Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, near Didcot in Oxfordshire. It’s easy to spot the giant silver ring of the Diamond Light Source, which shares the Harwell campus with RAL, from the A34. RAL is operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), a government body that carries out research in science and engineering. RAL is one of the foremost laboratories of its kind, and not just within the UK – it has a global reputation for excellence. It houses one of the world’s leading laser facilities, runs the ISIS ‘super-microscope’ which enables scientists to study atoms and molecules, operates the largest space department in Europe, and much more.

Every year around 10,000 scientists and engineers use RAL’s facilities. They work on many of the key challenges facing society today – such as energy, the environment, healthcare, security and food security. And in spring 2011, scientists from across a wide range of research at RAL came to Science Oxford Live to tell us about their work.

We heard how scientists at RAL are working on ways of using lasers to generate energy as a possible alternative to running nuclear power stations, and what techniques we could put in place to counteract climate change. We had a whistle-stop tour of the Universe, a back-to-basics introduction to the atom, and discovered how ISIS is being used to look at ways of improving medicine. We were even able to feed our own ideas into ways of tackling global challenges, like terrorism or pollution.

Engineers from RAL also ran a ‘Rickety Rockets’ workshop for families during the Easter holidays. Children put their engineering skills to the test by constructing rockets from spaghetti and marshmallows. Their rockets were then subjected to intense wobbling on a specially made vibration table, which represented the kind of vibration a real space craft needs to withstand when it gets fired into space.

As well as hosting lots of events at Science Oxford, the Frontiers Season was also a great opportunity to highlight the ‘Talking Science’ lectures, RAL’s monthly lectures for public audiences that take place on site.

Working with RAL was a great success, and the scientists who took part did a fantastic job at opening our eyes to the cutting edge research, and crucially important science which is taking place on our doorstep.

If you missed any of these events, you can still watch webcasts of ‘The Age of the Laser’ and ‘Exploring the Universe’ from our webcast archive.

To find out more about RAL and their ‘Talking Science’ series, visit http://www.stfc.ac.uk/Public+and+Schools/4796.aspx.

What do you think of when someone mentions the word laser? Music performances? Barcode scanners? Surgery? Communication? Weapons? Well, all of them would be correct and on April 7th, as part of the Frontiers of Science season, Dr Kate Lancaster gave a talk to a Science Oxford Live audience to tell us a bit more about the cutting edge research that happens not far from Oxford and that depends on some of the highest power lasers found around the globe. Dr Lancaster is a physicist and science communicator, with her research focused on laser-driven fusion energy, based at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

In a historical whistle-stop tour, Dr Lancaster recalled who was involved in the development of the laser. Although the device, the acronym standing for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”, is governed by equations that were first derived by Einstein, he was too much of a theoretician to have been involved in the practical development which took place some decades later. First of all Townes and Schawlow discovered the MASER, a device in which coherent electromagnetic waves of the microwave frequency are produced using amplification by stimulated emission. By the late 1950s, many scientists were hoping to recreate the same effects with visible light (which is also a form of electromagnetic radiation, but of a shorter wavelength compared to microwaves) and Gould is widely credited with making the realisation that one could achieve this by using two mirrors to produce a narrow, coherent, intense beam of visible light of specific wavelength. Gould was also the first to coin the term LASER (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) for the phenomenon but in a twist of fate, he then spent 30 years fighting to be granted the patent for the technology, which was eventually granted to the Bell labs, where his competitors were based. Subsequently, Theodore Maiman was the one who developed the first laser prototype (the ruby laser), and further developments went on from there. Eventually, 10 Nobel prizes related to the development of the laser were awarded in the period between 1964 and 2009 (see table in Short history of laser development, J. Hecht, Optical Engineering, 2009 vol 49, page F99).

So, what are the key aspects of a laser? Dr Lancaster explained that one of the features of lasers is that they produce light which is highly coherent and monochromatic, meaning it is of a specific wavelength. This was demonstrated with a spectrometer (a device which measures the wavelength of the light that it detects) which showed that visible light created a widespread peak in the visible range of 400-650nm. Laser light, on the other hand, created a single sharp peak at a specific wavelength (532nm for a green laser, 630nm for a red laser). Secondly, laser light has very low divergence – if you shone a laser from the Earth to the moon, by the time it got there, the beam would be only a mile wide, which is pretty impressive given the distance. Finally, lasers are highly focusable into a single spot (based on the equation that intensity = power/area, meaning that the smaller the area the laser shines on, the higher the intensity).

Simplistically put, lasers work because photons are released as electrons change between different energy levels within an atom. Spontaneous emission involves an electron moving from a high energy to a low energy level accompanied by the release of a photon and stimulated absorption is the opposite of this process (an electron moves from low to high level whilst gobbling up the energy of a photon). If a photon, which has the energy equivalent to the difference between high and low energy states, comes along to an atom with an electron in a high energy state, it will stimulate the electron to fall into the lower level state, thereby emitting a photon. The emitted photon has the same energy as the original photon, leading to the emission of two waves with the same frequency which constructively interfere and so create a more intense wave. This is called stimulated emission and it is the main principle behind what happens in a laser. In a laser setup, the excitable electrons might be in neodymium atoms used to dope a glass block. This block is enclosed by reflective surfaces, which enable the signal to be amplified, and partial reduction in reflectivity allows this to signal to escape the cavity.

Since the discovery of lasers, there have been a number of new developments in terms of applications, ranging from CDs (1960s), laser cutting and barcode scanners (1970s), clinical applications such as laser surgery and communications using fibre optics (1980s). The improvements in lasers have involved the step-wise solving of a number of problems. Firstly, using Q switching, it was possible to release the laser only when fully saturated (i.e. all electrons are in a high level state), reducing background lasing. Another development was that of chirped pulse amplification (CPA), which uses refraction of the incident beam to temporarily lengthen and disperse the laser light so that its intensity does not damage the optical equipment (meaning that higher intensity can be achieved). These days scientists such as Dr Lancaster at the SFTC Vulcan facility are in the business of using the highest powered lasers to study processes such as fusion, and from her talk we got an impression of the excitement and enthusiasm she has for this field. It seems that at the moment, one of the limitations of fusion energy is the inability to fire the laser often enough – to run a fusion power station, it would be necessary to fire the laser four times every second, whereas it is currently only possible to fire such a powerful device once every half an hour or so. In addition, there is always the containment to think of because the high powered laser has to be located in a vacuum to avoid the laser making plasma of the air that it is surrounded by.

And what does the future hold in store? In biochemistry and structural biology, it may be possible to use small lasers as optical tweezers which would allow the pulling apart of protein and DNA single molecules to unfold them and study their function. Lasers will likely be part of quantum computers which could enable instant calculations to be performed that would render all current encryption algorithms useless, but at the same time create a potential for altogether new encryption methods. On a much larger scale, lasers may be useful in space-based telescope, because they could be effectively artificial star references. In conclusion, Dr Lancaster reckoned that currently the biggest challenge in the field is making a laser that is high powered enough and is able to fire with a high enough repetition rate – so plenty to look at for those currently in the field.

In summary, the talk was by an enthusiastic speaker on a fascinating subject. You can watch Dr Lancaster’s talk on the webcast via the Science Oxford Live website.

Some background:

Kate Lancaster’s website: http://sites.google.com/site/drkatelancaster/
Science & Technology Facilities Council: http://www.stfc.ac.uk/

It’s just over ten years since the human genome sequence has been elucidated and published and things have moved at a great pace since then. To update us on what’s been going on in the world of genetics since the landmark announcement, Prof Peter Donnelly came to talk at Science Oxford Live.

Peter Donnelly is a Professor of Statistical Science and Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford. A mathematician by training, he spends a lot of time modelling data to make sense of the immense amount of information that is generated from DNA sequencing. As he said, part of the current challenge is to understand and make use of the huge amount of information which is where his mathematics and statistics background comes in handy.

Genetic disorders lie at some point of a spectrum defined at one end by illnesses that are caused by a single “broken” gene and at the other end by those for which susceptibility results from defects in a number of genes, as well as environmental effects. Of the former category, the first to be identified in 1989 was the gene involved in cystic fibrosis (CFTR, a transmembrane regulator), and a huge number of single-gene defects have been linked to diseases since. Knowledge of these single gene mutations aid early diagnosis and subsequently better care, which is one of the reasons why newborn babies are routinely tested (using blood from a heel prick) for genetic conditions.

In the latter case, we deal with common diseases where there is both a genetic component (often from numerous genes) and environmental component that determine susceptibility. Unlike single-gene disorders, very few genes in this category have been identified until around 2005, which was subsequently followed by an explosion in their numbers. This is likely related to the availability of the human genome sequence, first published after a huge publicly funded research effort in 2001, and the subsequent reduction in DNA sequencing costs, which has since enabled the comparison of diseased and healthy individuals’ genomes in comparative studies.

Since 2005, 200+ conditions (including height, weight, schizophrenia, diabetes and many others) have been associated with particular gene variants. This is done in so-called genome-wide association studies where a pool of “affected” individuals (the size of the pool being in the range of 1000s) is taken next to a pool of “healthy” individuals. Their genomes are sequenced and their genetic type compared at 500,000+ positions (these are the genetic markers or single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs, which occur at ~1:1000 positions in the DNA and which result in differences between individuals). In theory, certain genetic types will occur more frequently in the “affected” pool of individuals and, if statistically significant, they can be identified as markers associated with a specific condition. Crucially, unlike single-gene conditions, a specific mutation/genetic type does not guarantee that the individual in question will suffer form a particular disease, it simply means that the risk of getting the disease might increase a bit relative to the general population. (Donnelly exemplified the genome-wide association study with one of the associations they’ve identified for obesity, this being the FTO gene, which is much more frequently found in individuals who are obese). Such large-scale studies provide the computational challenge of storing (a study of 1350 healthy and 1350 sick subjects in a type II diabetes study generated 50 terabytes, that is 50,000,000,000,000 bytes, of data!) and analysing the data. Donnelly described this as an “informational bottleneck”, which has to be addressed.

One of the tangible consequences of the improvement in technology and significant reduction in DNA sequencing cost (it is now possible to sequence a genome for £7,000 and this is predicted to reduce to £1,000 soon, a fraction of the cost required to read the first human genome) is the advent of consumer genomics and personalised medicine. Already companies exist to whom you can send your sample (spit or cheek swab), and they will analyse sites in your genome for variability and e-mail you your relative risk for various conditions. Why would you want to know this, you might ask? Well, if you know you might be susceptible to cardiovascular disease, you might try and do a bit of prevention – not smoke, eat less saturated fat, do more exercise… Or if you are more susceptible to breast cancer, you might increase the frequency of screening visits to the doctor. In other instances, knowing about your genetic variation may allow your doctor to know if you’ll have serious side effects when taking certain medication – if we know a small sub-group of the population has severe life-threatening side effects but know these are associated with a specific mutation in gene X, it may be possible to administer the drug safely to the majority of the population (to whom it is beneficial) without having to take it off the market because of a small fraction of people being at risk of side-effects.

Finally, it is not just human genomes that can be sequenced and looking at bacterial genomes can also be useful. For example, during the past gastric infections by Clostridium difficile (C.diff) have caused havoc in hospitals by causing patients serious diarrhoea. There have been concerns that the bug is spread by poor hygiene and it was possible to show, by sequencing and comparing the C.diff genomes of the bugs isolated from different patients, that after strict new hygiene rules were introduced in hospitals the bug was actually of a different type in most patients. Therefore the majority of the cases were not due to the infection being transmitted within the hospital. In another application, Donnelly explained how metagenomics might be used in the identification of disease causes. If you don’t know what is causing a skin infection, for example, you can take a sample of material from the infected area and sequence all of the DNA found in the sample. This will contain human DNA from skin cells, that of the commensurate flora (the beneficial bacteria that live on our skin) and hopefully DNA of the causative organism. Following sequencing and subtraction to eliminate known sources of DNA, the treating doctor, with the help of the bioinformaticians, might be able to identify the culprit!

Of course, with technology comes responsibility and Donnelly rounded of his talk with a discussion of the challenges for us as a society in the era of personal genomics. In his view, the key questions are those of personal knowledge and responsibility, the question of privacy of genetic information (if I know I am susceptible to a certain disease, I should perhaps be telling my brothers and sisters, or children, as they may be susceptible too?), and finally the question of decimation of people with increased susceptibility to disease, perhaps by health insurance companies. We discussed the last point in the Q&A session extensively, as it is the problem that always seems to come up in discussions of personalised genomics. Of course, having susceptibility to a certain disease may lead to increased insurance premiums, but insurance companies have been using family medical history for exactly that purpose up till now, without anyone raising an eyebrow. And in some cases, such as with Huntington’s chorea, where a child of a parent suffering from the disease has a 50% chance of getting the same disease in their middle age, it may be beneficial to show the insurance company that one does not have the defective gene and have insurance premiums reduced as a result. Nevertheless, knowledge comes with responsibility, and we must be aware of this when discussing the future of personal genomics.

Overall, an informative and well presented talk – Prof Donnelly certainly knows how to make his science accessible to the lay public (i.e. us!).

Some useful links:

Peter Donnelly’s university profile pages:
http://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/principal-investigators/researcher/peter-donnelly
http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/people/academic_staff/peter_donnelly

Something about the CFTR gene:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cystic_fibrosis_transmembrane_conductance_regulator

“You are feeling sleepy, you are feeling sleepy, you are feeling sleepy…your hand appears to lift off, your hand moves towards a book and lifts it, I am in control of your actions…” Many of us have a vague idea that this is the sort of thing that a hypnotist might be saying as he begins to control his subject, but of course that is the thing that comes from horror stories where the hypnotised person then ends up committing some awful crime!

