Spin 54

ISSUE

54

September/October 2012

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SCIENCE

SPIN

IRELAND’S SCIENCE NATURE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

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Chemistry goes green

Dirty olD City

higgs Boson

Did it create gravity?

Irish fossils A straggling climber

FaCing the FaCts

on smoking, GM foods and nuclear energy

Where creativity and great science meet

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Detecting the Higgs Particle was an enormous challenge because it meant recreating the sort of high energy conditions that existed immediately after the Big Bang.

Below: surveying urban soils to map contamination from the past.

Publisher Science Spin Ltd 5 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. www.sciencespin.com Email: tom@sciencespin.com Editor Tom Kennedy tom@sciencespin.com

Upfront

2

A brief history of matter Margaret Franklin gives the background to the recent discoveries at CERN and Tom Kennedy reports how the evidence stacked up to show that the Higgs Particle really does exist.

11

A straggling climber Tom Kennedy introduces two of our most common plants

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Facing the facts Tom Kennedy reports on how common opinions on important issues do not always square with the facts.

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Picture research Source Photographic Archive www.sourcelibrary.net

Chemistry goes green Declan Knittel reports on how chemists are coming up with smarter ways to make use of limited resources.

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Printing Turner Group, Longford

Dirty old town Tom Kennedy and Pat O’Connor report on how the status of Dublin’s soils have been mapped by the Geological Survey.

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Brazen Brachiopods Anthea Lacchia writes about lamp shell fossils.

23

Young Scientists Students take the wind out of the sails and look at in-depth vision.

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Dr How’s Science Wows Dr How explores light.

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Books Making sense of food science.

31

Contributing editor Seán Duke sean@sciencespin.com Business Manager Alan Doherty alan@sciencespin.com Design and Production Albertine Kennedy Publishing Cloonlara, Swinford, Co Mayo

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UPFRONT

Spare those trees

Satellite off

AFTER ten years in orbit the Envisat satellite abruptly went out of action.

Attempts to reestablish contact failed, so the European Space Agency has declared the end of its mission. Over the ten years of service Envisat produced an enormous volume of information about the Earth’s land, oceans, atmosphere, and ice caps.

No one knows yet why communications failed, but the satellite had already been in service for twice the expected life-span. Envisat had in fact become so reliable that many scientists thought it would continue to beam back data for some more years.

Envisat is still in a stable orbit, so ESA scientists have not given up hope entirely that it can be brought back into action.

Envisat has been observed from another satellite, Pleiades, operated by the French agency, CNES. Normally, Pleiades observes the Earth in high-resolution, but in April, the French agency turned it to focus on Envisat from a distance of about 100km. The image is now being examined by ESA scientists to determine if Envisat’s solar panels are orientated in a position to give it power for possible recovery.

ESA scientists, accepting that recovery might not be possible, are now keen to speed up plans for the launch of a replacement, to be known as GMES Sentinel.

Chemistry

TEAChERS from eleven EU countries are looking at the available resources on chemistry. Under the Chemistry is All Around Us Network project, the aim is to promote more interest in the subject. ireland is represented by limerick institute of Technology, and the team includes ten Irish teaches and five scientific experts.

A number of the resources have been uploaded onto the network portal and are available to everyone. www.chemistryisnetwork.eu

WhilE talk about selling off the State’s forests has quietened down, the threat has not gone away. Donegal forester, John Jackson, points out that selling off the harvesting rights would be a serious mistake and it would cause immense damage to a sector that has a very good future. John, who is also Chairman of the Donegal Woodland Owners Society, said that handing over forestry assets to an outside investor would undermine a sector that has been building up over a number of years. For example,ireland’s pulp and saw mills would have no guarantee of maintaining secure supplies, and state forests are likely to become no-go areas. last year, according to John, 18 million visits were made by families and tourists to Coillte’s 150 open woodlands. in return for a short-term gain, the negative economic impact on a sector that already employs about 15,000 people is likely to be high, and, as the market for timber is expanding, forestry has a very good future.

An important consideration in all of this is that forestry is not just about planting trees. As many third world countries have found to their cost, having resources counts for very little if the expertise to make use of them is absent. The biggest gains from forestry come from adding value, and as John Jackson argues, if we are serious about creating jobs, the last thing we should be considering is selling off our strategic assets.

Lace plants

ONE OF the botanical oddities is the lace Plant, Aponogeton madagascariensis, an aquatic purple flowering species from Madagascar. The leaves of the plant are perforated by numerous holes, hence the name.

Researchers from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, were curious to know how the plant manages to grow such peculiar leaves, and as they discovered, cells are selectively removed in an orderly process to leave holes. in plants and animals, cells that are no longer required, or have been injured beyond repair, are broken down in a process known as programmed cell death. in this species, cell death begins at a centre and works its way out, before stopping four or five cells away from one of the supporting leaf veins.

The lace plant is in demand by aquarium owners, but is hard to cultivate, putting pressure on wild stocks.

Where next?

ThE European Space Agency, ESA, has set sights on Jupiter for the next big mission. With a title of Jupiter icy Moons Explorer, JUiCE, a launch date has been set for 2022. The craft is to arrive at Jupiter in 2030 and the plan is for it to spend three years making observations.

Jupiter has a number of moons, volcanic io, rock-ice Ganymede, and Callisto, the most heavily cratered object in the Solar System,which, like the others is thought to have an internal ocean, and JUiCE will be taking a close up view of these. in 2032 the craft is to enter orbit around Ganymede, the only moon in the Solar System known to have a magnetic field.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 2

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UPFRONT

Sinking carbon

BILLIoNS of tiny microorganisms often form enormous blooms at sea, and when these die back, carbon that they have absorbed from the atmosphere, falls down into the depths.

Professor Peter Croot from NUI Galway notes that this is an important part of the world’s carbon cycle that merits further study. In a report published in Nature, Prof Croot and his colleagues from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, explain that transport of carbon into the deep ocean occurs over a relatively short time. once in the depths, the carbon remains locked up for a century or more.

The scientists, working on board the research vessel, Polarstern, used dissolved iron to induce blooms, and sinking particles were tracked as they sank below 1,000 metres depth in the Southern ocean. Phytoplankton blooms were observed over a five week period, from start to eventual decline.

The presence of iron has an impact on the growth of blooms, and in the past, during ice ages, it is thought that dry dust blowing out from land made more available, boosting growth.

Introducing iron is therefore seen as a possible way to remove atmospheric carbon by locking it up in blooms. Under the European Iron Fertilization Experiment, fourteen institutes from Europe and South Africa are involved in an experiment to test this idea.

Come and discover the mysteries and miracles of science and research involving the Sea 2 Sky all around us, as part of the European Researchers’ Night Email: Sea2Skygalway@gmail.com Web: www.Sea2Sky.ie

Photo of diatoms, Prof G T Taylor, Stoney Brook University.

Natural glue

How do barnacles manage to stay stuck to a variety of surfaces? Scientists at NUI Galway would like to know how to produce a glue that works so well because a synthetic version could

have many applications. A super-glue that works in a wet environment would, for example, be very useful for medical applications.

If a synthetic version could be produced, it could eliminate the need for sutures, staples and pins in surgery.

Two researchers, Jaimie-Leigh Jonker and Dr Anne Marie Power, are particularly interested in one species, the goose barnacle, Lepas anatifera, but gathering enough them for research is not to easy. This particular species lives offshore, and they are only occasionally washed up, so the researchers are asking people to help in collection. As they explain, it is impossible to predict when they get washed up, but if found in time, before drying out, they can be gathered live and brought back to an aquarium.

The barnacles can be washed ashore almost anywhere, but surfacing beaches such as Fanore and Doughmore Bay have been productive in the past.

Before bird migration was understood, these barnacles were thought to give rise to geese, hence the common name.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 3

So, if you come across these barnacles contact the Zoology Department at NUI Galway, 091 493191 or email j.jonker1@ nuigalway.ie

Old woodcuts like this one helped perpetuate the myth that geese hatched from barnacles.

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UPFRONT

Pillars of Creation

The eagle Nebula, 6,500 light years distant from earth in the constellation of Serpens contains a young hot star cluster, known as NgC6611. This cluster, which can be made out by relatively low powered telescopes, is shaping and illuminating the surrounding clouds of gas and dust. The result is a massive hollowed-out space surrounding what have become known as the Pillars of Creation. It is thought that new stars are being formed within these pillars, each of which is several light years long, and farinfrared observations from the herschel Space Observatory confirmed that this is indeed happening.

Observing the same region with different wavelengths often reveals details that would not be possible to make out with our limited ability to see visible light. In this spectacular image, far-infrared observations from the european Southern Observatory and x-ray observations from eSa’s XMMNewton telescope are combined to give a more complete view of the eagle Nebula and the Pillars of Creation.

Supporting young scientists

ParTICIPaTINg in the BT Young Scientist and Technology exhibition can be expensive, so a special travel and accommodation grant scheme is available to help schools and students.

The scheme, operated by BT has provided financial support of over €300,000 over the past seven years. This year, the funding has been increased, and support is available to schools 70 km or more away from Dublin. Grants of €150 per individual student, or €300 for a group, are available and there is a limit of €1,500 per school.

Colm O’Neill, CeO of BT Ireland, commented that these grants will be particularly welcome at a time when family finances are under strain.

The exhibition will be held in the RDS from the 9th to the 12th January 2013, and the deadline for submissions is 1st October 2012, so students are advised to start working up their projects now.

For more information log onto

www.btyoungscientist.com

Cut off

WheN put into care, the elderly are cut off from friends and they have to leave the family home. The harm this can cause is not always obvious, and as researchers in University College Cork have found, lack of interaction with the everyday world also has an impact on general health.

Paul O’Toole and his team at UCC focused on gut microbiota. We all carry around scores of microbial species in our gut that break nutrients down into essential components that we need to keep body machinery working.

The researchers examined the faecal microbiota of 178 individuals with an average age of 78 years. None of these individuals were taking antibiotics, so in that respect their gut population should have been more or less average. however, what the researchers reported in a paper published in Nature, is that individuals in care had ‘significantly’ less microbial diversity than those who were still in the community. a less diverse gut population has a negative impact on general health, so, as the study indicates, being put into “care” is likely to result in increased frailty and poorer health.

YOu cOuld BE A WInnEr! Interested in Technology, Science or Maths?

Aged between 12 & 19 on 31st October 2012?

Why not enter the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2013?

Enter as an individual or as a team, for the chance to be part of the experience of a lifetime.

And who knows, you might just be the BT Young Scientist & Technologist of the Year 2013, or one of over 100 other prizewinners! The closing date for entries is 1st October, so get thinking about your project now!

The exhibition is on from 9th to the 12th January 2013 in the RDS, Dublin.

Check out the website www.btyoungscientist.com or call the Freephone helplines 1800 924 362 (R.O.I.) or 0800 917 1297 (N.I.) Follow us on Twitter

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UPFRONT

Migrating dinosaurs

Giant Carnarasaurus dinosaurs are thought to have migrated to winter grounds in herds. the evidence for this comes from analysis of tooth enamel from the giant sauropod dinosaurs that were common in the Jurassic Era, 155 to 145 million years ago.

Henry Fricke, Justin Hencecroth and Marie Hoerner, from Colorado College, reported that it would have been highly unlikely for the 58 metre long dinosaurs to have remained all year in the same floodplain setting. During the dry season they would have struggled to survive in drought conditions. While this seems likely, there was not much evidence to back up this idea.

By examining teeth enamel, the researchers were able to match isotopes to carbonate deposits of basin lake and wetland deposits. as teeth grow over several months, a change in isotopes will match a change in diet.

According to the scientists, reporting their findings in Nature, the dinosaurs migrated about 300 km to higher ground during the dry season.

Because the same pattern occurs in all the teeth examined, the scientists were also able to conclude that the dinosaurs must have moved in herds.

The first Americans

SpeArheADS found in oregon show that humans reached america at least 13,2000 years ago, and it appears that different populations were established.

Dennis L Jenkins, from the Museum of Natural and Cultural history at the University of oregon, led a team investigating remains found in the paisley Caves, and their findings show that humans had arrived earlier than previously thought. Key evidence came from DNA extracted from dried faeces rather than from cleverly worked artefacts. While the DNA itself cannot be dated, other components extracted from the faeces can be. Michael Hofreiter, at the University of York in Britain analysed the DNA, while scientists at other institutions carbon dated the extracts, as well as twigs and other finds from the caves.

Apart from the earlier than expected date, the findings show that two different cultures existed and appear to have developed separately. One group, Clovis, is thought to have arisen in the southeastern part of what is now the US, while the other, Western Stemmed, group seems to have come in from the west and moved east. the new evidence suggests that humans may have been following what has been termed the kelp highway. this is a seaweed enriched band stretching from Japan to Kamchatka and down along the coast to California.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 6

Stay away from the lights CoMpaCt fluorescent lights might use less energy, but the less efficient incandescent bulbs could be safer. a study conducted in different locations across new York state has shown that CFL bulbs leak ultraviolet rays. the bulbs are designed not to allow UV rays to escape, but researchers from Stony Brook University and nY Stem Cell Science, discovered that leakage of UV is common. according to the researchers, reporting their results in photochemistry and photobiology, all of the bulbs they examined had leaks, which they attribute to cracks in the internal phosphor coating.

Miriam Rafailovich, professor of material science and engineering at Stony Brook, commented that people should avoid using compact fluorescent light bulbs over close distances, and it would be safer to have them behind an additional glass cover.

Revealing waste

WaStE water shows up what kind of drugs are being used in cities. in a study of 19 European cities, analysis has revealed how much drugs, such as methamphetamines, ecstasy, cannabis and cocaine are being consumed. the highest consumption of cocaine per inhabitant was in antwerp, followed by amsterdam, Valencia, Eindhoven and Barcelona. the study, which averaged out consumption for every 1,000 inhabitants, showed that drug use in smaller cities is similar to consumption in larger cities such as paris or London.

Research centres and universities across Europe collaborated in the study. the results revealed that drug use varies, and in Spain cannabis and cocaine levels are higher than other drugs such as ecstasy. in nordic countries, cocaine consumption is lower, while methamphetamines traces are high.

Estimating drug use from surveys, hospital admissions and police records has always been difficult, but analysis of waste water avoids the uncertainties and is a much more reliable indicator of actual use. one of the participating researchers, Kevin thomas from the norwegian institute for Water Research, said that one big advantage in this approach, apart from reliability, is that the information is in real time. this means that a change in pattern can be detected quickly, and if drugs are dumped suddenly in response to police raids, the evidence will show up in analysis.

