Science Spin 45

ISSUE

45

March/April 2011

€5 including VAT £4 NI and UK

SCIENCE

SPIN

IRELAND’S SCIENCE NATURE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

looking at what makes us so different

compleXiTY Dreaming sleeping anD bioclocks

rockY images www.sciencespin.com

SCIENCE SPINLIVE Issue 42 Page xx LINK

Where creativity and great science Connecting to meet the future

Connecting to the future

Call for public engagement programme proposals opening How How is is science science meeting meeting the the great great global global challenges? challenges? on March 25th 2011 Dublin City of Science 2012 will tell you.

Dublin City of Science 2012 will tell you.

In 2012, the Dublin is the European Cityresearch of Science.

A yearlong Dublin, home of edge and world-class Dublin, the home of cutting cutting edge research and world-class programme of events will be built to highlight the roleand and universities, will welcome world-leading scientists universities, will welcome world-leading scientists and value of science in society. programme innovators to innovators to aa year-long year-long programme of of science-themed science-themed events.

And you are invited to join in! events. And you are invited to join in!

The year will engage over 600,000 people with scientists, Throughout the you'll activities and business leaders, policy-makers international scientific Throughout the year year you'll find findand activities and exhibitions exhibitions that bring the science of tomorrow into your life media to explore the importance of science in society. that bring the science of tomorrow into your life today. today.

Get connected today: Getupdates connected today: For go to: www.dublinscience2012.ie www.dublinscience2012.ie www.dublinscience2012.ie

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Follow Follow us us on: on: Twitter.com/dubscience2012 Twitter.com/dubscience2012 www.twitter.com/dubscience2012 #dub2012 #dub2012

SCIENCE

SPIN Evening light on the Hag’s Head, a spectacular piller of rock in County Clare photographed by Jonathan Moran .

Publisher Science Spin 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 Business Development Manager Alan Doherty alan@sciencespin.com 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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SCIENCE

ON AIR Go to

www.sciencespin.com and listen to what researchers have to say

2

Upfront Dreaming, sleeping and hallucinations

Veronica Miller continues her series on now the brain works 7

Probing below the depths

Tom Kennedy reports that digging up the past gives us some idea of what to expect in the future 14

Rocky landscapes

A selection from the Du Noyer photographic competition

16

The Hamilton walk

Fiacre O’Cairbre writes about an annual walk to celebrate a brilliant Irish mathematician 22

Complexity

Tom Kennedy reports that we now know more about the Universe than how society works 24

Marsh marigolds

Watch out for the bright yellow flowers that have been with us since the retreat of ice 26

Water on top

Seán Duke talked to a young scientist who came up with a smart solution for saving roof water 29

The stem-cell sheriff

Seán Duke follows the career of a scientist who wants better rules for stem research in Ireland 34

What makes us human?

Tom Kennedy reports from the European Science Open Forum on the origins of human intelligence.

36

Reviews

Looking at rocks, and taking a cooler look at climate change

Geological Survey of Ireland Suirbhéireacht Gheolaiochta Eireann

38

www.sciencespin.com

Sparkler star

Most stars, like our sun, have a small number of zirconium atoms on their surface, but astronomers from Armagh observatory have discovered a distant star that appears to be blanketed in this element. For every ten atoms of zirconium on the sun’s surface, this star, known only as Ls IV-14 116, has two million. According to the graduate student, N Naslim, and her supervisor, Dr simon Jeffery, the amount of zirconium if brought back to Earth, would weigh about four billion tonnes, or in other words, 4,000 times the world’s annual production.

However, not much chance of exploiting this resource, as the star is two thousand light years away from us.

Reporting their findings in Royal Astronomical society’s journal, the astronomers explained that they had been looking at how some end of life stars, known as helium-rich hot

UPFRONT

subdwarfs, in order to find out why they have relatively little hydrogen on their surface. the astronomers collected their data from the siding spring observatory telescope in Australia, and a careful study of the spectrum revealed distinctive traces of zirconium. Further study indicated the presence of strontium, germanium, and yttrium in concentrations between a thousand to ten thousand times higher than usual in stars. the Armagh team conclude that the star is surrounded by a series of thin layers each enriched with different heavier elements. this leads to speculation that the star could have a strange appearance.

It is thought that the star is shrinking, from being a bright cool giant, to eventually become a faint, hot, subdwarf. As this happens, different elements sink down or float up into the outer region, where they form enriched layers.

Moving ice

It Is often assumed that glaciers slide along over meltwater, but as Prof Cliff ollier, from the University of Western Australia, writing in the Geoscientist, points out this view is not only incorrect, but has led to alarmist climate change predictions. the fact that the ice in glaciers does not behave like a uniform solid has been known for generations. Investigators discovered this by laying sticks in a line across glaciers. the middle sticks move along faster than those at the sides.

At the time, no one could explain how this happens, but more recently, it has been observed that, under pressure, the crystals of ice realign themselves. In effect, crystals at depth go with the flow, and the ice nearer the surface cracks into fissures because it still behaves as a solid. these movements take place over an extended period of time, and the pressure to move comes from accumulation of snow at the head, rather than melting at the base. Because of this, advancing fronts of ice, dramatically breaking up and tumbling into the sea, can be driven by an accumulation of snow that fell on the cap hundreds of years before.

As Cliff ollier points out, we should not be too quick in jumping to conclusions about the Earth’s melting ice caps. the Hubbard Glacier in Alaska has become a major tourist attraction as people come to see great blocks of ice break off and crash into the sea. this calving, he explains, is not due to global warming, but to an accumulation of compacted ice at the head. Instead of going into retreat, the Hubbard Glacier is actually advancing by 25 metres a year.

A boat dwarfed by the Hubbard Glacier in Alaska.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 2

Missing link

WHEN life began to evolve on early Earth single celled organisms were the pioneers to make their home in an extremely hostile environment. these cells had no controlling nucleus, but they had developed ways of feeding on a chemical soup that would be toxic to us. As evolution progressed, the chemical pathways developed by these ancestral ‘prokaryotes’ were passed on, and indeed many of our body processes still depend on genes inherited from these early ancestors. one of the critical steps in evolution towards multi-cellular life, was the incorporation of these prokaryotes into cells with a controlling DNA containing nucleus. these are the cells most familiar to us, and they are known as the eukaryotic cells.

For a long time there has been a debate on how the transformation from prokaryote to eukaryotic cell was made, and one of the theories is that some of the earlier cells must have fused to become a new type of cell. scientists from UCD, working with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory at Heidelberg, have questioned this explanation, and in a paper published in Science, they claim that intermediate cells were already in existence all those billions of years ago.

As Dr Emmanual Reynaud, a cell biologist from UCD explained, Darwinian evolution over a long period is more likely than a sudden ‘big bang’ fusion. those early prokaryotes have not disappeared from the Earth, and in fact they are still the most common form of life on this planet. All bacteria are prokaryotes, and many thrive in places we would rather not go, such as in sewage treatment plants.

In looking into environments where prokaryotes thrive, the scientists noticed that certain bacteria, known as the Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobiae, and the Chlamydiae, stood out as different. they were a bit bigger than other bacteria, and while the common E coli bacterium divides every 20 minutes or so, these three types take up to two days before dividing. the scientists believe that these differences represent an intermediate form of cell, a possible ‘missing link’ between the prokaryotes and the eukaryotics.

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Twist

UPFRONT

Emphysema

CITY OF SCIENCE

NERVE cells create a network of SHoRtNESS of breath due to deterioration connections by reaching out to neighbours.

Preparations for Ireland’s biggest of lung function is more common in Ireland At the Japanese research institute, RIKEN, science event ever are underway. A than most other countries. The condition, scientists have been looking at how this emphysema, is made worse by smoking, central part of the City of Science but there is also a significant genetic element happens.

In the Journal of Cell Biology the involved. Those with the most severe form 2012 event will be the high level researchers, Tamada, Kawase, Murakami, can have an inherited condition in which an scientific sessions. and Karniguchi, describe how neurones are excessive number of white blood cells cause Proposals for inclusion in these tipped by finger-like extensions, known as inflammation of lung tissues. filopodia.

Researchers at the Royal college of scientific sessions can be submitted As the growing tip of the neurone moves Surgeons in Ireland in collaboration with now, and the deadline is 30th June through the environment these filopodia Beaumont Hospital have been studying 2011. continually twist in an anticlockwise this condition, and recently they announced direction, causing the extending nerve tip a breakthrough in understanding the For more details to go to the right. mechanism involved in hereditary LIVE LINK www.esof2012.org Like other cells, neurones have an internal emphysema. protein scaffold, the actin cytoskeleton. The Prof Gerry McElvaney explained that a researchers found that controlling the growth of the actin deficiency in a particular protein, Alpha-1 Antitrypsin, is involved. cytoskeleton caused the growing tips to turn.

This protein, produced by the liver, protects the lungs from The twirling is thought to help growing nerve tips to probe disease. When there is a deficiency of Alpha-1, the resulting a larger volume of their environment, and makes them twine increase in production of white blood cells, causes the around each other when they meet. development of emphysema.

Research indicates that giving patients an intravenous top up of natural Alpha-1 leads to a decrease in white blood cells going into the lungs. this approach, he explained, gives sufferers from this chronic condition some hope that a treatment will be developed.

TWO researchers, Dr Neil Ferguson from UcD, and Dr Nataša In Ireland, one in every 24 people carry the gene for this Mitić from NUI Maynooth, have been presented with SFI disease. After cystic fibrosis, it is the most common fatal inherited President of Ireland Young Research Awards. lung condition in Ireland.

Dr Ferguson is conducting research into human hepatitis

Researcher awards

B virus (HBV) biology. Using genetic engineering with stateof-the-art biophysical techniques to dissect HBV into its component molecules, Dr Ferguson’s aim is to gain a better understanding of HBV replication, and to design effective antivirals.

Dr Ferguson said winning the award was the pinnacle of his career to date. and the possible benefits to all those who have suffered from infection give him lots of incentive to continue.

Dr Mitić’s research addresses the emergence of antibiotic resistance, particularly in post-operative situations. Her studies aim to reveal regions in the target enzymes associated with antibiotic resistance. Some of these enzymes are less likely to mutate into resistant forms, and because of this represent good targets for new drugs.

Receiving the award, said Dr Mitić will enable her to build up a strong research group at NUI Maynooth.

LIVE LINK

www.marine.ie

European Research Council

SINcE 2005 the European Research council has been fostering and funding high level research. The ERc has a council of 22 distinguished scientists and scholars, including some Nobel Prize winners. Prof Nicholas canny, director of the Moore Institute at NUI Galway and President of the Royal Academy, has been appointed as the first Irish member of the board.

Prof canny, an internationally respected scholar, has written extensively on Ireland and the British Empire, and his books include The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland, Making Ireland British, and the Oxford History of the British Empire.

institute.mail@marine.ie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 3

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UPFRONT

Water at depth

When the earth’s colliding plates are pushed under, they take a lot of water down with them. Researchers from the University of Kiel have tracked water down to a depth of 120 kilometres, and this is not the only surprise. Volcanoes, as georesearchers have found, need water to erupt.

According to the Collaborative Research Centre at Kiel, the melting temperature of rocks is lowered by the presence of water, so molten magma ascends to the surface.

The plates are pushed under at regions known as subduction zones, such as occur off the west coast of South America. Water is brought down to the earth’s mantle, where the enormous heat and pressure drives it back towards the surface. On the way back up, the water causes rocks to melt, and the Kiel researchers conclude that this is why all subduction zones are characterized by a string of volcanoes along the continental margins.

Tracking the water down to such depth was achieved using special instruments to measure changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. As one of the researchers, Tamara Worzewski, explained, aqueous rocks can be detected quite well because of their higher conductivity. This method, she added, is already well established in rocks that are close to the surface, but going to such depth was a lot more difficult. Dr Worzewski’s supervisor, Dr Marion Jegen, had been heading a group developing this technique, first in Germany, and then along the subduction zone off Costa Rica where there is now a chain of instruments extending across land and sea for hundreds of kilometres. Using these instruments, the scientists were able to visualize the water cycle, and as Dr Worzewski observed, the process observed off Costa Rica is likely to be repeated globally.

Deep drilling

The deepest basin in the world’s land surface holds the Dead Sea, an area saturated with history and of considerable geological interest.

A team of scientists from eight different countries including Jordan, Palestine and Israel, is now working on a deep drilling project to determine what conditions provided the background to the unfolding of ancient history in the Holy Land.

Scientists from GZF, the German geoscience research centre have been examining the cores, and according to Dr Ulrich Harms, the drilling down to 460 metres has gone through deposits laid down over half a million years. not surprisingly, the drilling confirms that this is seismically a very active area, but measurements could help to pin point significant relationships between historical events and earthquakes, while giving us a better idea of what the climate was like at the time.

Prof Achim Brauer, a paleo-climatologist with GFZ, is among those hoping to reconstruct the past. What we now know as the Holy Land, he said, is thought to have been a land bridge across which early man migrated from Africa to the north.

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Open access

In A welcome move to make scholarship more available to everyone, Trinity College Dublin is giving the public open and free access to conference papers, reports, and research theses. According to Dean of Research, Dr David Lloyd, this development means that Trinity College is one of the pioneers in an international move towards open access. Over a year ago, the Dublin Institute of Technology adopted this policy, and late in 2010 TCD became the first Irish university to adopt Open Access.

Discontent with the closed, and exploitative nature of academic publishing has been extremely high for some time. Many scholars would prefer to share rather than restrict access to their knowledge. Under the open access policy, TCD academics are being encouraged now to disseminate their articles and other publications through the TARA research archive.

Open access is spreading rapidly, and according to TCD, 96 universities around the world, with the encouragement of major funding agencies, have adopted this approach.

Until open access became a reality, academic authors were usually forced to share their rights with commercial publishers, who instead of helping to disseminate knowledge, deliberately restricted access to the work by charging libraries extremely high subscription rates.

The aim with TARA is to present the research output of TCD in digital form, so that information can be saved, searched, and shared worldwide. At present there are over 12,000 items on TARA, ranging from 160 year old journals to the latest in medical research, and this is just a start.

Thousands of new items will be added to TARA’s store every year, and the bulk of this material will be freely available and searchable on the web.

E http://www.tara.tcd.ie LLIVINK

Impact

eVeR wonder what would happen if the earth was hit by an asteroid? A lot depends on how big it is, how fast it is travelling, the density, and the angle of entry and impact. Purdue University has a web based calculator that can answer all of these questions. The home page also has a link to a background paper explaining how the site was constructed.

Takes a minute or two to load, but well worth waiting for. http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth

LIVE LINK

www.google.com/sciencefair

LIVE LINK

Snapshot of the

BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition

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Overall winner, Alexander Amini, from Castleknock College receiving his award from Minister of Education, Mary Coughlan, and Graham Sutherland, CEO of BT Ireland.

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lexander, a 15 year old 4th year student, developed wearable sensors to analyse the different ways tennis players make backhand and other strokes. The project involved collaboration with DCU and Tennis Ireland, and analysis of up to 12 different strokes can be achieved with 95 per cent accuracy.