Dr Peter Naish(1), a cognitive psychologist and hypnotherapist, is interested in the scientific basis of hypnosis, and came to give a sell-out talk at Science Oxford Live to discuss his thoughts and findings.

To give us some background, Dr Naish discussed one of the earliest modern hypnotists (the practice of hypnotherapy is thought to go back as far as ancient Egypt) called Mesmer (1734-1815), who was a German physician claiming special powers to cure people by using magnetism intrinsic to his body. It turned out that whilst his therapy may have had some effect this was unrelated to magnetism because a “magnet” made out of wood painted with all the appropriate compass needles to look like one had the same effect as a real magnet, suggesting that all of the effect is in the mind of the subject.

With this in mind, Dr Naish argued that hypnotists, magnetists, and similar therapists do not have any special powers and that the treatment is all in the mind of the subject, with three main principles relating to hypnosis, which he kept reiterating throughout his talk

1. all sensation related to hypnosis is self-induced, it comes from the subject’s own mind
2. no task done under hypnosis can be ‘impossible’ – whilst it may feel that your hand may lift itself, you will not be able to lift a lorry under hypnosis because you wouldn’t be able to do so in a wakeful state
3. many of the actions of subjects supposedly hypnotised can be faked, so when researching the phenomenon one must be aware of such pitfalls

Dr Naish was by no means there to hood-wink his audience into believing things were due to hypnosis when they could just as easily be done by someone in their wakeful state. An example of this is the ‘human plank’ feat where stage hypnotists ask their subject to become very rigid (under supposed hypnosis) and are able to place them between two chairs. Yet, as he demonstrated with a young volunteer from the audience held by himself and another member of the audience, this can readily be achieved by a wakeful person who uses their abdominal muscles to keep their body in a rigid position.

One of the uses for hypnotherapy, Dr Naish suggested, can be in treating phobias. One of the accepted ways of treating a phobia (which is effectively an irrational fear of something, whether it is moths, balloons or maybe spiders) is to desensitise the person to the thing they are afraid of by getting them slowly used to seeing more and more of the fear-causing stimulus and getting closer and closer to it (for instance, can you cope with a spider in the next room, can you then cope with it across the room, can you then cope with it two metres away and so on). Whilst it may be quite easy to get hold of some balloons to try and teach someone how to cope with their presence, sourcing a large snake may be more of a problem. This is where hypnosis can come in handy, because to desensitise a patient using hypnosis, you can get them to imagine the cause of their fear, gradually working towards getting closer and closer to it without worrying that the object causing the fear will do something unpredictable (“a hypnotically induced spider does not scurry about unpredictably like a real one,” said Dr Naish).

But what about pain and pain control by hypnosis? We were shown a video made for a BBC documentary in which a dental patient chose to have cosmetic surgery involving the extraction of two teeth. Crucially, this was done without any anaesthetic and used hypnosis to control pain (if you are not too squeamish, you can look at it yourself on YouTube(2)), and looked relatively convincing. [As an aside, I would like to add a cautionary tale because not so long ago, the BBC produced a documentary on the use of acupuncture to control pain in open heart surgery, which was actually rather misleading – the patient was given acupuncture but at the same time was treated with three powerful sedatives and very large volumes of local anaesthetic in the chest cavity. The BBC received a complaint about this documentary, which was eventually upheld(3). So it is always worth to question things, even if they may look convincing at face value…] However, the impression I got from Dr Naish throughout his talk was that he was keen to get at the science behind the reasons that may make hypnotherapy work for *some* problems, and I have no reason to believe that the video would be shown if he knew it wasn’t genuine.

So then, what is the overall evidence for the efficiency of hypnosis in pain relief? As discussed in Ernst & Singh’s recent book, which set out to review the evidence available for and against the efficacy and safety of a number of different alternative therapies (Trick or Treatment: alternative medicine on trial), there have been a number of systematic reviews suggesting that hypnosis may be efficient in pain relief in some conditions, similarly to meditation. But how does this work? One of the possible ways in which hypnosis might relieve pain would be the placebo effect. A placebo is a pill/cream/injection that contains no active ingredient, such as a sugar pill or a salt water injection. However, if the patient believes that they are being given an active medicine, they may get better simply because they believe they will. This is particularly true for pain. It is likely that the placebo effect for pain relief is linked to the release of endorphins, which are effectively intrinsically produced pain killers. Related to the pain-killer morphine, endorphin release can be blocked by the administration of the compound naloxone (a drug used to counter the effects of opiates such as morphine and heroin), and it can be shown that the placebo effect for pain relief can be cancelled out by the administration of naloxone. What about hypnosis and pain relief? Well, as Dr Naish explained, it turns out that naloxone does not cancel out the analgesic (pain-relieving) effect of hypnosis, and there must be something to hypnosis that goes beyond the placebo effect.

In order to study the scientific basis for hypnosis, Dr Naish explained, one has to identify an intrinsic effect that is specific to hypnotised as opposed to wakeful brains and that can be measured (this has become easier with the advent of brain scanners, which can tell us which part of the brain is active at any one particular time). One such effect may be something called hypnotic time distortion, which explains why people who are easy to hypnotise find that when asked to describe the length of their experience, they struggle to estimate correctly the time they have been in the hypnotized state for. Is hypnotic time distortion the way into research of the state? Curiously, time distortion is something also observed in schizophrenics and Parkinson’s disease patients, as well as those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) where vivid flashbacks observed a year or more after the event can feel like they happened a couple of weeks ago. (Actually, the PTSD case is much more interesting to studying hypnosis because the brains of these individuals are healthy; they just have been pushed into PTSD by a particularly traumatic experience).

So is it possible that time distortion is linked to changes in consciousness? An interesting insight into the detachment from reality associated with hypnosis comes from looking at the role of inhibition of self-sensing. As you will probably know if you’ve ever tried to tickle yourself, you won’t feel the same sensation as you would if somebody else tickled you. This is because self-initiated actions are accompanied by inhibitory signals sent to the receptors so you “don’t hear yourself think” (one theory is that schizophrenics don’t have this inhibition system fully functioning so that they hear their own thinking as “voices”). Dr Naish described a simple apparatus where the subject’s finger is rested on a lever and can be moved either voluntarily or by the experimenter. When asked to say when the finger moved, self-movement was detected very quickly, but experimenter induced movement much more slowly. Interestingly, a movement that is self-induced under hypnosis was also detected later by the subject, suggesting that when hypnotised, the subject may perceive the movement as caused externally. This is apparently supported by the fact that brain scans of people under hypnosis show that, like in schizophrenics, there is a lack of receptor inhibition associated with stimuli coming from self so the subject might more readily think that the movement was caused by an external factor.

Dr Naish rounded off his discussion of the scientific experiments exploring hypnosis with an explanation of a set up where the shift of brain hemisphere usage from left to right can be measured. This involves a pair of sunglasses which have two LEDs, one on either side, which flash in quick succession, either right first then left or vice versa. The subject has to say which order the flashes went in by pressing a button and the time (in the range of milliseconds) it takes is measured(4). It turns out that subjects which are difficult to hypnotise are able to get the flash order in a similar length of time, whether the order is left-then-right or right-then-left. They do get slower when under hypnosis, presumably due to being relaxed, but crucially they get equally slower in both left-then-right and right-then-left situations. In contrast, subjects which are more susceptible to hypnosis are much slower in one direction when in the wakeful state, but the difference becomes reversed when they are hypnotised. Dr Naish went on to explain that this may involve a right-ward shift in the usage of brain hemispheres to process information whilst in the hypnotic state. He also explained that when the higher order thought circuitry of the left-hand hemisphere is temporarily disturbed by trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the subject’s brain can be made temporarily more hypnotisable, supporting the theory that people who are more readily hypnotised tend to be dominant in the use of the right-hand hemisphere. It certainly seemed like there were still plenty of experiments left to explore!

Overall, a very interesting talk even to someone as sceptical as myself, and it certainly generated quite a lot of discussion in the Q&A session. Can hypnosis be dangerous? It looks like it shouldn’t be to someone with a healthy brain, but is best avoided by those with metal instabilities who might find hypnosis to be just the push to spiral them towards full-blown schizophrenia. But apparently a subject can’t be lost in a hypnotic state – if they “don’t want to come back”, they will simply fall asleep eventually and just wake up in their own time. How can hypnotherapy for smoking cessation work if the nicotine addiction involves receptors stimulated by the nicotine? Well, Dr Naish thought there was no reason why hypnosis could not help smokers get rid of their addiction though he did not have a suggestion for how this would work, but I will warn you that systematic reviews of the evidence for and against hypnotherapy in smoking cessation currently suggest that it is not effective in this case(5). At the end, perhaps to avoid us all asking the same question over post-talk wine, Dr Naish rounded off with a spot of hypnosis. He got all of his audience to relax and tried to hypnotically induce the lifting of one of our arms, followed by a hypnotically induced fly wandering over our cheek and by us returning to our schooldays to walk around the school building we once used to spend a lot of time in. I did not feel the arm or fly and thought back to my school-days, but am not sure whether it was not simply because I was consciously trying to remember details, but others said it worked for them, so maybe I’m not very hypnotisable! (Dr Naish did say there are some people who are more readily hypnotised than others – he knows himself to be amongst those who are not readily hypnotised).

If you’ve missed the talk you can watch it below (minus the spot of hypnosis at the end):

Some further reading:

(1) Dr Peter Naish academic profile on the Open University website: http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/staff/people-profile.php?name=Peter_Naish

(2) Video of teeth extraction with hypnosis replacing anaesthesia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgu6vk3_ByE

(3) A cautionary tale about having to dig deeper when you are shown something that is supposed to prove a certain effect:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3344833/Did-we-really-witness-the-amazing-power-of-acupuncture.html

(4) The ‘glasses’ experimental setup used to measure which part of the brain is involved in deciding the order in which the lights flash:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11373280

(5) Although the Cochrane Collaboration database of systematic reviews contains a number of reviews supporting the use of hypnotherapy in pain relief, they have found no evidence for the use of hypnotherapy in smoking cessation:
http://www2.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab001008.html

Electrons, although closely studied by scientists, are often overlooked or held in contempt by the general public. At their peril, I might add. We all use batteries in our walkmans, i-pods, torches, mobile phones; in fact nearly all small mobile electronic devices have batteries. We happily change them when ‘empty’ for new ones and think nothing of handling them. Batteries are, of course, a store house of nearly free electrons, there for our pleasure to use as we please. We think little of taking safety precautions in their use.

But how many of us have been frightened to be caught out in a thunder storm or, even when indoors, hide under the blankets as the mighty crashes of thunder echo through the nightime? These are our same now ‘not-so-friendly’ electrons playing around in the skies enjoying, at last, to be truly free; indulging themselves in discharges of many thousands of amps; enough to strike you down dead, if they pass through your body on their journey to earth.

So what is the true nature of electrons? What are their secrets? Do they have a secret life and hidden identities?

The properties of nearly everything physicists, chemists and even biologists study are controlled by the electrons. Whether it be the colour, the magnetism, the conductivity, the way chemicals interact with one another to form new compounds, the nature of our DNA, or how our brains carry information. The list is endless.

Let us deal first with the type of electrons that provide electricity in our batteries or along the cables in our homes, including the electrons that take part in a bolt of lightning. These are known as FREE electrons. They are not confined in a solid or chemical such as sodium chloride (common salt) or silicon (a semiconductor) but are FREE to travel long distances along wires or to roam around in our i-pods. In this form electrons are small charged particles. They carry a small negative (minus) charge and are therefore attracted to a positive charge and using this property can made to move along a wire from one place to another. Or made to travel across empty space in a vacuum. They move from minus towards plus. The amount of charge or electricity that a single electron carries is miniscule; you need ten million, million, million of them for only one amp of electricity, just about enough electricity to run your TV set. Think how many there will be in a 5000 Amp bolt of lightning; the mind boggles!

Now let us think about electrons that are confined to a solid material. Remember that our whole universe is made up of ELECTRONS and their opposite number PROTONS that are positively charged and their neutral friends the NEUTRON!

Electrons in a solid are much more rigorously controlled than free electrons. They have to obey very complicated rules that may vary depending on the type of solid they are trapped inside. These rules are very very strict and control such things as how much energy they are allowed to have; how they are allowed, or not allowed, to move around; how they approach and interact with other electrons in the solid; where they are allowed to move to and which places in the solid are forbidden to them. A long list of complicated rules! And another thing; inside a solid no two electrons are allowed to be exactly the same. If two electrons have the same energy then they have to spin in opposite directions like mad dancers to differentiate one from the other. In spite of all the electrons in a solid being different from one another in some way it is important for them to interact with each other in defined ways to hold the solid together, say in the form of a crystal or a DNA molecule. So how can we describe the life of electrons inside a solid?

In the first instance we will think about a single atom of the element silicon. Silicon has fourteen electrons, each with a single negative charge; fourteen protons, each with a positive charge and fourteen friendly neutrons to add a bit of weight but with no charge. The protons and neutrons clump together at the centre of the atom, hugging each other and the electrons dance around them in rings. The first ring has only two electrons, the next ring has eight electrons and the outer ring has four electrons. Now remember all those strict rules I mentioned? This is the first of them, how many electrons are allowed in each ring. The next rule to think about is their energy. Remember electrons in solids must have different energies. The best picture to suggest to you is to think about country or old time dances. Ones with names like the ‘Dashing White Sergeant’, ‘The Veleta’ (an old time dance that is quite gentle and unenergetic), ‘Stripping The Willow’, The Circassian Circle, and Riverdance. Now you may not be familiar with all these dances; they are dances done in sets of four or eight and consist of a number of repeated movements; some slow and formal, other dances fast and energetic.