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Inspiring teacher

UPFRONT

When students win awards the initial inspiration for projects often comes from their teachers. Some teachers stand out as inspiring students to excel, and one of the best known, Jim Cooke, has been presented with a lifetime achievement award by eC Commissioner, Máire Geoghegan Quinn. The award, presented on board ireland’s research vessel, Celtic explorer, was part of the recent City of Science events.

Jim Cooke was a teacher at Synge Street from 1971 until his retirement in 2009, and during this time his students won a string of awards. Rónan larkin, Abdusalam Abubakar, Michael Mulhall, Francis Wasser, Gohar Abbassi and Andrei Triffo were all among the top winners in the BT Young Science exhibitions.

Abdusalam Abukakar was first in mathematics at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists. Michael Mulhall, Francis Wasser, Ardit Kroni and Andrei Triffo were also top winners at intel’s Science and engineering Fair.

Apart from these high profile achievements, Jim Cooke has inspired a whole generation of students, particularly in the field of mathematics. Michael Minnock, who heads Synge Street remarked that Jim Cook has made an enormous and lasting contribution to the school.

Jim Cook praised the school for a willingness to develop an ambitious science curriculum in which students are encouraged to think critically and creatively.

Science Europe

ThiS is an organisation that we are likely to hear more about.

Representing about 50 funding and research organisations, Science europe is preparing to play a bigger role in shaping the european Research Area. Member organisations spend about €30 billion a year on science, and in July Science europe issued a joint statement with the European Commission confirming a commitment to strengthen research within the eU. www.scienceeurope.org

Curves

When mountains are pushed up why don’t they form a straight line? The processes of plate collision and uplift might be expected to result in more or less straight mountain chains, but in fact many are curved in a giant arc.

The Appalachian range, the Rockeys, the Bolivian Andes and the Cantabrian Arc in Spain lie in a curve. Geologists have wondered if these mountain chains were always curved, or had they been twisted out of shape.

A group of researchers from Spain, Canada and the US, led

by Dr Gabriel Gutiérrez-Alonso, have concluded that mountain chains had indeed been altered. The scientists gathered their evidence from the Cantabrian Arc that extends from Spain into northern Africa. The orientation of structural features, such as fault planes, and magnetised particles revealed that the mountain chain, formed by the collision of two ancient continents, Gondwanaland and lurentia, was originally straight, but subject to such powerful forces that it became curved.

According to the scientists, reporting on their findings in The Geological Society of America’s journal, GSA Today, the best evidence came from geomagnetic observations. Particles that had become fixed in position, had been rotated. The degree of rotation indicated how much the mountain had been moved.

This bending occurred between 315 and 300 million years ago, and this is thought to have been caused by disturbances in the deeper mantle.

Flushing out HIV

While drugs can put AiDS on hold, they cannot reach hidden reservoirs of the virus.

Dormant forms of hiV remain within cells, and an interruption in treatment can allow them to break out and ravage the host yet again.

Paul Wender, professor of chemistry at Stanford University, reports in Nature Chemistry, that a new compound has the ability to flush out these hidden reserves, making them accessible to hard-hitting drugs. it was found that a mossy colonial marine organism, Bugula neritina, produces a substance that activates the latent viruses. however, as researchers found, it takes 14 tons of these bryozoans to make just 18 grams of this substance, so producing enough of it to be useful posed a problem.

Paul Wender then looked at the structure and came up with a way to synthesise an analogue. This resulted in seven analogues, which the researchers claim to be simpler and more effective than the natural product. Lab tests show that the synthetics can be up to 1,000 more potent than the natural compound.

Researchers still have some way to go before a drug can be developed, tested and approved, but they are confident that results mark a significant step in finding a more effective way to defeat hiV.

Marine Institute Foras na Mara

Ireland's National Agency for Marine Research and Innovation

Our Ocean

A Shared Resource

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 7

This microscope view shows a colony of neurons derived from cord-blood cells using stem cell reprogramming technology. The cells are stained with fluorescent dyes to show up developing functions. The green and red glow indicates that the cells are producing protein makers found in neurons, evidence that the cord-blood cells did in fact morph into neurons. The blue glow marks the nuclei of the neurons. Image, Alessandra Giorgetti.

Making neurons

The blood cells that remain in the placenta and umbilical cord after birth are of special interest to researchers because they represent an early stage of differentiation. At the Salk Institute in California, a team of researchers led

by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, have found that just one transcription step can induce cord cells to develop into neurons.

These cells, which normally occur in the middle of a developing embryo, the mesoderm, can be induced to develop into the outer ectodermal layer, from which our nervous system develops.

According to the researchers, reporting their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a retrovirus was used to introduce and patch in a genetic switch, known as a transcription factor. The transcription switch, known as Sox2, made the cells develop into functional neurons.

Commenting on the significance of this, the researchers pointed out that while skin and other cells can be induced to develop into neurons, multiple steps have to be taken to reprogram them, and

Brain stem cells

DurIng evolution higher functions were added to brains, and in humans the outermost layer is a relatively recent development. The outer layer is what makes humans special for while the deeper levels control functions such as breathing and movement, the outer layer is involved in thought and self-awareness.

Until now, it was assumed that all cortical brain cells developed from one type of stem cell, known as radial glial cells, but as researchers at the Scripps Institute have found, this is not the case. reporting the findings in the journal Science, Prof Ulrich Mueller said that a neural stem cell had been identified in mice that specifically rise to neurons in the outer layers of the cerebral cortex. It appears that the neurons involved in advanced functions must originate from a distinct stem cell population. By tracking a gene marker, known as CuX2, which is only expressed

being much further along the route to differentiation, there are more questions about how their performance will compare to cells that have developed naturally or from an earlier stage. In general, the further back we can go, the better are the prospects of getting cells to develop properly.

in upper-layer neurons, the scientists were able to determine that there are at least two different stem cell populations, only one of which produced upper layer neurons. neurons developing from the other stem cells always took up residence at a lower level.

This discovery has big implications for the study and treatment of mental disorders.

In humans there has been a rapid expansion of this critical outer layer, but it has come at a high cost. Humans are prone to disorders caused by faults in the outer cortex.

Up to now, when researchers investigating these disorders tried to reproduce human outer cortical neurons they were not aware of the fact that the stem cells they were using could not produce the right results. The discovery, observed Prof Mueller, “opens a door now to try to make the upper-layer neurons, which are frequently affected in psychiatric disorders.�

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 8

Lab studies, using mice, show that the modified cord cells blend in with the existing neural network, and in the next step, the researchers hope to see that these are not just look alike neurons, but can self-adapt to take on specific functions.

Experiencing maths

The majority of maths teachers taking part in an Engineers Ireland survey think that students would learn more if they saw how maths are being applied in industry. Of the 253 teachers surveyed, 77 per cent thought that showing maths in action would make the subject more relevant to students.

More than half of the teachers were less than enthusiastic about the new Project Maths curriculum, expressing the view that it is unlikely to result in improved results.

John Power, Director general of Engineers Ireland, said that industry has a role to play in showing students how maths are being applied.

Engineers Ireland has been running an active programme to assist maths teachers and support material is available on the STEPS website. www.steps.ie

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Carbon dioxide

UPFRONT

UPFRONT

China is now releasing about as much carbon dioxide per person as Europe, while the US remains well ahead, with more than double the emissions. according to the EU Joint Research Centre, world emissions of carbon dioxide reached 34 billion tonnes in 2011, a three per cent increase over the previous year.

450 million year old Crustacean, complete fossilized ByAcountry, China produced 29 per cent, the USwith 16 per cent, soft parts, has been found in Herefordshire.

One of the scientists the European Union 11 per cent, india 6 per cent, the Russian involved in the discovery, Prof David Siveter from the University Federation 5 per cent, and Japan 4 per cent. 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.

The fossil,ice named Nasunaris flata, belongs to thethe same group althoUgh advanced from antarctica to cover ocean, a as water-fleas shrimps.

Their descendants are common sufficient numberand of animals managed to survive to repopulate today lakesthe and oceans, and geologists often usebeen the fossils as the area.inOver past five million years there have indicators of past climates. periods of glaciation each lasting for thousands of years, and so severe that survival of life would have seemed impossible.

Internal image of the fossilallcock showing the nUi soft parts andreported eyes. Image: however, as Dr louise from galway J. in Siveter, Derek G. Briggs,animals Derek J.did Siveter and but Mark D. inDavid trends Ecology andE.Evolution, survive, Sutton. only in small numbers. the evidence for this comes from the fact that many animals, such as arctic octopuses, are genetically uniform. a large number of individuals have exactly the same Dna sequences in a given gene region, she said. this is typical ofJERUSALEM’s population collapse, and it is due tobya the bigunderlying reduction ingeology. fate was determined diversity.

When stocks recover from a small population, there At the annual Geological Society of America meeting last are less variation in the genes available.

October, Michael Bramnik from Illinois University explained in collaboration Dr Jan Strugnell fromlimestone the Department that undergroundwith passageways in the karst enabled ofKing genetics at to latake trobe australia, allcock David theUniversity city. Waterinwas drawn Dr from the Spring found that this evidence a population wassoldiers a of Gihon, which lay justof outside the city‘bottleneck’ walls. David’s prominent feature in species inhabiting the Southern ocean. climbed down into the spring and by tunnelling under the

An old water flea

Small pool

Bedrock of history

walls got access to the city.

Regenerating bone

a SynthEtiC scaffold, made up of collagen and tiny particles of hydroxyapatite, can act as a platform for bone cells to settle in and grow. These scaffolds have been used to fill in large areas of bone that have been lost through disease or accident. however, although clinically approved, there were some concerns about the high doses of proteins required during treatment. Development of a new method for stimulating bone forming cells now means that the negative side effects can be avoided.

Scientists from the Royal College of Surgeons in ireland working with colleagues from other centres in Belfast and Japan have developed an improved type of scaffolding composed of collagen and tiny particles of hydroxyapatite, and instead of infusing the structure with high doses of bone producing proteins, the existing bone forming cells are stimulated to go into overdrive. as the lead investigator, Professor Fergal o’Brien, explained, the scaffold allows the body’s own cells to carry out the repairs, and the need to introduce high doses of proteins, with its attendant risks, is avoided. this development is likely to have a big impact on medical care.Later, globally, 2 million bone grafts are performed each one ofover David’s successors, King Hezekiah, fearing that year, and most of these involve transplanting, either from the Assyrians would take Jerusalem using the same approach, another site the body donor. these are It rerouted theinwater into or thefrom city avia a 550naturally, metre long tunnel. quite risky procedures. proved to be a good decision, for in 701 BC, Jerusalem was the Another significant benefitfailed fromto this research comes from only city that the Assyrians take. the improved being used tomodern ferry growth Water still non-viral remains a technique major factor in shaping history promoting genes bone-forming apart fromhebeing in the region, andinto Michael Bramnik cells. said that when wentless in risky, theoftechnique is thought to have potential in search hydrological maps for otherconsiderable towns and settlements regeneration other tissues, as those the maps heart. do not he was oftenof rebuffed with such a claim that in such exist.

www.gsi.ie gsisales.gsi.ie

SCIENCESPIN SPIN Issue 9 4 SCIENCE Issue5441Page Page

Get your company involved i Science W n eek 2012!

Did you know that in 2011, over 500 Science Week events took place in Ireland, attended by over 120,000 people?

Science Week continues to be one of Ireland’s largest and most recognisable events on the yearly calendar. The week-long regional programme of events, which takes place this year from 11th-18th November, aims to make science more interesting and accessible to children and adults alike.

The Science Week Corporate Partners Programme is a DSE (www.Discover-Science. ie) initiative whereby companies from various industries are invited to participate in Science Week. Companies are united by their interest in promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to young people and to the general public.

There is no financial obligation in becoming a Partner – the commitment is that your organisation will participate on some level.

Get Involved!

Becoming a corporate partner is very straightforward and there are lots of ways to participate. Here are some ideas: l Invite local schools to an open day in your company l Sponsor a Science Week quiz in a local school l Sponsor a Science Week competition (essay, art, photography etc.) l Give a science-themed, or career-related talk at a local school or library

Benefits

include visibility on the Corporate Partner’s page of www. scienceweek.ie; including your company logo, a description of your event, a link to your company website, free Science Week merchandise for your event, an opportunity to highlight your event nationwide and coordination/outreach advice from the DSE team. To see what other companies are doing visit http:// www.scienceweek.ie/partners_current.asp.

If you are already involved in science outreach throughout the year, why not schedule these activities to happen during Science Week and climb on board for national coverage, cobranding and visibility on www.ScienceWeek.ie? If you are interested in joining the programme, please contact Donna McCabe at donna.mccabe@sfi.ie / Tel: 01 607 3042.

A BRIEF HISToRy oF

Matter

FRoM ANCIENT GREECE To THE

Higgs Boson

Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy give the background to the recent discoveries at CERN

F

or centuries, philosophers and scientists have pondered the nature of matter, the stuff that everything is made of. Over 2,000 years ago, Greek philosophers suggested that everything consists of tiny particles which they called ‘atoms’. (The word ‘atom’ means something that cannot be split into anything smaller.) Other philosophers, led by Aristotle, disagreed, believing that matter is continuous.

In those far off days, it was believed that knowledge could be discovered by logical argument alone. The idea of testing theories by experiment did not occur to them. Aristotle’s arguments prevailed and the atomic theory was abandoned for almost two millennia.

During the 19th century, scientists began to re-examine the atomic theory.

By then, scientific methods had been developed and experimental evidence had accumulated which supported the theory that matter is indeed made up of tiny particles. It was recognised that some materials are pure substances, while others are mixtures. Pure substances in turn were classified into simple substances (elements) and more complex substances (compounds) composed of elements in chemical combination. The idea that matter is made up of simple elements had in fact been suggested by the ancient Greeks. They believed everything consisted of different proportions of four ‘elements’; Earth, Air,

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Fire and Water. We now know that these are not elements at all; earth is a mixture of many substances, mostly solids, while air is a mixture of gases. Water is a compound and fire is the release of energy during combustion. By the 19th century it was known that there are far more than just four elements. By the time the Russian chemist Mendeleev drew up his famous Periodic Table in the 1860s, there were about 60 known elements and more were being discovered every year.

