theGIST Issue 14

Roadmap to the Future

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THEGIST

WELCO M E EDITORIAL

"ROADMAP TO THE FUTURE"

VIRUSES, VACCINES & VERMIN

PHYSICAL

LIFE

SOCIAL

REFERENCES

TECHNOLOGY

Since this Issue of theGIST is being published digitally only, all the references in the articles will be accessible via hyperlinks.

You will only need to click on the numbers of the citations!

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Roadmap to the Future

Virus, virus shining bright: June Almeida’s pioneering photographs Hazel Walker explores the trailblazing work of virologist June Almeida.

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n 2019, the overall top trending search on Google in the United Kingdom was “Rugby World Cup”. There are no prizes for guessing what the top search of 2020 was: “Coronavirus”. From “How to watch the Cham­ pions League Final?” to “How to make a face mask?”, in the space of a year the COVID­19 pan­ demic changed our entire way of life. Coronavirus was quickly adopted as a name for the virus re­ sponsible for the COVID­ 19 illness, SARS­CoV­2.

However, it actually en­ compasses a family of vir­ uses of which currently seven members are known to infect humans (1).

The coronavirus family was first identified in 1964

by June Almeida, a Scot­ tish scientist whose work received renewed recogni­ tion during the COVID­19 outbreak. However, this discovery was only one of many important contribu­ tions she made to the field of virology during her re­ markable career in which she published no less than 103 scientific papers (2).

Although her work gained her an international repu­ tation within her field, like many women in sci­ ence, her contributions are not widely known by those outside it.

Photo credit: CDC via Unsplash

Born in Glasgow in 1930, June Hart was the daugh­ ter of a shop assistant and a bus driver. She excelled at school, particularly in science, earning the Whitehall School science prize. However, she left school at the age of 16 and did not attend university as her family lacked the financial means to support her education. Instead, she secured an appren­ ticeship as a lab techni­ cian in the histopathology

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department of the Glas­ gow Royal Infirmary.

Here, she combined her passion for photography with science by using mi­ croscopes to investigate samples for signs of dis­ ease or infection (3).

At the age of 22, Hart moved to London with her parents and continued work as a lab technician at St Bartholomew’s Hos­ pital. She met her first husband, Enrique Al­ meida, and in 1956, they

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Roadmap to the Future moved to Canada. Al­ though Almeida did not know it at the time, this move to Canada would be key to her career as an eminent virologist. Now a skilled light microscopist, Almeida took up a posi­ tion at the Toronto Cancer Institute as an electron microscopist, something which she had no experi­ ence in (4).

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Alongside her colleagues at the Toronto Cancer In­ stitute, Almeida used negative staining to in­ crease the understanding of the role certain viruses play in the development of cancer. Excelling at electron microscopy, Al­ meida pursued research on the molecular struc­ ture of viruses, noting that their shape, size, and structure (known as morphology) could be used to classify viruses sharing common features into families. She pub­ lished her proposed clas­ sification system in 1963 (6).

Almeida then began to use a lesser­known tech­ nique called immune electron microscopy (IEM). Antibodies specific to the virus were used to clump viruses together, forming groups that were easier to identify amongst the background of cells and proteins present in the sample. IEM allowed for better visualisation of viral interactions with immune cells and re­ quired fewer preparation steps than negative staining, reducing the chances of damage to the delicate specimens before imaging. Almeida suc­ cessfully used this tech­ nique to visualise

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polyoma viruses which can cause various cancers.

Following a move back to London with her daughter, Almeida began working at St Thomas’ Hospital Med­ ical School. Having gained a reputation as a leading expert in viral imaging, she was tasked with ima­ ging an unknown virus that researchers investig­ ating the common cold were struggling to identify.

