Science Spin Issue 66

ISSUE

66

September/October 2014

€5 including VAT £4 NI and UK

SCIENCE

SPIN

IRELAND’S SCIENCE NATURE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

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Geotourism

crossing borders

Quantum biology Ireland’s Computer Museum

From tablet to tablet

NEW

Young scientists Ask a scientist Peacock spiders

BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition Bright ideas creating a better future

50,000 people visited the 2014 BT Young Scientist & Technology exhibition at the R.D.S.

€/£

There are over 120 prizes including the prestigious title of BT Young Scientist & Technologist of the Year

1 OCT

It’s an excellent extra-curricular activity to add to any CV for college or university

More information Learn more about the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition at our website:

www.btyoungscientist.com There are accommodation grants of up to €1,500 available to schools

Registration for schools and projects is easy to do online.

Sign up by 1 October 2014

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SCIENCE SCIENCESPIN SPIN Issue Issue66 66 Page Page

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Is there something in science that has you puzzled? Our panel of scientific experts is ready to answer your questions. Send in your question with your name and we’ll do our best to satisfy your curiosity.

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Upfront

2

Potatoes

10

Marine canyon

11

From tablet to tablet

12

Improving resistance to disease

Probing the depths of the mid Atlantic

Tom Kennedy visits Ireland’s commputer and communications museum

Rocky attractions

16

Quantum Biology

21

Chalk

23

Peacock spider

22

Cross-border collaboration highlights the geological attractions of the Mournes and Slieve Gullion.

The machinery of life is turning out to be more complex than we previously thought

Patrick Gaffikin describes Ireland’s most recognisable rock

Lisa Finley writes about an Australian dancer with a rainbow display

Family science

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Christine Campbell suggests some projects for autumn

26

Young scientists

28

Ask a scientist

31

Projects on chestnut pest, old dumps and biochar

Our panel of scientific experts answer your questions

and see our growing selection of books on science, culture, and local studies

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 1

Junked

UPFRONT

GettinG something ‘fixed’ has become more difficult, especially if electronics are involved. According to a study conducted by the University of Limerick, the average amount of electric and electronic equipment dumped by every person in Ireland is 7.5 kg.

Surprisingly, in view of the economic situation, Dr Colin Fitzpatrick from UL said that cup to now none of this discarded material is refurbished or reused. By comparison, he reported that 6 per cent of these products are recycled in Belgium.

Following a study carried out in conjunction with Rehab Recycle and Clondalkin Community Recycling Initiative, Dr Fitzpatrick concluded that achieving the same performance as Belgium would put 600 people into manufacturing jobs.

This situation may change as Rehab Recycle has begun refurbishing household electrical equipment, known in the trade as ‘white goods’. According to Rehab’s director of recycling, Richard Jordan, refurbishing is being done to a high standard, and we can expect products to become available shortly.

Magnetic hose

IN MUCh the same way as water can be transported from one point to another via a hose, scientists from the Department of Physics at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, have succeeded in transporting a magnetic field. According to the researchers, the calculations leading to the development were quite complex, but the hose-like device is relatively simple in construction. The 14 cm long magnetic hose consists of a ferromagnetic cylinder covered by superconducting material, and the researchers report in Physics Review Letters that it is highly efficient.

We have become familiar with transport of light through optical fibres, and, as Àlvar Sánchez, leader of the project commented, transport of static magnetic fields could open up new opportunities in such areas as data storage.

Early Universe

Roving over Mars

AFTeR more than a Martian year, 687 earth days, the NASA Curiosity Rover is still crawling over the planet’s rugged surface. At present it is traversing the ancient Gale Crater, created by a massive impact about 3,500 million years ago.

Observations from the Mars express orbiter show that this area bears a remarkable similarity to large glacial features on earth. Scientists have concluded that the higher part of the area was once covered by glaciers and around it cold rivers flowed down into lakes.

Underused resource

INDUSTRIAL-SCALe felling of forests involves taking out larger-diameter logs while leaving the tops and branches lie. In Ireland, foresters usually argue that this “brash” should be left to decay as it returns nutrients back into the ground. however, an international team of researchers supported by the Research Council of Norway, claim that it would be better to collect this brash and convert it into charcoal.

The senior researcher, Øyvind Skreiberg, noted that an enormous amount of energy could be generated from this discarded timber.

As in Ireland, brash is seldom gathered because it is not consistent in shape or quality so is difficult to sell as fuel. Converting this brash into charcoal, said Skreiberg, would solve that problem.

Production of charcoal from trimmings and thinnings has often been suggested as a way to add value to wood, and in the past charcoal, for smelting of iron, was produced in many Irish forests. Although most of the charcoal being produced now is being sold for grilling sausages on a barbecue, the researchers point out that the potential exists to enter other, more valuable, markets.

Skreiberg said that a number of metallurgical companies are involved as partners in the research because they need charcoal in manufacturing processes. At present, he said, companies converting silicon oxide to silicon are using fossil fuels as reducing agents, while one manufacturer involved in the research is shipping charcoal in from Indonesia.

Instead of leaving the brash lie, he said, developing an efficient way to convert it into charcoal would give a welcome boost to the forestry sector.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 2

STAR formation began a billion years earlier than previously thought. By probing into deep space astrophysists, working at the Atacama Large Millimeter submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory, discovered that massive bursts of star formation had occurred when the Universe was still less than 2 billion years old.

Some 26 star-forming galaxies turned out to be much further way than previously thought. First observed by the US National Science Foundation’s 10-metre South Pole Telescope, ALMA zoomed in for a more detailed look, revealing that two of the galaxies are so far away that the light that reaches us now originated when the Universe was just one billion years old.

One of the molecules detected from these observations is water, making this the earliest known presence of water in the Universe.

Observation of such distant galaxies has been made possible by gravitational lensing. Massive amounts of dark matter distort light, acting as a natural lens.

According to the ALMA astrophysicists, magnification can increase the size by up to 22 times.

Conditions in the early Universe were extremly violent, some being as bright as 40 million million Suns.

www.sciencespin.com

UPFRONT

Some of the 2.1 billion year old fossils from Gabon. The circular, slightly domed structure is about 8 cm in diameter. Photograph: Abderrazak El Albani.

The oldest multicullular life

Until now it was thought that multicellular life on Earth emerged about 600 million years ago. the oldest known fossils of multicellular organisms were from Ediacara in Australia, but now sedimentary clay deposits in Gabon have yielded complex organisms dating back 2.1 billion years. the discovery was made by researchers from the Université de Poitiers and the French natural History Museum.

According to the French research agency, CnRS, more than 400 fossils were found in 2010 close to Franceville in Gabon. Because there had been rapid replacement of organic matter by pyrite the original forms had been well preserved in these fossils. A variety of shapes and forms were found, representing a fairly detailed snapshot of life in a shallow marine environment.

Specimens were up to 17 cm and in the journal Plos One of June 2014, the researchers have described a range of organisms ranging from the micro to macroscopic in size. the researchers note that the fossils coincide with a peak in atmospheric oxygen between 2.3 and 2 billion years ago. it is thought that biodiversity decreased later when these oxygen levels fell. it is probably no coincidence that the 600 million year old Australian multicellular fossils also come from a time when oxygen levels were high.

ReelLife

Make a video about science and you could win a prize. In September details on how to participate in this year’s ReelLife competition will be avilable. The competition, which was a great success last year, has a €3,000 prize fund and is open to all primary and secondary schools.

To see last year’s winning entries thttp://reellifescience.com/2013/11/17/reellife-science-schools-videocompetition-winners

First of the ice ages

AltHOUGH the Sun’s warming rays were weaker during the Earth’s earlier development, the first ice age did not occur until 2.5 billion years ago.

An Anglo-French team of scientists has reported that this may have been due to a difference in atmosphere. Tiny bubbles of ancient water have been found encased in Australian quartz grains. the quartz was collected from the Pilbara region in north-west Australia. Dr Ray Burgess from the University of Manchester explained that the 3.5 billion-year-old water had originally been heated during an eruption of basalt. Analysis carried out in collaboration with the University of lorraine and institut de Physique du Globe in Paris, revealed that the low level of two argon isotopes, 40Ar and 36Ar, provides evidence that continents were a lot smaller at the time. the argon isotopes are produced from the decay of potassium (40K) in rocks and magma, so with less continental crust, the amount of decay would also have been lower.

Continents play a major role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. in weathering, carbon dioxide is locked up into carbonate rocks, such as limestones. As the Earth’s crust continued to grow, carbon dioxide levels went down, less heat was trapped, so although the Sun’s warming rays increased, temperatures went down and the ice ages began.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 3

Stem cells

in producing stem cells researchers have found that its not so much what you do as the way that you do it in a project involving collaboration between the Salk institute, Oregon Health and Science University and the University of California, San Diego, scientists have found that stem cells created by moving genetic material from skin cells into an empty egg cell are different from stem cells produced by coaxing adult cells back into their embryonic state.

Up to now, turning on some key genes to induce adult cells to regress was regarded as the best approach, but as the researchers reported in nature, moving genetic material from an adult cell into an empty egg cell produces results that more closely resemble human embryonic stem cells.

One of the lead scientists, Joseph R Ecker, said that that there are fewer reprogramming and gene expression issues in using this new approach.

Digital upskilling

A wEB portal has been set up by the European Commission to give students and educators access to a variety of resources. the Opening Up Education website encourages students and teachers to make better use of information technology and fosters the development of digital skills.

According to the EC irish students are taking the lead in their use of it, with 18 primary students per internet connection compared to an EU average of 20. with growing use of digital resources, delivery of teaching material is changing, and one of the Commission’s objectives is to ensure that students benefit by acquiring the right kind of it skills.

Open Education Europa http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/

Field trips

tHE Dublin naturalists’ Field Club has a programme of events lined up for the rest of 2014. On 6th September members will be at the Praeger Centre in the Botanic Gardens to identify hedge-forming trees and on Saturday 13th September there is an outing to Avoca to look at the woodlands. On 21st September there is an outing to Moore Abbey woods, Co Kildare, and on Sunday 28th September members will be examining the mosses and liverworts at Massy’s wood, Co Dublin.

For more details about these events www.dnfc.net

www.sciencespin.com

Digital cameras

UPFRONT

The Irish Astronomical Association has arranged a visit to the Andor Technology Camera manufacturing facility in Belfast.

The high-end cameras made in Belfast are used widely in labs and astronomical obsevatories. The visit starting at midday on Satuday 13th September is open to IAA members and their friends Places are limited and registering in advance is essential. email Dr Andy McCrea at s.mccrea980@btinternet.com

Game with an aim

OPen to 11 to 18 year olds, “This is not a game” is a challenge to create a learn-byplaying game that highights dangers to the oceans by such factors as overfishing, pollution or acidification.

The competition has been organised by the US embassy, CoderDojo and thirdlevel colleges.

Students should register now through www.thisisnotagame.org for workshops being held throughout September and October. The competition is not just for techie enthuiasts, but for everyone interested in the various aspects of game making.

The finalists will showcase their games at the BT Scientist and Technology exhibition in January 2015. www.thisisnotagame.org

Targeting difference

One of the differences between normal and cancer cells is a particular enzyme, known as MTh1. To survive, cancer cells depend on the action of this enzyme which prevents lethal double-strand breaks from occurring in their DnA. A team of researchers led by the Swedish Karolinska Institutet have found that inhibiting the MTh1 enzyme could be an effective way to treat cancers. The fact that normal cells do not need this enzyme is a major advantage, as is the the possibility that cancer cells may not be able to develop resistance to treatment. According to the researchers, the enzymatic activity is independent of genetic differences between specific cancers.

Cultures taken from melanoma patients who had developed resistance to all existing treatments were successfully treated with the MTh1 inhibitor. It was also found that substances that had been previously identified as anticancer agents were effective because they blocked the MhT1 enzyme, but until now this was not known.

Professor Thomas helleday from the Karolinska Institutet said that the aim is to conduct clinical trials as soon as possible, but it will be one or two years before these can begin.

Salt shelter

When José María Gómez, a Spanish biologist, was looking through his microscope at home he noticed that putting bacterium Echerichia coli into a saline solution resulted in an unexpected reaction. As the salt solution evaporated, the bacterium formed a biomineralogical complex, enabling it to hibernate. When water was added, the E coli revived.