Winning the award makes Alexander eligible for entry into the European Young Science competition to he held in Helsinki. Irish entries have always done well in this Europe wide competition.

The Best Group Award was presented to 4th year students, Thomas Cronin Dylan Cross and Jeremy Barisch-Rooney from Colaiste Muire, Crosshaven, Cork, for their project on a DIY wind kit suitable for use in developing countries.

The Individual Runner Up award went to 5th year student, James Doyle, from Presentation de la Salle College in Carlow, for his project on harvesting fuel from hedgerows.

The Group Runner Up went to 1st year students, Ciara Judge, Royanne McGregor, and Sophie Healy from Kinsale Community School for their study on public attitudes to cholesterol control.

ore than 40,000 people came to this year’s BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition. For the past 47 years the display of scientific talent has grown and in January 1,735 projects were on show at the RDS. The inclusion of primary science and social sciences helped drive entries up by 35 per cent in the run up to the 2011 show.

The impressive diversity of projects indicates that interest in science among young people is high, but as many visitors commented, maths, physics, chemistry and the other so called ‘hard sciences’ were a lot less prominent this year. However, there was plenty of evidence to show that the scientific approach to problem solving is alive and thriving. Overall, the standard of presentation, and ability to collate and analyse data was extremely high, and while there are quite a few teachers out there that can fire the imagination and give guidance, many of the projects, such as Rachel Eustace’s one on water capture, which we feature in this issue, had been driven mainly by the students themselves. In the following issues of Science Spin we will be focusing on a selection of these projects, and what’s really striking, is just how good many of these are. Some projects, quite clearly, could lead on into research careers, others show a talent for practical problem solving, and, as has happened in previous exhibitions, there are always a few that are ripe for commercialisation.

Another comment that has often been made by judges and teachers who have been involved in the exhibition, is that there is actually so much scientific talent among school students, that the show, big as it is, could be bigger without lowering the standard.

Apart from providing public approval, which in many respects is far better than just passing an exam, the exhibition demonstrates that school students often have the ability and self-discipline to apply themselves to real life science. There is a lot to be gained frm boosting the confidence of these young people, even if they do not all continue into a career in the sciences.

Just how valuable this is, was neatly summed when Ireland’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Prof Paddy Cunningham,addressed a higher education conference last year.

As he pointed out, Ireland, in spite of its economic woes, is actually quite well off in terms of intellectual property. What keeps so many countries in the developing world poor, he said, is not lack of resources such as minerals, land and property, of which they often have an abundance, but the failure to make use of these assets. Ultimately, what counts is knowledge.

(TK)

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 6

Part sEVEN

DREAMING, SLEEPING AND HALLUCINATIONS

Continuing our series in which Dr Veronica Miller explains what we know about the brain and how it works

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t night your mind is free from daytime duties of processing information from the body and left to its own devices.

Freed from these sensory shackles it can wander through your thoughts and produce a range of freewheeling images sounds and sights. Uncensored by our senses, you can find yourself crossing China on horseback, riding ice rapids in the Arctic, wrestling marshmallow tigers or dancing with the man on the Moon. And then without warning, you’re dragged from wonderland back to reality with the ringing of an alarm clock.

Sleep accounts for up to a third of our lives on this planet. It is one of the most important activities we do, and yet it is also the one we understand the least about. But though we may not understand why we dream we do know how we do it.

Circadian Rhythms

Circadian rhythms isn’t a 70s rock group but the 24 hour cycle of our sleepful and wakeful behaviour. Normally our circadian rhythms are linked to the day and night cycle and are designed to let us rest in the dark and be active in the light.

During daylight hours our ancestral vertebrates would have had greater chance of feeding or mating — although nowadays if you’ve been out on a Saturday night you’ll know that the opposite is true.

Our biological clock is exactly 24 hours and 30 minutes long. The existence of this internal clock was demonstrated in 1962 by the French geologist Michel Siffre who spent two months in an ice cave.

Sleep science in a cave

During his time in the cave Siffre’s only link to the outside world was a telephone. Every time he went to sleep or woke he had to call the surface. But he was never told what time it really was. After two months, he was told that the experiment was over. But he disagreed. He thought that it was only August 18, when in reality, it was September 14.

Although he had lost the ability to tell the time, as he couldn’t see day or night, his body was still ably regulated by his biological clock. Siffre’s calls to the surface showed that his wake-sleep cycles were exactly 24 hours and 30 minutes.

If he spent more time awake, then his sleep time was shorter, although he was never aware of this. Sometimes Siffre mistakenly thought that he had slept 10 minutes when he had actually slept 8 hours.

Suprachiasmatic nucleus — the sleep maker

The circadian cycle is controlled in our hypothalamus, in the suprachiasmatic nuclei.

These suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCM) are so called because they are above, supra, the optic chiasm; the area where the optic nerves cross over in the brain.

A physiologist named Curt Richter discovered the SCM in the 1960s after destroying different brain areas in rats to try to discover what activities they controlled. He tried over 200 different sites before he discovered that destruction of the SCM resulted in the rats being unable to maintain their circadian rhythms.

Richter’s studies were then backed up with post mortem examination of the brains of people who had sleep disorders. Their brains revealed tumours in and around the suprachiasmatic nuclei.

This nucleus contains its own clock which runs on a 24 hour track. Light received during the day can pass along the optic nerve and into the SCM. This light sets the clock which can run without light for a few weeks.

Neuronal clocks

You may wonder what it is about the neurons that make up the suprachiasmatic nuclei that allows them to tell and set the time in our brains. If you were to look deep into the nucleus you’d see thousands of tightly packed neural cell bodies with very few branches coming out of them.

The neuron cell bodies are so tightly packed that they form tiny circuits of nerve fibres wrapped around each other, like tiny synaptic cogs in a watch. And although there are a variety of different neurotransmitters within these neurons, serotonin is the most abundant. You’ll not be surprised that when people are depressed or unhappy they often can’t sleep — perhaps because these serotonin sleep setters aren’t working properly.

Fibres from the suprachiasmatic nuclei branch down to the brainstem and across to the pituitary and pineal glands.

Our third eye and sleeping

In sharks, frogs and lizards the pineal gland forms a third eye at the front of the skull, and functions to detect the sunlight.

Originally the pineal gland had light sensing, photoreceptor cells. It worked like a very simple light sensing organ in the middle of the skull.

In humans our third eye has lost these photo-receptors although some degree of light can reach it through the skull.

Instead its main function is to secrete hormones and work

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 7

as a pineal gland rather than a pineal eye. Glands are basically tissue specialised to secrete chemicals — your sweat glands release sweat.

Your pineal gland releases melatonin, the sleep making chemical cousin of serotonin.

The dream detectives

Unless you’re a close relative of Dr Doolittle, or a Buddhist very in touch with your previous lives, you’ll probably not be very fluent with cat speak. So if you’re trying to research what happens when animals dream, it’s no good sitting them down with a cup Milk Man or Sand Man? of coffee and asking how they Whenever you can’t sleep at slept last night. night people often suggest So one useful tool that having a hot drink of milk. neuroscientists have used You might think this advice to probe into the dreaming is just an old wife’s tale but During sleep brain waves change from stage to stage brain is the Electro-Encephaloit’s actually based on sound Graph, EEG, machine. When the brain is active you see science. different patters of electrical conductance in the brain.

Milk, along with yoghurt, peanuts, almonds, cottage The EEG machine basically amplifies the transmission of cheese, soybean, turkey (which you’ll know after Christmas electricity through the brain. dinner) all contain lots of tryptophan which is the building EEGs can be separated into four main ranges which have block of melatonin. been named after Greek letters; alpha, beta, theta and delta.

You might like to think of the machine as taking only four Many amines make dreams colours like red, yellow. blue and black which researchers use Melatonin sends you off to snooze, but when you’re to paint a picture of what is happening in the brain. dreaming it’s actually secreted at its lowest level. So you can’t say that one chemical is responsible for our dreams, Brain waves rather only sending us off to dream land. Our dreams are the If you look at the ocean you can see waves come ashore of result of a combination of a complex web of chemical and different heights and at different speeds. These characteristics social interactions. of speed and height are used to distinguish brain waves. The While you enter the first stage of sleep, before you technical terms are frequency — which means how often dream, serotonin, made from the Raphé in the brainstem the wave appears, and amplitude — which means how long keeps you asleep. While you’re dreaming two nuclei in the the wave is. The ECG you’ve seen in casualty monitors your brainstem, the Locus Coeruleus and Substantia Nigra secrete heart rate and EEG measures your brain waves. norephinephrine and dopamine. Norephinephrine and The frequency measured is the speed or rate at which dopamine play a role in pleasure, reward, planning, and electrical charges move through brain cells. Brain cells that exciting our heart rates. With the release of these transmitters, are really active should have electricity shooting through your brain makes the chemicals which give your dreams them. Brain cells that aren’t active should have low frequency feelings. waves because they’d not be doing much — or working at a The Locus Coeruleus is so named after Latin words for area really constant unchanging level. and blue — because it looks blue under the microscope.

Delta waves move through clusters of neurons very slowly, just four cycles per second, or hertz (Hz). Just above Releasing your mind that are theta waves, around 4 to 8 Hz, a deeply relaxed state.

You might like to think that the entire brain goes on autopilot Next is alpha, a slightly less relaxed state, at 8 to 13 Hz. And when you are asleep, making memories, scaring itself and then the most rapid brain waves are beta, and these are the making you happy and sad. ones you see when a person is conscious.

Without the constant bombardment of sensory stimulation By watching the wave pattern shift when we dream you from our eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin, our brains are can work out what pattern you’d like to see if a cat was free to explore their own internal options; testing circuits, dreaming — and thus read their minds. reconfiguring memories and working through puzzles that have been bothering you during the day — but that you’ve Brain waves and dreaming not had time to consciously work on.

There are different stages in sleep. And at different stages When you are asleep the thinking parts of your brain you see different patterns of brain waves dominate the EEG which make memories, plan and control your behaviour are readout. For the sake of simplicity researchers have separated just as active if not more so as when you are awake. sleep into four stages.

These are located at the basal front brain and are The first stage is characterised by both alpha and theta loaded in acetylcholine. And if you measure the amount of activity. This is the transition from being awake to being acetylcholine and electrical activity in the basal forebrain of asleep. Then in the second stage you have mainly theta wave cats you find when they enter their dream state the amount activity. This is when our senses start to sleep — we stop of acetylcholine increases. In fact it appears they release more hearing ticking clocks and traffic passing by our bedroom acetylcholine at night than during the daytime. windows. This theta wave state is also when we start This might make you wonder if animals dream, and how dreaming properly. can you tell if they do?

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 8

REM

You may have heard of the band REM, they take their name given to this dream state. REM actually stands for Rapid Eye Movement, because if you were to film somebody in this active dream state, you’d be able to see their eyes moving rapidly as though they were watching a secrete video in their heads.

Our most vivid dreams occur during REM sleep. The area of the brain most important for REM sleep is the pons which is in the middle of the brainstem, above the medulla and below the midbrain. If you were to remove other brain regions, but leave the pons,animals can still have REM sleep — you’ll see their eyes flicker up and down under their eyelids.

The sleep paradox

The REM sleeping stage is also known as paradoxical sleep, because weirdly the brain isn’t asleep but hyperactive at this stage. And even though your skeletal muscles in your arms and legs don’t move they receive lots and lots of low level impulses. These low Pons level impulses may be from the brain trying to inhibit you moving when dreaming. Or they may be part of the whole dream experience — to make you feel more when dreaming.

You might like to think of REM as being the stage you get your best, most story-like dreams at, all the other stages are really just jumbled thoughts that the brain is mulling over.

The final stages of sleep, stages 3 and 4 occur after REM and are characterised by delta wave activity. During this slow wave sleep the brain is operating on a lower level. If you wake somebody up during these slow stages they’ll be groggy and confused. If you wake somebody up during REM sleep they’ll be mid story and remember what their dream is and most likely associate some emotional response with it.

How long is a dream?

Normally during the night, young adults can go through four to six cycles of REM and non-REM stages, each of which can last 60 to 90 minutes. And at the end of these cycles you might wake up, but fall asleep again quickly not even noticing it. It takes about 90 minutes for most people to reach the REM stage.

Sleep paralysis

Most of us don’t run around when we are asleep. This is because our skeletal muscles become paralysed when we sleep.

When you fall asleep the concentration of electric ions around neurons attached to your muscles changes. This means that a much higher electrical stimulus is needed for them to become active and twitch. Gradually the ion concentration gets so high that it’s almost impossible for your limbs to work.

The autonomic nervous system which controls our breathing, swallowing and heart rate isn’t affected by this sleep paralysis. Only the skeletal muscles stop working. This is probably why you eat the spiders that crawl across your face when you’re asleep instead of flicking them off with your hand.

Cats chase mice in their dreams

Some people walk, talk and appear to be totally awake when they are asleep. This is because the system that should prevent their muscles acting out dreams doesn’t work. These people suffer from sleep atonia.

Humans aren’t the only creatures to sleep walk. Cats with sleep atonia appear to chase imaginary mice and run from imaginary dogs during their REM stage — when they should be dreaming.

The pons is the area of the brain responsible for your REM stage dreams. If you inject small amounts of acetylcholine or glutamate into the neurons active during the REM stage, into animals that are wide awake. you can make them unable to move. Their muscles become paralysed as if they were asleep.

Muscle paralysis during dreaming happens when neurons in the pons send signals down through relay stations in the medulla which suppress spinal chord activity and prevent it co-ordinating muscular movements while you are asleep.

The pons can fire signals up to the visual cortex to start our dreams, and at the same time fire signals down throught the medulla to the spinal chord stopping our muscle movements.

If your pons or medullary neurons aren’t firing properly, you’ll not be able to control your muscles when you are dreaming and might start sleep walking or talking.

Sleep murdering?

Where the control of the brain over the body ends is highly disputed. In 1981 in the USA in Arizona, a man named Stephen Steinberg was accused of murdering his wife Elena with a kitchen knife. He had stabbed her 26 times.

During his trial Mr Steinberg didn’t deny murdering his wife, but pleaded not guilty because he was asleep at the time! The jury found him innocent by virtue of insanity — they said he wasn’t in control of his actions at the time.

Technicolour dreams

Responsibility isn’t always black and white but for some dreams are.

In 1942 a study was conducted on 277 college students and the results showed 70.77 per cent of the students said that they rarely or never saw colours in their dreams. Another study in 2001 replicated the original questionnaire on a sample of 124 college students and found that only 17.7 per cent saying that they rarely or never saw colours in their dreams.

Naturally with the advent of colour visual stimuli and TV in the 50s it’s tempting to speculate that black and white dreams went the same way as the black and white TV sets.

However, some people still say they dream in black and white. Physiologically there is no evidence for this to be true or untrue. What we do know is that whatever shade your dreams come in as you get older you’re less likely to dream.

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Can you teach old heads new dreams?

