demanding population with a variety of scent- preferences, from fruity, to floral, to musky, to Mediterranean. After all, choice is all the hype now. Echoing a commonly used idiom, one man’s fragrance is another man’s nausea. For example, some of us share a violent dislike for odours generally regarded as pleasantly alluring - lemons, flowers and vanilla, and an unlikely craving for odours generally regarded as an offensive turnoff – petrol, varnish, cigarettes, and even body perspiration. In reality, every single one of us have our own unique odouridentity or “smell fingerprint,” except for identical twins. This is determined by many factors including: our genes, skin type, diet, medicine, mood state and even the weather. So, what do you reckon the chances are that you give off a certain Eau de ‘You’, which is the reason why you appeal or do not appeal to that special someone? Many! Since a women’s sense of smell is keener than a man’s, it doesn’t come as a surprise, that when it comes to women and attractiveness, smell turns out to be the number one physical factor, as well as the most important social factor, aside from pleasantness. It seems men can also tune in to the important scent messages given off by a woman, but they tend to rely
more on their eyes. Nonetheless, all smells have an arousal component – When you smell something favourable or not, that message is sent directly to your brain and into your limbic system, where feeling of pleasure and happiness are derived. Anything you smell directly affects your levels of arousal because of this instant messaging system. Hence, smell is often known as the sense most closely associated with our emotions. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula for a one-hit wonder odour, proven to win hearts over, as it relies hugely on each individual’s likes and dislikes. Love at first smell, don’t you think? The association between certain smells and certain emotions may also be because of the memories that bind them together. “Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes….Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.” – Diane Ackerman (“A Natural History of the senses”). Yes, odours do affect people’s mood, work performance and behaviour in a variety of ways. Although, it is not necessarily because of its medicinal values, or soothing qualities, it is also because of its association with a certain event or because of an individual’s past experiences. Smells evoke vivid memories and believe it or not people recall smells with 65 per cent accuracy after a year, while the visual recall of photos sinks to about 50 per cent after only three months. If so, is it not worth finding out whether a certain smell can affect you even in your state of sleep, or more specifically, affect your dreams? German researchers from the University of Heidelberg have reported that when people smelled the scent of rotten eggs while sleeping, the nature of their dreams turned decidedly negative, while those who got a whiff of the scent of roses had more positive dreams. “We were able to stimulate the sleeper with high concentrations of positively and negatively smelling odours and measure if the stimuli were incorporated into the dreams and changed the emotional tone of dreams,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Boris Stuck, “We found that the sleeper hardly ever dreamed of smelling something. Nevertheless, the emotional tone of the dream did change depending on the stimulation.” Another aspect of the sense of smell, worth exploring, is called déjà vu. It is a French word that has commonly fallen under the misconception, that it only relates to the already seen, when it in fact, regardless of the contradiction in terms, relates to when a sight, sound, taste or even smell of something makes us think that we’ve experienced it before, although we know that we couldn’t have. It was in November 2006 that University of Leeds researchers reported for the first time the case of a blind person
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experiencing déjà vu through smell, hearing and touch. Fact is that the greatly underrated power of human sense of smell is important enough to evoke its own form of déjà vu! Aside from how smell affects taste, moods, dreams and attraction, our insightful study into aromatherapy, the essential link between memories and smells, and an enlightening look at déjà vu in the form of smell, I found it interesting to delve into a highly distinctive portion of the human sense of smell, the absence of it! The human sense of Smell! One of the senses most overlooked, despite being one of the most powerful. Since the olfactory system is in the brain, the sense of smell is closely tied to memory, mood, stress and concentration. Your sense of smell is 10,000 times more sensitive than any other sense. So much so, that with every breath, your sense of smell is at work, even when you’re sleeping. Smells influence our choices in numerous ways. It affects us in our perception of others and attraction to others. It warns us of many hazards such as a gas leaks, poisonous fumes, fire and even spoiled food. It even lets us enjoy innumerable scents such as freshly baked apple pies in the afternoons and the aroma of Domino’s thin crust pepperoni pizza, eaten right out of the box. References: Scent marketing - www.letsgetscented.com www.wiki.medpedia.com/smell_disorders http://www.thesoslab.com/facts-part-2.asp http://www.thesoslab.com/facts-part-1.asp www.dolcegabbana.com www.bbc.co.uk/science news.health.com - Heidelberg University research Rachel Herz - The Scent of Desire: Discovering our enigmatic sense of smell International Business Times – www.ibtimes.com – Global Industry Analysts Inc. Report Science.howstuffworks.com Diane Ackerman – A Natural History of the senses
With the loss of the sense of smell, you can expect there will be a loss in your sense of taste as well. The experience of changes in how you sense odours, Hyposmia – reduced ability to detect odours, sensing of an odour that isn’t present at all, and Anosmia – inability to detect odours at all, are all what you call smell disorders. Some of the common causes of these include aging, exposure to certain chemicals, sinus infection, a head injury, hormonal disturbances (i.e. pregnancies), dental problems and the intake of certain medications. The Associated Press has even identified certain smell disorders as what researchers believe is one of the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Having read the above, it is pointless to list out the many benefits of our unparalleled sense of smell. Instead, I implore you, to ‘wake up and smell the roses’ while you can. Later might just be too late!