Now, we know of over 100. Each element is characterised by its unique ‘Atomic Number’ and is denoted by a symbol of one or two letters, derived from the Latin form of the element’s name. Hydrogen, the lightest element, has atomic number 1 and symbol H. Helium, atomic number 2 has the symbol He; Carbon, atomic number 6, has symbol C; while sodium, atomic number 11, has symbol Na. Elements combine to form compounds, denoted by formulae which indicate how many atoms of each element are present in the smallest particles of each compound. These particles are called ‘molecules’ and many of the simpler compounds have familiar formulae, such as H2O for water (a compound of hydrogen and oxygen) and CO2 for carbon dioxide (a compound of carbon and oxygen.). For most of the nineteenth century, scientists believed that atoms are the fundamental building blocks of matter and cannot be split into anything smaller. Indeed, atoms are incredibly tiny, roughly one tenth of a nanometre in diameter. (a nanometre is a thousand millionth of a meter, equivalent to one millionth of a millimetre.) It is hard to imagine anything smaller.

In the 1890s, three major discoveries were made which challenged the theory that atoms are fundamental. These were the discovery of electrons by J.J.Thompson, X-Rays by Roentgen and radioactivity by Becquerel. Electrons are tiny negatively charged particles, whose mass is almost negligible compared to the mass of even the lightest atom. Since atoms as a whole are electrically neutral, it was realised that there must be positive particles inside atoms, to balance the negative charge of the electron.

In 1910, Ernest Rutherford discovered that atoms have a nucleus, where positively charged particles, called protons, are found. The nucleus of a hydrogen atom contains one proton. The atomic number of an element is equal to the number of protons in the nucleus of each of its atoms. For elements other than hydrogen, the atomic masses are greater than could be accounted for by

the number of protons. The neutron, an electrically neutral particle which occurs in atomic nuclei, was discovered

by Chadwick in 1932. For the next three decades, scientists believed that electrons, protons and neutrons are the only fundamental particles.

Meanwhile, in the early 1930s, Ernest Walton and John Cockroft succeeded in splitting the nuclei of lithium atoms (Atomic Number 3) by bombarding them with high velocity protons, which had been accelerated by a high voltage in a vacuum tube. This was the first ‘atom smashing’ machine, but it was followed by many other particle accelerators, both linear and circular, which were built to probe the nature of matter. Experiments conducted in such machines have shown that protons and neutrons are not fundamental particles after all. They are made up of smaller particles, which were discovered by Murray Gell-Mann in the 1960s. He named them “quarks’, inspired by the phrase “Three quarks for Muster Mark” from Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce.

Apart from quarks, particle accelerators have since produced other particles, including mesons and neutrinos. From these discoveries, the ‘Standard Model’ of particle physics was developed. This model proposed the existence of particles known as ‘bosons’ to account for the four forces of nature — gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces.

However, in order to detect them, and show that they actually exist, even bigger atom-smashers needed to be built.

Particles known as the W+, W- and Z bosons were discovered in 1983, using the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at the European centre for nuclear research, CERN, near Geneva.

The much larger particle accelerator, The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is capable of producing even higher energies than the SPS. Particles such as protons or neutrons, which are made up of quarks, are known as hadrons. The LHC accelerates hadrons to huge speeds, sending two streams of

protons in opposite directions around its hollow circular ring. This causes highenergy collisions, producing a shower of particles which can be detected either directly, or indirectly from their decay products. At CERN scientists have been increasing the energy of these collisions in the hope of producing evidence for yet more particles, including the Higgs Boson. Proving that it exists is like finding the final piece to complete the Standard Model jigsaw.

On July 4th, CERN announced preliminary results, consistent with the discovery of a new particle. It may well be the long-sought Higgs boson. If the experiments had found no evidence for the Higgs particle, physicists would have had to completely revise their current theories. So the Standard Model remains valid. But does it bring us any closer to understanding the nature of reality?

That’s the really big question!

BIg SCIENCE

THE Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is really ‘big’ science, on a par with space exploration in terms of the cost and the number of scientists and engineers involved. It is housed in a huge underground circular tunnel, almost 27 kilometres in circumference, at the site of the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN). This centre was established in the 1950s, through the collaboration of 12 European countries.

There are now 20 European countries involved, but Ireland is not yet a member of CERN. CERN is located near Geneva, Switzerland, close to the border with France. While all of the installations above ground are situated in Switzerland, the underground tunnels are mainly buried deep under French soil. The aim of CERN is to provide European scientists with a facility where they can carry out fundamental research into the nature of matter, using particle accelerators, similar to those which had already been built in the United States of America. Particle accelerators use powerful magnets to accelerate charged particles (such as protons or electrons) to very high speeds and therefore very high kinetic energies. Each time a stream of charged particles travels around the ring, it gets further ‘kicks’ from the magnets and so travels even faster. When two streams of particles are made to travel in opposite directions around the circular

A model of the underground tunnels at CERN. tunnel, they can be made to collide at extremely high energies.

The first proton collider at CERN was commissioned in 1971 and the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) in 1981. The SPS was responsible for the discovery of what physicists call the massive W and Z particles. This was followed by the Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP) which was used to test the ‘Standard Model’ of particle physics. By 1996, the LEP was capable of accelerating an electron beam to an energy of 90 GeV. In particle physics, energies are expressed in electron volts (eV). An electron volt is the energy an electron gains when subjected to a potential difference of one

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 12

volt. This is an extremely tiny amount of energy, so in high-energy physics, the measurements are made in giga electron volts. (The prefix ‘giga’ in the international system of units means 10^9, or a thousand million, so 90 GeV means ninety thousand million electron volts.). To develop the research further, physicists needed to go to even higher energies, in the TeV range. (1 TeV = 1,000 GeV), so the Large Hadron Collider was built. This has more powerful magnets, which can accelerate particles to even higher energies.

One may wonder, what is the point of smashing charged particles together at such high energies? Imagine sending

two high-speed trains hurtling towards each other on the same track, until they crash, and then trying to find out how they work by examining the wreckage! It sounds a bit like that. But it seems this is the only way that scientists have found, so far, to examine subatomic particles. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, scientists thought that atoms were made up of just three types of particles, the protons and neutrons in the nucleus and the electrons moving

Maintenance

On September 10th, 2008, amid a blaze of media publicity, two beams of protons were successfully circulated in the main rings of the LHC for the first time.

Unfortunately, the operations had to be suspended nine days later because of a

around the nucleus in regions of space known as ‘orbitals’. But then the early particle accelerators in the USA discovered that protons and neutrons were not fundamental particles after all, but were made up of even smaller particles. Murray Gell-Mann, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969 for his work on particle physics, named these particles ‘quarks’.

Protons and neutrons are classified as ‘hadrons’ and these are made up of quarks. technical fault. The fault arose because the superconducting magnets need to be maintained at a temperature close to absolute zero in order to function properly. This extremely low temperature (about 271 degrees below the freezing point of water on the Celsius scale) is

The Large Hadron Collider, when working at capacity, will be capable of sending beams of protons on a collision course at energies of 7 TeV. Only by having such enormously energetic collisions can evidence be produced for the existence of the elusive Higgs boson, the particle thought to be responsible for the creation of mass.

By making protons beams collide at such high energy, physicists hope to recreate, on a miniscule scale, conditions that were present at the ‘Big Bang’, the event which is believed to have given rise to the beginning of space and time and the creation of our Universe. It is hoped that this will help scientists to reach a better understanding of the cosmos.

Having the Higgs boson detected at an acceptable level of certainty serves to reinforce the Standard Model of particle physics. However, if the Higgs particle had not been found, the theory would have to be modified, or perhaps abandoned altogether. At present, confidence in the results is growing, but no one is sure yet what other particles are going to be discovered. The Large Hadron Collider could produce some totally unexpected results, leading to completely new theories. We just don’t know. That is the way science works.

maintained using liquid helium and the helium had sprung a leak. Before any maintenance work could be done, the temperature of the apparatus had to be slowly raised to normal temperatures.

Then after the repairs had been completed, the whole apparatus needed to be evacuated again (the proton beams have to operate in a near total vacuum) and the temperature lowered once more. It was not until late November 2009 that the experiment was re-started.

Finally, on November 23rd, 2009, the first proton-proton collisions were recorded.

However, these were ‘only’ at 450 GeV per beam. The LHC was shut down for the winter of 2009- 2010 and on re-opening, the energies were ramped up. Then, on 30th March, 2010, the first collisions at 3.5 TeV occurred; the highest energy man-made particle collisions ever recorded. The LHC is still only at half energy and it is not planned to run at full energy (7 TeV per beam) until 2014.

Right, and above, the giant detectors at CERN.

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Numbers stack up the evidence Professor rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CerN said that to understand our existence we have to look at the two ends of the scale, the extremely large, and the extremely small. observing the Universe through telescopes has taught us a lot about how it evolved, while the Large Hadron Collider is like a super microscope that is beginning to reveal how the matter it is made from came into existence. rolf-Dieter was in Dublin for the City of science where he presented an update on the latest progress at CerN. He remarked that looking for the Higgs particle is a bit like trying to find a needle in not just one haystack, but several, and that a further problem is that the haystacks are full of slightly different needles.

The reason why the Higgs particle is so elusive is that it does not stay around for long, and it takes the sort of energy that existed immediately after the Big Bang to produce it. When particles collide with enough force they produce a sort of energy soup, a plasma, out of which particles begin to form. With high enough energy, a Higgs particle may form, only to disappear almost immediately as other particles begin to come into existence.

Because these conditions are so unusual and extremely difficult to achieve, Higgs particles are rare, and they are easily lost among thousands of other particles. furthermore, we can’t actually see a Higgs particle, but can only know that it is there by recording its influence on other particles.

This is why detection of the Higgs boson has been such an incredible achievement in science. simply making a few observations would be useless. The influence of so few particles among so many would be so small that it would be next to impossible to detect against a “noisy” background

of interactions. one tiny blip among thousands of records would not stand out, and it would just look like just another tiny error.

However, if thousands of records are combined, a pattern begins to emerge, and this is exactly how the Higgs boson was found.

Between 2011 and 2012, said Prof rolf-Dieter, “we have had over 5 trillion collisions.” The hadrons whiz around the 27 km long tunnel 11,000 times a second, travelling close to the speed of light.

The detectors picked up the signals from 600 million proton collisions every second, and while analysing this mass of data was an enormous task certainty increased as numbers went up.

Prof rolf-Dieter said that the results

Mass

open a window into unexplored territory.

It is really remarkable, he said, that we still know so little about the 95 per cent that makes up the Universe. What we know as the material world is just a small fragment compared to what is termed dark matter. At present we have no way of seeing this dark matter, but we know it is there because of its influence. Celestial bodies respond to gravitational forces that are much larger than expected, and something is making expansion of the Universe accelerate.

Whatever it is dark matter almost certainly came into existence with the Big Bang, and the Higgs boson could provide the key to understanding what is and why it is there.

The Higgs particle is thought to be responsible for mass. Like many things that are so familiar that we take them for granted, no one really knows why objects have mass. Objects with mass attract each other, and that is why the Moon stays in orbit around the Earth, it can’t escape.

It is thought that the Big Bang had such high energy that when particles began to form they moved around at the speed of light.

Then, in an extremely short length of time, as we understand it, the Higgs particles, or something like them, formed, and produced what is probably best described as an invisible force field. The field permeated the entire Universe and it acted as a drag, slowing down particles causing them gain mass.

Not all particles were affected by this force in the same way, so photons still travel at the speed of light while other particles, such as the down quark, became as heavy as an atom of gold.

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Spin offs

The LhC is the biggest machine in the world and it generates huge amounts of data, which are being analysed by thousands of scientists all over the world, with the help of computers, linked in a distributed network known as ‘The Grid’. Even if they fail to find the Higgs boson, the Grid may have unexpected spin-offs for society at large. After all, the World Wide Web, which we now take for granted, was invented by Tim Berners Lee and Robert Caillou, while they were working at CeRN. There is every likelihood that The Grid could revolutionise communications systems in the future, in ways we cannot now imagine.

Rolf-Dieter heuer made it clear that CeRN is not a business, and it is not involved in politics. At CERN, he said, everyone is passionate about science, but this does not mean that there is no return for industry.

As the well known example of the Internet demonstrates, the technology developed to enable scientists to conduct research often has spin out potential.

Because scientists needed a better way to exchange information, the web was created, and likewise, because there was a need to achieve an extremely high vacuum, more efficient pumps were developed.

In the long term, said Rolf-Dieter, no one knows what the basic science will come up with, but in the meantime, solving technical problems is delivering results that industry can apply right now.

As a hub for international research, CeRN is also making a huge contribution by providing a platform for exchange and interaction. There are more than 90 nationalities working at CeRN, said RolfDieter, and it is an international flagship for european research.

For all the talk about the importance of science, Ireland is not yet a member of CERN. Although Rolf-Dieter is reluctant to be drawn on the subject, he would clearly welcome Ireland into the fold.

“Yes, we have talked about it,” he admits, but no official approach has been made.

Peter Higgs at Swansea University. Photo: Swansea University.

What’s in a name?

PeTeR hIGGs was born in 1929 at Newcastle. In 1966 he wrote a short paper postulating the existence of such a particle but this was initially rejected by Physics Letters, probably because his account was so brief. his longer paper was then published and it caught the attention of physicists around the world. By the 1970s his theories were being widely discussed. higgs, who held an academic position, retired in 2006.

Although his name has become attached to the particle, he was not the only one to suggest the possibility and a number of scientists had been considering similar ideas, but as higgs himself remarks, he was the one to draw attention to it.

To hear what Peter higgs, and others, have to say about the discovery, watch the video on U Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pi1EE8nutc Peter higgs can be seen describing his and the work of other scientists at a lecture he delivered at the University of swansea on 12th July 2012. To view on U Tube: http://youtu.be/MoHXguStv9c

Read Margaret Franklin’s column on science in the Westmeath Independent.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 15

A straggling climber and its more colourful relation www.sourcelibrary.net

Tom Kennedy gives the background to two common Irish plants

www.sourcelibrary.net

Cleavers, Galium aparine, with its seed balls, and below, Lady’s Bedstraw, Galium verum, both from Leixlip, but common throughout Ireland.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page xx

T

he long stems of bright green that clamber over everything are known as Cleavers, Grip Grass or Everlasting Friendship because they are so good at making a grab at anyone who walks by.

Even when the long and slender stems are pulled off, a dozen or more of the little seed balls usually hang on, so they get around, and that’s why the plant has been able to spread to wide and far.

Cleavers, Galium aparine, or in Irish, Lus Garbh, or Garbhlus, is one of our most common wild plants, but its green and straggely, and the small, inconspicuous four petalled flowers are highly unlikely to end up in a vase.