Studies on the brain wave patterns of different age groups sleeping have shown that people over 60 don’t reach REM as frequently as younger people. Older people appear to spend more time in stages 1 and 2; dozing before dreaming.

They also have more rapid sleep cycles and wake fully many more times during the night than younger people.

After 60, people have more trouble falling asleep, awaken more often, and, once awake, find it more difficult, if not impossible, to drop back into sleep.

People generally seem to need less after 60 — they get along with five or six hours of sleep per day. Babies, on the other hand, normally require 16 to 17 hours. For most adults, seven to eight hours is enough.

Older folks might hallucinate more

Older people may not dream as frequently as younger folks but they may be more susceptible to hallucinations.

Hallucinations are sensory perceptions that are unrelated to outside events.

They can be sights, sounds or smells. Schizophrenia is characterised by auditory hallucinations and this is thought to be linked with hyperactive dopaminergic circuitry.

Dementia With Lewy bodies, DLB, is a disease that affects older people and it is characterised at an early stage by visual hallucinations. It is also a disorder that is a subset of Parkinson’s disease and affects mainly dopaminergic neurons.

DLB was first identified when neuropathologists looked down the microscope at brain tissue in patients who had Parkinson’s like symptoms and also hallucinations. They observed what appeared to be little bubbles of cellular debris inside the dopaminergic neurons in these patients. The inclusions were named Lewy Bodies in 1912 after the doctor who first observed them, so the disease was named Dementia with Lewy Bodies after him.

Visual hallucinations of people or animals are very common in people who develop DLB. Auditory movement and taste hallucinations are much less common.

U are to blame

When you have DLB your cognitive abilities will fluctuate wildly.

Pathologically you find Lewy bodies littered around the mid brain. The also contain vast quantities of a-synuclein a protein involved in re-uptake of dopamine from the synapse.

If you give dopamine receptors some dopamine a little will have one effect and a lot the exact opposite effect. The effect of stimulating the receptor depends on whereabouts in the brain it is situated. So if you were unable to properly regulate the

concentration of dopamine in visual perception synapses a visual memory might pop out and take over your sight — giving you a hallucination.

When you measure the activity of dopaminergic neurons at different concentrations of dopamine it looks like an inverted U. This is the reason disorders that affect these receptors can result in behaviour that wildly fluctuates from good to bad.

Graveyard shift may be the death of you

We all know that a few too many early mornings, or late nights can leave us cranky or irritable. But prolonged disruption of your sleeping pattern can actually make you more susceptible to a variety of diseases. The graveyard shift really could be the death of you.

An estimated one in five people in industrialized countries are shift workers.

Scientists have found that women who work the night shift have a greater risk of breast cancer than day workers. In particular they find that workers who alternate between day and night shifts are more likely to become ill than those who regularly work night shifts.

By changing your sleep pattern, and exposing your pineal gland to light, during the night, say 1-2am, you are resetting your biological clock unexpectedly. The pineal gland controls a multitude of hormones, not only melatonin- to help you sleep, but also estrogen, testosterone, cortisol- the stress hormone, and thyroid hormones important for your metabolism and immune responses. Studies show that the less you sleep, the fewer number of white blood T-cells you have. T-cells which are made in the thymus, a gland in your neck, are important because they help your immune system recognize and fight off infections. So if you’ve not slept well, you’re more likely to catch coughs and flues because your body is less well equipped to deal with them.

To help better control the resetting of your circadian rhythms and improve your health, some people suggest photo-light therapy. A burst of strong light before, during and after a night shift can help to adjust your pineal gland more easily and rapidly. This can help your body adjust more quickly to the night shift, and synchronize the release of hormones better. Although its also possible just to take doses of melatonin directly and use that to set yourself off to sleep at night, the side-effects of prolonged melatonin consumption are unclear.

Mirage or mirror

Most of us are familiar from Hollywood blockbusters of seeing our heroes stagger Lewy body inside neuron from the midbrain. The pink circle aimlessly through endless deserts, before seeing a is the lewy body. The brownish palm tree lined watering hole in the distance, only colour is neuromelanin, which for them to dive into a pool of dirt. Mirages, named after the Latin word mirare — to look at, unlike is made from dopamine. hallucinations, are actually a real phenomenon.

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We know that light travels much less, because when your in straight lines, but air can brain reshuffles your thoughts actually bend some light at night-time, it won’t be rays. Cold air is denser than able to access the same fear warm air. So as light travels associated memories. If you’re down from the sky through not stressed you won’t find dense cold air and then hits your dreams scare you. But if warm air some of the light you’re terrified of dogs, you will curve upwards rather might find they scare you in than travelling in a straight your dreams too. line. If you are looking across sand-dunes, in the distance Not a lake, just dry sand, an optical illusion from Solar powered you will see some of the light that Nevada. Photograph: Mila Zinkova should travel in a straight line actually dreams — jet lag bend upwards. So objects may appear in the distance out of Trying to go to sleep on an aeroplane can be a nightmare in nowhere, because you perceive light that has curved up from itself. It’s not just because you are in a small uncomfortable the land reflecting the surface of the land as an object above it. seat that you may find it difficult to snooze on the plane.

Depending on whether the cold air is above or below the warm One of the main problems with sleeping on aeroplanes air, the objects can appear above or below your view point. This is that you don’t receive any natural light to your brain’s distortion of light by air is similar to how looking through a sleep centres in the pineal gland, and the suprachiasmatic glass of water distorts how you view the objects behind it. nucleus. The only lights in the aeroplane are those which flicker on and off when people are reading or meals are being served. And as luck would have it your brain is exceptionally Drugs and hallucinations sensitive to light coming on at night-time.

Some drugs can make you relaxed and some can completely Periods of darkness during daylight are quite acceptable to obliterate your perception of reality. Hallucinogenic drugs your brain’s sleep centres. But periods of light during darkness include LSD, ketamine, PCP, Fly Agaric ‘magic’ mushrooms, can reset your circadian rhythms completely and make it Mescaline an extract from Mexican cacti, and a variety of difficult to sleep. For this reason and because your circadian other plant extracts. rhythm maybe out of sync with a new time zone you’ll suffer In general many hallucinogenic drugs work because the from jet lag after a long trip. chemical they are made of is like serotonin and can activate brainstem REM sleep pathways, from the pons to the visual cortex and down to the muscles of the body.

The pathway taken by these chemicals through the brain can be via emotionally stored visual memories which can result in good or bad hallucinations or trips depending on the memories accessed. Some people can experience terrifyingly vivid nightmarish hallucinations while taking hallucinogenic drugs. And for others it can be a mind opening and bending experience.

Sunlight makes you happy

Short term changes in daylight can interrupt your sleeping patterns. And longer term changes are thought to induce depression and sadness.

SAD is another name for Seasonal Affective Disorder. This depressive illness usually affects people in the winter-time when the hours of sunlight are decreased. It’s thought that because there is less sunlight, the pineal gland secretes more melatonin, making people feel lethargic and drowsy or depressed.

One treatment which appears to work for SAD people is Nightmares; bad trips though the brain to give them light goggles which can filter light into the eyes, The kind of bad trips experienced by some people taking and readdress the lack of light they drugs might feel like horribly Fly Agaric, Amanita muscaria, has long been get in the winter-time. vivid nightmares. But nightmares associated with witchcraft and magic. themselves are usually caused by stress. If you Sleeping sickness experience an exceptionally Sleeping sickness is another fearful situation your name for the extended coma amygdala will emotionally that some people can slip into tag the memory of this after having been bitten by the situation.

African Tsetse fly.

At night time as your This sleeping sickness is brain reshuffles memories caused by an organism known and when you enter REM as Trypanosoma brucei which sleep you may experience lives in the blood of the fly. It’s vivid activation of these fear a flagellate organism, which associated memories and means it has a tail and can wake up in a terrified state. swim around the fly’s blood If you manage to out and into your blood if associate a less fearful you’re bitten. emotion with the same Once in your blood, these memory the chances of the tiny wormlike creatures, the nightmare re-occurring is size of red blood cells, can

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 11

multiply rapidly, and can reach a population density of 106 organisms per millilitre. Then their numbers drop rapidly for a week or so and then another wave of them appear again. This pattern of attack is repeated several times.

per cent of your brain’s immune cells are made up of bone marrow derived cells.

Micro-killers

The brain’s immune cells are known as macrophages and microglia. It’s their job to recognise foreign bodies, to supply growth factors and to swallow up damaged cells and bacteria. They make sure that the neurons can work properly in a clean environment. They can move from place to place in the brain and divide rapidly to mount an attack on an invading pathogen.

Once an area of the brain is infected neurons can be killed off rapidly, by both the invading pathogen and by the killer immune cells in a sort of cross fire. The damage done by the infection will depend on the area of the brain that has been affected and how vigorous the infection was.

Masters of disguise

The reason for these waves of attack is because the Trypsanosoma brucei protozoan, like the HIV virus, is sneaky and learns how to disguise itself in the body. Normally when your immune system encounters a new dangerous foreign body it generates an antibody against it.

These antibodies float around the blood till they attach themselves, to the invader. Once identified, immune cells move in for the kill and the invader is destroyed.

Some viruses are clever however. They learn to change their membrane coats rapidly; so that no sooner has your immune system figured out what the Can’t get no sleep molecular pattern is on the virus Sleeping sickness is really and generated antibodies against it, another name for a coma you than the virus has acquired a new never wake up from. But some coat. Even though your immune people never fall asleep at all. system can kill off most of the virus, They suffer from insomnia. some sneaky Trypsanosoma brucei Insomnia can be caused by a will change their coat and avoid variety of different problems death. These remaining survivors Tsetse fly, carrier of sleeping sickness, and in a false colour ranging from emotional stress, multiply rapidly and so the cycle electron microscopic image, the invasive Trypsansoma of recognition and aversion begins among red blood cells. ESM image by Berger and Overalt, anxiety, drug use, too much caffeine, nicotine or alcohol. again.

Max Planck Inst for Bio Diversity.

Most people would assume Gradually the process of having alcohol would send you off to to generate so many immune system sleep, but actually it will only make you drowsy. Alcohol is killer cells to fight the virus can weaken people. If the virus not the neurotransmitter of choice when you’re dreaming; gets into the brain, kidney’s or heart this can lead to death. it only dampens down neural networks decreasing your Once bitten it can take between months and years for brainpower. A few hours after you fall asleep it will interfere symptoms to develop depending on how strong your with REM stage and wake you up unexpectedly early. immune system is. Symptoms can be confusion, reversed Insomnia isn’t only caused by behavioural or emotional diurnal rhythm (i.e. sleeping during the day and waking at problems, it often suggests an underlying physical problem. night), dementia and convulsions.

Sleep apnoea is one of the most common causes of insomnia. It particularly affects obese men over 40 and naturally their wives.

Brain invaders and killer cells

Sleeping sickness is damaging because the bug enters the fluid that the brain is bathed in, the cerebrospinal fluid, CSF. There is no barrier between brain tissue and the CSF so the virus can easily attack the rest of the brain via this gateway.

Normally your brain is protected by the tight junctions between endothelial cells in blood vessels.

Once in the brain viruses don’t have it all their own way. They face a variety of different cells specialised to kill pathogens — the cells of our immune system.

The brain’s immune cells are laid down at birth, like neurons. Most of them stay inside the brain tissue replicating and dividing throughout your life. Then during your life some immune cells can make their way from bone marrow through the blood brain barrier and into the brain. About 30

Sleep apnoea

Sleep apnoea is basically a disorder of breathing while sleeping. This may sound just like snoring, but it is also a serious medical condition. Suffers can awaken up to 90 times per night.

There are two main types of sleep apnoea, one is obstructive sleep apnoea and the other is central sleep apnoea.

Obstructive sleep apnoea is characterised by the abnormal collapse of the pharyngeal airway during sleep. People with this obstruction usual snore, and have to breathe very vigorously while asleep in order to get adequate oxygen.

They can often wake up at night gasping for air. And because of waking up so often become excessively drowsy during the

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day time. It’s thought that excessive weight around the throat or neck could contribute to the collapse of the airway.

Central sleep apnoea isn’t as clear cut. This type of sleep apnoea is caused by problems in the brain regions that control the movement of the muscles in your lungs and throat. Central sleep apnoea is especially dangerous for people who have had heart failure, as the lack of oxygen and choking can provoke a heart attack for them.

When people have sleep apnoea they have problems during the daytime and night time in regulating their heart rate, and blood pressure. These types of problems aren’t only specific to adults. There may be a link between night breathing difficulties older adults experience and breathing problems new born babies can experience and die of in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, SIDS, also sometimes known as cot death.

Cot death

In Tokyo in 2005 a massive study on SIDS was conducted. Of 27,000 infants whose sleep-wake characteristics were studied under the age of 6 months, 38 died unexpectedly 2-12 weeks after the sleep recording in a paediatric sleep laboratory. Of these 38 infants, 26 died of SIDS. Compared to the control subjects, the future SIDS victims were characterized by longer episodes of central apnoea as well as more frequent and longer obstructive sleep apnoeas. These children appeared to have fewer than normal brainstem serotonergic neurons, more brainstem neurons dying and more active immune cells. The brainstem areas affected are also the ones which mediate REM sleep.

The bouts of sleep apnoea and irregular breathing could have caused damage to the brainstem because of a lack of oxygen in the blood supply to the neurons. If the infants were born with damaged brainstems or acquired an infection there, it’s also possible that neuronal mis-wiring could have led to the muscles necessary for breathing also becoming paralysed when the infants entered REM stage, leaving the children unable to breath.

Currently the causes of SIDS are unknown. But one way to decrease the chance of SIDS is to put infants on their backs so that it is easier for them to breath at night.

Left Vs right sided dreams

Sleeping on your back can make it easier to breath at night, but not all of us sleep on our backs. Some prefer left side and some prefer the right side. Simple logic might tell you that if you sleep on your left side, the blood would flow to the left side of your brain. Therefore if the left brain is more logical perhaps your dreams would be too. While sleeping on your right side could mean more creative dreams because the right side of your brain is concerned with creative artistic activities.

Naturally our brains have a consistent flow of blood maintained by a series of vessels and pumps so it shouldn’t matter which side you sleep on. What we do know however is that children tend to recall their dreams and have more vivid dreams than adults. This may be because they sleep more, or because their brains are more active than adults — they have more new memories to make sense of at night time or because they are less inhibited than adults so its easier to enter a dream state and free their minds at night time.

So far no experiments have shown what use dreams and sleep are. All we know is that without sleep we don’t function as well, our brains are slower and reactions dulled.

The lack of experimental evidence as to the uses of dreams is probably because we’ve not had the imagination to dream of an experiment suitable to show the use of sleep and dreams.

Falling awake

Birds and some fish can sleep with one eye open because they can put one side of their brain to sleep at a time. The reason for this half brained sleep is so that they can stay alert and avoid predators at night. Despite being half asleep, bird’s don’t fall off telegraph wires at night time. Unlike us they have a better sense of balance.

You may wonder why it is that some people can walk the tightrope, while others can’t walk in a straight line. The next chapter shall probe what happens when we become dizzy, why we faint, and how some people can juggle while others can’t pour a cup of tea.

