SATNAV Magazine Issue 1 June 2010

june 2010 issue 1

science and technology news and views magazine

campus questions the impact agenda the science of bees

Photo: A jet in the carina nebula , NASA,ESA.

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Become a member and write for the next issue of SATNAV Magazine www.satnavmag.co.uk 2 satnavmag.co.uk

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Contents

Issue 1 June 2010

Editorial Feature

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Campus Questions

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Regulars

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The Nutty Professor’s answer to alcohol Misconceptions about Medicine The Science of Bees - Part 1 Have you washed your hands?

Nanoparticles and you A brief history of Pi Diabetic Dolphins Climate Science Under Attack

12 14 16 20 22 24 26 28

Focus on Impact

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30

The Impact Agenda The Impact of Impact SATNAV meets Dr. Jeremy Pritchard David Willets

30 31 33 37

Reviews

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Talkin’ ‘bout the 3D revolution Angles and Demons Final Fantasy XIII The E-Reader revolution and iPad en-kindle-ing

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39 41 42 43

Careers

46

Listings How to get a PhD

46 48

Letters to the editor

51

26 30

43

Photograph: Allan West

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Thank you to everyone who contributed to the first issue, and helped to get SATNAV... into orbit.

Please read on and enjoy.

Society Committee: Chair & Editor-in-Chief: Tim Hearn Vice Chair & Creative Director: James Young Administrative Assistant: Eleanor King Treasurer: Chris Hicks Editorial Committee: Copy editor: Kate Wilkinson Art editor: Lindsay McKenzie

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Feature editor: Natalie Harrison Publicity officer: Matthew Bolton Biology editor: Jade Ogle Chemistry editor: Amira Mullaney Physics editor: Andrew Wright Maths editor: Andrew Langworthy Review editor: Scott Davies

Copy Team: Laura Bowyer Jenny Lewis Hayley Gibbins Alice Lowry Sarah Kirkham Layout Team: James Young Elizabeth Key Art team: Laura Nunes

With thanks to: Felix Rehren, Dr. Jeremy Pritchard, EuSci editors, Dr. Jackie Chappell, Kelvin Rose, Emma Packham, and everyone who contributed to this magazine in any shape or form.

Special thanks to: All of our writers.

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Editorial Welcome to the first issue of SATNAV, the science and technology news and views magazine from the University of Birmingham guild of students.

This is the first student-led science magazine at the university so the release of this issue is a big step for us. SATNAV was only set up in January of this year and the magazine has been produced in a relatively short period of time with a lot of effort being put in by a great number of people. Before anything else thanks should be said to all those who contributed in the production of this magazine in any shape or form, without the hard work that was put in by our members, especially during exam season, this first issue would not have been possible. A special mention goes to Creative Director James Young for working through the night to get this issue produced on time.

Issue 1 June 2010

issues you will see all of these sections expanded on and further developed to their own distinct style. Running through each issue will be a particular theme and the majority of the features of each issue will be based around that theme. The magazine is planned to be released at the end of every term so we will have three copies per academic year with each one based on one of the three major branches of science.

For this issue the theme is more general and we have focussed around public misconceptions about science. As well as having articles looking at misconceptions ranging from the MMR vaccine to how important maths is, we set out to ask the students of the university about what they found puzzling.

You may remember seeing our ‘Campus Questions’ posters up around the campus, some of the best answers to these questions So what can you expect from are included in this issue and other this first issue? To begin with answers will follow in the future. perhaps I should explain how the magazine is structured. We have Aside from explaining science tried to include as many diverse SATNAV also looks at the way that sections as possible from scientific our society affects science. Nothing articles to technology reviews could illustrate this more for our to careers information, in future first issue than the Impact agenda

which you can read on page 30.

Also in this issue you’ll find reviews of the latest games and reports on advances in technology.

A taste of some careers information is on offer, with much more in the future. Of course it’s also brimming with a variety of sciences articles by students themselves. Let us know what you think of this issue and what we’ve done well. We value any feedback that you can give us.

If you’d like to get involved in any aspect of the magazine then please contact us.

Kind Regards,

Tim Hearn

Editor-in-Chief. satnav@guild.bham.ac.uk

Note from the Creative Director to all SATNAV members: I hope I have produced a magazine which is pleasant and represents the writers’ articles well. As we all know there have been many hurdles before getting to this stage, so I want to thank you all for your amazing contributions, especially in creating all this wonderful content right up to exam period. In future issues we want to get as many people working together as possible with access to the proper equipment. I am excited for this issue and the plentiful future issues! Please don’t hesitate to contact us with feedback. James Young.

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Campus Questions Why is the sky blue? Why do we produce tears when we’re sad? Can lightning strike underwater?

The list of baffling scientific questions that we never seem to know the answer to goes on! To enlighten the puzzled students of the University of Birmingham, SATNAV put on its thinking cap and let students offload their perplexing questions. SATNAV can now finally reveal the science behind some of life’s biggest mysteries...

Flickr: matthematician

Why are spacecraft covered in gold foil?

Q: I have noticed that on many spacecraft, tinfoil (or something that

looks just like it) has been used to protect them from the Sun’s radiation.

(The Apollo moon landings are probably the most noticeable examples of this).

Well, why does the foil have to be gold in colour? Wouldn’t silver work much better seeing as it’s good at reflecting light of all frequencies?

A: The foil used is called Mylar

apollo moon lander NASA

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sheet less permeable to gases, foil, and protects the craft from protecting the layers underneath as solar winds and radiation, as you a result. Gold also reflects sunlight said. It is not actually made out better than silver or aluminium. of gold, but is covered in a thin Miranda Bradshaw. layer of vapourised gold. Gold is most commonly used as it is the least reactive metal in the periodic table that we are able to make thin sheets out of, whilst still being at a reasonable price. This covering, over the top of an aluminium outer layer, is used to make the whole

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What do enzymes do in genetic engineering?

Q: I remember being taught that genetic engineering involved extracting bits of DNA and replacing them with others, in a process using enzymes. I would like to know how this is actually done. How can you program an enzyme to do such a specific task?

A:

Firstly, you need to know that DNA is a very long molecule made up of the same four small molecules (which are called nucleotides, named A, T, G and C) stuck together end to end in a sequence. The genetic sequence is the order in which those nucleotides appear throughout the DNA molecule, and the possible combinations are endless as there is no length limit.

how the amino acids attract and repel each other) and this folded polypeptide is called a protein.

The way that protein is folded will in turn determine what it does.

Proteins are the molecules which “do” things in an organism. For example, your nails and hair are made of proteins such as keratin, however haemoglobin is a protein in your red blood cells that carries oxygen around your body.

Specific segments of the DNA molecule (which can be about 1000 nucleotides long on average), which are called genes, code for proteins. This means that special proteins and protein complexes (associations of proteins) “read” the sequence of that length of DNA, and make something called a polypeptide, which is a long molecule made up of 21 smaller possible molecules called amino acids. This polypeptide also has a “sequence” which is the order in which these amino acids appear.

Each amino acid has different chemical properties, including that of attracting or repelling different kinds of molecules, including other amino acids. Three DNA nucleotides, or a “codon”, provide the instructions or “code for” one specific amino acid. For example, the codon GCA codes for the amino acid alanine. Once the polypeptide has been created, it folds in a very specific manner (determined by

An enzyme is a protein (produced by an organism) that accelerates a chemical reaction.

Many chemical reactions are too slow to be useful to a cell, so enzymes accelerate them. There are a huge number of enzymes with a wide variety of roles, and some of these (called endonucleases) cut DNA. They recognise a specific sequence on the DNA molecule and cut it there. Bacteria use these sorts of enzymes to protect themselves from viruses (some viruses infect bacteria by injecting their DNA into the bacterial cell).

In genetic engineering, we often know which gene we want to use as a source of new genetic material, and where we want to put it. Therefore, we use endonucleases (and it should be noted that different endonucleases can specifically cut certain sections of DNA) to cut DNA on either side of the gene of interest, for example

BACTERIAL CULTURE FLICKR: akseabird

the gene from bacteria that codes for an insect toxin protein. We then extract that gene, and insert it into the target cell (for example the seed of a maize plant), where with a bit of luck and more clever science, that gene is inserted into a chromosome, and becomes simply part of the target (in this example, maize) genome. Here, the new cell will recognise it as a normal gene, and produce the protein that it codes for. In the example used, the plant will now produce the toxin protein that will kill insects that try to feed on the plant.

Therefore as you can see, we didn’t “program” the enzyme to do anything; we only ever use proteins/enzymes that already exist somewhere in life, and this is more than sufficient, as there already exists a protein to do pretty much anything we could possibly want to do in a living organism.

Hadrien Peyret.

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What is love?

Q: What is the scientific explanation of the phenomenon that humans call ‘love’? Is it some sort of

chemical reaction which could allow it to have a certain chemical formula responsible for it?

A:

Biologically, ‘love’ is perceived as a way of being able to connect to and mate with another human, as well as to increase the chances of survival of your offspring so that you may increase the likelihood of passing on your genes and maintaining them.

‘Love’ ensures that when you do have children, you provide the best resources to them so that they may have the best chances of survival, for instance so that they may be more successful than others in the world, be it in terms of health, social or financial security amongst other factors that affect our behaviour.

It is thought that people are attracted to other people who have

a very different immune system (the human body’s guard against foreign invaders) from themselves, so that the children that you would produce would be better equipped to fight off infections and disease.

This is thought to be sensed by pheromones, which are hormones that everyone releases.

Chemically speaking, when a person is in ‘love’, different chemicals are released in the body which can make you feel good (for example phenylethylamine, which is also found in chocolate) and make you feel more alert (for example adrenaline) to be more receptive and responsive to things around you so that you would sense

things from the outside better, for example cues from the beloved.

There are also other hormones that make you feel connected to another person, for example oxytocin, which is released at different points in life and serves different ‘roles’ in bonding, from helping push a baby out during labour to breastfeeding and even during sex!

In theory, if you could trigger the release of those hormones at the right time in a person, you could make them fall in love!

Bibi Karimbocus.

Big Bang - something from nothing?

Q: Where did the first atom(s) come from that created the big bang?

A:

This question assumes that the Big Bang occurred due to the presence of atoms. In fact, the question of how the Big Bang started is still one that puzzles cosmologists and astronomers even today.

There are many theories on how the Big Bang started and at the moment it seems impossible for us to find out exactly how it began.

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, Geneva hope to uncover more information about

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events occurring just after the Big Bang in order to try and find some clues into how the Universe could have been created.

Although this question is hard to answer properly, I can suggest a good book which explores a few of the more interesting theories regarding the start of the Universe: The Never Ending Days of Being Dead, by Marcus Chown.

One of the theories suggests that a negative vaccuum existed

before our Universe, and that small violations of energy in this negative vacuum caused ‘bubbles’ to be formed in the vaccuum (which is mind-bogglingly huge). These bubbles are in fact our Universe, and the energy that existed in the vacuum corresponds to the matter and atoms in our Universe (as mass can be seen as a condensed form of energy).

Andrew Wright.

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Guinness bubbles?

Q: Why do the bubbles in Guinness appear to flow downwards instead of upwards?

A:

Tom Jeavons.

Bubbles go down in Guinness because of two reasons: 1) Guinness bubbles contain nitrogen and do not grow larger when they rise up the glass (as carbon dioxide does) and hence they are easier to be moved in the glass.

2) Because the bubbles rise from the centre, get to the top of the glass, then go back down again on the inside of the glass, this creates a continuous flow similar in shape to a magnetic field around a bar magnet.

FLICKR: stevenosloan

Why is the sky blue?

Q: What is the reason that the sky appears blue?

A:

The reason the sky is blue is down to a phenomenon known as Rayleigh Scattering, where the Sun’s ray are scattered by molecules in the upper atmosphere. The Sun’s visible light consists of a continuous band of colours, in a similar way that the colour bands are divided up in a rainbow.

Each individual colour corresponds to a different wavelength of light, for example red light has an approximate wavelength of 700nm, whereas for green light it’s around 600nm.

very strongly on the wavelength of the light. This means that light in the upper end of the spectrum (with lower wavelengths) scatters more, whereas higher wavelength light does not scatter as much.

directed toward us than red.

You may realise that violet light has a lower wavelength than blue light, but the sensitivity of our eyes means that we see a mainly blue sky when in fact it is more violet.

A better explanation can be given by searching for the phrase ‘Rayleigh Scattering’ in a search engine. It is also worth checking out Mie Scattering, which will FLICKR: andres rueda explain why the sky turns red at Blue light has a wavelength of sunset The formula for Rayleigh about 400nm and gets scattered Andrew Wright.

