The Chelt Scientist ISSUE 5

Ch Sci Team

Contents

Editors-in-Chief

22

Amandine Bourrier Charlotte Lim Siya Narayan

24

Helena Ahrens Giulia Bocciardi Amandine Bourrier Emily Lam Anikah Lau Katie Lee Charlotte Lim Charissa Lim Siya Narayan Ludmilla Nell Susu Zhao

Sunny Chen Giselle Cheng Emily Lam Charissa Lim Susu Zhao

Head Graphic Designer Bonita Wong

Graphic Designers Sophia Lau Sarah Xie

Illustrators Isabel Huang Charmaine Lai Manon Lai-Hung Sybil Williams Sarah Xie Xindi Zhang

2

Feature: How Can We Live Forever?

Raye Woon

28

The Creation of the Universe

30

The Agricultural Revolution

32

Tracing Language Through Time

Giselle Cheng

Charissa Lim

Tiana Wong

Writers

Editors

Aphantasia: Are You Mind-Blind?

Sophia Lau

News

Giselle Cheng Emeline Hulsen Sophia Lau Maegan Lee Charissa Lim Bonita Wong Tiana Wong Raye Woon Leeya Yin

Articles

Art by Suri Liang, SFC2

34

The Chemistry of the Colour Blue Bonita Wong

News 4

In brief: Biology

6

Possible Cure for Alzheimer’s

7

In brief: Chemistry

8

In brief: Physics

9

Why Are Colours Perceived Differently During a Solar Eclipse?

10

Repurposing Plastics

11

The Weaving of Biological Patterns

12

A Global Rush for Lithium

14

Go Big or Go Home?

15

Spotlight: The Nobel Prizes 2023

16

From Screens and Solar Cells to Medical Imaging

36

Feature: Meet the Cybercriminals

40

Spotlight: An Interview with Professor Kirst King-Jones

Meagan Lee

Emeline Hulsen

44

Ouch! That Hurts! Unravelling the Physiology of Pain Leeya Yin

18

Capturing the Unseen

20

Against All Odds

Spotlight 15

The Nobel Prizes 2023

40

An Interview with Professor Kirst King-Jones

Helena Ahrens, Charlotte Lim, Raye Woon & Susu Zhao

Emeline Hulsen

Features 24

How Can We Live Forever?

36

Meet the Cybercriminals

Raye Woon

Meagan Lee

s we bring you this issue of The CheltScientist, our final one, we are thrilled to share what we hope will be an exciting issue. Whether you’re a seasoned enthusiast or just beginning your journey in science, we hope this issue inspires you to deepen your interests and perhaps answer some seemingly never-ending streams of questions such as “How Can We Live Forever?” (p24) or the “Creation of the Universe” (p28). In this issue, we’ve had the privilege of introducing to you some truly inspiring figures, including the 2023 Nobel Prize laureates (p15) and Professor Kirst KingJones (p40), whose work epitomises the pursuit of answers to questions at the very heart of science.

It comes with no surprise that science is an ever-evolving field, and this year has been no exception. We have witnessed innovative advancements including the invention of a satellite capable of orbiting Earth whilst harnessing solar power (p9), and the use of a gene-editing tool to create exceptionally strong fibres (p5). Researchers have also brought insightful discoveries to light. From exploring how popular botox injections may impact brain function (p5) to theorising potential new treatments for Alzheimer’s (p7), we can see just how timeless and dynamic science is.

As our time as editors sadly comes to an end, we want to thank everyone who has been with us in the making of this issue.

We’re grateful for every moment and every reader who has joined us along the way. This may be our last issue, but we are so glad to have shared a part in fostering CLC’s continual love for scientific exploration: a passion we are sure will continue to thrive. So, sit back, enjoy, and (as cliché as it sounds...) let your curiosity lead the way!

The Editors, Amandine, Charlotte and Siya

Art by Manon Lai-H uang, UC4

3

SCIENCE NEWS IN BRIEF

Biology BIOTECHNOLOGY

CRISPR gene-editing tool used to produce spider silk

NEUROSCIENCE

How can Botox affect brain activity?

R

ecent studies have found a notable correlation between forehead Botox

injections, a cosmetic procedure used to remove wrinkles, and the way our brains process and decode the facial expressions and emotions of others. Botox injections work by blocking chemical signals from the nerves responsible for muscular contraction, therefore relaxing the muscles and reducing the appearance of wrinkles.

F

or decades, researchers globally have tried to massproduce spider silk - a highly desired synthetic fibre.

Scientists have attempted to genetically modify different organisms, including goats, to produce the same spider silk proteins, but not to much success - just small amounts of 30% spider silk protein blends have been produced.

Spider webs are often seen as signs of neglect in the places they appear in. So, why are scientists so persistent in reproducing this fibre? Spider silk is among the strongest, most versatile materials. It is more flexible than nylon, stronger than steel, and 1000 times thinner than a human hair strand. However, farming spider silk proves to be challenging as these creatures are incredibly territorial.

Their low production rates also make it commercially unviable to harvest silk directly from their spinnerets.

Researchers from Donghua University, Shanghai recently achieved a breakthrough in the field, genetically engineering silkworms to produce full-length spider silk.

By using the CRISPR gene-editing tool, spider silk proteinproducing genes were inserted into the DNA of silkworms, enabling them to spin spider silk cocoons. The silk produced was not only pure but also 6 times stronger than Kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests.

"The exceptionally high mechanical performance of the fibres produced in this study holds significant promise in this field. This type of fibre can be utilised as surgical sutures, addressing a global demand exceeding 300 million procedures annually,” said Mi. Moreover, spider silk is biodegradable and highly elastic, giving it potential to be used in artificial ligaments to reconnect damaged nerves.

Anikah Lau

4

The underlying process by which we understand facial expressions take place in 2 areas of the brain: the amygdala and the fusiform gyrus. The amygdala is located in the temporal lobe (near our ears and temples) and plays a crucial role in processing sensory stimuli. Meanwhile, the fusiform gyrus, located across both the temporal and occipital lobes (near the back of our head), responds to facial expressions. When we see facial expressions, we instinctively mirror them to help ourselves recognise and interpret them, so our facial muscles contract and signals are sent to the brain through nerve circuits, where they are interpreted.

In one study, participants were asked to match facial expressions to corresponding emotions. This was carried out before and after getting Botox, and results showed that after Botox, they performed 5% worse and were 20% slower. Another study examined females looking at happy and angry faces during an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scan session. This was also carried out pre and post-Botox administration, and they concluded that there was decreased brain activity in the amygdala.

Thus, it is possible to conclude that Botox injections can disrupt the communication pathway between facial muscles and the brain, resulting in a decline of precision and celerity when interpreting the emotions of others.

Giulia Bocciardi

SCIENCE NEWS IN BRIEF

ARCHEOLOGY

Newly discovered ancient cities in the Amazon are the largest yet found...

H

idden for thousands of years by lush vegetation, an ancient city in the Amazon was discovered early in 2024 using a combination of ground excavations and laser sensors flown from a plane, also known as light detection and ranging (LiDAR) of an area of 300 square kilometres.

Estimated to have been built 2,500 years ago, it was lived in for up to 1,000 years, where it was occupied by anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 people at any given time.

MARINE BIOLOGY

Newborn Great White Shark finally dispells myths!

F

or the first time, a great white shark pup was spotted off the coast of California in early July 2023. It only took Phillip Sternes, post-doc at the University of California, Riverside, 7 months to publish the proof and image in a journal.

This is an exciting advancement in shark science as it has been a longstanding mystery about where great white sharks give birth. Since the pup is estimated to be one day old, due to its pale white pigment and rounded fins, it gives a major clue to the region of the world that this pelagic species could give birth. This is deemed crucial by those wanting to protect this endangered species by being able to set up marine-protected areas around their laying waters.

Ludmilla Nell

MYCOLOGY

Lidar scans of the Upano valley in Ecuador showing raised platforms. Photo credit: Stephen Rostain

This is the oldest site ever found in the Amazon, and consists of a large, complex society which is even bigger than the Mayan societies in Mexico and Central America.

Archaeologists have found houses and plazas connected by a network of straight roads and canals, highlighting the likely existence of engineers within the society, due to the difficulty of not conforming to the landscape.

This was an important discovery in understanding the history of ancient societies and has changed what we know about the past. Before this discovery, it was understood that people only lived nomadically and in small settlements at the time, and that no ancient groups existed in the Amazon. Researchers believe that this discovery may point to the existence of more major populations from the past, have declared that their next step would be to find out what lies in the surrounding 300 square kilometres of this newly discovered site.

Charissa Lim

Sonic influence accelerates growth of fungi?

U

nique soundscapes produced by invertebrates such as ants and earthworms are known to make healthier soils. However, scientists have yet to fully understand the effect of background noise on the growth of plants and fungi in various ecosystems. Jake Robinson and his colleagues at Flinders University, Australia recently investigated the impact of sound on fungi by burying rooibos and green tea bags in two nearly soundproof boxes. Inside one box, an 8-kilohertz tone was played at a volume of 70 decibels, while a higher volume of 90 decibels was played in the second box. Meanwhile, a control box received ambient noise of less than 30 decibels directly from the same surroundings. At the end of the experiment, both boxes where sound was played showed an average increase from 2.5 to 3.1 grams in weight due to the growth of fungi, while the control box maintained the same average weight throughout. The discovery that playing sounds to fungi may help them grow faster could allow researchers to speed up composting and habitat restoration through this technique, making for more economical processes.

Charlotte Lim 5

SCIENCE NEWS FOCUS

MEDICINE

A Potential Cure for Alzheimer’s

T

he idea that one can go straight back to normal life

from being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s seems impossible. Yet, a recent discovery has challenged this long-held belief. Findings show that there could be a potential link between Alzheimer’s, and the brain's microbiome, opening the possibility to a phenomenon called “reversible dementia” and the possibility for new treatments.

6

microbiome was initially met with controversy and doubt.

Richard Lathe’s research on post-mortem brains has challenged these preconceptions. Lathe was able to identify multiple microbes present in varying quantiles and species. Approximately 100,000 species were identified which is around ⅕ of those present in the gut. He further found that individuals with Alzheimer's often exhibited certain microbes disproportionately.

This all started when a set of doctors trying to understand Alzheimer’s, tested the cerebrospinal fluid of an individual diagnosed with the disease. To their surprise, the presence of the fungus, cryptococcus neoformans, was detected.

Consequently, the man was administered with antifungal medication. Two years later, the patient's life had returned to normal and he could be found resuming his career as a gardener. This highly unusual case sparked curiosity within the scientific community as to what the links between the brain's microbiome and dementia could be.

This new research challenges our preconceived notions, as well as raises questions about the role of microbiomes in the brain and whether it is the presence of or competition between specific species which contributes to the development of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Further studies conducted on mice noted that mice which had a weakened gut microbiomes showed correlation with the presence of certain fungi in the brain.

The brain has traditionally been accepted to have a sterile environment in which no pathogens can enter. This is due to the presence of a blood-brain barrier, which prevents any blood, and therefore pathogens from entering. So, it is natural that the possibility of the brain containing a

Despite these findings it remains unclear as to how the microbes have managed to infiltrate the brain. Regardless, one thing remains certain: the intricate relationship between the brain and its microbiome provides an exciting avenue for potential treatment and understanding of Alzheimer’s.

Amandine Bourrier

SCIENCE NEWS IN BRIEF

Chemistry ORGANIC CHEMISTRY

New regulation bans the use of dichloromethane The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalised rules for the future use of dichloromethane - an integral chemical used in labs for purification, extraction, and as a solvent for many chemical processes. Vapours of the solvent however, can irritate the respiratory tract and eyes, as well as potentially cause dizziness and chloracne, which is a form of acne brought on by exposure to aromatic halogenated compounds. Within a year, consumer use of dichloromethane will be phased out, while the majority of industrial and commercial uses will be prohibited within two years. Due to the difficulty of finding a suitable substitute for dichloromethane, this decision has been a tough one to make. For the most part, academic labs will likely face additional burden as enforcing the new rule will require considerable efforts.

Charlotte Lim Source: © David J Green/Alamy Stock Photo via Chemistry World

NANOTECHNOLOGY

Nanorobots to tackle microplastics?

The ocean is currently estimated to contain over 50 trillion pieces of microplastics. Due to their properties, they are unable to biodegrade, instead, they are ingested by aquatic organisms and evidence already shows that they are present in our bloodstream. Furthermore, microplastics adsorb pollutants onto their surface, supporting the growth of harmful bacteria which could contaminate drinking-water.

Nanorobots could provide an exciting and effective solution to this; a study conducted by Martin Pumera aimed to manipulate nanorobots in a way which would allow them to work collectively and mimic natural swarms, such as schools of fish. Pumera and his colleagues found that when exposed to a magnetic field, polymer strands on the surface of the nanorobots attracted both plastics and microbes. He observed that at the highest concentration of 7.5mg they were able to capture around 80% of the bacteria present, as well as significantly decrease the concentration of plastic. The bacteria and plastics present on the nanorobots surface could then be treated using UV. It was also noted that after treatment, the nanorobots were less effective and that whilst this provides an exciting and innovative solution to plastic pollution, real world scenarios may still provide much complexity which must still be resolved.

Amandine Bourrier

7

SCIENCE NEWS IN BRIEF

Physics MATERIALS SPACE

Satellite beams solar power to Earth for the first time!

New type of magnetism discovered!

R

ecent evidence confirms the existence of altermagnetism, a new type of magnetism! Two main types of magnetism are traditionally recognized: ferromagnetism and antiferromagentism. A ferromagnet, such as a compass needle, has strong external magnetic fields caused by the spins of electrons lining up in a single direction. An antiferromagnet, on the other hand, contains electrons that have alternating spins. Hence, no net magnet fields are produced by antiferromagnets as their internal fields are cancelled by opposite spins.

I

n recent years, scientists and engineers have

attempted to create a satellite that could orbit Earth whilst obtaining solar power. However, how can we create a satellite large enough, that the quantity of power produced makes it a worthwhile investment, but small enough to send into orbit? And, how can solar energy be packaged and sent to Earth across space?

Although, these two obstacles have stumped researchers, in 2023, CalTech scientists overcame just that! In January 2023, the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1) was launched. Once retrieving solar energy, SSPD-1 converted it into low energy microwaves directed towards Earth, which was received by antennas on Earth’s surface.

Although the initial energy collected was minuscule, scientists predict that this carbon-free energy source could beam down 2 gigawatts of power per day, which is enough to power a city of two million residents.