As José commented, this was a complete surprise, so after observing this at home, he repeated the experiment with his colleagues at the Laboratory of BioMineralogy and Astrobiological Research at the University of Valladolid in Spain.

Reporting on this in the journal Astrobiology, José said that after about four hours of drying out, a biosaline complex appeared. It is possible, he said that life on a planet, such as Mars, could remain hidden in a similar way, he also pointed out that scientists do not always need complex equipment to make interesting discoveries.

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 4

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

Calling all photographers — head out into the outdoors and snap some geological landscapes in your area.

Enter the annual geological Du Noyer Photographic Competition organised by GSI in conjunction with the Irish Geological Association and you may win a prize.

Sunlight falls on the distinctive granite peaks of the Mountains of Mourne in County Down. Photo by Brian McCready. 1st Prize in Du Noyer Ireland section 2013.

This year the competition has a prize fund of €500 and it accepts images of geological interest taken either in Ireland or overseas. The competition’s closing date is Friday, October 17 2014 so get snapping! The lucky winners will be notified by e-mail and invited to attend an awards ceremony and exhibition in the Dublin offices of GSI on December 12.

Entries can only be accepted by e-mail and sent to:

DuNoyerPhotoCompetition@gmail.com All entrants must include the following information Name and postal address Short description of geological content Place and date when taken Entrants may submit a maximum of four images, illustrating any aspect of field geology or scenic geological landscapes. It is up to each entrant to ensure that images are their own work and previously unpublished.

The competition will be judged by a panel including representatives of the IGA, the GSI and external nominees and their decision will be final. Entries will be exhibited and prizes awarded at the Cunningham Awards ceremony in the Dublin offices of GSI on December 12.

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

www.sciencespin.com

UPFRONT

Fulbright awards

HOnOURs degree students considering PhDs are invited to apply for Fulbright-nUI awards. The visiting research awards, enabling students to complete postgraduate research in the Us are available for the 2015-2016 academic year. the closing date for applications is november 12th 2014. www.fulbright.ie

Wall of ants

A recently discovered species of wasp builds a protective wall of dead ants to keep pradators at bay. the wasp, Deuteragenia ossarium, was found in southeast china by a joint German-chinese team of researchers.

Reporting their find in Plos One, the scientists from the University of Freiburg, Museum f端r naturkunde Berlin and the chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing said that this strategy has never been encountered before and it seems to be a novel addition to the rest of their behaviour. like their close relations, the wasps capture and paralyse spiders. the female builds several cells into which a spider is placed for the larvae to feed upon.

Unlike other wasps of this type, the end chamber is filled with dead ants and, as the scientists observed, this is an effective deterrent from attack.

Diabetes 2

lAck of or insensitivity to insulin leads to a build up of glucose in the blood, resulting in diabetes. Diet induced Type 2 diabetes has become a major health problem and, rather than cure the condition, it is managed, and drugs have side-effects.

Researchers at the salk Institute in california have made a discovery that could lead to more effective treatment and possibly a cure for the condition. the discovery involves a growth promoting protein, known as FGF1. This protein was known to be involved in a number of growth and repair functions, but until now it was not known to have a role in managing blood glucose levels. this discovery was made by studying mice that were deficient in the FGF1 protein. It was found that these mice developed diabetes rapidly when fed on a high-fat diet. to the researchers surprise, injecting the mice with this protein caused blood glucose levels to drop while restoring the ability to regulate insulin and blood sugar, apparently reversing the condition.

Interestingly, previous tests, in which healthy mice were injected with FGF1 had no effect, so the conclusion is that this protein acts like a trigger, restoring a function that keeps us in good health.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 6

www.sciencespin.com

UPFRONT

Stimulating physics

The number of students who took physics in the Leaving Cert in 2014 has gone up by 12.6 per cent compared to 2013. The Institute of Physics reports that 7177 students took the exam this year, ending an earlier decline.

In spite of this rise however, almost a quarter of schools across Ireland do not offer physics as a subject in the Leaving Cert.

Peter van der Burght, who chairs the Institute, said this counters government policy, which aims to boost the number of students going on to study physical sciences at third level. Schools may come under pressure to drop physics in favour of other subjects, and Peter van der Burght pointed out that once dropped, it is exceptionally difficult to reintroduce the subject.

In a study conducted by the Institute it was found that although girls often achieve good grades, they are less likely to continue studying physics, with a sharp decline after the age 14.

Compared to Ireland, a Stimulating Physics Network programmein the UK has resulted in an almost 20 per cent rise in students taking physics at A level, and it is now in the top ten most popular subjects.

Animal cures

LoNG before humans started to gather and use medicinal herbs ants were using anti-microbial resin from conifer trees to keep colonies disease free. Many other animals also draw on nature’s treasure chest of cures, and as Prof Mark hunter from the University of Michigan pointed out in the journal Science, humans can learn from these examples. Animals of all types, including baboons, bears, fruit flies and house sparrows are all known to self-medicate, sometimes in surprising ways. In one study, house sparrows were found to be using the nicotine in cigarette butts to reduce infestations of mites.

Collision course

ReSeARCheRS from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany report that thousands of local and migrating bats are being killed by wind turbines. In a study, published in the journal Plos One, they found that more than a quarter of the bats being killed by turbines in eastern Germany were migrating noctule bats. The bats migrate from northern europe and Russia to their wintering grounds in Germany and southeastern europe.

The researchers expressed concern that a high proportion of those killed are young or female, so the impact on reducing the breeding population could be high.

Bats congregate around prominent landscape features, such as rocky outcrops, church spires, and wind turbines, and this increases the risk of collision.

In looking for a solution to this problem the researchers note that bats do not like strong winds, and once these go above eight metres a second they do not fly. Wind turbines, they state, only begin to produce power at an economic rate above that speed.

Thus, running turbines only at higher wind speeds, they suggest, would be a good way to protect flying bats. even more surprising was the discovery that insects, such as butterflies, not alone lay their eggs on plants that will inhibit parasites, but they also choose foods that will help their offspring resist disease.

Study of how animals in the wild protect their health, said Prof hunter, could help humans develop new drugs.

Knowing how animals self-medicate could also be of benefit to agriculture. The importance of self-medication might be overlooked in intensive farming practices, and in apiculture, selection of reduced resin deposition in bees could leave colonies more exposed to disease.

Wood ant photo: Erik Jørgensen

Make a science video and you could win a prize

The Reel Life competition for primary and secondary schools is being launched on September 1st.

Videos have to explain a scientific topic within a three-minute time frame.

info@anyone4science.com www.anyone4science.com

The best videos, both at primary and secondary level, will win a prize worth €1,000 for the school’s science programme.

Additional prizes for 2nd and 3rd places will also be awarded and the winning videos will be screened at Galway’s Science and Technology Festival.

To find out about choosing a topic, how to make and submit a video visit www.reellifescience.com

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 7

Science Technology Innovation Dr Conor McCarthy is reducing the need to use nuts and bolts in industry.

Replacing nuts and bolts

At the University of Limerick, Dr Conor McCarthy is working on ways to join components without having to use nuts and bolts. As he explained, the necessity of drill holes reduces the ability of materials to withstand stress and strain. Joining components together with a combination of bolting and glueing, he said, can be a much better alternative.

Joining components is big business, and Dr McCarthy estimated that this activity is worth over €100 billion a year in Europe. Many products are made up of different components and joining them up is of great importance to medical device manufacturers, the auto industry and others. the University of Limerick already has considerable expertise in this area and researchers there have led a number of projects with aerospace companies such as Airbus and Bomardier.

the research on composite-metal combinationshas received €1.35 million in funding from SFI and involves collaboration with NUI Galway and the adhesive manufacturer Henkel.

Lined up for an enterprise award

Dr Eoin Syron, co-founder, OxyMem; Wayne Byrne, CEO, OxyMem and Professor Eoin Casey, co-founder, OxyMem.

Improving implants

IN medicine implanted electrodes work quite well, but only for a while, after which inflammation starts to cause problems. to prevent this happening, PhD student Catalina Vallejo Giraldo at NUI Galway has been investigating how conductive polymer coatings could be used on implants, such as those used in deep brain stimulation. At present, deep brain stimulation can be used to provide some relief from Parkinson’s disease, but they do not yet offer a cure. Improving the long term performance of implants offers a possibility of more effective treatment.

Crafty networking

A NEtwORk has been created to provide a forum for people working in crafts and artisan activities. with the support of teagasc, Causeway Coast and Glens Heritage trust and Économusée the All Ireland Business and Networking Forum was launched at the Ballinshowen Craft Fair, Co westmeath in March.

OxyMem, a UCD spin-out company has been shortlisted for the European-wide Academic Enterprise Awards.

OxyMem, founded in 2013 by Prof Eoin Casey and Dr Eoin Syron is based in Athlone and has developed technology for wastewater aeration. Instead of relying on forced ‘bubble’ aeration, the new technology uses gas permeable membranes to deliver oxygen directly to micro-organisms.

According to the company, the new approach offers a fourfold saving in energy and the supporting infrastructure costs less and is more compact than existing systems.

OxyMem, employing 20 and planning to expand, is one of just nine spin-outs to be shortlisted from around Europe for the Green Award category. the winners for the 2014 awards will be announced at a conference at the technische University in Berlin next October. www.oxymen.com At a biomedical science meeting last June, Catalina and Sinead Quinn from the Royal College of Physicians Ireland were joint winners of the Royal Academy of Medicine Ireland Donegan Medal their oral presentation on research.

Joint winners of the Donegan Medal 2014 Sinead Quinn (RCSI) and Catalina Vallejo Giraldo (NUI Galway) with Professor Aidan Bradford (President, RAMI Section of Biomedical Sciences).

Seven partner organisation in Ireland, Canada and Europe have been involved in establishing this and similar networks. the aim is to help producers develop and diversify. Many of these artisan enterprises depend on the tourist market. In Ireland so far there are seven Économusée enterprises involved in cheese, smoked fish, pottery, jewelerry, rapeseed oil and hurleys.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 8

Science Technology Innovation

Veins on chip

ViVienne Williams, a physics graduate from Trinity College Dublin, has been presented with an innovation Award developing a technology that mimics the behaviour of human capillaries. The development was based on research

by Vivienne into microfluidics. Vivienne set up a spin-out company, Cellix, to commercialise the technology which can be used by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for testing of new products in the lab in advance of clinical trials.

Water expertise

TCD, nUi Galway, DCU and UCC are collaborating on water research and development under the recently established GeMS Water Capacity Development Centre. The centre is being co-ordinated by UCC and irish companies with expertise in this area are expected to become involved. The development is likely to provide more opportunities to apply irish research and expertise, and in July the Un environmental Assembly agreed to a proposal that ireland and Germany take responsibility for their Global environment Monitoring System for Water (GeMS).

Dr Michael Murphy, President of UCC said that being involved with the Un will help address important global issues as well as being of benefit to the universities involved. www.unep.org/gemswater

Digital start-ups

Six new companies have joined the cluster of digital-based enterprises at Dublin’s Digital Hub. Since the beginning of the year 14 new ventures have joined the cluster.

The new additions include a multi-channel network, a transmedia production company, and the provider of micropayments solutions.

A total of 75 companies are now reported to be working at the Digital Hub. www.thedigitalhub.com

Soil

On 5th December 2014 Prof John ryan will deliver a lecture about the evolution and achievements of irish soil science. The lecture, marking the centenary of the birth of Dr Tom Walsh, a distinguished soil scientist, will be given at Johnstown Castle, Co Wexford. The lecture will highlight the great contribution made by Tom Walsh to agricultural science in ireland and the establishment of the Johnstown Castle research centre. www/teagasc.ie/events/2014/20141205.asp

Teagasc advisers Austin Callaghan and Geraldine Hynes (pictured on the left) join the Dixon family, Anna and Oliver along with children Daniel and Hazel

Organic farming

OrGAniC farming can cost less while producing a better profit. To encourage more farmers to consider this approach €44 million is being allocated to an organic farming scheme in 2015 and Teagasc is running a series of farm visits which will continue into next year.

According to Teagasc, the irish organic market has gone up from €63 million in 2003 to about €98 million a year now and the european demand has quadrupled over the past ten years.