Scattering shows that the amount at a greater degree than red light, that the light is scattered depends meaning more blue light is being

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What are human beings likely to evolve into?

Q: What are human beings likely to evolve into?

x-Men: the last stand

A:

©

20th Century Fox

This is a very interesting question that does seem to capture the public’s imagination, but there are a few things that need to be explained first. For one thing, it is important to understand that evolution has no goal, no end point. No organism is evolving “towards” anything. For this reason it is impossible to be sure what the evolutionary future of a species will look like.

Evolution works through survival of the fittest; the individual organisms which are most adapted to their environment will on average leave more fertile offspring than less-well adapted individuals. Therefore, a change in the environment will cause a change in what biologists call the “selective pressures” on a species.

For example, if the environment of one particular species becomes hotter and dryer, then the selective pressures on that species become heat and drought, so individuals who are more heat and droughttolerant than other individuals are more likely to leave more

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fertile offspring. It is easy to see how this would work for bacteria, plants and non-human animals, so consequently it is tempting to think that this is how we will evolve as well.

However the truth as I believe it to be is that we have artificially removed ourselves from the process of natural selection. It doesn’t matter if you are not good at finding food as a human as you can go and buy it. It doesn’t matter if you are not good at fighting disease as you can go and see the doctor. There are very few things in today’s society that could make one individual less likely to leave fertile offspring than another. Most people tend to have children, and those who don’t probably haven’t got specific genes, which prevented them from doing so (with the exception of some genetic diseases that arise from spontaneous mutations).

You might hear speculations (from journalists I don’t doubt) that humans will evolve to have less hair as it gets warmer, or stronger

thumbs to text faster, or even that we will evolve to become just brains with no bodies. I don’t see this happening, because someone with less hair or stronger thumbs or will not be any more likely to have more fertile offspring than anyone else. Like I said, evolution has no goal; just because less hair might keep us cooler in a warming climate, losing hair not a selective pressure. Those most affected by heat are babies (who are kept out of the sun by adults) and the elderly, who have already reproduced and therefore have no direct impact on human natural selection.

However, what then will humans look like in a few million years? The truth is that they will probably look very similar to today’s humans, although as globalization brings us all closer together, racial differences will probably be wiped out as we all become mixed-race. Therefore what are we likely to evolve into? I suppose the answer is that we just don’t know.

Hadrien Peyret.

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Differences in human skin colour?

Q: Why do different races of humans exist, and why as humans do we not have, for example, green and purple skin, but still have a variety of skin colours? In addition, why is it that even within a specific race there are varying shades of skin colour?

A: This is a very interesting question about human evolution.

It is thought that the reason that there are different races is that as humans spread out of Africa over a million years ago, different populations went in different directions, and as they crossed geographical barriers, they became isolated from other populations.

If two populations of a species are separated in this way, they do not interbreed, meaning there is no sharing of genes between the populations, so these populations essentially evolve away from each other and they diverge genetically. Incidentally, this is also how different species can be formed. Therefore if all the different populations on humans had remained isolated from one another, it is possible that in time there would have been different species of humans. However, we all began to mix together again long before that could happen, so now we are left with different sub-species, or races of humans.

This is of course a touchy subject, as some people may be offended by the idea of human sub-species, so it is important to understand the concept properly. This simply means that different human populations, genetically separated by geography for hundreds of thousands of years, have evolved slightly different gene pools, but

that these gene pools are not different enough from one another to prevent these different races from mixing (which is why we are all still one human species).

for survival, but it will attract members of the opposite sex more than other characteristics (simply due to cultural preference), and therefore result in that individual

FLICKR: Garhol

So then, why are most Europeans ‘white’ and most Africans ‘black’? Some have argued that it is natural selection; dark skin helps prevent sun damage in Africa, but it is not as useful in temperate Europe. This idea has come under criticism however, as Europeans may not need dark skin, but then we don’t need white skin either, so why have we lost our dark skin? Why, for example, are typical oriental and Native American facial features often present in some populations? What we are left with are two forces that are different from natural selection. These forces are sexual selection and genetic drift. The first is exactly what it sounds like: a particular characteristic (say dark skin, or red hair) may not be particularly useful

having more children. This force is not so much at work anymore in human populations, since today pretty much everyone has an equal chance of finding a partner, but this was not the case for most of early human history.

The second force, genetic drift, simply means that there will be different versions of the same gene floating around in the gene pool (say for dark hair and light hair), and out of pure chance, over thousands of generations, one of those versions is eliminated. It is a well-known process, and it probably had at least as much to do with the way we look as sexual selection. So, why aren’t there other colours of skin? They simply haven’t appeared yet.

Hadrien Peyret.

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The Nutty Professor’s answer to the drug ‘more dangerous than ecstacy’: alcohol.

sent the neuron is said to be at rest. Inside the neuron there are positively charged potassium ions, and to a lesser extent positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged chloride ions. At rest, the potential of the neuron is -70mV; this means that the inside of the neuron is -70mV more negative than the outside.

Sodium-potassium ion pumps in the neuronal membrane help to create this resting potential, by moving three sodium ions out Words: Amira Mullaney, Graphics: Elizabeth Key of the membrane for every two potassium ions taken in.

He was sacked as chair of the nucleus within a cell mass, called Advisory Council on the misuse the soma. The soma is connected The synaptic cleft is the of drugs in October last year for space between the end of one saying that alcohol is more harmful neuron and the start of the next. than ecstasy; but now, Professor Neurotransmitters are released David Nutt claims he is developing by the synapse of a pre-synaptic a solution: harm-free alcohol. neuron into the synaptic cleft.

They then travel across it and bind The Times reported in March to a receptor in the post-synaptic that Nutt was developing a neuron, causing ion channels to tasteless liquid that would give the ‘you could in theory, same kick as alcohol, minus the harmful effects. get drunk and then Alongside the drink would be its antidote so that you could, in theory, get drunk and then drive yourself home – provided you remembered to take the antidote.

Nutt is basing the drug on benzodiazepines or ‘benzos’. These drugs are sometimes prescribed to treat anxiety and sleeping disorders. They work by boosting the effect of gamma-aminobutyric acid, more commonly known as GABA, which decreases the activity of certain neurons in the brain.

drive yourself home’

Above: Common structure of benzodiazepines. (R represents commmon side chains).

to a long protrusion, known as the axon. At both ends of the neuron are smaller branch-like protrusions which further branch off until they end with synapses. It is at the synapses that chemical messages bind from one neuron to the next, triggering electric impulses along the way.

open. If this binding causes an influx of positively charged sodium ions, the membrane potential will decrease (depolarisation) to become more positive. As long as a threshold voltage of about -55mV is reached, an action potential will be fired and an electric signal will travel along the length of the neuron, meaning that the synapse was an excitatory synapse.

If chloride ion channels open as a result of the neurotransmitter Neurons in the brain send binding to the postsynaptic neuron, Neurons are electrically signals to each other via electric then an influx of negative charge excitable cells consisting of a impulses. When no signal is being causes the membrane potential to

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become even more negative. This then results in hyperpolarisation and an inhibitory effect (since the threshold voltage has not been reached), and no impulse will be sent along the neuron.

When GABA molecules bind to the post synaptic receptors they trigger the opening of chloride ion channels, which results in the hyperpolarisation of the neuron and subsequent inhibitory response.

Some GABA-receptor complexes contain a binding site for benzos. When benzos bind to these receptors they promote the binding of GABA to the receptors which increases the conduction of chloride ions across the neuronal cell membrane. Different GABA receptors are distributed in different regions of the brain, controlling distinct neuronal circuits and brain functions.

Activation of different GABAreceptor complexes by different benzodiazepines leads to differing pharmacological effects and different levels of inhibition.

Alcohol works in the same way as benzos, by promoting the binding of GABA to the postsynaptic neurons, causing an inhibitory effect. This increased inhibitory effect is what causes feelings of loss of inhibition (neurons that would otherwise be fired to stop certain behaviours are inhibited), shortened attention span and a lack of co-ordination (communication between neurons is hindered by their inhibition).

Although the chemistry behind benzos is very similar to that of alcohol, who is to say they are actually safer? Studies have shown that use of benzos for periods of longer than 2-4 weeks leads to dependence and addiction to them.

Despite this, Nutt claims there are no risks associated with the long-term use of benzos. The drug would still need licensing though, and trials could cost as much as ÂŁ10m, which would mean the price of the drug would be reasonably high at first.

Although many may wonder why in these modern times we have not yet already synthesised such a ‘safe’ drug, many controversial issues surround the topic. Are benzos really a safe alternative?

james young

Above: Alcohol reduces your ability to make rational decisions, however tasty at the time.

Above: Gamma-aminobutryic acid

If they do pass trials will it be safe to drive after taking them? What if someone who has taken the drug forgets to take the antidote before driving home, or takes the antidote just before they are pulled over by the police? Who will be able to prove whether they were under the influence of drugs whilst driving? Can we really risk such a potential hazard to society?

Amira Mullaney.

Above: Neuron Cell

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Misconceptions about Medicine Ryan Hamnett focuses on the reasons behind the controversy of vaccinations such as the famous MMR Jab.

Holly Key

Above: Correlations may be drawn from the farthest apart subjects, does driving cause you to brush your teeth? For some people it does.

Twelve years ago, a study was published in the British Journal Lancet about a possible link between the MMR jab (a vaccination essential to preventing the spread of measles, mumps and rubella), and the behavioural disorder autism [1]. Immediately, a flurry of frightening newspaper headlines resulted, leading to mass panic and vast numbers of new parents refusing to allow their baby to have the jab; a sensible precaution, surely?

of a single doctor of 12 autistic children. They all had bowel disease, and he suggested that the autism in 8 of them may have stemmed from this, which in turn may have derived from the measles part of the MMR vaccine. However, there was no real evidence for this hypothesis, with many experts even pointing out that the autism had started before the jab had been given. Of course, when the vaccine was used on millions of children, no negative affects were found. By then though, the damage Unfortunately, what was rarely had been done. It was ingrained reported was the fact that this into the public consciousness study was merely the observation that there were dangers with this

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immunisation, and so unnecessary deaths followed.

I am not, of course, suggesting that a health risk following a vaccination (or other medicine) should be overlooked. Quite the opposite in fact, and vaccines and medicines should and do go through stringent testing prior to general release, as well as further monitoring afterwards. However, anti-science groups (opposing other potentially very useful products such as GM crops or stem cells as well) and the media, in search of particularly controversial headlines, combined here to spread

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true fear amongst the public, one would expect to occur by despite ignoring the facts. chance [2], and some even showed a decreased risk.

The matter of controversy around vaccinations does not end The previous case highlights with the MMR jab though. Another the fear that the side effects specific case is the misconception of vaccines are common that the DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, and very dangerous. No and pertussis) causes Sudden one denies that there Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). are side effects when This stemmed from essentially a being immunised, correlation, in which there was a including effects relationship between the number such as a of babies vaccinated, and the mild fever. number who died of SIDS [2].

However, when The danger with any dealing with correlation is the temptation that serious side effects they you can infer cause and effect are very rare indeed, ranging from it, which is incorrect. Take an from 1 per 1000 to 1 per 1,000,000 extreme example – that brushing people given the injection [3]. your teeth leads to car crashes on Even then, some of these may not the way to work. No doubt there is be justifiably attributable to the a very large correlation between shot itself, but may have occurred people who crash when driving to purely by chance. work in the morning and have also brushed their teeth (main article As with any risk though, it image), but no one would seriously must be compared to the benefits suggest that one caused the other. of carrying out the procedure.

It is a similar case with the DTP There are risks in every operation vaccine. Due to the age at which the that occurs, but no one would DTP shot is given, it is reasonable suggest abandoning performing to assume that purely by chance surgery, because of the benefits some babies will die afterwards of that the surgery provides. A severe SIDS, despite having nothing to do allergic reaction to the MMR jab with the vaccine itself. may affect 1 in 1,000,000 people, Well controlled studies were but when comparing that to 1 carried out, and there was no death per 3,000 people that arises increased chance of death from when unprotected, the risk from SIDS compared to the level that the injection is miniscule [4].

It is unfortunate that people are unaware that the facts are available to them. Not only this, but also preferring a definite answer (when asking whether something will affect their health, no one likes to hear “maybe”).

Therefore, due to a lack of options more than anything else, they are required to listen to sensationalist newspapers which value selling papers over providing accurate information. Perhaps a cynic’s view would say that people prefer a sensational story rather than the truth themselves, though that is another matter.