www.britannica.com www.askmen.com www.associatedcontent.com www.senseofsmell.org www.scientificamerican.com www.reachoutmichigan.org www.abc.net.au www.scentsationaltechnologies.com Marks and Spencer The Perfume shop www.leeds.ac.uk – University of Leeds research www.nidcd.nih.gov Oxford English Dictionary
Incense being used during ceremonies at Varansi, India. Image: Ampersandyslexia.
Ameena Riham, is a student at Ardscoil Mhuire, Ballinasloe, Co Galway Her entry, in the 14 to 16 year old Science Report category was Highly Commended.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 47
SCIENCE
SNAPS Winning photographs The wonder of small science
Science Leap from Bernard dunne, Naas, Co Kildare, 1st General Public Category.
Cool Crystals by cynthia ebere–anaba, Coláiste Choilm, Ballincollig, Cork. 2nd Senior Cycle category.
Sunflower Leaf from daniela maskova, Rathmines, Dublin. 2nd in General Public category.
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SPIN
Bubble Reflections by Kim Broderick, Coláiste Choilm, Ballincollig, Cork. 2nd, Junior Cycle category.
Science Snaps is a photograpic competition organised by the Tyndall National Institute at University College Cork. The competition is supported by Discover Science & Engineering and is sponsored by Inspire, the Integrated NanoScience Platform for Ireland. Science Snaps prizes and exhibitions were sponsored by DSE, Dell, Bus Éireann and CPL.
An Eye for Nano Science from Sinead O’Neill, Sixmilebridge, Co Clare. 1st in Senior Cycle, St Finnan’s College.
Coloured Transpiration by Katie Riordan, Coláiste Choilm, Ballincollig, Cork. 1st Junior Cycle category. Image: Coloured Transpiration.
SPIN
FIELD TRIPS Megalithic remains, such as this one, merge into the stony landscape. landscape and its wonderful wildlife on foot. For more information on the Burren visit www. burrenbeo.com.
COunTy CLARE
Science field trips are a great way to enthuse your pupils about the world of science and nature. We are exceptionally lucky in Ireland to have so many attractions of scientific interest within easy reach and a few short days away can provide a huge range of teaching and learning opportunities. In each issue of School Spin, we will focus on a particular areas of the country, highlighting the scientific attractions accessible within the area. This issue’s suggested field trip activities are all within Co. Clare.
C
o. Clare has an abundance of activities for the science and nature enthusiast and is a brilliant place for a science, or more specifically, a biology field trip. A three day visit to Co. Clare can provide a jam packed itinerary for a school trip, which can be targeted specifically at science or made cross-curricular. Here are some suggested places to visit:
The Burren
The Burren, which means “Stoney Place”, is one of the most unique areas of Ireland, both geologically and biologically. It was formed over 340 million years ago, during the Carboniferous Period, at the bottom of a warm, shallow sea. The limestone pavement, for which the Burren is famous, was formed by the calcium rich skeletons of marine organisms that lived in those shallow seas. over the years, through glacial, tectonic, chemical and human influences, the Burren has evolved into what we see today. The result is a wonderfully rich landscape of swirls, tiers, cliffs, caves, hollows and pavements, classical features of a ‘karst’ landscape. over 70 per cent of Ireland’s plant species are found here including 22 of our 27 native orchids and it is awash with mammal life too – including all of Ireland’s seven species of bat. A good place to introduce the history and geology of this wonderful place is the Burren Centre in Kilfenora. open from March to october, the centre has a wonderful exhibition and their website (www.theburrencentre. ie) has downloadable “education packs”. Saying that, the only true way to explore the Burren is to get out and explore the
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The Aillwee and Doolin caves
The geological structure of the Burren lends itself to the formation of wonderful cave complexes and the caves at aillwee and Doolin have been brilliantly adapted as show caves. The visitor tours are excellent and well suited to a school audience and are a must see when in Clare. Doolin cave is home one of the largest free standing stalactites in the world – The Great Stalactite – and has recently opened a new visitor centre. The caves are open all year round with more information available on their websites: www.aillweecave.ie and www.doolincave.ie.