One farmer, Oliver Dixon from Claremorris in Mayo, said he had received price premiums of up to 20 per cent for his beef, and since sowing nitrogen fixing clover, he has been able to produce top quality grass without having to use commercial fertilizers. in September this year there will be farm visits to Balbriggan in Dublin and Clonmel in Co Tipperary. in november there will be visits to organic farms in Monaghan and Strabally, Co Laois.

More details from Dan Clavin, Teagasc, 091 845285 and to see the list of farm visits www.teagasc.ie/events/2014/organic-demo-farmwalks-2014-2015.pdf

exports up

While smaller firms continue to go under and shops continue to close, enterprise ireland reports that exporting companies increased sales by 8 per cent during 2013. According to the ei annual report, irish companies achieved export sales of €17 billion in 2013. in terms of knock-on value, the agency estimates that for every ten employed by exporters, thirteen are employed in providing support and services. enterprise ireland’s support is mainly focused on exporting companies, and apart from overseas missions, more than 1,000 buyers were brought to ireland in 2013 and the network of overseas offices has been expanded to 30.

Spending on r&D is also reported to be up with 858 companies spending more than €100,000, and 139 spending over €1 million a year on research and development.

The enterprise ireland annual report for 2013 is available from www.enterprise-ireland.com/annualreport2013

SCienCe SPin issue 66 Page 9

Well bred potatoes

T

he first potatoes introduced to Europe were just a few of the many other varieties that occur in South America.

Four centuries later potatoes are among the world’s leading food crops, with distinctive populations in Europe, North America and Asia, yet all these nutritious tubers owe their origin to the few that made it across the Atlantic. As Dr Denis Griffin, who leads the potato breeding programme at Teagasc explained, this means that a globally important crop has a narrow genetic base and within this there is not much resistance to disease.

This is why there was such a catastrophic failure of cloned Irish ‘lumpers’ in the 19th century. A small plot of potatoes would feed a family, yet, when the fungus, Phytophthora infestans struck, there was nothing in the gene pool to confer resistance.

To get around that problem, breeders began looking again at the original stock of wild and cultivated varieties in South America. In Peru and Bolivia where cultivation began about 10,000 years ago, different varieties came into existence, and together with related wild species, there is a deep genetic pool available that modern breeders can dip into in their search for useful traits.

In recent years breeders have had considerable success in broadening the genetic base, said Denis, and one of the most significant achievements was selection of strains with the H1 gene which confers high resistance to the potato cyst nematode, Globodera rostochiensis.

Through conventional crossbreeding, said Denis, a number of blight resistant strains are coming on stream, but breeding takes a lot of time. Normally, potatoes are propagated from small tubers, known as seed potatoes. However these are not true seeds, but instead are genetically identical to the parent. In cultivation this is a big advantage as one crop will always be exactly the same as the last.

Website: www.teagasc.ie

While farmers depend on this clonal predictability, breeders want the sort of changes we get from cross-breeding. Like most other plants, potatoes naturally do this, producing flowers, cross-pollinating and producing seeds.

By crossing a crop variety with a near relation with desirable characteristics some of the progeny are likely to inherit these traits, but as Denis explained, it can be up to ten years before breeders are in a position to pick out a suitable selection.

In the first step, a cross is made with a resistant variety, and after flowering, about 200 seeds per berry are collected for sowing. When these grow and produce tubers, said Denis, the only obvious characteristics are colour, size and shape, but on average, half should have inherited the genes for resistance.

These tubers are planted out, and they in turn produce a crop, which is tested for resistance. As Denis explained, this is a destructive test involving about 78,000 seedlings a year, and any with negative or undesirable characteristics are culled.

It takes about six years, he said, before enough material is available to carry out a meaningful blight test.

With cross-breeding all the genes from both parents are recombined, so resistance is just one of the traits likely to be transferred. For example the tubers

might be small or high in toxic alkaloids, thus eliminating them from further selection.

Cross-breeding is not new, said Denis, but there has been a big advance in selection of genotypes. “One of the things we have been involved with here,” he said, is the development of markers that identify the underlying genes associated with resistance.” To find these markers, Dan Milbourne, who works with Denis on the potato breeding programme, discovered which part of the genotype matched up with disease resistance in the grown plant. If the markers are not present, there is no need to proceed with growing, so, as Denis explained, the process of selection becomes much more efficient and less time consuming.

The first selection using this new approach is under test now, and as Denis said we can expect to see more varieties with better disease resistance coming onto the market soon.

Like all the new varieties developed so far by Teagasc they will have to get out into the shops and prove themselves.

Teagasc has already bred about 43 different varieties of potato, and of the 30 or so that have proved themselves the big success has been with Rooster. Highly popular, the familiar red Roosters now command about 60 per cent of the Irish market.

The market for potatoes is international, and as Denis explained, many of the other varieties have been bred to suit different climates. This expertise has led to the involvement of Teagasc with Wageningen University in a project to help Ethiopian farmers grow sustainable crops. Through Dr Rogier Schulte and the food security committee Teagasc engages in overseas development work, and the Ethiopian project provided a good opportunity to improve life for others by sharing valuable knowledge.

In this project, three Ethiopian PhD students are working with farmers, one looking after seed production, one on cultivation and the other, as a social scientist, is concerned with transfer of seed from community to community.

Dr Denis Griffin, second from top left, with the project team in Ethiopia.

Discovery of vulnerable marine ecosystems in the Whittard Canyon

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n international research team, led by scientists from NUI Galway, recently explored the Whittard Canyon deep-sea submarine canyon system in the North East Atlantic onboard the Marine Institute’s RV Celtic Explorer.

The Canyon system is home to vulnerable marine ecosystems and the collaboration of scientists from Ireland, UK, USA and Germany are working together to better understand the diversity of species, geology and its ocean currents.

“It is important to learn more about the canyons, so we can predict where the most vulnerable ecosystems are likely to occur and therefore ensure the environment is protected,” explained Dr Martin White of NUI Galway’s Ryan Institute, and the expedition’s chief scientist.

The Whittard Canyon is at the continental margin approximately 250 miles SW of Cork and covers an area of 2000 square miles. Scientists have found that the extreme shape of submarine canyons seems to affect the water flow within them in such a way as to deliver nutrient rich waters to particular parts of the canyon system. This allows diverse ecosystems to flourish.

The Marine Institute’s remotely operated vehicle ROV Holland I enabled scientists to take samples without impacting the ecosystem. As the ROV takes live footage from under the sea, it is fed back to the team

By Cushla Dromgool-Regan

Top: 3D bathymetry map showing the Whittard system.

Above: Researchers viewing real time footage from the ROV Holland I, while on the RV Celtic Explorer Below: A selection of photos representing corals. on the vessel, where they were able to select samples of deep-sea animals and sediment cores from the seabed.

“The canyon is huge, with meandering branches extending over an area of more than 80 miles wide. Mapping the system, much of which is in depths below 1500m, to detect vulnerable species is very difficult. The team therefore hopes that the discoveries they find and data collected using the ROV will help determine which species occur where,” Dr Allcock explained.

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New research is also revealing a remarkable diversity and abundance of rare black corals, which are protected under international legislation.

According to Dr Louise Allcock, also of NUI Galway’s Ryan Institute, “black corals are particularly vulnerable to any sort of impact. They grow extremely slowly and dating studies have shown that some species live for thousands of years.”

Deep-sea sponge samples were also collected during the survey which will be provided to scientists searching for novel pharmaceutical compounds.

If the chemists find interesting compounds such as antibacterial and other pharmaceutical properties in the sponges, they will aim to work out how to synthesize them in the laboratory. This is the first step in the production of new drugs.

More information about the Whittard Canyon Survey can be viewed on the scientistsatsea.blogspot.ie (6th – 21st June 2014) l The Whittard Canyon survey is carried out under the Sea Change strategy with the support of the Marine Institute, funded under the Marine Research SubProgramme by the Irish Government.

Tom Kennedy reports on how a museum of computers and communication follows the progression from

tablet to tablet

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ive and a half thousands of years ago records were being inscribed on clay tablets, later came quills and parchment, and now we are back to tablets. In some ways, observed Brendan Smith and Chris Coughlan, co-founders of the Galway-based Computer and Communications Museum, we are back to where we started. If we could suddenly transport some Sumerian scribes through time, their initial shock on arrival might soon give way to the realization that these strangely dressed people from the future are still manipulating symbols, but at much greater speed As Brendan and Chris pointed out, if we want to understand what can look like the magic of the present we need to know where we came from. As they point out, everything we have now in communications and computers is connected to the past Both are deeply involved in information technology, Chris as a senior executive with Hewlett Packard, and Brendan as outreach office of the NUI Galway based data analytics research centre, INSIGHT. Having first-hand experience of how some of the most advanced machines and processes they had been working on rapidly went out

A Sumerian tablet from five thousand years ago recording the allocation of beer and an iPad against a background of a Babbage Differential Engine. of date, they realised that a lot of history was being discarded, and with that loss went continuity with the present.

When Chris and Brendan became involved in an electronic communications committee for Galway they found that they shared a problem of what to do with all their old computers that were cluttering up space at home.

Operating a Memory 100 Video Computer in the early 1980s.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page

It occurred to them that people might be interested in seeing some of these machines from the not too distant past, so with the Volvo 2012 Ocean Race coming up, they decided to set up a ‘pop-up’ display at Galway’s City Museum.

They were amazed at the reaction.

“We had 30,000 visitors,” said Brendan and that brought it home to them that this simply had to become a permanent exhibition.

Not only did it capture the public imagination, said Chris, but setting up a permanent display of computers in Galway made sense. Galway, he said, might with some justification claim the title “Digital City.” When Digital Equipment Corporation, DEC, arrived in 1971 it was one of the first computer companies to set up in Ireland, and long before that, in 1905, Marconi had established the trans-Atlantic long-wave transmitting station nearby at Clifden.

Because of these developments there is a long-established link to information technology, so as Chris and Brendan argued, this made Galway a great location to set up a national computer museum.

Support for the idea from the city council and HP was strong, and when NUI Galway provided space at the digital

A glance around some of the items on display at the Computer and Communications Museum research centre at Dangan Business Park Chris and Brendan lost no time in setting up an impressive display of equipment spanning the entire evolution of communications, from tablet to tablet, and lots in between.

Since the museum opened a steady stream of school, community and business groups have come through its doors. As outreach officer for INSIGHT, Brendan runs many of the centre’s workshops in the museum. There are retro-gaming nights and there are regular Galway CoderDojo sessions where industry professionals share their knowledge with those who want to learn how to use different computer languages.

One of the things that is most striking is how changes in society have been linked, and often driven, by advances in technology. The arrival of Digital in Galway provides a good example of how some entrenched attitudes were changed.

When Digital opened its doors in the early 1970s, local recruitment notices listed attractive jobs for men, while adding, almost as an afterthought that women could be trained for assembly.

That quickly changed, said Brendan, but it did reflect a widespread attitude at the

time. In those early days, after a group of school girls had been shown around the plant, the head nun gathered them around her and warned that if they did not do a good Leaving Certificate they might end up working in a factory like this…!

Actress and inventor, Hedy Lamarr appearing in the 1938 film Algiers.

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The odd thing about that attitude, said Brendan, is that women not only played an enormous role in establishing the computer industry, but information technology also had a big positive impact on emancipation. When typewriters arrived, it was soon found that women were must better at the keyboard than men, so now there was a place for them to work in a clean environment. Already at that stage, women had been working on programming, and Augusta Lovelace, the mathematically gifted daughter of the poet Lord Byron, born in 1815, was the first person known to have written an algorithm which was to be used on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Machine.

Augusta also speculated in her notes that such a machine had the potential to become more than just a calculator.

Another women to make her mark, both as an actress and inventor, was Hedy Lamarr. In 1941, Hedy, inspired by the use of multiple keys in piano playing, came up with the idea of frequency hopping. Repeated switching of radio signal frequencies within a broad band provides more security while frustrating attempts at jamming. This approach, developed during the Second World

Capturing the imagination of young readers in 1964, Dan Dare the space traveller was a regular feature of the Eagle comic.

The cast of Star Trek visited the Shuttle Explorer showing how fiction became reality.