Ryan Hamnett.

[1] Wakefield, AJ. 1998. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet. 351, Issue 9103, 637 – 641 [2] U.S Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, 1998. Adverse Events Following Immunisation, Can be found at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/ mmwrhtml/00000473.htm [3] Quackwatch, 2008. Misconceptions about immunisation. May be found at: http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/immu04.html, [4] NHS, 2004. MMR and Risk. Can be found at: http://www.mmrthefacts.nhs.uk/library/sideeffects.php

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The Science of Bees Part one Tom Jeavons elucidates the importance of the humble bumblebee to every person on our planet in a three part series.

A honeybee is a fascinating little creature. Colourful in appearance and audible in flight, these little workers potter around meadows and forests all across the world to collect pollen to take back to the hive, helping plants to reproduce in the process. This is a wonderful cycle, but without our understanding of chemistry and how a honeybee goes about its daily life, the whole thing would be a mystery to us. In one honeybee colony (which can contain up to 60,000 individuals), there are three types of bee: the workers, the drones and the queen bee. The workers are infertile females and males that collect the pollen. The drones are male and larger than the workers- they mate with the queen bee. The queen bee is responsible for laying the eggs.1 In this group of articles I shall be looking at four different ways in which a honeybee uses chemistry to help the survival of both the individual and the species. These four ways are: the production of honey, the use of royal jelly, the pheromones of the bees and the use of their venom.

Honey

produce honey primarily for their own consumption, as well as to Honey has been used for its feed the hive. medicinal benefits for thousands of years. Science has since shown relationships between the use of honey and the lowering of The chemical makeup of honey blood pressure, the alleviation and the process of which it is of insomnia, the quicker healing made is extremely complex. In one of burns1 and the prevention of investigation nearly 500 different atherosclerosis.2 The honeybee compounds were identified collects the nectar from flowers, throughout the process. This was digests it in its honey stomach in the case of the nectar from a and delivers it to the hive in linden flower. honeycombs. Here it will ripen The broad overview of into fresh honey to be enjoyed by the process states that in the humans, ‘pooh bears’ and other honeybee’s honey stomach, the land creatures alike. Honeybees sucrose from the nectar is broken

Chemical Makeup

Holly Key

Fig. 1 2D structural formulae for Sucrose to Fructose and Glucose

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down by enzymes into glucose and fructose (as shown in Fig. 1 p.16).

The honey is then deposited in honeycombs to ripen. During this time it is important that the substance is kept in an oxidative atmosphere at 35oC. The bees achieve this by creating good ventilation around the hive and by moving their wings.1 This oxidative atmosphere is important and helps the necessary molecules in the process of the ripening of the honey. When ripened, benzoic acid and phenylacetic acid in the honey provide it with its distinctive smell.2

Bees have been very successful both in surviving individually and in surviving as a species. By making their own nutrition in a secure environment, this ensures that given that the workers can get to the correct concentrations of nectar, they will never go hungry. Nutrition is possibly the most important part of survival and the honeybee has adapted to this incredibly well.

Royal Jelly

Laura Nunes

Honey is important in the nutrition of adult bees, however during the larvae stage royal jelly is vital. Royal jelly is a substance also synthesised from nectar, which is secreted from the hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands of nursing honeybees (workers) to feed to the queen bee’s brood.4 Worker bees are fed royal jelly for only three days, whereas a larva destined to be the queen bee would be fed royal jelly throughout the larval period.5 This suggests that it is very

important in the growth of the bee as the queen bee is much larger than a worker bee (as shown in Fig. 2 overleaf). When a hive becomes overcrowded, the worker bees will choose a select amount of larvae to feed the extra royal jelly to; this will then lead to more queens being made. These queens then take flight with around 5000-25000 worker bees to start a new colony.

The chemical make up of royal jelly is as follows: 50-70% water, 9-18% proteins, 7-18% carbohydrates, 3-8% fatty acids and lipids and ca. 1.5% mineral salts.4 The lipids are important and make the royal jelly highly acidic, which gives it good antimicrobial properties.

Mites such as Varroa destructor are threatening bee colonies in the Western world.

These mites attack and eat the honeybee larvae.

However, scientists have discovered that the mites will attack drone and worker bees, but not queens. This has since been attributed to the repellent properties of royal jelly (of which the queen honeybee larvae have the highest concentration). It was found that octanoic acid in the royal jelly acted as the repellent.8 This amazing discovery will hopefully lead to the protection of the other bees in a colony and hopefully stop colonies being wiped out by Varroa destructor.

Royal jelly consumption of bees has also been linked to behavioural traits. Some scientists have suggested that different concentrations of royal jelly in the brain of wild type bees and colony bees can be attributed to how the

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

bees behave.6 Proteins are the most important part of royal jelly; 80% of the proteins in royal jelly are unique to the substance. These are

called Major Royal Jelly Proteins (MRJP)6. They have been linked to inhibiting certain types of cancers, especially breast cancer.7 Experiments carried out on mice

Fig. 2 Honey Bee types. Š Encyclopaedia Britannica

Laura nunes

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carrying a type of tumour called Sarcoma-180 ascites, found that royal jelly could increase the life of a mouse by 9.3% - 19.3%.7. In addition, an interesting property about human ingestion of royal jelly seems to be that it can increase food allergies and the occurrence of chronic illnesses such as asthma.7 The high acidity of royal jelly makes it perfect as an antibacterial barrier for the larvae, and it is incredibly important to the survival of the individual larvae and the species as a whole.

As also aforementioned, it keeps queen bees safe from mites such

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as Varroa destructor, so royal jelly really is incredibly important for the survival of the species.

Royal jelly appears to be towards the forefront of research when it comes to the chemistry of bees.

Read more in Part 2 next issue.

Tom Jeavons.

[1] “A systematic review of honey uses and its potential value within oncology care” Joy Bardy, Nicholas J Slevin, Kathleen L Mais and Alexander Molassiotis JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING (2007) 2604 -2623 [2] “From the Linden flower to Linden Honey – Volatile constituents of Linden nectar, the extract of bee-stomach and ripe honey” Naef R, Jaquier A, Velluz A, Bachofen B, Chemistry and Biodiversity vol 1 (2004) 1870-1879 [3] The effects of foraging role and genotype on light and sucrose responsiveness in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) Jennifer M. Tsurud∗, Robert E. Page Jr. Behavioural Brain Research 205 (2009)132-137 [4] “Gas chromatographic and mass spectrometric characterization of the organic acids extracted from some preparations containing lyophilized royal jelly” V.A. Isidorov, U. Czyz˙ ewska, A.G. Isidorova, S. Bakier, Journal of Chromatography B, 877 (2009) 3776–3780 [5] “Estimation and characterisation of major royal jelly proteins obtainedfrom the honeybee Apis merifera” Shougo Tamura , Toru Kono , Chika Harada, Kikuji Yamaguchi,, Takanori Moriyama d, Food Chemistry 114 (2009) 1491–1497 [6] “Identification of major royal jelly proteins in the brain of the honeybee Apis mellifera” Leonardo Gomes Peixoto , Luciana Karen Cala´ bria , Liudy Garcia, Fausto Emı´lio Capparelli ,Luiz Ricardo Goulart , Marcelo Valle de Sousa , Foued Salmen Espindola , Journal of Insect Physiology 55 (2009) 671–677 [7] “Antitumor effects of Royal Jelly (RJ)”. Toyoyuki TAMURA, Akira FUJII and Noboru KUBOYAMA Folia pharmacol. japon.89, 73-80 (1987) [8] “Octanoic acid confers to royal jelly varroa-repellent properties” Francesco Nazzi & Renzo Bortolomeazzi & Giorgio Della Vedova & Fabio Del Piccolo & Desiderato Annoscia & Norberto Milani, Naturwissenschaften (2009) 96:309–314

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Have you washed your hands?

James Gilham explores the story behind Ignaz Semmelweis, and how theorising that handwashing could save lives, lead to his eventual death.

It is not just the general public who are subject to misconceptions and fallacy, even the respected field of medicine can get it wrong sometimes, and when they do, it invariably means misfortune for the rest of us.

On July the 30th 1865 Ignaz Semmelweis was led under false pretences to the Lazarettgasse asylum for the clinically insane.

Whereupon discovering the ruse he was savagely beaten, restrained in a straitjacket and confined to a dark, damp and padded cell. He died two weeks later, under what can only be described as cruelly ironic circumstances.

rory dickerson

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To be fair to the people involved in incarcerating Ignaz, the last few years of his life were spent presenting symptoms that we can now diagnose as possible Alzheimer’s, senile dementia

‘The medical community turned its back on Ignaz and his theory’ or even late stage syphilis. His aggressive behaviour, erratic at best, was mainly directed at his many critics of the time, sending numerous open letters to associates vindicating them as “irresponsible

murderers” and “ignoramuses”.

So what did Ignaz’s critics find so wrong as to drive him to drink, prostitution and eventual madness?

Ignaz’s crime to medicine was to claim that something as simple as washing ones hands could save lives. To understand why this seemed so illogical to physicians at the time you have to be aware that of the following facts. Firstly, germ theory was not yet invented, and secondly, doctors were held with such high regard that the very fact of stating the possibility that they could be spreading disease was considered medical blasphemy.

Ignaz first made this discovery when he was working on the maternity ward of the Allgemeine Krankenhaus Hospital in Vienna.

The maternity ward was split into two divisions, with one being staffed by doctors and the other by midwives and nurses. Ignaz was a compassionate man and was appalled by the incredibly high death rate at the time; in 1847 one in six mothers died from puerperal fever, the main cause of disease and death in pregnancy. To try and figure out a way to address this

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problem, Ignaz resorted to almost obsessive levels of data gathering and analysis. Over six years nearly 40,000 births occurred in the maternity ward with 2,600 deaths.

However something did not add up.

The average fatality rate of the two ward divisions was different and even more alarming was the fact that the midwives’ ward fatality rate was less than half that of the doctors’ ward. Ignaz also collected data from home-births and found that women were sixty times less likely to die of puerperal fever when giving birth at home in the presence of a midwife. Sixty times?

This confused Ignaz, but drew him to the conclusion that doctors must be a major factor or even a vector for the disease.

Even with half of the answer it still took a personal tragedy for Ignaz to understand the whole story. A very dear friend and professor of Ignaz was leading a student through an autopsy, when the student’s scalpel slipped and cut through the finger of the professor. He soon became ill and died, yet his presented symptoms of pericarditis, peritonitis and meningitis, were very similar to that of the woman whom he had been performing the autopsy on; he had died from puerperal fever. This was unusual, as puerperal fever was not considered contagious; a mother would contract it yet the doctors and midwives around her would not. This was the ‘eureka’ moment that Ignaz needed.

Doctors and medical students were transferring cadaverous material to the maternity wards causing illness. This theory also explained why the midwives’ ward had lower

fatality rates, as midwives were never allowed into the autopsy rooms.

Armed with this knowledge, Ignaz went on a cleaning campaign, forcing doctors on his ward to wash their hands with chlorine water, after both autopsies and patient examinations. The results spoke for themselves, with fatality rates falling to less than 1%. Therefore you would assume that when Ignaz presented this information to the leading physicians of Europe that he would be heralded as a genius, a life saver and a man responsible for changing the face of modern medicine. This was not the case.

until long after his death, when Pasteur’s invention of germ theory came about, and only then was it finally accepted.

What, in addition, was the irony behind Ignaz Semmelweis’s death? The savage beating he had taken upon admission to the asylum had resulted in a gangrenous wound leading to pyaemia (blood poisoning), which was caused by none other than puerperal fever.

James Gilham.

Sam mitchell

Above: Around 1 out of every 5 people globally don’t have access to clean drinking water.

Instead his associates refused to believe that something as simple as washing your hands could produce such significant results.

The medical community turned its back on Ignaz and his theory, and their arrogance and refusal to accept responsibility resulted in the deaths of millions of people

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Nanoparticles and you Isabella Romer explains how nanoparticles have a larger presence in your life than you may realise.

What comes to mind when you hear the word nanoparticles?

Some people might think of killer nanobots that will attack the planet, such as in The Prey

by Michael Crichton, where they infect our brains and create a zombie infested world.

The truth is far from that. In actual fact, nanoparticles are all around us right now, found in some of the things that we use every day.

understand what they are.