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.

In our previous issue , due to a production error at the design stage, a hydrogen was inserted instead of the nitrogen atom in codeine. The correct version is given here.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 13

Charting where holes have been drilled around world.

Map based on a colour-shaded relief map produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC).

Download this chart as a poster sized PDF from the link below. The file is 6 Mb, so give it a few minutes to download. http://iodp.tamu.edu/scienceops/maps/poster/combined.html

PROBING BELOW THE DEPTHS

By drilling down through the Earth’s crust we can discover what happened in the past and what is likely to happen in the future. Tom Kennedy was at Geoscience 2010 to get an update on the international deep ocean drilling project.

E

xploration of the oceans extends deep down into the Earth’s crust.

On land we have high mountains and a deep crust, but out in the ocean there are basins where much of the Earth’s geological history has been preserved in sediments.

The technology developed for oil and gas exploration made it possible to drill deep into the Earth’s crust,

and this in turn led to growing interest from scientists in probing below the ocean floor. As Dr Gilbert Camoin, a senior scientist with the French State research organization, CNRS explained at the recent Geoscience conference in Dublin, deep sea drilling helps us to understand the dynamics of the Earth’s active crust. “Oceans cover the majority of the active plate boundaries,” he said. We also need to extract cores to read off information about past climates so that we can make more accurate predictions about future trends.

An international programme of deep drilling, he explained, began with the Project Mohole in the late 1950s,

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and this has since grown into the Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme.

Ireland is among the participants in this programme, which began in 2003 and runs on to 2013. Planning for the next phase, until 2023, said Dr Camoin, is already underway, and with each passing year, the number and diversity of scientists involved grows. While geologists look at plate techtonics, biologists look at the emergence of life, and climatologists chart changes in the ancient atmosphere. Ocean drilling, said Dr Camoin, brings us back 60 million years.

Scientists are concerned about what would happen if the Earth became warmer, and by examining the deep

the deep cores, we can get a fair idea of what the impact of this could be.

Back in the Eocene, more than 34 million years ago, the world was as warm, if not warmer as some models suggest it could be by 2050. One of the more serious consequences, said Dr Camoin, is that oceans could continue to become more acidic, and since the Industrial Revolution, such a rise has been recorded. Models to predict such changes, said Dr Camoin, are far from perfect, and there is a need to identify feedback mechanisms. “Only by going back in time,” he said, “can we attempt to make predictions.”

Certainly, some changes in the past were dramatic, and sea levels have fluctuated for a variety of reasons. Deep sea cores show that over a period of just 1,000 years from the late Pliocene to recent times, some sea level changes have ranged from 30 to 140 metres.

Of course, what happens in one place, does not necessarily hold true for everywhere else, and as Dr Camoin explained, this is why ocean drilling has to be a global project.

The relatively recent interglacial periods are of considerable interest as during these times, ice advanced and retreated, and we are currently in an interglacial. “We need data from lots of different places,” said Dr Camoin, “and also from sites that were distant from the ice sheets.” It is generally thought that the weight of ice had a strong influence in depressing the crust, but as Dr Camoin observed, coral records from the South Pacific show that there was a 17 metre rise in sea levels following the collapse of the ice sheet.

SInCE the beginning of the IODP project, drills have been made in many different locations and a number of specialised vessels have been involved including icebreakers and the Joides Resolution, above. In 2009 the Joides Resolution vessel created a record by drilling down 1,927 km into the Canterbury Basin off new Zealand. This has provided scientists with data on what happened when Antarctica and Australia separated from each other 34 million years ago.

A few years ago scientists from UCC and the Geological Survey of Ireland were on the Joides Resolution as the cold water coral mounds off the Porcupine Seabight were being investigated.

For more on missions undertaken from the Joides Resolution visit: http://joidesresolution.org/ On another front, deep drilling is helping us to understand more about how the Earth is blanketed by a living biosphere, and that life on land is far from dominant. “The deep sea biosphere,” observed Dr Camoin, “has

Left, the drill crew at work during the Porcupine project in 2005.

Right, examining the cores brought up from off Japan by the Chikyu drill vessel.

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up to one third of all living biomass on Earth.” We know very little about this life in the depths, and the deep drilling cores have shown us that micro-organisms exist 1.6 km below the seafloor.

LIVE LINK

Rocky landscapes A selection of photographs from the annual Du Noyer competition.

The competition, organised by the Gelogical Survey of Ireland with the Irish Geological Association commemorates the outstanding 19th century surveyor and artist, George Victor Du Noyer Exposed on the shore, the 350–millionyear-old Devonian sandstone that runs right through the backbone of Kerry.

Photographed by Donagh Keane Third prize in the Du Noyer, Ireland, section.

The Great Aletsch Glacier, covering more than 120 sq km. Largest of the Alpine glaciers. Photograph by John McMahon. 1st in Du Noyer, Foreign, cagetory.

A sea stack seen from Kinard beach, Dingle, Co Kerry.

Photographed by John Hooton.

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The Boireann, a pillar of rock at Hag’s Head, Co Clare. Photograph by Jonathan Moran. 2nd in Du Noyer, Ireland category Potholes in laminated Carboniferous siltstone at Doonaha, West Clare.

Photograph by Matthew Parkes.

Water cascading down thd waterfall at Powerscourt, Co Wicklow.

Photograph by Krzysztof Krewko.

Looking down on the Plitvice Lakes, Croatia. Photograph by Kevin Ferguson.

Overlooking Muckross Head, near Kilcar, Co Donegal. Photograph by Joseph McCloskey.

Granite shoulder points the way to Ben Crom Reservoir..

Photograph by Fergal Griffin.

The enormous seastack “doonbristy� at Downpatrick, Its striated limestone, shale and siltstones forming a slice through time. Photograp

by Patrick Swan. 1st in Du Noyer, Ireland category.

The Brownshill Dolmen dating to circa 3000 BC, is the largest in Europe with its granite capstone weighing over one hundred and fifty tons.. Photograph by Ian Michael.

Broomsday

i2 = j2 = k2 = ijk = -1 By creating a strange new system of four dimensional numbers, known as quaternions, William Rowan Hamilton provided us with the means to develop some of the most impressive visual effects and interactivity in the modern entertainment industry. In the mid 19th century Hamilton could hardly have imagined a character such as Laura Croft, yet she would never have come into virtual existence without his quaternions.

THe HamILTon WaLk Fiacre O’Cairbre, Department of Mathematics, NUI, Maynooth

H

amilton is one of the giants in the history of mathematics and science, and to celebrate his great discovery, there is an annual walk to the spot outside Dublin where he had his flash of inspiration.

On the 16th October about 120 people gathered at Dunsink Observatory to set off on the annual walk along the banks of the Grand Canal to the bridge at Broombridge in Cabra where Hamilton had his Eureka moment.

The creation of quaternions was later described in a letter from Hamilton to his son, as follows: “Although your mother talked with me now and then, yet an undercurrent of thought was going on in my mind, which gave at last a result, whereof it is not too much to say that I felt at once an importance. An electric current seemed to close; and a spark flashed forth, the herald (as I foresaw, immediately) of many long years to come of definitely directed thought and work. Nor could I resist the impulse — unphilosophical as it may have been — to cut with a knife on a stone of Brougham Bridge as we passed it, the fundamental formula.....”

The above Eureka moment was a culmination of many years of working on a mathematical problem. Number couples (or complex numbers) had played an important role in two-dimensional geometry and Hamilton was attempting to extend his theory of number couples to a suitable theory of number triples (or triplets). He hoped these triplets would give a natural mathematical structure and a new way for describing our three-dimensional world. He was having a difficult time and that is because we now know that it’s actually impossible to construct such a suitable theory of triplets. Then, on October 16, 1843, Hamilton’s mind gave birth to quaternions in a flash of inspiration, as he walked along the banks of the Royal Canal at Broombridge in Cabra. In an act of graffiti, Hamilton scratched his quaternion formulas on the bridge as described in his own words above.

Quaternions

Quaternions are number quadruples with an unusual multiplication operation and were a totally new structure in mathematics. Quaternions would help Hamilton in his three dimensional work but would also do much more than that.

The mathematical community was shocked at his audacity in creating a system of numbers that did not satisfy the usual commutative rule for multiplication in arithmetic (ab=ba).

He has been called the ’Liberator of Algebra’ because his quaternions liberated algebra from arithmetic in the sense that they broke the previously accepted convention that a useful algebraic number system should satisfy the rules of ordinary arithmetic. Consequently, modern algebra was born on October 16, 1843 on the banks of the Royal Canal. I suppose one could say in relation to Hamilton’s creation of quaternions: That’s one small scratch for a man, one giant leap for mathematics!

Hamilton is Ireland’s greatest mathematician and one of the world’s most outstanding mathematicians ever. In 1865, shortly before his death, Hamilton was the first Foreign Associate to be elected to the newly established National Academy of Sciences in the USA. This meant that the Academy considered Hamilton to be the greatest living scientist.

De Valera unveiled a plaque at Broombridge in 1958 to commemorate Hamilton’s creation. Of course, Hamilton is not the only one to make a famous connection between the Royal Canal and mathematics. Brendan Behan also did it with the following famous lines. the oul’ triangle goes jingle jangle along the banks of the Royal Canal.

The walk

In 1990 Anthony G. O’Farrell initiated an annual walk to commemorate the creation of quaternions. The annual walk takes place on October 16 and people retrace Hamilton’s steps by starting at Dunsink Observatory, where Hamilton

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Broomsday

lived, and walking on to Broombridge. It takes about 45 minutes and most of the walk is along the banks of the Royal Canal.

I organise the annual Hamilton walk which celebated its twentieth anniversary in 2010. The walk typically attracts a large group of people from a wide variety of backgrounds including staff and students from third level, second level and a large number from the general public. Typically, there is a substantial interest from the media in the walk.

Consequently, the walk has appeared three times on television over the last seven years, and has been the subject of radio programmes, newspaper articles, and talks. The Hamilton story and the walk seems to have a very strong effect on peoples’ view of mathematics with many telling me that it completely changed their perception of mathematics for the better. I believe that the combination of famous characters, beauty and practical power of mathematics, motivation, the Irish connection, drama, and humour have all added to the high level of interest in this walk.

Participants have included Nobel Prize winners, public figures, and in 2005, Hamilton’s great-great grandson, Mike O’Regan, came on the walk.

The walk has made a big impression nationally, and has had a very positive impact on the local community. Aodhan Perry of the Cabra Community Council remarked that:

In fact it has gone way beyond just being a walk because all the local school children and the community are extremely proud of Hamilton and their local connection with him.

The walk really has touched the local people in a big way.

The fact that famous mathematicians and Nobel Prize winners mingle with school children and the local community on the walk and at the bridge is a great experience.

Also, not one but two local artists have been commissioned in recent times to do portraits of Hamilton which are then publicly displayed at the bridge during the walk.”

Another Cabra resident, Jack Gannon said that: “On account of the walk, Hamilton is in the folk consciousness of the local people” Broombridge is now a world famous site in the history of mathematics and science on account of Hamilton’s creation of the quaternions.

A G O’Farrell speaking at The word ‘Broomsday’ is Broombridge on the 2010 now sometimes used in Hamilton Walk. mathematical circles to indicate October 16th and the walk. So, while literary groups have Bloomsday, mathematicians can celebrate Broomsday.

Anybody who is interested in coming on the walk should contact me at fiacre.ocairbre@nuim.ie or (01) 7083763.

Beauty and some applications of Hamilton’s mathematics HAMIlTON’S motivation for doing mathematics was the pursuit of beauty. The beauty being in the myriad of ideas, arguably the most important feature of mathematics.

Hamilton also sought beauty in poetry, and was a two times winner of the Chancellor’s Poetry Prize in Trinity College.

His own view was that: “Mathematics is an aesthetic creation, akin to poetry, with its own mysteries and moments of profound revelation.”

As is often the case in mathematics, practical power was an offspring of his search for beauty. Hamilton’s mathematics has been, and still is, exceptionally powerful when applied to science, engineering and many other areas. Here are some of the applications, including recent ones like computer games and special effects in movies: Quaternions play an important role in computer games, and it comes to most people as a surprise to learn that the beautiful, intelligent, energetic yet fictional Lara Croft in Tomb Raider was created using quaternions.

Staying with the theme of entertainment, quaternions now play a significant role in special effects in films. For example, the Irish company, Havok, used quaternions in the development of the new special effects in the film, The Matrix Reloaded, and also in the film, Poseidon, which was nominated for an Oscar for its visual effects in 2007. Havok received an Emmy award in the US in 2008 for pioneering

new levels of realism and interactivity in films and games.

Some of the dramatic visuals in the latest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, were created by Havok.

The impact of quaternions is not, of course, confined to entertainment. Quaternions were used by Maxwell in developing a mathematial theory that predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves in 1864. Maxwell’s theory ultimately led to the detection of radio waves by Hertz.

Consequently, the inventions of radio, television, radar, X-rays and countless other important products in our society are directly related to Hamilton’s quaternions. Maxwell’s work shows the “magical” power of mathematics since his mathematics made the invisible visible because radio waves are invisible to our five senses. One possible reason why mathematics possesses this “magical” power is because mathematics consists of many ideas which are not limited to our five senses.

Hamilton’s new theory of dynamics in 1834 was crucial for the development of quantum mechanics in the early twentieth century. Quantum mechanics replaced Newtonian mechanics in trying to understand the physical world at the microcsopic level. Also, his famous “Hamiltonian” function is fundamental to many aspects of Physics.

Vector Analysis, which is indispensable in physics, is yet another offspring of of quaternions.

To view some of the dramatic visuals from Havok http://www.havok.com/index.php?page=havok-in-the-movies SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 23

LIVE LINK

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How society works is so complex that it appears to be beyond comprehension, yet as Professor Dirk Helbing maintains, the physical world was also a mystery until we discovered the underlying rules.

Tom Kennedy reports on the emerging study of complexity.

COMPLEXITY

W

e seem to know a lot more about the Universe than we know about how society works. This struck Professor Dirk Helbing, from the ETH university in Zurich, as strange. Why, he wondered, should the rules that bind us together into society be any different from those that determine the form of the Universe? After all, both are complex systems. It seemed reasonable to assume that if we want to understand how society works, we should adopt the same sort of approach that has enabled scientists to discover the underlying rules for complex physical systems. At the time, Prof Helbing was a physicist, and he was aware that many of the underlying laws we take for granted now in physics were far from obvious until shown to be true. Watching objects fall is not going to convince us that they all fall at the same speed because there are other influences, such as resistance to air at work, yet to understand what is happening, we need to begin with the underlying law of gravity.

Such simple laws, said Prof Helbing, help us to understand the sort of complexity that at first appears to be completely beyond comprehension.

As he observed, the reason we know so little about how society works, is that we have not spent enough time looking for the elementary processes that underlie the complexity.

We have spent billions building CERN, he said, and likewise we have gone into space, so why can’t we start

Prof Dirk Helbing was invited by the Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology to deliver a lecture at the Royal Irish Academy on the emerging science of complexity.

The Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology, IRCSET, is one of the eleven partners in Complexity-NET. This European wide body co-ordinates activities relating to the emerging study of complexity.

Irish researchers have been quite active in this field, and last year IRCSET selected four proposals for support. Dr John Denari, who together with Prof Heather Ruskin from DCU, heads the initiative in Ireland, said that the level of interest is high, with over 100 proposals submitted from more than 30 senior researchers.

identifying the elementary processes that keep society together?

Having started off as a physicist, Prof Helbing now holds the Chair of Sociology at ETH in Zurich, one of Europe’s leading universities. The switch from physics to sociology, he commented, might strike some people as strange, but all it really involved was a change in field. He was, and still is a complexity scientist.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 24

At Zurich, Prof Helbing leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers who can look at a complex problem from different perspectives.

In society there are many different patterns of behaviour, and one area the team has been focusing in on is pedestrian flow, and this has great relevance to crowd control.

In looking down at a busy street, pedestrians pass through each other with no discernible pattern, at least that’s the way it appears until those apparently random movements are captured in video and analysed. Then, we see that there is a bias, with a clear preference for walking by others on the right-hand side.

The team then set up controlled experiments in which people walked by each other, and the results confirmed that without anybody being aware of it, the bias for the right was like an unwritten rule, enabling streams of pedestrians to flow through each other.

This interesting discovery assumed greater importance as the team began to look at what happens in larger crowds. In 2007 there was a disaster as three million people converged on Mecca for the Hajj gathering. Although there was a big plaza with an 80 metre wide entrance, about 300 people were crushed in a disturbance set off when some people stumbled.

“What happened,” said Prof Helbing, “can be seen by speeding up the video record of the disaster.”

As long as there was no disturbance, the flow was smooth and slow. Then, suddenly, there was a disturbance, upsetting the pattern, and within moments there was a spread of chaotic, random, unstructured movements, so people pushed against each other and fell.

In effect, this disaster, like others, was caused by a break down in a rule that we had not even been aware of. Once that rule was understood, practical steps could be taken to ensure that nothing would upset the natural flow. Pilgrims can now visit Mecca without the fear of being crushed.

Many sociologists, said Prof Helbing, could never have solved such a problem because they only look at the end results and have no interest in what they see as simple systems. However, real understanding of complexity, said Prof Helbing has usually come from the discovery of the relatively simple underlying rules.

Cheats and free-loaders

In another study of social complexity, the group looked at co-operation, and they posed a rather odd, and disturbing question: why should I co-operate with others when I can profit more by cheating?

Obviously, said Prof Helbing, we don’t want to live in a society where everybody preys on everyone else.

Yet, if everybody around you is on the make, how can you afford not to cheat?

In practice, cheating spreads, but because people are mobile, co-operative types tend to move away to be among others of their kind. As a result, while the initial rewards from cheating are high, the pay off from cheating diminishes, so cheating is not really a good long term strategy.

As Prof Helbing explained, it is possible to model this behaviour, and a very realistic picture of what actually happens in society can be produced by assigning values to behaviour and mobility. Simply looking at behaviour, whether it is perceived as good or bad, does not give us an accurate model unless we factor in mobility.

When this is done, the model starts off with a random pattern of cheaters and co-operators, but, after allowing for interactions, we end up with some large co-operative clusters, and a smaller number of persistent cheater clusters. Such a conclusion, he added, would come as no big surprise to a physicist. In physics this tendency of

Because people behave in a predictable way when walking by each other, the dynamics of a crowd can be modelled.

particles, or phases, to form distinct clusters would simply be defined as yet another example of nucleation.

The parallel with physical systems, or indeed nucleation, does not end there, and the financial boom and burst bubbles can also be seen as the result of how we make collective decisions.

Prof Helbing pointed out that greed and lack of regulations are often given as the reason for a financial crisis, but, as he argues, faulty group decision making is more likely to be the cause. Within a group, such as a committee, decisions are usually agreed on by consensus, and as Prof Helbing noted, there is a strong tendency for individuals, faced with a lot of information, to go with the flow. In the financial world, the fact that others have made an investment is like a green light to go ahead and do the same. In Ireland, this has been an all too familiar scenario, and as Prof Helbing remarked, “maybe this is not the best mechanism we can have,” because it leads us into a financial bubble which in the end must burst.

Again, there is the parallel with physics. In the physical world, bubbles form and burst, and if we want to stop this happening all that is necessary is to add a little bit of ‘noise’ to disrupt the process.

The problem with the economy is that we allow the bubbles to form and grow. By following the example of physics, we could think of introducing some kind of ‘noise’ in the form of a simple rule or regulation that would stop these bubbles from forming in the first case. As in the physical world, this rule or regulation on its own could be quite simple, so, to stop the system going out of control there may be no need to model the entire financial system and all its complex ramifications.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 25

Traffic

In living cells lots of resources and nutrients have to be moved about, often in volume and at speed, yet there is no traffic congestion. In cells, when traffic control breaks down, we become ill and may even die.

As Prof Helbing observed, nature has solved a complexity problem that we still find hard to deal with. For many years, he said, we have been attempting to improve control of city traffic lights. Efficient traffic control is a global problem, and, as in Dresden, the introduction of a sophisticated greenwave system did not bring about the expected improvement. Getting traffic to control the lights, rather than the other way around, also did not work as well as expected, and as Prof Helbing concluded all these heavily computerized systems were bound to fail because they did not have the capacity to deal with the allembracing complexity. The focus was on symptoms rather than the cause, and in effect, these systems represent a linear approach in which solutions are sought to problems one at a time, and while that approach is still common among engineers, this is certainly not how nature works.

As Prof Helbing observed, if we want free flow, we need to see how nature deals with complexity by combining local control with “keeping an eye on the neighbours.”

Government, finance and traffic are just some of the areas where we need to discover the rules that underlie complex systems, and as Prof Helbing argues, if we look at what happens when the bubble bursts, or when traffic grinds to a halt, spending more on supporting complexity research would be a cheap investment.

Marsh Marigolds

Hoverfly, Sphegine Montana visiting Marsh Marigold, Caltha palustris. Photo

by Richard Bartz.

Tom Kennedy suggests watching out for one of the first plants to make a return after the retreat of the last ice age.

A

s the ice retreated, the bright yellow Marsh Marigolds were among the early colonisers.

Marsh Marigolds don’t mind the cold, and they are perfectly at home half submerged in meltwater. At this time of the year you are likely to see them whevever the land is wet, not just in Ireland, but throughout the temperate regions of the world. One of the Irish names, Lus buí Bealtaine, lets us know that we should see the yellow, buí, flowers in Bealtaine, May, and Lus tells us that this plant is likely to have been regarded as a useful herb.

The yellow flowers look like buttercups, but while Caltha palustris belongs to that extensive Ranunculus family, it does not qualify for the title because it has no petals. What you see are sepals passing themselves off as petals. In most flowers, sepals are green, and form a sort of cup around the more conspicuous and colourful display of petals, but in the Marsh Marigold, the sepals have moved up in the world.

Like buttercups, the flowers shine with an extra brightness, for, long before we discovered how to make cats eyes and reflective arm bands nature found that colour can be enhanced by adding tiny particles of reflective starch.

The Irish suggestion that the plant had a medicinal use is unusual, and in most other countries, such as Holland and Germany, traditional names only refer to the habitat and colour. Germans, who like those

long compound words, know it as Sumpfdotterblume, the sumph being a marsh, and dotter, the yolk of an egg. A bit further afield, in Latvia, it is known as Gundega, which I am informed refers to its burning affect on skin.

Like its relations, the buttercups, Marsh Marigold sap contains a substance known as protoanemonin, an irritant, as children who go gathering wild flowers in Spring sometimes discover when their fingers begin to tingle.

This may well have been the active ingredient that made the plant useful in some sort of way. Chemically it is a five sided ring with four of the corners

occupied by a carbon. Alltogether the molecule has five atoms of carbon to four of hydrogen and two of oxygen, C5H4O2.

When injured, the protoanemonin is produced by the action of enzymes on plant sugars, but the irritant does not persist for long. On drying out, the chemical ends up as an apparently harmless carboxylic acid, so, in hay, Marsh Marigolds are safe for horses and other stock.

The bright yellow is for display, and insect visitors come for the nectar, which they find in small depressions, one each side of the sepals. The plant is a hermaphrodite, which means it is quite content, if necessary, to live a solitary life.

As the flowers begin to fade away, the fleshy heart shaped leaves continue to grow, and after maturing within their yellow green pods, the seeds break free and float away on the offchance that some, at least, will end up as the founders of a new cluster of Marsh Marigolds.

Marsh Marigolds, with their floppy hollow stems, are far from rare, but where farming is intense, they are pushed out to the margins, and clusters are often seen in ditches by roadsides. Not the most demanding of plants, and that helps make it popular as a wet garden plant.

As botanists like to say, the plant is highly polymorphic, so the Marsh Marigolds in one place may not always look exactly like the Marsh Marigolds of elsewhere.

Geo Mappers Sam Huleatt with his field notebook.

Tom Kennedy reports that there comes a time when young geologists have to strike off on their own.

W

hen the opportunity to spend weeks tramping around north west Iceland came up, Sam Huleatt knew that studying geology had been a good choice. At school in Bandon, Sam had always been interested in science but on going to university, he discovered that geology was a perfect match for his love of the outdoor life.

Geology had not been an obvious choice, and taking general sciences at TCD, he said, had been a good decision because it allowed him to sample all the options before deciding to concentrate on the one that appealed to him most. Once he became aware that geology existed as a distinct field, Sam took to the subject like the proverbial duck did to water.

As a student of geology, Sam eventually had to prove his worth by undertaking a mapping project. This is a serious undertaking as, in effect, it involves going it alone into uncharted territory. Although a supervisor might be there to give some advice and guidance, this is the first time that a geologist is let loose to make and record independent observations.

When it came to selecting the area to be mapped, Sam was drawn to the relatively young volcanic landscape of Iceland, and with the approval of his supervisors at TCD, he packed his bags and set off for the isolated Steinadalur area of north west Iceland.

Before setting off, he had contacted

the community centre in Husavic, a small and isolated town, and in turn he was given directions to a sheep farm where he could stay while surveying the surrounding forty to fifty square kilometres.

As he had expected, the region is impressively raw and rugged, with not a road in sight. Tramping off into the wilderness is not considered a good idea, so Sam had a mapping companion, Mark. It can get lonely out there, said Sam, and besides, having someone to sound ideas off can be useful.

“We were lucky with the weather,” he said. “It was warm and dry for about three quarters of the time,” so he had a very productive month and a half studying the rocks and writing up his notebook.

Sam was breaking new ground, for as he explained, the rocks of the area had never been mapped before. In geological terms, the area is relatively recent, a mere babe of 10 million years. What had once been a great volcano had collapsed in on itself to form a saucer like caldera. That saucer had filled with water, but as

Mapping awards

EvEry year the Cunningham Award for mapping is presented to two outstanding geology students, and while Sam Huleatt had gone to Iceland, Hugh O’Leary from University College Cork, had mapped rocks in Scotland.

Like Sam, Hugh had followed a path into mining. Hugh is now working in an Australian coal mine, and like the ten others of his year at UCC, he found that the demand for geologists in that sector is high.

In presenting the awards, Pat O’Connor, acting head of the Irish Geological Survey, said that mapping involves the sort of skills that we need to maintain and encourage. Not least of these skills is the ability to look at evidence with a fresh, unbiased eye, and Pat said he had been impressed when, on looking through Sam Huleatt’s field notebook, he saw an old quotation warning geologists not to fall hopelessly in love with a theory, but to regard it as a summer flirtation rather than a wife.

Going out into the field with preconceived ideas, said Pat, means that you only find what you expect to find. He recalled how a study had once been made of Slieve Gullion and the results published in a respected scientific journal. “The map was right, but the paper was completely wrong,” he said, and all because the author had set out to fit the facts with a pre-existing theory.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 27

www.sciencespin.com

UPFRONT An old water flea

A 450 million year old Crustacean, complete with fossilized soft parts, has been found in Herefordshire. One of the scientists involved in the discovery, Prof David Siveter from the University of Leicester, said that what made the 5mm long fossil so special is not that it is a previously un-named species, but that the soft parts have been preserved so well that eyes and the antennae can be made out.

From left: Steinadalur, the group Vatnajokul Glacier, and a cinder cone.

The fossil, named Nasunaris flata, belongs to the same as water-fleas and shrimps. Their descendants are common today in lakes and oceans, and geologists often use the fossils as Some of the results coming in are quite had to think of what to do next. With Sam found,ofthe volcanics indicators past climates.continued. promising, so in Ireland, interest in geology, he said, you usually have to The evidence for this came from the exploration is high. Just over a year choose between four different career presence of hydroclastites, a form Internal image of the fossil showing the soft parts and eyes. Image: ago, said Sam, an ore body in Limerick paths.

You can stay in academia, you of lavaJ.produced by the David Siveter, Derek E.interaction G. Briggs, Derek J. Siveter and Mark D. was thought to be 12 million tonnes, can go into geotechnics, which is with water.

As the lava enters a body Sutton. and since then the estimate has been a hybrid between engineering and of water, small fragments form, and doubled. geology, you can go into petroleum, because they are still hot, they fuse Sam, whoKing enjoys hillwalking, Later, one of David’s successors, Hezekiah, fearing that which is quite specialized, or you can together. This happened on a number climbing and ausing bit ofthe surfing, will the Assyrians would take Jerusalem same approach, go into mining. of occasions, and around the perimeter continue to go wherever geology leadsIt rerouted the water into the city via a 550 metre long tunnel.

“At thegeology. moment,” he said, “I JERUSALEM’s fate was determined by the underlying of the caldera sedimentary layers could him, and the volcanic landscape of proved to be a good decision, for in 701 BC, Jerusalem was the am working in mining,” and this At the annual Geological Society of America meeting last be seen between the piled up lavas, Iceland really to him. In his only city that failed to appealed take. involvesexplained green field exploration for the Assyrians October, from Illinois University showing Michael that thereBramnik were long enough he is in already onmodern his wayhistory to a major factor shaping new deposits.

By drillingWater down,still remains adreams, that underground passageways in the karst limestone enabled periods of time between eruptions. volcanic island north of Antarctica. in the region, and Michael Bramnik said that when he went in cores, representing a cross section of King David to take the city.

Water was drawn from the Spring “It was a great experience, and I of hydrological maps for other towns and settlements ground below can search be extracted, of Gihon,a which laySam, just outside the city walls.the David’s soldiers learned lot,” said but having he of was often rebuffed with a claim that such maps do not and examined for traces minerals. climbed into theproject, spring he and by tunnelling under the competeddown his mapping exist. walls got access to the city.

Bedrock of history

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website: www.gsi.ie e-mail: gsisales@gsi.ie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 41 Page 4 SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 28

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YOUNG SCIENTISTS

UPFRONT

WATER ON TOP Seán Duke reports on Rachel Eustace’s practical solution to a water problem.