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War in the US to block attempts by German forces to listen-in, is still of great importance in mobile communications.

Women continued to remain prominent in programming, with Grace Hopper, who rose to the rank of Rear Admiral in the US Navy, pioneering machine-independent language. It was Grace who first gave us the term ‘bug’ when she discovered that a stray moth had brought the machines to a stop.

Kay McNulty, who left Creeslough Co Donegal as an Irish-speaking threeyear old to become one of the six women programmers to develop a ballistic trajectory tracking system for the US. From this was developed the first general purpose computer. In her memory, the Institute of Technology in Letterkenny presents students with an annual programming award.

Digital was an innovative company, and because of this young people growing up in Galway were often ahead of their peers around the world in adopting advanced technology. As Brendan explained, school students in the 1970s knew about cloud computing long before the term was even thought of. In those pre-Internet days, a schools network, known as VAXmail was set up. Eleven secondary schools had Digital PDP terminals, so as Brendan commented, “we had the boys communicating with the girls and had the precursor of texting.”

The speed at which young people adopt new technology for their own purposes, said Brendan, is one of the most powerful forces driving the evolution of communications and computers. When portable transistor radios first appeared teenagers were quick to seize on the opportunity to tune into their own kind of music. “This was the beginning of the mobile age,” said Brendan, “and it was dominated by teenagers.”

Rock and Roll, Elvis and Bill Haley may have scared the pants off their parents, and the “Devil’s Music” was denounced from many pulpits, but it was all part of change and the move to portability which eventually led to the mobile phone.

Many parents were also upset by teenagers’ obsession with comic book science fiction, yet this reflected curiosity and a keen interest among young people in their own future. As Brendan observed the 1960s in particular was a boom time for science and technology. In 1961 Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space, in 1962 we had the first telecommunications satellite, Telstar, and in 1969 we landed

The Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, being shown around the newly opened Wang manufacturing plant in Limerick by staff member Gerry P O’Riordan in 1984. on the Moon. There was a huge upsurge in comics, films, television and toys associated with technology and space travel.

As Brendan commented, by looking into the future, young people were helping to create that future. Star Trek, first broadcast in 1966, was enormously influential, giving us the mobile phone, the hand-held medical scanner, machine translation, giant screens and a host of other devices before they were actually invented. Touch screens were being used in Star Trek 23 years before the launch of Apple’s iPad. “We’ve done everything in Star Trek except one thing, the transporter,” said Brendan, and in time we may not have to rule that out as impossible either.

The development of Intel’s programmable chip in 1971 unleashed a whole series of developments, and again, these were led by gaming. With programmable chips, games, originally coming out of research into artificial intelligence, took off in popularity. While parents gave out to kids for wasting time, this was not really the case, said Brendan, for games gave us a lot of the sounds and graphics that we have now. For example, in 1972 one of the early games, Atari’s simulated table-tennis game Pong converted the home television into a twoway system. This was a revolutionary step, said Brendan, for it means that instead passive viewing, player and machine began to interact.

One of the people to realise what programmable chips could do was the Auschwitz survivor and ex-taxi driver, Jack Tramiel. When advised that electronic calculators were “dead” Tramiel switched over to making computers, and after hiring Star Trek’s

Captain Kirk to announce that “this is the future” millions of his Commodore machines were sold.

Gaming was moving on to home computing, and Chris recalled being astounded by the arrival in 1980 of Clive Sinclair’s ZX80, the first home computer selling for just under £100. “When I saw those ads I thought this is incredible,” said Chris. While the programs had to be loaded from a cassette tape and a television used for a screen, the machine had one big advantage — it allowed users to create their own programs.

Soon after this, in 1981, the BBC entered the fray by commissioning the Cambridge based company Acorn to make a schools machine to back up a weekly television series on robotics and computers. Although more expensive at £235 than Sinclear’s machine, the demand from schools was enormous, and over 1.5 million BBC computers were sold.

The impact of this, explained Brendan, was significant in shaping people’s attitude to computers. An entire generation became familiar with the idea of using the computer as a tool, it could, for example be linked to laboratory instruments, and the development of Alan Sugar’s word processing Amstrad in 1985 could be seen as a logical progression. Sugar was basically a smart businessman rather than a technical innovator who started off by selling car aerials and television sets from the back of his van. Since the 1970s computerised

word processing had been on the rise, and Sugar realised that the market was ready for a suitable adapted machine that anyone could use. His Amstrad PCW came with a familiar looking standard keyboard and a word processing package on a floppy disc. The machine was a hit and Sugar became one of the richest men in Britain.

Although the BBC was way ahead in introducing computers to schools, and the Acorn was a big success, Britain did not maintain its lead. The Welshmade Dragon 32 and 34 machines had a fatal flaw in being confined to upper case letters, so they were redundant from the start. As Brendan remarked, being stuck with what they started is a common problem for innovators. “Life in technologies,” he said, “is a story of never ending change.”

In France the Minitel, an on-line interactive machine, was initially a big success. Every household with a phone line in France received a free plug-in Minitel, and users used these for banking, booking and betting. In the 1980s the Minitel was introduced to Ireland and a range of on-line services were in operation. However, who remembers the Minitel now? Within eight years of its launch the Minitel was rendered obsolete by the World Wide Web. Computers and communications technology have evolved so rapidly, said Brendan, that we are in danger of losing the recent past. Many of the school students who visit the museum have never seen a typewriter or a dial telephone and don’t know that before computers libraries stored information on microfiches. One of the visiting students saw an old telephone and instead of turning the dial, started pressing the numbers. Brendan and Chris said they are constantly being amazed at how things that are so familiar to them are not at all familiar to the students. Even with adults, the machines they used as teenagers or saw at home as children rapidly become dim memories.

“Before you know it a lot of things are gone,” said Brendan, and this is why it was so important to establish the museum. For Brendan and Chris, creating the museum was a labour of love, but their aim is to have it established as a national resource in a permanent home.

Computer & Communications Museum of Ireland Lower Dangan, Galway. mobile: +353-872935106 email: museum@deri.org http://computermuseumireland.com/ SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 15

Rocky attRactions

Tom Kennedy reports that local authorities on both sides of Ireland’s border are pleased to see geologists engaging in heated debate

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s Marie Cowan, recently appointed Director of the Northern Ireland Geological Survey, would like to remind us, the rocks that shape our landscape also underlie our social and economic fabric. Growing up where the Mournes sweep down to the sea and attending school in Newry gave Marie an appreciation of just how much of her home territory is a blend of history, archaeology, industry and geology. The Cloghmore Stone on the slopes of Slieve Martin is a 30 ton granite erratic that is thought to have been carried by ice all the way from Scotland and, at the same time, it also the Cloch Mór that Fionn McCoole tossed across Carlingford Lough.

The Ring viewed from Mount Gullion.

Before her appointment as Director of GSNI, Marie was Project Manager of the Tellus border project. The Tellus surveying project generated an enormous volume of scientific information, and an important part of Marie’s role was to make this new-found geological knowledge accessible to all. While specialists could appreciate the value of raw data, geology for almost everyone else usually only began to mean something when presented in the context of everyday experience. For the farmer, the make-up of the soil is important,

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 16

gravels used in construction are not just random heap of stones, but were sorted and deposited by melting ice, and the Mournes are not just mountains, they provided the glistening granite that pave many towns in the north of England.

Marie’s desire to make geology relevant, if anything, has increased, and so, she takes a keen interest in the Mourne-Cooley Gullion Geotourism project. Under this, the volcanic past becomes as much of an attraction as the dolmens, castles and ancient cattle raiding myths. By simply walking through the hills and valleys the geology we see all around us comes into perspective.

The idea that we can walk ourselves into geology is not that new, and around the world there are a number of officially recognised Geo Parks, of which Ireland now has three, Marble Arch Coves, the Copper Coast in Waterford, and the Burren. At a meeting between the Geological Survey of Ireland and its counterpart in Northern Ireland in 2006 the idea of making more extensive use of Ireland’s diverse geology as a tourist attraction was discussed. The Giant’s Causeway, the Cliffs of Moher and the marble Arch caves were already well known attractions, and as the former Assistant Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland, Pat O’Connor argued, the Mourne and Slieve Gullion granites also deserve to be on that list of geologically interesting destinations.

After graduating from UCD, Pat went to Leeds University where he was asked if he could find himself a suitable research topic in Ireland. That brought him to Slieve Gullion, a long extinct volcano, and as he remarked, “I was hooked from the onset.” For years geologists had been arguing about how the magma had risen up and given rise to a curious and unexplained juxtaposition of acid and basic rocks.

During the 1970s, Pat spent much of his time on the slopes of Slieve Gullion, and as he recalled, it was not the best of times to be out in a camouflage jacket swinging a geological hammer. Back in the relative safety of Leeds, Pat continued his study by analysing his samples in the lab, but as he explained, 40 years later there is still plenty to discover, and the Ring of Gullion remains surrounded by controversy.

Although the eruptions occurred millions of years ago, he said, Slieve Gullion and the mournes provides an exceptional example of what happens when magma rises up to the surface, and lessons learned from the area can tell us a lot about the behaviour of volcanoes that

are active now. Geologists from around the world are interested in the area, and Pat said that he never had any doubts that many other visitors to the area would also be drawn to these features.

As it happened, the idea of using geology as an attraction came at a good time. The border counties, an area of unspoiled natural beauty, were recovering from the ‘troubles’, and the geotourism suggestion was embraced enthusiastically by all the surrounding local authorities. Discussions led to action and for the past year and a half local authorities, business interests and other organisations on both sides of the border

Some of the gold in Bronze Age objects is likely to have come from the mournes.

After examining hundreds of samples Norman moles from the University of Brighton said that gold from the mournes is a close match to these ancient objects.

Norman began his investigations while on the staff of Queen’s University Belfast, and when the geology department there was closed down, he continued working on gold at Brighton. Together with Ian Chapman, he set out in 2000 and 2001 to gather samples from streams around the mournes. Using what looks like a large bicycle pump to suck up sediments,

the geologists had to shift through three tons of material to recover just 30 grains of gold. From about 100 different sites they collected 528 tiny particles which were analysed for their copper and silver content, for, as Norman explained, native gold is not pure and it varies in composition.

As Moles and Chapman found, the gold occurs in two areas, the Leitrim River south of Hilltown, and the Ballincurry River near Rostrevor, otherwise it is scarce or absent.

In the Leitrim River it occurs with tin, and the geologists said it is likely that the

Silurian/Devonian grandiorite Carboniferous limestone Dolerite and gabbro Granite

Volcanic lavas

Newry

Dundalk

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The underlying geology of the Carlingford, Newry and Dundalk area have been working together to make the mourne-Cooley-Gullion project a great success. Interests, which up to now would have had no obious connection to geology, or would have been considered in isolation have been combined into a more powerful mix, the results of which were recently highlighted at the threeday long Geotourism conference and EXPO in Newry. Hotels, restaurants, and a range of outdoor activities featured strongly in the associated displays, showing just how well geology blends into the fabric of society and how effective it can be in boosting the local economy.

Gold from the Mournes

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discovery of tin there led to the discovery of gold. Trenches, used to divert water, along the upper river valley remain as evidence of this ancient mining.

The big question, said Norman Moles, is where did this gold in the mournes come from? The bedrock source has never been identified, and indeed may have been obliterated long ago by erosion. The distribution of gold now suggests to Norman that it was initially pushed south by glacial action, and then dispersed northwards in streams and rivers.

Millions of years ago, as the two sides of the Atlantic began to go their separate ways the jostling of crustal plates on a gigantic scale caused volcanoes to erupt across Scotland, north-east Ireland and Greenland.

The distinctive Ring of Gullion stands out as a feature from this time, and ever since geologists began to work out how it formed there has been a heated debate on its origins which continues to this day.

In 1932 James Ernest Richey, son of a County Tyrone clergyman and TCD graduate, after studying the ring concluded that it is was formed by the collapse of material into a chamber left empty by the removal of magma. As the collapsing block sank, magma welled up along the sides, creating a large ring dyke.

Although Richey’s model remained the accepted one for over 80 years, some geologists disputed important details.