Gold nanoparticles, which are red when they are as small as nanometres, were used in the past to stain glass. Medieval artisans made stained glass by mixing gold chloride into molten glass. They created tiny gold spheres that absorbed and reflected sunlight in a way that produced a variety of colours, without truly knowing what they were making. The artisans knew that by putting So what are they? varying and tiny amounts of gold and silver in the glass, they could Nanoparticles are usually produce the effects found in defined as particles that range stained-glass windows. between 1 and 100 nm in size. A The Lycurgus Cup, which nanometre (nm) is one thousand millionth of a metre or 1 x 10-9m, so it is pretty small! To illustrate this, the size of a human hair is between 25000 nm and 180000 nm wide, and bacteria are around 100 nm in diameter. Approximately ten hydrogen atoms in a line make up one nanometre.

was made by the Romans, dates to the fourth century AD (Fig. 1).

When viewed in reflected light (in daylight), it appears green, and when a light is shone into the cup and transmitted through the glass, it appears red.

When were nanoparticles first synthesised?

Nanoparticles were first synthesised by Anthony Turkevich in the early 1950s, who incidentally was the same man that first determined the composition of the moon’s surface. Ever since

How long have they been around?

Nanoparticles have been used for a very long time. It is just that we have only recently begun to

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BBC NEWS

Fig. 1 The Lycurgus Cup from Roman times containing gold nanoparticles exhibited at the British Museum, here displayed under different light sources.

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then they have been widely used as contrast agents for electron microscopy (used during imaging examinations to highlight specific parts of the body and make them easier to see), cancer research and as carriers for drugs.

Silver antibacterial nanoparticles Silver nanoparticles are widely used because of their antibacterial properties; silver acts against the bacteria by destroying or deactivating the enzymes that allow oxygen intake of the organism, and by destroying the cell membrane. As a result, the organism’s DNA cannot make replicas of itself, let alone create possible resistant strains. Silver nanoparticles are also non-toxic and don’t suppress the immune system.

Socks, paints, bandages, and food containers incorporate nanosilver to exploit its antimicrobial properties.

In clothing such as socks, nanosilver may restrict the growth of pungent bacteria.

Nanoparticles in clothes Garments coated by silver, gold and palladium nanoparticles were shown at a fashion show in New York in 2007. The work was performed by designer Olivia Ong (Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design from the College of Human Ecology), and the nanoparticle coated fabrics were

made by Professor Juan Hinostroza.

One garment is claimed to prevent colds and flu and never needs washing (as shown in Fig. 2 on the left of the image), and another destroys harmful gases and protects the wearer from smog and air pollution (as shown in Fig. 2 on the right of the image).

Dipping positively charged cotton into a negatively charged silver nanoparticle solution resulted in the particles clinging to the cotton fibers. Firstly, positively charged cotton fibers were made by using ammonium and epoxy based reactions, which served to induce positive ionization. The silver particles, which are about 10-20 nanometres across, were synthesized in citric acid which prevented the nanoparticles from sticking together. The resultant colors are not the product of dyes, but are instead reflections of manipulation of particle size or arrangement. The problem with these types of fabrics is their price; for 90 cm2 of the fabric you would have to shell out 10,000 American dollars!

©

Michael Grace-Martin

Fig. 2 The dress (left) is made of cotton covered with silver nanoparticles that can deactivate bacteria. The hood, sleeves and pockets of the jacket (right) contain palladium nanoparticles that act as catalysts to reduce the negative effects of pollution.

are also used in fridges and airconditioning, in order to prevent bad smells.

Nanoparticles and make-up

Another commonly used nanoparticle is silicon oxide. Silicon oxide nanoparticles are used in the cosmetic industry, for biomedical applications and also in solar cells.

Cerium oxide nanoparticles have Nanoparticles in applicances recently been used in the petrol industry where they are added to In addition, Samsung has diesel to reduce fuel consumption, incorporated silver nanoparticles greenhouse gas emissions (CO2), into a washing machine, which and particulate emissions. is known to release the particles during washing. They penetrate ‘Invisible’ spray sun creams deeply into all kinds of fabrics, creating a protecting coat of Nanoparticles of iron oxide are sterilisation for a maximum of very interesting because of their 99.99% disinfection, as well as an magnetic properties, and are widely added antibacterial effect which used for medical applications. Over can last for up to 30 days after 300 sun creams in the market today washing. These nanoparticles contain titanium oxide and zinc

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oxide nanoparticles. By replacing traditional forms of ZnO and TiO2 with nanoparticles of these substances, manufacturers can reduce the visibility of the cream paving the way for ‘invisible’ sun cream.

Are there any side-effects caused by using nanoparticles?

One of the biggest issues with nanoparticles is their possible toxicity and effect on the environment after they have been disposed. Regulatory bodies in the U.S. and Europe have started dealing with the potential risks posed by nanoparticles, however neither engineered nanoparticles, nor the products and materials that contain them are subject to any special regulation regarding production, handling or labelling.

It is therefore highly important to study the adverse effects and to both quantify and minimize them, both for environmental protection and to ensure the long term sustainability of the nanotechnology industry, along with its associated benefits. A lot of research is being done at the moment to assess those effects on humans, animals and the environment. Every day new uses for these tiny particles are found, and soon they may play a much bigger part in our lives than could have ever have been previously imagined.

Isabella Romer.

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A brief history of Pi Andrew Langworthy explores man’s fascination with Pi. In January 2010, Fabrice Bellard calculated pi to nearly 2.7 trillion digits, breaking the previous world record. This was on his desktop computer, whereas the previous record was held by a supercomputer. This feat took him 131 days.

Man’s fascination with pi has been ongoing for nearly as long as mathematics itself. The first recorded mention is from an Egyptian scribe Ahmes on the Rhind papyrus, which was written c.1650 BCE. He calculated pi as being 3.16, using purely geometrical methods (in this case it this involved cutting bits off squares).

Archimedes gave the first known method to calculate pi c.250 BCE. He used the “Principle of Exhaustion”, which gives an upper and lower bound for the value of pi by estimating its size using regular polygons.

He would calculate the area of the large and small polygons (as shown in Fig. 1 on p. 25), take an average and then calculate pi

using the formula: A = πr². Using this method with polygons with an increasing number of sides, Archimedes calculated pi to be 3.1419, which is accurate to within 0.3%. This is quite a feat for someone who belonged to a civilization that had not discovered algebra!

This relatively archaic method was used right up until the late 1600s, with mathematicians making very tedious progress, using larger and larger polygons. This trend culminated in Leonard van Ceulen, a German mathematician. Van Ceulen devoted his entire life to the study of pi, using polygons of up to 52 billion sides. Through years and years of extraordinarily long calculations, van Ceulen calculated pi to 35 decimal places. He died in 1610, with a legacy that should have lasted a lot longer than it did.

Unfortunately for van Ceulen, new methods for calculating pi were discovered, infinite products, and his entire life’s work was rendered obsolete within 15 years of his death. These infinite products took

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Fig. 1

the form of equations that did away with the need for the tiresome polygons that had haunted van Ceulen. More and more digits were then calculated using increasingly more efficient methods.

The year of 1949 heralded the first time in which a computer was used to calculate the digits of pi. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) took 72 hours to calculate a whopping 2,037 digits. Poor van Ceulen had been blown out of the water! From then on, the number of known digits of pi has rocketed, but the search has not faltered. Mathematicians are, even now, finding more efficient ways to calculate the number using increasingly more elaborate methods. It seems unlikely that these calculations will herald any real new information about the number. For instance, it has already been proven that pi is transcendental (i.e. its digits never repeat). This was proven back in 1882 by Ferdinand von Lindemann, another German mathetician. Even so, two of the

greatest mathematicians of our time, the Chudnovsky brothers, are convinced that pi holds some underlying pattern and they, much like von Ceulen 400 years before them, have committed their lives trying to find it.

Did you, for instance, know that the probability that two randomly chosen numbers do not share any factors (are relatively prime) is 6/ π²?

Whatever you may think of maths, just remember that without it, and indeed without pi, we would When one thinks of pi, one have nothing. always thinks of circles. However, Andrew Langworthy. this is not all that pi is related to.

The more we find out about the Additional Reading: ‘The Joy of Pi’ world, the more pi seems to appear. David Blatner 1997

FLICKR: jorel314

Fig. 2 ASCII Pi created from the first 300 digits of Pi.

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Diabetic Dolphins Laura Nunes investigates a new study which shows that dolphins may have a form of diabetes which could shed new light on the treatment of the disease in humans.

A new study shows that dolphins may have a form of diabetes similar to type 2 diabetes, which could shed new light on the treatment of the disease in humans.

It seems that the marine mammals have an on and off mechanism that allows them to control glucose levels in the blood. If this mechanism could be understood it might be possible that a similar mechanism can be implemented in humans to treat type 2 diabetes.

Recent discoveries by a group of scientists in San Diego suggest that the marine mammals have developed a switch mechanism that turns the disease on or off whenever it so chooses. Type 2 diabetes affects around 2.2 million people in Britain, a number that is expected to increase to four million by 2025.

Type 2 Diabetes

in the regulation of blood glucose levels. It is secreted by the pancreas when blood glucose levels are high and it stimulates body cells to absorb the sugar. Hence, patients with insulin-resistant body cells have reduced uptake of glucose, leading to several physiological complications such as kidney failure. Glucose is extremely important to brain function in humans and new evidence suggest that the same might be true for dolphins. After all, both humans and dolphins possess relatively large brains compared to their body sizes, and therefore both species would be expected to require large amounts of glucose. Not surprisingly, high levels of glucose have been found in dolphins’ blood streams. On the other hand, one begins to wonder how high levels of glucose can be found in the mammals’ bloodstreams considering the diet of dolphins.

large brains, the mammals have found a way of conserving the small quantity of glucose that they ingest by developing insulinresistant cells. These cells prevent the uptake of the glucose from the bloodstream so that there is an accumulation of glucose in the blood which can be used to keep the brain well-fed and functioning.

Everyone has heard the many health risks related to a diet high in sugar, so if the dolphins keep retaining glucose and the sugar levels keep increasing, won’t they be putting their health at risk?

The team led by Dr Stephanie Venn-Watson, director of clinical research at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego, found that dolphins have found a way of avoiding dangerous blood glucose levels. In fact, the trick is having a mechanism to turn insulin resistance on and off.

Switching on and off

Type 2 diabetes is characterised by the presence of high levels of A dolphin’s diet of fish is As it turns out, dolphins do blood glucose as a result of tissue considerably low in sugars such not possess permanent insulincells developing a resistance to as glucose. In order to provide resistant tissue cells and therefore insulin. Insulin is a hormone used the glucose required for their they are able to regulate glucose

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Laura Nunes

levels by switching the resistance on and off. The team of scientists in San Diego found this switch mechanism by comparing 1000 blood samples from 52 dolphins.

The blood samples were taken from trained dolphins that eat during the day and fast overnight. The results showed that the mammals’ metabolisms changed drastically overnight, mimicking the blood chemistry of patients suffering from type 2 diabetes. These findings suggest that at night the insulin resistance is switched on in order to keep blood glucose levels high in the absence of food. In contrast, during the day while the dolphins were fed, the insulin resistance was switched off as a way of regulating the levels of blood glucose. How the insulin resistance is turned on and off is still unknown but scientists believe that there might be some clues in the dolphin genome.

At the Salk Institute, also in San Diego, scientists have discovered a human gene that is abnormally

turned on in patients suffering from type 2 diabetes. Scientists are hopeful that this “fasting gene” could be the key to controlling diabetes in humans. As both the

threatens their well-being, a factor that could affect the validity of the studies. Therefore initial research is centered on finding evidence of the genetic switch by comparing the marine mammal’s genes with the human genes as both genomes human and dolphin genomes have been sequenced; this is a have been sequenced, scientists process which does not involve are hopeful that if the mechanism keeping dolphins in captivity. that allows the “fasting gene” in dolphins to turn on and off is found, In addition, despite the they might be able implement it in similarities between humans and the treatment of patients with type dolphins, some experts believe that 2 diabetes. their metabolic differences might Using dolphins in medical mean that the animals do not use research clearly raises a lot of blood sugar in the same way as ethical issues, but before PETA humans. The evident differences and other animal rights groups between the two types of brain as begin their campaign, scientists well as the nervous systems could have already voiced their concerns make the dolphin an unsuitable regarding the reliability of the model animal for clinical research. results. In order to undergo However the door remains medical research procedures, the open for scientists to continue animals would have to be removed their pursuits in the hope that from their natural environment. diseases such as type 2 diabetes Captive dolphins have been found will potentially be able to be cured to experience ongoing stress that someday.

Dolphins in the lab

Laura Nunes.