The four angled stems can be quite long, often more than a metre, and they often clamber over everything to form a tangled mat, which according to an old tradition, noted by the Swedish plant naming scientist, Linnaeus, was pulled off and used as a natural sieve for milk. The genus name, Galium, comes from the Greek for milk, and its likely that Linneaus borrowed a much earlier reference, by Dioscordes, to the plant. Dioscordes, an observant Greek physician with the Roman army during Nero’s reign, recorded in his five volume De Materia Medica that the plant was commonly used by shepherds as a sieve.

This sieve is likely to have served a double purpose, for, although I know of no reference to this in Ireland, the plant has always been associated in England and elsewhere with cheese making, both for curdling and for colouring.

Apart from the association with cheese, Lus Garbh was used for a variety of herbal treatments, and it was popular with poultry farmers who gathered it to make a mash. Another common name for the plant is Goose Grass, and as if clinging on was not enough for dispersal, the seeds that pass through the gut remain viable. The plant, although

diuretic, is supposed to be edible, but it was mainly used as a medicinal herb.

Exactly what it is was good for is not at all clear, and of course, like all plants, there are lots of constituents that may, or may not be good for us. Among them is a red dye and caffeine, and it is possible to make a substitute for coffee from the dried seeds. Galium aparine is actually related to the “real” coffee plant.

There are lots of other relations as well, among them Galium verum, the yellow flowered Our Lady’s Bedstraw.

Like Goosegrass, this is a common plant, but because of the bright yellow flowers, much more prominent. Galium verum shares both the cheese making tradition with Galium aparine, and the roots were used extensively to make red and yellow dyes. At one stage attempts were made in Scotland to cultivate Lady’s Bedstraw so that a vegetable dye could be produced commercially, but that was before synthetics, and besides, gathering the roots proved to be extremely labour intensive.

The name, Our Lady’s Bedstraw, has fairly obvious religious associations, but this is probably just a cultural shift. The coumarin, which gives many plants a pleasant summery scent, is thought to act as a flea deterrent, and this would have been a distinct advantage when Lady’s Bedstraw was used for bedding.

In Scandinavia Galium verum is known as Frigg’s Grass, and Frigg was the Norwegian goddess of married women.

Thin stems stretching out a metre or more depend on other plants for their support.

1 2

3 Scanning electron microscope views of Galium aparine hooks. (1) is a lateral view of hooks on the abaxial surface of a leaf. (2) Adaxial hook. (3) Abaxial book stained to show up features.

Hooked on the bright side

A TEAm of six scientists from Germany, Georg Bauer, Marie-Christin Klein, Stanislav N. Gorb, Thomas Speck, Dagmar Voigt and Friederike Gallenmüller made a detailed study of how Galium aparine uses its numerous hooks to climb up and over adjacent plants.

Instead of stems growing stronger with growth, the plant relies on its numerous hooks to make use of props to pull itself up. While many other climbing plants twist and twine their way up, Galium aparine uses its claw-like appendages, technically known as trichomes. While the density of books decreases slightly as leaves become bigger, they were found to range from 1.2 to 2.3 per mm2 The seeds also have hooks, but in their case, they are there to aid dispersal.

According to the researchers, the leaf hooks are arranged in such a way that the plant positions itself advantageously for light capture. The hooks act like a rachet on adjoining leaf surfaces that face away from their axis, (abaxial) while they slide off surfaces facing towards the stem (adaxial). Because of this, any disturbance, such as wind, makes the plant creep in and up along the supporting host.

The researchers, who published their results in Proceedings of the Royal Society, went to great lengths to examine these hooks, using tiny loops made of Kevlar attached to a transducer and motorised micromanipulator to measure just how much strain they could take before letting go. A lot depended on the direction of pulling, but with the valcro loop, measurements on the lab bench were in the 60 micro Neuton range. The researchers had to work fast, as the hooks lose their strength rapidly after leaves are cut.

The rachet like hooks were found to be more lignified, which makes them stiffer, while the adaxial hooks were only lignified at their tips. Furthermore the more lignified hooks had broader bases.

NUCLEAR POWER SMOKING GM CROPS

Genetically modified rice, right, provides people with beta-carotene, the precursor of essential vitamin A.

W

hen it comes to taking decisions, we might consider the facts, but beliefs usually tip the balance. In public debates on issues such as climate change, fracking and stem cell research, the voice of cool reason is all too easily shouted down by firmly entrenched opinions.

As a discussion during the City of Science revealed, failure to consider the facts is having an enormous impact on society. Many of the high level decisions affecting health, energy and food are seriously flawed because they are based on widely held opinions rather than hard evidence.

Just how far wrong we can in making decisions be was highlighted by taking three highly contentious examples — tobacco, nuclear power and genetically modified crops.

There are strong opinions on these subjects, but surprisingly few of these opinions are based on real evidence.

Ask if nicotine causes cancer, and

Facing the Facts Why is so hard to separate the myths from scientific facts?

Tom Kennedy reports on how scientists point out that policy makers and the public are jumping to conclusions before looking at the evidence.

most doctors will say with confidence that it does. Ask if nuclear power is safe, and most people would say it is not. Ask if genetically modified crops should be banned and many people would say yes, stop messing with nature.

The facts might not always be popular, but nicotine does not cause cancer, nuclear power is a lot safer than coal, and as for genetically modified crops, it is not actually possible to ban them.

Dislike or fear can colour our views to such an extent that we choose to support our unease with myths rather than deal with the facts. Yet, while baseless myths only add to our fears, facts can show that concerns are either exaggerated or false.

Dr David O’Reilly explained that clinging to myths about tobacco is not the way to reduce the incidence of smoking related lung cancer. Dr O’Reilly said it is

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important to eliminate this risk, yet he represents British American Tobacco, and while it might seem odd at first to hear him express this view, he explained that it is in no one’s interest to hide from the facts. In spite of bans and restrictions, he said, smoking is going to increase, and according to the World Health Organisation, the number of smokers on the planet will increase from 1.3 billion now to between 1.5 and 2.2 billion by 2050. That this will result in about one billion premature deaths is also a fact, he said.

There is a widespread belief that smoking is going to disappear, but Eurobarometer surveys show that prevalence of between 29 to 30 per cent of the European population is static, with the highest rates in southern and eastern states. Ireland is in the high risk category, yet together with the UK, it has the most aggressive stance against smoking and cigarette sales. “In spite of this,” he said, ”the level in Ireland has remained as it was before these interventions.”

As Dr O’Reilly observed, these public health actions are not working and the main reason for this is that there has been a failure to identify the core problem.

Cigarettes are a killer, not because they contain nicotine, but because smokers inhale a cocktail of about 150 toxins.

In spite of the prevailing belief that nicotine causes cancer, there is no evidence to show that this is the case. It is addictive and it stimulates the nervous system, but essentially, as far as the available evidence is concerned, it has a clean bill of health.

What the health authorities should be looking at, said Dr O”Reilly, is an alternative way to deliver nicotine, and this is exactly what happened in Sweden. During the 1960s smokers began to give up their cigarettes to use a product known as snus instead.

Unlike snuff, a dry powdered tobacco product, which has a long history of use in many countries, including Ireland, and is harmful, Swedish snus is a steam pasturised product. Placed inside the lip,

nicotine is delivered through the gum into the bloodstream .

According to Dr O’Reilly, tobacco consumption in Sweden is now the highest in Europe, yet this is the country with the lowest rate of smoking related diseases in the developed world. Thirty years of evidence exists to show that this approach works, said Dr O’Reilly, yet it is being overlooked. Not only is the evidence being ignored, but snus, while available in Sweden and Norway, is banned in the rest of the EU. “Essentially, current policy does not reflect the science that has emerged over the past ten to fifteen years,” he said. His prediction is that current policies ”will underachieve on reducing disease on a monumental scale.

GM crops

now, half a century on, these genetically modified strains are widely grown and regarded as normal. Much, if not most of the grain imported for animal feed in Ireland is actually GM. The same can be said of tinned tomatoes, so as Anne Glover observed, it is really next to impossible to be GM free.

Bombarding organisms to jumble up the genes is a relatively crude technique compared to snipping out and inserting genes with desirable qualities, but as Anne Glover explained, Europeans remain wary of this high-tech approach,

while the rest of the world is happy to accept the advantages. A large part of this suspicion, she said, stems from restrictive business practices rather than from the science itself. There is also an odd dichotomy in our attitude. Many of the pharmaceutical products we consume in Europe are produced using genetically modified bacteria. These are pure and uncontaminated and do not require animal sources, yet, while everyone is happy to use and consume these products, GM crops are apt to be labelled Frankenstein Foods.

In much the same way as plant breeders were able to produce the fruits, vegetables and grains that we now accept as organic, higher yielding crops are needed by millions of people who are living with the constant threat of starvation. At the moment Europeans can afford to be choosy, but for many countries, said Anne Glover, the decision to grow GM crops is literally a live or die choice.

In Belgium, she said, some of the municipalities have declared themselves to be GM free. In fact they are not, and even if they succeed in closing their borders, they can never be GM free.

It is bad enough that relatively well off Europeans choose to ignore the evidence and see danger where little exists, but unfortunately EU aid to countries that need help rather than hindrance, can include an obligation to ban GM crops.

Ask Professor Anne Glover, scientific adviser to EC President Barroso, is she is pro GM, and she immediately say “no”. Not that she has any objections to GM, but as she remarks “I am pro the evidence.”

Fears that genetically modified foods are different from ordinary farmed food, she said, are groundless. Many people have the impression that there is a risk from eating “foreign” DNA, but as she explained, this is actually what we do all the time. All the genes in what we eat are “foreign” but eating pork does not make us into a pig, and drinking milk does not turn us into a cow. Likewise, a cow eating genetically modified feed does not produce genetically modified milk.

There is a lot of confusion surrounding GM, and like it or not, gene engineering is here to stay, and it is not exactly new, having been around since the end of the 1950s. By using radiation to induce mutation in plant genes, breeders discovered that they could produce new varieties with useful traits. Plant breeders have been doing much the same as this for thousands of years, but instead of waiting for nature to produce an occasional “sport” induced mutation could speed up the process by jumbling up the genes. In the US, high yielding grain crops were produced this way, and

Although a country can declare itself to be GM free, everyone could already be eating bread fortified by Omega 3 oils, produced from genetically modified rape, and animals are being given genetically modified feed.

Fears are often based on restrictive business practices rather than on scientific facts.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 19

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When about the idea of Roddie investigating innovative methods a carrot in a gel form or create a mixture culinary arts.

“It really opened up my and Large Scale Simulation The Lough Allen Natural Gas Field 7 programme, under which research to take one example, people will be able attempt to extract natural gas from such a price the company is willing to pay, in inviting Europe’s biggest science event Synergy Centre Manager Nick UCD Conway Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2. food Trinity Centre for Trinity Entrepreneural Technology Transfer Springboard While DrGroup Schenkel arguessays that Burke. the By comparison, until the end of Institute of aorder carrot and a parsnip,” to create novel products using eyes up to the possibilities and I’m trying is an unconventional carboniferous gas is funded throughout the European to do their own analysis on the water unconventional fields. to reassure the public. to Ireland first came up, he said “the roddiegi@tcd.ie of Biomolecular and Mernagh Research Research primarily concerned with ABiodiversity programme of support facts doit’s notnot support the view thatindustry nuclear January 2012gastronomy. more than 20,000 people just the molecular to find to teach science to culinary As we allways know, Japan was hitand by ahow Society Offices basin, formed 350 years ago.

Union,Whatever isapplied coming to restaurant anfor end, and under supply, how much there, it At If it turns outand that is aResearch And decisions are made tiger was in town, allthere the graphs Biomedical Interdisciplinary studies onis million research innovation inwith Institute of Technology Tallaght, for sciencedisaster, and technology were involved in the mitigation activities, energy is more of a threat than other that is using molecular gastronomy for One of the aspects of the project is students that makes sense to them and is dreadful and the operators of the College society for students Ten offices dedicated to Commissioner Trinity Consortium on that time, Ireland wasAs part a greater UCD Conway Institute brings environmental, technical, Geoghegan Quinn, changes during thescientific day. heof remarked, commercially viable gas prospect. regard to developing naturalwith modulation, codingour and rtelated were pointing up.”

As we all know, Tallaght, Dublin 24. enterpreneurs run under forms of power generation, the overall and of these about 20 were injured that extra bit of wow factor.

The Boston of interest to them,” she says. investigating flavour pairings.

White Fukushima nuclear power plant failed ambitions to go into business. together over 550 research staff and economic issues relating to Ageing, TCA technology transfer have been embedding processes. land mass, see Science Spinway 37, and the a bigger, andthey more comprehensive “Hacking the City” is a great to get in the Northwest of `Ireland, both the resorces, should be Recent based on sound the cut-backs, when they came, were 01 4042221 the Northern Ireland NISP by explosions of cheese hydrogen, but Drmore impact the the enormous Globe named “molecular chocolate and islicencing one ofas the A twelve week molecular gastronomy to the predict well known risks.

However, from all over the University and its ofrecently maintaining biodiversity.

Collaboration between research Boxdisaster 4Horizon Regent House, Trinity innovations inand the electronic systemestablished with the support Lough Allen field was once contiguous programme, 2020, be taking public more involved in science. companies and the authorities scientific findings, not onwill uninformed severe, and Prof Cunningham admitted nick.mernagh@ittdublin.ie associated teaching The Director Dr Jane Stout centres, and inviduals on combinations programme. and aimed at in DIT clean-up cost caused awhich swing in public commented, “the radiological on-chip area, combined radio unusual flavour that arehospitals. gastronomy at bars” as number two in there was launched inin 2009.

Itinstitutes is Schenkel asmodule Roland Schenkel, former director College Dublin.

Dublin 2. of Enterprise Ireland at ten with the Appalachian Basin the USA, its place starting in 2014.

Richard Bruton, Minister for Jobs would do well to take time to explain to scaremongering.

Having said that, to having some anxious moments that www.synergycentre.ie Institute community of biomedical School of Natural Sciences Trinity issues relating to ageing. frequency capability onto the SOCs projects with significant earning perception, fuelled to a large degree by impact was almost negligible.” it list of the top ten food trends for 2012. being investigated.

“Sometimes you get first of its kind in Ireland.

The module ofthe Europe’s Joint Research Centre, entrepren@csc.tcd.ie Higher Education The where extracted at Dublin, Ireland’s researchers benefit from Enterprise and Innovation, said that College public, detail, exactly how should certainly be awill public debate on all the ambitious plans would toInstitutes. be researchers ishave engaged in exploring College Dublin,natural Dublin 2.gas is being Trinity Dublin 2. in precise are also beingin exploited, enabling potential.