Her images showed a vir­ us that looked similar to influenza but had distinct protrusions on its outer surface, giving the effect of a halo surrounding it. Al­ meida and her collaborat­ ors realised they had photographed a new type of virus and decided to name it a “coronavirus” after the Latin “corona”, meaning “crown”. We now know these protrusions are spike proteins, which are the target of many vaccines currently being Photo credit: D. Almeida and D. A. J. Tyrrell (CC0 1.0)

The electron microscope, invented in the 1930s, was a relatively new techno­ logy at the time. In con­ trast to a standard light microscope in which light is shone through a sample and viewed through mag­ nifying lenses, an electron microscope uses a beam of electrons to build an im­ age of the sample on a photographic plate. Due to electrons having a shorter wavelength than light, electron microscopy cre­ ates a higher resolution image, allowing the study of incredibly small biolo­ gical structures such as viruses and bacteria (5).

The detail in the image is further enhanced if a neg­ ative staining technique is used to increase the con­ trast between the sample and the background. For this, a heavy metal such as phosphotungstic acid is added to the sample; few electrons pass through the regions of the sample stained with the heavy metal, resulting in lower photographic exposure and increased contrast of the image. This allows more intricate structures to be seen clearly. It may

sound simple but captur­ ing images of something as tiny, delicate, and in­ tricate as a virus requires painstakingly precise pre­ paration of the sample from start to finish.

Roadmap to the Future rolled out to tackle the COVID­19 pandemic (7).

However, at the time coronaviruses were not thought to pose much of a threat to humans. There­ fore, Almeida moved on and began studying other viruses that were known to cause serious illness.

In 1967, Almeida cap­ tured images of the ru­ bella virus, revealing the molecular structure for the first time. The virus, which can cause miscar­ riage and birth defects when contracted by preg­ nant women, gave rise to a rubella pandemic in Europe and the USA from 1962 to 1965 (8). Almeida’s images paved the way for a greater understanding of how rubella interacts with the immune system, lead­ ing to the first licenced ru­ bella vaccine in 1969. In 2015, the World Health Organisation region of The Americas became the first region to eliminate trans­ mission of rubella (9).

Almeida then worked at Hammersmith Postgradu­ ate Medical School where she made an important breakthrough in the un­ derstanding of Hepatitis B. Hepatitis B causes po­ tentially life­threatening infections of the liver (10).

Although first described in 1885, Hepatitis B was still baffling scientists in the 1960s. By capturing the first electron microscope images of Hepatitis B, Al­ meida discovered that it had two distinct antigens, one on the surface and one

internally (11). Again, her images proved important in understanding how the virus interacts with the immune system as well as identifying a target for the vaccine which is in use today.

In 1984, Almeida retired alongside her second hus­ band, virologist Philip Gardner. She spent her re­ tirement running a small antique business and training as a yoga teacher but was still on hand to advise with viral imaging.

In the 1980s, she returned to St. Thomas, helping to capture the first images of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. June Almeida died at home in 2007, leaving a legacy of virology photo­ graphs and knowledge that still feature in text­ books today. From her be­ ginnings as a teenage lab technician at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary to being awarded a Doctorate of Science in 1970, Almeida left a lasting mark on the field of virology. She solid­ ified IEM as a rapid meth­ od for identifying and classifying unknown and newly emerging viruses.

Her work was instrument­ al in moving forward our

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understanding of viruses: their morphology, their in­ teractions with immune cells, and how to success­ fully target them with vaccines. More than 50 years on from her coronavirus discovery, we are reminded of the im­ portance of her work which will no doubt con­ tinue to prove relevant in future virus outbreaks.

Let’s add June Almeida to the list of pioneering sci­ entists whose work is giv­ en the recognition it deserves!

The author recommends reading Lara Marks’ de­ tailed biography and listening to Season 2 Episode 4 of the Surpris­ ingly Brilliant podcast for more information about the life and work of June Almeida.

This article was written by Hazel Walker who is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and previously studied Immunology at the University of Glasgow.

This article was specialist ed­ ited by Ricardo Sanchez Velazquez and copy­edited

by Rebecca Budgett. Layout design by Dzachary Zainudden.

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Roadmap to the Future alry” against it. Therefore, vaccination allows the ad­ aptive immune system to be prepared and respond much faster than when a person is infected for the first time (1).

COVID-19 vaccines: safe or rushed?

Julia Salafranca addresses the main questions of the public regarding the COVID-19 vaccines.