I

t seems odd that Ireland should ever experience water shortages, especially in recent years when rural Ireland has been repeatedly flooded by rainfall.

That’s the way it is, that’s the way it always has been, but 14-year-old Rachel Eustace, a 2nd year at Ard Scoil na A chalcid wasp Tríonóid in Athy believes we should (Trichogrammatidae) in Ethiopian capture rainfall to alleviate future water amber, body length 0,6 mm shortages..

In other countries people collect rainfall and use it for washing clothes, dishes and people. This rainwater is collected off roofs and used for all A REMARKABLY detailed snapshot of the Cretaceous period has purposes except drinking. In Ireland, been preserved in amber. Amber, almost as clear as glass, is fossilized we have good quality water available in resin, the sticky substance exuded by pine trees. rainfall, but we don’t bother catching it.

A team of twenty researchers from Germany, France, Austria, Rachael is an articulate, bright and Ethiopia, Italy, the UK and USA, have been examining the 95 million practical girl. She wants to change the year old plants, insects, nematodes, fungi, and even bacteria encased world, in her own way, amd she has the in Ethiopian amber. The amber was found within sandstone from the talent to do it. northwestern plateau of Ethopia. In reporting their initial findings Rachel’s family gets most of its water in the journal PNAS, the researchers explain rainfall that they nowafter havethe an snow and events from a well like their neighbours. During unprecedented window into a Cretaceous woodland.

This was a time ice.

The samples were completely periods of heavy rain, and flooding, it when the first flowering plants began to appear. contaminated with bacteria, too many is not possible to get water drawn from Two of the scientists involved, Matthias Svojtka Norbert bacteriaand to even count. The reason for wells. This leads to a situation where the Vávra, from the University of Vienna, explained that clear. thirteen insect this was During the freezing fields all around can be flooded, while families have been identified so far. These include hymenopterans, weather, the bacteria were not leaving no-one has water. thrips, barklice, zorapterans, and remains of the moths and beetles. they stayed there roofs of houses, Rachel thought to herself, and she During the lifetime of these animals, Ethiopia was part of the up. ancient waiting to warm is a practical girl remember. What can continent, Gondwana. As the researchers pointed out,when amber from Then the weather finally did be done about it? She decided that she this region is rare, adding greatly to the value of the fossil record. warm up, all the bacteria started to would start to do something by taking Until now the most significant Cretaceous amber from down with move,deposits and theycame travelled samples of rainwater during rainy North America and Eurasia. the first rains of the warmer weather, spells and send the samples off for down off the roof of Rachel’s home testing to see whether rainwater was fit into her water collection container — a for drinking. small, toy washing machine by the way.

The people at Bord na Móna This mass migration of bacteria postin Newbridge tested Rachel’s snow meant that there were massive water samples, for water quality concentrations of bacteria in these characteristics such as pH, conductivity, samples. This water was not drinkable, colour, turbidity and total hardness. but the bacteria had at least been The results came back. “They were all flushed away. within standard – quite good results,” it causes a severe infection. Acquired Two days later, the rain came again, Rachel recalled. resistance to antibiotics is making it and Rachel collected sample 5. This These initial results were more difficult to keep these fungal MEDICAL implants, such as cathers time the sample had no bacteria at encouraging, but before Rachel attacks under control, but as the Cork and prosthetics can save lives, but they all, she recalled. She was pleasantly could collect any more samples, the researchers report in the journal, can also become an unintended host surprised with the positive result. It horrendous period of snow and ice Microbiology, another pathogen could for fungal infections. Thehe yeast, showed that water quality collected before Christmas kicked in. There provide a solution to that problem.

Candida albicans, can form a biofilm from roofs can vary, but vary in a was no rainfall for sometime, as any The bacterium, Pseudomonas which is difficult to eradicate, and predictable fashion. The results show precipitation simply fell as snow. eruginosa, invades burn wounds, so as researchers at University College that it was important that water is Eventually, following the slow thaw, the it is seen as a troublesome pathogen.

Cork report, this is the most common collected at least 15 minutes after rain first rains after the big freeze came and However, as the researchers found, hospital-acquired infection. starts to allow any bacteria present to Rachel began collecting new samples. it inhibits the growth of Canida Normally, the yeast is not a make their way off the roof first. Also, The samples, which she numbered albicans. problem, but in certain circumstances to allow for a few days following a 3 and 4, were taken during the first

A wasp, just under half a cm long, from the famiuly Mymarommatidae. Naturhistorisches Museum Wien

Window into the ancient past

Blocking infections

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 41 Page 5 SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 29

Rachel at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition

period of freezing conditions before samples are taken.

Based on all of this research Rachel came up with rainfall collection device.

Her device had a screen to block out rocks and leaves. She used filter paper to stop muck and dirt getting into the water, and a micropore filter too, to An 8mm long member of the Thysanoptera, stop smaller particles and bacteria. The thunder fly, family.

Naturhistorisches water was then put in a sterile bottle Museum Wien and exposed to ultra violet light. This light, many scientists now believe, can kill off 99 per cent of bacteria and viruses that may be present.

Canida albicans biofilm She had learned thisunder fromattack.

The fungal growth on the right has been researching her topic, and applying it to attacked by Pseudomonas.

Confocal improve her device. microscope image, Gordon by McAlester.

Rachel was surprised the positive

reaction at the BT Show from members Dr public John Morrissey, who led the of the to her water collection research team, commented that “if we device. Some said it would be a great can exploit the same inhibitory strategy thing, once water charges came in, and that thre bacterium P aeruginosa uses, water became expensive, while others then we ablebe to available design drugs asked hermight whenbe it will thatsale. canThe be used as antimicriobials to for interest got her thinking. disperse yeast biofilms as they form.”

She had not been planning to try and He also asaid that itproduct, might be possible develop saleable but now to incorporate such inhibitory drugs into she feels she might like to do that. Her the implants. teacher, Ms Ní Fhaoláin agrees. No Thewe’ll nextbe step, he said is to doubt hearing more of ‘Rachel’s determine what kind of chemicals are water’ in the future. being produced by the bacterium, and to discover how and where it targets the yeast.

AwArds of science & MAths excellence

The deadline to submit your intention to apply for an Award of Science Excellence and Maths is 25th March 2011

Discover Science and Engineering are delighted to announce that we will be working with ABBOTT Ireland during the 2011 Awards of Science and Maths Excellence. ABBOTT Ireland will sponsor vouchers for science equipment for 60 lucky schools, who will be randomly chosen from the winners. A minimum of two schools per country will be chosen and vouchers must be used before the end of

October 2011. ABBOTT are also working with the Discover Science and Engineering to develop a new ‘At Home’ section which will make new resources available. If you have any queries please contact us at primaryscience@ forfas.ie.

REMEMBER ALL LOG BOOKS MUST BE WITH DPS BY CLOSE OF BUSINESS MAY 6TH 2011

l Step 1 – Complete one prescribed activity relating to each of the four strand units in the Science curriculum (a total of 4). These can be DPS activities from the pack/ website or your own ideas, or a mix of both l Step 2 – Visit a DPS Discover Centre or invite a science speaker to your school l Step 3 – Attend or hold a science event (e.g. a science day or evening in your school, a group from the school attending a science week event or the BT Young Scientist and Technology exhibition) l Step 4 – Give three examples of how you integrated maths into your science work. This can include your own examples or the new maths extensions for DPS activities launched this year l Step 5 – One activity relating to Science Week 2010 theme – Our Place in Space – please see http://www. primaryscience.ie/activities_space.php for some ideas.

Keep up-to-date with the Primary Science and Maths Programme at: http://www.facebook.com/ DiscoverPrimaryScienceAndMaths

LIVE LINK

Tracking the onset of spring Greenwave goes European

Scientists tell us that if we look at Europe from outer space we will see a green wave moving up across it in springtime.

This is caused by the opening of the buds on the trees. It begins in the south of Europe in February and it moves up across Europe as the temperature rises. It moves at the same speed as we might walk – four miles per hour.

The Greenwave Europe project is a mass science experiment for selected primary schools around Europe. Students and teachers will have the opportunity to register on the www.greenwaveeurope.eu website enabling them to record sightings of and upload photographs of the various common species throughout Europe. Schools will also have the option of measuring the temperature on a daily basis as well as making a rain gauge and anemometer, and uploading this information onto the website also.

The results are then mapped and analysed on the website and we can see if spring moves from south to north across Europe or from west to east.

The Greenwave project is a practical way to support the teaching of the Plants and Animals Strand. Students have the opportunity to develop the following skills: Observing, Classifying, Recognising Patterns, Estimating and Measuring, Recording and Communicating, while also helping advance their ICT skills.

The European Greenwave project will involve a maximum of 25 schools per country involved in the project. All schools will have to enter a minimum of two common species as indicators of spring arriving in their relevant countries. By taking part in the Greenwave Europe project, you will be actually doing real science, i.e. studying and recording when plants and animals react to warming and lengthening days in spring. So teachers, log on and submit your sightings of spring to be involved in the pan European project.

SPIN ACTIVE APPLIED STI

Cutting the red tape

CITY GUIDE

IT’S A SCAM

Don’T get caught. If you receive an offical looking form with your name and company address asking corrections, look at the small print before thinking of signing.

In spite of the fact that the European City Guide has been exposed as a scam, the perpertrators continue to send out forms to firms in Ireland.

This is noT a free directory, as many unsuspecting SMEs have found to their cost.

Mark Fielding, Chief Executive of ISME, the organisation representing many Irish firms, said that rip-off scams are a real problem. Since the beginning of the year, he said, there has been an increase in calls from companies to complain about pesudo-requests and spurious invoices. In some cases, fraudsters have had the gall to employ reputable debt collection agencies to give their activities a cloak of authenticity.

ISME warns firms against allowing junior staff to sign off on potentially fraudulent orders. “The sophistication, extent and frequency of business scams is rising,” said Mark Fielding, and he recommended adopting the motto, “when in doubt, don’t pay out.”

Unfortunately, the authorities in countries hosting these scams, including the postal services, have been extremely slow to remedy the situation, but as the video clip below shows, pressure is mounting throughout Europe to take action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYQK9yjGABM LLIVINEK

Signal detection

With the shut down of analog TV, spectrum is being released for a range of applications. There is also unoccupied “white space” available in the TV spectrum.

Highly effective monitoring and detection technology is on offer to identify channels, signal type and quality.

Link quality

Technology is available to predict the strength of an electromagnetic signal in mobile devices. This technology enables service providers to switch or jump to channels with better signal stability.

More details from John Whelan, Trinity Research and Innovation, o’Reilly Institute, TCD, Dublin 2.

John.whelan@tcd.ie LIVE http://www.tcd.ie/research_ K IN L innovation/technology/ Available Technology Videos: http:// www.youtube.com/TrinityResearch skype: johnwhelan999

LINKS

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

Stenting technology

Technique for delivery of pro-healing genes to blood vessels. Impressive results, and variety of clinical applications.

For more details, contact Dr Jacinta Thornton, Jacinta.thornton@ nuigalway.ie LIVE K LIN

Wound healing material

A natural biomaterial, derived from the gall bladder of a pig with good mechanical properties is available for wound healing and tissue repair applications.

More details from Dr Ruairi Friel at ruairi.friel@nuigalway.ie LIVE LINK

onE of the main reasons why small and medium sized firms fail to become involved in research is that they don’t have the resources or time to spend dealing with red tape.

Because of this SMEs miss out on opportunities to pick up results from projects undertaken with EU support.

Science Commissioner, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn is keen to make it easier for smaller firms to become involved in research. In January she announced that three improvements are to come into immediate effect and that a number of other reforms are to follow.

Calculation of personnel costs has been simplified, salaries of SME owners can be reimbursed through flat-rated payments, and a steering group of Commission officials is removing inconsistencies in the application rules for funding.

Under the current Framework 7 programme, almost 8,000 projects so far have been funded, but only about 15 per cent of the participants are SMEs.

Food firms

Companies involved in food production can avail of pilot plant facilities at Moorepark to develop new products.

Moorepark Technology can offer: Pilot plant rental, Contract research and development, Pre-commercial manufacturing, and, Technical support and advice.

To find out more contact: Kieran Downey at Kieran.downey@ teagasc.ie LIVE www.moorepark.net LINK

Identifying bacteria

Precise identification of specific bacterial species is possible using a diagnostic assay, based on a novel gene sequence, developed by RiboTech at nUI Galway.

More detail from Dr Ruairi Friel at fuairi.friel@nuigalway.ie LIVE

LINK

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 31

SPIN ACTIVE APPLIED STI

Supporting R&D For such a small country, where everyone seems to know everyone else, there is an amazing lack of co-ordination between the various players. colleges compete rather than collaborate, and state agencies often seem to exist on separate islands.

When the applied research competence centres were established in 2010, the fact that the IDA and Enterprise Ireland had collaborated on a joint programme was considered remarakble enough to merit comment as a most welcome development. surely that sort of collaboration should be the norm, rather than an exception, and while this might apply generally to how we run our public services, the need for better integration of resources is an issue with the sciences. Part of this problem appears to lie in the strict definitions of what each agency, department or institution is supposed to do. There is a fear of stepping across the line, as this might mean trespassing on someone else’s territory, and so, to take just one example, we can have an agency charged with industrial development claiming, quite correctly, that education is not within their brief.

Like “work to rule” that lack of flexibility can be counterproductive and there are always going to be a lot of grey areas where sharing of interests makes practical sense.

In every field there are a lot of players, and in the sciences, the need to bring them together into a team was strongly emphased in the hugely influential science Technology Innovation Advisory council (sTIAc) report of 1996. Not many people would remember, or even have read this report, but because of it, science Foundation Ireland was established. one of the most striking points brought out in this report was the surprisingly high number of bodies with a direct involvement in the sciences. health, forestry, fisheries, education, geology, manufacturing, agriculture, food and energy, just to mention a few, and let’s not forget An Garda síochána, who run the highly sophisticated forensics lab.

When this report was being compiled, I don’t think anybody could have anticipated the level of interest from so many different groups in submitting claims to having a stake in Irish science.

A lot has happened since, but there is still a lack of co-ordination in Irish science, and if anything the distance between sMEs and researchers has grown. For a huge number of Irish sMEs, dismissvely referred to as ‘indigenous’ by agencies as if this were a term of abuse, science appears to be completely irrelevant.

This is not good for science, and it is certainly not good for the economy.

The Advisory council for science Technology and Innovation has again pointed to this serious weakness, and they call for better co-ordination of activities that bring researchers and firms together. The council makes the point that no one can come up with solutions in isolation, and to get results, people involved in education, industry, and development must make more of an effort to work together.

In their report, Staying the Course, the council asks for more measures to link academic and industrial research, for industry to be better informed about what is happening in research. The logic of this is simple; if people in industry cannot see the relevance of research, why would they bother investing in r&D, even if this is where their future lies.

Another recommendation made in the report is that teaching of maths needs to be reformed. Many of the sciences are heavily dependent on maths as is technology, yet, in schools, teaching of maths is unacceptably poor, and to assume that the pupils are weak is suspiciously like blaming the victim.