So think of the first two electrons in the silicon atom innermost circle. Think of these two electrons dancing the Veleta, slow and formal, constantly repeated and never allowed to stop. Now the next ring with eight electrons; let them dance The Stripping The Willow dance. A dance with a set of eight and more energetic than the Veleta and this ring of electrons must continue to dance this dance forever withoutpause. Finally the outermost ring; let them have some excitement and dance the Riverdance without ever thinking of stopping. This is the life of these electrons within this silicon atom.

But what happens when lots of silicon atoms come together to make a silicon crystal? The two innermost rings carry on their set dance but the outermost ring dancing the Riverdance gets a bit more freedom to move around atoms that are their neighbours in the crystal. In some way the dance becomes more chaotic as the atoms race around other atoms as well as part of their dance to hold the crystal together. Hence the dances are very formalised and follow strict rules.

Now the clumps of protons and neutrons hugging each other at the centre of each atom present a regular array of ‘stationary mounds’ in the crystal and may seem not to play much part other than as stationary onlookers and this is true. Most properties of solids are a result of the electrons BUT these stationary clumps do result in some important effects. If a dance with a particular energy is to be danced; the rules may specify a particular route around the crystal. Now if this route has to pass through points where clumps of protons and neutrons are sitting; then this dance CANNOT BE PERFORMED and this represents, and results in, a disallowed energy that cannot be used. This can result in an ENERGY GAP in the spectrum of electron energies. An important physical property, particularly for semiconductors.

These descriptions are a simplification and remember that I said that all electrons had to have different energies or if they have the same energy, then spin in opposite directions. All these strict rules are still true and must be obeyed. In solids like metals there are many, many electrons to cram in and to some extent outer electrons become almost free and can roam around more easily. Hence they conduct electricity to a much greater extent. Metals still have atoms and they also form crystals, the atoms arranging themselves in regular, predestined, arrays as do most solid elements that are not gases or liquids.

A further very important property of electrons in solids is they way that they can interact with light; visible light; infrared light, x-rays. In fact the whole of the ‘Electromagnetic spectrum’. Remember I said that the electron has a specific energy; now if the electron interacts with light it can change its energy. This is a very important property of electrons enabling them to change energy and jump to a different ring in the atom and commence a different dance. How do they do this?

If we think a little; there are many examples of solids interchanging energy with light, called electromagnetic radiation. My first example; think of your television set. Most receive their television programmes through their TV Ariel or satellite dish. How does this work? The electromagnetic wave of radio signal passes over your aerial or is focussed onto the black box at the centre of your satellite dish and the energy that the wave carries cause changes to the electrons in the solid of your dish or aerial. These are seen as small electric currents that are then amplified and converted to show the TV programme. A second example; light is absorbed by living plants. The energy that the light carries causes chemical changes in the plant that give it energy; termed photosynthesis. A final example that brings us close to conventional physics is the solar cell where light shining onto silicon pn junctions converts from light into electricity by energising electrons in the solid silicon.

A single particle of light, called a photon, can interact with an electron in a solid and change the energy of the electron. The electrons will then jump to another ring and commence a different dance designated for its new ring. This process is reversible and an electron in a solid may lose some of its energy and move to a different shell doing a different dance and at the same time emit a single particle of light called a photon. This is the mechanism by which light emitting diodes (LED’s) work.

These processes of interaction of electrons in solids with light are going on around us all the time, all over the universe. Scientists are continually investigating solids and the useful changes that can be brought about to give new materials or other useful effects such as new and novel interactions with laser light and the resulting effects on the electron energy or position in the crystal. A recent area of study has been nanomaterials. This simply means making materials of small dimensions containing only about one hundred atoms. If you pause and think for a moment of the effect of there being only one hundred atoms in a crystal you can realise that it will affect the way the electrons can dance around this small crystal. They are confined to a very small volume and this perturbs and effects their movement. The energy gap that I explained earlier is often affected by becoming a different size, shifting to a higher energy size. The way electricity is conducted through a very thin layer of solid only a few atoms thick will be different from the massive solid. These effects may make conduction easier of harder but will present new and novel properties that may be beneficial to mankind.

On February the 14th we will be inclined to show our loved ones what they mean to us with tacky sentiments and novelty merchandise, but I’ve noticed we seem to be lacking something that most other corporate holidays cash in on – a mascot. Christmas has the reindeer and the robin, Easter has the bunny and the chick, and Valentine’s? Well yes it has the cupid, but flying chubby children just don’t say “I love you” the way a little fluffy creature from nature can. So here, I present to the corporate world the money makers – the top five creatures that will do anything for love.

The Bowerbird Bachelors

When I think of the term “bachelor pad” it conjures up images of unwashed undies, old beer cans, and questionable décor – but not if you were a Bowerbird. The Bowerbird gets its name from the males’ elaborate attempts at attracting a mate. They build structurally complicated and eccentric nests out of sticks and saplings – some even construct thatched roofs. Once their feat of engineering is complete, these multi-skilled birds decorate their “love nest” with the finest riches a lady Bowerbird could ask for. Precisely what the Bowerbird decorates his bower with differs between species and usually follows some sort of colour scheme. For example, the female Satin Bowerbird seems to go gaga for blue, and so the male busies himself for days hoarding any blue knick-knacks he can find. People have found shells, leaves, flowers, feathers, stones, and berries littering the nest sites, but Bowerbirds don’t discriminate against the man-made merchandise, they have also been found to collect discarded plastic items, coins, nails, rifle shells, and pieces of glass. The bird will spend days, arranging each piece just so. Ladies will visit many nest sites within her area and spend time carefully inspecting each of the efforts, sometimes returning to a prospective nest multiple times. Once confident she has identified the bower that satisfies her tastes, she will copulate and leave. Perhaps not the most romantic ending, but the male certainly deserves points for effort.

Scorpion Seduction

Dinner and dancing is a pretty standard date in the life of a female scorpion – the only thing is, the dance is actually a life-threatening battle between potential mating partners, and if it goes badly for the male, he could end up being served up as dinner. The ritual is usually held on a moonless night, in open expanses where males and females can be seen to judder and gyrate before contact. This process allows scorpions to recognise and assess each other’s compatibility through vibration and pheromone cues. After twenty minutes or so the male will approach the female, and grab her by the pincers. Holding her, face to face, they commence a sensual dance known as the “promenade à deux”, males have even been seen to “kiss” the female, nibbling her large pincer-like jaws. The real purpose of this, it is thought, is to inject a small amount of venom into her body, making her a more docile, and the encounter a little less risky for the male! During this elaborate dance, a space is cleared to enable him to safely deposit a package of sperm – known as a spermatophore. He then carefully directs her over the package, and when in position, she will take the deposit up into her reproductive tract. After fertilization the male doesn’t hang around for a cuddle, he must make a quick escape or run the risk of being eaten by the female – charming!

Snail Sex

You would think, perhaps, that snail sex would be a rather slow and sticky affair – and well, you’d be right – but couples pre-copulatory behaviour has shown snails to be very attentive and gentle lovers, spending between fifteen minutes and twelve hours “kissing” and “caressing” their partners before sex occurs. This rather graphic display of public affection does have a purpose; the male must locate the right location for which to fire his love dart – and that’s not just what the cool kids are calling it, it is in fact the scientific name for the male reproductive organ. Like cupid’s arrow, covered in mucus, the male lines himself up for the shot, and fires. The mucus causes the female’s reproductive tract to contract and greatly increases the amount of sperm she stores. It seems this process is not particularly enjoyable for the female, who suffers significant damage from the ordeal. Although, researchers have seen males with chronically poor aim fire a mis-shot through a female’s brain, and the females still live to tell the tale. Who knew snail sex was such a messy and hazardous business!

Squid Adoration: More hearts = More love

If, when it comes to love it’s not the size of the heart that matters but the number, the squid definitely wins hands down. Yes, oddly enough the squid has three hearts – two which take blood to and from each of the gills, and a larger one which pumps blood around the rest of the body. In terms of reproduction, there’s not a whole lot of romance and the job is undertaken fairly matter-of-factly, although, deep sea squid are known for their exceptionally long penises. When erect, the penis can grow as long as the head, mantle and tentacles combined. “So in the words of Lionel Richie, when it comes to hearts, ‘she’s once, twice, three times a lady’, and when it comes to penises, ‘he’s once, twice…’”.

Anglerfish: “’til death do we part”

And our final candidate is one of the few truly monogamous creatures in nature, the Anglerfish. Interestingly, when scientists first started collecting samples of this alien-like deep sea fish, they couldn’t understand why they were only able to find females. Then they began to notice and unusual trend, that most of the specimens had small “parasites” attached to them, which later they found out to be the males – “insert inappropriate joke here”.

These deep sea fish live a life down in the depths of the oceans, too deep for even light to reach – although I think if they could see what each other looked like the survival of their species might be under threat. In order to find and keep a mate under these conditions, you need to have a trick or two up your sleeve. From birth, the males have a highly developed sense of smell which allows them to detect the proximity of any nearby females by identifying the pheromones she releases into the water. When he finds a mate, he bites down into her skin and latches on. As he bites, he simultaneously releases an enzyme which digests the tissues of his mouth and her body, causing the remaining flesh to fuse together. The male then slowly becomes completely dependent on the female for survival, first losing his digestive tract, then his brain, heart, and eyes, until he is nothing more than a pair of gonads – “there are just so many jokes to be made here it almost seems too easy”. The male will then continue to periodically release sperm into the female, initiating egg release and fertilisation. The pair will remain together until the death of the female, which unavoidably, also results in the death of her partner.

So when it comes to presents this Valentine’s, try showing your partner you really care with a personalised gift inspired by nature. Perhaps deliver them a garden snail in a box with the message, “you’re love dart, went straight to my heart”, or a cuddly stuffed Anglerfish that when you squeeze its belly says “I’ll stick to you like a parasitic male Anglerfish”.
“Ah, doesn’t it just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?”

Sources
Wikipedia entries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish
National Geographic:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/anglerfish.html
Lovebirds and Love Darts: The Wild World of Mating; Reported in National Geographic News, by Hillary Mayell, 13 February 2004

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It has recently been reported that one in six people in the UK today will live to see their 100th birthday. Interestingly, there was quite a loud outcry from the public who voiced their fears over reaching such a grand old age, but what do we really understand about ageing? In this article I will look at ageing from the genetic, cellular and multicellular level to find out what we know, what we don’t, and whether there’s anything we can do about it.

Growing old is one of life’s inevitabilities and we can see the symptoms of ageing all around us, in the colour of our hair, the texture of our skin, and the functionality of our mind… “What was I saying? Oh yes!” Despite its omnipresence, ageing remains one of science’s great mysteries – why do we age? Is our degenerative destiny mapped out from birth in our DNA? We all know ‘those’ stories of heavy smokers who lived to be a hundred and marathon runners who dropped dead at fifty. Or is it an effect of environment? A morbid summation of the general stresses and strains our body is exposed to during a lifetime which ultimately equals our expiration date. The truth is it is likely to be a combination of the two, but to what extent? And is the science out there which could let us stay forever young?

Geriatric Genes and Senior Cells

Evidence shows there is a heritable component of life span. “So, does this mean it’s all in our genes?” The short answer is, no. If it were “all in our genes” we would expect genetically identical individuals to die at approximately the same time. In humans, scientists have found identical twins to have very different life spans, and studies looking at large groups of animals with identical genetic backgrounds – such as honey bees – found huge variability in longevity. “So, does that mean there are no genes which determine ageing, and it’s all about lifestyle?” Well, again the answer is no. In recent years, many genes have been identified which contribute to an animal’s lifespan, however, further research found the actual contribution of these genes to the realised lifespan of the individual appeared to be very variable. Interestingly, the one result the scientists can agree on is the effect of food. Way back in 1934 Clive McCay and Mary Crowell from Cornell University found underfeeding (without malnutrition) increased a rodent’s lifespan by as much as 50%, and this result has been replicated many times since. However, more than 70 years later the “hows and whys” behind the mechanisms underlying this phenomena are still unknown – so don’t beat yourself up about that festive overindulgence.

“Ok, so the detail’s from the genetics seem to be a bit sketchy. But, what can we see in the ageing cell? How are the cells in someone who is old different from those in someone who is young?”

It was Peter Medwar who put forward the idea that overtime DNA would get worn out and damaged, a lot like the human body. He said that the probability of mutation accumulation (mistakes in the genetic code) increases over a longer period of time, and it is this deterioration of code that influences the ageing process. The genome – or the DNA that makes up your genes – is the recipe for all the proteins in your body. Proteins are like the cogs in a machine – they must be exactly the right shape and size to do their job. If they’re just a fraction off then the mechanism fails, and the machine starts to slow down as efficiency is reduced. There is evidence that such mistakes in protein production are involved in age-related degenerative diseases such as cataracts, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

“Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. But how does the body get rid of these old cells which are rusting up the cogs?” All cells come with a built in ticking time bomb in their DNA in a region called the telomere. The telomere gets shorter with every cell division, and when the code runs out, the cell has two options, either it will go into a suspended state called “senescence”, or it will initiate a “self-destruct mode” whereby intracellular proteins are released which destroys the cell. When this system breaks the cell becomes immortal, and will continue to replicate beyond its expiration date – this is how tumours arise. It is predicted that 85% of tumours are caused by a mutation in the telomere.