While this method of energy collection is in its early stages, the idea has rapidly accelerated since it was first mentioned by a Russian theorist in the last century. Who knows, perhaps one day, our cities could be powered by space solar power satellites!

Ludmilla Nell

The concept of altermagnetism was initially proposed by scientists in Germany and Czechia, with several research groups investigating its validity from 2019 to 2021. In February 2024, an international team of scientists provided experimental evidence supporting altermagnetism. Altermagnets share characteristics with both ferromagnets and antiferromagnets but fundamentally differ from each. Unlike ferromagnets, altermagnets lack net magnetism, and unlike antiferromagnets, their spin sublattices are mapped by rotation instead of translation or inversion.

At the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland, scientists examined crystals of the semiconductor manganese telluride using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Their analysis revealed that while the spins of neighbouring electrons alternated akin to antiferromagnets, the unique atomic orientation of the crystal resulted in internal magnetism a thousand times stronger than that of ferromagnets.

The distinctive properties of altermagnets hold vast potential for various magnetism applications, including spintronics and tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR).

Spintronics, which store large data volumes in compact spaces for highly energy-efficient computations, stand to benefit greatly from altermagnets’ high spin-current ratio signals. Similarly, altermagnets could enhance the speed of TMR devices, surpassing the current limitations of ferromagnets due to their higher resonant frequency.

With accessible materials and newly accessible research, altermagnetism establishes an exciting frontier, promising transformative advancements in technology and science.

Susu Zhao

8

SCIENCE NEWS FOCUS PHYSICS

Why Are Colours Perceived Differently During a Solar Eclipse?

D

uring a total solar eclipse, people may witness unusual phenomena. In addition to the celestial events, some earthly surroundings may also appear a little different. A brief period of false twilight occurs when the moon passes in front of the sun, blocking the sun’s rays and causing the vibrant colours of the surroundings to fade to a grey hue. This phenomenon makes vibrant reds appear dark or even black, while blues and greens become more pronounced and stand out against the muted backdrop.

Takeshi Yoshimatsu, a colour vision researcher suggests that two things could be occurring during this time to produce the colour shift, one in the atmosphere and one in our eyes.

which is why the sky appears blue. On the other hand, red waves from the sun are more likely to reach the ground.

An object's colour is determined by the light it reflects, and red light tends to reach the ground more intensely, making reds appear brighter to us as red light is reflected more than blue The moon blocks the sun during a total solar eclipse so most of the light hitting and reflecting off objects on the ground is indirect. More of that indirect light are easily scattered blue waves, so objects reflect more blue light.

This causes a shift in the colour spectrum toward blue.

In our eyes Cones, which are light-gathering cells in the retina, allow for the perception of colour in bright light. Most cones are tuned to detect either green or red, with a tiny fraction dedicated to blue detection. When combined, the three create reddish-green-blue colour vision. Reds typically look brighter than blues in the daylight when cones are completely active. In the dark, very sensitive lightgathering rod cells are responsible for our night vision, and people usually don't see colours.

The Purkinje effect is most noticeable during low-light situations such as an eclipse, twilight, or sunrise, which occur between daylight and darkness. The effect, also known as the Purkinje shift or Purkinje phenomenon, is the tendency of the eye's luminance sensitivity in low light to change from red to blue.

Klbrain, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons - remixed: photos cropped from original collage

In the atmosphere Sunlight contains of light waves made with a wide range of colours. During a typical day, particles and water droplets in the air scatter sunlight as it moves through the atmosphere. Blue light waves from the sun scatter more than its red waves because of their shorter wavelengths,

Both rods and cones help with eyesight in some low-light situations. The cells continue to function during twilight, but the colours fade and the contrast between them decreases because cones aren't sensitive enough to pick up dim light. In the meantime, rods produce a pigment that receives blue and green wavelengths, giving the impression that those colours are brighter and reds are darker. This only happens at a specific brightness level when cones are still active.

Pictures won’t capture this colour effect. It's a matter of perception, not just optics, so it must be experienced in person. If you want to see the Purkinje effect in action, make sure you look out for this colour shift in the next solar eclipse!

Siya Narayan

9

SCIENCE NEWS FOCUS

MATERIALS SCIENCE

Repurposing Plastics After thermolysis, the team collected the residual waxes, identifying them as “short-chain polyethylene”. They used this to convert the plastic into fatty acids by adding a few more steps, including catalytic oxidation, a reaction which adds oxygen to the organic structure. Collected waxes were placed in a flask and heated in an oil bath where the waxes were oxidised to produce fatty acids. This was done by exposure to a stream of airflow, which is catalysed by inexpensive manganese stearate.

W

e are all familiar with the global threat surrounding plastic pollution. Plastic molecules are non-polar and inert, making them non-biodegradable; when heated, plastics can also release cancer-causing toxins including Bisphenol A (BPA). To address this challenge, scientists have proposed various solutions, such as developing biodegradable plastics. However, what can

These fatty acids can be turned into a variety of products, including more plastic. However, the team focused on producing soaps and detergents as they are valued more than other fatty acid products, making the process more economically attractive. To convert the fatty acid into soap, the team used saponification, a reaction between fatty acids and alkaline solutions like NaOH to produce glycerol and soap molecules.

we do to reduce the large reserves of existing nonbiodegradable plastics?

Most non-biodegradable plastics are made of polyethylene. Guoliang (Greg) Liu and his team recently developed a way of repurposing plastics into soap after observing similarities in the structure of polyethylene with fatty acids, a key component of soap. While both contain long carbon chains, fatty acids have an additional group of atoms at the end of their chain, including an oxygen and metal ion. Hence, the team developed a method allowing polyethylene to be converted into fatty acids.

When heated, polymers including polyethylene initially break down into smaller polymer chains, before transforming into small gaseous molecules. However, the team discovered that by stopping the process before the smaller polymer chains break into gaseous molecules, the smaller polyethylene-like structures can be utilised to produce fatty acids.

To achieve this, the team built a small, oven-like reactor to heat the polyethylene in a process called temperaturegradient thermolysis. This converts the plastics into waxes while inhibiting the production of small gaseous molecules.

The bottom of the oven is set to a high temperature to break down longer polymer chains into smaller ones, while the top is cooled to prevent further breakdown.

This simple process of repurposing of plastics could enhance efforts in tackling global plastic pollution as it does not require complex reagents or catalysts.

Furthermore, this method applies to polypropylene, another common polymer used in non-biodegradable plastics. The process can be implemented simultaneously on both polyethylene and polypropylene plastics, simplifying the challenge of sorting and filtering out different plastic types. This is particularly useful given that many different polymers are often combined to improve the overall characteristics of a plastic, such as better durability and functionality, offering an effective solution for plastic pollution.

Katie Lee 10

SCIENCE NEWS FOCUS DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY

The Weaving of Biological Patterns defined as the process of a molecule moving through a liquid in response to changes and accelerating the movement of other types of molecules in the same environment. Such changes could include a difference in concentrations within a liquid.

T

hroughout the history of life, animals have evolved

to have many adaptations that help them survive in the wild, one of which being the existence of patterns on their skin. These patterns play vital roles in animal behaviour and ecosystem dynamics, such as helping with camouflage or mate attraction, and are specific to individual animals. For example, rosettes on leopard skin are used mostly as a means of camouflage. Researchers have found that leopards active in low light levels are more likely to have irregular patterns on their coats, allowing them to camouflage in dense environments with ease.

In their study which focuses on boxfish patterns, Gupta and Alessio demonstrated evidence that diffusiophoresis may be the process that causes boxfish to get their patterns. They proposed that when chemical agents diffuse through tissue, they drag chromatophores, specialised pigment cells known to control the colouration pattern on fish skin, with them. These chromatophores then form patterns on the skin of boxfish.

The process up until their discovery included running simulations that used both Turing’s equations and modified equations of diffusiophoresis. Using Turing’s equations, they were able to recreate blurry versions of the patterns on boxfish skin. This is not reflective of patterns seen in nature, as patterns often have stark outlines. After adding equations representing diffusiophoresis, they were able to create images that demonstrated notable resemblance to natural patterns.

For many decades, researchers have debated and explored the mystery of how animals obtain patterns on their skin.

It is well known that genes encode pattern information, such as the colour of a leopard’s spots. However, genes do not explain where spots develop on the skin, creating a conundrum for researchers.

In one of his papers, Alan Turing hypothesised that reaction-diffusion processes may give rise to biological pattern formation in animals. This is the idea that as tissues develop, they produce chemical agents, which diffuse through the tissue. Some react together to form spots on the skin, while others react to inhibit the spread and reaction of other chemical agents. After years of scepticism from experts, it was found that Turing’s hypothesis, though not telling the full story of how animals obtain their stripes and spots, was not entirely wrong.

For anyone who has washed clothes by hand, it is not news that rinsing a soap-soaked shirt in clean water is more efficient than rinsing it in soapy water. As soap diffuses out of the shirt into the water, it also draws out the trapped dirt. This is a process called diffusiophoresis,

A White Spotted Boxfish. Photo Credit:Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Gupta and Alessio are hopeful that their research may open up possibilities for future research. For example, they believe that diffusiophoresis may play a part in pattern formation in biological systems, such as how the body regulates the distribution of cells during embryonic development, or in tumour formation. Regardless of its future applications, they assert that their discoveries have provided the foundation for future research and that their work will impact countless fields for the years to come.

Charissa Lim 11

SCIENCE NEWS FOCUS

EARTH

A Global Rush for Lithium

Drone image captured in 2017 shows local salt miners in Salar de Uyuni loading their truck with salt. Photo Credit: Matjaz Krivic

S

alar de Uyuni, a beautiful salt flat in the Bolivian Andes is the world’s largest, spanning over 10,000 square kilometres. Beneath this facade, however, is an abundance of lithium deposits. With approximately 5.4 million tonnes of lithium, it is estimated that Salar de Uyuni is the world’s second-largest reserve of lithium. The growing demand for electronics and their lithium batteries means Bolivia has been incentivised to start utilising its lithium resources.

While the country opened its first industrial-scale lithium plant near Uyuni in December 2023, the gradual effects of lithium mining in other lithium-rich areas have long been recognised. Lithium production is made possible through evaporation ponds; around 21 million litres of water are used per day and 2.2 million litres are needed to produce one ton of lithium.

To extract lithium, access to underground lithium brines are needed first. The brines consist of groundwater that contains dissolved lithium; this is done through drilling or

12

blasting. The brine is then pumped directly upwards to evaporation ponds and left to evaporate with the help of solar energy. As the liquid content diminishes, other metals in the brine, such as potassium, are extracted. The lithium that is left will undergo further processing while the remaining brine may be returned to its natural underground store.

The process consumes substantial amounts of water, interfering with local water supplies and diverting them away. Apart from water shortages, water contamination, soil degradation, air pollution and biodiversity loss are also possible effects of continuous lithium mining. Lithium production in Salar de Uyuni is said to have a heavy impact on the region’s scarce freshwater sources, worrying nearby farmers and herders. Most lithium salt flats in South America are also located in areas with arid climates, worsening the impact of extracting lithium. Furthermore, in areas such as Northern Chile, lithium extraction has caused water-related conflicts between different local communities as extraction performed by various companies

in Chile’s Salar de Atacama consumed about 65% of the region’s local water supply.

Behind the countries of South America, the United States, Australia, and China are the next largest lithium-producing countries, with exports from Australia totaling almost $1.6 billion. Similar to historical events over gold and oil, government supremacy over lithium could help with achieving economic and technological dominance for the coming decades.

In 2008, the vice president of Bolivia claimed that utilising this natural resource would be able to relieve 40% of Bolivian citizens living in extreme poverty. The government at the time had echoed this sentiment, giving hope for full control of lithium extraction in Salar de Uyuni by the Bolivian state. However, lithiummining projects require large technological and financial investments; and whilst Bolivia is rich in natural resources, it remains a lower-middle income country. This creates slim prospects of them being able to operate lithium-mining projects autonomously as foreign

Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB) lithium carbonate production facility. Photo Credit: Marcelo Perez del Carpio/Bloomberg via Getty Images

firms willing to invest are unwilling to

Extracting lithium is a cheap and

cede control. Additionally, international partnership means much of the revenue and benefits Bolivia’s vice president once envisioned will

effective process, yet the questions of its sustainability and its long-term social and environmental impacts remain. Lithium also represents a

not be reaped by its civilians. Bolivia experienced this previously when they were once major owners of natural gas reserves, but lost all potential profit to foreign exploitation. Despite this, the Bolivian state managed to invest roughly $800 million into lithium production in 2023.

route out of society’s reliance on fossil fuels. Therefore, the importance of lithium extraction cannot be overstated as the demand for renewable energy and electric mobility grows. Responsible resource management such as employing water-saving and waste-management technologies can be adopted by the mining industry. Meanwhile, research into lithium battery alternatives that require more easily accessible and less toxic materials is also taking place, with iron and silicon being current elements of focus.

“Lithium can be described as the nonrenewable mineral that makes renewable energy possible - often touted as the next oil.” That being said, should saving the planet with renewable energy come at the expense of the environmental damage and social costs to communities?

The brine pools and processing areas of a lithium mine in Chile. Photo Credit: Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

Charlotte Lim 13

SCIENCE NEWS FOCUS SPACE

Go Big or Go Home?

I

t’s no longer an exaggeration to say that our generation has seen it all. We’ve grown up amid a global pandemic, witnessed the rise of AI, and remained impotent against the impending threat of a nuclear war.

Yet, none of these take the top spot for the most talked-

content in the atmosphere is a measly 0.13% compared to Earth’s 21%. MOXIE is a ‘solid oxide electrolyser cell’ – it takes carbon dioxide from the Martian air and pulls its molecules apart so that you’re left with the O2 from CO2 .

Typically, 10 grams of oxygen (~7000 cm3 ) are made

about international issue: climate change. Each day, we are reminded of the opportunities for doomsday on the news.

every hour – just enough for one human.

Humans could succumb to the ravages caused by the climate emergency with its rising temperatures, or the ecological collapse as a result of declining biodiversity, or the health stressors from chronic air pollution. Or worse, a terrifying combination of all those things.

Describing the Earth’s environmental problems as ‘pressing’ is a severe understatement. We’ve all been told that as ‘the workforce of the 2030s’, we need to save the planet to the best of our abilities. Somehow, in the next decade, we must transition to 100% renewable energy, support reforestation projects, come to international

Nevertheless, like everything else, this comes at a cost.