Reference & Further Reading: http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/type-2/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/19/dolphins-humans-diabetes http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8523412.stm http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100219-health-dolphins-diabetes-switch-humans-cure-medicine/

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Climate Science Under Attack As two reports clear Climatic Research Unit of any wrongdoing, Hannah Dadd looks at the scientific basis for climate change and the public controversies that have recently beset the field.

In November 2009 it was revealed that hackers had accessed the email server of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), a small but influential research group based at the University of East Anglia, which resulted in 160MB of files being published on the internet. These files allegedly show the scientists conspiring to doctor evidence in favour of anthropogenic (manmade) climate change.[1][2] Now, two reports have been released clearing the unit of deliberate malpractice.[3][4] This follows further negative media coverage of climate science, following the revelation of factual errors in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.[5] The main work of the CRU involves constructing a historical record of global and regional temperatures. For the most recent time periods this can be achieved by collecting instrumental data. The process of converting instrumental measurements is amongst the many challenges in analyzing this data. The measurements are taken at discrete uneven locations

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and converted into average temperatures for large areas and corrected for extraneous sources of heat such as nearby urban areas.

Where no instrumental data exists, temperatures can be reconstructed from other physical markers that correlate with local temperatures.

Such markers include the abundance of different oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in polar ice cores, and the breadth of tree rings. [4][6] The study of tree ring data (dendroclimatology) was the other main work done at CRU and the subject of the most contentious leaked email.

On 16th November 1999, CRU’s director, Professor Phil Jones sent an email to some of his colleagues to discuss a diagram of historical temperatures to be included in the World Meteorological Organisation’s statement on the climate. It contained the line: “I’ve just completed Mike’s [Prof. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center of Pennsylvania State University] Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years… to

hide the decline.” [2] This extract, amongst others, was reproduced across the internet and much of the mainstream media. James Delingpole declared in the Daily Telegraph that “the conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth… has been suddenly, brutally and deliciously exposed.”[7] Stephen Glover of the Daily Mail described the emails as “damning.” [8] The truth was somewhat less dramatic.

The “Nature trick” refers to a technique that was used by Prof Mann in his 1998 paper for the journal, Nature. The paper contained a reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures from 1400 onwards, derived from multiple instrumental and proxy sources, and showed a dramatic rise in mean temperatures since the beginning of the 20th century. The temperature data from tree rings were omitted for the last few decades of the 20th century as they disagreed with the instrumental records. [9] The authors justified this because with direct instrumental readings, the proxy data was superfluous and

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because up until the 1950s, the tree ring data agreed with instrumental readings and other proxies before beginning to underestimate regional temperatures compared to other measures. This phenomenon is known as the divergence problem. It has been posited that the link between tree growth and temperature may break down at higher temperatures or that some other anthropogenic factor, such as a reduction in sunlight due to aerosol pollution, stunted tree growth over this period.[10][11] [12]

In the atmosphere this leads to IR radiation that is reflected back from the Earth, being re-emitted in different directions, trapping heat within the atmosphere. Although less than 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere is infrared active, levels of these gases have increased dramatically since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Carbon dioxide levels have increased by almost a third since 1750, enough to have a significant impact on global temperatures. [14] In addition to this strong theoretical basis, the empirical data in favour of a rise in global temperatures in the latter part of the 20th century is strong, and this basic mechanism is uncontroversial within the world These revelations were of climatology. perceived to be damaging because the rise in recorded temperatures Why then, is climate change so in the 20th century was crucial divisive within the wider political in corroborating the theory that and public arena? Paul Valdes, increased levels of greenhouse Professor of Physical Geography at gases such as carbon dioxide in Bristol University says that: “Most the atmosphere lead to global of you have learnt your climate warming. The mechanism behind science from the media…the this effect is well established. media get it wrong, deliberately.”

When infrared radiation from Speaking at a meeting of the sunlight interacts with molecules Institute of Physics he recounted that have a permanent electric a story of being approached by a dipole, such as carbon dioxide and broadsheet journalist looking for water vapour, the bonds within the a quote, contradicting mainstream molecule change shape, changing opinion on CO2 and climate the polarity and thus absorbing change. When he would not give energy. When the molecule returns a quote, the journalist found to its initial state the energy is another source for his story, who radiated as infrared radiation. [13] they described as being a “leading References & Further Reading: [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8370282.stm [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/20/climate-sceptics-hackers-leaked-emails [3] House of Commons Science and Technology Committee: The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387/387i.pdf [4] Report of the International Panel set up by the University of East Anglia to examine the research of the Climatic Research Unit. http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/SAP [5] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8468358.stm [6] http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/icecore/review.php [7] http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/ [8] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-1231024/STEPHEN-GLOVER-I-know-truth-climate-change-I-recognise-trickery-slippery-excuses-I-them.html [9] Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries.

Michael E.Mann, Raymond S.Bradley & Malcolm K. Hughes. Nature 1998 Vol. 392.

[10] Q&A: Professor Phil Jones. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8511670.stm [11] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/ [12] Trees tell of past climates: but are they speaking less clearly today? K. R. Briffa et al. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London B. 1998.

[13] Dynamics: Infrared Spectroscopy http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/Chemistry/Courses/General/infrared.html [14] Radiation and Climate. I. M. Vardavas. F. W. Taylor. pp 8-10.

[15] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-climate-change-panel-based-claims-on-student-dissertation-and-magazine-article.html

climate scientist.” This man hadn’t published any papers on climate science. Besides the media’s desire for dissent, predicting the climate is intrinsically difficult. The relationship between temperature and climate is non-linear with many of the results of rising temperatures feeding back to increase the rate of rising temperatures. Computer models must take into account all the physical laws and solve them for small elements of the Earth’s surface. The effects of local geography need to be corrected for.

This process is inherently subjective and because of the multiple factors involved, the uncertainties are large. This conflicts with the public expectation of high degrees of certainty within the scientific process. This was shown with the outrage at the revelation that an erroneous claim, which was that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035, had been put in the IPCC report. This was only one fact in thousands of pages, but it was seen to discredit the whole thing. [15] The science of climate change is very clear, but the public understanding of it is not. In order for this to change, scientists and journalists need to work together to communicate more clearly the science of climate change and how that understanding has been reached, uncertainties and all.

Hannah Dadd.

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SATNAV Magazine Magazine at at the the University Universityof ofBirmingham Birmingham

The Impact Agenda FLICKR: Art, As a weapon

The word of the year in higher education research policy in 2010 has been ‘Impact’- Impact Assessment, Impact Plans, and Impact Pilots. As the coalition gets underway and funding cuts loom, the Impact agenda is causing the treasury to turn its attention towards the investment of taxpayers money into research and assess both its quality and impact.

The Impact agenda is the brainchild of the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

‘Through the REF, the UK funding bodies aim to develop and sustain

a dynamic and internationally competitive research sector that makes a major contribution to economic prosperity, national wellbeing and the expansion and dissemination of knowledge’.

These new requirements at the application and reporting stages of funding herald a shift in research policy and mark an important social issue affecting the world of science.

In this section of the magazine; Dr Pritchard of the University of Birmingham explains the issues of Impact, his views

on its implications, and why communication with the public is paramount.

On his visit to the University in May, the Rt Hon David Willetts delivered his first speech as Minister of State for Universities and Science. He expresses his views on the serendipitous paths that researchers take, fostering partnerships between universities and business, and the future of research.

For further information on the Impact Agenda: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/Research/ref/

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

The Impact of Impact Dr. Jeremy Pritchard reports on the impact of impact.

Impact. The word is loaded with strength, conflict, aggression: the impact of sword on shield, impact craters, impact centres repairing crashed cars. All give negative impact to the word. The revised UK RAE – REF* is now giving ‘Impact’ more of a bad press as it is hijacked to describe the outcomes of research projects.

The new impact statements no longer require scientific endeavour to be the blue sky, slow burner; instead it’s the cash in hand, value for money and sooner-thanlater approach. The debate is now

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raging; we as research scientists do not want this predictive restriction on our work. Cancel the impact and get back to the slow, considered, halcyon days in the lab.

The trouble is the debate about what exactly impact is, is a tricky one. With apologies to Descartes: if we do research and no one hears about it, did we do it? As part of society, scientists implicitly accept the social contract. To misquote Hobbes: “without the social contract the life of a researcher is nasty, brutish and short”. We receive the research funds, but

what do we contribute in return?

Impact can be many things: as Experimental Biologists we ponder and intervene to find out how the world works; this is surely enough?

The physicists may mutter about the value of the non-stick frying pan, but those who designed the Hadron Collider are frank; they are probing the very nature of the Universe and this is impact enough.

Ultimately the purse strings are held by the checkout girl at Tescos (other retailers are available). Their taxes are apportioned to ‘deserving causes’, including our research programmes that are deemed to be of worth. Arguably what is worthy is ultimately judged by the checkout girl as the political wheel turns full circle and her vote is solicited. If she thinks that probing the nature of the Universe is good use of her money then sufficient impact is achieved.

Consider a list of hypothetical research projects and rank them by impact: A programme that identifies a cure for cancer is undoubtedly research of high impact. Similarly, designing and producing plants

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that clean up pollution are also a ‘good thing’ and money well spent.

But what about identification of a transcription factor that regulates the size of a fish tail? Or a project that investigates the sex ratio of spider mites? Or the effect of temperature on proteins in the poplar tree? A little thought quickly identifies the impact of these studies. Different size fish tails might improve aquaculture, regulating spider mite sexes could lead to better pest control, plant response to temperature will inform conservation strategies. All of these are potential impacts, but is their use explicit in the minds of the scientists and wider society?

With apologies to my mechanical colleagues, a project designing a ball bearing that lasts longer is useful and has clear impact, but does not fire the imagination in the spectacular way that putting a man on the moon did. Spare a thought then for our arts friends. Impact may be occasionally tricky for the Bioscientist, but what is the impact of research exploring the motif of rain in Jane Eyre, or the use of the subjunctive in medieval French poetry?

But justifications of impact are equally valid for these researchers. If we scientists do not want to be constrained by the rigid market-driven criteria, we must bolster our arguments in similar ways to these areas of research.

Such studies have uses in defining the language of equality or in the

lucrative world of advertising. But there is a deeper more fundamental justification; they are important because they give people pleasure – finding things out and learning is an indivisible part of the human condition, we need to know, and ‘we’ means everyone.

There is more; in striving for that knowledge pleasure pay-off, we gain and refine our skills, we learn to learn impact that satisfies both the knowledge and skills agendas.

As a research community, one of our roles in society is to produce near-market knowledge.

But this must not be the only purpose, since telling people about our science also justifies our existence. If you talk about your work , perhaps to schools, you are enthusing, informing and directing the next generation of scientists. In a university you are also part of the hard-nosed student recruitment process, by proffering the excitement of research to attract motivated students to your courses. Explaining your research to the general public is also important, and although this might be criticised as ‘mere’ teaching, in the impact debate no one questions whether school teachers must justify their impact.

The impact of teachers is both implicitly and explicitly obvious.

Dr. Jeremy Pritchard, Two men in a pub (this is not a joke) are talking about some Chair, SEB Education & Public aspect of science they have read Affairs Section. about in the paper, seen on the TV/

*The UK Research Assessment Exercise has been replaced by the Research Excellence Framework - see http://www.hefce.ac.uk/Research/ref/

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radio or through some other media source. They are interested; the conversation gives them pleasure, and it enriches their lives. This is undoubtedly a ‘good thing’. But there is more; they feel more positive about science than they did before, politicians will want their votes, science is good, science will move up the agenda, one day there might be an extra £500K in a funding initiative and you might be the one to benefit.

So it is not yet clear how the impact of the REF will be formulated or used. However, whatever the outcome, science and science communication is increasingly important. The SEB takes impact seriously, indeed it always has. It’s just that now it’s on the radar and is being more clearly defined in all its different ways. The SEB has clear strategy in this area co-ordinated by our Education & Public Affairs (EPA) Section with input from our other three sections. If you don’t ‘do’ impact yet, look out for activities and resources available to SEB members. Define impact however you want, do it yourself or do it by proxy, but do it!

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

SATNAV meets

Dr. Jeremy Pritchard SATNAV interviews a seasoned lecturer at the University of Birmingham.

For how long have you been involved in researching and lecturing?

I did my PhD between 1984 and 1988 and started lecturing in 1994, which was at this university.

Between finishing my PhD and lecturing I worked in both the United States and North Wales on various projects.

Have you always been into science?

Yes, it started at a very young age when I would go walking in the countryside. I was also very much into English literature, poetry and theatre (and I still am) but I made a decision at A level that I could always do that in my free time but I would have to focus on science to make it, and so that’s what I did.