Birds of prey and educational centre
Situated within the aillwee Cave site is the brilliant Burren Birds of Prey and educational Centre. The centre has a huge collection of native birds of prey, from owls, eagles, vultures and hawks, and even organises live flying exhibitions with brilliant displays from golden eagles and peregrine falcons. There is also an excellent gift shop on site — definitely worth a visit. For more information visit their excellent website: www.birdofpreycentre.com
Cliffs of Moher
The Cliffs of Moher are a geological icon and another “must see” when in the Clare area. Five miles long and over seven hundred metres high, the cliffs are one of the most beautiful places in Ireland. The impressive towering cliffs are also home to huge numbers of sea birds, from puffins, guillemots, gannets and shags, all nesting in the cliff face and feeding in the waters below. (Don’t forget to bring your binoculars!) If you’re on a budget, skip the newly constructed centre and simply enjoy the view. For more information visit: www. cliffsofmoher.ie
Coastline
There is no better place in Ireland to carry out an ecological study than on the Clare coastline. From the majestic Black Head down towards Fanore, you will find a variety of coastal sites perfectly suited to studying the “rocky seashore”. The sand dunes at Fanore are also an excellent place to see ecological succession of plant species, from marram grass to sedges to the parasitic dodder. The coastline has an abundance of plant and animal species and is one of the most amazing areas of coastline in Ireland.
Other attractions
While Co. Clare has an abundance of attractions for the science and nature enthusiast, it is also home to many amazing historical and geographical gems. A cross-curricular trip could include a visit to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, the Poulnabrone Dolmen, Caherconnell Stone Fort, Craggaunowen, Lahinch Seaworld or the Brian Boru centre in Killaloe. Co. Clare is an excellent place for a school trip and within easy access from most parts of the country.
EPA
Learning about our
environment The Environmental Protection Agency has developed resources for second-level schools. 2020 viSion: A Closer Look at ireland’s environment is a multimedia resource especially developed to help teachers explore the key environmental challenges we now face in Ireland. Using short clips from Duncan Stewart’s EcoEye TV series as a starting point, various environmental themes can be investigated through comprehension and lesson plans designed specifically for Transition Year, CSPE, Science and Junior Cycle Georgraphy. As the 2020 Vision resource is primarily web-based, teachers are invited to visit the EPA website: www.epa.ie/education to download the resource in English or Irish. The website contains the full range of materials, including Irish-language versions of all the comprehensions and lesson plans. It also has a video player to facilitiate viewing the EcoEye clips on-line. The clips are subtitled in English and Irish, and transcripts of their content in both languages can be downloaded from the video player. There are six key topics in the 2020 Vision resource: Limiting and adapting to climate change Clean air Clean water Protecting soil and biodiversity Sustainable resource use integration and enforcement Teachers can also request a DVD and CD copy of the 2020 Vision resource: Send name and school contact details to education@epa.ie or write to EPA Headquarters, Education Unit, PO Box 3000, Johnstown Castle Estate, Wexford or call 053 9160642. Teacher name
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School name
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School address .................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................. Return to: EPA Headquarters, Education Unit, PO Box 3000, Johnstown Castle Estate, Wexford.
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 51
DiScuSSion PoinT Human embryonic stem cell colonies, such as these, have the potential to develop into a whole range of specialised cells. Imaage: ISCF.
STem CellS
The Future of medicine?
Science teacher, Humphrey Jones, Science Teacher, raises some points for classroom discussion.
T
he human body is made up of around 100 trillion cells. Most of these cells have a specific function – they might be skin cells, bone cells, muscle cells, nerve cells or blood cells – but some have yet to be given a specific role in the body. These are the stem cells. Scientists are keen to learn about how stem cells work, especially how they can be “differentiated” (turned into specific tissues), and hope that many diseases, like diabetes or even Alzheimer’s disease , could be cured as a result of their research. However, there are some significant issues surrounding stem cells and the research on them being carried out.
muscles attached to your skeleton but more are found in your gut and a special type of muscle is found in your heart – this muscle never tires. Nervous tissue cells have the ability to generate and conduct electrical impulses and serve as messengers in your body while connective tissues support the various structures of your body including tendons, ligaments, bone, cartilage and the inner layers of your skin. As mentioned before, stem cells can potentially become any of these types of cells and, thus, could be used to repair any part of your body.