The Fountain of Eternal Youth

There is a multi-billion dollar cosmetic industry dedicated to anti-ageing products. Potions and lotions which promise your Grandmother the face of a teenager, and your mother a booty like Beyoncè. The unfortunate truth is, most are just re-packaged moisturisers – but science is making some major leaps forward in masking, and even reversing the effects of ageing.

A team of scientists from Harvard Medical School have managed to reverse the effects of ageing resulting in worn out old wrinkly rodents being rejuvenated into versions of their younger selves. They did this by breeding genetically engineered mice that were unable to produce the enzyme which caused the telomere to shorten during cell division – called telomerase. Mice without this enzyme aged prematurely, however, when the mice were given an injection to reactivate the telomerase enzyme, the signs of ageing were reversed. It is currently under further investigation as to whether this procedure actually increases longevity, but it might help improve the quality of life of individuals showing signs of age related degenerative diseases. This study is still in its early days and not yet safe for human testing, but it is certainly an important discovery into the secrets of the ageing body.

Who Wants to Live Forever?

There are some scientists that believe they will ‘cure’ ageing, allowing us to live… indefinitely. But, is that a good idea? For many, growing old gracefully isn’t an option– just take a look at the profits made by the anti-ageing cosmetic companies. It seems likely that within the next few decades the science behind ageing will take huge leaps forward, to places we find hard to contemplate. There will undoubtedly be companies looking to make some cash, and people willing to put some pretty toxic stuff into their bodies to cover the signs of ageing. I’m reminded of the dark comedy “Death Becomes Her” where two ladies who learn the secret of eternal youth end up, literally, in pieces. Research which carries with it such ethical responsibility is always tricky, but I do not believe in the stifling of knowledge due to fear of the unknown – just in its careful and responsible monitoring and application. However, it’s easy to get up on my high horse when I’m twenty five and the science isn’t there yet – but could I honestly say no? If fifty years from now someone offered me a magic potion which would literally take decades off, allow me to go running again, travel the world, see my great grand-children grow up, would I walk away? … Ask me in fifty years.

Sources
One in six people in the UK today will live to 100, study says; Reported in the Guardian by David Batty, 30 December 2010
Jaskelioff, M. et al. Telomerase reactivation reverses tissue degeneration in aged telomerase-deficient mice. Nature 469 (7328), 102.
Kirkwood, T. B. L. Understanding the Odd Science of Aging. Cell 120 (4), 437 (2005).
McCay, C. M. & Crowell, M. F. Prolonging the Life Span. The Scientific Monthly 39 (5), 405 (1934).
Harvard scientists reverse the ageing process in mice – now for humans; Reported in the Guardian by Ian Sample, 28 November 2010
Vijg, J. & Campisi, J. Puzzles, promises and a cure for ageing. Nature 454 (7208), 1065 (2008).

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Christmas is here, and magic is in the air. On December the 24th children will be asleep in their beds hoping they’ve been good enough to have earned a visit from jolly old St. Nicholas – and this got me thinking about Santa Claus and his mystical existence. After much deliberating, I have come to a rather bizarre conclusion: Santa’s main occupation is not a magical delivery man, but a superb scientist. And his elves? They’re top notch research assistants, working away until Christmas day, to ensure every boy and girl around the world receive something special to make them smile. Of course, the sophisticated research and development programme behind Santa’s Christmas eve antics are top secret – but using a little scientific logic, I propose a few hypotheses of how Santa, and his faithful crew, might just do it.

The Science of the Sleigh

So let’s start by doing a little light maths. As of 2008, UNICEF calculated there were 2.2 billion children in the world under the age of 18. The average number of children per household across the world is 2.5, so that makes 880 million chimneys to visit. Over a land mass area of 58 million square miles, and assuming the houses are equidistant from each other, means Santa would have to travel about 229 million miles over the course of Christmas eve. That’s one major commute!

In order to reach every house in 24 hours Santa must visit over 36 million houses per hour (or 10,000 houses per second), at an average speed of 9.5 million miles per hour. But, in fact, Santa has 48 hours to deliver all the presents, because if you assume Santa will start delivering from the first country to pass through the international date line at midnight on December the 24th, he can then work against the rotation of the Earth, thus doubling his delivery time, and visiting 5,000 houses per second, at only 4.75 million miles per hour (ok, I haven’t taken into account the hours of darkness, but let’s not quibble) – piece of cake! Well, not quite, but it is not against the physical laws of relativity – Einstein showed the speed of light is absolute, and cannot be exceeded, but the speed of light is at around 186,000 miles per second, and Santa is travelling at a mere 1,319 miles per second, 141 times slower!

These, however, are not trivial speeds, and the technology required to allow Santa and his reindeer to withstand such large g-forces as would be experienced at 1,319 miles per second is something quite remarkable. The only way Santa could survive such force would be to create an artificial atmosphere around his sleigh which could respond to the accelerating force with some kind of reactionary anti-gravitational field. But there is another problem – Santa may be nowhere near the speed of light, but he would have to travel faster than the speed of sound (which is about 750 miles per hour). When an object exceeds the speed of sound there is a loud noise called “the sonic boom”. This happens because the travelling object catches up with the pressure waves it generates while moving, thus producing a shock wave, which is heard as a large bang. So why are we not continuously woken up on Christmas eve by Santa’s speedy sleigh? The technology we’re considering is already getting a little sci-fi, so why not propose teleportation?

Perhaps not quite as science fiction as one might think it was realised in 1998 when a group of physicists from the Californian Institute of Technology, along with two other groups from Europe, managed to successfully teleport a photon – a particle of energy that carries light – a few feet across a room, without crossing any physical distance in between. Since then in 2002, researchers from the Australian National University transported a laser beam, and most recently, in 2009 Christopher Monroe of the Joint Quantum Institute and his team, teleported matter in the form of a few sub atomic particles from one atom, to another. At the moment this is only possible for atomic and sub atomic particles because of their unusual physical properties which allows them to adopt an “entangled state”. Once two objects are entangled, their properties are inextricably linked and thus the state of one object instantly determines the state of the other, irrespective of physical distance. However, the teleportation of larger particles is theoretically not impossible, assuming one could recreate the atomic conditions of one place somewhere else, and entangle the atoms between the two locations together.

Our technologies are far from enabling Starship Enterprise-like travel, but then again, the elves might be intellectually superior to the human race, so if we can assume that Santa’s elves are much more technologically advanced in the field of quantum mechanics, perhaps Santa’s sleigh no longer needs to fly, and as the population of the world increased, technology met Santa’s growing demands, and he never had to let a child down at Christmas. This also conveniently overcomes the problem of chimneyless houses, and so I am happy to propose a modern day Santa has abandoned flight for a more modern approach of teleportation. So we may have a satisfactory hypothesis behind Santa’s travel technology, but what about those reindeer?

The Research behind Rudolph

My research into reindeer life-history revealed a shocking revelation regarding Rudolph’s true identity – he might, in fact, be a she. The history of Rudolph can be traced back to 1939, when a red nosed reindeer appeared in a book by Robert L. May, since then Rudolph has become a common part of Christmas folklore. However, though reindeer are the only deer species where both males and females possess antlers, the males lose theirs just after the mating season when they are no longer required for rutting, which means males do not bear antlers during the winter months. It is possible that due to the male dominated social politics of the time, Rudolph’s true identity was covered up, and she was masculinised. Another possible explanation for Rudolph’s antlers comes from traditional Sami practises. Sami’s (indigenous nomadic people of northern Scandinavia, many of whom still practise reindeer herding) castrate the male reindeer they use to pull or carry loads, in order to subdue aggressive tendencies during the breeding season. This alters the normal antler cycle and they tend to keep their antlers for longer than sexually functional males. So perhaps Santa, whose location has been suggested as Lapland in Northern Finland where Sami still live and herd their reindeer today, has adopted these practises.

The last mystery I want to tackle is that of Rudolph’s nose. In the dark dreary conditions of Christmas eve it is Rudolph’s responsibility to guide Santa’s sleigh safely through the night (or at least it was before the advancements of teleportation), but what makes his nose glow so bright? My guess is bioluminescence.
Bioluminescence describes the process where living animals are able to produce light by controlled chemical reactions. This impressive skill is used by many animals from marine to land, and microorganisms to vertebrates. For example, the Hawaiian Bobtail squid and the light producing bacteria Vibrio fischeri form a symbiotic relationship whereby each species helps the other out. The squid often falls prey to hunters at night, when they are most active. Squid feed near the surface of the water, and predators usually wait in the depths to look for shadows cast by the squid as they pass through the moonlit waters. In order to camouflage themselves, squid will house colonies of light producing bacteria on their underside which breaks up the shadow, and so, allows them to pass over the predator undetected. In return, the squid provides shelter and nutrients for the bacteria. So, could Rudolph have a similar symbiotic relationship with an arctic equivalent of Vibrio fischeri? The North Pole is dark for about six months of the year. A mutualism with a light producing microorganism would provide Rudolph with an evolutionary advantage, by allowing him to find food and other resources in the dark months. The bacteria would have to be extremophiles in order to survive the harsh conditions of the North Pole – extremophiles are organisms which are able to survive in extreme geological and physical conditions, such as in extraordinarily hot, acidic, or indeed, freezing conditions. By forming a mutualistic relationship with Rudolph, these bacteria would be exposed to far less extreme conditions, compared to the outside world. Overtime, both bacteria and Rudolph could evolve to be reliant on each-other for survival, and as such, a long term mutualism will evolve. If Santa realised its potential, he could perhaps even collect and culture the bacteria which live in Rudolph’s nose. This way he could artificially increase the intensity of light by inoculating Rudolph with an extra dose of bacteria when required – on Christmas eve.

Unfortunately we will never know how Santa does it. And perhaps, there is a little magic required for it to all come together, but if Clement Clark Moore knew what we did when he wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, it might have read a little more like this:

“It’s the eve before Christmas, and all though the night
Santa is travelling with entangled flight,
With millions of children asleep in their beds,
The teleport keeps him one step ahead.
And silently working hard through the night,
The reindeer still sore from their castrated plight,
And relying on bugs in Rudolph’s red nose,
They pull with their might, though their tiredness grows
And as hours go on, and day is in sight,
They drop the last present off for the night,
And back to the pole, with a “beam me up Scotty”,
Santa can rest, with a well-earned hot toddy.”

Merry Christmas everyone.

Sources:
Many ideas and concepts from this article were taken from a wonderful book: “Can reindeer fly?”, by Roger Highfield

Additional Sources:
Olmschenk S., Matsukevich D.N., Maunz P., Hayes D., Duan L.M. & Monroe C. (2009). Quantum Teleportation Between Distant Matter Qubits. Science 323: 486-489.
Teleportation breakthrough made, Reported on BBC news by Paul Rincon, 2004
Photon teleportation achieved, Reported in the Cern Courier, 2000
Teleportation Milestone Achieved, Reported in LiveScience, 2009
Bubenik GA, Schams D, White RJ, Rowell J, Blake J, Bartos L (1997). Seasonal Levels of Reproductive Hormones and Their Relationship to the Antler Cycle of Male and Female Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part B: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 116: 269-277.
Why is Ruldolph’s nose red? By John Fuller, for TLC Family

An audience braving the bitter cold were rewarded with a warm welcome at Science Oxford Live on the 25th November 2010 to explore the five senses of touch, taste, hearing, sight and smell, with neuroscientist Professor Charles Spence. They cringed at the world’s loudest crisp packet, now withdrawn from sale as found to be too irritating and lingered over chocolate and wine, while an explanation of innovative packaging for cleaning products set the mood for spring. Speaker Charles Spence took the time to satisfy their questioning in full, explaining how designers of all kinds delight in playing with the sensory experiences scientists seek to understand.

He illustrated how this is all in the spirit of science as combining different sensual elements can both entice and confuse our response. More red colour and things taste sweeter as we naturally think of ripe berries and listening to chicken noises can enhance the taste of egg. Our brains mix the cocktail of information from our senses to produce our overall experience. Could this be why as the saying goes, ‘food always tastes better outdoors?’ Familiarity can influence this super additive sensual effect, a drop of sugar on the tongue can increase ability to smell almond with salt having the same effect for a Japanese palate more used to this taste combination.

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal is capitalising on this phenomenon, pairing blood orange with orange beetroot for an unexpected colour and taste combination and using digitised sea sounds to accompany fish. This interesting innovation can be sampled in his restaurant the Fat Duck near Slough. The Science Oxford audience suggested that while the medium is novel the idea of using sounds, especially music to enhance the eating experience is age old. I will resist the temptation to quote Shakespeare for fear of sounding too cheesy.

The audience were very willing to test things out for themselves by sampling dark and milk chocolate squares. For me, it was absolutely certain even before catching a whiff, milk chocolate was clearly wobbly rounded shape buba with a medium deep not played on a woodwind. Dark high percentage coco could only be spiky tuki played on a violin. While this seemed to reflect the audience consensus, and previous studies, there was plenty of space for individuality. A musician pointed out that he is so in tune with sound elements that other sensual cues fade into the background.

The audience were intrigued about how sensory cues could be used to influence settings for social benefit, such as painting walls in prison a particular shade of pale pink, shown to be calming, and careful choice of colour and scent in hospitals to appropriately stimulate and relax. They warned that in some situations reactions could be mixed if people suspect artificial sense enhancement is at work. Charles Spence emphasised that he considers the underlying intent and execution of manipulation is the important issue. Personally, he appreciates sensual enhancement where it increases enjoyment of an experience. A starter for a sizzling debate?