T

o understand why vaccines are neces­ sary, we first need a very basic understanding of the immune response. When a person is ill, for example, because they have been infected with a virus, the immune response devel­ ops in two stages. The first stage is called the in­ nate immune response, which is composed of a group of cells that try to contain infection as soon as it occurs. We can call

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them the “foot soldiers”.

The second phase of the immune response, the ad­ aptive phase, takes longer to occur and it is com­ posed of the T and B cells, and the antibodies. We can call them the “cav­ alry”, and they are more effective when killing the virus. So, the vaccines use a harmless form of the “enemy”, which in this case would be the virus, to activate the immune sys­ tem and “train your cav­

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Currently, there are three vaccines that have been approved against the SARS­CoV­2 virus, which is responsible for the COVID­19 pandemic and the current situation we are living in. The fact that there are multiple vac­ cines is highly beneficial.

One of them might be more effective in a popu­ lation group, for example, the elderly, than the oth­ ers, as the immune system from different age groups differ. In addition, they address the problem of manufacturing doses due to the high demand.

A classic approach to vaccination uses the full virus, which is dead or at­ tenuated.

This may present some health risks due to possible reactiva­ tion of the virus, or may not elicit an immune re­ sponse big enough. Now we have more sophistic­ ated and innovative vac­ cines, which deliver the information necessary to make the spike protein to our cells, either via a harmless modified viral vector (AstraZeneca/Ox­ ford vaccine) or a tran­ script (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vac­ cine). This means none of the vaccines can cause COVID­19, since they do not have the virus.

Roadmap to the Future The viruses take ad­ vantage of the infected person's cells to produce the different molecules that make them up using a transcript (RNA) with their genetic information.

Amongst the several pro­ teins of the SARS­CoV­2 virus, its spike protein is the key that allows the virus to infect our cells. So antibodies targeting this protein may protect us by stopping the virus from entering the cells. The vaccine delivers the ge­ netic information for the spike protein only to our cells, which will produce the protein, our immune system will recognise it and react to it (2). This will lead to the production of antibodies able to re­ cognize the actual virus and stop it by binding its spike protein.

A big concern of the pop­ ulation understandably has been related to the safety of these vaccines.

So, aside from the fact that these cannot infect you with the virus, it is important to know that (3): ­ The vaccines have gone through extensive clinical trials and have been as­ sessed by organizations independent from the pharmaceutical company.

However, it is important to take into account no medicine is risk­free. Even the paracetamol prospect has a long list of side ef­ fects. Nevertheless, these organizations have en­ sured that the vaccine is safe, and the benefits

The differences in antibody production during the primary and secondary immune response. Created by using BioRender

greatly outweigh the risks. ­ Aside from the informa­ tion to train our immune system against the virus, the vaccines are mostly made with water; preser­ vatives and stabilisers to maintain the quality of the vaccine and prevent contamination, which are often naturally found in the body or food at much higher levels. They most definitely do not contain any 5G to spy on all your web searches.

­ The vaccines have not been rushed, and they have followed all the pro­ cedures necessary. Usual delays are due to funding, ethical approval, volun­ teer recruitment or pro­ duction. However, the emergency situation due to COVID­19 has trumped all bureaucracy; interna­ tional doctors and scient­ ists have collaborated and

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worked hard to develop the vaccine; governments and funding bodies provided great financial resources; volunteer num­ bers were very high, which allowed for ex­ haustive clinical trials; and manufacture was run as the same time as the clinical trials to speed up the process. Moreover, there are other examples of vaccines produced un­ der a year, like the sea­ sonal flu vaccines. ­ The viral vector used in the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is a virus that has been weakened and ma­ nipulated to not be able to replicate. ­ The use of mRNA vac­ cines builds on the know­ ledge of their use for other diseases since their use in cancer showed good pre­ liminary results (4). In addition, the mRNA vac­ cine is in clinical trials as a vaccine against other viruses, like the Zika vir­ us (5). While viral vector vaccines have been used for other diseases, such as Ebola.