Types of tissue
For discussion: Why do scientists want to use stem cells? How could stem cells be used in the body? Where are stem cells made in your body?
Stem cells are cells in your body which have yet to be “differentiated”, that is they potentially can become any type of body tissue. The four categories of body tissues are epithelial, muscle, nervous or connective. Epithelial tissues serve as protective coverings for different parts of the body including the lining of your gut, the outer layer of cells around your organs and even the outer layers of your skin. Muscle tissue is composed of cells that can “contract”. Some of these cells form the
Types of stem cells?
Stem cells can be classified as either “adult stem cells” or “embryonic stem cells”. Adult or somatic stem cells exist throughout the body after embryonic development and are found inside many different types of tissue. These stem cells have been found in tissues such as the brain, bone marrow, blood, blood vessels,
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skeletal muscles, skin, and the liver. They remain in an inactive state for years until activated by disease or tissue injury. Adult stem cells can divide or self-renew indefinitely, enabling them to generate a range of cell types from the originating organ or even regenerate the entire original organ. Adult stem cells are thought to be “mulitpotent”, that is, they have the ability to change into many types of human cells but not all. Embryonic stem cells come from a four or five day old human embryo. At this stage the newly formed organism is nothing more than a ball of cells called a blastocyst, but these cells can still form any type of tissue. Embryonic stem cells are described as “pluripotent”- that is, they are capable of generating any and all cells in the body under the right conditions. For discussion: Why are “pluripotent” cells so important? Which type of stem cells have more potential in research and medicine? What is a blastocyst? Is it right to fertilise eggs to create stem cells for research?
Stem cell therapy
Stem cell therapies are currently being used to treat forms of leukaemia or cancer of white blood cells. This involves the injection of bone marrow tissue, or more recently umbilical cord blood stem cells, into the bones of cancer sufferers. The intention is that these new stem cells will then form new blood cells to replace the ones damaged by the cancer. Scientists and medical professionals believe that stem cells could be used to treat a whole range of diseases in the future including heart disease, diabetes, cancers, spinal injuries, deafness, blindness or even replace missing teeth. But there are also some concerns that patients across the world are being sold “bogus” stem cell treatments and that these are not being regulated appropriately. For discussion: What are the potential uses of stem cell therapies? Why are these treatments currently not being used? Which type of stem cell is best suited to these treatments? When will these therapies become common practice? What “bogus” treatments are currently being offered?
Stem cell research
In order to fully realise the potential of stem cell therapies, scientists need to carry out experimental research on how these cells grow, divide and differentiate. Programming a stem cell to become a nerve cell, for example, isn’t easy. Scientists don’t know how to trigger stem cells to differentiate into the type of cell needed by the body. So scientists are busy working and testing these cells seeing if they can control the differentiation process more effectively. In order to do this, they need access to stem cells. The easiest way to get stem cells is to get them from four or five day old human embryos – fertilised eggs. As mentioned before, embryonic stem cells are pluripotent so can potentially be changed into any type of cell, making them more important for researchers too. But there are considerable ethical issues surrounding their use. Many individuals, including religious groups, believe that a blastocyst, although only a few days old and consisting of around 100 cells, is technically a living thing and destroying it is ethically and morally wrong. Until recently, scientists in the United States could not receive public funding for embryonic stem cell research, but President Obama lifted this ban last March and has pledged to “vigorously
support” new research in the area. In Ireland it is currently illegal to produce embryonic stem cells and there is currently no legislation governing embryonic stem cell treatments. Many groups, including the Irish Stem Cell Foundation, are calling for its introduction immediately. They believe that proper legislation could accelerate the research in the area and aim to educate Irish patients about stem cell treatments. For discussion: Are the use of embryonic stem cells ethically wrong? Should embryonic stem cell research be government funded? Why hasn’t the Irish government introduced legislation around stem cell research? Should only adult stem cells be used for research? Are there other alternatives?
When does life begin?
Central to the debate on the use of embryonic stem cells in the question: when does life begin? Although not yet more than just a tiny ball of cells, pro-life groups think that destroying human life at any stage is wrong.