Kelvin Rose

Also, as an editor of the Journal of Experimental Botany, I have my finger in the research pie. I get to drive the agenda; most people in my position will be doing bits like this as an add-on as they have the experience, which is great for me as I enjoy so many different things.

wheat varieties. It can be difficult getting money nowadays for certain types of research; a lot of money is going into educating and producing new scientists, which is arguably more important than results.

What’s your favourite thing about your job?

Can you tell us about any current research you’re involved in?

The fact that I never had to get a ‘proper’ job. There is huge Currently I’m involved in diversity in the roles that I can investigations into manipulating do. For example I can work on the the amount of amino acid in phloem genetics of Arabidopsis thaliana which means that herbivores such one day to ecological diversity of as aphids won’t feed as much. This Dudley canal tunnels the next, will have a huge impact on plant as well as everything in between. breeding, particularly in improving

Is there a particular piece of work you’re most proud of?

The most exciting thing about any research is finding something out that nobody else knows. A most memorable moment was in Edinburgh; we were looking at an enzyme that loosens the cell wall, allowing growth. We didn’t know what was going to happen;

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it was eight o’clock at night and we were the only ones in the lab but we were looking at a graph being constructed by the data. In our heads we could picture what the graph should look like, and as the graph was coming out we could see it taking shape and knew we had got the results we wanted. That’s a great feeling.

Do you agree scientific research is 95% disappointment and only 5% elation?

Yes, definitely. But then on the other hand as they say: ‘no result is a wrong result in science’.

You have written a report entitled ‘The impact of impact’. Can you briefly summarise this for us please?

Forty to fifty years ago the government would fund papers and research far more easily than they do now; the situation has arisen in which the government is keen to justify to the people who hold purse strings, i.e. tax payers, what they get for their money. As an example, we put a man on the moon and all we got was a nonstick frying pan! It confronts the question ‘how do we measure the impact of research?’ Whilst producing a new drug is easy to measure, at the other end of scale people who research English literature are not producing anything with financial value, but does this make the research less worthy? Compare for example research into a cure for cancer and research into literature – it is easier to quantify the more obvious benefits but each has a value, be it

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financial or the outward looking feel-good factor. The debate on how we measure impact has never been greater; for a business to spend half a million pounds it must be justified. There need to be ways of measuring impact which are fair to everybody; these are not political requirements it just seems the public are more engaged with obvious research nowadays.

classic example of this is GM crops; it dried up in the UK because it was seen that public opinion was such that the agenda would never be pushed here so it went to the United States. Whether or not the opinion of the public is correct depends on the communication of scientists.

Are there any current ‘hot topics’ which in your opinion research Do you think we, as a society, have should be focusing on? any impact on where scientific research is focused?

At the moment, money tends to be put into big collaborative We probably don’t as organisations which results in individuals. However, I think that fewer individual grants. This can if there is a general consensus that lead to experts such as taxonomists something is good or bad then yes, being lost due to lack of funding in I think we can have an impact. A certain fields. There are topics that

Kelvin rose

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

will always be there such as global warming. Currently, the EU has just banned 22 pesticides and provided no replacements so that will no doubt crop up soon.

Do you think public opinion would agree with this?

It all depends on how the subject is put across to the public and how they’re educated about it.

For example, the public in general did not like GM crops as they had a ‘Frankenstein food’ image and only the bad points were highlighted.

Scientists are not great at telling the public what they’re doing and why they’re doing it; for instance not many people know that not one person has died from eating a GM crop!

There are many public Kelvin Rose misconceptions about the field of research in science. Which do you tiny then doubling it won’t have think are the most common? much impact.

Any predictions on where the future of science will go?

The perception of science Does this put school children off can be quite old fashioned. Ask a choosing science?

I think stem cell research and child about a scientist and they reproductive biology will be very would say ‘an old man wearing a This is not the problem. The developed in the near future. white coat’. There are also general problem is that students tend not Speaking as a total reductionist, misconceptions about probability to go into science because it’s seen I think that whether you can and certainty. A great example is as hard, which it is. Some degrees deconstruct something 100% or when a scientist makes a statement you can enter without any previous not, that is still the starting point. such as ‘this drink doubles risk of education on that subject, whereas Neurobiology and the I.T that goes cancer’, but if the risk is already science is cumulative so you can’t. alongside it has advanced so much,

Kelvin Rose

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and I predict they will progress instead wanting to learn for your communicate them. The course even further in the future. own interest. is going to be generic with a wider variety of degree programmes, If you hadn’t been a scientist/ Do you have any advice for science including the chemistry degree in the second year. lecturer, what do you think you students? would have done?

Maintain enthusiasm and Thank you very much for taking I don’t think I could do be self motivated independently the time to speak with us. of assessments. Also, a deadline anything else! doesn’t mean you can’t have it Jade Ogle.

What would you say are the finished before that day! qualities of a true scientist at You’ve been the brains behind heart? the new module choice ‘Biology A sense of wonder and an Communication and Media’, can interest in everything. If you go you tell us a little about it? on a field course and you’re not It’s a new course put into place excited, that’s the point at which to try and provide students with you might as well give it up. what society said they lacked and What are the best qualities to have required. The purpose of it is to enhance the quality of education, for studying a scientific subject? and it’s also what students To have enthusiasm and themselves said they felt they motivation, as well as not being lacked. It will be based on how you obsessed by assessment, but justify your decisions and then

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

David Willets ‘He is symbolic of a type of Tory that has come to prominence over the past twenty years - young, brainy, earnest pious, confident: in a word, insufferable.’ Robert Harris Though insufferable in the eyes of Robert Harris, David Willetts has revealed his firm beliefs in “curiosity-driven research” and “competition from new providers”.

Could this mark the start of a transformation for research funding in the UK? In May 2010 David Willetts MP, the new Minister of State for Universities and Science, chose the University of Birmingham to deliver his first keynote speech since being appointed to the cabinet. David ‘Two Brains’ Willetts was born and educated in Birmingham and his family is interwoven with the city’s history with many accountable for its transformation into the city of a thousand trades. His father graduated from the University with two engineering degrees in the 1940s against the backdrop of the Great Hall’s spectacular stained glass window. These windows which so impressed the viewers of the third Leader’s Debate, were the work of David’s great-grandfather.

Though Conservative policy running up to the general election may not have predicted it, Willletts pledged support for ring-fenced science, research budget and the Haldane principle which upholds that governments should not unduly interfere with how research

councils spend their money. He told his audience that the outcome of university research should have a “positive impact on our economy and our society” and went on to stipulate that it was impact, after all, which “motivates academics, whether they’re researching medicine to improve patient care or conducting research in the archives that can transform understanding of our country’s history.”

But then the big politician ‘however’ reared its head; Willetts professed to “have doubts” about the impact agenda proposed by the REF. He believes it is at risk of being “over-managed and over-driven”.

Not only that, but he expressed scepticism at its methodology and its kudos amongst academics. Mr Willetts plans to “take soundings from Sir Alan Langlands [chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England] and representatives of the academic community”.

His speech clearly sought to place a definite chasm between the higher education policies of the present coalition government and that of Labour’s, which was condemned by many for it’s over exaggeration of the demands of the economy.

With regards to relations between the government and universities, Willetts maintained that the comparative deficit of

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David Willets at the Muirhead Tower at the University of Birmingham

world-class universities in France had roots in the civil servant status of academics. He said “that is why governments must respect the autonomy of universities. We can strengthen this by giving them the widest possible range of diverse funding streams and institutional arrangements. We must place greater faith in the serendipitous paths that researchers take.”

As well as the lack of detailed discussion of higher education funding, the underlying message for an increased need for private provision will unsettle many scientists. Can we trust the pledges of David Willetts? The words of John Quinton spring to mindPoliticians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. Natalie Harrison.

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Intro

Reviews Hey there everyone. Welcome to the review section, where every issue we dish out our thoughts on the latest new additions to the technological world, and generally review things. We intend to help you decide which companies deserve your cash, and to do so without offending too many people with our opinions. This time around we delve into the up and coming worlds of electronic

readers, give you the heads up on 3D technology, and we review both the latest addition to the Final Fantasy game series, along with an interview about the new film at the Physics department.

This may seem a bit restricted for the moment, but don’t worry; expect to see tests and reviews of all the latest gadgets, books, films, games and generally everything else you spend your money on to

make life that little bit happier.

We’re always on the lookout for new people with ace opinions so get involved by emailing SATNAV and telling us what your passion is. Watch this space and hope you enjoy it.

Scott Davies, Reviews Editor

in this issue

39 Talkin’ ‘bout the 3D Revolution 41 Angles and Demons Film Interview 42 Final Fantasy XIII Review 43 The E-Reader Revolution & iPad en-kindle-ing

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Talkin' 'bout the 3d revolution Up until not long ago, mentioning 3D technology made us think of images with weird blue (sorry, cyan to be precise) and red shading, that seemed to leap right out of the page or screen. This was possible as long as you wore a pair of paper glasses with filters of the same colours and didn’t intend on moving much whilst you were looking at the image, otherwise the effect pretty much loses its impressiveness. Even 3D films in themselves were never really that impressive either; most of them were just made to be specifically 3D and turned out awful (namely Jaws 3D™) or some just had 3D credentials added to them that they just didn’t deserve.

For so long we all wished that technology and cinema would improve to the level of 3D theme park rides in America or that feature length films were made to the 3D level of those IMAX only films that nobody has ever heard of....such that I can’t name any for you, but we all assume that they’re of amazing quality.

Well hazzar!! Since James Cameron correctly waited for technology to “catch up” to his idea , the amazing 3D spectacle Avatar™, along with the success of other recent movies the likes of Monsters vs. Aliens™, our dreams for a 3D enriched cinema experience have been answered and we’ve started flocking to the cinema again to pay extortionate prices to watch a film.

Of course these films don’t exactly work the same as those glasses you pull out from The Sun or a childrens magazine (not that you can tell the difference based on writing style); as you probably know by now you’re given something which vaguely resembles sunglasses. These use polarizing filters which create the illusion of depth and a stereoscopic picture, thus producing a 3D image. This means you can see all the individual colours of the movie (everything isn’t red or cyan or an odd colour in-between) and you shouldn’t have to move your head to a certain position where the image

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Above: Now classic Red/Cyan 3D Imaging...

looks 3D. Most good cinemas now have screens, projectors and the glasses necessary for showing all the latest 3D blockbusters, a precaution which will be necessary considering the large number of 3D films now set for release. Expect chaos when the new Toy Story, Harry Potter, and Tintin film start screening.

However, these films I mention are only a few gems amongst many expected flops.

Many on the current 3D roster were just made to be specifically 3D and turned out awful or some just had 3D credentials added to them that they just didn’t deserve (Clash of the Titans – oh dear). Don’t be surprised if you’re experiencing Déjà Vu, in more ways than one. In other words, it seems that the popularity of the technology may cause many films to be made 3D at a poor attempt to make more money at the box office. Let’s face it, it’s probably the only reason any of us may be tempted to see the upcoming sequel to Cats and Dogs.

Of course 3-dimensional technology nowadays isn’t just restricted to the cinema, with new 3D-ready TV screens. These are high definition, huge LCD TV sets which work along with Truemotion technology giving a faster frame rate and a picture quality capable of showing 3D images. These boxes have to be used with polarizing lenses or, in a lot of cases, using liquid crystal glasses. With these latter glasses, the TV flickers at a 2x rate of

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120hz displaying both left and right eye images. The (battery powered) glasses actively shutter the correct 60hz to each eye. The quality of the image honestly takes your breath as you stand there, glasses on, mouth agape at your local Currys store and you’ll find yourself inventing crazy schemes to make money in order to buy it. Unfortunately for most of us, these screens will remain in Currys for the time being, with prices starting at the best part of £1600, not including all the BluRay gear you’ll inevitably have to buy. Of course if you do have the money, you might as well splash out and buy a PS3 as well, where 3D games are already in works.

Another vector for 3D which is currently on the market is nVidia GeForce 3D Vision, which uses the active shutter glasses with any PC monitor which is 120hz or greater. This system is quickly being adopted and there

active shutter glasses and emitter for pc

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are a number of games with the technology, and also old ones being patched to enable it. These glasses and emitter kits are on the market around £140, but you’d have to pick up a supported nVidia graphics card (that has enough grunt to do double the work - two eyes!) and also 120hz monitor too if you (likely) don’t have one.