‘Mind Change’

Baroness Susan Greenfield outlines the concept of ‘Mind Change’, which could be as significant as ‘Climate Change’ for the future of the human race, taking our brains to another dimension.

Mind Change describes the outcome of changes to the way our brains take in and process information becoming ‘hard wired’ as a result of prolific connection to digital technologies. This could have a profound effect on our thoughts, feelings, behaviour and relationships, ultimately affecting the cultural fabric of society.

Potential culprits are prolonged exposure to action packed sensory stimulation through computer games and bombardment with disjointed information from the internet, social networks and advertising. Neurological and psychological testing and informal reports indicate that on the one hand rapid decision making, co-ordination and performance on traditional IQ tests may improve. However, distracted attention resulting in shallow processing and reclusive individualistic behaviour with increased risk taking, could be a drawback.

Lady Greenfield acknowledges that effects visible in humans may be complex and subtle while technology develops so rapidly that scientific measures struggle to keep pace, creating uncertainty for legislators and policy makers. Nevertheless, she reasons we cannot afford to ignore the possibility that our thought patterns could change beyond recognition, with implications as serious as climate change in terms of human sustainability and longevity.

By telephone, Lady Greenfield discussed her ideas for a novel which have emerged during her lifetime researching neuroscience, pharmacology and the brain.

Describe your current interest?

One hundred years from now, we could be creating a society where cybernisation of the planet is the norm, especially as innovations like high definition TV become more and more vivid. This could have a profound effect on human consciousness, skills and relationships. While prolonged participation in activities such as computer games can improve skills like sensory motor co-ordination and response speed they may reduce concentration and empathy resulting in shallower information processing and dramatically different ‘mindsets’.

This might sound speculative because it is difficult to prove effects when you can’t control what people take in from screens day to day. Scientists can’t prove a negative and safely say it hasn’t had an effect. All they can do is look at trends. As brains attempt to keep up with proliferation of media in the environment we could be looking at an economy of attention.

How are our brains affected by information in the environment?

Minds are like a mobile phone network with cheaper calls for more frequently used numbers, numbers can become blocked or be forgotten if rarely used. This mechanism is called synaptic plasticity. This network is vulnerable to ‘lost and stolen’ processes, ‘hacking’ and ‘spam’.

How would you describe a ‘sensory’ and a ‘cognitive’ experience?

A sensory experience provides sights, sounds, smells, and movement, for example going to a disco or skiing. A cognitive experience involves reading a book, having a conversation, looking for meaning and narrative. People need a balance of both. Screen technology encourages a bias towards the sensory and can literally ‘blow your mind’.

Beyond receiving digital information from screens, what are the possible effects for developments such as Nanotechnology and Synthetic Biology?

Emerging technologies, such as body monitoring systems using nanotechnology challenge the notion of the body’s firewall with the outside world, eroding our sense of privacy which opens us up to third party intervention and scenarios such like ‘Brain Hacking’.

What would you say to those who might call you a scare monger?

This is only justified only if you know it is not a problem and it isn’t too complacent to suggest everything is just fine. I would prefer to be called a scare monger and be proved wrong than sleepwalk my way into a future where it is too late.

Mind change is a neutral term which doesn’t imply a good thing or a bad thing, it is simply a description of how we may evolve. In writing a novel I am aware it is a personal view, not a textbook, a little like ‘brave new world’. I allude to where the science is real and introduce people to democracy, concepts and possibilities, ideas and predictions that emanate from science and are interesting enough to read for pleasure.
“We need to think ahead, becoming the master not the servant of technology, defining what we want it to do, otherwise we are not serving the next generation well”.

How effective are current methods for studying brain activity?

Brain imaging acts like a ‘virtual photograph’. You can’t see the movement and the exposure is too slow. It is also invasive and expensive. Tests given to people in the imager are ‘blunt tools’ and there are many effects occurring in a person’s individual internal environment during the scanning process that are difficult to control and affect the result. It is still better than doing nothing. Studying mechanisms such as attention bias in addiction in a laboratory can inform brain scanning, indicating what to look for.

Scientists need to collaborate with web designers and educators to decide new things that could be done to develop software and focus the many possible tasks for studying cognition, attention, emotion and behaviour.

How are our brains affected by the way we interact with technology?

Our interaction with computers is an ongoing two sided dialogue. We design them to help us in learning e.g. developing cognitive processes such as driving. At the same time our brains adapt to this environment and our skill base changes becoming more machine like.

Simulations are very powerful e.g analysis of electrical signals in the brain which occur before a movement is initiated still happen in people who are paralysed. Tapping into this could further our intimate connection with technology for example, using it to control a robotic arm.

What do you think about techniques such as Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)?

Neural connectivity is the basis of how we come to see the world a different way, working with different problems. This can involve responses to words as well as actual things. Presentation can affect development of goods and services, influencing risk taking and leadership in the workforce.

How does ‘climate change relate to the concept of ‘mind change’?

Mind change and climate change are both critical scenarios concerning governments and negotiations between countries. There is sometimes an idea that science can save us through climate policy and eco products. An example of how quickly mind change can happen is the way that everyone now recognises the telephone. It may affect boys and girls differently according to the technologies they interact with and influence relations with developing countries. Time spent in virtual environments could lead to behaviour which is individualistic, reclusive, and child like with a high level of greed, impulsivity and disregard for consequences.

How can scientists and society at large tackle Mind Change?

Scientists need to anticipate and ‘see’ potential future impacts, considering economics and taking a multidisciplinary approach with dialogues transcending academic disciplines.
Regulation sometimes isn’t helpful and the processes happen too late. It can appear negative, stopping people from doing things. Instead it is better to be constructive, consulting people and giving them alternatives.

“We need to focus on, education, not regulation and work with the art of the possible. I would like to hear what parents and children think.”

We could devise a questionnaire to measure parents concerns and look for effects of age and gender, making observations and looking for consensus.

How would you define Progress?

“Enabling people to reach their full potential, which is now higher than ever before, using the best mixture of skills and talents.”

Having spoken to Baroness Greenfield the concept of ‘mind change’ is a great way to describe something that is already here, with individuals affected to a matter of degree. At a societal level there are already signs of a backlash from screen addiction. In the UK on trains and buses, casual observation suggests that books and newspapers are as popular as mobile phones and laptops. On the high street the stationary market appears to be booming while people are flocking to spas retreats, fleeing the countryside in droves at the weekend, weather permitting.

From my point of view, while the science remains uncertain, nourishing my brain is a top priority. This involves participating in activities, and discussion including both sensory and cognitive components. Making it acceptable to rely solely on technology for information could allow new embodied cultural divides to really set in. Given its elusive nature, here is a danger that the concept of Mind Change could disappear from our conscious awareness and fail to benefit from the attention it deserves, leaving us wide open to isolation and erosion of our autonomy and identity.

Continuing to allow machines to shape us could affect our ability to deeply engage with complex material and relate to others, essential attributes for collectively combating global climate change. Our minds are perhaps the most important tool we have in terms of conserving the planet, so it seems essential the two concepts are considered hand in hand.

More Information:
Baroness Greenfield: http://www.pharm.ox.ac.uk/research/greenfield

It’s Halloween: time to turn down the lights, and gather round for a horrific tale of what waits for you in the shadows… luring you into its lair… creatures capable of turning ordinary souls into monsters… and beasts that can control your mind to carry out their evil bidding. This is a true story of some unpleasant parasites that might just be coming, for you.

Parasites survive by exploiting their hosts. A parasitic way of life is arguably one of the most successful on the planet. For every organism, there are parasites which can infect it. There are even parasites of parasites, and like a Russian doll, these get smaller still, until you begin to consider genetic parasites, which are no more than rogue pieces of DNA, manipulating the host genome to do its dirty work. What’s more, parasites have evolved some very sneaky ways to manipulate, control and deceive their hosts to ensure their survival and transmission. Here are a few particularly gruesome examples of parasitic tricks of the trade.

MASTERS OF MIND CONTROL

“Brainwashing” hosts to increase transmission rates is a common ploy for parasites. One of the better understood mechanisms is that of the parasitic protozoa; Toxoplasma gondii. T. gondii has two life stages, a sexual stage which takes part inside the gut of a cat, and an asexual phase where the parasite forms cysts within the brain and muscles of an intermediate host which can be any small mammal or bird. The parasite relies on the intermediate host falling prey to a feline in order to complete its lifecycle, and it has evolved a rather ingenious way of ensuring its transmission. Ajai Vyas and his team from Stanford University found that rodents infected with T. gondii seemed to be attracted by the smell of cat urine, an aroma uninfected individuals would actively avoid. Vyas found parasitic cysts tended to concentrate in the amygdala in the rodent’s brain. This part of the brain is associated with fear and anxiety, and they believe the parasite is able to target specific neural pathways in order to manipulate normal behavior of cat aversion, and as such, significantly increase the chances of the rodent becoming feline food.

Mosquitoes are a human ectoparasite (a parasite which lives outside the host), but these are not the pests I want to talk about. At times they can be a nuisance, but they can also make a deadly delivery. Malaria is one of the most important causes of human mortality in the modern world. The mosquito acts as a vector for the protist, Plasmodium falciparum (the organism which causes malaria), which uses the mosquito as an intermediate host in order to reach its target – humans. Research by Lacroix and his team found the malaria parasite was able to manipulate the behaviour of the mosquito, to find humans infected with the transmissible stage of malaria to be more attractive than other potential hosts. Others studies also showed differences in biting behaviour, with a decreased biting frequency during early infection (thus increasing the chances of host survival until the protist has time to develop), and increased biting frequency once the protist was infective to humans (thus increasing transmission rate). The mechanisms which the protist uses to alter its host’s behaviours are not understood, but research such a Vyas’s team into Toxoplasma gives hope that one day we might understand such mechanisms which could help develop better prevention strategies and ultimately save lives.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

Some parasites are small and subtle, stealthily changing the characteristics of their host to increase transmission. Other parasites have more of a “bull in a china shop” approach with their host, as is the story of the hairworm and the grasshopper. Hairworms excrete a cocktail of chemicals into the grasshopper which mimic the natural neural signals, and so, highjack the grasshopper’s nervous system. This triggers suicidal “death leaps” into water, where the parasite needs to reach in order to complete its lifecycle. A grasshopper becomes infected after drinking larvae infested water. Once ingested, the worm will grow inside the grasshopper until it takes up almost its entire body cavity (only the legs and head will be unoccupied). At this point the grasshopper can been observed to take a suicidal spring into water, where (and here’s the gruesome bit) a worm, which is up to four times larger than the grasshopper, emerges from its rear end and swims off to find a mate. Hugh Loxdale, president of the London-based Royal Entomological Society, said “It’s one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen… It makes the science fiction film Alien look pretty tame in comparison.”

Figure 1: The sequence of events as the hairworm emerges from its grasshopper host. The grasshopper irrationally jumps into the water (due to neural cues induced by the hairworm), and once in contact with the water, the worm emerges and swims away to find a mate. The grasshopper, inevitably, dies.
Credit: VB Films/CNRS Images Media

Figure 2: The tongue-eating louse eats and replaces its host’s tongue and feeds.
Credit: Dr. Nico Smit

Talking of Alien, does figure 2 remind you of anything? This terrifying invader is Cymothoa exigua, more commonly known as the tongue-eating louse. This little louse enters its host fish through the gills, and attaches itself to the base of the tongue. Frontal claws are used to drain blood from the tongue until it wastes away. The parasite then attaches itself to the muscles of the tongue’s stub, and replaces the organ. Gruesome as it seems, the parasite does not appear to cause any additional damage to its host, feeding only on small amounts of blood and mucus from the fish’s mouth, and the fish can use its new squatter almost as it would its old tongue. It is unknown how long this association can last, but neither the host nor the parasite benefit from the fish’s death, and so it seems, the partnership could potentially last a lifetime.

THE PARADOXICAL PARASITE

As a final note, I thought I’d end on a horrid high note. The concept of a harmonious hookworm might seem contradictory, but sometimes the dark forces can be used for good. The hookworm is very prevalent within the third world. Infection is usually caused by walking barefoot in soil contaminated with faecal matter. The worm will burrow into the foot and migrate through the vascular system to the lungs. From there they crawl up the trachea, and are swallowed in order to reach the digestive system. Their final resting place is in the intestine where they latch onto the intestine wall and feed off the host’s blood. In large numbers these critters can cause anaemia and protein deficiency, including emaciation, cardiac failure and abdominal distension. So why, you might ask, would people in the developed world be purposefully infecting themselves with such vile creatures?

Autoimmune diseases; such as Crohn’s disease, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome (IBD), multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes and allergies, are common in the developed world. In these diseases an over-reactive immune system begins to attack the body, which can result in some serious complications. The “hygiene hypothesis” proposes that the increased rate of autoimmune diseases has been caused by over-sterility of the environment during early childhood. Reducing exposure to infectious agents such as microorganisms and parasites (which in evolutionary terms our body is evolved to encounter) during the maturation of the immune responses might have negative effects. Under-stimulation of the immune system during early years can lead to an overactive long term response to foreign agents in the body; the result is an autoimmune disease.

This has led to the development of “helminthic therapy”, which is the use of parasitic helminths (worms) to “dampen down” the response of the immune system. It is not entirely clear how the immune responds to the worms, but patients suffering from autoimmune disorders have too many over-sensitive T-helper cells (which identify potentially dangerous agents and mark them for irradiation by the body’s “solider cells” such as macrophages and antibodies). T-cells are self-regulating, and so activation of certain types (in this case, by the presence of the worms) will result in the deactivation of others. Under these conditions a negative feedback is established, and eventually, a healthy balance can be established.