Human cloning
Some scientists believe that we could use human cloning technology (somatic cell nuclear transfer) to create cells similar to embryonic stem cells and use these cells as an alternative to creating and subsequently destroying human blastocysts. However, the use of this technology is not without its ethical concerns. For discussion: Should human cloning technology be used as an alternative to embryonic stem cells? How can human cloning be controlled?
Conclusion
It is clear that stem cells can play a significant role in the future of human medicine but many questions are currently left unanswered. A class discussion is a great way to get pupils interested in this fast moving and controversial area of scientific research.
For discussion: When does life begin? Is a blastocyst living? Is destroying a blastocyst a necessary evil in the quest to cure human disease?
Hunphrey Jones is a science teacher at St Columba’s College, Dublin. Visit the Frog Blog at http://blog.sccscience.com
SNOWFLAKES
WHen not involved in the detection of gravitational waves in space, Kenneth Libbrecht, a professor of physics at Caltech, looks at snowflakes. Although all snowflakes are based on a hexagonal, each crystal has its own distinctive shape. As a mathematician and physicist, Kenneth wonders how snowflakes can show such diversity. In order to find out, he grows ice crystals from water vapour under carefully controlled conditions. Using these synthetic snowflakes Kenneth aims to determine exactly what sort of physical mechanisms are involved in influencing the final shape.
Resources
Irish Stem Cell Foundation www.irishstemcellfoundation.org Stem Cell Schools www.stemcellschool.org LIVE LINK LIVE LINK
As a result of this work, Kenneth has produced many remarkable photographs showing the amazing diversity of snowflakes. Last October, Kenneth was presented with a special award from the Karolinska Institutet for producing these beautiful images. The Lennart nilsson Award, named after a celebrated Swedish photographer, is presented annually for outstanding work in the medical and scientific field. (TK) Kenneth Libbrecht has a web site at: www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals LIVE LINK
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 53
Kenneth Libbrecht on the hunt for snowflakes.
MBER 2010 E V O 7 - 14 N RECORD PARTICIPATION AS OVER 115,000 PEOPLE ATTEND EVENTS AS PART OF SCIENCE WEEK IRELAND 2010 Discover Science and Engineering (DSE) has announced a record participation in Science Week 2010 as over 115,000 people attended events across the country. Science Week Ireland 2010 was also one of the most successful Science Weeks to date with over 505 events taking place throughout the week, a 12% increase from 449 events in 2009. Peter Brabazon, Programme Director, Discover Science and Engineering, said, “Science Week 2010 has been a great success and it’s fantastic to see the rise in popularity this year with 505 events taking place, an increase of 12% since 2009. The increased student numbers and record attendance at Science Week also points to the growing popularity of science, technology, engineering and maths among young people. I would like to thank everyone who got involved with Science Week this year which wouldn’t be possible without the enthusiasm and support of the volunteers and partners.”
competition, had three categories – general public, senior cycle and junior cycle. Bernard Dunne came first in the General Public category for his image ‘Science Leaps’. First place in the Senior Cycle Category went to Sinead O’Neill, a student of St. Flannan’s College, Ennis Co. Clare, for her image ‘An Eye for Nano Science’. Katie Riordan, a student of Coláiste Choilm, Ballincollig, Cork, was awarded first place in the Junior Cycle Category for her image ‘Coloured Transpiration’. A gallery of all of the photo entries can be seen at www.pix.ie/go/sciencesnaps. Hosted by Discover Science and Engineering and the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (APC), University College Cork, Science Raps challenged students to unleash their inner rapper and express themselves and their thoughts about science and technology through rap music. Students were asked to compose and video a rap on this year’s Science Week theme, ‘Our Place in Space.’
Rory O’Connor from Fermoy, Co. Cork was awarded first place in the over 17 category for his creative rap entitled “E=MC2”. The first prize in the 16 and under category went to Catherine Finn from Clondalkin, Co. Dublin for her effort “The Universal Rap” which struck a chord with judges for her clever use of rap music to express her thoughts about science. All of the Science Raps entries can be seen at http://www. youtube.com/user/Pharmabiotic The aim of Science Week is to promote the relevance of science, Oscar Higgins, Ryanna Amelio, and Steven McCabe entering technology, engineering and The final official Science Week the spirit of Science Week. mathematics (STEM) in our everyday event took place on Saturday 21st lives and to demonstrate the November as the Galway Science importance of these disciplines to the future development of and Technology Exhibition took place in the Bailey Allen Hall Irish society and the economy. NUI Galway. The event was opened by Maire Geoghan-Quinn, EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, and Science Week Ireland is organised by Discover Science & featured 3-D Tours of the Universe, science entertainment shows Engineering, the Government’s integrated programme for and workshops for students. science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) awareness and promotion. Further information on Science Week The winners of two national competitions which took place is available on during Science Week – Science Snaps and Science Raps – www.scienceweek.ie LIVEK were also announced. Science Snaps, a national photography Coinciding with Science Week, a HEA report on CAO acceptance figures was also released. The figures were positive for science, computing and engineering courses, with computing and engineering acceptance rates remaining stable. Science acceptances increased in 2009/10 to 10.3% of all acceptances and have remained stable in 2010/11 at 10.2%. This is the highest rate of acceptance in 10 years.