What Fukushima demonstrates, sensational reporting the press.

Smoked gin and tonic anyone? peaks on GC-MS chromatograms that is taught anconsists option not in four of pointed out,asthe we should allow thesandstone www.trinityentrepreneurial.com TTO officers can be contacted present.

It of year tight gas cell and systems biology to discover jane.stout@tcd.ie ageing.research@tcd.ie this,the yet, as Prof Cunningham remarked, following continued and sustained it will be extracted.

Modern fracking issue, because, left towireless themselves, extensive research into scrapped.

However, as the government Programme Manager Joanne A in public perception has hecome said, is not that nuclear power is the Bachelor ofwhich Arts in Culinary Arts out the same innew totally different Teagasc Park magnitude of one terrible disaster toCity ways to treat a range of human the university IT swing and control. reservoirs, are less porous and just a fewsensing years ago, all of thisalways would get it support for science in Ireland the of Oak fluids consist of water, but theyand planning authorities don’t changed, the Citymainly ofthrough Science was seen Jennings resulted in a shut-down of reactors in inherently dangerous, but that the Caroline Kidd has a BSc in Microbiology foods that you would not normally put and on a DIT Springboard programme Technology Transfer of food and obscure the fact that by comparison, the diseases.

Ubiquitous Computing Dr Paul O’Leary innovation centres. permeable inatconventional seemed impossible.

When it came Science event than comes a good time.fields, It is usually contain certain additives, most of have right.

Trinity Technology and as just the sort of event that would help Communications Elaine Quinn 108-112 Royalimpact Avenue, Belfast operators ignored the advice being given Germany, yet, asshe Dr isSchenkel argues, this 051 302630 together, which indicates that they have from UCD and currently studying for a for people who have lost their jobs and agricultural research results. radiological was low.

Four people Research Group, UCRG Technology Exploitation making for it difficult extract gas. to getting support, Irish scientists were important people to see the the relevance which are substances already in common Ireland recover, and indeed show the University College Dublin, Belfield, Enterprise Campus www.wit.ie/wireless BT1 1DL Aisgroup drawn decision was based on fears rather than byfrom thedifferent regulators.

“It was well known,” matching flavours.

Sometimes it’s the Masters in Journalism in DIT. wish to up-skill.

A third module at Director of Research Frank died from exposure to radioactivity, six Networks Peter O’Fegan However, in recent years, a new method the starting line,m2 but that has of this support, he said, and to appreciate and in should pose no4.great risk to the hardly atevironmentalhealthsciencesinstitute/ world that aspects of science and Dublin faculties on use ubiquitous ormany as and Providing 16,000 028 90315111 heopposite said, “that earthquakes of lower facts. One of the myths, he said,ofisspace that situation isitIreland no match master’s level and is larger taught on the MScworking O’Mara people received doses than 250 Enterprise Galway. been to extract natural gaspervasive, 01 there 7166706 “We areand more pulling thathas there aredeveloped concrete benefits to the environment.

Innow any case, istolikely that changed.

Margaret Franklin isthan a chemist andout former research, Ireland is second none. it also termed, computing. for small medium magnitude than thethe one that occurred future generations will be stuck sized with the in the peaks but flavours still seem in Culinary Innovation and Food Product Carlow, Co Carlow. millserverts, and 160 people received Elaine.quinn@ucd.ie 091 735921 from tight shale gas “Thinking reservoirs. weightSenior now,” said Prof Cunningham. economy fromgas theand investment.

School of Computing Dublin Institute the gas reservoirssaid would be at a much Lecturer at Athlone Institute The government, Prof 36Finland, units around of disposal. with Yet, in cause tsunamis of thescience same in that high cost ofenterprises Development. to work.

There is a whole 059 9170200would doses between 100uses and horizontal 180 milliserverts. www.ucd.ie/conway Startup Ireland of Technology This method drilling,

INNOVATION

Nuclear risks

lower level than the water table and Technology.

Margaret ishousing co-author of the the Tower building height.”

The operators were informed where a detailed study was made on 26 area,” says Burke. frank.omara@teagasc.ie To Enterprise put this inIreland perspective, a dose of 200 An combined withinitiative hydraulic fracturing, there would be aTom natural impermeable book, Colour, what we see and the science Crean Centre craft tenants. long-term storage of radioactive waste, of this, but the regulator did not have milliserverts, onoverseas aknown conservative estimate, aimed at getting colloqually as ‘fracking’.

A barrier above theProviding gas field,space preventing of sight. and support Padraig five per cent of the O’Shea energy cost is enough enough authority to insist that the advice would cause one case of late cancer in enterpreneurs to set up vertical bore is first drilled toTechnology the required contamination offor ground water.

But the business development College Dublin, Dublin 2. be acted on. covers this Trinity expense. everydepth, 100. inthen companies Ireland.

A €10m several horizontal drills are public need to beand reassured about this. industry-academic Innovation 01 6775655 fund is available to those collaboration. padraig.oshea@tcd.ie Development Award, establishing high potential Kathrina Purtill CITy OF SCIEnCEprovided 2012 followsTIDA the proposals for the programme has greatly remarkedwww.tcd.ie that it might be a good idea exporting companies, Institute of Technology, Tralee, European Science Open Forum event in exceed expectations.

Four months, he to look at how it is funded. One of the they come up with matching Providing funds to enable Co Kerry.

Turin in 2010, and that in turn was two said, had been spent winnowing these recent developments that could be Tyndall Incubation finance..

SFI supported applied 066 7191990 years after ESOF in Barcelona. The ESOF down, and that meant that about three relevant, he said, is the recent regrouping Manager Lorcan O’Sullivan research to move forwards Centre info@creancentre.com events were initiated by Euroscience, quarters of the submissions had to be of European organisations involved Enterprise Ireland into commercialisation.

This Start-up companies based www.creancentre.com an independent group of scientists who turned down, and a number of these in supporting research.

The former www.startinireland.com year €6.5 million in funding on Tyndall technologies are Subscription €30 a year, six issues, saw the need to highlight the best in would have been worth including.

“We European Heads of Research Councils, was allocated to 58 research offered admin and management Trinityabout College European science. In the US there is the Aboutare trying to do something that,” has been reorganised, andDublin on EUROHORCs, sale in newsagents. projects. a fifth of the support.

Synergy Centre Associate Director, Research andrebranded as Science Europe, and well-funded American Association for said Prof Cunningham, and one of the and awards went to TCD. 021 4904241 Innovation centre with focus on Innovation James Callaghan the Advancement of Science, usually questions on many peoples’ minds now, the new organisation is made up of 42 enquiry@tyndall.ie high technology and knowledge Science Foundation Ireland, Local global science viewed O’Reilly Institute, Dublin 2. research simply known as the AAAS, which acts is just how big can the ESOF events get. and funding bodies, including the Wilton Tce, Dublin 2. intensive start ups. Fostering 01 8961427 as a showcase for American science.

The success of ESOF has taken throughHealth Research Board and SFI in Ireland.

Irish eyes. industry-academia links. jcallag@tcd.ie The members of Euroscience thought many people by surprise, yet it began While recognising that there would be that Europe needed to have something as a bottom-up initiative by a group issues to be resolved, Prof Cunningham similar, so in 2004 the first ESOF of scientists who retain their ultimate said it is hard to escape the compelling www.sciencespin.com conference was launched at Stockholm, control and ownership. The group is logic — “Science Europe has endless and since then it has continued to grow independent, but as is often the case, money, billions, while Euroscience as a biannual event, going on to Munich independence can meanIssue having work SCIENCE SPIN 48 toPage 16 just has pennies,” he commented. yet, in 2006, Barcelona in 2008, Turin in 2010, within limited budgets. ultimately, while independence would and this year Dublin.

As ESOF seems destined to grow have to be weighed up against political At a Euroscience Ireland meeting and grow as a major event in promoting pressures, both organisations have Prof Cunningham said the number of European science, Prof Cunningham similar aims.

BIG AND GETTING BIGGER

IDEAL FOR THE LIBRARY

Have you any idea of what’s going on inside your brain?

DUBLIN CITY OF SCIENCE 2012 Irish Science Handbook 2012 49 Miller introduces us to Research scientist and writer, Dr Veronica

our remarkable brain, literally taking the cap off and explaining in fascinating detail how it works.

Why are weon so emotional, In 2012 Ireland hosts the European open forum science what happens when things go wrong, and can we become more intelligent? Veronica’s highy informative and entertaining text tells us www.dublinscience2012.ie just about everything we would like to know about the brain, including lots about the latest Irish research.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 51 Page 21 SCIENCE SPIN Issue 52 Page 11

The book, a matching volume for Colour and Rock Around Ireland, is due out soon. Look out for details on the Science Spin site www.sciencespin.com Albertine Kennedy Publishing SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 20

Irish Science Handbook 2012

55

ChEmIStry GoES GrEEN Declan Knittel reports on how chemists are coming up with smarter ways to make use of limited resources.

G

reen chemistry is the designing of chemical products and processes that are sustainable and reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances.

Modern chemistry has improved our lives, provided us with an amazing array of consumer products, put food on our table and kept diseases under control with new medicines, yet many of these accomplishments have come with a price, namely to our environment.

For example, 80 to 85 per cent of pharmaceutical waste comes from solvents. If we can remove the solvents we will reduce a significant amount of waste, and of course, reducing the amount of solvent isn’t just good for the environment, it’s economically beneficial too.

Examples of green chemist’s successes include the use of supercritical (high pressure) CO2 and water as a replacement for environmentally hazardous petroleum-based solvents in chemical reactions. Petroleum based plastics, such as polyethylene, have been replaced by synthetics produced from cane sugar.

However, despite these successes there is still a great deal more that could be done, but change can be hard to achieve.

According to Dr James Sullivan, head of the environmental and sustainable

catalysis research group in UCD, “The problem with adopting the principles of green chemistry in industry, is that it’s an extremely efficient industry, with infrastructure tailored to its specific needs, adopting new processes would make the old ones redundant and naturally people would be reluctant to scrap a $50 million pharmaceutical plant because of a greener alternative that is not yet proven on a large scale. Therefore industry tends not to go for the reduction of energy usage and changing of materials in their processes but they have become reasonably good at depollution and reducing emissions.”

Few needs are more pressing than meeting sustainable transportation energy requirements. One of the holy grails of modern green chemistry is perhaps obtaining a suitable catalyst which enables solar powered electrolysis of water to obtain hydrogen gas as a fuel for transportation, and research is currently being conducted by Dr Sullivan’s research group into achieving this goal.

“For solar energy conversion, we tend to use titanium dioxide, a relatively wide band gap semi-conductor, which absorbs UV radiation, enabling the promotion of an electron into a higher energy orbital, if you catch this electron in this orbital

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 21

Big investments have been made in existing technology, but more efficient processes are needed, both to cut costs and to achieve sustainability.

Photo: www.sourcelibrary.net

you can use it to split water or to perform artificial photosynthesis.” When asked does he see this as a viable energy source in the future, he was keen to outline the slow pace of progress that generally takes place in the acquisition of any new technology.

“Eventually we will move on to a post-petroleum era, in the short to medium term substitutions will be in the form of biomass, wind, tidal and geothermal in the longer term we will move on to a solar-energy society, either using solar energy directly to convert solar energy into electricity or indirectly in order to drive a chemical reaction and generate hydrogen gas or conduct artificial photosynthesis. Since I started research in this area 20 years ago, it’s been predicted that it’ll be 50 years till the oil runs out and 80 years till we have water splitting, and today we’re still making the same prediction, but I’ve seen cells produce hydrogen from water solution using the power of an overhead projector, so we’re getting close.” What’s

preventing this from being upscaled into a commercial process? “It comes down to cost. The catalysts used in these cells contain a lot of expensive rare-earth metals such as platinum and not until some point in the future as the price of oil continues to rise and costs of the catalysts decrease will it become economically viable to upscale these photo-catalysts to become commercially viable, the same is true for adopting any new technology from the steam engine to the aeroplane, adoption is general is a slow process.”

According to Dr Sullivan, future endeavours for green chemists along with energy generation will include, ‘The use of renewable biofeedstocks in production processes, the challenge for chemists will be to convert these feedstocks into pharmaceuticals, at the moment if you want to make a drug, your feedstock is an oil based hydrocarbon. We have extremely good chemists that can take a hydrocarbon and activate certain parts of the molecule to add functional groups here, there and everywhere, starting with a hydrocarbon and building up to a drug — which is a selective oxidation reaction. What the challenge for green chemists in the future will be starting from a biofeedstock, such as cellulose, which is over-oxygenated compared to a pharmaceutical, and therefore selectively deoxygenating the molecule.”

What ideas does Dr Sullivan have for future projects? “We’re going to be concentrating a lot on bio as well as solar energy in addition to the selective

IN NEWSAGENTS NATIONWIDE or SUBSCRIBE

oxidations, specifically bio energy from wood, rather than from soya bean or sunflower oil, the rational for that is when making diesel from sunflower oil you are diverting a food source which has knock-on effects, you’re only using a tiny part of the plant which creates a lot of waste, and when you look at the life cycle of growing these crops and factor in the amount of fertilizer used to grow them, where the fertilizer came from and the amount of CO2 produced to manufacture it, you end up releasing more greenhouse gases than you would be by simply digging oil out of the ground — even more so if you then have to then import this bio fuel. So what we are going to be looking at is cellulose from wood or grasses, where you can use the entire plant to generate the bio fuel.”

Since green chemistry’s inception 20 years ago there have been colossal political and economic changes in the world. Globalisation has risen exponentially, communist regimes have been replaced across wide areas of the globe, the European Union has expanded enormously and there has been a huge shift in manufacturing from Europe and the USA to China and the Far East. At the same time, electronic communication and the internet have linked people across the world in an unprecedented way that could hardly have been imagined 20 years ago. These changes have been accompanied by increased pressures on the Earth’s resources. Metals that used to be little more than chemical curiosities,

have become valuable commodities in increasingly short supply. And all of this has been occurring against a backdrop of dwindling reserves of oil and minerals, global warming and relentless growth in global population. Furthermore, nowadays many people have increased expectations of lifestyle and increased life expectancy.

All of this poses an enormous challenge to chemists in order to supply the chemicals and materials needed to meet the increasing aspirations of the world’s population and to do so with a shrinking supply of resources and a lack of readily available clean energy.

Green chemists have the extra challenge of doing this without using hazardous chemicals, generating toxic waste or causing other environmental harm.