Prominent among them was Doris Reynolds, an accomplished geologist, who was convinced that granites were not formed by the cooling of hot magma but instead were produced by the cool transformation of sandstones. Her spirited refusal to accept an essential part of Richey’s model earned her the unofficial title “Lioness of Edinburgh”, but although her theory was wrong, questions remained both on where the material had come from and why light coloured rhyolites and granites should occur together in the same area with dark basalts.

ONE of the puzzles has been the occurrence of two different lava types in close proximity, dark basalts and the silica rich granitelike rhyolites. Two geologists, Fiona Meade and Valentin Troll, TCD graduates now based at Uppsala University in Sweden, recently investigated the occurrence of this biomodalism in the Carlingford Igneous Centre and, as they explained, the mixture, although odd, is not confined to Ireland. In the 18th century, R W Bunsen, best known as inventor of the Bunsen Burner, was the first to observe that biomodalism is a common feature of volcanoes throughout the world.

Bunsen, however, could not explain why this is so, but by examining isotopes in the rocks of Carlingford, Meade and Troll were able to conclude that as basaltic lava made its way up, it passed through the Earth’s crust, capturing and transforming this material into rhyolite and granites. The isotopes in rocks, said

Under Richey’s model, the magma had risen up to form a ring dyke, but in 2008 an alternative proposal was put forward. Instead of coming up from below, Dr Carl Stevenson from the University of Birmingham proposed that magma had come in from a source tens of kilometres to the south-east, forming a sub-horizontal sheet of microgranite. In Stevenson’s view, the Ring of Gullion was not a ring dyke at all, but instead could be a circle of rock exposed by erosion.

Supporters of this view pointed out that there are unexplained differences in orientation of the microgranites that underlie Gullion. However geologists have been frustrated by the lack of exposures where they could take detailed measurements indicating direction of flow. With the the construction of the new motorway by Newry, geologists looking for a good exposure got a lucky break. At Ravensdale, Co Louth and Cloghoe, Co Down, deep cuts had been made into the south-eastern end of the ring, revealing the boundary between the more ancient native metasedimentary rocks and the intrusive microgranite.

By examining the fresh exposure, geologists were able to determine that there had been quite a lot of interaction between the native rocks and the rising magma. In addition, structures, known as tuffisites, which form when hot gases force themselves through viscous material, provided evidence that the magma was breaking though to feed eruptions at the surface. This might be

Mixing of basalt (dark) and rhyolite (light) magmas, which is preserved in the rocks at Carlingford, can often lead to explosive volcanic eruptions.

Dr Meade, are a bit like geological DNA, so they provide a means of identifying and proving the incorporation of these native rock materials.

With the opening of the Atlantic there was extensive volcanism extending from

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compared to the bubbles that suddenly erupt when opening a bottle of fizzy lemonade releases the pressure.

Although revealing important new details about what happened when the magma was rising up through the Earth’s crust, geologists do not think that Richey’s model of a dropping block is necessarily wrong, but explaining the origin of the microgranite is going to be a lot more complex than previously thought.

Professor Silvia Gonzalez from Liverpool John Moores University is among those who wonder why some of the rocks are extrusive while others are intrusive, and as she remarked, this shows that there is a need to look at the evidence with fresh eyes. In addition, she said, not all of the rocks follow the same lines of flow, and this is something that remains to be investigated in more detail.

Many of the essential facts, like the rocks themselves may remain unchanged, yet interpretation can change, she said. ”In science we get to know more and more, we have new technology, there is debate, and I think this is good,” she said, adding that it is not that we must always choose between one model and another. It is more than likely that different processes were involved, and of course this makes it harder to interpret the evidence.

Scotland, across north east Ireland, and Greenland, and in this region, said Dr Meade, the crust is only 30 kilometre thick so it was relatively easy for the rising magma to break through.

This did not happen all at once, there were a number of pulses, and as the geologists explained, the interaction with the old continental crustal material was strongest with the first flush. This produced the granite-like rocks. Then, as lower melting point materials began to run out, granite production stalled, and when the crust was no longer able to make a contribution, volcanoes returned to production of basalts.

The study of Carlingford, said Valentin Troll has given geologists a better understanding not just of what happened millions of years ago, but of what occurs now in active volcanoes, and it provided an answer to Bunsen’s original question.

Granites

There are granites and there are granites, an observation made by the geologist, Herbert Harold Read who in the early 20th century became an expert on the rocks of the Scottish Highlands and Donegal. Although mainly composed of two minerals, quartz and feldspar, there is considerable variation both in composition and structure.

The Mourne and Gullion granites are no exception, and Richey, the geologist who came up with the Ring of Gullion model devised a five point classification that is still being used around the world.

These days, a rock is not regarded as granite unless it has more than 20 per cent quartz, and the form depends on how quickly it cooled. The slower it cooled, the larger the crystals, and with rapid cooling the same type of highsilica magma can become a glass-like obsidian. Unlike the extrusive rocks of Gullion, the intrusive Mourne granites remained well below the surface, there was no volcanic eruption, so they cooled slowly. The rocks of Slieve Gullion, where there was an eruption, cooled more rapidly, and so, became fine grained microgranites.

The Cloghmore Stone, a 30 ton granite erratic, believed to have been transported by ice from Scotland to its present position above Rostrevor.

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Rosetta arrives In August, after a ten-year journey, ESA’s Rosetta became the first craft to meet up with a comet. The 3.4 by 4 km comet, known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, is about half way between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars. The comet, travelling at almost 55,000 kpm and rotating around its axis every 23.7 hours is about 405 million km from Earth.

Rosetta, launched in 2004 made three gravity-assisted swings, two around Earth and one around Mars, on its 6.4 billion km journey.

Following a series of manoeuvres to adjust speed and trajectory, the ESA team celebrated the safe arrival of Rosetta.

The Rosetta space craft was Planning for the mission began in the woken up in January to close in early 1970s, making the rendezvous an on it destination, a comet first extraordinary achievement, and as ESA’s discovered in 1969. director of science and robotic exploration Alvaro Giménez commented, the close encounter opens a treasure chest that will keep scientists busy for years to come.

The comet has two distinct segments, joined by a narrow neck, and one possibility is that it originated by the amalgamation of two bodies. Initial observations show that the average temperature of the comet is minus 70°C and that the surface is dusty rather than icy. As Roseta made its approach from April to June, the comet’s envelope of gas and dust was observed to vary as it emitted water vapour into space at about 300 ml per second. Study of this activity is likely to shed more light on how comets are thought to have brought water to Earth.

Rosetta’s mission is far from over. A close, near-circular orbit just 30 km above the comet’s surface is planned, and suitable sites are to be identified for the Philae landing craft. Rosetta is to come within 2.5 km of the comet before releasing Philae which is expected to take about 2 hours before reaching the surface.

Following this landing, Rosetta will stay with the comet as it takes a closer approach to the Sun next year.

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Top left, a close up of the comet showing a range of features such as cliffs, craters and boulders. The image with a resolution of 2.4 metres per pixel was captured from a distance of 130 km.

Right top two, the comet viewed from a distance of 253 km.

Bottom right, the narrow neck between the two parts of the comet.

Quantum Biology the machinery of life is extremely complex and one of the mysteries is how so many biochemical reactions can proceed with enough speed and efficiency to keep us alive. tom Kennedy reports that Professor Jim al-Khalili was at the irish Science teachers conference at galway recently where he explained how strange behaviour such as entanglement has begun to solve this puzzle.

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ecause it is so familiar the world around us no longer seems strange. Yet, an angel or alien visiting from another dimension, might find it rather odd that humans continue to suffer from the delusion that the objects around them are solid, when in fact they mostly consist of empty space. As for time, not to mention mass, earthlings seem to think that clocks and weighing scales explain it all.

Well, in our defence, we are stuck in a world of concrete reality, so we just have to get on with it, and while going all ethereal might not bother an angel, we literally need to know where we stand rather than tunneling through barriers or popping up in two places at the same time.

However strange as it might seem, the quantum world in which an object can be in two places at the same time is just as real as the world we inhabit, and in fact without it, we and all the things around us, could not have come into existence.

It was not until Max Planck discovered that radiation is not just like a jet of water coming out of a hose, but instead is a stream of discrete packets, that scientists began to realise that there is an enormous difference between behaviour in the familiar world and the sort of things they observed at the subatomic level.

It was Max Planck who first used the term, quantum to describe those packages, and in the years that followed scientists made a whole series of discoveries, some so strange and unfamiliar that Einstein was initially reluctant to accept that some of his own conclusions could be true.

We are still on this journey of discovery, but by now a lot more is known about the quantum world, and indeed, as Professor Jim Al-Khalili from the University of Surrey, observed, industry has started to apply quantum mechanics.

Transistors, lasers and more recently quantum computers are among the results, and as a scientist who worked on nuclear physics, Jim was among those who had become familiar with the strange and quirky behavior at the sub-atomic level.

As he explained, physicists understand that without the hidden rules of quantum mechanics matter could not have come into existence. Quantum mechanics, he said underlies everything, and without understanding this behavior we would not understand chemistry, we wouldn’t understand the concept of semi-conductors, we would never have developed silicon chips. Yet, as he added, it is all very confusing. Chemists and physicists have learned to live with quantum mechanics, but for most others, this is something so peculiar that it is brushed aside as if it has nothing to do with everyday reality.

Yet, as Jim explained, we only have to look at the Sun to realise that quantum mechanical processes, such as tunneling, are involved in everyday processes. As everyone learns at school, fusion of two hydrogen nuclei to produce Professor Jim Al-Khalili helium releases energy, and this

is the process that makes the Sun shine. While this is a good “common sense” explanation, it does not tell us enough about how the two nuclei manage to overcome the powerful forces that normally keep them well apart. This explanation, said Jim, comes from quantum mechanics. Rather than picturing the nuclei as well defined particles, they are fuzzy and behave like spread out waves. So, rather than thinking of two solid objects repelling each other, these waves can tunnel through the force barrier between them making it possible for the hydrogen nuclei to merge.

As Jim said, this is not something he would like to attempt in person, but down at the quantum level it is a bit like running at a solid wall and suddenly appearing on the other side.

Theoretical physicists, he said, find it easier to accept that this happens, but for many biologists, chemistry is still at the stick and ball level. Scientists who work in the field, or in wet and messy labs, might think that quantum mechanics has nothing to do with what they observe, but as Jim observed, this view is wrong, and there is an increasing amount of evidence to show that quantum mechanics is at the heart of many biological processes.

Jim’s interest in this began when one of his colleagues at the University of Surrey, Donegal born Professor of Genetics, Johnjoe McFadden, wondered if quantum tunneling might be involved in producing mutations in the bacterium E coli.

With that question, Jim said he was “hooked.” Like Johnjoe, Jim realised that the common ground between biology and quantum mechanics is an area of enormous importance, but, as is often the case, the emerging field of quantum biology took some time to take off.

One of the pioneers was Ernst Pascual Jordan who at one time worked as an assistant to Max Born. Pascual, born in 1902, contributed greatly to quantum physics and he had a strong interest in biology. Following a lecture given by Niels Bohr in 1934 on “Light and Life” Pascual proposed that biological processes occur in quantum jumps which on the macro-scale become amplified. In the 1930s he entered the field of quantum biology, and his intention was to establish a foundation for this. However, as a Nazi party member, he had begun to mingle quantum mechanics with fascist ideology, so, after the war he was ostracised, and as Jim remarked, with this rejection went quantum biology. Although missing out on winning a Nobel Prize, Pascual was reinstated, he became active in the Christian Democratic Party, but his plans to set up an institute for quantum biology never came to anything.