The construction of MOXIE required 50 million USD, and NASA’s ongoing Project Artemis (with the moon as its destination) has a budget of a whopping 93 billion USD, so you can imagine how much more expensive sending humans to other planets would be. Moreover, the nature of space travel poses numerous threats, such as galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), a type of space radiation. They are energetic particles that come from faraway exploding stars and can cause cancer and brain damage. If humanity ever considers migrating to another planet, we must get past that for the long term. This means developing advanced technology, which takes time and heaps of resources, both of which are finite. And there’s one last thing: there are no

climate agreements… but does that guarantee anything? If these efforts prove to be futile ultimately, and we can’t get ourselves out of this sticky situation, we will be utterly screwed.

guarantees to space exploration. Yes, space travel could allow us to make revolutionary scientific discoveries, but we are just as likely to come back empty-handed and leave the economy in shambles. If we give up on Earth, there

The Dilemma

may not be any going back from that decision.

But look! Humanity’s maybe-hero has emerged, bathed in starry light, in the form of space exploration. No, it’s not merely a quest for knowledge about another world; it opens a treasure trove of scientific and technological advancements. The data and insight we gain can, in turn, allow us to understand more about our planet. Space exploration is a beacon of hope that may allow us to find a planet feasible for humanity’s new home, offering a safeguard against the hot mess we call Earth.

“It’s not merely a quest for knowledge about another world; it opens a treasure trove of scientific and technological advancements.”

This is epitomised by projects like NASA’s Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), which is a device that’s helping NASA prepare for human exploration of Mars by producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. To travel to Mars and make it out alive, we need to either bring or make our oxygen, as the oxygen

A Solution So, should we abandon the Earth or try to save it? Go big or go home? The answer is to do both: we must have a balanced approach that leverages space technology to explore the cosmos, while also adapting it to address Earth’s environmental challenges. Take, for instance, the ingenious technology represented by NASA’s MOXIE, a device that makes oxygen out of carbon dioxide. It just so happens that the Earth’s oxygen content is diminishing at an alarmingly fast speed, with 41 million trees cut down each day. Can we not utilise MOXIE on Earth to tackle the urgent problem of diminishing oxygen levels in our atmosphere? In light of the dual challenges we face, the answer is not an ‘either-or’ proposition. We must strike an equilibrium that allows us to harness advancements in space technology, to benefit our home planet while also continuing to explore the universe. All we need to do is to ensure that there is a global perspective and co-operation in utilising these innovations to combat our current archnemesis: climate change.

Emily Lam

14

The Nobel Prizes 2023

“Those who have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

Alfred Nobel

15

From Screens and Solar Cells to Medical Imaging: An Introduction to Quantum Dots Helena Ahrens SFC1 and Susu Zhao SFC2

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Aleksey Yekimov for “the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.”

Introduction Imagine shrinking an object so much in size, that the optical and electronic properties of a substance is no longer governed by its element, but by the size of its matter. This effect can be described as the ‘quantum phenomena’ observed when an object shrinks to the nanoscale dimensions.

Quantum dots are nanocrystals made from semiconducting materials, with diameters in the range of 2–10 nanometres – only 10–50 atoms large! Their distinctive property is the ability to emit different coloured light depending on their size. This has numerous applications ranging from the healthcare industry to developments in our TV screens.

Discovering Quantum Dots Whilst making matter in nano-dimensions hasn’t always been possible or viable, physicists have long known that size-dependent quantum effects take place in nanoparticles. The idea of quantum dots was first thought of in the 30s, but due to the lack of knowledge surrounding matter in nano-dimensions, many scientists didn’t believe in practical uses for these quantum effects, hence its development was put on pause.

Despite these doubts, scientists Yekimov, Brus and Bawendi were not deterred from exploring this concept. In the 1980s, Yekimov first created a quantum dot using copper chloride and glass. He realised that changing the size of the copper chloride particle altered the colour of the glass. By 1993, the three scientists not only solidified the size-dependent properties of quantum dots but also revolutionised nanocrystal production methods, ultimately leading to a variety of modern uses for quantum dots.

16

Behind the Properties of Quantum Dots Quantum dots are made from semiconducting material. So, to understand the properties of quantum dots, we must first understand what a semiconductor is.

Semiconductors contain two energy bands: the valence band and the conduction band, created by the overlap of antibonding orbitals and the overlap of bonding orbitals respectively. The energy barrier that separates the two bands is called the band gap energy. In semiconductors, electrons spend most of their time in the valence band, but some electrons can be thermally excited across the band gap into the conduction band, thus contributing to

the conductivity of the material. To put this into context, the band gap energy is lower in superconductors than in insulators, whilst, there is no band gap in a normal conductor.

When electrons in a semiconductor gain energy from heat or light, they are promoted from the valence band to the conductive band. When the electron falls back down the energy gap, a photon of light is emitted with its wavelength corresponding to the size of the energy gap. Different wavelengths of photons result in different coloured lights, which is essentially how LED lights work.

Applications of Quantum Dots Quantum dots are used in advanced QLED screens in TVs and computer monitors. Using QLEDs instead of LEDs enhances our viewing experience as it allows the adjustment of colours seen on screens and can make colours less harsh. Current research also focuses on areas such as climate tech, helping create thinner solar cells, as well as in the world of electronics to make electronics products more flexible.

Quantum dots can amplify the amount of energy we can generate using solar cells – making solar power a more viable solution to the pressing issue of climate change and global warming.

As the size of a particle decreases, the band gap increases due to the quantum confinement effect. A larger nanoparticle results in less confinement and a longer electron wavelength, so a lower energy photon and redder colour of light will be emitted. Vice versa, a smaller nanoparticle restricts the electron wavelength, so light towards the blue end of the spectrum will be emitted.

Quantum dots also have important applications in biomedical imaging. These minuscule crystals can help visualise how and where blood vessels are feeding tumours, catalysing cancer research. Quantum dots can be molecularly functionalized, meaning that scientists can chemically attach other molecules and proteins to their surface which in turn interacts with different cells in a targeted way. This makes them well-suited for visualising and tracking molecular processes inside cells, including neurons in the brain and other parts of the nervous system. Their narrow emission spectra also mean that they produce distinct, nonoverlapping colours, so different coloured quantum dots can selectively bind to and label different molecules and proteins in a cell. Furthermore, the fluorescence of quantum dots fades slowly over time, allowing scientists to track the movement of molecules for prolonged periods.

Quantum confinement gives quantum dots unique properties between bulk semiconductors and discrete molecules. Unlike bulk semiconductors, which have continuous energy levels within each energy band, the quantum confinement effect creates discrete energy levels, so quantum dots can emit a specific and consistent wavelength of light, producing purer colours.

Like the saying ‘big things come in small packages’ it is clear to say that quantum dots will allow innovation to take place in many industries, and will hopefully allow for more breakthroughs in tackling the world’s most critical issues from climate change to cancer.

With this basic understanding, we can then investigate how shrinking semiconductors into the nanoscale causes a size-dependent relationship.

The small size causes electrons in quantum dots to be tightly constrained in all three dimensions, resulting in a phenomenon known as quantum confinement. Quantum confinement is observed when the size of the nanocrystal is much smaller than its wavelength. How tightly the electrons are confined and the band gap depends on the size of the particle, hence why quantum dot colours are size-dependent.

17

Capturing the Unseen: Unveilling Electron Dynamics Charlotte Lim SFC2

The three Physics Nobel Laureates of 2023 are Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Kreausz and Anne L’Huillier, recognised “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.”

Introduction If any of you have watched or made a stop-motion film, you may recognise it as a filmmaking technique that combines still images of an object or character photographed incrementally. When the series of images are combined and played at speed, it creates an illusion of continual movement.

Fast-moving events tend to blur together when perceived by humans. So, what happens when scientists want to investigate a very brief moment, such as in the world of electrons, where changes and events can occur in a few tenths of an attosecond? An attosecond is a unit of measure equivalent to 10 -18 seconds, about ten quadrillion times faster than the blink of an eye - it is so brief that as many attoseconds occur in one second as there have been seconds since the universe’s birth.

Just like how a detailed photograph of rapidly moving hummingbird would require high-speed photography, the quicker an event, the quicker a picture needs to be taken to capture the instant.

A Brief History Extremely short events were previously impossible to observe so direct detection or measurements could not be made, causing many scientists to rely on probability or theoretical constructs to describe a phenomenon. Early quantum mechanics in particular, which notable physicists including but not limited to Max Planck, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr contributed to the development of, contained many unobservable or abstract quantities.

18

For example, in Niels Bohr’s model of the hydrogen atom, he proposed the idea of quantised energy levels, meaning that electrons can only have specific amounts of energy and occupy orbits in discrete energy levels away from the nucleus. The theory also suggests that the angular momentum of electrons orbiting the nucleus is quantised and modelled by the mathematical equation: nh/2π, where “n” is the principal energy level number, “h” being Planck’s constant and “2π” being another constant. To come to this theory, Bohr used quantities such as the position and period of revolution of an electron in a hydrogen atom two unobservable quantities. Quantised energy levels of an atom can be experimentally shown through spectral lines, produced by excited electrons having gained energy and were promoted to a higher energy level. Upon returning to a lower energy level, the electron emits a photon, giving up a packet of light energy and producing a spectral line. However, the fundamental concept of energy levels is still not an observable quantity but rather a theoretical construct derived from mathematical models.

Werner Heisenberg addressed this issue in his 1925 paper formulating the new quantum mechanics, arguing that a new theory should be based on “observables” like the frequencies of quantum transitions. Here, he introduced the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which still contains limitations in precision when measuring the two quantities, position and momentum, simultaneously, however, both are observable quantities. Whilst Heisenberg and the other quantum physicists reinvented physics of the 20th century, neither of the physicists really anticipated that what used to be “in principle” observable, is starting to be accessible in laboratory experiments.

Observing Electrons through Pulses of Light Improving existing technology to match the timescale of electrons was previously inadequate. The method of measurement must be quicker than the time taken for the system being studied to undergo a noticeable change or a vague result is produced. Through experiments, 2023's laureates demonstrated a method that creates flashes of light, short enough to photograph the extremely rapid movements of electrons. The pulses of light produced by the laureates are brief enough that the processes inside atoms and molecules can now be captured through images, as a result, opening up an entirely new field of research called attosecond physics.

Using overtones to create shorter pulses of light

Very short pulses are required to create brief enough flashes of light. The shortest pulse possible can be understood as a single period of a light wave. Therefore, to achieve shorter pulses, we need shorter wavelengths, and the trick to this is overtones, a phenomenon discovered by Anne L’Huillier in 1987 that occurs when infrared laser beams are passed through a noble gas. In 2001, Pierre Agostini successfully produced and investigated a series of consecutive light pulse with each pulse lasting just 250 attoseconds. Simultaneously, Ferenc Krausz isolated a single light pulse that lasted only 650 attoseconds.

A Promising Future for Attosecond Physics While helping us refine our understanding of existing theories, attosecond pulses can be applied to explore the detailed, internal processes of matter, such as, the time taken for an electron to be pulled away from an atom, or how the time taken depends on how tightly bound an electron is to the nucleus, promising future applications in areas including electronics and medicine. As Eva Olsson, the Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics says: “We can now open the door to the world of electrons.

Attosecond physics gives us the opportunity to understand mechanisms that are governed by electrons.

The next step will be utilising them.”

“We can now open the door to the world of electrons.

Attosecond physics gives us the opportunity to understand mechanisms that are governed by electrons.

The next step will be utilising them . ” -Eva Olsson

19

Against All Odds: A Pioneering Journey in mRNA Vaccine Development Raye Woon SFC1

Katalin Karikó and Dew Weissman were jointly awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective vaccines against COVID-19.”

Katalin Karikó grew up in the backwaters of 1950s Hungary, deprived of running water, electricity, and entertainment. It goes without a doubt that her wheel of life did not start on a cheery note. Though, that

Drew Weissman was born on 7th September 1959 in the bustling city of Lexington, Massachusetts. His father, a distinguished engineer, owned a company that produced optical mirrors for satellites. So as a

didn’t stop Karikó from pursuing her innate passion: biology. Karikó spent her days watching calf births and studying plant species. At the tender age of 14, she won third place in a nationwide biology competition,

child, despite his talent in martial arts, Drew had a curious nature for the sciences. Eventually, he studied at Boston University, attaining a PhD in immunology and microbiology. At the age of 38, Weissman joined

despite challenges in poorly-funded schooling. In 1989, she landed a job as a research assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Little did she know, that despite the endless colleague harassment, demotions and grant rejects, her research was about to save 70% of the world’s population.

the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania where he gave mRNA vaccine development significant focus, despite the scientific taboo that mRNA therapy was impossible to administer safely. Weissman summarised his and Karikó’s journey in the best way possible: “We had to fight the entire way.”

Before we move on with the remarkable story of our Nobel

one virus, in this case, the COVID virus. So, our immune

Prize winners, let’s explore the mechanisms behind mRNA.

system recognises this shape and starts to attack it, seeing the spike protein as a foreign invader. After the spike protein is obliterated, memory cells are created. These memory cells will always remember the exact shape and form of the spike proteins, thus upon a real infection with a real COVID virus particle, the memory cells can immediately start attacking it with antibodies.

Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) can be thought of as an instruction-carrying train. Throughout our cell, the mRNA train needs to carry instructions to a protein factory.

Each train compartment contains a single letter: A, U, C or G. For example, the mRNA train could have a 9000-letter sequence that gives the building instructions for one protein. Proteins are found (quite literally) everywhere in living organisms, from the protein in our muscles to the surfaces of viruses. These viral proteins are of huge significance because every single virus on Earth has a unique protein attached to its surface. This specific protein is called a spike protein, which essentially acts as a barcode to identify a virus. The thing about mRNA vaccines is that a “fake” mRNA train could be injected into our cells and trick the cell into producing viral spike proteins (e.g. covid spike proteins). But wouldn’t this be harmful as we are practically producing real viruses? After all, this is a similar mechanism which viruses use to reproduce in us. However, viral spike proteins themselves pose no threat to us as they are only part of the full virus. Yet, their unique shape is specific to

20

Yet, one question might still linger in your head, what if the virus mutates and the spike protein changes shape?

Well, that’s where the mRNA part comes in. The mRNA train can hold more than one instruction to create many different spike proteins. So, a single injection could give you immunity to multiple covid variants.

Weissman had persuaded Karikó to work on mRNA vaccines with him. The duo worked like bread and butter.

With Karikó specialising in the synthesis of mRNA strands and Weissman testing the vaccine’s effectiveness, they quickly made a ground-breaking discovery. Decades ago, research into mRNA insertion into cells was intense – mRNA was the CRIPSR-Cas9 of the 1970s. The idea was

that mRNA injections tricked the body into producing desired beneficial proteins without causing mutations. It was thought that mRNA also worked somewhat like a drug; it could be broken down after a while by the body’s natural detoxification system. However, scientists eventually discovered that mRNA could not be injected into the body without causing an inflammatory reaction, which in turn destroyed the whole mRNA strand before it could be used to create the protein. Therefore, mRNA research was halted and labelled as another dystopian society invention.