The solutions to how all of this will be achieved still remain unresolved, but it must be achieved or else society as we know it cannot continue. Part of the solution will undoubtedly be found by applying or adapting technologies which already exist or are currently under development. And the other part will require the invention of radically new technologies, employing new ideas and different thinking. The question is will we engage in this great challenge with the urgency and focus that a true sustainability demands? As Paul Anastas, widely regarded as the ‘Father of Green Chemistry’, suggests, ‘We can, and I believe we will, because we must’.

Six issues a year €30 post free SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 22

www.sciencespin.com

DublIN

DIrTy olD TowN Dublin, like most older cities, has been built on an accumulation of waste. Parks have been laid out over disused civic dumps, marshy ground has been infilled and reclaimed, while airborne dust from traffic, coal fires and old industries has settled into the top layer of soil over the centuries. Tom Kennedy and Pat O’Connor report how the Geological Survey of Ireland has been mapping the status of Dublin soils for the first time ever.

T

he last thing that people might expect to find in a public park is pollution. Dog deposits perhaps, some pigeon droppings, but not polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

As Pat O’Connor, a geochemist who headed up the Geological Survey of Ireland until recently, explains, urban soils have often absorbed the dust, emissions and spillages of generations.

This is the anthropogenic, or man-made, contribution to urban soil. However, urban soils also contain a geogenic component, derived from the underlying bedrock, and the two components combine in a city such as Dublin to represent a geochemical baseline. This baseline has never yet been determined for Dublin soils.

Realising that this could have serious implications for public health, Pat thought that the Geological Survey should take a closer look at the urban environment, and so the Soil Urban Geochemistry, SURGE, project got underway. “It was the first time that GSI ventured into urban areas in this way,” he said.

Mapping our bed-rock geology or assessing our ground water and mineral resources would be more usual activities for GSI, but the SURGE project involved a close up examination of surface soil in a city environment.

Ireland was not alone in the need to examine soil status in an urban environment. Dublin became one of ten European cities to be included in a comparative urban soil mapping programme under the auspices of EuroGeoSurveys, the association of European geological surveys.

The Geological Survey was supported by the Environmental Protection Agency and Teagasc as project partners, and there was close collaboration with the four local and health authorities in the Dublin region.

There was also a tie-in with the Geological Survey in Norway, which as Pat explained, was fortuitous as they had conducted a similar study that revealed some problems in urban areas of Norway.

The GSI study looked at soil contaminants, such as potentially harmful elements like arsenic, mercury lead and others such as organic pollutants going back for thousands of years. The focus was predominantly in public open spaces and parks.

With all of the changes that occurred over the generations many of these sites would have been redeveloped, not just once, but perhaps a number of times, and historically the usual solution to a problem of waste was simply to bury it.

As a public health issue, said Pat, potential exposure to pollution in urban areas is important and needs to be assessed.

“More than sixty per cent of the Irish population now live in cities,” he said, and while people have left the farms behind, they remain in close contact with the soil. “They are in direct contact with urban soil through gardening and playing outside, inhaling the dust, and eating homegrown produce,” said Pat Before the SURGE survey there were no existing baseline figures for Irish urban soils, so that there was no way of assessing whether levels of elements and compounds observed at potentially contaminated sites were “normal” or not. One of the objectives with Surge was to establish that urban baseline in order to give a snapshot of the current quality of soil in Dublin’s public lands. Apart from allowing the assessment of future impacts on soil quality, an important focus for this survey was on the accumulation of “contaminants” both natural and anthropogenic that had occurred over a long period of time. The project sampling design did not set out to identify hotspots that need a remedial clean up but aimed to gain an overall picture of soil quality across the greater Dublin area.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 23

The sampling design adopted (Figure 1, above) allowed for three or four samples to be taken over every square km in built up areas and one sample per sq km in the outer more rural suburbs. 300 to 500 gm samples of topsoil (< 10 cm depth) were taken (Figure 2) and 1,058 of these were sent off for analysis. Keeping within a budget, as always, was a factor, so 194 samples, were selected for the more expensive testing to detect persistent organics, specifically the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

The PAHs come from the burning of bituminous coal and traffic emissions, but as Pat explained, PAHs are now a diminishing problem due to cleaner vehicle engines and the introduction of ‘smokeless’ fuels (in Dublin at any rate). In fact, there is a clear spatial zoning apparent in the maps of PAH concentrations with high levels in the central older residential Figure 3

and industrial heart of the city grading to low levels in the outer suburbs (Figure 3). PCBs were detected at 14 individual sites.

PCBs were widely used as coolants in electrical equipment such as transformers and used in paint and plaster mixes, and often these were simply dumped or drained because no one realised that the odourless and apparently harmless PCBs are in fact toxic and persist in the environment (Figure 4).

Areas within public parks often had higher concentrations of potentially harmful elements than surrounding areas, often because they were laid out over rubble and fill, and also because of accumulated cigarette butts, bonfires, and paint residues. A park bench may have been stripped and painted many times, and timber fencing would often have had been treated with creosote (a PAH source) over and over again. Lead concentrations are also higher in inner city locations, a trend which can be attributed to the use of leaded paint and petrol in addition to unregulated waste disposal (Figure 5).

Most of the contamination is close to the surface, but as Pat pointed out, that is also the layer that exposes people (particularly children) and animals to the highest risk. The samples are drawn from the top 10 cms, because that is where the contaminants are concentrated. “The deeper the sample, the weaker the signal,” said Pat. When children play, they don’t dig deep, and in a school yard they tumble around on the dusty surface. In the Norwegian survey, which targeted public day care centres, thirty per cent were found to have unacceptable levels of contamination, so remedial action had to be taken.

In summary, the GSI study shows that the soils of central Dublin, as expected, have been impacted most with elevated levels of potentially harmful elements such as arsenic, lead, mercury, copper, zinc and organic pollutants. There is an outward gradation to less-impacted suburban soils(Figures 6 and 7).

The industrial past

Historically, Dublin was an important manufacturing city. There was glass- making in Ringsend, brickfields in Sandymount, foundries in Thomas Street and Shelbourne Road, shipbuilding, instrument making, gasworks in Pearse Street, and at one time the city was the centre for the poplin trade.

Traces of this rich and diverse industrial past, although largely forgotten, lie beneath the surface, so here and there, hot spots of contamination with lead, arsenic and mercury occur, and before the Grand Canal theatre and the blocks around it were built all the soil, heavily contaminated from generations of gas production, had to be treated. Much of Dublin, particularly around the lower Liffey is reclaimed land, and two of the biggest parks, Fairview and Irishtown, are developed over former civic dumps. An inventory of historic industries and their location across the city has been compiled as part of the Surge project. Together with the results from the soil survey, the inventory forms an important resource for local authorities, environmental consultants and researchers to help understand and prevent soil pollution in Dublin’s open spaces into the future.

Dr Pat O’Connor is a co-author of the Surge report Geochemical baseline for topsoils in the greater Dublin area (GSI March 2012) which can be accessed at www.gsi.ie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 24

Figure 4

Figure 6

Figure 5

Figure 7

IRISH FOSSIL SERIES Silurian brachiopod Rhipidium. Dingle Peninsula Brachiopod fossils in Carboniferous Limestone, Fanore Beach, Co. Clare.

groups, the lophophore was held up by calcareous supports called spiral brachidia.

Most brachiopods anchored themselves to the sea floor using a fleshy stem called pedicle. In fact, the opening from which it extended is often present in Anthea Lacchia writes the lamp shells fossils. Others simply sat on the sea floor, served up with a bit of lemon and parsley either completely unattached or making are not much different from the filter use of spines on the outside of the shell feeders of 500 million years ago. to stabilize themselves. While some brachiopods are smooth, many have ossil brachiopod shells are a common corrugated shells with ribs. occurrence in Irish rocks.

Classification of Referred to as “Lamp Shells” brachiopods is complex due to their resemblance and relies on DNA in the to Romans oil-lamps, or as case of living forms. But “Butterfly Shells” when the palaeontologists rely on shell is wing-shaped, they the shell to guide the way. are also the state fossil of The presence or absence of Kentucky, USA. a hinge structure along the Brachiopods are bottom posterior margin helps divide dwelling, marine organisms brachiopods into two broad with two valves, one dorsal classes: Class Inarticulata, and one ventral. Although with no hinge structures and easily mistaken for bivalves, a phosphatic, chitinous or they are not related to themcalcareous shell, and Class in fact, they are not even Living Lingula Articulata, with a hinge molluscs. Brachiopods belong brachiopod, with its structure and a calcareous to the Phylum Brachiopoda pedicle extending out shell. and differ from bivalves in from the shell.

Having evolved in the the fundamental symmetry Lower Cambrian and of the valves, as well as in surviving right up to present day, the internal anatomy of the soft parts. brachiopods have a very long fossil In brachiopods the two valves are record. In the Lower Palaeozoic, symmetrical about the midline, but brachiopods were highly successful unequal in size and different in shape. shallow marine dwellers and prospered Brachiopods are filter-feeding through the Palaeozoic. However, the organisms that make use of a spiral Permian-Triassic mass extinction event structure called lophophore to extract wrought havoc on the evolutionary path food particles from the water. In certain

Brazen Brachiopods

F

of these animals. Decimated and unable to recover, brachiopod stocks fell into decline in Mesozoic times and today their presence is largely confined to deep waters, between 100 and 200 metres.

It is often suggested that the decline of the brachiopods was caused by the contemporaneous, successful rise of the bivalves. In this scenario, bivalves would be responsible for driving brachiopods away from shallow water shelf areas and banishing them to the depths.

With a fossil record going back to the Ordovician, Lingula is perhaps the best-known brachiopod still alive today.

Perhaps that is also because it is the only brachiopod to be found garnished with lemon and parsley on dinner plates. That animals whose fossils can be found in ancient rocks, should somehow find their way to our starter menus is a bizarre thought indeed.

In Ireland, brachiopod fossils are common in Carboniferous limestone- for example Spirifer, with its beautiful lateral “wings” or Gigantoproductus, among the largest of all brachiopods, with its large, thick shell reaching 30 cm in width.

Fascinating fossil finds consist of brachiopods cemented to other organisms, such as ammonoids or echinoids. In general, brachiopods are used to determine the relative ages of rocks as well as to provide evidence of ancient environments. They are not flamboyant fossils, yet they have lived through about 550 million years of Earth history. Achievement indeed.

To find out more…

Fossil Invertebrates by Paul D. Taylor and David N. Lewis Introducing Palaeontology: A Guide to Ancient Life by Patrick N. Wyse Jackson Fossils: the Key to the Past by Richard Fortey

Left; Spiriferid brachiopod, showing internal spiral brachidium, which supported the lophophore.

Permineralised shell of the brachiopod Dielasma hastatum, Castelisland, Kerry.

Right: Unaltered shell in extant brachiopod Magellania flavescens.

Silurian brachiopod, internal structure, permineralised shell and unaltered shell images, courtesy Peter Wyse Jackson, TCD.

BT YOUNG SCIENTIST AND TECHNOLOGY EXHIBITION

TakINg ThE wINd ouT of ThE SaIlS John Kelly, fourth year student at Gaelcholáiste Chiarrai, has been sailing since he was eight, so he knows what its like to be caught out by an unexpected gust of wind. “Usually, what you’ve got to do is drop the main sail,” he said, and that’s a lot of extra work and not always easy to do.

It occurred to him that if there was some way for the main sail to ‘spill’ wind, there would be less need to pull it down. A strong gust, he said makes the boat lean over, so the keel is up higher which affects performance, and if the angle becomes too acute, the boat can flip over.

John’s proposed solution to this problem is to replace the batons used to stiffen the sail.

Normally these are stiff, but, as John argued, flexible batons should allow the sail to spill off the excess wind.

John decided that, apart from his own personal interest in sailing lasers, this would make a good young Scientist project, and with the encouragement of his teacher, elaine ní Dheargáin, he teamed up with another fourth year student, Tadhg o loingsigh to develop a sail that can, when necessary, respond to gusts by losing power.

John and Tadhg got to work building a scale model. “We

looked at all the available materials,” said John, “and got a springy plastic.” In a way, this approach is similar to the way a bird’s wing feathers will flex and respond to wind conditions.

To be effective, explained John, it was not enough just to replace the batons. The sail itself had to be changed slightly, and the mast also has to bend a bit.

All of these features were built into the scale model, and then, with help from John Cunningham from the University of limerick, a wind tunnel test was carried out. The test confirmed that the designers had the right idea. “It worked,” said John, and naturally they were delighted with this proof of concept.

There are a few sail makers in Ireland, he said, but so far no one has tried this approach. John is hopeful that one of the established sail makers will see the potential, for the next stage is to scale up for the real thing.

One of the benefits, he said, is that baton stiffness can be adjusted. “It depends on how tight or loose you want to set the downhaul,” he said, so its possible to use it just like a normal sail. John likes to sail lasers. These are small, high performance boats, and laser sailing is highly competitive.

Using more flexible sails, could result in a lot more sailing for a lot less effort.

Report: Tom Kennedy Tadhg O Loingsigh and John Kelly at this year’s BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition with the flexible sail.

IN dEPTh vISIoN MoST of US see the world in three dimensions because our eyes are set apart. The two views are slightly different, but the brain combines these to create the impression of depth. normal television, films, and print are much the same as one-eyed vision, so they are twodimensional. ever since the beginning of photography, attempts have been made to recreate the three-dimensional experience, usually this was achieved by presenting each eye with a pair of slightly different picture taken with a two-lens camera.

Ever since, film makers have tried, with mixed success to make spectacular 3D blockbusters, and with modern technology, there has been a big upsurge

in interest in creating products that all but jump out of the screen.

James Tait, a student at St Columcille’s Community School in Dublin, became interested in how 3D works when his companion at a show commented that he saw nothing special or different. “That made me wonder why I could see 3D and he could not,” he said, and that sparked off his investigation.

At the young Science exhibition James explained that whether or not we can see 3D depends on how the effect is achieved, and on our sight. There are different ways of achieving 3D, he said, and perhaps the most familiar is the use of two colours. Two superimposed images, like the one of Mars shown in

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 27

the side panel here, are viewed through glasses fitted with two different colour filters. Usually coloured cyan and red, they block their complementary colours, making each eye see just one image.

This system works very well not just for print, but in the cinema, but there is one serious drawback — not everyone has full colour vision, so a significant number of viewers cannot see the 3D effect.

A different approach is to use polarized light. Instead of separating the images by colour, polarizing filters are used, and when viewers wear matching polarized glasses, each eye sees a different image. With this system, said James, colour vision is not an issue.