Teaching is simply not effective, and instead of letting that situation becme worse, the council makes the case that continuous professional development should become a requirement for teachers. (TK) The report staying the course can be downloaded from: www.sciencecouncil.ie LLIVINEK

Band not so broad

Irish engineers are not too pleased with their broadband connections. According to Engineers Ireland, more than half those surveyed, said that dealing with international clients is not helped by connections that are below the Eu average. John Power, director of Engineers Ireland, said that good communications are essential for export growth. A number of Irish engineering companies have a great record of success abroad, yet they are working from a country with poor infrastructure.

Navigation

The launch of the first Galileo satellites next August will bring Europe closer to the goal of security in navigation. having to depend on GPs that can be turned on or off by the us military is far from ideal, and for some years Europeans have been aiming to establish a more independent system under civilian control.

The Galileo satellite system is to be controlled from Fucino, a centre 130 km east of rome, working in conjunction with another centre at oberpfaffenhofen near Munich.

According to the European space Agency, responsibilities for overall command are being split between the two centres, and if one falls out, the other can take over.

When fully completed, thirty Galileo satellites will be in operation.

The Fucino centre has an interesting history, going back to ancient roman times.

The area is flat because it was once a lake. under the emperor claudius, a tunnel was constructed to draw water from the lake. Many years later, in 1875, the remaining water was drained, using the same tunnel, and the rich soil was given over to farming.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 32

The STock Book FiSherieS Advice AT your FingerTipS

By Dr. Paul Connolly, Marine Institute

F

ish represent a very important resource base for irish coastal communities.The seas around ireland (known as Sub Areas vii and vi by iceS – the international council for the exploration of the Seas) contain some of the most productive and biologically sensitive areas in eu waters. Most of the fisheries resource within the area come under the remit of the common Fisheries policy (cFp). in 2010, the fishing opportunities (i.e. Total Allowable catches, TAcs) for the international fleets that operate in these seas were about 994,155 tonnes of fish, with an estimated landed value of €1.18billion.

This economic value is based on average 2009 prices and represent a conservative estimate. ireland’s share of these fishing opportunities represents 18 per cent by tonnage and 16 per cent by value. These figures exclude the valuable inshore fisheries (e.g. lobster, whelk) which are outside the remit of the cFp. The provision of scientific advice on the fisheries resource base is a key input to the cFp. Scientific advice forms the basis for the management decisions made under the cFp (e.g. annual TAcs).

The Stock Book is produced annually by the Marine institute and provides up to date information on the state of the fisheries resources exploited by the irish fleet. it provides the scientific advice that informs fishing opportunities for the following year. The Stock Book has been published by the Marine institute since 1993. The scientific advice used in The Stock Book is formulated by iceS and the majority of the scientific advice is released in June each year. This facilitates consultation with industry and managers on available fishing opportunities for the coming year. iceS produces the remaining scientific advice in october. The eu’s Scientific, Technical and economic committee for Fisheries (STecF) also reviews the state of fish stocks. The Stock Book draws on both the iceS and STecF material and the resultant scientific advice relates

Haddock

to those stocks exploited by the irish fleet, that come under the remit of the common Fisheries policy (cFp).

The Stock Book contains impartial scientific advice developed by the Fisheries Science Services team (working with other international scientists at iceS and STecF) from the latest available research, assessments and advice on the fisheries resource. each year, the eu commission produces a policy statement which outlines the guiding principles that will determine fishing opportunities

Figure 1: The spawning success of haddock in the Celtic Sea over the period 1993 to 2010.

In 2009, the haddock spawning was very successful and produced the largest number of baby fish over the series. This has the potential to increase the stock size and yield productive fishing. However it can also lead to high discard rates.

Figure 2: The stock size (spawning stock biomass) of the cod stock in the Irish Sea over the period 1968 to 2009. The stock has declined from about 20,000 tonnes in 1982 to around 1,000 tones in 2009. The dashed line (Bpa) represents the safe biomass level while the solid line (Blim) represents the level where recovery plans need to be implemented.

for the next year. The Stock Book presents an interpretation of the scientific advice and the decision rules for the setting of the TAcs for each stock. The Stock Book is presented to the department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (dAFF) each november. The information is of vital importance in serving ireland during the annual TAc negotiations at the various eu council of Fisheries meetings. it also serves as a valuable reference throughout the year at other fisheries management meetings with the eu.

Two examples of the type of information contained in The Stock Book are given in Figure 1 and Figure 2, in relation to irish Sea cod and celtic Sea haddock. cod stocks in the irish sea have collapsed but haddock stocks have produced huge numbers of baby fish in 2009 which have the potential to build up a much larger stock.

The Stock Book is also of interest to a wider audience, including the fishing industry, marine scientists, managers, third level institutes, financial institutions and those with an interest in the status and management of marine fisheries resources in the waters around ireland. in any decision making forum, it is critical to have the best scientific advice available in a easy to read format. Therefore, the key objective of The Stock Book is to have the latest scientific advice “at the Minister’s fingertips”,.

The Stock Book is also available electronically on the Marine institute’s web site at LIVE www.marine.ie LINK

THE STEM-CELL SHERIFF Seán Duke talks to a scientist who argues that a lack of clear guidelines is making it difficult to conduct stem cell research in Ireland.

S

tephen Sullivan is an Irish stem cell researcher working in the USA. He is a strong advocate for embryonic stem cell research in Ireland, and all the other types of stem cell research.

He is passionate about his work, and believes stem cells have the capacity to alleviate human suffering. However, looking at the Irish situation in particular, he says he is disturbed that there are no laws governing stem cells.

This creates the impression he says, that Ireland, as in its financial matters, is like the ‘wild west’ – a place where laws, if they exist, are ignored.

CHILD

Stephen Sullivan grew up in Cork city as the youngest child in his family by 10 years. A curious boy, he became well used to asking questions of the older people around him that seemed to know much more.

One of those people that knew much more was his dad. Stephen had a great relationship with his father, and recalls having long chats with him about all kinds of things. They were both “ideas junkies” as Stephen describes it.

Meanwhile, Stephen’s eldest brother also helped to pique an interest in ideas, and the nature of the world around him, by having a simple light microscope present in the house. Stephen recalls looking at pond water under this microscope and being amazed by the diversity of life he could see in it.

Though there were no scientists in the family there was plenty of education and learning about, with surgeons on his mother’s side, and psychiatrists on his dad’s side, he says.

He recalls the influence in primary school of a series of books called ‘Out and About’. These were nature education books that described everything from bird migration to the life cycle of the salmon. That helped stimulate the interest in science that was growing in his young mind, as well as nature trails when the teachers explained what frog spawn was, and how trees lost their leaves.

He was well and truly hooked on science by the time the leaving certificate rolled around, and he took all three main science subjects, physics, chemistry and biology. At that time, he enjoyed the fun of the chemistry lab, but biology was less appealing due to the lack of practical work, and the ‘learning by rote’.

However, perhaps his most important ‘school days’ experience was his exposure at Ashton to people from a variety of cultures, creeds and classes.

He looks back and says that, Ashton felt more like what he felt a university should be – a place to learn from others and exchange ideas – than UCC did later on.

The influence of teachers was crucial, as is so often the case and he found that he did best in classes where the teachers were in love with their topics and there were several science teachers at Ashton in love with science.

ve if yo u lo yo u’ll science, be probably it go o d at

SCHOOL

Stephen went to primary school in Beaumont Boys School, and secondary school at Ashton multidenominational school, both in Cork city.

STEM CELLS

After an undergraduate degree at UCC, Stephen took a Masters degree at TCD. Then 1997 came, and the news that human embryonic stem cells – cells that are typically taken (with consent) from the excess embryos left over after IVF treatments – had been isolated for the first time. It was also the year that the world was introduced to ‘Dolly’ the sheep that had been cloned in Scotland.

These developments had a huge influence on Stephen and he saw

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 34

immediately that stem cell research – where cells could be reprogrammed in the lab to become other cells – could be used as a new tool to combat disease.

He was determined now to do a PhD in stem cells, and he was also determined to do it at the lab that produced ‘Dolly’. He achieved that goal, to his great credit, due to what he calls his “natural stubbornness” and was accepted into the lab of the now world-famous scientists, Jim McWhir and Ian Wilmut at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh.

At the Roslin, he became aware, he says, of how science is so often misrepresented in the media, sometimes to a ludicrous extent. Like one story that reported that ‘Dolly’ had eaten several shepherds as well as Ian Wilmut. This planted a seed that science, and stem cells needed to be better explained to the public, and that this side of things was crucial to the well-being of the field.

His career was now firmly on an upward curve, and after Roslin, he went to Cambridge, and then to Harvard in Boston. He learned all about the famous competitiveness of students at Harvard, but managed to avoid getting ‘burnout’.

FRUSTRATION

A return to Ireland was always on the agenda, but he became frustrated with the lack of legislation governing stem cells here, the political apathy, and the splurging of funds into stem cell work that he considered of dubious quality. The situation in Ireland did

not impress serious scientists looking in from abroad, he said, and made a mockery of the strategy of funding world-class science here.

He tried in vain to get a research group off the ground, but no proposal that even mentioned ‘embryonic stem cell research’ had a hope of getting funded. The politicians had no inclination to get involved in a row over funding research on human embryos, which would provoke fury in some quarters.

He decided to set up the Irish Stem Cell Foundation, along with other scientists, medical doctors, and bio-ethicists. The idea was to better educate people about stem cells, to advocate for all kinds of stem cell research here, and to push the law-makers to follow the UK, and introduce clear ‘stem cell laws’.

Meanwhile, he moved to the US, as he could not get support for the research he wanted to do in Ireland, and took at post at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

There he is simply let get on with his research, without worrying about politics. He is working, specifically, on finding new stem cells, in particular trophoblast stem cells. These are the cells that make the placenta. The ultimate goal of this work is to develop better drugs and treatments for disease.

ADVICE

It is very important to follow one’s own gut instinct when choosing a career, and to study subjects in university that you love, rather than have the points for, advises Stephen.

This approach will lead to more happiness later in life, he says.

His parents had been ‘instructed’ to take careers in certain professions, and perhaps for that reason, says Stephen, they reacted against that pressure and told their own children to follow their passion when it came to a career choice. The basic rule, he says, is that if you love science, you’ll probably be good at it.

“The points system and peer pressure can make people take choices not based on their innate abilities and interests, and that is a big mistake,” he advises. “You have one life, do what you like to do rather than what the system tells you, you have enough points for,” he adds.

One of the best things about being a scientist is that there is no reason why a scientist can’t work, and be very good at their job well into their 70s, says Stephen. He cited the example of Dame Anne McLaren, a lady who was in her 70s when he was working with her, and still “as sharp as a pin, and a great teacher as well as a superb scientist”.

GOOD & BAD

Science is also one of the professions, he says, where it is possible to literally change the world. To make his point, Stephen said that he suffered badly from asthma between the ages of 7 and 15, but that his life was massively improved by an inhaler that could clear out his lungs. This demonstrated to him, at any early stage, how science and medicine can alleviate human suffering.

There is also the novelty factor – good for intelligent people that bore easily. Every day, says Stephen, there is something new, and there is always the prospect of doing something in the lab that no-one has tried before. That’s an exhilarating feeling, he says.

What are the aspects of the job he doesn’t like as much? He says that he doesn’t like replying to correspondence from patients and their loved ones asking about where research currently stands in relation to the available treatments for injury and disease. At the moment, the answer is often that research has not yet gone far enough to actually provide ‘cures’.

But, if Stephen gets his way that will change some day in the not-to distant future, and researchers in Ireland will be helping to make it happen.

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 35

Keeping an eye on others is an old trait that humans share with Macaque japonais and other monkeys.

O

What makes us human?

ne of characteristics that sets up apart from other animals is that we ask a lot of questions. Professor Julia Fischer, who heads the Cognitive Ethology Research Group at Göttingen University has been wondering how, why, and where this high level of curiosity came from, and at last year’s ESOF event in Turin, she explained that aping others is one of the reasons we outsmarted the chimps.

To understand how this could have happened, Julia said we need to look at the features we share in common with our ancestors. The common ancestor with chimpanzees, or closest living relative, lived 6 million years ago, and since that divergence our brains have become much bigger, and we have more cortex to process information.

Various theories have been put forward to explain this increase in brain size, and as Julia explained, the most common hypothesis in the 1980s was that humans became smarter because they needed to forage for seasonal fruit. Not a very convincing explanation, and Julia said the most likely reason is that we began to interact with others in groups, and any ability to outsmart others had an evolutionary advantage. We began understanding what others were doing, and predicting their behaviour, she said. “Sometimes this is called the

If dogs can remember more objects than us, does that mean they are smarter than humans?

Tom Kennedy reports from ESOF Turin on the origins of human intelligence.

Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis because it involves outsmarting others.”

This raises a question of what does it actually mean to be smart? As Julia explained, there is physical cognition, which deals with the inanimate world, and there is social cognition which enables us to tune into the mental states of others.

These distinctions have enormous importance, yet in considering what we mean by intelligence, the two are often confused, and indeed at one level humans are not always smarter than other animals.

Where humans score highly is on social cognition, and to understand how this ability evolved, Julia and the other researchers at Göttingen carried out a number of tests on toddlers, monkeys and apes. Although highly developed in humans, the researchers reasoned that social cognition did not just come out of the blue. While chimps and humans parted company

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 36

about 6 million years ago, the old world monkeys split off from the hominoid line about 22 million years ago, so by looking at these animals, the researchers were able to trace the origin of traits that we now often think of as uniquely human.

In their experiments, the researchers found no big difference between apes, monkeys and very young children in dealing with the physical world, but it soon became apparent that the toddlers performed much better in the social domain. “On the social domain, there is no big difference between apes and monkeys,” she observed,“and the big divide is between non-human and human primates.”

This did not mean that apes and monkeys had no abilities at all, they simply scored much lower on tasks that required a bit of abstract thought.

However, the origins of abstract thought were there, and to get some measure of this, the researchers devised tests in which the apes were presented with eight groups of raisins.

“They simply love raisins”, said Julia.

In most cases, 75 per cent, the apes grabbed the larger amounts.

Then, when the apes got used to the idea, the raisins were replaced by pebbles. Picking out the bigger pile of pebbles was rewarded with the equivalent number of raisins. The apes

quickly got the idea, and this time, they achieved a 90 per cent success rate.

As Julia pointed out, this behaviour involved abstraction. The apes had to perceive the pebbles as representing raisins. The initial impulse, she said, has been modified. So, pebbles became a currency, just like money is to us.

Becoming detached from the initial impulse means that more rational decisions can be taken, and as Julia observed, “it seems that we were getting to the foundation of symbolic thought.”

On a related front, apes and monkeys are well aware of their standing among the group, and as one experiment with Macaque monkeys revealed, strangers are perceived as different. Shown photographs, the Macaques glanced at members of their own group, but spent much more time scrutinizing the faces of strangers.