However, Pascual was not alone in thinking that quantum mechanics and biology must be connected, and in 1944 the Austrian physicist, Erwin Schrödinger wrote a book with the title “What is Life” and in this he observed that life is

it leaves a hole known as an based on a molecular code and exciton, and again, following he raised some questions that the quantum rules, the electron have always puzzled biologists. and the hole remain connected Why, for instance, do living things yet are free to follow different exhibit behaviour that is only paths simultaneously. This is otherwise observed in inanimate thought to be a highly efficient materials at close to absolute way for energy to travel from the zero temperature. Also, why chlorophyll on the leaf surface have biological systems become to the reaction centre deeper progressively more complex while below. “It sounds crazy to people inanimate physical systems do who are not used to quantum just the opposite? mechanics,” said Jim, “but it For some decades quantum To navigate during migration the European robin senses the makes a lot of sense to those biology was off the agenda, and it angle rather than the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field. A working in the field.” did not help, said Jim, that all sorts brief period of entanglement is thought to make the migrating Quantum tunnelling is of whacky new-age pseudoscience birds sense the magnetic field. Photo: Vera de Kok. now believed to explain how began to fill the void. However, the large number of biological emergence of better techniques, processes occur. Enzymes, like catalysts in chemistry, speed up such as spectroscopy and computerised modelling, encouraged reactions that might not otherwise occur or proceed so slowly scientists to pick up the threads and start unravelling the to be of no use. Countless life-supporting processes depend on evidence to reveal how quantum mechanics are involved in a enzymes, and one of their jobs, said Jim is to transport electrons. whole range of biological processes.

“Simply passing electrons on from one atom to the next,” he One of most unexpected pieces of evidence came from the study of bird migration. Various theories have been put forward said, “would be too slow, so it is now accepted that quantum tunneling is involved.” Perhaps, thinking of chemists with to explain how migrating birds are able to navigate their way their stick and ball models, or biologists in their messy labs, Jim over long distances. Among the most popular explanations added, ”and this is no longer something controversial.” is that particles of magnetite enable birds to sense the Earth’s One claim that is quite controversial is that some genetic magnetic fields. However, when a study was made of European mutations are due to the influence of quantum mechanics. The robins by Wolfgang Wiltschko from the University of Frankfurt nucleotides that make up DNA are held together by relatively in the 1970s this assumption was called into question, and weak hydrogen bonds, and as Jim explained, the protons in moreover, unlike a compass, it was found that the direction these bonds like to sit closer to one side rather than the other. chosen by the birds did not depend on the polarity of the Sometimes the protons tunnel across to the other side, so the magnetic field. If the birds had been using magnetite-like a bond becomes slightly different. Again, it was a physicist, Percompass, reversing polarity would have immediately made Olov Lowdin from Uppsala University, rather than a biologist them go the other way. who suggested fifty years ago that this could happen, and that Another discovery was that blindfolding the birds made the slight difference might disrupt the normal matching up of them lose their migratory sense of direction, and that deepened base pairs when DNA replicates. the mystery until the researchers concluded that the only The suggestion that quantum tunnelling might be one plausible explanation involved quantum entanglement in a cause of mutations is speculative, but as Jim commented, process triggered by light. The eye is well adapted to sensing disease causing mutations are quite common and the idea light, and as Thorsten Ritz, a scientist from the University of should not be dismissed lightly. As he added, proving that Southern California, suggested, one particular protein, now this happens is extremely difficult, but one experiment termed cryptochrome, appears to be involved in sensing the could show if Lowdin was on the right track. If the common Earth’s magnetic field. As a photon of light strikes, one of a bacterium, E coli, is grown in heavy water, where the isotope two electron pair is knocked off into an adjacent molecule, deuterium takes the place of hydrogen, it will gradually but for up to 100 microseconds the two, obeying the quantum replace hydrogen bonds with the deuterium equivalent. rules, remain entangled. In this state they are subjected to the Deuterium is twice as heavy as hydrogen, and under influence of the Earth’s magnetic field, creating a chemical quantum rules the degree of tunnelling with the heavier change, which the bird senses, or perhaps even sees. What they isotope should be a lot less than hydrogen. Observing a sense apparently, is not direction, but angle of field. Close to the lower rate of mutations would go a long way towards poles the field lines are at a steep angle, while over the Equator proving that quantum tunnelling is involved. they lie parallel to the Earth’s surface.

“Only now has it become possible to do these experiments,” Amazing as this might seem to us, said Jim, this is the only said Jim, “so it is a very exciting time to be in this field.” explanation we have that makes sense.

Quantum tunnelling is also thought to be an essential part of photosynthesis. When a photon of light excites an electron, Physicists at Trinity College Dublin have found that quantum mechanics is involved in respiration. As Dr David O’Regan assistant professor of physics, explained, we could not survive without entanglement.

The myoglobin in our blood that mops up oxygen can also bind to carbon monoxide. In theory, said Dr O’Regan, carbon monoxide should bind more readily than oxygen, and scientists have been perplexed at how we manage

to survive when our myoglobin has such a potentially lethal preference.

However, the TCD researchers report that some of the electrons in myoglobin exhibit a strong entranglement effect. By exploiting this quantum mechanical property myoglobin has tipped the balance to favour oxygen rather than carbon monoxide binding.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 22

ASPECTS OF IRISH GEOLOGY EXPLAINED — SIMPLY

Paddy Gaffikin on what we need to know about the most recognisable rock in Ireland:

pocket near Killarney, it only occurs now in the north east. The most likely reason for this is that the basalt, which was extruded over the chalk around 60 million years ago (Early Palaeogene), in the north east of Ireland, prevented the erosion of the chalk.

CHALK

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty.

Why is the N. Ireland chalk so hard?

W. Wordsworth (1770-1850).

Description

With the single exception of a very small exposure at Ballydeanlea, near Killarney, Co. Kerry, the chalk in Ireland is exclusive to the north-east of the island – the bulk of it being in Co. Antrim. Now often called the Ulster White Limestone, it is very easily recognisable because, when fresh, it is pure white in colour, although parts of it are darkened due to weathering and soiling. The reckoning of the Antrim Coast Road to be one of the most scenic coastal routes in Europe, is due in no small part to the majestic chalk cliffs on the inland side of the road. The white colour contrasts noticeably with the overlying black basalt and the dark bluish clay below. It is composed of up to nearly 100% pure calcium carbonate (CaCO3). In many places, flint nodules occur in the chalk. The Stone Age people, who first arrived on our shores around 9,000 years ago, used this flint for the manufacture of axe-heads, arrow-heads and scrapers – artefacts which played a significant role in their survival.

2cm

A sample of Co. Antrim Chalk showing a fresh broken surface.

Why is the chalk not found over most of Ireland?

It could be speculated that the Cretaceous sea, in which the chalk formed, covered all or most of Ireland. Except for the small Tiny cocoliths, too small to be seen without the aid of a microscope, accumulated to form chalk. This one, viewed by an electron microscope, is about 8 µm across.

When and how did the chalk form?

Fossils embedded in the chalk indicate it formed some 80 million years ago (Late Cretaceous). To put this in perspective, this was around the time when dinosaurs such as the giant Tyrannosaurus rex were at their numerical peak in N. America and probably China.

It formed in a warm shallow sea from accumulations of fragments of the calcareous ‘shells’ (called coccoliths) of microscopic algae called coccolithophorids. In other words, the Ulster White Limestone is a mass of microfossils! They are so small, however, you could not see them even with an optical microscope – you would need a complex instrument called an electron microscope, which can give magnifications of many thousands.

The chalk in N. Ireland is harder and denser than say most of the contemporaneous English chalk – e.g. that of the White Cliffs of Dover.

One explanation for this may be that the weight of the overlying basalt compressed the chalk thus causing it to harden. (compression of rock can generate pressure and heat.) But there is a problem with this theory because the Yorkshire chalk, which was not subjected to such metamorphism, is nearly the same hardness as the Ulster White Limestone. So, further research would be needed in order to solve this puzzle.

Fossils found in the chalk

BELEMNITES (Time range: Late Carboniferous to Early Palaeogene – but were most numerous during the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods.)

These would be about the commonest macrofossils in the Antrim chalk. In life, these now-extinct carnivorous marine invertebrates, would have resembled the present-day squids and cuttle fish. A belemnite fossil consists of a calcareous bullet-shaped shell, which would be quite a bit shorter than the whole length of the living animal. While living, the hard (internal) shell was totally surrounded by soft tissue, which, except in very rare cases, is not preserved.

SEA-URCHINS (Time range: Ordovician – Present-day.)

Also called echinoids, sea-urchins in the past were exclusively marine and this is also the case with ones living today.

Their fossils can have a globular, heart shape or flat shape. While living, their surface was covered with spines but these usually break-off after death.

The spines offer protection from predators and would also assist with movement. The globe-shaped ones moved across the sea bed while the heart-

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 23

ASPECTS OF IRISH GEOLOGY EXPLAINED — SIMPLY

2cm A sea-urchin fossil which can be found in the Antrim Chalk.

View of chalk exposure (behind small wall) near entrance to Belfast Zoo.

View of a chalk section in Belshaw’s Quarry.

And finally..........

shaped and flat ones usually burrowed into soft sediment on the sea floor.

Other fossils which potentially could turn up where the Antrim chalk is exposed are: bivalves, crinoids and, occasionally, ammonites.

Some localities in Co. Antrim where the chalk can be seen

(1) The inland side of the Antrim Coast Road, approximately from Larne to Garron Point.

(2) White Rocks, Portrush.

(3) White Park Bay (just north of Ballintoy Harbour).

(4) Kinbane Head (about 5 km NW of Ballycastle).

2cm Examples of belemnite fossils.

Rocks and fossils can engender wonder.

As Wordsworth wrote, in another context, “Dull would he be of soul” not to be amazed. But it is even more wonderful to realise that the fossil and rock are many millions of years old and formed at the bottom of an ancient sea. In other words, with just a little knowledge of Earth Science make things like fossils and rocks – things we can find in the world around us – fill us with awe.

(5) Belfast Zoo (opposite car-park), access from Antrim Rd., about 9 km from city centre.

(6) Belshaw’s Quarry, Bensons Rd., about 5km NW of Lisburn.

Books available from the Spin Store

www.spinstore.eu

Sive Finlay introduces us to the colourful peacock spiders

Weird and wonderful animals

often get a bad press. They’re Sthepiders the stuff of many peoples’ nightmares: monsters in Harry Potter and The Lord

of the Rings and the decoration of choice for Halloween spook fests. Yet spiders belong to one of the most diverse Orders of species on Earth and within this eclectic mix there are some truly weird and wonderful gems.

Peacock spiders are tiny (2-6mm), beautiful creatures belonging to the genus Maratus. They are part of the largest family of spiders; the Salticidae or jumping spiders and are only found in southern Australia. Unlike most familiar spiders, Maratus spiders are not “sit and wait” predators so they do not build webs. Instead they are known as “cursorial” hunters meaning that they actively chase their prey of small insects and other spiders. To adapt to their active lifestyle, peacock spiders have evolved keen eyesight to allow them to hunt prey and to navigate through their environment. These adaptations also set the stage for the evolution of complex mating behaviours.

Female peacock spiders are usually brown or beige so that they are well camouflaged with their environments. In contrast, males have brightly-coloured abdominal flaps which they raise above their heads like a fan (or a peacock’s tail).

The colours are produced by iridescent hairs and scales which reflect both visible and ultra-violet light. Male spiders use their attractive ornaments to vie for the attention of females. During courtship, males raise their abdomens and coloured flaps and wave them at their paramours.

Add some leg-shaking into the mix and the whole display resembles a cross between twerking and the YMCA dance.

Courtship dances are elaborate, long (up to an hour) and fraught with danger.

Males must strike a balance between trying to win a female’s affections without becoming their suitor’s dinner in the process. Males try to suss out the female’s mood from afar; sending vibration signals through the ground and then adding abdomen waving into

Drawing of a male peacock spider by K D Schroder. The red dot is aproximate adult size. the mix. If the female neither attacks nor flees then the males keep dancing as they approach and prepare to mate with the female. Even during and after mating the males must remain on their guard and be ready to flee to avoid becoming a post-nuptial snack for the females.

Experiments with some Maratus species show that females are very choosy about their mates: they usually only mate once and usually become more aggressive towards other males after they have mated themselves.

Just like their avian namesake, peacock spiders are an excellent example of an important evolutionary process: sexual selection. Their showy traits act as

signals of potential reproductive success for their prospective partners. Males have developed their bright colouration and alluring dances to say “hey, I’m fit, healthy and much more attractive than that other guy, come and mate with me!” (think of any Lynx advert for an easy human equivalent).

If you want to learn more about peacock spiders and see their bizarre dances in action (with accompanying theme music), visit Dr. Jürgen Otto’s “Peacock Spiderman” YouTube channel.