Weissman and Karikó were convinced otherwise, and turns out… they were right.

“mRNA research was halted and labelled as another dystopian society invention.

Weissman and Karikó were convinced otherwise, and turns out...

they were right .”

Once the COVID mRNA vaccine was proven to be safe and effective, vaccination programs were found in (almost) every nook and corner of the world. While different types of COVID vaccines were available – such as the traditional vector vaccine manufactured by AstraZeneca and

Traditionally, human mRNA has 4 bases: Adenine, Cytosine, Uracil and Guanine. The order of these bases determines what protein is made. However, synthesised versions of these mRNA bases didn’t sit well with the body. In fact, our body would relentlessly release wave after wave of white blood cells to wash these foreign invaders out. This would occur test after test until the researchers discovered a nucleotide base replacement: nucleosides. These nucleosides managed to stay under the immune system radar, thus the mRNA was no longer destroyed before it could reach the ribosome (a protein factory). Thus, they wrapped the small mRNA strand in a lipid nanoparticle to protect the mRNA strand until it reached the correct cell.

Despite the prominence of this revolutionary breakthrough, it received little attention from the scientific community. Only during the COVID-19 outbreak, were mRNA vaccines brought into the spotlight, in which the flurry of vaccine development poured funds into mRNA vaccines. From here on, Karikó and Weissman finally had the opportunity to develop their invention further.

University of Oxford, or the protein subunit vaccine by Novavax, ultimately, the mRNA vaccine was the most prevalent. Why? While this was partially due to the 95% effectiveness seen in clinical trials, ultimately, mRNA vaccines had the simplest vaccine production process.

Unlike other vaccines that needed cell cultures to grow weakened viruses or bacteria to produce spike proteins, mRNA vaccines did not need this long and arduous process. As a result, many mRNA vaccines could be rolled out at once, feeding the exponential demand for COVID vaccines globally.

“many mRNA vaccines could be rolled out at once, feeding the exponential

demand for COVID vaccines globally .”

Karikó and Weissman have left a significant impact on the scientific community, feeding our understanding of mRNA vaccines, our immune systems and how both factors interact. They also opened the door to quicker vaccine development for future pandemics. In the past, vaccines required 5 to 10 years of vigorous research before finally being administered to the public. However, in light of COVID-19 and global efforts to suppress the pandemic, the mRNA vaccine development took 365 days. In the UK, the UK Health Security Agency has set a goal to reduce the time needed for vaccine development to 100 days, better preparing us and the rest of the world for another global pandemic.

21

ARTICLES NEUROSCIENCE

Sophia Lau UC4

Are you mind-blind?

S

ome people can’t picture the faces of their loved ones, or even visualise their own room. Sounds bizarre? It's actually not; imagine this. Whenever you close your eyes, you have little to no sensory experience, and there is nothing but darkness in your mind. You attempt to use your imagination, for example, to visualise a sunset, but no image appears despite your effort. Only numbers, words, and concepts can be imagined. This is aphantasia - the inability to voluntarily form mental images.

First described by Sir Francis Galton in 1880, aphantasia was characterised as experiencing difficulty when picturing scenes or objects. It wasn't until 2015 that the condition was coined “aphantasia” by behavioural neurologist Adam Zeman, and only now are researchers beginning to discover more of the science behind it.

Aphantasia can be divided into two types: 1. Acquired Aphantasia: Losing the ability to mentally visualise after a brain injury, trauma or certain neurological conditions. This can happen either gradually or suddenly.

2. Congenital Aphantasia: Having the inability to mentally visualise since birth. Those with the condition often discover they have aphantasia during their adolescent years, when they learn that others can visualise vivid images in their minds.

22

The condition is rare, affecting an estimated 1-4% of the population, and it can manifest in a myriad of ways, with every individual’s experience being slightly different.

Common symptoms include struggling to see mental images, difficulty in visualisation when daydreaming, and having limited abilities in recalling dreams as individuals cannot see them with the mind’s eye. Serena Puang, an aphantasic, writes in the New York Times, “people would tell me to count sheep… but when I tried it, I never saw anything - just black.”

“People would tell me to count sheep... but when I tried it, I never saw anything .”

Other symptoms include trouble with facial recognition and spatial reasoning, as well as the feeling of disconnection from artistic works due to the struggle to appreciate and understand art. It is important to note that while aphantasia is a neurological condition, it does not hinder intelligence in any way or form. In fact, research conducted by Adam Zeman found that those with aphantasia tend to have higher average IQs of 115, compared to the general population, which had an average IQ of 110.

Despite the current limited research in the field of aphantasia, an especially thought-provoking quality is the compensatory strategies individuals with aphantasia develop to process the world in their own ways, thus the reason why some do not even realise they have the condition. Even as those with and without aphantasia perform the same everyday tasks, mechanisms in the brain involved in executing these tasks differ between the former and the latter. Of course, more research is needed to better understand the neural basis of aphantasia and its implications, as it is still in the early stages of study, just like many others in the sea of neurological conditions.

On the opposite side of the spectrum lies hyperphantasia photorealistic imagination. The 2.5% of the population with hyperphantasia have an enhanced ability to visualise images, which differs from photographic memory and may strengthen abilities in art and creative thinking. The condition also has its downsides, such as envisioning negative images that may impact one’s moods on a regular basis. Although causes of hyperphantasia are still being studied, fMRI reveals that the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the visual network* is stronger in hyperphantasia individuals than aphantasia ones.

Phantasia is a spectrum, which means there is no definite side you have to be on. The majority of the population lies somewhere between the two ends. *visual network: a combination of regions including 1. frontal and parietal regions of the brain, which help with the control of eye movements, 2. areas involved in memory and 3. the visual cortices which process what we see with our eyes.

Aphantasia has probably been here for longer than our discovery of neuroscience, and the sheer complexity of our brain just means that a lot is still unknown and there will always be new knowledge to pursue as we traverse the realms of neuroscience. Aphantasic or not, remember you are ph-antastic!

23

ARTICLES FEATURE

n W a e C L w i v o e H oon SFC1 Raye W

mmortality is thought to be impossible for us to achieve. Humanity has tried different dubious concoctions of extravagant herbs and spices, clumsy rituals and nowadays, an excessive amount of supplements encased in a flimsy capsule. Yet, every living thing is held back by its mortality. Every human on this planet will die, one way or another. Or will they?

The thought of immortality was first raised around 350 BC.

circulatory and respiratory functions, or irreversible

Socrates, a prominent Greek philosopher, proposed the notion that the human soul would continue to live on indefinitely, even after the physical body ceases to exist.

But that raises the question: what even is a soul? Socrates defined a soul as a substance that existed independently outside our physical body. While our bodies could die, our souls are immortal. However, is a “soul” even useful without a medium to act on? Once our body dies, we lose the ability to feel, touch, smell and practically everything that makes us alive to begin with. Even as we age, our body decays, slowly losing its physical capabilities; so having a limitless lifespan would be futile if we are trapped bedridden for eternity. In this case, immortality would be a curse rather than a cure. Thus I would argue the most likely way to achieve immortality within the limits of human technology (and without meddling with philosophical or religious approaches) is to stop physical ageing altogether.

So, how can science help us solve our age-old problem?

cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.” This USA model state law is used nationwide to accurately pronounce death, factoring in both medical and ethical concerns. While old age is not a cause of death, it can lead to organ failure and decreased immunity. Thus, even if we rid the world of all diseases, we are still vulnerable to the shutdown of our vital functions.

Let’s start by looking at death itself, specifically how we die. The Uniform Determination of Death Act declares “An individual who has sustained either irreversible cessation of

24

When death is imminent, an individual will feel lethargic, combined with a constant lack of energy and appetite.

This suppressed appetite could be due to several factors such as slower digestive activity, an increase in the production of catecholamine in the blood (an appetite suppressant), difficulty swallowing or chewing, or the loss of smell and taste. As a result of their poor nutrition, they do not possess enough calories to fuel day-to-day activities. Next, the individual’s lungs will be too weak to function and start to take their last breath. Their heart, frail, fragile and deprived of oxygen, starts to pump slower.

That’s when their vision starts to blur as their eyelids feel heavy. It’s similar to that feeling of nodding off in class in period 6. Neural activity in the brain will cease too due to

oxygen deprivation. This could cause hallucinations in their final moments. Eventually, they will lose grasp of their surroundings, falling into an eternal slumber.

What physiological or biological processes occurred in our body that ultimately led to this final moment? When our

cells from self-destructing. Therefore, by disrupting the FOXO4-p53 pathway, nothing is stopping the senescent cells from apoptosis. What's phenomenal about this is that this only targets senescent cells, leaving the healthy cells virtually untouched. When mice were injected with this peptide, it killed 80% of their senescent cells - an

cells get damaged, we have to replace or repair them.

Depending on the type of cell, our body chooses to break

extremely promising result. Additionally, it was found to improve liver and kidney function, decrease frailty, and

down the damaged cell and replace it with a new one.

Every time cell replication by mitosis occurs, some DNA will be lost because the replication process is unable to reach the extreme ends of a chromosome. To reduce the amount of DNA lost, our chromosomes have telomeres, expendable DNA capped at the end of chromosomes,

increase fur density in the mice. If when FOXO4-DRI is commercially released, it has the potential to be marketed as an anti-ageing and anti-hair loss drug.

acting as a layer to protect the essential DNA. As we age, these telomeres wear off, because the rate of cell division is greater than the rate of telomere repair. Therefore, we start to lose our essential DNA. This creates a type of cell known as the senescent cell, which accumulates in our bodies as we age. Senescent cells stop multiplying but also resist programmed cell death (apoptosis), therefore, they just float around in the body. They are also reported to secrete inflammatory substances and cause stem cell deficiency. Senescent cells can also become cancerous, which explains why half of all cancer cases are found in people aged over 70. Our cells will also start to replicate less effectively, slowing down the replacement and repair process that keeps us healthy and functioning. With all these factors contributing to the degradation of our body, we all die because a major organ or system succumbs to the damage.

“When mice were injected with this peptide, it killed of

their

“”

Stem cell transplants are already in use in modern medicine. Bone marrow transplants are surgeries that transfer stem cells from a healthy individual to patients with blood-related diseases.

As stem cells

Attaining immortality by halting or potentially reversing the ageing process falls well within the realm of our present knowledge and technological capabilities. There are three main methods, currently undergoing further research, that can help us achieve eternal life: the reduction of senescent cells, stem cell transplants, and the restoration of NAD+ levels.

As mentioned before, senescent cells resist programmed cell death (apoptosis). However, in 2017, researchers from Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, developed a new peptide (a short protein) called FOXO4-DRI, which enables senescent cells to undergo apoptosis. In short, FOXO4-DRI inhibits FOXO4, a chemical signaller. FOXO4 stimulates a protein called p53, which prevents senescent

25

have proven to restore the body’s ability to create red

is necessary to see if NAD+ can have the same effects on

blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, they can be used to slow ageing down too. In 2017, a study by Dongsheng Cai and his team, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, discovered that the number

humans as they do on mice.

of stem cells decreased in the hypothalamus as mice aged.

The hypothalamus, a part of the brain, has been suggested to contribute to ageing. This is due to the loss of sensitivity in the hypothalamus to feedback regulators, disrupting the stable internal environment of our bodies. Therefore, the researchers injected stem cells from the brains of newborn mice into middle-aged mice. They saw an increase cognitive and muscular capabilities of the treated mice.

Treated mice also lived on average 10% longer than untreated mice. While this is a phenomenal breakthrough, if this was used as an anti-ageing agent in humans, it would have to be treated before cognitive decline got too severe.

decrease the rate of ageing. Destruction of senescent cells ensures we get rid of the toxic by-products of ageing, stem cell rejuvenation helps us replace our damaged cells and NAD+ ensures we can continue our current metabolic rate. Even then with these medical advances, we cannot guarantee the avoidance of death. It is theorised that true immortality can be achieved somewhere in the near future, perhaps a 100 years. But what happens if we cannot wait a 100 years? Well, there’s always cryonics.

We could pay to freeze our dead bodies at just £250,000 and hope that future advanced technology can revive our frozen bodies in time for an anti-ageing solution. Cryonics uses temperatures below -130ºC to preserve our brain and body. It is estimated that there is at best a 15% chance of cryonics working. Immortality does, to some extent, cover the revival of the dead. And, we already do this through CPR and defibrillation. However, reviving someone who kicked the bucket over a century ago is another feat, perhaps an impossible one. Then again, we said the same thing about flying centuries ago. So, what would be the theory behind human resurrection?

“Treated mice also lived on average longer than untreated mice.”

NAD+ is an enzyme that facilitates our energy production.

As we age, NAD+ declines, leading to lower energy production and a lower metabolism. Low amounts of it can cause multiple diseases like age-associated metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and mental disorders. Unfortunately, NAD+ cannot directly enter cells.

However, scientists developed another molecule called NMN which cells can quickly metabolise into NAD+. In 2016, researchers injected NMN into mice, noticing that it improved mitochondrial function and increased the multiplication of stem cells. Initial stages of human trials on healthy middle-aged adults have already occurred in 2018, where NAD+ is seen to have reduced blood pressure and aortic stiffness in humans. However, further investigation

26

Currently, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to stop ageing. We would have to combine all three methods to

Cryonics helps preserve the structure of our bodies down to the neural pathways in our brains. In 2016, Robert L. McIntyre and Gregory Fahy, cryobiology researchers at 21st Century Medicine, won a prize for the discovery of a new vitrification method that preserved a rabbit’s brain in nearly perfect conditions at -135ºC. Traditionally, freezing our water-filled cells would cause the formation of ice crystals, commonly known as frostbite. In cryonics, this leads to cell damage and unfortunately, irreparable neural damage in the brain. Vitrification, a sub-branch of

cryopreservation, utilises the intricate addition and removal of cryoprotectants to stop the water from crystallising.

However, the constant tampering with cryoprotectants can cause cryoprotectant toxicity. This is not the only problem with revival after cryonics, we will have to tackle cell damage due to oxygen deprivation, thermal stress (cracking

Ethically speaking, immortality lies in a grey area. It is, without a doubt, meddling with the natural biological processes we have evolved to undergo. Death is arguably the most important experience in our whole lives. Death marks the end of our physical existence, it allows us to return ourselves to Earth. It is ultimately more acceptable

of the body due to expansion at low temperatures), and freezing of cells that did not successfully go under

to delay death than to prevent death altogether.