There’s no doubt that watching films, or playing games in 3D enhances your enjoyment and gives certain titles that little edge they need to make us part with our cash. But I fear that in around 5 years time, maybe even sooner, 3D tech will end up becoming a standard, just as High-Definition is becoming now.

In other words it’ll become so overused that we won’t notice if it’s there, but we’ll complain when it isn’t; it will lose the magic that it first had when you looked at that first blue and red image, when you saw that 3D Terminator™ movie at

Universal Studios, or even when you treated yourself to seeing Avatar at the IMAX™ (which isn’t that much more expensive than it is when you see it at any other cinema). So my advice is this: enjoy it while it’s still a novelty because you’ll be forced to enjoy it all the time as soon as your neighbours by a 3D TV.

Scott Davies.

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

angles and demons NASA/CXC/SA

Anti-matter storage devices and unappreciated Physicists losing the plot- its all part of a film based around the Physics Department that has the whole school talking.

Andrew Wright (SATNAV) is speaking to Paul Clarkson, the creator of the short film - on the week of it’s premiere.

SATNAV: Hi Paul, tell us a bit about Gunn, the Head of the Physics yourself School, and I told him I was thinking of doing a film for Well I was an undergraduate Physics, and it wasn’t going to a here; studying physics- I graduated serious one, and he said “yeahh with a 1st class degree, and I’ve gone I’ll be in it”, so I got Mike Gunn, on to do the PTNR programme- and asked Long, and basically Physics and Technology of Nuclear the rest of them [the physics Reactors. As much as I like Physics- staff] joined in, and the ideas just one of my real passions is actually came to me- so yeah, I just did it. writing and doing creative-type stuff.

SATNAV: How have the staff and students been in terms of SATNAV: So, what made you think participation and enthusiasm? of creating a film based on the Physics department?

Well, not as many as I thought, because reversing Well I figured most people were apathy is quite difficult- that’s familiar with the book, ‘Angels and why I did the advert (see Angles Demons’, and its an alright read, and Demons on Facebook!) but when you read about being initially so I could hopefully able to store antimatter in these show people that I was serious battery powered containers, it’s a about this. I got enough crowds bit incredulous. But then I started to do what I wanted to, so I thinking, ‘god, we actually have reversed enough apathy to do it, people here who work at CERN, and and I got a lot of people involved, then I thought about Martin Long and it was real fun doing it.

(Dr Long is a theoretical physicist here at the University) as type of SATNAV: I hear the proceeds sinister villain of the film sales are going to charity?

SATNAV: Yup, he’s my Math’s Lecturer!

Yes, all the proceeds of the film are going to Cancer Yeah exactly, so because I’m Research UK familiar with the staff, I got Mike

SATNAV: So, what exactly is the film about? Does it follow the novel?

Well, only in the manner that it involves an antimatter storage device- and its basically about Martin Long become a Megalomaniac, and wanting to take over the world using the antimatter storage device- because he sees himself as this character, you know, a ‘troubled brain’ and a genius, and goes on to kill [Dr] John Wilson.

SATNAV: How easy was it to cast characters for the film? I expect a lot of students already saw Martin Long as a bit of a super-smart villain! And also that Martin Freer should be the next James Bond!

It was very easy to case him [Dr Long] as the villain and [Dr] Freer as the super hero, and erm, Dr Wilson as the ‘sitting duck’ character. It was very easy to cast the lecturers, as I know so many of them, but casting the student roles was more difficult, which is why there appears to be much student dialogue, because I can write for the lecturers, but I cant write for the students themselves.

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angles and demons continued SATNAV: Honest answer, who do SATNAV: Freer has got to you think was the best actor? be better than Tom Hanks anyways…

Igor Lerner (Head of Theoretical Physics) is very good, (Laughs) Yeah, oh god as is Martin Long. Paul Newman yeah, he is Robert Langdon (Professor of Particle Physics) and (protagonist of the novel) Peter Jones (Senior Lecturer for Nuclear Physics) were also very SATNAV: Has the production of good. the film a lone job? Or have there been people working with SATNAV: What about Freer? Have you in the background? you seen his facebook group?

I have my housemates, after (Laughs) yeah, he was really I’ve done a scene I’ll say “come in good, he got into it once he saw and see this, what do you think how all the other staff were into it of this, good, bad, or does it need all- eventually, staff were actually some tweaking”. I have asked suggesting scenes that they could people’s opinions along the way, do! as I think that’s a better thing to do rather than just show people “this is what I’ve done/chosen”

SATNAV: Any chances of a sequel?

Or any offers for that matter?

Not from me! I’d like to think someone would do it, but I’m unsure. I’d like to think there would be a sequel, as [*SPOILER ALERT*] Martin Long escapes in the end.

SATNAV: Anything else that you think is worth mentioning?

I’d just like to say, I wanted to show, that physicists, and the physics school, isn’t just about science, there is a lot of things we are capable of, and I wanted to create this, inter-department project and get everyone from all corners of the [Physics] School involved.

Andrew Wright.

Final fantasy xiii Bill Spencer takes a look at the latest instalment in the Final Fantasy series, out now on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

First things first, this is a beautiful game to the extent of being breathtakingly beautiful; what I mean is that if you pressed pause at any point in the game, and took a picture it could be a poster that you would proudly hang on your wall.

The level of detail that the designers have put in to this game is mind blowing; however the

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sound developers seem to have just sat around and squandered their budget on nothing, as how they thought the sound is good is beyond me; it feels mirrored off final fantasy VII, with no real improvement apart from that the characters can now speak instead of just nodding their heads. The sound of footsteps is unbearable in the first minute of

the game, and continued to work my nerves for the next 10 hours. I seriously recommend putting the subtitles on and listening to music to drown out the sound of those coconuts being hit rhythmically to the running speed of the main characters, and when you have 3-4 people in your party it sounds like a machine gun shooting apart your ear drums.

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

When I first bought this I was told that “it gets better at about 20 hours of game play”....hang on I thought games were just meant to be good from the minute you turn on the console, but this game does not deliver from the start. There is no freedom for the first 20 dull hours. Where you just seem to be walking down, what looks like the same well designed corridor but put in a variety of different places. As soon as hour 20 has been reached it becomes a lot more open and you can go anywhere your heart desires, but to get around 20 hours of game play is a feat within itself, as most battles are over in

under a minute and eventually become a chore to do. And all this time I thought you bought games to have fun. Clearly I’m going the wrong way about this.

I’m not going to lie, for a lot of the time I got very confused with the storyline and with where I was. This might have been because it wasn’t explained very well, or it might have been because of me skipping the cut scenes to go and kill stuff. However after a while I started to feel some connection with the main characters on a more sympathetic level and you really seem to find the motivation to continue playing.

All in all this is an average game at best; it just takes far too long to get going and draw you into it. Let me put it this way, it’s a microwavable meal; it takes a while to warm up and it really doesn’t satisfy your hunger once you have had it. For me the graphics were the only thing keeping me playing, which in the end is not enough.

Bill Spencer.

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

The E-Reader Revolution and iPad En-kindle-ing

Scott Davies tells us what all the fuss is about with new electronic book readers, and answers the question; ‘are they worth it?’

A general principal of human technology is the production of machines which make our lives easier – or in other words, allow us to be a bit lazier - and often causes the displacement of other technologies which were once previously enjoyed. Sometimes machines which are initially seen as mere gadgets, often become necessities around the household, such as a laptop computer, a mobile phone and even the vacuum cleaner; okay that’s slightly off topic, but you get the picture.

Nowadays it’s very rare that something comes around, which somehow makes our lives that little bit complete; something which captures our imagination and writes itself an entry on every single one of our bank statements.

However, perhaps a newer area of technology will take hold of our cash, insert itself somewhere on your settee and cause huge decrease in bookshelf popularity the world over, making IKEA a very unhappy business. I speak of the increase in e-book reader sales.

By this I mean the increasingly popularity of PDA styled devices which can be easily transported

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and allow you to store and read all your favourite books, articles and everything which has text.

Okay so based on that vague description, anything that can show text is capable of being an e-book reader; the technology has been around for about 30 years and it’s no surprise that earlier e-book formats (.pdf, .txt, .html etc) can just be read on your laptop. The devices I refer to however, are those built purposely to promote digital book viewing, and those which use a technology called electronic ink and electronic paper.

As not to bore you too much, I’ll try and make this simple but understandable. E-paper technology involves using many millions of capsules, all which contain positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles. By applying a negative field at the top of the ‘paper’, white particles move to the front and can be visualised.

An opposite field is applied underneath that draws the black particles back. Reversing the process in localised areas allows

you to view words. That wasn’t too painful hopefully. Moving on.

The purpose of the technology is that it mimics real paper and reduces glare for when you’re staring a page, such that your eyeballs won’t melt from reading Harry Potter too much.

Such technology is used by two main competitors within this technology: The Kindle by Amazon, and the iLiad from Sony. There are more examples of these e-readers, but it would require a generous proportion of this section and I don’t want to overwhelm you with a huge list of meaningless names.

It seems quite appropriate that the biggest online book retailer would want to bring out a device which reduces the need to buy actual books.....no wait that doesn’t make any sense. But anyway, the Kindle is probably the best known device exclusively made for reading electronic books.

It mainly supports pdf files, but the device is majorly designed so you can download books from Amazon anywhere, as long as internet is available...or in other words, anywhere. RSS feeds can also be viewed, presumably those from the

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sites of newspapers and magazines.

The new DX version has 9.7inch screen at best and text size can be changed to suit the reader. All in all, this could be quite a handy device which can fit well into the household, freeing up a lot of space in the living room. However, the newest model doesn’t have an expandable memory, although the current memory still holds around 3500 non-illustrated books, but that is the very top end of the Kindle market.

Not much extra can be said for the Sony iLiad. Its slightly smaller screen than the kindle and doesn’t really have an appearance which screams “EXPENSIVE TECHNOLOGY”. However, it does have an expandable memory, wi-fi connection and a responsive touch screen, which actually allows you to edit documents with relative ease; a feature which will prove useful when correcting work, and to add immature remarks to many sophisticated texts. Frankly, you can guess which may be more entertaining. The lack of touch screen is a major point where the Kindle falls down and there are no plans for one to be developed.

Of course, we can’t talk about high-tech portable rectangles, without mentioning the Apple iPad. As most of the other features would be lodged somewhere in your brains right about now due to its massive hype, I’ll just mention the whole book thing. It goes without saying that the iPad will definitely give a much more enjoyable, smooth and colourful experience when reading e-books, due to its LCD 1024 × 768 pixels,

even though this differs little from the Kindle. Full books can be easily downloaded from the iBook store directly onto your iPad and they can be read there and then in full colour. The capability of the iPad touch screen also allows detailed, fluid control over the page size and orientation; it’s a very enjoyable experience, although you’ll probably be too busy playing on other applications to notice.

Obviously if you intend to purchase any form of technology, you have to compare all of the major models and its specifications, and then choose what’s best for you; I know how hard it is to buy something based on how shiny it is.

But the problem I see with e-book readers is that they don’t seem to fit a certain niche of our lives. Sure, they’re a very convenient way store to and read all your favourite books and they may save you a bit of money in buying a newspaper.

Even so, there appear to be too many doubts as to whether I would use one. Sure most are designed to be a similar size to a regular novel and yes most aren’t much heavier.

However, they certainly don’t cost the same as a novel. The lower end of e-readers starting at £200 and with the iPad costing a hefty £429 at least, it’s unlikely that you’ll take one to beach. In these early stages of the technology’s popularity not all books are going to be available to download, and not all e-readers will support the files that one would want to read, again I’m looking at the iPad there. However, my biggest concern over the use of e-readers is why we can’t use a laptop to do the same thing. Even

with the E-ink technology, you still need a laptop in some senses to download books onto the device and you also need a USB 2.0 port to charge them. This doesn’t affect the viability of smaller devices like MP4 players and iPods, but when you’re trying to just read something, why not read it on a larger screen on a device which has the same restrictions in portability as the e-readers themselves.

Extending more from this argument, many companies are starting to provide apps, which can turn smart phones into convenient e-readers themselves. Apple also recently launched the iBook app for iPhone and iPod touch, which makes you question the usefulness of the iPad and the business mind of Steve Jobs.

So my final thoughts are these (appropriate time for a Jerry Springer quote I feel); e-book readers are perhaps a very convenient way to read books if you travel a lot. You can take hundreds (or thousands) of title options with you on your travels.

They can provide a massive library without the bulk in your suitcase.