LIN
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 44 Page 54
Coniferous trees exude resin, and than 700 fossils representing 55 different anyone who has chopped wood will genera. Most of the fossils are of insects, be familiar with the sticky but fragrant but there are also spiders, mites and plant substance. from earliest times, insects have fragments. been trapped in resin, and when fossilized Apart from casting light on insect life of as amber, their form, in amazing detail, 50 million years ago, the fossils indicate that can be preserved for millions of years. when the indian sub-continent broke away one of the advantages of amber is that it is from east Africa about 160 million years ago, Dr Frauke Stebner from the University transparent, so, unlike sedimentary rocks, of Bonn holding up a piece of amber it did not drift along in total isolation. if the the fossils are visible in depth. sub-continent had been isolated for about 100 with a tiny embedded insect. According to Prof Jes rust, a million years, plants and animals would have palaentologist at the university of Bonn evolved into different and quite distinctive who specializes in amber, many of these species. As the amber fossils show, this is not insect fossils are actually hollow. The inside is long gone, and the case, the insects are similar to those found in europe and what we see, he describes as like “insect photo wallpaper.� Central America. it is thought that long chains of volcanic However, not all amber fossils are hollow, and in a islands served to keep up the old connections. paper published in the scientific journal PNAS, Dr Rust The resin came from extensive forests of Dipterocarpaceae. together with colleagues from india and us, report that This family of trees a big deposit of well is thought to have preserved insects has been at its height 25 been found in northwest million years ago, but india. The scientists the extensive finds of describe the lumps of resin suggest that this amber as resembling date should be pushed herbal cough drops, and back by another 25 not alone are the bodies million years. The intact and entire, but they Dipterocarpaceae can be extracted. As the family is still very much scientists explain, the with us, with about 500 polymerization of resin species, mainly subis incomplete, so it can tropical, and prominent be dissolved in a solvent, today in the indoreleasing the 50 million Malayan region. year old insects for closer examination. The find, from India’s A 53 million years old Gujarat province, is coccid with peculiar regarded as one of the eyes, Scanning largest in the world, and microscope image from so far it has yielded more University of Bonn,
Calling all scientists! Speaking Science One Day Workshop Communications training Just for you!
What is it? Speaking Science is an intensive one day communications training workshop for scientists and it aims to help you to tell your stories. If you need to explain what you are doing or if you need talk to the press, this is the course for you. Who should attend? This course is aimed at staff scientists based in academia, public bodies or industry and 4th level students, MSc and PhD candidates who need to develop a wide range of career development skills. The ability to communicate clearly is one of the most important of these skills. Who presents it? Seán Duke, Contributing Editor, Science Spin magazine. Seán has fifteen years experience as a science writer and editor. He is also the creator and presenter of Ireland’s only weekly radio science slot on 103.2 Dublin City FM. Seán began the Speaking Science initiative in 2008 in response to the need for scientists to acquire better communication skills. Until now Speaking Science has only been available as an in-house course. Group Course: Speaking Science is ideal for groups of up to ten people and can be held at your own premises, alleviating the need for traveling. To book LIVE simply email alan@ or for more information andsean@sciencespin.com a copy of the course content, For more information email LINK sciencespin.com or call Alan Doherty direct on 01 284 2909.
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Connecting to the future How is science meeting the great global challenges? Dublin City of Science 2012 will tell you. Dublin, the home of cutting edge research and world-class universities, will welcome world-leading scientists and innovators to a year-long programme of science-themed events. And you are invited to join in! Throughout the year you'll find activities and exhibitions that bring the science of tomorrow into your life today. Get connected today: www.dublinscience2012.ie Follow us on: Twitter.com/dubscience2012 #dub2012
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