BT YOUNG SCIENTIST AND TECHNOLOGY EXHIBITION

Another, more elaborate, way to achieve 3D is known as parallax displacement. In this, said James, the two images are projected onto a special ribbed screen. The image on one side of the rib is different from the image on the other side, and if the viewer is in exactly the right position, they see 3D. That sort of approach, said James, is not very practical for cinema viewing, but is has a lot of potential for handheld devices because the viewer can easily adjust the angle.

The parallax barrier, he explained, is probably the best system, no glasses are required and it works for most people.

However, there is a downside. Watch it too long, and you end up with a headache.

One of the amazing 3D images released by NASA showing layered sedimentary rocks surrounding an impact crater in Meridiani Planum on Mars. To view the image in 3D glasses, like the one shown here need to be worn. Not so easy to find, but a pair can be improvised by using two pieces of coloured cellophane, cyan (pale blue) and red as lenses. Cellophane is available from some stationary suppliers.

Naturally there is huge interest in 3D among mobile device manufacturer, and we are likely to see more developments.

In one development, liquid crystals are being used as micro-shutters to switch from one image to the other over 140 times a second. The viewer wears special glasses, connected directly, or wirelessly to the screen so that the micro-shutters work in sync.

In all his investigations, James was lucky to have a source of information close to hand. His dad is manager of a company developing converters that enable people to watch 3D on a 2D television.

The results, said James, are impressive, but as he observed â&#x20AC;&#x153;the brain is very adaptable, and if you watch a lot of 3D you get used to it.â&#x20AC;? At the end of the day, it is content that counts most.

Report: Tom Kennedy

James Tait at the RDS with his project on 3D.

Stereo was all the rage back in the late 1900s and is almost as old as photography itself. People collected cards, like this one, showing a stereo camera with two lenses, in action. Viewed with the aid of magnifying glasses, the two images merge to give a convincing impression of depth.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 28

Dr. How's

Science Wows! ...exploring Light!

What is light?

Light is a type of energy called “Electromagnetic” (EM) radiation.

When we seelight we see it in straight lines called rays.

Junior science by Dr. Naomi Lavelle

The scientific study of light is called Optics.

Did you know...

It takes light less than one and a half seconds to get from the Moon to the Earth.

It takes nearly eight minutes for light to get from the Distance in Sun to the The speed of space is measured Earth. light is 300,000 in light years; it is the kilometres (or distance that a ray of 186,000 miles) light travels in one per second. year - 9.46 trillion kilometres (5.8 trillion miles).

Lets learn more!

All Electromagnetic energy (including light) actually travel in waves.

Light is the only type of EM energy that we can see (this is called the visible spectrum).

Other types of EM radiation include radio waves, microwaves and (Ultra Violet) UV waves.

Did you know... some animals can see light that is not visible to humans; bees, for example, can see UV light. This allows them to follow UV patterns on many flowers which lead them to the source of nectar.

When light rays hit an object they bounce (reflect) off it. This is how shadows are made, they are the dark patches behind an object that light can not get through.

Make a rainbow!

Fill the plastic container obout two-

You will need... thirds full with water and place it on a plastic container, the ground outside, in direct sunlight. a piece of white Place a mirror into the water and prop card, a mirror it up at an angle so the sun shines on it. and a sunny Hold the white card away from the day! mirror and move it from side to side So what is happening?

Water bends (refracts) light that passes through it. Each colour bends a slightly different amount so the colours separate.

The separated colours are bounced off the mirror and the image is caught on the piece of white card.

Did you know... the biggest shadow we will ever see is a solar eclipse!

Sunlight appears as white light but it is actually made up of all the colours of the rainbow.

Sunlight can be split into all of its different colours and that is how a rainbow is made.

or back and forth until you capture the rainbow on the card!

Experiments you can try

Experiments you can try

See it!!!

Did you know... sunlight can reach a depth of about 80 metres (262 feet) in the sea.

Light travels in waves; the wavelength of light determines it‛s colour.

Light with the longest wavelength is red; Light with the shortest wavelength is violet.

See it!!!

You will need... a circle of white card, a pencil and some markers or colouring pencils.

Turn a rainbow into white light!

Divide the circle of card into seven equal sections and colour each section in a different colour of the rainbow red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Make a hole in the middle of the circle and push a pencil through it. Then spin the pencil on its point and watch the colour wheel turn white!

So what is happening?

As the colour card spins fast enough our eyes can not see each colour separately and so we see all seven colours at the same time - when you mix all seven colours of the rainbow together you get white!

Did you know...

The brightness of light is measured in lumens. Our eyes are usual comfortable with a brightness up to 3,500 lumens.

If you want to know HOW something works why not write to Dr. How and ask? Send your e-mail to naomi@sciencespin.com

COLOUR

INK often be anuscripts can a traced back to stery through particular mona by the scribes. the inks used have been an analysis of of substances wide variety a m of flow, g writin For ements; freedo the basic requir Boiled tree found to meet permanency. rooms, high degree of by ink-cap mush clarity, and a ced produ mush yellow bark, the black ered root of the A owers, powd used. cornfl been from have blue bark even strong coffee flag iris, and winter blackened made from the glue. One black ink was with milk or mixed the twigs from oak galls, of blackthorn of ink was made oak trees. One type on comm d by insects on pounds of iron round balls forme , ration was five formula for prepa s of gum, 12 gallons of water pound galls. sulphate, five gallon of oak by volume, 12 12 gallons must and measuring h oak galls for s how big the Collecting enoug show just lt but it sive have been difficu even more exten an and On gum, was. lampblack and demand for ink dirty was made from although very scale Indian ink became a big, grained soot soot, lampblack, n Europe. The producing fine of south easter rs’ ink. industry in parts to make printe d linsee 63 was mixed with

M

COLOUR

The quality of medieval inks had to be high for manuscripts such as this to survive.

This is a page from a medical manuscript, the Book of the O’Lees, preserved at the Royal Irish Academy.

of how colours gives a good idea the colour from The colour wheel By subtracting opposite hue. relate to each other. wheel we get the one side of the

saturation, and Colour has hue, three dimensional brightness, and gh harder to modelling, althou ate to more accur visualise, led ication. systems of classif

The science and art of colour explained by Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy. A colourful and informative paperback. €15 post free from www.sciencespin.com

cliff above against a granite schist lying up Vegetation covered Wicklow. is Lough Oular, Co ne Granite which

tion is the Mour during initial event. The excep it developed n years old and to the melting only 55 millio , possibly due Atlantic Ocean basalts (see ding Antrim opening of the crust by the ascen ” earlier). of the Earth’s Rocks other Volcanic e in the base of granit “Basalts and n of hot molte of plates: The generation by the movement to driven is crustal plate sinks the Earth’s crust e, the over-ridden granite (see Figure where they collid liquid it melts to form they release extremely a depth where plates pull apart the crust it in turn melts 3). Where those mantle which the from hot basalt The granite

s oniferous plant

Carb

hibernicus, A. Palaeopteris Co Kilkenny. from Kiltorcan, loachitica, B. Alethopteris Tipperary.

Ballynstick, Co lonchilides, C. Alethopteris colliery, Co from Drumnagh Cork. dendron, D. Root of Lepido Laois.

Towerstown, Co Photographs: Tom

with granite rocks. is well-endowed out from the Figure 15. Ireland northeast stands Mountains is the er — only 55 million years old. of the Mourne significantly young others in being

Kennedy.

67

ROCK AROUND IRELAND

Peadar McArdle guides us around Ireland’s diversified geology.

Paperback €15 postfree from www.sciencespin.com In 1795, the chance discovery of a nugget was immediately followed by a gold rush as people were drawn by the prospect of picking up instant wealth from Wicklow’s Goldmine River.

In this entertaining and highly informative book, Peadar McArdle, former Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland, describes how the frenzy has never really died down, and to this day, panners hope to be rewarded by the glimmer of gold.

Gold Frenzy

The story of Wicklow’s gold Peadar McArdle

Hardback €20 From Dubray, GSI, and selected bookshops, or buy post free from www.sciencespin.com

Albertine Kennedy Publishing ISBN 0 906002 08 7

DIgEStINg thE faCtS In his book about food Professor Mike gibney challenges some common myths and argues that aid agencies are not helping people in need to feed themselves.

W

as food better in the past? For the majority of people the truthful answer has to be a definite no, and as far as Professor Mike Gibney from UCD is concerned, the idea that food was better in the past is just wishful thinking.

To set the record straight, Mike Gibney, Director of the Institute of Food and Health at UCD, has written a book, “Something to Chew On” in which he points out that compared to the past, food has become cheaper more abundant, and more varied.

Between the claims and counterclaims, it is quite difficult to be objective about food, yet there can be no doubt that the scientific approach he describes has made an enormous contribution to our diet.

For starters, most of what we eat is the result of selective breeding. That began a long time ago, so Mike Gibney wonders why people have suddenly become so concerned about continuing this process to improve yields.

Many of the fears that consumers have, he argues, are groundless, and for example, E numbers do not deserve their bad reputation. All they are, he explains, are codes to identify specific ingredients such as ordinary, everyday lactic acid.

Food producers often add these ingredients to improve quality or nutritional value, yet if they synthesise and purify these products, extensive testing has to be undertaken to ensure their safety. The same tests, if applied to common natural plant chemicals, would result in many of them being banned.

Prof Gibney points out that this is a completely inconsistent approach, and it makes nonsense of claims that warnings are based on scientific evidence.

At the same time, Prof Gibney, points out that consumers are right to take health enhancing claims with a grain of salt. Food producers compete with each other and they always want a bigger slice of the market, and with terms such as ‘functional foods’ being used, often with no real justification, the claims, said Prof Gibney, have become murkier and murkier.

Dubious claims only add to consumer distrust, obscuring some of the big benefits that have come from additives, and perhaps one of the most significant of these are the long-chain polyunsaturated fats, usually known as Omega 3 oils.

Prof Gibney was the co-ordinator of a big EU project on these essential oils, and as he explains, we need these fats for blood clotting, heart function, the immune system and for brain development. Yet, we are unable to synthesise them, but instead get our Omega 3 oils from fishes. These oils are so important to us, he explains, that during our evolution, humans must always have lived close to water.

Remarkably, fishes, like humans, cannot synthesise the oils for themselves, and have to acquire them from algae.

Given the normal diet in this part of the world a deficiency in Omega 3 was widespread, but globally the situation was much more serious. “If everyone were to receive their correct dose of Omega 3 oils, there would not be enough fish in the world,” observed Prof Gibney.

Culturing algae for the oil would not be a cost effective option, so the researchers came up with a smart solution — take the genes responsible for producing the oil out of the algae, and insert them into rape.

The result has been a spectacular success. The crop is easy to grow, and the rapeseed oil is rich in Omega 3 oils, and best of all, there is no limit to the supply.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 31

Omega 3 oils are now incorporated into many foods, and as Prof Gibney remarks, there is no issue with consumers, yet a big fuss is being made about genetically modified crops.

Prof Gibney finds it odd that we can accept Omega 3 oils, drugs made from genetically modified organisms, and since 1988 we have been quite happy to eat cheese made with genetically modified bacteria, yet eco-warriors are prepared to declare war on all genetically modified crops.

On this point, Prof Gibney explains that simply banning GM does not make sense, and apart from the fact that our approach is inconsistent, genetically modified crops have been grown widely since the 1950s. Scotch whisky is produced with a genetically mutated barley, and tins of tomato puree are also produced from GM crops.

Some of the confusion stems from what exactly constitutes GM, and on this issue, Prof Gibney explains that there are different approaches, and first followed the old breeding tradition. For example, one of the reasons we have many different apple varieties is because cultivators always kept an eye out for unusual shoots. These were grafted onto existing trees to see what they would produce. A similar approach was taken in breeding grains, and essentially what the breeders were doing, was selecting strains with useful mutations.

Waiting for mutations to occur takes time, and with the rise of atomic energy, scientists found that exposure to radiation speeds up the process. This is how all the earlier genetically crops were produced.

Seeds were bombarded with radiation, and seedlings that looked promising were picked out for cultivation.

Chemicals were then used to produce mutations, and this was the approach used by the German company, BASF, to produce a strain of wheat known as Clearfield. This particular type of wheat is unaffected by a herbicide, imidazolinone, which kills off all the competing weeds.

As Prof Gibney explains, producing mutations either by using radiation or chemicals, is a like shot-gun approach.

The genes are literally jumbled up, and breeders hope to get a result.

The alternative is to select a gene, wherever it occurs, that has the desired characteristic, and to plug it in to an existing organism, plant or animal. This is the approach that has been used to produce a number of our drugs, and as Prof Gibney points out, it is a much more precise technique.

Yet, within the EU, the shot-gun approach will get approval, while precise insertion of genes will not.

BASF’s Clearfield has approval, while Monsanto’s Roundup, which incorporates a bacterial gene, is banned.

Unfortunately, the EU’s approach is being exported, said Prof Gibney. Instead of helping to feed the starving, a belief based ban on GM is being stuffed down their throats. Developing countries need high yielding crops, he said, but they can only receive aid from the EU or through the United Nations if they agree to ban GM crops. Prof Gibney is not the first person to point out that well-funded non-government organisations, the NGOs, attend all the UN meetings and they have a disproportionate influence in pushing a belief-based agenda.

“Norway gave Zambia $400,000 to help that country develop a GM-free policy,” he said, and such policies mean that people are being denied essential nutrients. Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Ghana and Zambia have all banned GM crops. “As a citizen of Europe I feel utterly ashamed,” commented Prof Gibney.

Not every country, however, is prepared to accept imported bad advice from outsiders, and Prof Gibney gives

the example of Malawi, where a drought had produce a serious shortage of maize. Two million tons were needed, but only 1.2 million tons were available.

In defiance of the major donors, the self-appointed GMOs and the World Bank, the president Bingu wa Mutharika, introduced subsidies for fertilizers and high yielding seeds. Malawi, reported Prof Gibney, now produces four million tons of maize a year, and it provides aid to other African countries.

While Prof Gibney makes a strong case for applying science, and that we need science to avoid global starvation, he also highlights the fact that abundance comes at a price. Obesity is on the increase, and for many in the western world, problems of malnutrition have been exchanged for problems of excess. Normally, fat goes through a cycle of synthesis and break down. As we sleep, the fat provides us with energy, but if we eat too much the fat accumulates not just in volume, but in form. The fat cells become bigger, making it more difficult for the insulin and glucose that are involved in break down to pass through. So, apart from becoming fatter, the body chemistry is upset, and as a result Diabetes 2 is on the rise.