Additionally, humanity would eventually get bored of its

vitrification. As daunting as it sounds, nanotechnology provides a promising solution.

existence. We would have to construct a new functioning society. Would we even bother working if the urgency mortality once provided disappeared? How can this antiageing drug be accessible worldwide despite economic disparities? Would we be more planet-conscious if we knew we would be on Earth for longer? In reality, once we

Nanotechnology is the usage of particles smaller than one billionth of a metre to control things at an atomic level. In medicine, through the movement of atoms by nano-robots, there is potential to completely alter, repair, most importantly, regenerate cells. By employing these tiny robots, we can repair our frozen damaged cells and rid ourselves of cryoprotectant toxicity. Nanotechnology can also be used to evenly warm up the body from freezing temperatures, reducing the chance of tissue damage. This has already occurred at rabbit organ levels. In 2017, researchers at the University of Minnesota created silicacoated nanoparticles containing iron oxide. Through the use of a magnetic field, they caused the nanoparticle to vibrate, producing heat. This allowed the frozen organ to heat up evenly. While this is currently used to better preserve organs for transplant, there is no reason to think about its potential for cryonics.

reach eternal life, our society will fall due to the strain of global resources. We cannot indefinitely feed this evergrowing population if humans decide to defy death.

Would immortality lead to the demise of civilisation then?

Possibly. But, that’s a conversation outside the realms of this science magazine. To end, I would like to share this quote by martial artist Bruce Lee:

“The key to first living a life

is .”

Despite the endless possibilities posed by cryonics, it is widely considered a pseudoscience. Many scientists around the globe believe that the revival of the dead is well outside the means of current human capabilities.

Even one of the researchers who aided in the development of the iron oxide nanoparticles said “There are huge scientific hurdles ahead of us, and it's rather premature to get into rewarming a whole person”. Some argue that no amount of freezing or preservation could fully maintain the neural pathways and complexities of the human brain. Therefore, waking up someone after cryonics would, at best, completely alter their personality.

And in the worst-case scenario, cause suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. Despite this, many prominent figures still choose to undergo cryonics. In fact, the man who coined the term “nanotechnology”, K. Eric Drexler, was so confident in nanotech that he chose to pay for cryonics. So that just leaves one question: will we see an immortal K. Eric Drexler?

27

ARTICLES COSMOLOGY

Creation of t M

any scientists have wondered about the origin of the universe; the beginning of everything. What happened 13.8 billion years ago? Did one universe collapse and turn into the current one?

THE BIG BANG THEORY - WHAT IS IT? The Big Bang Theory is the most popular of many theories regarding the origin of the universe. A common misconception was that the universe had an “explosion”, but in fact, it was a rapid expansion – from a hot, dense singularity, also referred to as a point of infinite density, to the atoms and molecules that exist today. According to the theory, the whole course of development of the universe was divided into time periods named “epochs”.

The expansion occurred during the inflationary epoch when the universe grew rapidly in size; the universe churned with electrons, quarks and other particles. Soon later, during the hadron epoch, the universe cooled itself down and quarks combined to form protons and neutrons.

At last, during the nuclear epoch, protons and neutrons fused to form nuclei, creating the first chemical element: helium. Soon after, many other particles were formed, creating matter which formed the universe. There have been two major scientific discoveries that support the Big Bang: Hubble's discovery in 1929 about the relationship between a galaxy's distance from Earth and its speed, and discoveries about cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. In the first theory, Hubble observed that the shift of galaxies was directly proportional to the distance of the galaxy from Earth, meaning things further away from earth were moving faster, indicating an expansion. In the second theory, Penzias and Wilson discovered the existence of cosmic microwave background radiation, calculated as leftover radiation from hundreds of thousands of years after the Big Bang. This indicates that when the universe was created, it underwent processes of inflation, expansion and cooling. According to the calculations of these two theories combined, they suggest the existence of the rapid, dense expansion, hence strongly supporting the Big Bang theory.

28

VARIOUS COSMOLOGICAL THEORIES: ARE THEY ACCURATE? Since ancient times, many have wondered about the origin of the universe; theories and cosmovisions came about. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese and more had all proposed their own theories of creation, but they were mostly based on their religious beliefs or daily routines and necessities. For example, the Mayan civilisation heavily depended on maize (corn), vegetables and rain, which sparked the myth that the universe was created by gods named Plumed Serpent and Hurricane, who created humans from mud, wood, corn, and water. Also, in Greek Mythology, the universe was said to be created by the hands of Greek Gods by command. In the past, these myths were convincing enough, however, scientific evidence proves that humans were created through reproduction, and there has been no concrete evidence that proves of a God.

BIG BANG VS STEADY STATE THEORY So, why does the Big Bang theory stand to be the most accurate and popular theory? Although it may not be the true version of how the universe was created, the theory still has an abundant amount of evidence to support it. Inevitably, the Big Bang theory also contains loopholes and questions to be answered, for example: “How can large-sized structures within the universe be created when the predicted time of their creation takes longer from when the Big Bang occurred?” One of the alternatives for the Big Bang is the Steady-State Theory. The Big Bang suggests the universe was created and has continued expanding ever since. While matter will “age” and evolve, such as through stellar life cycles, the universe continuously expands, changing the distribution of matter over time. In comparison, the

he Universe Giselle Cheng UC4 Steady State suggests that the universe maintains a constant, average density of matter over time while it expands by continuously creating new matter. This would indicate that the distribution of stars and galaxies appears similar over time as new matter continuously fill the “gaps” created from expansion.

RELIGION VS SCIENCE

these theories enrich us immensely. We can learn about how the universe started by studying scientific claims with evidence. There have been claims that one day the world will collapse and come to an end; who knows what will happen next? We cannot be certain if there will be cosmological evolutions in the future, but the Big Bang theory assures that the chance of another Big Bang is low, not to mention, the immense, lifethreatening heat during expansion.

Have you ever wondered about the existence of God? There have been religious theories and scientific ones – maybe they can co-exist. Perhaps it is not as simple as the concept of reproduction, there has to be a start to the line, for example, what caused everything in the first place?

When I was little I often wondered if living things were created just by drawing figures on piece of paper, for all I knew back then, magic existed. The creation of the universe was a miracle, according the Bible, created by the word of God. Yet, science states that it all started from an expansion, and at this point, religion could take the wheel: God might have allowed the universe to be created this way. God’s wisdom is far more than what mere humans can comprehend. Back then, God may have created the universe by commanding it to expand into matter. Instead of teaching complicated theories to Bible writers, God simply said he commanded creation with simple words. If this is how it happened, there will no longer be any contradiction between religion and science. The Bible states, “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” This clearly indicates that there was a beginning and an end to creation, which supports one of the factors of the Big Bang Theory. However, it is important to note that the coexistence of religion and the science of creation still stands to be complex and subjective.

WHY IS KNOWING ABOUT CREATION IMPORTANT? Everyone has the right to know how we were created;

WHICH IS THE BEST EXPLANATION FOR THE THEORY OF CREATION? From Mayan myths about creation from mud and corn, to a theory of rapid expansion for creation, there have been many cosmological theories. Despite religious beliefs and ancient myths throughout the centuries, scientific theories stand strong as the most supported theories to this day. There is immense controversy between the two most convincing and widely used theories: the Steady State and the Big Bang. In 1948, scientists observed that the universe, with the calculations predicted using the Big Bang theory, would only have taken the approximate time of the age of the Solar System – 4.6 billion years. This has been the biggest loophole of the Big Bang theory, and while scientists continue to study the universe, contradictions are still faced between predictions by the Big Bang Theory and reality. Although there is a great uncertainty in the Big Bang Theory, it has the most evidence and discoveries to support it. The Steady state theory offers an alternative explanation for the structure and evolution of our universe, but does not posit a specific beginning as the Big Bang does with the hot, dense point of singularity; instead, that matter is created keeping density constant as the universe expands. However, despite its loopholes, the Big Bang theory remains the most supported by observational evidence, particularly the CMBR, and among many cosmologists.

29

ARTICLES BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

A

pproximately 10,000 years ago, humans began dedicating almost all their time and effort into

cultivating a few species of plants and animals, with the thought that it would provide them with greater reserves of food. Through time, this has been named the Agricultural Revolution, also known as the Neolithic Revolution. It is directly related to the way we live today and is known to most as one of the most significant eras within our evolutionary history.

Following the last ice age about 25,000 years ago, a period of global warming occurred. Rising temperatures gave way to increased rainfall, creating the ideal climate for wheat to flourish and spread. Hunter-gatherers during the time would gather wheat, a plant which could not be eaten without cooking, and take them back to their campsite for processing, inevitably dropping wheat grains on their way back. This, coupled with their custom of burning down forests and thickets to create vast grasslands for hunting, allowed wheat and grass to thrive on popular human trails and campsites. Additionally, where wheat was particularly abundant, so were other food sources, which, in combination, led to humans giving up their huntergatherer lifestyle to settle in seasonal, or even permanent

campsites. This marked the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution.

Wheat played a pivotal role in the Agricultural Revolution and has since become one of the most successful plants on earth. It now covers 2.25 million square kilometres of the globe’s surface. However, the journey to domesticating wheat was not effortless. Wheat is a highmaintenance plant. Farmers had to clear fields from rocks and other plants, safeguard them from pests and disease, and ensure that they received adequate amounts of water and nutrients by creating irrigation canals and using animal faeces to nourish the ground. Humans were not evolved

30

for tasks like these. Ancient skeletons have exhibited that the Agricultural Revolution brought about many ailments, such as slipped discs, arthritis, and hernias.

Our ancestors were correct in their prediction that the rise of agriculture would produce a larger caloric sum of food than what was produced within hunter-gatherer societies.

They however, failed to predict the chain of events which would be caused by the significant change in their ways of life, such as the change of diet, and societal structure.

The Agricultural Revolution provided more food per unit of territory, allowing for the human population to grow exponentially. The existence of permanent settlements and farms meant women had children every year, due to the need for more manual labour. However, the increase in population meant food reserves were consumed more quickly. Food supplies were not large enough to keep up with the demand of an increasing population, with each child having to compete for their own food as they had more siblings. Consequently, archaeological evidence has found that child mortality rapidly increased.

On top of the exponential increase in population, permanent settlements were also hotbeds for infectious disease. One of the mistakes made by agricultural societies was the change from feeding children breast milk to feeding them cereals. Breast milk is the primary

Charissa Lim SFC2 source of all nutrients and energy a child needs during their early years, and also provides antibodies, ensuring protection against disease. Thus, in most agricultural societies, at least one out of three people died before the

result, by the time an agricultural society realised that their lives were made much more difficult, no one within the society would remember the hunter-gatherer way of life. Furthermore, even if the society

age of twenty. Nevertheless, the birth rate was still greater than the death rate, leading to further population growth, thus continuing the vicious cycle.

remembered the old ways of life, the population booms made the transition back impossible, given that the average hunter-gatherer group ranged between the size of an extended family, to no more than one hundred

Hunter-gathers spent their time in more varied and stimulating ways than farmers. They were nomadic, meaning that they used mobility as a survival strategy, instead of remaining at a singular location. They accessed large areas of land, foraging for a variety of food to sustain themselves and their group. This ensured that they received all the nutrients the human diet requires.

This proved to be a very successful diet, having sustained humans for hundreds of thousands of years.

The varied diet made humans less susceptible to malnutrition and starvation, and was a healthier diet than that adopted by their descendants. After the Agricultural Revolution, farmers began eating a very limited and unbalanced diet, with their main caloric intake consisting of wheat, potatoes, or rice.

people, providing enough people to search for food, while also allowing for everyone to be fed.

“Bountiful harvest in the next year taught us one of the of history: quickly become .”

The farmers who once thought that they would work hard for a bountiful harvest in the next year taught us one of the iron rules of history: luxuries quickly become necessities. It can be said that humans are unable to truly understand the long-term consequences of their actions. Hence, the miscalculation made by our ancestors, along with our quick dependence on agriculture, is what allowed the Agricultural Revolution to materialise. The society we know today continues to benefit from it largely, the Agricultural Revolution being integral to its transformation. However, we must acknowledge its negative consequences.

The reliance which farmers had on a single crop gave rise to famine when natural disasters devastated their crops.

Unlike hunter-gatherers, their permanent settlements and large population meant that they were unable to move to unaffected areas of land. The gathering or hunting of other species was also out of the question, since they were no longer accustomed to a diet without their staple food item.

The pursuit of an easier life led to a lifestyle which involved more hardship. However, agricultural societies were unable to give up their lifestyle. For societies to be transformed, small changes to their lifestyle were made through generations, causing a cumulative effect. As a

31

ARTICLES ANTHROPOLOGY

Origins of Language (ˈɒrɪʤɪnz ɒv ˈlæŋɡwɪʤ) Despite different theories created by linguists and scientists, the origin of language is largely unknown.

Anatomically speaking, Homo sapiens did not evolve to have the shape of vocal tracts we have now until 100,000 years ago, meaning that the modern range of vocal

genomes of humans and chimpanzees, the difference of two amino acid sites in FOXP2 has made a tangible difference in humans’ ability to communicate with language. Therefore, FOXP2 became known for playing a large role in the emergence of modern Homo sapiens.

sounds could not have been imitated by our ancestors.

However, language could still have been started then by using a more restricted range of sounds, where through time, evolution may have enabled us to begin speaking faster and more expressively. Prior to modern language, speech may have taken the form of sounds to describe a range of objects and actions within our ancestors’ environment. New sounds would be created to describe things that had never been named before. Soon, this became inefficient, causing sounds to be made into sequences of vowels and consonants.

The story described above still has not led us to what we understand as modern languages. Linguists theorise that between 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, there had been a drastic shift in humans’ ability to communicate verbally.

While this has not been verified, scientists found evidence twenty years ago which suggests that there is a genetic factor that contributes to our ability to communicate verbally. Scientists discovered that a mutation in FOXP2, a gene, has been linked to a developmental speech and language disorder. This meant that FOXP2 must have influence over our acquisition of spoken language skills.