So would you be tempted to take a drink of probiotic parasitic worms to treat your hay fever, or IBD? There are now many subscribers to the new treatments, and so far the reports back are very positive. But more research is required to understand the specific relationship between the parasite and host, and how numbers and transmission rates are to be controlled.

And so, perhaps you were disgusted, intrigued, or even converted by my horrific tales of parasite behaviour. Writing this article, I for one was amazed at how parasites have evolved so many ways to manipulate and deceive their hosts, but I’m not sure I want one of my own yet!

SOURCES

• Parasite “Brainwashes” Rats Into Craving Cat Urine, Study Finds By Ben Harder for National Geographic News, 2007
• Vyas A, Kim SK, Giacomini N, Boothroyd JC, Sapolsky RM (2007). Behavioral changes induced by Toxoplasma infection of rodents are highly specific to aversion of cat odors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104: 6442-6447.
• Lacroix R, Mukabana WR, Gouagna LC, Koella JC (2005). Malaria Infection Increases Attractiveness of Humans to Mosquitoes. PLoS Biol 3: e298.
• Suicide Grasshoppers Brainwashed by Parasite Worms, By James Owen for National Geographoc News, 2005
• Biron DG, Marche L, Ponton F, Loxdale HD, Galeotti N, Renault L et al (2005). Behavioural manipulation in a grasshopper harbouring hairworm: a proteomics approach. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 272: 2117-2126.
• Brusca RC, Gilligan MR (1983). Tongue Replacement in a Marine Fish (Lutjanus guttatus) by a Parasitic Isopod (Crustacea: Isopoda). Copeia 1983: 813-816.
• Eat worms – feel better, Reported on BBC news, 2003
  Reddy A, Fried B (2009). An update on the use of helminths to treat Crohn’s and other autoimmunune diseases. Parasitology Research 104: 217-221.
• McKay DM (2006). The beneficial helminth parasite? Parasitology 132: 1-12.

Well…erm…

OK, I will have shocked you nicely and perhaps intrigued you almost as much with the blog title. Indeed, the title is not altogether different from Dr Petra Boynton’s title of her Science Oxford Live talk that she gave on 7th October, and I suspect it intrigued just as many people. (As an occasional volunteer at Science Oxford Live, I had said I would be available on that date, and was amused to receive an e-mail reply saying that “I’ve put you down for The Brain on 30th September, and Sex on 7th October”!)

Dr Petra Boynton describes herself as a “Sex educator, Agony Aunt, Academic” on her website, and goes on to say that she is involved in academic research (focussed on sex and relationships in themselves but also on how policy, modernisation and new technologies may affect sexual education and sexual health in various countries), but also in teaching doctors, nurses and other health professionals about sex education. And she certainly comes across as an engaging speaker – but then I guess you’d have to be, with that sort of field of research, wouldn’t you?

Dr Boynton was one of the speakers asked to come back ‘by popular demand’ to Science Oxford Live as part of its 5th birthday celebrations and she certainly proved why she had been so popular the first time round. Her very engaging style contrasted greatly with the most simplistic presentation I had ever seen, consisting only of a set of questions, one per slide. “Those that were asked by previous audiences at talks, in e-mails and past discussions”, she told us, suggesting that they would give a good framework for the talk to come.

“What is sex?” the as-yet shy audience were asked. There were some suggestions about the “special cuddle” and the thing that happens “when a man loves a woman”, but Dr Boynton was having none of that, putting up a list of all the things that sex might represent. For those of you intrigued, these may include anything from masturbation (alone or with a partner), to vaginal penetration, and through more obscure practices such as BDSM (the audience appeared pleased that one of us had the courage to ask what this acronym means!) to phone/text/e-mail sex (the interesting question being, do you have to be in physical contact with someone to be having sex?). In fact, rather interestingly, Dr Boynton pointed out that such lack of clarity can often confuse some sex surveys, because people don’t always agree on what sex actually means!

“Why do people have sex?”, she continued. It appeared that the audience was slightly more conservative with their answers (“because it feels good” or “to have children”) than some of the undergraduate students that had previously answered a survey carried out to find out the answer to this question (amongst others), with their more bizarre answers ranging from “wanting to feel closer to God”, “being bored” and simply “feeling like it”. On a more serious note, Dr Boynton explained that sometimes sexual education for teenagers concentrates far too much on the sexual health itself rather than trying to encourage young people to find things to do that they enjoy, and as a result not be subject to the boredom that often leads them to have sex simply because they’re bored (a fact I didn’t know before, but apparently the prevalence of teenage pregnancies goes up in the summer school holiday months).

“How do you research sex?”, you might have wondered. Well, so did many other people before you and Petra duly explained that, to many people’s disappointment, much of this work is carried out through surveys and by analysing study subjects’ “sex diaries”. And although experiments in the lab, where the subjects are wired up to measure all sorts of bodily signals (eg. brain activity) whilst having sex, are carried out, these are much rarer because of the unnaturalness of the whole set-up (apparently it takes a couple quite a lot of practice to be able to have sex in a laboratory whilst managing to be wired up to several different machines…).

In that vein, Dr Boynton’s talk continued, covering questions ranging from whether female ejaculate exists and what it is, what the correct erection etiquette during dancing is (what should you do – as either the bloke or the girl – if a man and a woman dance together, with the guy getting excited and this being noticed?), how often one should have sex (apparently, there isn’t a “should” about this, and the answer is very individual), all the way to whether she used to scare men away when dating when she told them what her job was. And although shy at the beginning, as a result of Dr Boynton’s flamboyant and open attitude and approach, the audience got more and more drawn in to discussing a topic that is often seen as a taboo even though it shouldn’t be (nevertheless, I am still debating how best to cover the talk in this blog without offending anyone!). By the end of the talk, people were happy to ask questions (even though there had been a box provided before the talk for anonymous questions, if they existed), and the talk provided a partly light-hearted but partly serious discussion on a topic that almost everyone knows something about.

You can read more about Dr Petra Boynton on http://www.drpetra.co.uk/ and you can watch her talk via the webcasting section of the Science Oxford Live website http://www.scienceoxfordlive.com/watch-us-archive/science-oxford-live-s-greatest-hits-sex-webcast

Even for the most distractible amongst us, it would have been hard not to pick up on the recent news that researchers at the University of Cardiff have discovered a genetic component for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I was woken up by this news on the Today Programme, was reminded of it in every news bulletin during the day and then heard it quipped about two days later when listening to The News Quiz.

With the announcement of this study, the timeworn debate returned between those who suggest that parents are to blame for a child’s particular problems and those who say that these issues are more likely to be caused by a hardwired malfunction in the brain. Taken at face value, the discovery of a genetic component in ADHD makes the latter explanation more plausible. But does this mean that the genetic difference is solely responsible for the problems in these children? And are those who suggest that the disorder originates with the environment created by the parents completely wrong?

This debate did not start with ADHD. Back in 1949, Austrian psychiatrist Leo Kanner suggested that a lack of maternal warmth (from so-called “refrigerator parents”) was the cause for autism. In fact, the concept of “nature versus nurture” was first coined in the late 1860s by Sir Francis Galton to describe the influence of innate characteristics as compared to environmental factors and personal experience on someone’s behaviour.

Yet I was struck listening to the heated discussion on the Today Programme between Oliver James, in the Nurture corner, and the lead author of the study Professor Anita Thapar for the Nature side, that there was actually not as much division between the supposedly polarised opinions as the tone of some of the comments implied. Both contributors acknowledged a role for both environment and genes, with the point of contention being over the relative influence of each. Indeed, my sense as a scientist, admittedly working several steps removed from the front line of this research, has been that a lot of the most interesting work focuses its attention precisely at the intersection of these two extremes: how genes and our environment interact with one another to make us who we are.

One example of such a multi-influence approach comes from a neuroimaging study conducted by researchers at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour that appeared in May of this year in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences1. The study showed that an evolutionarily old part of the brain called the amygdala seems to be particularly active in stressful situations in a subset of people who, compared to the majority of the population, have a slightly different form of a specific gene which codes for a receptor in the brain that responds to a neurochemical called noradrenaline. Noradrenaline plays a role in regulating arousal and where to direct attention in the world, while the amygdala is thought to be involved in working out how to respond to emotional situations and is also a critical node in a circuit of brain regions that store and remember such arousing events. Similarly, a large epidemiological study conducted at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, published in Science back in 2003, indicated that people who had a particular form of the gene which codes for the serotonin transporter in the brain were more likely to succumb to depression and suicide in the face of stressful life events2. In both these examples, a genetic component is present, but environmental conditions (in the above examples the presence of a stressful life event) ‘decide’ whether the gene is expressed.

I was reminded of this intersection between genes and environment when on the 30th September Professor Colin Blakemore gave an enjoyable and eloquent lecture on that small topic of “The Brain” at Science Oxford. Our brains, Professor Blakemore illustrated, are modular: different functions happen in different areas. To the untrained eye, these areas are more-or-less in the same place in us all. For instance, when any of us looks at another person’s face, a specific region in each and every one of our brains becomes active. This region, found in the back of the brain towards the sides of our head (and on both sides of the brain), is called the fusiform gyrus, and, because of the information it is interested in, is also sometimes referred to as the fusiform face area.

Generally, our genes ensure that our brains develop as mammalian evolution has specified. However, that does not mean that they could not develop differently. In a series of technically elegant experiments at MIT in 2000, Mriganka Sur’s research team showed that if the visual pathways in a ferret are re-routed towards the part of the brain that would customarily process sound, then this “auditory” cortex would develop maps of the visual world similar to those normally found in “visual” cortex3,4. In other words, the back of our brains is “visual” cortex not because our genes allow it to become a special visual part of the brain, but mainly because they ensure it is set up to receive visual information from our eyes.

Indeed, as Professor Blakemore pointed out, just as striking as the modularity of the brain is its profound ability to alter its structure. Professor Blakemore showed a dramatic example of such neural plasticity, as it is commonly called, in people who lost their vision later in life. He and his colleagues asked people who had become blind at a later stage in their lives, after having experienced normal vision, to explore a human-like face of a doll and a face-like non-recognisable shape with their hands. As we have seen above, when sighted people are looking at faces, the fusiform face area becomes active. The striking result of this study was that when the blind people explored the human face-like object with their hands, the same fusiform face area became active. No such activation was observed when sighted people touched the human face-like object. Thus, areas normally involved in purely visual information processing can develop this ability to process information from other sensory modalities when people are deprived of sight5.

But it is not only such circumstances of physical loss that cause structural changes within the brain to occur. They are also brought about by more mundane and everyday events such as learning and the creation of memories. In a study published in Nature Neuroscience in November 2009, a group at the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain led by Dr Heidi Johansen-Berg showed quite how plastic our brains can be6. Her research group recruited a group of volunteers and scanned them in an MRI scanner to investigate the structure of their brains. Then the experiment became slightly more trying: the participants had to learn to juggle. The training regime was intense; participants practiced for half an hour every day, 5 days a week for six week, after which they again had an MRI scan. When the researchers compared the brains from before and after, they found that the brain’s white matter pathways – the connections between brain structures responsible for communication between them – had changed significantly since becoming an expert juggler in one discrete region thought to be involved linking together our visual and motor systems. Thus, Dr Johansen-Berg’s group showed for the first time a direct correlation between acquiring and practicing a new motor skill and structural changes in the human brain.

While this is of course of interest for any of us keen on learning new circus tricks, the deeper purpose of the research is to discover how the human brain can change in the face of new circumstances and how training may specifically facilitate this process. Such knowledge may be of invaluable use for understanding how to help rehabilitate patients with motor problems as a result of brain damage.

While it may seem that way, this study is by no means trying to undermine the power of genetics. We all know of people who seem to be better coordinated than others or who are more naturally physically skilled or athletic. Indeed, in the above study, there were differences in the speed with which participants learned to juggle. A recent review by Giuseppe Lippi and colleagues in the British Medical Bulletin suggests that there is increasing evidence for some genetic basis to sporting abilities, although many different genes are implicated and the precise interactions between genes and the environment and training are likely to be highly complex7.

When New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers, the story of success”, first came out, it received a lot of attention as it seemed to say what all of us want to hear: everyone can become a genius or a sports star, as long as enough time is dedicated to practising. Gladwell suggests that aptitude or innate talent has little to do with success and genius, but instead relies on a combination of happenstance and extraordinary persistence: around 10,000 hours of practice, to be precise8. Again, however, this should not necessarily be seen as another example sidelining the importance of genes. Instead, Gladwell argues that, rather than a particular musical aptitude or footballing skill being genetically-determined, it may instead be traits such as single-minded determination and desire – he even goes as far as to call it love – for a single topic that might be influenced by our genes. If you are interested in listening to Gladwell’s arguments, you can find him here in conversation with Robert Krulwich of the wonderful American science based radio programme Radiolab.

In line with this, behavioural genetics studies have long indicated that genes are not simply passive recipients of whatever influences are provided by the environments their host organisms should find themselves in. Instead, genes can also actively and passively “create” environmental circumstances. For instance, someone who has the genetic make-up to be outgoing may attract more social situations (i.e. may often be invited to parties or events) than someone whose genes make them more introverted in nature. And it is likely that this is just a continuation from infancy: a smiley and sociable baby is likely to evoke more socially rich responses than a shy baby. Thus, our genes seek out particular environments by influencing our behaviour (sociability leads to more party invitations) and the way in which we behave also influences our environment (sociability in a smiley baby is reinforced by more social responses from the environment).