This watch on others is significant, as it means that the monkeys are well equipped to interpret signs. Follow up experiments showed just how well established this reading of signs had become long before any evolutionary divergence. When a monkey sees someone looking in a direction, it almost immediately turns to look the same way. It is one of the oldest school boy tricks of them all, look up, and everyone else in a busy street does as well, and as Julia observed, this is not just a species specific trait.

Younger monkeys do not react, but as they develop, so does eye-gazing, and Julia said apes are better at this than monkeys or children, and human adults are better than children. Apart from keeping an eye on the the signs and signals, what this behaviour also suggests is that the watcher has become aware of another animal’s intentions.

As the celebrated pioneer of animal behaviour, Nikolaas Tinbergen, noted, we should not assume that the same test is the same for different species, and Julia said that we tend to see intelligence from a human point of view. What’s really important, she said, is that the type of intelligence Julia Fischer’s lecture on animal cognition was the first in a whole series of sessions highlighting what’s happening in science across Europe.

The six day long European Science Open Forum in Turin is to be followed by a similar showcase event for science in July 2012 when Dublin becomes the City of Science.

and behaviour is appropriate for that species. When looked at this way, animals can be surprisingly intelligent, and Julia said that news of a German house pet, Rico, a border collie, who could remember the names of over 200 toys puts the whole subject of intelligence into perspective. Since then an even smarter dog has appeared on the scene, but as Julia commented, those dogs may be considered ultra smart, yet all they can say is ‘woof’.

Dogs are probably a lot better at this sort of thing than monkeys or humans, but even if monkeys can make some

predictions, they don’t go around talking about them, and they have little or no interest in contemplation of knowledge or beliefs.

Monkeys were able to understand that pebbles can represent raisins, but once the hominoids began to branch out, that ability to abstract and mentally process symbols brought us to where we are as Homo sapiens. As a member of that peculiar species, I could hear what Julia had to say, I can write these words and you can read and understand them.

No question about it, border collies score high on intelligence. They can count and they can round up sheep, but all they can say is ‘woff’. Photo: C MacMillan.

The German dog that knew a few hundred names has now been outsmarted by a another border collie. Researchers at the appropriately named, Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, have a border collie that can identify over 1,000 different objects by name.

The researchers, John Pilley and Allison Reid wonder just how large can a dog’s vocabulary become. Recently, the researchers published a paper in Behavioural Processes on how their dog, Chaser, had learned the names of 1,022 objects, and as they report, they only stopped at that number because training takes so much time. As far as they could make out, the ability exists to continue learning new names.

Testing revealed that Chaser was not just responding to commands, but actually knew what she was being asked to fetch. The researchers deliberately mixed up nouns and commands, and the dog knew how to react in the correct way, thus showing that she could distinguish between action and object.

There was also evidence that the dog could group objects into categories, so that she knew that a words, such as ‘toy’ applied to objects that she could play with, and that a word, such as ’ball’ did not necessarily mean that it was a toy.

As far as the researchers would make out, having three overlapping categories posed no problem for Chaser. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbI13nbDRRI

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 37

LIVE LINK

Tom Kennedy reviews some books on earth sciences and climate

Introducing geology

There is a lot of history embedded in rocks, and in a way, geology is a bit like archaeology, but on a much grander scale. rocks have a story to tell, and in his book, the geologist, Graham Park, describes how, by studying rocks, we can see how the world we inhabit took shape. his book, Introducing Geology, is an ideal primer for anyone who wants to understand, rather than just admire the rocky landscape.

Over eleven clear and easy to understand chapters, the author covers the broad field of earth sciences that collectively fall under the heading geology. The author, a geologist living in the north of Scotland, explains how and why we have precious gemstones, he tells us how continents drift and collide, and what fossils can tells us about the emergence of life.

The book makes it easy to understand what geology is all about, and to help readers come to terms with unfamiliar terms and definitions, there is an excellent glossary.

Introducing geology, a guide to the world of rocks Graham Park Dunedin, 2010, Paperback €13.99

Introducing palaeontology

IT IS almost impossible to know what our ancestors were really up to two or three generations ago, yet we have a fairly good idea of what life was like millions of years ago. Ancient fossils often yield such details that we can examine structures in long extinct plants and animals under a microscope. Others, although fragmentary, provide us with enough evidence to piece together the first flying dinosaurs, and this is the sort of expertise that has come a long way since DaVinci wondered why sea shells could be found on mountain tops.

When the fossilized Oldhamia was first recorded from the Cambrian slates of Bray head, 19th century geologists were reluctant, at first, to accept that these delicate tracings were among the first indications of life on Earth, but, as we now know, even the softest, most ephemeral forms of life can leave enduring impressions. how we have been left with this record is clearly explained by the

Climate: the great delusion The United Nations would like us to think that we are responsible for climate change. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon has been quoted as declaring that: “The number of disasters has increased and we have scientific evidence that humankind is the cause.” That’s not all, last December he told the world that “science warns that the window of opportunity to prevent uncontrolled climate change will soon close.”

Not everyone agrees with this gloomy view, and in his book, Climate the great delusion Christian Gerondeau points out that the insertion of the word “scientific” gives these

statements a credibility that they do not deserve. As he explains, far from being anchored in solid science, these statements are, in reality, just declarations of belief, yet they are widely accepted and acted on as fact.

In this debate great emphasis is put on carbon dioxide. It is true that we are collectively pumping vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and naturally this raises some questions as to what sort of impact this may have on our environment. however, there is no compelling reason to believe that this admittedly big increase of 30 billion tonnes a year is going to be our ruin.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 38

curator of Trinity College Dublin’s Geology Museum, Patrick Wyse Jackson. In his book, Introducing Palaeontology, he notes that preservation is a chancy business.

With the overwhelming majority, it’s a case of dust to dust, but a tiny minority fall into oxygen starved mud, get stuck in resin, or smothered in calcite, where their form, rather than substance can be perfectly preserved.

As the author explains, these are most peculiar situations, and while there are many fossils, they only represent a tiny proportion of all the species that have ever lived on this planet.

In effect, we see these fossils from a great distance, so we tend to lump them together, yet any two of a kind could, in fact, be millions of years apart. Some life forms, such as the Trilobites, persisted, apparently unchanging for enormous periods of time, yet the transformation from ape to man happened so fast, that if these changes, which are so important to us now, occurred back in the Jurassic, Cretaceous, or Triassic eras, they might not even have registered in the fossil record.

This book, clearly written and well illustrated, is an excellent companion to Introducing Geology, and as the title suggests, it introduces readers to the fascinating study of palaeontology.

Introducing Palaeontology, a guide to ancient life.

Patrick N Wyse Jackson.

Dunedin, 2010.

Paperback, €13.99.

Sun spots, water vapour, and methane are thought to have a much greater influence on climate, and even if we live to see the predicted 40 per cent CO2 increase within a hundred years, the impact on climate is almost certainly going to be a lot less than the sort of natural fluctuations that we know have occurred in the past without any intervention from human polluters.

Christian, once an adviser to the French Prime Minister, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, admits that his initial reactions to such warnings was that we do indeed need to take action, but then, alerted by wildly exaggerated predictions, he began to question not just the putative link between carbon

REVIEWS dioxide and temperature, but the policies being adopted to “save the planet.”

He was troubled initially by the inconsistencies of encouraging exploration for oil and gas, while at the same time, demanding a cap on carbon emissions. For Christian, this illustrates just how little policy makers really understand about the situation.

Apart from the obvious inconsistency, Christian argues that policy makers have been working from false assumptions, and, in addition they have not considered the economic consequences of imposing a carbon cap. Is it fair, he asks, to base our own development on high energy consumption, while demanding that China, India, Africa and many other countries stop burning fossil fuels? As he points out, Europe and a few westernized countries might cut down on emissions, but, rightly or wrongly, no one else will simply because they can’t afford to.

Having greater efficiency and producing less emissions are highly laudable aims, but as Christian points out, we will continue burning oil and other fossil fuels until there is none left, and the reality is that consumption of coal, perhaps the most abundant source of fossil energy in the world, has doubled over the past 35 years.

As Christian notes, while Europeans want to do the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons, the US is reluctant to act because Congress has insisted that a cap on emissions can only be accepted if applied to everyone, and

that includes the developing nations.

High prices have not proved to be a deterrent to consumption either in the US or Europe, and given that we can expect reliance on fossil fuels to continue for some time, what are the likely consequences? Obviously, not good, the smothering smog that we used to get in Dublin during the 60s and 70s is apparently much worse now in Chinese cities, but as for tipping the balance on climate change, doubling carbon dioxide is highly unlikely to result in the imaginary six metre rise in sea levels as predicted by the bombastic alarmist, Al Gore.

Sea levels can, in fact, change for a variety of reasons, not least because land often sinks or rises over relatively short periods of time, and Christian Gerondeau wonders about the origin of this particular myth that is so reminiscent of the Biblical flood. Taking the Intergovernmental Palel on Climate Change’s own figures, Christian notes that the recorded sea level changes are hardly alarming. 3.1mm per year from 1995 to 2003, and 1.8mm per year from 1961 to 2003, so that’s actually a slowing down. In spite of the relatively modest 30 cm rise over a century, the UN has issued dire warnings of islands disappearing and flooding on a vast scale, and in a twist that can only be described as bizarre, the cost of dealing with this deluge has been put at between five and ten per cent of each nation’s GDP. As Christian puts it, how can anybody possibly know that with such certainty?

Rock around Ireland A broad view of Ireland’s geology.

Colour

Explaining why and how we live in a colourful world.

Paperback €15 Order on line from Science Spin

www.sciencespin.com SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 39

To understand how and why we are being presented with such gloomy, guilt-ridden predictions, Christian explains that he United Nations is unable to be objective because right from the beginning the IPCC was concerned with “human-induced climate change.” So, even before the review had begun, the accusing finger of blame had already been pointed.

Furthermore, there is a common misconception that the conclusions were reached by the agreement of 2500 independent experts. According to Christian, many of these were actually non-scientists, or civil servants drafted in from environmental agencies, and, in addition, NGO pressure groups were strongly represented.

As Christian remarked, the pressure groups never missed a meeting. In a statement that should worry scientists, Christian maintains that a number of experts resigned rather than be forced to agree with dubious conclusions that had been reached by a process of casting votes.

Altogether, Christian Gerondeau raises some very serious questions on how easy it is for scientific enquiry to be hijacked by dedicated believers in environmental dogma. Among the faithful there is a nasty whiff of intolerance, and as Christian remarked, expecting someone to question the wilder conclusions, especially after the Nobel endorsement “was like looking for an aetheist in a church.”

One of the sad things about all of this, is that the world really is in a dreadful state, but as Christian argues, instead of inventing problems, it would make a lot more sense to fight the all to real global horrors of disease, inequality, starvation and poverty.

Climate: the great delusion.

Christian Gerondeau Stacy, Independent Minds, UK. Paperback, 150pp.

Between rocks and hard places

U

nlike France or Australia where there are vast tracts of uniformity, the northern landscape in Ireland is unusually rich in geological diversity.

Within a relatively small area there are the 500 metre high cliffs of Slieve League in Donegal, the Antrim plateau where basalt erupted and spread out as the Atlantic opened, Triassic salt at Carrickfergus, and on Inishtrahull, we can pick up the oldest Irish rocks of all.

The geologist, Paul Lyle had no problem filling this gem of a book on what we can see when going about the northern landscape, and as its all about geology, we don’t have to bother too much about the artificial divide. The geology of Ireland’s northern top is revealed in all its coast to coast entirety, and this adds enormously to the value of this eye opener of a book.

Paul Lyle, well known for his enthusiastic support for geology, has managed to pack in a lot of information including contributions from fellow geologists, Patrick McKeever and Garth Earls, yet he has made it easy for the reader to pick out the places or the topics that they might like to know more about.

For example, everybody knows that a large part of the north east is covered with basalt, but how many know how deep this is, or that it effectively capped the more ancient deposits of chalk. The depression caused by the great weight of basalt gave us Lough Neagh, fringed by great forests that, falling into decay, left us with big deposits of lignite.

To the north west, we have the craggy remains of the ancient Caledonian Mountains, some of the oldest rocks in the world, and once higher than the Himalayas in a ridge

EXPLORING NORTHERN GEOLOGY that stretched across Scotland and up into Norway. Errigal, now considered a lofty peak, is just, in effect, an old heap of sand. The quartzite originated as a sandy seashore about 470 million years ago, just a few million years before granite welled up below a rocky crust that has long since been worn away.

Geology, as Paul Lyle illustrates so well, spans an enormity of time, and as well as the really ancient past, we get the more recent history, and how we, latecomers, came on the scene, drawn possibly by the presence of porcellanite. This baked laterite was ideal for making axe heads, and as Paul Lyle explains, over half of all the axes known from Ireland came from just two sites in Co Antrim, Tievebulliagh and Brockley.

There is a great selection of photographs, and Leslie Stannage’s design pulls the whole book together into a splendid production, and at a very affordable price.

Between rocks and hard places Discovering Ireland’s northern landscapes.

Paul Lyle.

NI Stationery Office.

Hardback, £16.99 (TK)

Above, elevation with Lough Neagh depression.

Top right: Dolmen at Legananny, Co Down.

Drumlin landscape, Co Down.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 45 Page 40

Storm approaching the rocky coast of Mullaghmore, Co Sligo. Photograph by Jonathan Moran.

Du Noyer Geological Photography Competition 2011 Entries are invited for the 13th Du Noyer Geological Photography Competition George Victor Du Noyer, who served as a geologist with the Geological Survey of Ireland from 1847 to 1869, was a skilled field artist whose numerous sketches and pictures, with their combination of artistic skill and technical accuracy, were the “field photographs” of their day.

This competition seeks to encourage the same blend of artistic and scientific skills through the medium of photography.

Prizes will be awarded in two categories, Irish and Foreign, and a prize fund of €800 applies.

Entrants may submit a maximum of 4 photographs, print or digital, illustrating any aspect of field geology or scenic landscapes. Previously published photographs are not eligible for entry, and the organisers are not in a position to return entries.

The competition will be judged by a panel including representatives of the Irish Geological Association, the GSI and external nominees and their decision will be final. Entries will be exhibited and prizes awarded at a GSI Cunningham Awards ceremony in early December 2011.

We will acknowledge all entries by e-mail. Winners only, will be notified directly in November 2011 and results will be posted on the GSI website in December 2011.

GSI reserves the right to reproduce entries in its publications and promotional activity with due acknowledgement.

Print entries should be posted in an envelope marked “Du Noyer Competition” to: Cartography Unit, Geological Survey of Ireland, Beggars Bush, Haddington Rd, Dublin 4 or digital entries should be e-mailed to info@planetearth.ie

What are the judges looking for?

Creativity, technical skill, and above all, good geological content.

Closing date for entries: Friday 7th October 2011

LIVE LINK

Merrion Square, Dublin Sunday, 20 March 2011

at the Come along to the Science Zone at the from 12 noon to 6pm. Fun science show and activities for all the family.

SPIN

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 42 Page xx