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Roadmap to the Future

The structure of the SARS­CoV­2 virus and its mechanism of entry into the cells. Created by using BioRender

­ The mRNA from the vac­ cine will be degraded nat­ urally within hours, as it is a highly delicate mo­ lecule. Moreover, it cannot alter a person’s DNA, since it cannot enter the cell nucleus where the ge­ netic material is located.

For more information on the vaccine process, check out “How to make a vac­ cine in record time” from the University of Oxford (6).

The vaccines show high effectiveness, especially the Pfizer/BioNTech vac­ cine, and they have been shown to protect effi­ ciently from severe COV­ ID­19 disease. It is worth noting vaccines do not have to be 100% effective.

For example, the Salk polio vaccine was 70% ef­

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fective against poliovirus (7).

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Two doses are needed in each of the different vac­ cines, in order to provide long­lasting protection.

The only side effects that have been reported ­ sore­ ness, swelling at the site of infection, tiredness or a slight fever ­ are non­last­ ing and indicate that the immune system has been activated. Hence, the vac­ cine is completely safe (8).

Although vaccination is extremely effective for the majority of the population, there is a possibility to have COVID­19 after be­ ing vaccinated, due to the variation in the immune system of each individual.

In addition, some people might get infected before

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the vaccine has had a chance to act since the immune system can take up to 14 days after vaccin­ ation to develop immunity against the virus. Cur­ rently, it is not yet known how long immunity to COVID­19 from the vac­ cines will last. So far, the results from the clinical trials indicate ongoing protection (9).

Usually, the vaccines are not only beneficial to us but by vaccinating ourselves we are protect­ ing others, through a concept called “herd im­ munity”. This protects in­ dividuals who can’t vaccinate, such as young children or people whose immune system is weakened like individuals with cancers undergoing chemotherapy. So, if few people are vaccinated, the virus can infect many in­ dividuals and spread very fast. If a high number of people are vaccinated the number of people who can be infected is very small, thus reducing the virus spread. At the moment, it is not clear whether vac­ cinated individuals can infect other people. There­ fore, it is crucial that you

Roadmap to the Future wear a mask, follow the social distancing meas­ ures and wash your hands regularly to prevent the spread.

It is key that we all vac­ cinate when we have our opportunity. Even if you have had the COVID­19, scientists are recommend­ ing that you vaccinate.

Firstly, because there have been cases of rein­ fection. Secondly, because it is currently unknown how long immunity will last, and the vaccines are likely to provide immunity equally or longer than normal infection. If you already have some im­ munity, the vaccines can boost your immune re­ sponse to make it more ef­ fective (10). Regarding the new variants, it is not yet known the efficacy of the vaccines to them.

However, it is likely that they will provide some level of immunity or that they will have to be slightly modified to provide better specificity to that particular strain.

This article was written by Julia Salafranca, who is a 4th year Immunology student with Rheumatology as main field of interest. This article was specialist edited by Giuditta De Lorenzo and copy­edited by Domante Rabasauskaite. Layout design by Miriam Scarpa.

Hence for the moment, the vaccines are our best op­ portunity against the in­ fection. Currently, they are a personal protection, but only if used by a large part of the population.

Vaccines can relieve pres­ sure on the health system and lead us back to our normal lives.

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Roadmap to the Future

Ticked!

What makes pathogens tick.

Denver Fabiano introduces the parasites of spring ticks, the pathogens they carry and why it’s an important time to raise awareness about them.

S

pring is here and we all know what that means; it’s tick season!

Not the season you tick off all the adventurous goals that you’ve been planning during the pandemic, but rather the season when you are most likely to be­ come infected with a tick­ borne virus in Scotland.

Ticks are small parasitic insects commonly found in areas of high elevation and wooded topography ­ which includes the beauti­ ful Scottish landscape.

Whilst ticks may not be your best hiking compan­ ions, they are a diverse family of creatures with roughly 850 species dis­ covered worldwide, many of which are known to spread a number of vir­

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uses to wildlife, humans, and livestock.

Unlike fleas, ticks are patient guests that wait in grass and bushes for targets to drop themselves on.