Other scientists then discovered that the FOXP2 protein is different in chimpanzees by two amino acid sites. This was despite chimpanzees and humans having DNA that are 98.8% similar to one another. This DNA or genome similarity is known as the high conservation of genetic material. It describes how between closely related species, most of their genetic material is conserved through evolution. Despite the similarities between the

32

Evolution of Modern Language (ˌiːvəˈluːʃᵊn ɒv ˈmɒdᵊn ˈlæŋɡwɪʤ) Over the course of time, every aspect of language changes, which includes pronunciation, meanings, grammar, syntax and more. This change is cumulative, where language is passed on from generation to generation, making the transition of language gradual and seamless. There are exceptions to this, for example, the emergence of vocabulary relating to science and technology in the 20th century was extremely rapid. Most languages which we deem distinctive now stem from a common ancestor. This can be seen with the Romance languages like Spanish, English and Italian, where their common ancestor is Latin. These languages became distinct from one another over time due to linguistic changes influenced by their respective cultures and circumstances.

Within one singular language, past forms of it gave way to the version that we now recognise. Although we would not associate ourselves as people who speak the same

poorer people are left behind due to a lack of support in achieving proficiency. Furthermore, this has created the image that being able to speak English offers a wealth of

English as those living during Shakespeare’s time, for example, we still recognise their version of English as English. Dialects can also emerge within the same language through the isolation of communities who speak

opportunities and hope.

the same language. Through time, dialects could also become their own distinctive language.

speech patterns. The idolisation of English accents which come from largely white, wealthy and monolingual countries like the United Kingdom, USA and Australia has led to the ranking of other accents as inferior, which largely targets Asian, African and Middle Eastern accents.

This affects opportunities like employment and education due to racial profiling. Racial profiling does not only occur in terms of appearance, but also occurs based on how one sounds. Studies have shown that simply telling a person that an audio they are listening to is made by a person of colour immediately changes their perception of the person’s voice. It caused a false perception of accent and a lowered scoring of competence and intelligence. Noticing linguistic differences which can indicate gender, race or age is not inherently bad, but it is not acceptable when it is used as a tool for discrimination.

“Within one language, past forms of it to the version that we now recognise.”

Language Today (ˈlæŋɡwɪʤ təˈdeɪ) We cannot possibly forget the role of colonialism in the spread of languages. Take the spread of English as an example. English was first spoken by the British, where 500 years ago, five to seven million people spoke the language. Now, English is spoken by 1.4 billion people, and most of them are non-native speakers. Colonialism and imperialism had a large role in the spread of English, with the reasoning that indigenous people and locals of colonised land needed to be made “civilised” and “modernised”. This enforcement of English and beliefs led to the disappearance of indigenous language and culture.

The colonial legacy lasts till today, given that we can see many former colonies having English as their official language, and the official language of business and trade being English. Globalisation exacerbates this issue, where English is now being seen as a tool for opportunity and to climb up the social ladder, creating a multitude of social inequality issues. In particular, when only the rich and resourceful can achieve levels of fluency in English,

Moreover, colonialism gave way to linguistic racism as well. Linguistic racism is racism based on accent, dialect, or

Conclusion (kənˈkluːʒᵊn) To conclude, language offers a chance for us to look into the past, understand its legacy and its impacts. It is a powerful tool which can be used to divide or unite, where we should be advocating for the embracing of linguistic diversity and understanding. Language can be used to unite communities of people by sharing common experiences and differences. The wealth of history and culture that language encapsulates is what makes human beings so unique within the world’s ecosystem: the ability to show compassion and care for each other.

33

ARTICLES CHEMISTRY

Blue surrounds us, from the vivid blue sky on a warm summer’s day to the deep blues of our seas. Blue can evoke feelings of calm and peace, but also profound sadness and melancholy. In a technical sense, blue is essential in an artist’s palette as one of the three primary colours. Despite this, the colour has not always been accessible to everyone.

It was once unaffordable, even for Michelangelo, which drove many artists to bankruptcy. Centuries of breakthroughs in chemistry have allowed blue pigments to be used on the canvases of masters and students alike.

Prussian Blue This pigment was created by accident in 1704 by heating potash, a substance which contains several potassium compounds, contaminated with dried cattle blood, creating a blue substance which chemists at the time saw an opportunity to sell. Formally named iron (III) hexacyanoferrate (II) or Fe 4[Fe(CN) 6]3 , the substance has Fe 3+ and Fe 2+ ions arranged in a lattice structure, which are octahedrally bonded to N and C respectively. A deep blue hue is observed during the electron transfer between the Fe 3+ and Fe 2+ ions which is caused by the absorption of appropriate wavelengths of light in the visible region, giving the electrons energy to move.

Lattice of iron (III) hexacyanoferrate (II)

34

The invention of Prussian Blue was significant as it was the first synthetic blue pigment since Egyptian Blue, which was discovered around 2200 BCE. Prussian Blue was notably used in Picasso’s Blue Period (1901-1904) and in Japanese Woodblock printing like The Great Wave of Kanagawa by Hokusai (1831). Although this pigment was evidently popular amongst some artists, other artists voiced issues about its tendency to fade when exposed to light and the incompatibility of Prussian Blue with certain binders.

This is problematic since mixing pigments with a binder is what creates paint.

It is found that the rate at which the colour fades increases when more white pigment is mixed with Prussian Blue as the electron transfer between Fe 3+ and Fe 2+ ions is disrupted. Because this electron transfer is the process that gives the pigment its colour, its disruption accelerates the fading of Prussian Blue. The fading seems to be particularly worse when mixed with basic white pigments like lead white and zinc white. This has been seen in Thomas Gainsborough’s paintings where he used a mix of Prussian Blue and white pigments to paint the skies, which have now faded to a grey colour.

Prussian Blue’s incompatibility with alkaline substances also means that it is rarely found in acrylic paint ranges.

As the first modern synthetic blue pigment, Prussian Blue

has unfortunately remained a controversial pigment due

Ultramarine and natural Ultramarine have zeolite crystal

to its significant limitations.

structures, namely a framework of three-dimensional tetrahedrals. Unlike Prussian Blue, French ultramarine is lightfast and stable with alkaline substances, meaning that it was much favoured by artists.

French Ultramarine Before the invention of synthetic blue pigments, Ultramarine was made by grinding the semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli, which created a vibrant blue pigment. For much of the Renaissance, lapis lazuli was considered as valuable as gold, meaning that it was used scarcely only in paintings of the Virgin Mary. Infamously, Johannes Vermeer, the painter behind Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665), adored Ultramarine so much that he drove his family into debt as a result.

Knowing the importance of Ultramarine, the French government announced a competition to produce a synthetic Ultramarine in 1824. French chemist, JeanBaptiste Guimet, was successful in creating a true synthetic Ultramarine in 1826, which was appropriately named ‘French Ultramarine’. For the first time, the once unobtainable pigment was now accessible and cheap to use for all artists, which was loved by Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. French Ultramarine was also Van Gogh’s blue pigment of choice for his world-renowned painting, The Starry Night (1889).

French Ultramarine is a complex sodium silicate containing aluminium and sulfur with a chemical formula of Na7 Al 6Si 6O24 S3 . The S3- ion is responsible for the colour, as it absorbs light at the visible region to produce a vivid blue colour, brighter than the blue of natural Ultramarine. More impressively, French Ultramarine has an identical structure to natural Ultramarine, meaning that they have similar properties and stability. Both French

Zeolite crystal structures of French Ultramarine

What does this mean for artists?

Since the 18th century, synthetic pigments of all colours started being discovered by chemists. This meant that colour not only became accessible to many more artists, regardless of their wealth, but it also allowed artists to use a full spectrum of colours.

The Impressionists were the first group to fully utilise this in the late 19th century, as they were finally able to mix more subtle tones with more pigments, allowing them to represent nature as they see it. In two pigments for just one colour, we can begin to appreciate the innovation that has taken place for something seemingly as simple as colour.

35

If you’d asked me a month ago to describe the typical hacker, I’d probably answer a young teenager, crouched in front of a sleek, top-of-the-line computer, furiously typing away at lines of alien code on the screen with a Red Bull in hand. So, it may surprise you that under 18s only represent 3% of defendants for computer misuse. So, who are the cybercriminals? Are they evil masterminds hellbent

percentage of the cyber outlaws caught in the UK would be, well, white. Perhaps people in their 20s are more reckless than other age groups, which might be why they make up more defendants. After all, their prefrontal cortices, where they may make decisions, have not been fully formed yet, and most tend not to consider the outcome of situations. Or maybe they’re desperate for

on world domination? Might they even be people like you and me? Well, it all depends on what we mean by cybercrime.

cash.

Let’s start with the basics.

The Computer Misuse Act of 1990 categorises cybercrimes as unauthorised access to computer materials, intent to commit further offences or impair these devices, and making, supplying, or obtaining codes for use in these offences. There are many types of cybercrime on the rise, such as ransomware, identity theft, and a newer type, cryptojacking.

Is there a cybercriminal stereotype? One way to answer that is to look at the criminal justice statistics. 2021 to 2022 data from the Ministry of Justice shows that 85% of defendants are white, and 88% male, with the majority being in their twenties, which to some extent, confirms movie stereotypes where hackers are portrayed as young white men. Unfortunately, criminal justice statistics tend not to record whether a defendant likes to wear hoodies.

As mentioned above, teenagers represent a minority in the world of cybercrime, so movies are wrong about this. But they seem to be right about hackers being young, white men. Right?

Wrong. There are so many things this data doesn’t tell us.

It only tells us about the UK criminals that get caught many cybercriminals slip through the net of justice.

According to the 2021 census, 82% of the UK’s population is white. Therefore, it makes sense that a higher

36

Anyone who’s ever read the news will know that cybercrime is international. Offenders are very often in a different country to their victims, and almost none will ever meet face to face, which is also why it is so hard to prosecute them. What counts as a criminal offence in one country might not be in the next, and many countries don’t have extradition policies with other countries. It also takes a lot of time, effort and money to catch these criminals, which is why police don’t, and can’t follow up on every cybercrime case. For example, the FBI's public Cyber Most Wanted list is much more ethnically diverse than our UK criminal justice data, because it includes individuals from other countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Iran, and Sweden. At the time of writing, there are 119 individuals on this list. None of them are female. Women only represent 12% of offenders in the criminal justice system data set for England and Wales - especially jarring when over 50% of people in England are women. How do we explain the complete absence of 1/2 the world's population from the ranks of global cyber outlaws?

It may be tempting to see this as confirmation of the erroneous belief that women are "less technical" than men. This disregards prominent women in computer science, whilst also ignoring other statistics that disagree with this. When looking at data, we have to consider other possible influencing factors like state-sponsored cyber criminals who have worked for the military, a maledominated field. Recent research by cybersecurity firm Trend Micro found that around 30% of participants in underground cybercriminal forums are women, where

they advertise their services as hackers, scammers, and voice actresses for romance scams. It also could be that women are less likely to get caught and therefore show up less frequently in criminal justice systems.

Since the rise of the World Wide Web in the 90s and the 2000s, phishing has exploded in volume and intensity.

With time, new tactics have been discovered; old ways

In turn, this could be influenced by the fact that law enforcement is not looking for women because they are

refined. Now, at least 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent every day, accounting for half of all fraud attacks,

not expecting to find them. However, women have created malicious software – for example, Alla Witte was prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice for creating and deploying the Trickbot banking trojan, infecting over 140,000 computers in a 2 years. In the cybercriminal ecosystem, your gender does not matter; what matters is your ruthlessness and ability to succeed.

according to Valimail’s Email Fraud Landscape report.

Many cybercriminals in countries such as Russia, China and Syria are affiliated with their country’s military. For example, Firas Dardar, “wanted for his alleged involvement in the Syrian Electronic Army, committing hacks in support of the Syrian Regime against US government agencies, media organisations, and private organisations”. Another would be the Chinese PLA members, 54th Research Institute. They were behind the computer hack of Equifax Inc., a credit card company, in 2017. In that particular hack, more than 40% of Americans had their sensitive,

When it comes to phishing, you can lose everything with just one click. Perhaps you have come across scam bait videos popular on social media where people attempt to “scam” the scammer, or heard about cases on the news.

You may be thinking, “How stupid do people have to be to trust these scammers?” By now, all of us have been warned time and time again about cybercriminals and the underhand tactics they use to cheat and scam us out of our hard-earned money.

personally identifiable data, stolen.

Well, it’s mainly down to our naivety as a nation. Most of us would like to think ourselves too tech-savvy to be

Of course, there are women on the other side, helping to prosecute the criminals, and educating others on stopping them. Prominent examples include Lindy Cameron, CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, Dr Victoria Baines, and Daniela Oliveira, cybersecurity expert and researcher, who presented her Ted Talk on her research on phishing and other romance scams with a unique combination of psychology and computer science. In particular, Dr Baines has worked with several international organisations, including Interpol, UNICEF, and the Council of Europe, where she supported policing and policy making efforts to eradicate criminal activity online, publishing a book earlier this year on cybersecurity. Women like them are at the forefront of cyber policing, inspiring people like you and I. It would be quite impossible for me to discuss all the types of malware in the world, and new ways to dupe unsuspecting civilians are constantly being created. In this article, I will be focusing on phishing, which is a term coined in 1996 meaning, “a scam by which an Internet user is duped into revealing personal or confidential information which the scammer can use illicitly.”

phished, and the elderly are most at risk. In reality, that’s not quite the case. A study by the UK police’s fraud department showed that high-risk individuals were those in the 20-39 age group. These people are most likely to assume they are safe from these attacks and know how to differentiate between trustable links and phishing emails.

Therefore, they tend to not be as cautious before clicking on malware. But how much can we blame them? I mean, I’ll be the first to admit – I don’t check the links I get in my inbox every single time. This is why scammers tend to target those who don’t have enough time to cross-check and scrutinise every link they get in their inbox.

That is exactly how hackers get their foot in the door.

Cybercriminals don’t just target large companies like Equinox Inc. – they target us too, through emotional tactics aimed at different age groups. “Phishing emails are carefully designed by criminals to manipulate our emotions and draw from our unconscious biases in life”, says cybersecurity expert Daniela Oliveira. Many efforts to combat phishing involve deploying technology-based solutions and strategies, but Oliveria is more interested in the psychology behind why we fall into these traps.

37

women were significantly more likely than any other group. However, not every phishing tactic was equally successful with each age group. Younger adults between the ages of 18-37 were significantly more susceptible to emails that claimed scarcity, and older adults fell for reciprocity. Authority stood out as the most convincing appeal for all ages, and all users were significantly more To explain how phishing works, let’s look at Nobel Prizewinning psychology and economist Daniel Kahneman’s model of the two systems of thinking – System 1 and System 2. System 1 is fast, emotional, snap-your-finger decisions. System 2, on the other hand, requires thought and precision, making it slower and more deliberate.