However, seeing as titles can cost as much for digital editions as they do on the high street, people will just not find e-readers attractive until more books and freedom becomes available within the technology. Of course for keen jet-setting readers who have money to spare, an e-reader could be ideal.

In the near future however, it’s my opinion that they’re unlikely to become popular, and they certainly won’t be replacing real books any time soon. Scott Davies.

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Careers Just thinking about what to do after university can be daunting, let alone making actual decisions. To help you with this problem SATNAV careers will present a whole host of different options you might like to consider.

Over the next few editions this section will grow to include postgraduate courses offered by a wide range of different universities plus career opportunities from university accredited employers.

Until then here’s a sample of some of the courses offered here at Birmingham.

Computer Science The School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham has an established and growing international reputation for research and teaching in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. The School has http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/ nearly 90 active researchers (academic staff, research staff and research students) and is a close knit community that enjoys a stimulating intellectual environment, offering 6 Msc degrees: The remaining 5 are for students with a degree in Computer Science • MSc Computer Science or a closely related discipline: This Masters degree is open to students whose first degree is not in Computer Science. (Such an MSc is sometimes known as a “conversion” • MSc Natural Computation or “non-consecutive” Master.) It provides graduates with an intensive A research-focused programme introduction to Computer Science, leading to new career opportunities that draws inspiration from nature in Computing and IT. This is an extremely popular way for graduates to in devising innovative solutions to give themselves a competitive advantage in the job market. difficult problems. A 2.1 is required.

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Computer Science • MSc Computer Security This Masters covers the theory and practice of designing and building secure computer systems. Core courses include cryptography, network security, and secure programming. Applicants need a 2.1 or First.

• MSc Advanced Computer Science A research training Masters programme for graduates of computing and related disciplines.

This course is aimed at students interested in research, such as a PhD Computer Science. A 2.1 is required, with a First preferred.

• MSc Internet Software Systems Covering the theory and practice of constructing software applications that operate on the Internet.

• MSc Intelligent Systems Engineering A practical Masters about evaluating, designing and building intelligent systems.

Biological Sciences The largest biology School in the midlands region, we deliver internationally excellent teaching and research across the broad span of modern biology.

Research in the School is focused into six themes: each represents areas of research excellence in human, animal, plant, microbial, cell and molecular biology.

The School has major high-technology facilities for research in genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, structural biology and optical imaging. The School currently offers 2 Msc degree programmes:

http://www.biosciences.bham.ac.uk/

• MSc Analytical Genomics A taught one year course designed for UK and international graduates with a good Honours degree who have an appropriate background either in the Biological, Medical and Agricultural Sciences or in Computer Sciences, Mathematics (Statistics) and Physical Sciences.

The aim of the MSc programme is to provide professional training necessary to explore the complexities of biological data. These data arise from high throughput technologies for sequencing, transcriptome and proteome assays and are supported by extensive cross species bioinformatics links. Genomics attempts to integrate these wide ranging but interlinked sources of information to provide deeper insights into biological systems. The course will integrate skills in biological sciences with statistics, bioinformatics and the use of computer software applications. Further information: http://www.biosciences.bham.ac.uk/study/graduate/msc/analytical-genomics.shtml

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Biological Sciences • MSc Toxicology A taught one year cause requiring a good Honours degree in Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacology, Pharmacy, Physiology or a related discipline. Alternatively you may be qualified in Medicine or Veterinary Science. Graduates without Honours but with at least two years’ approved postgraduate experience may also be considered. The course provides vocational training in the theoretical, clinical and laboratory aspects of toxicology. You will learn about the nature and mechanism of adverse effects of chemicals such as those found in industry, in the household, in agriculture, in medicine and those that occur naturally in the environment.

We give particular emphasis to molecular and cellular mechanisms of toxicity and to risk assessment. These programmes act as conversion courses taking students at entry from a variety of backgrounds and giving them For more information on any of these courses and details on how to apply please visit: http://www.apply.bham.ac.uk/

How to get a PhD Hadrian Peyret tells his tale of the search for the right PhD. I have just finished my final year exams and if all goes well (i.e.

I achieve a 2.1 for my degree), I will be starting a PhD in Plant Science and Microbiology at the John Innes Centre in Norwich in October.

However, it wasn’t easy getting that firm offer, and I began looking for a PhD last summer.

The first thing you need to do is be 100% sure that you want to do research and that you enjoy research work. I was lucky enough to get a job in one of my lecturer’s labs last summer thanks to an undergraduate research studentship from the Society of

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General Microbiology. That was my first ever real lab experience (trust me, practicals don’t count) and I absolutely loved it. It’s that thrill you get from knowing that whatever your results are, you are the very first person in the world to see them. Granted, it’s usually something very minor, or even a negative result that doesn’t actually have much impact, but science is a cathedral and every discovery is a stone.

That lab experience, along with my subsequent laboratory dissertation project, allowed me to be sure of the fact that I want

to dedicate my life to research.

Consequently, last August I started searching the web for PhD opportunities. The first place to go is www.findaphd.com, a website where you can easily search for any available project in any topic anywhere in Britain. Importantly, it also states whether the funding is included with the project, if funding is competitive, and who is eligible for the funding. It’s so well known and used by academic institutions that some universities redirect you to that site when you look for a PhD on their website. I quickly found a few that caught

SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

my eye, and proceeded to email the project supervisors. This was quite scary, as I imagined I was emailing ‘Gods of Science’, who would judge me on how my email was formulated. I was therefore quite surprised when I received very sympathetic and informal replies.

The truth is that every researcher is immensely chuffed when they

starting from early December to spring, to about 2 months before the start of the PhD. Obviously though, research institutions want to fill their places as soon as possible, so the earlier you apply the better.

The project I was most interested in was one in Cambridge, and the supervisor had sent me some really nice and encouraging emails, so

Above: Screenshot of http://www.findaphd.com

get an email from someone they don’t know, saying essentially: ‘Your research looks amazing, please let me take part in it!’

You then quickly get a hold of all the application forms and packs (which are very different from one university to the next) and start filling them out. Deadlines vary,

I began the arduous task of filling out the massive application pack.

I was so absorbed by the horrible Cambridge pack (which demands were along the lines of ‘Write a paragraph about this, write a short essay about that, write another paragraph about this, tell us about this, how will you

go about getting results for this PhD project etc.’), that 3 months later I had just finished it, and had hardly looked at the applications for other universities. This was a huge mistake.

After taking so long to fill out the application and get the references (you usually need two references from staff members, whereas Cambridge wanted three), they rejected me after just a couple of days. They didn’t even have the decency to tell me either; they just shut down my application portal on their website. Completely gutted, I emailed the supervisor asking why I had been rejected, and he sent me back a very nice email in which he told me (not in so many words), that the University of Cambridge receives so many applications for their PhD projects (I think about a hundred per project) that when they say on the website ‘we require a 2.1 or higher’, what they really mean is ‘you have no chance unless you’re clearly getting a first’. So they scanned all the applications, saw that my second year average was a 2.1, and chucked it in the bin.

I don’t think they had even read all the paragraphs, essays and project plans which I had agonized over.

While I was completely gutted, it gave me a swift kick up the bum to finish the other applications for the other projects. I more or less recycled my personal statements etc., and wrapped up all the other (comparatively tiny) application packs in a couple of weeks. A few weeks after that, I got an email from the John Innes Centre (affiliated to the University of East Anglia), saying that I had been selected

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

for an interview. All PhD projects require an application form, some references and an interview before they make you an offer. Mightily pleased with myself, I attended the interview in January (your lecturers and tutors will understand if you miss lectures/practicals because of a PhD interview). It turned out to be a rather grueling day-long affair with two interviews, each with two different members of the research staff, followed by lunch with current enthusiastic PhD students, a tour of the research park (to get you salivating at all the glasshouses), and meetings with individual researchers whose research you find interesting.

The interviews are a bit scary at first, but the interviewers do their best to make you feel at ease, before asking you the scary questions.

One of the harder questions was ‘What’s your favourite research paper?’ This requires you to think fast, since that you obviously want to sound like you know what you’re

on about. Thankfully, I didn’t even have to lie; I told them my favourite was a paper from the John Innes Centre, and I was able to pick out a few details from memory that I thought were ‘cool’. It worked like a charm. Two days after the interview I received an email with an offer for a 2.1; I was ecstatic. Due to the fact that this was my second choice after Cambridge, I sent emails to the other universities I had applied to so as to let them know that I had received an offer from elsewhere. It is bad form to accept offers from more than one place; there is only one person per project, and so you don’t want to let them know at the last minute if you’re not intending to take up their project offer because you’re going to study somewhere else instead.

So in conclusion, if I have any advice for someone thinking of doing a PhD it is this: start early and appear to be both motivated and intelligent. There are huge volumes

of information out there, and as applying does take time, the earlier you start the better. When you’re filling out the application forms and going through the interview stage, remember that what they are looking for is someone who is intelligent and motivated. You don’t need to know everything about the project that you are applying for, but you do need to show that you are motivated and intelligent enough to understand it, and to be able to carry out a good research project on it if you end up doing that PhD. So yes, appear geeky. Yes, appear comfortable with science as a method. Yes, show that you want your professional life to be devoted to research. However, always remember that scientific research is 95% disappointment and 5% elation; a good researcher is someone who thinks that all that disappointment is worth those few moments of sheer elation.

Hadrien Peyret.

Science Fiction

What do you think of when you see the words science fiction?

Do you visualise starships moving through the gulf of space? Or do you think of something deeper?

Originally science fiction was a ‘literature of ideas’, where the imaginary parts of the story were considered plausible within scientifically established laws. In the 20th Century the popularisation of the genre by Hollywood meant that science fiction typically came to mean fantasy set in space, without any real scientific thought behind it at all. In recent years there has been a breakaway movement towards the original blend of science fiction, the type of stories written by the fathers of science fiction Jules Verne and H.G. Wells and later pioneers such as Isaac Asimov. To celebrate the reassertion of the science in science fiction SATNAV is opening a column dedicated to that very subject. Not only will you be able to find reviews of classic science fiction, including examples of where the excepted science behind the story has changed since its writing, but also we are opening up our pages to students to send in their own work. Can you popularise a theory by immortalising it in literature?

Send your entries to satnav@guild.bham.ac.uk and give it a go!

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SATNAV Magazine at the University of Birmingham

Letters to the editor Write in to SATNAV Magazine In future issues this section will feature letters written in to SATNAV on particular themes or questions, to start this off we are going to ask some questions across a wide subject area. These questions come from the campus questions feature and we felt they deserved a bit more discussion than one person’s opinion. Alternatively if you have a question you think we should feature here then get in contact. Please send answers or questions to satnav@guild.bham.ac.uk or post them into our pigeonhole in student development quoting ‘letters to the editor’ in the title or on the envelope.

Depending on the level of response answers may feature in SATNAV Slim available in welcome week or in SATNAV issue 2 due out in semester 1.

Questions for next issue: Alan a Mexican PhD student in Computer Sciences writes to us: I would like to ask about the effects of magnetism on bacterial life. This is in relation to a new "alternative medicine technique" that is all the rage in Mexico right now among "New Age" oriented people and that claims to use directed magnetic fields to eliminate virus, bacteria and fungus from the human body. I personally don't believe in this, but I don't know enough about it to convince my brother out of it! May I add that this so-called "bio-magnetic therapy" is not only aimed at killing viruses but also at curing various other illnesses and pains?

Write in discussing this topic and try to explain the actual effects of magnetic therapy on the human body.

James a biosciences undergrad asks: What is Anti-Matter, and why does it matter to us?

Write in explaining what anti-matter is, its importance and possible theoretical applications.

Ben an English undergrad asks: What is the potential for solar energy, and why have we not fully tapped it yet? Do photovoltaic cells need refining or will new technology need to be developed first?

Write in discussing the merits of solar energy and what the limitations on its current and future uses may be.

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This year is the global year of Biodiversity. It is the year that the world failed to meet the targets the UN set 18 years ago. We take a look at the dangers biodiversity faces in the 21st century, why preserving it is so important and what the world may look like to future generations if we fail again.

Look out for our special hard copy mini edition SATNAV Slim in freshers welcome week, including more answers to your questions and chances to win science prizes.

science and technology news and views magazine

Issue 2 Semester 1 2010/11

Allan West

Part two of the Science of Bees by Tom Jeavons, explosing the very different chemical potency of pheromones, and venom.

The start of a new series explaining the purposes and aims of CERN, what exactly a large hadron collider does, and why the world isn’t going to explode.

Plus: reviews on the latest gadgets, a bounty of scientific articles, science fiction, more careers information, and even competitions and puzzles!