Prof Gibney casts doubt on the notion that obesity is simply due to junk foods

and soft drinks. To his mind, junk foods are too easy target, and a different picture begins to emerge, he observes, if we look at the parents, and also at the role of exercise. Our bodies are not designed for watching TV for hours on end, yet we continue to snack as if hard work has made us hungry. The main reason for the rapid rise in obesity, he suggests, is that an increasing number of people are choosing to ignore the natural warning signals that enough is enough. It is not the food that is harming us, but desire. This appears to be borne out by the discovery that a protein, known as leptin, that signals satiation, only works with people who have a genetic disorder in which the gene to produce this substances does not work. As drug companies found to their disappointment, there is no point giving leptin to anyone else.

The process of far accumulation is hard to reverse. According to the Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association, the five-year cure rate for obesity is worse than the five-year cure rate for cancer.

Marine workbook

how learning can become an educational experience. While giving lots of hints on how to create a lively cartoon, John seamlessly introduces us to a lot of facts, so in colouring in a starfish we learn that they can turn their stomachs inside out.

The colouring book is designed to support the primary school curricula in Ireland and the UK. John has also written the popular Captain Cockle series of adventure stories for children, and for the grown ups, he has written a trilogy of thrillers including the best selling Virtually Maria.

John’s next book, due out soon, is Fire and Ice, another thriller, this time based on the all to real stand off crisis when Russia and the US came to the brink of disaster over Cuba. In this story, two hunted women attempt to stop a nuclear attack by a rogue submarine.

DRAWING is a great way to capture interest in a subject, and John Joyce has produced a colouring book that helps young people to learn more about the sea.

John, a talented cartoonist and writer, spent many years working for the Marine Institute, where he was involved in developing a marine education programme for primary schools. In this, he found that drawing is a highly effective way of getting young people involved in learning about a subject. As “Black John”, John ran highly successful cartoon workshops attracting hundreds of children. Naturally, the theme was always marine, and as he observed, young people can learn a lot more when they are enjoying themselves, and everyone enjoys drawing.

His colouring book, Black John, the bogus pirate, was based on these workshops and is a good example of

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 54 Page 32

Review, Tom Kennedy

For more information:

www.spindriftpress.com

Who does what and where — from local clubs to internationally recognised research groups, they are all described and listed in the Irish Science Handbook ORGANISATIONS

A selection of associations, organisations and public groups 091 Labs

Director Prof Mark Bailey College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, Northern Ireland. +44(0)2837522928 info@arm.ac.uk http://star.arm.ac.uk and http:// climate.arm.ac.uk

denis.kearney@ul.ie fields and comprises members www.amt.ul.ie from academia, enterprise Artificial Intelligence and professional sectors and Association of Ireland a representative from Forfás, Applied A group made up from people Ireland’s policy advisory board working on artificial intelligence Nanotechnology for enterprise, trade, science, in Ireland. There are a number of Technology Competence Centre, technology and innovation. The groups from DCU, Queen’s, TCD, CCAN Council is chaired by Dr Tom UCD, UCC, NUI Galway, UL, UU, A national organisation McCarthy. The ACSTI is a subwww.091labs.com DIT and from industry. established to enable IrishBoard of Forfás which manages Chairman Barry O’Sullivan based companies to increase the work of the Council and University College Cork, Cork. competitiveness by developing Academy of Medical provides it with research and Aungier Street, Dublin 2.

021 4205951 nano-enabled solutions and analytical support.

Laboratory Science, Tel: 01 4027179 b.osullivan@CS.UCC.IE products that satisfy industrysciencecouncil@forfas.ie Email: hothouse@dit.ie AMLS www/4c/ucc.ie/aiai defined needs.

CCAN is led www.sciencecouncil.ie www. www.dit.ie/hothouse The Academy is the recognized A selection of centres and organisations involved with innovation by an industry steering board forfas.ie professional body responsible and can easily access research Association of for the standard of training and Dublin Business expertise from all the major Irish Teachers’ Education www.enterprise-ireland.com Alchemists education required to practice Create IrelandCafé universities. CCAN has offices in Researchers, AIIP-COR Innovation Centre Asaan Irish branch of the Café medical laboratory science in Centres in Ireland, Runs training programme for initiative bringing CRANN at TCD and the Tyndall All Island Established in 1988 to support Scientificique Ireland. people setting upmovement, digital media Carlow NationalCampus Institute at UCC. One academics ATECIand postgrade business start-ups. informal public Executive Officer Tom Moloney companies.

Run bydiscussions IADT and students involved21infull-time innovation of the Technology Centres Representing centres Communications Debbie Innovation Centre of scientific interest theabout Digitaltopics Hub with Enterprise established

by EI inbased collaboration together.

31 Old Kilmainham, Dublin 8 and 9 part time education Assisting knowledge Chapman are held in cafés, bars, restaurants with the IDA. Ireland support.

Chair Dr Nicola Hewitt-Dundas centres. companies to develop by debbiechapman@dbic.ie and other locations outside the Frederic Herrera Queen’s University Belfast Executive Director space Dr Alanand Hynes Secretary Dolores Hammill providing incubation www.dbic.ie academic environment. The Adtroshack, J65 create@ladt.ie Tyndall Nationalexpertise.

Institute, Dyke nm.hewitt@qub.ac.uk Kildare Education Centre access to research movement began in 1998 at A small privately run observatory www.createireland.ie Parade, Development Cork. secretary@ateci.ie Enterprise Leeds, and have since spread run by Dave McDonald in Electronics Production 021 4904056 Competence Centres Manager Brian Ogilvie to other centres.

Meetings are Celbridge. The observatory, ArcLabs Research and ERIC,info@ccan.ie A joint initiative of IDA Science and EI to Carlow Institute of and Innovation Centre, Astronomical free and open to everyone but a recognized by the International www.ccan.ie establish high-level centres of Technology, Carlow.

Centre EpiCentre hat is usually passed around for Astronomical Union, provides Innovation Group of Ireland, ASGI expertise in applied research.

059 9175223 Providing new and early-stage contributions. scientific data to the Minor 1974 to foster scientific Providing local industries with TheFounded centres are based in third brian.ogilvie@itcarlow.ie AquaTT enterprises with access to access to specialised equipment alchemistscafe@goodlemail.com Planet Centre and other links between astronomers level colleges and are run in www.itcarlow.ie/enterprise/ An organisation founded in R&D resources and business and expertise. The centre http://www.alchemistcafedublin. organisations. working in the Republic and with industry. See campus-innovation.htm 1922 by UCC and NUI Galway to collaboration development support. com Dave McDonald Northern Ireland.

Two existing meetings a works in partnership with the list for the nine provide project management, separate Manager Tom Corcoran University of Ulster, Institute of dmcdona@eircom.net year in which researchers present and five planned competence dissemination of information, Waterford Institute of CoLab Technology Letterkenny, and www.astroshack.net their work. www.ista.ie All Ireland Cooperative Providing centres. and training in support of Technology, West Campus, support and space North West Regional College.

Chair DrIreland Peter Gallagher Enterprise Oncology Research sustainable management of Carriganore, Waterford.

A select for new firms.

A programme for School of Computing and ion of 01 7084658 centr es and organisatio Advisory Council for 051 302975 Public AwarIntelligent nsresources. aquatic involv ed in educawww.enterprise-ireland.com start-ups is run in association systems, University of eness and Group, ICORG peter.gallagher@tcd.ie tion Science, Technology info@arclabs.ie withScientific IT Sligo. Officer Dr Gill Ulster, Magee, Northland Road, Understanding A grouping of cancer experts http://www.astrophysics.ie/ of Marmelstein www.arclabs.ie Convergence Council Patsy Donaghy Derry. BT487JL Northern Ireland aiming to give patients early and Innovation Anyone 4 Science Scien ce eilish.mcloughlin@dcu PO .ie Box 8989, Dublin 2 in A group drawn from IBEC, IDA, Letterkenny Institute of Tel: +44 28 Dubl access to new treatments.

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Funded the Department of Enterprise and strate bybetween provide convergence sectors. colab@lyit.ie and long term science, research. a stimulating environ seismology in actionForeign Profworking Voca AMT Limerick Affairs and William Reville tional Educ Research Incubation ment Ireland, forSharon schools ation Observatory Chair, Higgins. wws.lyit.ie Armagh technology andwhere innovation St James’ Hospital, Dublinadvanced 8 Tom Blake Established to provide children discove with partneringFaculty organisations Science, University r that Comm ittee, CDVE IBEC, 84-86 Lower Baggot of Street, Centre, ERIC An international research (STI) issues and learnin contributes C 10 Burlington Road, Dublin College manufacturing CDVEC consultancy, g is fun. in Northern Ireland, the Cork.

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4science@eirco jgorman@atlanticcorridor.ie networking for collaboration National University of Ireland informa m.net program tion centre mes CEIA and Ogilvie at Andrew Medi service System stakeholders and policymakers cine Instit ’s s. astronomy and its www.a nyone4science Kearney ute www.atlanticcorridor.ie andDenis business development.

Maynooth, AuxilliaStreet Building, .com Course in Dublin s are The association was established is also now of Technology Carlow, given an online An annual debatingInstitute relationship in the STI arena. The Council through to Earth. There is an science Plassy Technological Park, Project Manager Dr Declan Maynooth, Co Kildare. service hosted by the more than a hundre to nurturescience growthissues of thecompe Carlow.

Library in in 1984 d active gathers the expertise and centresprogramme of science Limerick. tition Bogan BT Board. providing a electronics 01 7086017 Youn throug Belfast Geologists’ g hout Scien industry in the Cork Dublin. range 9175223 tist encourages school 059 the community, and the grounds of experience of members who and Centre, studen 331588 The061 Innovation ts to content resources. region. Membership john.scanlan@nuim.ie Town Hall, Ballsbri includes Techn brian.oglivie@carlow.ie dge,are open4.to visitors every day. are recognised leadersology in their Exhib Society examine cultural and ethical Dublin ition Northern Ireland01 Science Park, www.enfo.ie 668061 4 local firms and multnationals.

Thousands of school studen issues in biomedicalwww.itcarlow.ie/enterprisescience. ts Queen’s Road, Island, Belfast info@cd vec.ie enter projects in this annual Community Enterprise Malachy McElroyNUI Galway platform-programme BT3 9DT www.cdvec.ie Industry House, Rossa Avenue, competition, one of the Galway Science 091 495166 Centres and most +44 (0) 7808776196 Bishopstown, Cork. successful of its kind in info@remedi.ie Technology There are over a hundred of Focas Institute the declan@biobusinessni.org Festiv al 087 2252857 world. Over the years many www.remedi.ie Developmentthese across the This country.

June The Institute provides a two In of week www.biobusinessni.org Festiva l info@ceia.ie the award winners have announced common, core facility and Education andthe Governmentculmin gone ates with a family day on to become distinguished exhibition at NUIGalwwwceia.ie business development equipment for research Royal College of way, which Research Netwthat Business Partner scientists. The next exhibit ork, are toattracte managers be appointed activities in science and ion d c.24,000 people in Surge ons will be at the RDS from in Irelan DERN Programme d, DIT Hothouse 2011. Thisunder to 37 of these. Operating engineering.

It has received 9th to free festival aims to 12th January 2013. This is a programme Cluster run ofby people involve technologyRCSI transfer centre nurture Enterprise the managers further significant funding an interest inThe d in ireland, science Freephone 1800 924362 Founde educat Enterprise matching d in 1784 to train ion and outreac Institute of Technology andfor willh be responsible promoting under PRTLI Cycle 4 as part of techno or fromIreland at NUI logy fromata Dublin young NI 0800 9171297 surgeo Galway working to enhanc investors and entrepreneurs with responsibility for ns, the collegethe age andlocally. business multi-institutional National provide encourage studen e development s ts to educat ion for healthcBiophotonics with emergingsharing technologies of knowledge. of research. choose STEM subjectcommercialisation Tom Hayes and Imaging are s at third Nationa ionals that are considered ripe for l Univde Working with aprofess number of and is the CALMAST level.

Platform, rsity Enterprise of Ireland Ireland. largest Ireland (NBIPI) and medicalexpertise Galway Galway. development. school in Ireland Established in 2003 tocommercial companies to provide Marketing and Admini the .Integrated NanoSciences RCSI promote stration is also 091have 493490 Match up events been active centrePlatform science and engineering and technology, and an assists Anne Casserly for basicfor Ireland (INSPIRE) Community and clinical clionad held to showcase inventions. h.0keeffe@nuigalway.ie through educational activitie knowledge-intensive startresearc ups. h. and has established significant 086 8033709 s, Ireland. of Innovation Communicvations Manag Enterprise publications and events.

Bernadette O’Reilly galwaysciencefestival@gmai linkserwith key researchers in l.

Niamh Burdett Based at Waterford Institut com Discover Science and e of 123 St Stephen’s Green, Technology. www.galwayscience.ie Dublin Engineering 2.

Shiela Donegan, Eoin Gill Discover Science & Engine 01 4022218 ering Waterford Institute of Irish Agricultural (DSE), managed by Science communications@rcsi.i Technology, Waterford. e Foundation Ireland, aims Science Teachers’ www.rcsi.ie to calmast@wit.ie increase interest in science , www.calmast.ie Association, IASTA technology, engineering and An organisation for teacher Science Foundation mathematics (STEM) among s of agricultural science providi Centre for the Ireland students, teachers and ng members resources and support for Through the Speakers for of the public. Programmes Advancement of members.

Schools programme, SFI promoting STEM subject funded s Science Teachng, Veronica Walsh researchers are encouraged include My Science Career, to Athlone Education Centre.

CASTeL visit schools to take about Discover Primary Science their Athlone, Co Westmeath.

Multidisciplinary researc work and careers. and Maths, Science Week, h proiasta@gmail.ie team involving scientists, Wilton House. Dublin 2.

Greenwave, and Discove r www.ia sta.ie mathematicians and 01 6073201 Sensors. educationalists from DCU info@sfi.ie and St Science Foundation Ireland, Patrick’s College. The focus Irish Science Teachers’ www.sfi.ie Wilton Tce, Dublin 2. is on science and mathematics.

01 6073184 Association Director Dr Eilish McLoug info@science.ie An association of over 1,000 hlin Scoilnet Dublin City University, Dublin www.discover-science.ie science teachers in Ireland 9.

A portal run by the Nationa .

01 7005862 l Vice Chair Mary Mullaghy Centre for Technology in mmullaghy@eircom.net Education at DCU for the Providing a community space for people involved in making electronic and other creative devices.

Tyrone House, 47 Eyre Square, Galway. info@o91labs.com

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