Because we make millions of decisions daily, we need System 1 to free up space in our brains to focus on dayto-day tasks. For example, we tend to have a truth bias, meaning we tend to assume others are telling the truth – to assume otherwise would be extremely emotionally taxing. But biases like these can also leave us vulnerable to making unwise decisions, like assuming an email from IT Support to update our password really is from IT. By appealing to our biases and emotions, phishing tries to get us to stay in System 1, as they want potential victims to make quick, rash decisions. To do so, phishing emails use mental shortcuts to trick us. Psychologist Robert Cialdini has identified seven such shortcuts, the “psychological principles of influence”. These include authority, commitment, liking, perceptual contrast, reciprocation, scarcity and social proof. All these principles can be exploited by phishers.

Oliviera and her team of researchers recruited a group of people aged 18-89 to participate in a 21-day study based on real phishing examples, implementing all of Cialdini’s principles. The team also send emails targeted at the different aspects of life, including finance, legal issues, security, health, ideological and social issues. For example, one fake email offered the targets a discount on their electricity bill if they filled in a form, employing the scarcity tactic. Another told the target they had a parking ticket and sent them a link to pay the fine. If the user fell for the trap and clicked on the link in the email, they were sent to an innocuous-looking website, and the researchers recorded a hit. In addition, participants were asked to report their mood every day, which allowed the researchers to measure how intensely they felt positive emotions. Participants aged 62 and over were also given a 30 cognitive functions test.

Who fell for the fake emails? Nearly half – 43% – did once, and nearly 12% clicked more than once. Older

38

vulnerable to emails that dealt with legal issues. This isn’t particularly surprising though – humans try not to break the law and avoid legal issues, so the pull of authority and possible legal repercussions were enough for some to click on the links.

However, one concerning finding was people’s assessment of their susceptibility to email scams. At the end of the study, participants were asked to read a set of 21 different phishing emails and rate how likely they were to fall for each of them. Most people indicated a low likelihood.

Contrastingly, 43% of the group clicked on the phishing emails at least once. Adults younger than 37 were more aware of their vulnerability than adults over 62. This poses a major problem, as older adults who are more susceptible have less awareness.

With time, adults younger than 37 were less likely to click on phishing emails, but adults over 62 were just as likely to click on suspicious links at any point of the study. This is concerning because adults at this age are more likely to hold important positions – CEOs, judges, politicians – and have a lifetime of assets. Think John Podesta, Hilary Clinton’s campaign chairman in 2016, who unintentionally clicked on a malicious link in his email, allowing foreign nations to steal politically sensitive files.

So, what can we take away from this research? We have to understand that it’s natural to trust others, but we must be cautious of the Internet and understand its advantages as well as its dangers. We tend to scan emails when we’re in System 1 mode, which is what scammers want.

Therefore, we should switch to System 2 thinking – thoughtful processing – before clicking on links that give us freebies, prompt us for downloads, or ask for sensitive information. So next time you get an email from your bank prompting you to change your password, make sure to double-check, and when in doubt, call your bank to confirm.

Nowadays, the IT Department has wrangled us into some form of Internet Safety Training, but targeted training may be more useful than the one-size-fits-all training we get now. In a recent study, 3000 employees who were given anti-phishing training revealed that after 3 months, they continued to fall for the same tactics they were trained to resist. If training was tailored to a certain demographic, the

time frame of training could be shortened so people wouldn’t have to remember as much information, allowing them to retain what they need to know.

country’s image. Look how that backfired. One contractor said he was motivated by the prospect of buying trainers and being able to afford a foreign holiday for his family.

These studies are relatively new, but as more research is

It may surprise you that those motivated by ideology and

done on these topics, the better we can understand our ways of thinking and how to defend ourselves from them.

behind cyber operations may not consider themselves cybercriminals, even while actively engaging in criminal

However, as we improve our knowledge and develop new ways of defending ourselves, so will cybercriminals adapt and improve their ways too. Therefore, we must understand why these criminals act the way they do.

activity that disable digital services and interfere with the daily life of citizens. People from all over the world have joined the volunteer IT Army of Ukraine, which engages in cyberattacks against Russia. You could argue that their cause is just, but they still aim to disable Russian government infrastructure, and by law are categorised as cybercriminals. After all, “Cybercrime is cybercrime is cybercrime” says Professor Victoria Baines.

We don’t usually think of hackers as vulnerable; we think of their victims as such. But we must understand that behind every cyberattack, there is a human that has committed this crime for a reason. If we figure out that reason, this gives us a better chance at figuring out who they target. By now, most of you may be thinking “I know what they’re after – money!” However, when it comes to attacks that touch on national security, it’s not so simple.

The cybercrime population is extremely diverse. It ranges from teenagers to the elderly, across all ethnicities, and every corner of the world. Not all are driven by greed for profit, extremist views, or devotion to a motherland. This

These are even harder to figure out, as there are many motivations, not confined to a particular demographic and not always so distinct as financial gain. A court in the UK recently heard a case where 2 teenage boys were part of

is important as it demands a range of prevention, disruption and enforcement measures. Someone motivated by extremist views may need deradicalisation to desist from reoffending, while those driven by poverty

the Lapsus International Cybercrime Gang. The elder hacked mobile operators EE and BT, demanding a ransom of 4 million USD to prevent the deletion of customers’ data. While the prosecution cited “a juvenile desire to stick

would be better served by other employment opportunities. A deeper appreciation of cybercriminals could also result in better enforcement as the general assumption is that cybercriminals are male, which in turn

two fingers up to those they were attacking”, the prospect of financial gain was also a factor.

may lead to missed opportunities to profile suspects and apprehend them, as law enforcement is not looking for that type of person, allowing them to slip free from the noose of law. We would need much more data to be able to test this hypothesis, but it would make logical sense that a more diverse and open mindset in law enforcement would help their attempts at catching cybercriminals.

Far from having ideological motivations, cybercrime in some countries is a part of their government revenue generation. An infamous example would be North Korea, which reportedly uses this business model to fund its espionage operations and nuclear research. The Bank of Korea in Seoul estimated that Pyongyang derived 8% of its GDP from cybercrime in 2020. Some types of cyberenabled crime may also have surprising motivations. One would expect the spread of fake news and disinformation to have political objectives, such as government agencies wanting to influence the outcome of an election in another country. But the work itself is often outsourced to private companies and individuals who mainly care about financial gain. Notably, the Russian Kremlin reportedly paid young people in Macedonia to spread fake news during the 2016 US presidential election campaign to avoid it leading back to Russian workers and ruining the

There is a growing concern about the use of Artificial Intelligence in cyber attacks. These crimes are increasingly automated – criminals are starting to use ChatGPT and other programs to assist them in writing code and phishing emails, leading to an increase in scams. We must be vigilant in protecting and educating ourselves on cybercrime to avoid falling into traps set by devious cybercriminals. Insight into how they work can help us understand their motivations and raise awareness of their tactics. To avoid being a victim, we can double-check before clicking on links to websites we are not familiar with. It’s worth the extra couple of seconds.

39

An Interview with

Professor Kirst King-Jones Emeline H: I'm here with Professor King Jones, who studies genetics and technology at the University of Alberta in Canada. Professor King Jones is currently in China, so I'm very lucky to be able to speak to him today. We are going to discuss what it's like to study science, more specifically biology.

For everyone who's new to your research.

What is it that you have researched, and what are you working on at the moment?

Kirst King-Jones: That's a big question. Because now I'm fairly seasoned; there's a lot to talk about. But you mentioned that I'm a geneticist, so perhaps I should start with a general picture.

As a geneticist, I'm actually not studying genetics.

When you look up in a dictionary, what is genetics?

It's basically just the study of heredity. And no one I know studies that - it's really a tool - you use genetics to study biological processes.

There are thousands of such processes that you could study, depending on your interest, you pick something that you really like, and that's what you study. To give an example, you could study insulin signaling, or sperm maturation. There's so many different things and you could study all of them with genetics. So, it's more of a tool than studying how genes are inherited.

If you're a geneticist, you can only pick from a handful or so of model organisms because it's not ethical to study or dissect humans - I work with drosophila (a kind of fruit fly). As a model organism, they’ve been studied for over a 100 years; everybody in their own field would argue that their model is the most important, but fruit flies are definitely a big player

40

by Emeline Hulsen SFC1

Of course, the obvious question then is: how can you study an insect and relate those findings to humans? But in fact, roughly 70% or so of the genes that you find in humans are also present in fruit flies. Not the same DNA sequence, but the equivalent gene, and in most cases they

Genetics was a bit different, I was initially sceptical of the fruit fly. I wasn't really sure I wanted to do that. We had quite a few Max Plank institutes in Germany, and back hen I kind of was gravitating towards those. Then I did what we would call a rotation in America, so basically a

do very similar things on a cellular biochemical level. The pathways are very comparable, and therefore, we can use

practicum for several months from 2 different labs. But both were bad experiences. I didn't like the labs or the

the fly to discover completely new functions nobody knew about and go back to a vertebrate system like the mouse, which is also a very popular model organism, and see whether the findings are conserved in the mammal. So that's the overall idea.

But just very briefly, I'll explain what I'm studying.

then I kind of was gravitating towards those. Then I did what we would call a rotation in America, so basically a practicum for several months from 2 different labs. But both were bad experiences. I didn't like the labs or the atmosphere, I think I was particularly unlucky in that regard. But I then went for a third practicum to a lab working with fruit-flies and that was a really great

Historically, I've been very interested in studying steroid hormones. An example in a human would be testosterone and oestrogen - flies also have these hormones. Then through a discovery nearly a decade ago, we realised that there's a very interesting link between the production of steroid hormones, and one of the most abundant metals on earth, which is iron. It turns out that you need a lot of

experience; I learnt a lot in a short time, the group was fantastic. That decision was due to circumstances, human directions and most importantly friends. I realised that all my prejudices about the fruit flies were wrong; it was actually a fantastic organism to work with. I was really happy and have never left that particular model organism throughout my career.

iron to make these steroids. This led me down the road to iron biology, which is what I'm doing now.

Emeline H: What's the origin story, as it were, for how you got interested in biology?

That's just about the last thing in terms of origin. How I switched to iron might be interesting as well, because that was complete serendipity. We stumbled upon a mutant phenotype, a type that has a particular gene disrupted.

Kirst King-Jones:

That particular fly was incredible! What we saw in that fly was so fantastic, I couldn't sleep that night. What

In school, I was very much one of those kids who loved Maths and Physics. In the German school system, you have to pick your main course in the last 2 years before you get your high school diploma, and you also pick 2

happened is that we had a fly that was glowing red when exposed to UV light, which you would think is impossible for a natural fly. We do have lots of tools that we can use to introduce a gene that makes the fly glow red, but this

minor ones. I picked Biology as one of my minors; I liked Maths and Physics quite a bit, but I had this amazing Biology teacher, and I think that's probably a similar story with many people, that the teacher can make all the difference. So, this teacher was fresh from university and the way he taught biology was so inspiring that I just got the bug right there. So when I was done with high school, I applied for biology, and that was it.

was a natural process. We continued research down that path and realised that this has something to do with hormones and iron. It was a very interesting watershed moment when we switched gears and started studying their hormones. We now study iron: iron uptake, transport and everything that's connected to this metal in biology.

Emeline H: You mentioned the relationship between iron and steroids, and I was wondering what applications you see for that research in the real world, possibly in relation to medicine? And also how, as you said, the link to the genetics of a fruit fly, and how that could apply to humans?

Kirst King-Jones: So I'll continue with this red, glowing fly because it has a direct link to human disease. When we saw this red, glowing fly, we had no idea what it was, so we, of course, researched the heck out of it, and it turned out that there is a human disease - which was known commonly for a long time as the vampire disease - the official name is porphyria.

What happens in these human patients is that a certain molecule we know as haem, I'm sure you've heard of it, at least in the context of

41

haemoglobin, haem is quite a complicated molecule and has iron sitting in the centre of it, this iron can then bind oxygen. Haemoglobin can then transport oxygen through the bloodstream, so if you cannot make the right amount of haem, because you have mutations in the pathway to

You might find… who knows? Somewhere in the Sumatran rainforest someone could find a kind of insect or other species that holds the answer to a new generation of antibiotics. You just don't know until you stumble upon it that's why we need basic research.

make it, you’re actually pilingso if you cannot make the right amount of haem, because you up the haem

Emeline H:

precursors which are toxic to the cell. But they do have this incredible ability under energetic light (so ultraviolet light) to shine this beautiful bright red. Why is this called vampire disease? There are several types of porphyria, the most severe of which is called Gunther's disease. What happens in these patients is they don't go out in the daylight, because this energy, the UV component in the

What would you say the most exciting part of your work is, or the most exciting research in your field is at the moment?

light will aggravate the symptoms so badly that they get terrible skin lesions. So they avoid daylight at all costs, they come out at night and then typically also the gums retreat, so the teeth look longer. Often, these patients go through what's called a porphyria attack and you can, allegedly, mitigate these symptoms by drinking blood. Not necessarily human blood, of course. Also, their urine is purple from these haem precursors that accumulate in the body. All these suggest, at least to some authors, that this

recent years. That's a technology that has revolutionised our field completely because it is incredibly fast. And, relatively speaking, we have unprecedented precision to edit a gene. One of the basic approaches in genetics is to alter genes and alter the gene function, then see how it affects a given process. With CRISPR-Cas9, you can do this with precision that wasn't there before. The newest thing is that we're not just going to target DNA and alter the gene itself. We can now also target the gene product,

is the origin of the vampire myth.

I'm not sure if I believe that, but it certainly sounds compelling. We've been studying that. In short, we've

which is a messenger. In general, I would say, that's the biggest thing that happened in the field of genetics in the past 5 years. We're working constantly on new CRISPR constructs and it's been great.

discovered more genes in this process that also causes this vampire disease in flies. We have established a model where we can study this disease in the fruit fly. And we have found new genes involved in the disease’s proceess

Emeline H: And now for some slightly less serious questions, what is your favourite experiment or scientific discovery?

that nobody was aware of. These new genes are also linked to other rare diseases; we think we have, for instance, identified a gene that's linked to a glycogen disease. We can now tell clinicians to look at whether patients with a glycogen disease have an iron defect as well.

It's also worth noting that what I'm doing is called basic research, although it's not a term I prefer, it means it isn't driven by applications. There's applied sciences and there's basic research, also known as fundamental science. And I often get this question, what's the application? Isn't this just ivory tower stuff? The answer is, no, this is really important. It's helpful to think about science as a whole as a pyramid; applied science sits on the top, not because it's the best, but because it feeds off all the information that's been created in the foundation of the pyramid, which is all these puzzle pieces from countless fields, from all over the world. We have no idea what the implications are going to be in, say, a hundred years down the line. But the more we know, the more we can play around and find new applications. It's really important to consider this, because there's no way that you could have only applied science; humans have to be curious and go in all directions.