All these examples give us a very complex picture of ourselves, our behaviour and even our environment. Genes and environment, or nature and nurture, work together in intricate ways to create not only who we are, but also what the circumstances are we find ourselves in. Thus, it seems rather pointless to focus on just the one and ignore the other. The ADHD debate could have been a lot more interesting and productive if the journalists and news producers had not just been looking for a scapegoat.

1. Cousijn H, Rijpkema M, Qin S, Shaozheng, Marle HJF, Franke B, Hermans EJ, Wingen G, Fernández, G (2010). Acute stress modulates genotype effects on amygdala processing in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 107, 9867-9872.
2. Caspi A, Sugden K, Moffitt TE, Taylor A, Craig IW, Harrington H et al., (2003). Influence of life stress on depression: moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene, Science 301, 386–389.
3. Sharma J, Angelucci A, Sur M (2000). Induction of visual orientation modules in auditory cortex. Nature 404, 841–847.
4. Dragoi V, Sharma J, Sur M (2000). Adaptation-induced plasticity of orientation tuning in adult visual cortex. Neuron 28, 287–298.
5. Goyal MS, Hansen PJ, Blakemore CB (2006). Tactile perception recruits functionally related visual areas in the late-blind. Neuroreport 17, 1381-1384.
6. Scholz J, Klein MC, Behrens TE, Johansen-Berg H (2009). Training induces changes in white-matter architecture. Nature Neuroscience 12, 1370-1371.
7. Lippi G, Longo UG, Maffulli N (2010). Genetics and sports. British Medical Bulletin 93, 27-47.
8. Gladwell M. (2008). Outliers, the story of success. Little, Brown and Company, New York.

The beginning of October is here, and with it the excitement of the Nobel Prize announcements is almost upon us. With the Ig Nobels, the “spoof” version of the prestigious award, having just been awarded to those publishing improbable, amusing or plainly bizarre research (Collecting whale snot anyone? Asthmatics should ride a rollercoaster to feel better… To avoid slips, wear your socks *outside* your boots!), the week of “real Nobels” is upon us. For the natural scientists amongst us, the first three days (arguably) are especially exciting, with the physiology/medicine prize awarded on Monday 4th October, physics on Tuesday 5th October and Chemistry on Wednesday 6th October (the remaining ones are awarded for literature, peace and economic sciences during the coming three working days).

You may have heard someone saying that “this is not going to win you a Nobel prize” or something in a similar vein, but what are the Nobel prizes?

The Nobel Prize has been used to honour men and women from all over the world, who made outstanding achievements in and contributions to the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and the work in peace. It has been awarded ever since 1901, using funds that have been left by the founder of this prize, Alfred Nobel, through his last will. In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank (the Swedish National Bank) celebrated its 300th founding anniversary by donating money to the Nobel Foundation, which would allow the establishment of a Nobel Prize in Economics, which was subsequently awarded from 1969 according to the same principles as all the other prizes.

You might ask, who was this Alfred Nobel then and why did he donate all his money to a prize fund for the future? Alfred Nobel was born in Sweden to Andriette and Immanuel. His father was an engineer whose business was bankrupted recently before the birth of his son. Soon after his birth, Alfred was taken together with his family to start a new life in Finland and Russia, and during his formative years, he acquired the knowledge of a large number of languages as well as a love for poetry and literature, together with an interest in chemistry and physics. Alfred’s father was somewhat concerned with his son’s overt interest in poetry and literature because he wanted him (and his other sons) to follow him into his business as engineers. To broaden his horizons, Immanuel sent Alfred abroad for further training in the field of chemical engineering. In Paris, in T.J.Pelouze’s lab, Alfred came to learn about nitroglycerine, a highly explosive liquid (much more potent than gunpowder) produced by putting together glycerine and sulphuric and nitric acid. Alfred was interested in putting nitroglycerine to a good use in the construction business, but this was hampered by the fact that the liquid was highly unstable and readily exploded in an unpredictable manner when heat and pressure were applied to it. These problems of stability occupied Alfred for many years to come, but many explosions later (including one that killed his own brother and several other people) and after he was forced to experiment aboard a barge when Stockholm banned work with nitroglycerine within its boundaries, he was able to find that nitroglycerine, mixed with ‘kieselguhr’ would allow the liquid to be turned into a paste that could be shaped into rods for insertion into drilling holes. He patented the material in 1867 as dynamite, and also invented a fuse driven detonator. He spent later years developing a business based on selling his new technology, thus amassing a large amount of wealth. Although a scientist, inventor and forward-looking businessman, he also devoted much time to his lifelong interests of poetry and literature and through a one-time secretary Bertha Kinsky (later Bertha von Syttner), he became involved in social and peace-related issues. When he died in 1896, and his will was opened, it was a surprise to find that his amassed fortunes were to be used to create a fund “to award prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace”. It is often said that it was guilt at bringing into the world a vehicle of destruction that made him make such a generous donation to future generations of outstanding individuals. Although this was not without difficulties as the will was contested by the family, eventually the Nobel Foundation was set up with the funds, invested in such a way that prizes could be awarded long into the future.

And what is a Nobel Prize awarded for? Well, they are generally seen as one of the most prestigious awards of academic excellence in an individual’s field. In his will, Nobel stated that a prize should be awarded “to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind”. In fact, it is very difficult to see what happens during the decision process of the Nobel committee and what the exact selection criteria are because all decision are made in secret and any records of who was nominated are only released into the public domain after 50 years. Basically, in early autumn of the year minus one each of the six Nobel committees asks about 6000 individuals to propose an individual for the prize in the following year, with nominees including scholars in the fields concerned, members of the awarding institutions or officials and members of distinguished academies or universities. The proposer (there are usually about 1000 nominations received, covering around 150-250 individuals) must supply the committee with a reason for the worthiness of the candidate for the prize (it is worth saying that self-nomination automatically disqualifies the candidate). The committees then deliberate on the nominations, consulting external experts and short-listing the candidates. After the choosing of preliminary candidates, reports and recommendations are written, with the final candidates only then chosen and their names submitted. As I have already alluded to, during the process, all deliberations and votes are done in secret.

And here we are, with another lot of candidates announced in the coming days. Who is it going to be, and how worthy do you think the nominees are of their awards?

Further reading:
If you want to read further, here is some very detailed information about Alfred Nobel and his life, as well as the foundation and a searchable databse of all the Nobel Prizes of the past: http://nobelprize.org/

And for amusements, these are the 2010 winners of the Ig Nobel awards given out on 30th September: http://improbable.com/ig/winners/

How Do Scientists Compute Probabilities for Near-Earth Object Collisions with Earth?

OK, there will probably not be an Apocalypse, but scientists did discover an asteroid that has a 1 in 1000 chance of hitting Earth in 2182. It’s really far away and a pretty low probability, so why should anyone
care? Well, it’s not quite like 1 in 1000 chance that someone will lose 100 bucks in a stupid bet or a 1 in 1000 chance that it rains on someone’s wedding day. This is a 1 in 1000 chance that millions, billions (or trillions by that point?) of humans beings and countless other species may be vaporized. That’s why. 172 years is not exactly a long time on the scale of the universe either.

How do scientists come up with this probability? They could just be making it up and no one would know the difference…but they’re not. They use a technique called Monte Carlo simulation. They make a mathematical model of the situation at hand – in this case, an asteroid and the Earth in orbit around the Sun. The orbit of the Earth is very well-known, but the orbit of the asteroid is not known as well and may even change a bit. Many simulations – or trials – are run, each with slightly different conditions. The different conditions may be, for example, slight variations on current position, size, speed and rotation of the asteroid based on what is already known about it from measurements. The number of simulations run must make it so that the determined probability of the event in question – in this case, the asteroid hitting Earth – is statistically significant.

Statistical Significance and Rare Events

As an example of what statistically significant means, imagine flipping a coin. Each flip is a simulation. If the coin is flipped twice, it may land head-head by chance. One could say from the two simulations that a coin has a 100% probability of landing heads up, but this is incorrect. It happened by chance that there were two heads. If the two-flip experiment were run again, the experiment would probably not yield the same results.

Many simulations have to be run so that nothing is left to chance. If the coin were flipped 100 times, there would probably be close to 50 heads…if it were flipped 1000 times, it would probably be even closer to
500 heads, meaning that the probability of getting heads is approaching 50%. An experiment of 100 coin flips gives a statistically significant estimate, where two flips does not. The two-flip experiment would change a lot between different experiments, but the 100-flip experiment would not change that much between experiments. This is the crux of statistical significance.

The number of simulations required depends inversely on how likely the event is. If the event is rare, like an asteroid hitting Earth, 1000 simulations may be run, all of them without the event occurring. This doesn’t mean that the event will never occur. It is just likely that it doesn’t occur in the first 1000 simulations, so many, many more simulations need to occur.

As more and more simulations are run, it is less and less likely that something happened by chance and a more accurate probability can be determined. Possibly millions of simulations are needed to determine the probability of such a rare event with any statistical significance. The lack of respect for statistical significance leads to a lot of bad science.

Why this asteroid is significant (in the non-statistical context)

This isn’t the first asteroid discovered that may collide with Earth someday, but this asteroid is special. It was determined that if this asteroid needed to be deflected to avoid hitting Earth, it would have to be deflected before 2080 because of the uncertainty in its path due to the Yarkovsky effect. The Yarkovsky effect changes the trajectory of the asteroid because it is radiating absorbed heat from the sun while rotating, which causes a force on the asteroid.

Discovering this asteroid suggests that the window for searching for Earth-bound asteroids should be extended beyond the current window of 100 years, because if this asteroid were not discovered until 2080, we would not be able to change its course with technology we have available today.

Article by Tiffany Taylor

The reign of Big Brother may have come to an end, but relatively recent craze of reality TV shows have allowed us to become bystanders to the lives of strangers, and the increasing usage of surveillance technology means there are few places we are completely “off the radar”. But can the knowledge of being watched change our perception of decency? And perhaps, could it be used to create a more honest and generous society?

In the University of Newcastle an ethologist, Melissa Bateson, wanted to see whether she could manipulate her colleagues’ generosity through subtle visual cues. An honesty box had been in use for many years in the University staff room to cover the cost of tea and coffee. Above the honesty box at eye level an image was placed which alternated weekly between eyes and flowers (Figure 1). The results showed that just the photocopied image of a pair of eyes was enough to significantly increase the weekly contribution compared to an image of flowers. This suggested that people were more likely to contribute if they felt like their actions were being watched. The researchers believed this behaviour was driven by a desire to maintain a positive reputation within a social group.

This result is perhaps not surprising, but it conjured up a number of questions for me: why do we feel the need to maintain this reputation, is it through fear of punishment, or hope of reward? Can such behaviour be observed in other animals? And, can it be used to influence and manipulate social groups?

The Evolution of Being Nice

It’s not only humans that have this concern for social perception, Bshary and Gutter found the cleaner wrasse fish (which forms a mutualism with larger fish helping clear them of parasites) must be seen to be honest before it will be allowed a meal. Occasionally cleaner fish will “cheat” and take small nips out of a bigger fish’s flesh, however, if caught in the act by another potential customer they are less likely to get a feed and may also be subject to punishment by the violated client. As such, it’s been shown that the presence of bystanders will reduce the frequency of cheating behaviour. Punishment for bad behaviour is also used by meerkats. In this hierarchical society it is only the dominant female who is allowed to breed, as she requires the help of the whole group to maximise the survival of all her offspring. If however, a subordinate female is showing signs of pregnancy, the dominant female will harass the subordinate resulting in the abortion her foetus. These examples are based on punishment, but there are also social groups which reward “good” behaviour. The vampire bat requires a nightly blood meal in order to survive, but sometimes they inevitably come home after a night foraging with empty bellies. The bat will beg to a neighbour in the hope that they may take pity and share a small amount of their blood meal, the neighbour can either choose to regurgitate a small amount or keep his dinner to himself. However, those which are not charitable are more likely to be refused a meal in the future when it is their time of need. As such, it pays to be seen being sympathetic, as the donator knows they are likely to be returned the favour in the future. Explaining the maintenance of cooperation in a group has been a tricky biological problem, what is to stop free-loading and uneven contribution? But “enforced cooperation”, i.e. a mechanism which rewards those that cooperate and punishes those who exploit, could help explain how cooperative behaviour is maintained. In terms of human evolution it is thought this theory of reciprocity, that is be nice to those who have been nice to you in the past, has been an important mechanism in the evolution of our own cooperative behaviour, therefore it makes sense that being “seen to be kind” might be engrained in our psychology and provide a direct benefit in a highly social group, such as humans.

“Did you see that?”

Psychologists are well aware of people’s desire to appear to be contributing to society or “prosocial” behaviour to use the jargon. This made me contemplate ways that we could be influenced, and even manipulated, by clever use of an implied witness to our actions creating a sense of accountability. Two very interesting studies showed how people might be manipulated subconsciously to become more generous by invoking the thought of an invisible presence. The first study was by Azim Shariff and Ara Norenzayan who invited participants to play a game whereby they were given $10 each, and could choose whether to share any of it with an anonymous player. Before the game commenced, participants were asked to unscramble sentences which were designed to prime either the notion of a God, thoughts of a civic institution, or some other neutral prime. Results showed that participants who had been primed to invoke the image of a God or a non-religious altruistic community gave more than $4 on average (this was independent of whether the participant claimed to be religious or not), compared to $2.56 which was the average amount given away by those primed with neutral content.