Just be prepared to come away with YMCA stuck in your head…

Watch the courtship display of the coastal peacock spider at: www.youtube.com/user/ Peacockspiderman Sive Finlay, a Zoology graduate, is currently working as a postgraduate scholar with the Macroecology and Macroevolution group at Trinity College Dublin.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 25

With Christine Campbell

Welcome to the first edition of Family Science. In this section of Science Spin we are planning to have two pages of science information and activities suitable for families. We will include information about things that are going on in the world of science, experiments parents can do with their children and ideas of places of scientific interest to visit.

Places to visit in Autumn

Avondale House and Forest Park in Rathdrum—this forest park contains a wide variety of trees and shrubs which were collected from all around the world. http://wicklowgardens.com/index.php/avondalehouse-park-2/ The Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9 — a botanical paradise in the city. http://www.botanicgardens.ie The Botanic Gardens, Kilmacurragh—this arboretum has been cultivated since the early 1700s.

It contains numerous rare trees and shrubs. http:// wicklowgardens.com/index.php/kilmacurraghbotanic-gardens/

Maths Week

October 11th 2014 sees the start of maths week in Ireland.

Now in its 9th year, this is a week where people think a bit more about maths So what are you going to do for Maths Week?

Here are some ideas:l Learn a new card trick—many card tricks are based on mathematics. My favourite uses 27 playing cards. I learnt it from Matt Parker on Numberphile. Check it out on youtube. l Have a pizza and divide it into 12 slices. Share it with your friends while counting how many slices everyone has. Work out what fraction of the pizza everyone had. l Do a sudoku puzzle. These puzzles were popularised in the 1980s by a Japanese puzzle company. By 2005 these puzzles had become popular worldwide. They are based on logic rather than computational maths To find an event in your locality visit www.mathsweek.ie

The Science behind Autumn

What defines autumn for you? Is it the summer holidays being over and a new year of school starting?

Perhaps it is getting new school books and a new uniform. Perhaps it is having to wear a jumper to keep warm. We know from our calendars that the summer is over but it is not just people who mark the seasons and behave differently from season to season. Animals and plants also change their behaviour with the seasons.

To me, autumn is the time for crunching through brown leaves searching for conkers, acorns and beech nuts, and looking up at a canopy of leaves of various shades of yellow, orange, red and brown. So what is the science behind this change from the green leaves of summer to the multicoloured display of autumn.

Like people, deciduous trees are aware of the long warm days of summer. They also notice that as winter approaches the days start to get shorter.

This photoperiodism, or period of light, changing combined with a drop in temperature are factors that cause the change in the trees.

A chemical called chlorophyll gives the leaves their summer green colour. It is found in all the leaf cells.

When sunlight shines on the chlorophyll it converts carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and sugar. The plant then converts the sugar into energy for growth.

During autumn the tree produces less chlorophyll so the leaves are not so green. This allows us to see other chemicals such as the carotenoids and anthocyanins inside the plants’ leaves.

You can probably guess that carotenoids are orange in colour—the name sounds very like carrot.

Anthocyanins are red and purple in colour and they are also found in vegetables and fruit such as red cabbage, beetroot and raspberries. These two chemical groups give the leaves their autumn colours.

Once the leaves are no longer being used to produce food for the trees the leaves no longer draw water and they gradually dry up, they become brittle and the autumn winds blow them from the trees.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 26

Experiments for Autumn Collecting Specimens

Grow your own Oak Tree

Scientists often make collections of specimens. As you are out crunching in the autumn leaves, collect as many different types as you can find and bring samples home with you. When you get your leaves home carefully place them in between the sheets of blotting paper or newspaper. Place the paper under something flat and heavy, a large mat is good for this. Leave the leaves to press for about 2 weeks. Stick your specimens into a scrap book. Identify them using pictures from the internet and label them.

Tree Fruit

Maybe you have apples or other fruit trees growing in your garden and it is during the autumn that the fruit grows and becomes ripe. Fruit like apples are edible so you can collect and eat them. Other trees have fruits that are not edible but are still fun to collect and identify. The acorn is the fruit of the oak tree, the conker is the fruit of the horse chestnut tree and beech nuts are the fruit of the beech tree. During the autumn collect and identify the fruits from as many trees as possible. Stick them into your scrapbook alongside the leaves from the same species of tree. Sometimes scientists make a sketch of the fruit instead of sticking it into the scrapbook with the other specimens.

Collect a number of acorns and find one that is just the right size to fit into the opening of an empty PET bottle without falling in. Remove the acorn and fill the bottle with water right up to the top. Sit the acorn back into the opening, making sure the pointy end is dipping into the water.

Note the date in your science diary. Put the bottle in a dark cupboard and check it every day. Make sure the tip of the acorn is still touching the water and top up if necessary.

One day you will notice that the root has begun to grow down into the bottle. Note its colour and length in your diary. You could measure and record how long the root is each day and plot it’s growth.

After a few more weeks you will notice a shoot growing from the acorn.

When the shoot appears remove the bottle from the dark cupboard and leave it in a bright place to continue growing. Continue to observe, measure and record any changes. At this stage you should transfer your seedling to a pot filled with potting compost or soil.

Keep moist.

Next spring find a suitable place in a garden or field to plant your new tree.

This is a picture of an Oak tree that I grew from an acorn when I was a child.

Growing a Grass Head

l Carefully turn the head over and stick or draw on the eyes.

Although spring is the usual; time to sow seeds, l Stand the grass head on the old saucer and fill if you keep them inside in a warm place seeds it with water. Keep the saucer wet. will germinate at other times of the year. In this In a few days your grass head’s “hair” will start experiment we are going to grow a grass head and to grow. What colour do you think his hair will be? hopefully in a few weeks you will be able to style his l Continue to keep the grasshead wet and the “hair”! “hair” will continue to grow.

If you haven’t been very gentle making the nose, ears and turning it over your grass head might have eye What to do: You will need: brows, nose hair and “hair” sprouting from all l Put a spoonful of grass seed into the toe of an An old popsock or stocking sorts of places! old popsock.

Grass seed Extension activity: To establish the conditions l Half fill the popsock with wood chips.Press Wood chips—I use hamster required for seeds to grow make a number of them down tightly. bedding grass heads. Stand one in water, leave one dry, l Tie a knot in the popsock and tighten it so the 3 small elastic bands stand one in vinegar, put one in the dark. Which wood chips cannot become loose. Cut off the 2 googly eyes or markers one grows best? excess sock. for drawing the eyes l Half way along the sock grab a lump of the A spoon grass head’s “face” and twist it to make a nose.

An old saucer or plant tray Christine Campbell Use the rubber bands to hold the nose in place.

Water Anyone 4 Science l Repeat to make 2 ears, using the other 2 rubber Scissors anyone4science@eircom.com bands to hold them in place.

Adult supervision www.anyone4science.com

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 27

Chestnut pest Chestnut trees are being threatened by a disease that was only first noticed in Ireland less than ten years ago. The disease, caused by a bacterium, prevents nutrients and water from rising up through the trunk, and after spreading rapidly up from the south of England it has since appeared in Ireland.

Anna McEvoy, a Transition Year student at Our Lady’s College, Drogheda, became curious about the disease when she noticed that the Horse Chestnut tree outside the school seemed to be suffering.

At one place the bark had split open over a suppurating wound.

Anna decided to investigate, and discovered that many other chestnut trees around Ireland were beginning to show similar signs, and the outlook for their survival was not good. The disease is widespread, she said, and it is killing the trees.

The Chestnut Canker, she explained, is caused by a bacterium,which may have come from India, but wherever it originated, it is now widespread.

It is not yet known how trees become infected, she said, and while some chestnuts can live with the disease for a long time

Growing with biochar WHEn wood is burnt without much oxygen charcoal is produced and, as three students from Moate Community School explained, when a similar process is applied to biomass it produces what is known as biochar.

Before Europeans arrived in South America, there was a tradition of setting fire to vegetation before covering it up with soil to cut of the supply of air, and the resulting biochar improved fertility. Although the notion of using biochar to improve soil fertility is not new, Sandra nestor, Róisin O’Brien

The Horse Chestnut with its distinctive white ‘candles’ is among our most attractive trees, but as Anna McElroy (above) found, they are being threatened by a disease that produces suppurating wounds (left). others die, and up to recently there was no known treatment.

As part of her investigations, Anna wanted to know if the disease in Ireland is any different from elsewhere, but as she found, the causative agent Pseudomonas syringae is common to all. The bacterium invades the phloem, and this is the tissue that transports nutrients up through the trunk. Apart from creating a wound which breaks out through the bark, the upper branches, starved of sustenance, wither and die.

“This really opened my eyes to biology,” said Anna, and her decision to investigate was supported by her teacher, Frances O’Regan. “We got to go to TCD’s Botany Department to do a lot of the tests,” she said.

Anna’s project earned her the Elan Student Award at the BT Yound Scientist and Technology Exhibition, and following that she became the Young Innovator of 2014 at the Sentinus Awards in Belfast, enabling her to exhibit at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Her teacher, Frances O’Regan also received the Intel Educator of Excellence Award. l In Dublin’s Phoenix Park, trials, using injections of garlic, appear to be successful in treating the disease. The park has about 1800 Horse Chestnut trees, many of them mature specimens lining avenues, and faced with the prospect of felling these, trials with a garlic extract were iniated, and as a result the trees have been saved. and Jessica McCormac wondered if this is a practice that would be of benefit to farmers. In the 19th century there had been experimental trials in South America, they said, but as far as they knew, no one in Ireland has ever taken this approach, so, with lots of biomass available, they decided to find out if it would be worth considering biochar as a soil improver.

With the help of their teacher, Margaret Mandal, the students set up their biochar production unit, an old biscuit tin, with just enough holes in it to sustain combustion without allowing the biomass to burst into flames. For biomass they used woodchippings, and the biscuit tin was put on an open fire to produce the biochar.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 28

The students made up different mixes of wood ash, turf ash and biochchar and in these they grew maize, radishes, peas and grass. To enable them to compare results they also used ordinary soil.

As expected, the biochar produced good results, but only if used in moderation. As they found, growth was better in ordinary soil when 25 per cent biochar was used. However, with just 10 per cent biocharin the mix, results were best.

It would be easy enough for gardeners to produce their own supply, they said, but biochar might also have a role in boosting the world’s food supply.

At one stage, Professor Michael Hayes from the University of Limerick visited the school to talk about the problem of feeding the world’s growing population, and that got the students thinking that producing biochar might help, raising productivity while at the same time locking up carbon into the soil.

This is the first time they entered the competition, they said, but they would like to investigate the subject in more depth so that they can come back with more results.

Sandra Nestor (left), Róisin O’Brien (middle) and Jessica McCormach (right) at their stand in the RDS.

Clearing up old dumps

biggest problem is not rehabilitation, but finding enough money to do the work.

As for participating in the exhibition, the students were unanimous in declaring; ‘we love it.”

This was their second time to enter the competition and earlier they had been at SciFest in Athlone where they were awarded overall runner-up and best in their category.

ALTHoUgH there has been a reduction in the number of landfill sites, a number of old dumps remain close to towns around Ireland. Denise Benett, Aoife Shiel, David Clarke, students at Scoil Mhuire in Strokestown, Co Roscommon, noted that there are three old landfill sites in their area. As they found out, one was closed down 20 years ago, one closed 10 years ago and the last one closed two years ago.

The students were interested in what became of these sites, and whether they could be rehabilitated, as happened in Limerick, where an old dump has become a nature park. However, as they found, the nearest one to them at Strokestown, is now a derelict overgrown site, and the run off of water from the five hectare dump ar Roscommon still has to be sent off for treatment. The biggest landfill site at Ballaghaderreen, they observed had been better designed, with underground barriers to prevent runoff into local water supplies.

With the help of their teacher, Edel o’Meara, the students conducted a series of tests to determine what impact the dumps might have on the environment, and as they found methane is still being given off at Ballaghaderreen and Roscommon, but not enough to make it worth tapping, so it is simply burned off every few days.

Could these sites be transformed into amenity areas? The students thought this could work for Strokestown, where methane is no longer being produced, so they drew up a suggested plan of action. By clearing the undergrowth, leveling and seeding, they said, the present unsightly site could be used for grazing. However, as they concluded, the Denise Benett and Aoife Shiel at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

Visit the Science Spin stand at the 2015 BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

Full details about the exhibition at www.btyoungscientist.ie SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 29

Dr. How's

What is DNA?