42

Kirst King-Jones: Well, I guess you've probably heard by now about CRISPR-Cas9. That's probably the most exciting thing in

Kirst King-Jones: I can give you maybe my top 3, is that fair? So I mentioned I was originally very interested in maths and physics. So my favourite physics experiment is the Michelson-Morley experiment. To the best of my knowledge, it's the only Nobel Prize awarded for a negative result. It was, I think, done back in 1887. They tried to measure the speed of light that's moving with the earth - so it should be a bit slower. Imagine you have one light beam moving with the earth and one against the earth. You could find that differential, the speed by which earth is moving through space and you would expect one light beam to be a little bit slower, and that one is a little bit faster. But they found no difference, which was a surprise. This goes all back to the idea that there was this ether constantly permeating the universe. I think it was a paradigm-shifting experiment because the data found showed that this ether didn't exist.

It meant Einstein was able to say that the speed of light is constant, that’s basically the conclusion of the experiment.

But it must have been baffling back then and I think that's the reason I like it so much. It's the incredible precision for the time and the fact that it had a negative result but was still worthwhile.

I think all these experiments I'm thinking of are kind of paradigm-shifting. The other one would be Gregor Mendel. The story is incredible, the idea that his work was undiscovered for 30 years, that he was a monk and just did his thing in peace with the utmost patience. It's just incredible that story; he single-handedly figured out loss of heredity, which is certainly worth a Nobel prize, but his work was discovered way too late for that. So that would be my top 2 favourites, another…well, if you Google the most beautiful experiment in biology that would be the famous Meselson-Stahl experiment which found how DNA replicates very elegantly. It's really a beautiful experiment, so those would be my top 3.

them, or if indeed, the rules get worse. But I'm probably not alone there. So that's my least favourite.

Emeline H: This is quite a silly question, but is relevant to your field, so we'll see if it makes the final cut. I've just watched Jurassic Park, and in the film they justify the creation of the dinosaurs by claiming that dinosaur DNA could be found in the mosquitos who sucked their blood, and any gaps were patched up with frog DNA. Now, obviously this is not currently possible. But is there a future version of genetics in which this could be made possible?

Kirst King-Jones:

Emeline H: And what are your favourite, or least favourite parts of being a scientist?

Kirst King-Jones: I'm going to start with my favourite thing as a scientist.

You have to be a deeply curious person to want to know how things work. For me the most exciting part is to sit down with my students and postdocs when they have new data. It could be fresh from the bench and it could be something that we can't explain, it doesn't matter. The excitement and that purity of having those results come in and looking at the flies, or a gel, or whatever the experiment was - that's the best. That's just pure fun, and gets your brain working; you think about the new data.

How does it fit with your old model? Does it fit? That’s just pure adrenaline for me, so that's my favourite part.

My least favourite part is easy. Paperwork and bureaucracy - every year the rules seem to get worse and worse. I don't know if it's just me getting less resistant to

The short answer is, yes. So it's my understanding that there are some scientists trying hard to do this, but not with dinosaurs. If you exchange dinosaurs with a more recently extinct species, like the mammoth, and use a more closely related species to the mammoth like the elephant, then yes. There are ideas to essentially take a much more complete genome, even though it's going to be fragmented, and to essentially fill the gaps with elephant DNA to recreate at least a version of that species.

Personally I think it's feasible, maybe not today, but in the next 30 years or so I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, I was shocked when I learnt that there were techniques out there to sequence completely fragmented DNA - it's been done for the Neanderthal, and that's how we know so much about Neanderthal DNA. So, I think it's doable. I don't know how difficult it's going to be, but if anything like this happens, that's the closest scenario I can think of.

Not from a mosquito, though, the digestive enzymes in the mosquito will have damaged the DNA quite viciously, so there wouldn't be much there.

Emeline H: Thank you so much for your time, this has been amazing and a great insight into the world of studying biology. For the closing question: what advice do you have for all students who are interested in going into biology or other STEM subjects?

Kirst King-Jones: The first thing for Biology is, it can be divided into 2 realms. One is the one I'm in, which is the experimental side, where you conduct experiments and ask questions about how things work. The other completely different side of biology is fieldwork, where you have a much more descriptive approach, since you want to understand how ecosystems work. You go in and list the species of, for example, birds in a given habitat or other; it's a much more descriptive science. So if your interest is biology, that's the first branch in the road that you would have to decide for yourself. Am I more of an experimentalist or a field person? I'm a lab rat. If you're a field person you are more interested in nature, I guess, and interacting with it. That is not to say that they're completely separate. I love, for instance, bird watching, but it wouldn't be for me to go out in the Amazon and record bird songs; that wouldn't be for me. So I think that's the first thing that you would want to think about. The other thing is whether science is right for you. I think science, no matter whether it's field or lab work, a certain drive is required.

What I mean is a passion, and that's probably true for any STEM-related work. Even though it can be a lucrative field in terms of income, that shouldn't be your primary motivation. You want to have some kind of passion for an aspect of it, otherwise I don't think it's a good decision. The way I would approach it as a young person is, learn more about yourself. What are you good at? Make a list of things you definitely don't want to do - it's easier to eliminate the things that you know you don't like, and then work with what's left. It's just such an overwhelming question. Figure out, where do I want to go? What do I want to do with my life? So if there's a passion, it's a good start. It's hard to give general advice to such a big field like STEM, but if you're curious and you have that need for answers, you should try science out for sure.

43

ARTICLES BIOLOGY

Ouch! That Hurts!

Leeya Yin UC4 receptors are also present in human goblet cells, ensuring

Imagine if you were unable to feel pain — no throbbing headaches, no aching muscles, and no stinging sunburns. If you think that sounds great — think again.

Congenital insensitivity to pain is a rare condition that inhibits an individual’s ability to perceive physical pain in any part of their body. This condition is caused by a malfunction in the peripheral nervous system, which connects the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body and the external environment. While this lack of pain awareness may seem fortunate, it can be harmful as individuals may not be able to detect physical injuries, no matter how severe. This often leads to individuals developing wounds, bruises, fractured bones, and other health issues that go undetected and untreated, later leading to severe inflammation or even amputation.

Individuals with this condition therefore experience more injuries and have shorter life expectancies on average.

Pain serves as one of evolution’s most reliable diagnostic tools, functioning as a protective mechanism or alert system triggered by external factors as well as internal problems within the body.

Recent research from the Harvard Medical School revealed an unexpected protective property of pain. By studying mice, researchers found that triggering pain neurones can shield the gut from damage by regulating the presence of protective mucus. During states of inflammation, the activated pain neurones stimulate goblet cells, a specialised type of epithelial cells, to release more mucus. The research revealed that the surfaces of goblet cells contain a type of receptor called RAMP1, which responds to the chemical CGRP released by nearby pain neurones when they are stimulated. These RAMP1

44

that our intestinal cells can respond to pain signals. This discovery underscores the intricate connection between pain and maintaining important metabolic functions. “It turns out that pain may protect us in more direct ways than its classic job to detect potential harm and dispatch signals to the brain… the nervous system has a major role in the gut beyond just giving us an unpleasant sensation.” says Harvard professor Isaac Chiu.

“It turns out that pain may protect us in more direct ways than its classic job to detect potential harm and dispatch signals to the brain” - Professor Isaac Chiu

Here’s a quick experiment: Place one arm in front of you, then using your hand, gently stroke the hairs on your arm without making physical contact with the skin. While doing this, you bend the hairs on your arm and deform the hair follicle that it is growing inside of. Sensory neurones within the hair follicle will send a combined signal based on the deformation to your brain, which perceives a light touch. Conversely, when you place your hand on your arm and start pushing down on the skin, another sensory receptor called the pressure receptor is triggered.

The stimuli of Light touch and pressure are both detected by mechanoreceptors, which are receptors responsible for detecting physical changes on the skin. Thermoreceptors are another type of receptor on the skin that helps us sense temperature changes. Mechanoreceptors and thermoreceptors both operate within a range - once that range is exceeded, pain receptors, also known as nociceptors, will come into play.

These special pain receptors activate when there is an

Chemicals such as potassium, histamine, and serotonin

injury or potential injury, such as when something is pressing down too hard, or if high temperatures begin to damage our tissues. These receptors stimulate sensory neurones that send signals to the spinal cord and brain.

When you press down hard on your forearm with one finger, although the skin is not damaged, the tissues beneath the skin become compressed enough to cause nociceptors to fire off a response. Temperature-wise, thermoreceptors on cells that specifically detect signals indicating painful heat called TrpV1 are activated when skin temperature rises to 43.89 degrees Celsius, and we

may be released by damaged tissue cells or by the circulating blood cells that migrate out of blood vessels into the area of tissue damage. Other chemicals such as bradykinin, prostaglandins, and leukotrienes, are synthesised by enzymes activated by tissue damage.

begin to feel a burning pain. This very receptor also detects capsaicin, the spicy compound that gives chilli peppers their heat.

be involved in the perception of pain.

These chemicals are found in increased concentrations in regions of inflammation as well as pain. The process of transduction involves complex chemical processes that act together to activate primary afferent nociceptors, specialized sensory neurons that are the first structures to

The peripheral nervous system has evolved to detect noxious stimuli, which are negative stimuli strong enough to threaten the body’s integrity, such as a burn. When a

Long story short, when you experience an injury, impulses

specific pain receptor is activated by a stimulus, the noxious stimulus is transmitted and converted into an interpretable electrical pulse at the nociceptor peripheral terminals. This pulse is then carried by first-order neurons

are sent to the spinal cord by sensory nerves, which relay the information to the brain. The brain interprets the information as pain, localises it, and sends back information to the motor nerves that help us react to the

a type of primary sensory neurones, from the periphery to the central nervous system, where the impulses are received by part of the spinal cord called the dorsal horn, an area of the spinal cord that is an important information

painful stimuli.

hub, directing impulses to the brain and back down the spinal cord to the area of injury.

And here’s the long story - there are four major processes involved in the experience of pain: 1. Transduction 2. Transmission 3. Perception 4. Modulation Let’s explore them one by one.

I. Transduction Transduction is the first process in which a painful physical or chemical stimulus is transformed into a signal that can be carried to the central nervous system and perceived as pain.

Three types of stimuli can activate pain receptors in the peripheral nervous system – mechanical, thermal, and chemical. Mechanical and thermal stimuli are usually short-lasting, whereas chemical stimuli are usually longlasting.

45

II. Transmission Transmission is the synaptic transfer of information from one neurone to the next via neurotransmitters.

First-order neurons receive impulses from the skin and send them as noxious signals to the spinal cord along spinal nerves, where they cross a synapse, a junction between two neurons, to reach second-order neurons in the dorsal horn. Second-order neurons then send impulses to the thalamus and cerebral cortex of the brain III. Perception Perception is the conscious pain experienced when the message reaches the thalamus and cerebral cortex of the brain. The pain perceived can be sharp or dull, depending on the presence of myelin sheath, which forms a protective sleeve around neurone axons, allowing signals

Acute pain is a sudden, sharp pain that usually fades when there is no longer an underlying cause for the pain, such as the acute pain when stabbed by a needle. Chronic pain is a pain that is ongoing and usually lasts longer than six months. This type of pain can still last after the injury or illness has healed. Because the pain signals remain active in the nervous system for a long period of time. Chronic pain can be caused by conditions like headaches, arthritis, or even cancer.

However, little is known about prolonged pain in the central nervous system, making chronic pain difficult to pin down and treat. The transition from acute pain to chronic pain alters the patient’s neurophysiology, further complicating treatment strategies. In arthritic rats, for example, there are changes in the peripheral nerves that alter their range or response to supplied stimuli, as well as central pathways for pain transmission.

IV. Modulation

to be transmitted more rapidly. Hence, myelinated A fibres conduct at fast speeds, responsible for the initial sharp pain perceived at the time of injury, while unmyelinated C fibres conduct at slower speeds and are responsible for longer-lasting, dull, chronic pain.

Our conscious awareness of pain along with the negative emotional experience is usually influenced by several brain regions other than the thalamus and cerebral cortex. The perception of pain is still a mystery because researchers still don’t know how the actual “painful” feeling is produced.

46

Modulation is the way the brain alters the intensity of the signals travelling along nervous pathways.

This process takes place at the site where the first-order neuron and the secondary neuron are communicating. The body secretes endogenous opioids, which interfere with the neurones' ability to fire properly, resulting in reduced sensitivity to pain. These endogenous opioid peptides have the same pharmacological properties as synthetic opioid drugs and derived opiates which have analgesic properties.

associated with pain perception is known as COMT. For

The perception of pain is constructed individually in the brain and can reside entirely in the mind, creating a challenge for doctors when attempting to correlate a patient’s description of their pain level with the actual severity of their injury. Even a seemingly minor paper cut can elicit intense pain for one person while causing minimal discomfort for another. The subjective nature of pain is further underscored by the absence of a universal method for measuring it, as the sensitivity to pain varies significantly among different people.

To determine the causes behind this variation, researcher Diatchenko at McGill University actively investigated the genetic factors that influence pain sensitivity. As part of her studies, Diatchenko brought people into her laboratory and asked them to touch a warm surface. She would turn up the heat, asking them to say when the heat becomes painful. The range is huge, she says “Some people are really sensitive, and some people are really not.”

Quantitative data supports this claim: fMRI brain scans synthesized from strong magnetic fields create pictures of brain regions that indicate when they are active, revealing that pain-related areas of the brain are activated earlier inpain-sensitive individuals. One of the crucial genes

people who have a high pain threshold, the gene is highly active. In others, it exhibits lower activity, resulting in heightened pain sensitivity.

Pain can even be stimulated when mental stress factors an in play. Did you know that when you worry about math, the brain feels the pain? Scholars from the University of Chicago found that the brain areas activated when highly math-anxious people prepare to do math overlap with the brain areas that register the threat of bodily harm- and in some cases, physical pain. With high variation in genetic factors, mental stressors, and individual experiences, perhaps it is not surprising that pain can be highly subjective.

Although the structures associated with pain perception are well-documented, the actual perception of pain remains elusive. This complex and multifaceted phenomenon is a deeply personal experience that we will all have trouble living without. Fortunately, there are already numerous existing theories that attempt to explain the perception of pain, and researchers continue to unravel pain’s complexities, providing new insights and paving the way for innovative treatments and enhanced well-being. Our quickly evolving understanding of pain offers hope for improved pain management and better futures for those living with this universal, yet deeply personal human experience.

47