In the second experiment, Kevin Haley and Daniel Fessel played an identical game to that described above, however this time the experimenters had one of two images displayed on a computer desktop when the participant entered the room. Half the participants saw a stylised depiction of the human eye, whereas the others saw a warehouse background (Figure 2). Here, the results show participants exposed to the eyes gave on average 55% more, compared to those which were not exposed ($3.79 compared with $2.45).

“With great power, comes great responsibility”

I find this potential for subtle manipulation a bit disconcerting and wondered what role it might play in policing and consumerism today. Here is an example of research which could theoretically be applied for “the greater good”. Using psychology to influence the perception of being watched giving accountability for our actions might, in fact, encourage cooperative and prosocial behaviour, but can we justify using manipulation and subconscious stimuli to control social groups based on this fact? Or am I being naive to think it isn’t already used as a tool in today’s society? In my opinion, it’s all seems a bit nineteen eighty-four to me.

SOURCES
Bateson M., Nettle D., and Roberts G. (2006). Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting. Biology Letters 2: 412-414.
Bshary R., and Grutter A.S. (2006). Image scoring and cooperation in a cleaner fish mutualism. Nature 441: 975-978.
West S.A., Griffin A.S., and Gardner A. (2007). Evolutionary Explanations for Cooperation. Current Biology 17: R661-R672.
Jaeggi A.V., Burkart J.M., and Van Schaik C.P. (2010) On the psychology of cooperation in humans and other primates: combining the natural history and experimental evidence of prosociality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365: 2723-2735.
Shariff A.F., Norenzayan A. (2007). God Is Watching You. Psychological Science 18: 803-809.
Haley K.J., Fessler D.M.T. (2005). Nobody’s watching?: Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evolution and Human Behavior 26: 245-256.

Article image credit: Big Brother 2011: The eye has been revealed Photo: ©Channel 4

On 8th September, Business Secretary Vince Cable gave a speech that was followed keenly by scientists throughout the UK. The reason for such close following was the fact that ahead of the major comprehensive spending review due next month, many researchers have been wondering how much science and technology spending would be cut, as well as how the remaining funds would be divided.

Cable’s speech at the Queen Mary University of London was the first major speech where government science spending was discussed. Rhetorically, Cable, who described himself as “one of few MPs to have at least started a science degree” (he did not drop out, he switched from natural sciences to economics), asked the audience of academics, “The question I have to address is can we achieve more with less?” Throughout his speech, he argued that UK science funding should be largely restricted to two types of research. Firstly, he is in support of funding research that is commercially exploitable, with support for inventors and innovators. In addition, top class, international standard research should be funded, whilst weeding out the mediocrity in projects funded by the taxpayer. “My preference is to ration research funding by excellence”, Cable said, “and back research teams of international quality – and screen out mediocrity – regardless of where they are and what they do.” Indeed, a day later, Cable’s ideas on curbing research has been supported by Science Minister David Willetts who implied that universities are too focussed on research and should be concentrating much more on teaching.

As a scientist, I am amongst many who are alarmed by Cable’s ideas on research funding. Whilst at first sight it may be a sensible idea to focus funding into commercially viable and top class research (after all, which taxpayer wouldn’t want to see their pennies turned into more pennies…), there is a case to be argued that what we refer to as blue skies research should be funded too, as it can bring unexpected results and benefits… Over the last few days, many others before me have commented on and written about the possible repercussions of the projected cuts in science, but I wanted to look in some more detail at some of these “blue skies” discoveries of the past. What might not have been funded under Cable’s regime but has brought useful advances?

Einstein and relativity theory

Einstein’s theory of relativity is a very good first example. Many people, and I put my hand up and admit that I am included, find the theory very hard to understand and rather strange, because of the often esoteric ideas that it involves (it is hard to get your head round the fact that something will appear differently depending on where and when you look at it). At the time he studies it, Einstein may have been viewed as an eccentric studying some interesting mathematical equations, with little real world application. In reality, Einstein’s theory has significant effects on everyday life now, over a hundred years since he published his work.

An example of an everyday device that uses the concepts of the theory is the satellite navigation system in your car. This works on the basis of a system of global positioning system (GPS) satellites, which are distributed in the Earth’s orbit in such a way as to make at least 4 of them visible from any point. Each of these satellites carries an atomic clock that ticks with nanosecond (that is a 1/1,000,000,000 of a second!) accuracy and the way your SatNav works is by determining the position of several satellites at a specific time and doing a triangulation calculation to give you your position to the nearest 5 to 10 metres. However, general relativity predicts that clocks ticking on Earth, due to their closeness to it, will be ticking more slowly than those that are further away, i.e. in the satellites. As a result, the clocks in the satellites appear to get ahead of the clocks on Earth, and as accurate position prediction depends on accurate comparison of the time detail, the system would soon become useless if this effect was not taken into account. So in designing the GPS system, the relativity effects have to be taken into account. And of course, it is not just your SatNav, but the navigation of planes and ships, army operations and many other everyday applications that depend on a functioning GPS system.

Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web

Another example of research whose downstream applications may not have been predicted at the time is Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the World Wide Web (WWW), dubbed the WWW project. One aspect of this invention was the use of hypertext, which Berners-Lee thought a useful way of sharing data and information between researchers based at the CERN particle physics laboratory in the early 1980s. Hypertext is something which allows text and pictures to be read in a nonlinear fashion, by allowing readers to jump from one (electronic) document to another. Remember those adventure books that made you go to page X if you made one choice (such as fighting a mythical creature) and page Y if you made another choice (such as hiding from it)? Well, hypertext works a bit like that.

The second aspect of Berners-Lee’s proposal depended on a relatively new technology (then!), the Internet. In the simplest form, this is a computer network of networks, linked using a generalised infrastructure to communicate. Berners-Lee proposal was to use hypertext in the context of a computer network to allow any document made available on the network to be linked to any other. He started the WWW project with the first web server on “info.cern.ch”, which contained information on the technical aspects of hypertext, the WWW project itself, information on how to make your own webpage and how to search the new web for information. Crucially, Berners-Lee made all this technology freely available, without a requirement for patents and royalties to be paid. Arguably, this has contributed to the explosive development of the WWW project into what we know as the internet today. If Berners-Lee had been restricted to making projects commercially exploitable and had put restrictions on his new invention, would its use have ever become quite so wide-spread?

The serendipity of scientific discovery

In his speech, Cable argues for the weeding out of mediocrity in science. However, it is often those who are not at the top of the field who may come with inspiring and interesting ideas. Many scientist have been slaving away at a problem only to discover something altogether different, and perhaps much more interesting. Discoveries in science often depend on chance and serendipity and, believe it or not, a little carelessness sometimes. In today’s world of directed scientific research, scientists are almost expected to know their results before they do the research in order to get funding to work on their project.

However, history is peppered with those who have discovered useful stuff by chance. Roentgen, the discoverer of X-rays, was lucky enough to put his hand between an electrical discharge tube and a screen coated with barium, which allowed him to see the outline of his bones on the screen. Fleming, in 1928, had a rather untidy lab and at one point discovered a bacterial plate which was invaded by a spore of a fungus. Before throwing the plate away, he looked at it under the microscope and found that the bacteria close to the fungal spore had been stopped dead, leading him to the first isolation of the antibiotic penicillin. More recently, the blockbuster drug Viagra was in clinical trials as a drug that would prevent hypertension (high blood pressure). It wasn’t much good at preventing high blood pressure, but to their surprise the doctors running the trial found that participants were finding improved activity in another department.

Can we afford to lose chance and serendipity out of scientific research altogether? What if someone is working on something, slaving away, in order to suddenly discover the next antibiotic by chance? (If you’re interested in this aspect further, researching for this article, I found a great bunch of instances where serendipity led to great discoveries on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity – I can’t promise it is all correct, but the list makes for some interesting reading!).

Oh yes, and did you know why the sky is blue, and where this term blue skies research actually comes from? Well, apparently, there is this phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering, which explains how light of all sorts of different colours is scattered by particles that have a diameter of 1/10 of the particular colour light’s wavelength. And although the sun emits light which is made up of all the colours in the spectrum, the scattering of the blue light is much more efficient than that of the other colours. And that’s why the sky looks blue. I wonder what Cable would think of funding a project to answer the question of “why is the sky blue?”.

I hope this leaves you with some food for thought, and perhaps you can think of other examples where research that was not immediately useful and later became such. For those of you after some further reading material, the full text of Vince Cable’s speech can be found here:
http://www.bis.gov.uk/news/speeches/vince-cable-science-research-and-innovation-speech

Some analysis and review of the speech in other media:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11225197
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11241871
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e8505b5a-bb51-11df-b3f4-00144feab49a.html

And here are a few pages with some more background on the research applications I discussed above:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/22/philosophy.plato#
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/jul/27/spaceexploration.theairlineindustry
http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/lee.html
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF7/741.html

In Egypt there are stories of supernatural activities surrounding the tombs of ancient kings. It is said that the hieroglyphics etched into tomb walls frequently carry warnings of ‘Pharanoic hexes’ for those who may wish to steal from or disturb the resting king. So when a number of people present at the excavation of Tutankhamen’s tomb died under mysterious circumstances, was it down to black magic, bad luck or biological bugs?

On February 17th 1923, a crowd gathered in the ‘Valley of the Kings’ to witness Howard Carter’s team unseal the infamous Tutankhamen’s burial chamber. The excavation revealed treasures fit for a king, whose body still lay resting in his extravagant solid gold coffin.

However, this tale of discovery took a more gruesome turn when in April 1923 a number of those which were present at the excavation allegedly began dying under mysterious circumstances. First to meet his maker was the project’s chief financier, Lord Carnavon, though this was equated to a mosquito bite that he received while on expedition which later became infected. Still, rumours began to flourish and reports of a “mummy’s curse” hit the headlines.

Soon after, the media reported many other deaths which were claimed to be linked to the curse: Lord Carnavon’s brother; Howard Carter’s assistant; Lady Elizabeth Carnarvon; Carter’s partner; two Egyptian workmen; and the financier, George Jay Gould I.

HEX OR HOGWASH?

Along with these deaths followed a media runaway reporting curses and black magic. Such fantastical claims enraged the archaeological and scientific communities and researchers made every attempt disprove the sensationalist stories emerging from the press. Until eighty years later when an Australian scientist, Mark Nelson, published a study which showed the survival rates of forty-four Westerners connected with the excavation, twenty-five of which were present at the opening of the tomb, or examination of the mummy. He found no significant difference in the average age of death to those which had been exposed to the ‘mummy’s curse’ by physical contact with the tomb or mummy, and those which were unexposed. And so it seemed the deaths surrounding King Tut’s final farewell were a concoction of coincidence and media hype.

CASE CLOSED?

But like all good ghost stories, the tales continued to be told, and this has resulted in some interesting research which might reopen the case of ‘the mummy’s curse’.

Modern studies have shown pathogenic microbiological agents such as bacteria and fungal moulds are present in Egyptian tombs. Food was left for the deceased deity as part of the burial ritual and combined with rotting flesh this would encourage the growth of microbiological nasties. Theoretical work initiated by a French scientist, Sylvain Gandon, has hypothesised that the longer a pathogen is able to survive outside the host in a dormant state (such as a spore), the more harmful the infection is likely to be; and pathogens with such life-histories, like Anthrax, could have described Lord Carnavon’s demise. Since this paper was published in 1998, there have been a large number of theoretical and empirical studies to extend the hypothesis, but the jury is still out as to whether such competition between infective agents is common in nature – but there is certainly an argument for its existence in certain scenarios. Kenneth Feder (co-editor of the book Dangerous Places: Health, Safety, and Archaeology) agrees that there is “at least a possibility of being exposed to some nasty stuff”.

MORAL OF THE STORY

I believe the morals of this story are twofold. Firstly, it is an important science lesson not to immediately dismiss the improbable as impossible; by approaching such myths and magical tales with a logical and scientific head, what was once a bedtime story can become a route to discovery and innovation. For example, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, or Einstein’s general theory of relativity, could never have been developed had they just believed what they had been told. Secondly, this story highlights the dangers of sensationalised science. The media has a reputation for dramatising its articles in order to sell stories, and science has in no way been spared. Ignoring expert advice and favouring scaremongering has led to a drop in MMR vaccinations due to its unverified links with autism, and the media are now moving to attacking the cervical cancer vaccination with headlines like “Eight deaths linked to labour’s new sex jab for school girls” (source article). I don’t think calling it a “sex jab for schoolgirls” was really the message the scientists who developed this revolutionary drug were trying to send. That is not to say scientists are faultless in this relationship. Poor communication between public and academic factions means messages can get lost in translation, and it is often this misunderstanding which can lead to fear and suspicion of new scientific advancements in the public eye. Either way, mutual trust must be established between the media and scientific communities to ensure the public are aware of new research and discoveries being made today; otherwise science just becomes a ‘secret club’ and the consequence is surely a stifling of discovery.

And so, I will end with this thought: whether it was deadly spores, ghostly curses or natural causes which resulted in the deaths surrounding King Tut’s excavation, it has produced some interesting research; some lessons in exploration and science communication; and, a great bedtime story.

SOURCES
The Curse of the Pharaohs: Truth, Myth or Microbiology? By Tracy Morris for Firefox News, 2009

Kamo M, Boots M (2004). The curse of the pharaoh in space: free-living infectious stages and the evolution of virulence in spatially explicit populations. Journal of Theoretical Biology 231: 435-441.