Junior science by Dr. Naomi Lavelle

DNA is a biochemical structure found in every cell of our bodies.

Science Wows! ...exploring DNA

Let‛s learn more!

DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid.

DNA contains all the information to make up the organism that contains it.

Every human shares approximately 99% of their DNA with every other human.

It is the blueprint from which we are made.

Did you know... the scientific study of DNA and genes is called GENETICS?

A bit of history DNA was first isolated in 1869

by Friedrich Miescher... he originally called it “nuclein”

DNA consists of two very long strands made up of four different chemicals called amino acids or bases.

The two strands are attached together and coiled around in a structure called a Double Helix.

The four amino The bases acids that make up of one strand each strand of DNA attach to the bases are ... of the other strand, Guanine (G) keeping both The attached Adenine (A) strands bases are Thymine (T) together. referred to as Cytosine (C) base pairs.

Each gene is made up of a specific sequence of bases.

Our complete genome could be likened to a recipe book, the bases are the letters, they group together in threes to make codons (the words) and the genes are the recipes.

Did you know... we share approximately 50% of our DNA with a banana?

See DNA Experiments you can try

Did you know... our closest relatives are chimpanzees and Bonobos? We have about 98% DNA in common.

You will need.. a banana, a fork, a bowl, washing up liquid, ice cold surgical spirits, salt, a sieve, a glass jar

Extract DNA from a banana

Remove the banana skin and mash the banana in the bowl, using the fork.

Add two teaspoons of washing up liquid and stir slowly.

Add a teaspoon of salt and one to two tablespoons of water and stir carefully.

You want to avoid making bubbles.

Leave for five minutes then strain carefully through the sieve into the jar.

Tilt the glass jar and carefully pour the surgical spirits down the side of the jar, at least as thick as the banana layer.

This will form a separate layer on top of the banana mixture.

Do not mix.

After five to ten minutes you will see a long, stringy substance appear in the top layer. This is the banana‛s DNA. You can use a tooth pick to lift and examine the DNA.

In 1950 Rosalind Franklin developed a system of x-ray imaging that allowed her photograph DNA molecules Two scientists called James Watson and Francis Crick devised the double helix structure working from Rosalin Franklin‛s images. They published their work in 1953.

In 2003 the complete map of the human genome was completed.

The entire human DNA sequence is called a genome.

There are 3,000,000,000 (three billion) base pairs in the human genome.

So what is happening?

The salt and washing up liquid break open the banana cells, releasing the DNA. The DNA will not dissolve in the surgical spirits (or any alcohol) so it floats in this layer.

An interesting fact... ...if you types at top speed (60 words a minute) for eight hours a day... it would take you 50 years to type the complete human genome.

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

Ask a scientist

More than 25 experts from a wide range of fields including biology, physics, chemistry and astronomy are ready to answer your questions. If there is something that puzzles you, let the panel know. Email questions, with your name and contact to

question@sciencespin.com

Why do magnets work?

Nicola Murphy explains —

A mAgnet is a material (such as iron) that attracts certain other ferrous materials such as nickel, cobalt or iron and any of their alloys. magnets have a south and a north pole and they are surrounded by a magnetic field. The magnetic field is strongest at the poles.

Other magnets interact with that field, ether by being attracted or repulsed, depending on which way they are turned. the south and north poles attract each N S other, while north repulses N S north and south repulses south. the earth has a megnetic field, so when a magnet is suspended freely its north end turns to the south. the geographical north Pole is actually the magnetic south. this is how compasses work.

How certain materials are magnetic and others are not can be explained using atomic theory but bear in mind there is a lot about magnets at the atomic level that isn’t known yet?

Iron is a solid and so is glass, so how come we can see through one and not the other?

Margaret Franklin explains —

tHe reason we can see through glass and not iron is not because of their solid nature. In fact, glass is not a true solid; it is really a super-cooled liquid. glass is transparent because it does not interact with visible light, which therefore passes through unhindered. Light can interact with materials in various ways. It may be reflected from solid or liquid surfaces, it may be absorbed, mainly by transferring energy to electrons in the material, or it may be scattered by tiny particles. the transparency of glass is partly because of its homogeneous structure. If glass were made up of many tiny crystals, as

On a basic level, every material is made up from tiny particles called atoms.

All atoms contain a small dense nucleus which is surrounded by negatively charged particles called electrons. the electrons exist in defined energy levels (like orbits) expanding out from the nucleus and while they move around the nucleus they also spin about their own axis. A bit like how the earth spins about its own axis to give us night and day, but while it is doing that it rotates about the Sun. When electrons move, a small current is produced N S and moving electricity generates a magnetic field.

S N All moving electrons have a small magnetic field around them pointing one way or another depending on spin direction.

Only a certain number of electrons are allowed in each energy level (orbit) and they pair up together with opposite spins so the induced magnetic fields cancel out. Overall the material is not magnetic. However, iron for example has some unpaired electrons, so a net magnetic field is produced making each

atom a ‘mini magnet’. each atom can be considered as a domain with a north pole and a south pole. In an un-magnetised piece of iron the domains are randomly orientated but, when an external magnetic field is applied, the domains all line up so that all the north poles point in the same direction and the iron becomes a magnet! Some alloys of iron will remain magnetised when the external magnetic field is removed and these are permanent magnets. Other types of iron known as soft iron lose their magnetism as the domains go back out of alignment. this is useful in making electromagnets that can be turned on or off.

most solid materials are, then light would be scattered from each of the facets of the micro-crystals and we would not be able to see clearly though it. Another reason for its transparency is that the atoms in glass are linked by covalent bonds. each covalent bond consists of a pair of electrons, which are shared between adjacent atoms. the electrons are very tightly bound and are not free to interact with light. the same occurs in liquid water, whose chemical formula is H2O. In every water molecule, there is a shared pair of electrons in each of the two bonds linking the oxygen atom to each of the hydrogen atoms. Water does not absorb visible light and it is a homogeneous liquid, with no surfaces to scatter light, so the liquid is transparent.

When water freezes to form solid ice, some of the transparency is retained, so it lets light through, though tiny air bubbles trapped in the ice may scatter some of it.

However, snow is rather opaque, because

it consists of very tiny crystals, which scatter the light in all directions.

Iron, on the other hand, being a metal, has quite a different type of chemical bonding between its atoms. It does not contain covalent bonds, but has many so called ‘free electrons’ which can interact with light. these electrons are also responsible for the electrical conductivity of iron and other metals. the interaction allows light to be reflected from the surface of a polished metal, giving it a characteristic ‘metallic lustre’, provided of course, that the surface is not corroded.

In addition to the surface reflection, the electrons within the metallic crystal can easily absorb light energy, making it impossible for light to penetrate through the material and preventing us from seeing through it.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 31

References http://www.coolmagnetman.com/ maghow.htm http://www.explainthatstuff.com/ magnetism.html l Nicola Murphy teaches at a secondary school in Drogheda and has a special interest in physics, spectroscopy and lasers.

l Margaret Franklin is Vice President of The Institute of Chemistry of Ireland. e-mail: mfranklin@eircom.net

Ask a scientist

Why can’t some people eat dairy products?

MIlK and other dairy products contain lactose, a sugar made up of glactose joined to glucose. In order to digest these products the glactose and glucose connection has to be broken by an enzyme, lactase. Baby mammals depend on his enzyme to digest their mother’s milk, and after weaning they have no further need of lactase. however, in humans living in countries where dairy products are part of the daily diet the enzyme usually persists into adulthood. There are some individuals who cannot produce the enzyme, so they are lactose intolerant and therefore cannot eat dairy products.

Why do cats purr?

Sarah Carroll explains — a caT’s purr is a deep vibrating sound made by the laryngeal muscles, which control vocal cords. cats can purr when they exhale and when they inhale however they can only meow when they are exhaling. It is not just cats that purr, but other members of the Felidae family such as bobcats, cheetahs and pumas. scientists are not yet sure as to why exactly cats purr but there are a few theories. cats purr when they are being petted or stroked and when they are being fed. Many suggest it is to show that the cat is content and happy, a remnant of communication behaviour they had when they were kittens nursing from their mother. This would suggest that cats only purr when they are content but this is not always the case. some cats purr when they are distressed or frightened, for example when they are at the vet or there is an unfriendly cat lurking about their territory. cats may purr in these situations to try and comfort themselves. There is another

having the enzyme as an adult is not at all universal, and worldwide production of lactase usually decreases after weaning. The persistance of lactase into adulthood varies widely across the world. Where dairy products are widely consumed, as in Ireland, most adults continue to produce lactase, and it is thought that a combination of environmental factors and genetic selection were responsible for this.

Without the enzyme, lactose cannot pass through the wall of the small intestine, but as it goes on to be fermented in the colon this process can cause considerable discomfort.

Are carrots really good for sight or is that just a myth?

ThIs common belief happens to be true. carrots, among with other colourful vegetables, are important sources of vitamin a. This vitamin is needed to produce a light sensitive chemical, rhodopsin. When light strikes rhodopsin, a reversible reaction triggers a response that enables us to see. Rhodopsin is needed to see colour and for low-level sight, and throughout the world many children on poor diets are deficient in this vitamin. Vitamin a is also required to maintain general health.

Reference: Colour, what we see and the science behind sight, Franklin and Kennedy. Available from www.spinstore.eu

new interesting theory as to why cats purr. cats spend a lot of time sleeping hence the expression catnap! Researchers have proposed that the vibrations of purring provide stimulation for bones and muscles without a lot of energy, preventing bone related illnesses. sarah carroll, cellexplorers@nuigalway.ie References Leslie A. Lyons, “Why do cats purr?” An extract from “Scratch n’ Sniff: A Guide to Cats and Dogs”, Scientific American, June 10, 2009.

The Cell EXPLORERS team from the NUI Galway School of Natural Sciences, are running their “Fantastic DNA” Roadshow this year again and provide free primary and secondary school visits in Galway County. In one hour of hands on science, budding explorers will discover DNA by building a DNA double helix and extracting DNA from banana’s to take home. Every participant will practice all activities.

Interested schools should email cellexplorers@nuigalway.ie.

Follow them on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Cellexplorers

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 66 Page 32

Why are toothaches so painful?

ReseaRcheRs at the Karolinska Institutet in sweden have found a good explanation for this in that the soft tissue in teeth originates from nerves. By studying teeth in mice they found that neural support stem cells leave the nerves and change to produce connective tissue and dentin producing cells.

Kaj Fried and Igor adameyko, who led the study, explained that while this is an interesting discovery, it is not unique. It is thought that peripheral nerves act as a reservoir of stem cells which can then migrate to wherever they are needed. as adults, teeth, once lost do not regrow, but identifying the origin of the stem cells involved in growth means that this might become a possibility in the future.

Is there something you would like to ask? Send your question to our panel of experts — question@sciencespin.com

Teachers Are you trying to stimulate interest in science?

In six issues a year Science Spin presents lots of news and features in an engaging way. Informative, scientifically accurate, yet easy to read and enjoy.

As an Irish publication, Science Spin takes a local view of what’s happening in science at home and abroad.

Science Spin is also backed by an excellent content-rich website.

Redesigned and relaunched earlier this year the site provides readers with immediate page-turning access to all back issues.

In this issue we launch the Family Science section in which Christine Campbell has some seasonal suggestions for younger readers.

Together with Ask a Scientist, Naomi Lavelle’s Dr How and the profiles of young scientists there is plenty of content that could be used in the classroom and we would like to give teachers more of an opportunity to become involved in these sections. Have you been asked questions about science? Pass them on to us and a panel of over 40 experts is ready to provide the answers. Do you have opinions on how science should be taught, or can you describe an experiment that would be worth sharing? Your input would be welcome, and it could help us expand these sections.

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SCIENCE WEEK 2014 NOVEMBER 9TH - 16TH Every second around lightning bolts strike the Earth

100

Human THIGH BONES are stronger than

CONCRETE

YELLED

The wingspan of a

If you for more than eight years you would produce just enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee

Boeing 747

is longer than the Wright brothers’ first flight Wright brothers

48 kph

A hippopotamus may seem huge but it can still run faster than a man

64m

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