Being hematophagous ectoparasites (blood­eat­ ing parasites living out­ side the host), ticks are always on the lookout for a fortnightly blood rela­ tionship with a host. Ticks generally have a four­ stage life (egg > larvae > nymph > adult) and re­ quire blood throughout this life cycle. Due to the enormous diversity of this species, ticks have varying lifespans ranging from 3 months to 3 years; their

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estimated lifespan is in­ fluenced by environmental conditions, temperature, and humidity. However, it is mainly during their feeding sessions that they are most likely to spread diseases.

Unlike fleas, ticks are patient guests that wait in grass and bushes for tar­ gets to drop themselves on. Using their strong sense of smell (specific­ ally towards the carbon dioxide which we exhale) they climb to the top of a blade of grass or plant and stick their front legs up in the air, waiting for the scent of a victim walking by (1).

The most common spe­ cies you could encounter in Scotland is the sheep tick (Ixodes ricinus), per­ haps more commonly known as the wood tick or castor bean tick. Learn

Roadmap to the Future

more about the different types of ticks in Scotland at this page (2). Although sheep ticks are often ig­ nored for their mere size and painless bites, they can grow up to 11 mm long upon feasting on a blood meal and are cap­ able of spreading a num­ ber of pathogens to their mammalian hosts; a one­ sided relationship you might want to avoid!

Tick­borne diseases are mainly caused by patho­ gens transferred during tick bites such as bacteria, protozoa, and viruses.

These pathogens are usu­ ally introduced into a tick’s body when they feed on infected birds and mammals. A variety of diseases including Lyme disease, relapsing fever and typhus fever can oc­ cur when pathogens are transferred to humans from the bites of infected ticks.

Lyme disease is the most common tick­borne dis­ ease, accounting for roughly 42,743 cases in the US in 2017. Fortu­ nately, the incidences in the US have since de­ creased down to 33,700 cases in 2018. Statistical

In the UK, the incidences of Lyme disease have progressively tripled between 2001 and 2012, prompting an urgent need to raise awareness of its early signs and symptoms trends on infection rates of common tick­borne dis­ eases can be found here: (3). However, in the UK, the incidences of Lyme disease have progress­ ively tripled between 2001 and 2012, prompt­ ing an urgent need to raise awareness of its early signs and symp­ toms. According to the NHS, one of the early symptoms of Lyme dis­ ease includes a circular red skin rash around a tick bite, appearing up to three months after being bitten by a tick and usu­ ally lasts from a few weeks to several months Information from the NHS on Lyme disease can be found at this page: (4).

TBE has increased by 400% in Europe over the last 30 years.

While it might sound easy to assume ticks aren't capable of spread­ ing particularly harmful diseases to mammalian hosts, less known, life­ threatening tick­borne diseases such as tick­ borne encephalitis (TBE), have also seen infection rates rise: the incidence of

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TBE has increased by 400% in Europe over the last three decades.

Tick­borne encephalitis is known to affect a range of hosts including birds, humans, and rodents and can also spread from an­ imals to humans, with ru­ minants and dogs being the principal source of in­ fection for humans. A use­ ful guide to TBE can be found on wikivet (5).

There is currently no spe­ cific antiviral treatment for this condition, which increases the risk of long­ lasting neuro­psychiatric effects on the central nervous system. Statistics show long­lasting effects occur in a fifth of infected individuals (6). Currently, treatment consists of an interplay between sup­ portive care and pain re­ lief medication; corticosteroids (paink­ illers) are currently pre­ scribed.

In Scotland, the growing need for awareness of this harmful tick­borne disease has been further emphas­ ized after its first emer­ gence in England in 2019.

Read more here: (7). Pub­ lic engagement represents one of the most important aspects of communicative science. It has never been this imperative to raise awareness on public health issues from vaccine safety to the transmission of harmful diseases.

Every year, the UK cel­ ebrates Tick Bite Preven­ tion Week. To learn more

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Roadmap to the Future about the Tick Bite Pre­ vention Week visit: (8) from 24th to 30th March.

Recently the Brennan Lab (9) at the MRC Center for Virus Research within the University of Glasgow has undertaken a public en­ gagement project to edu­ cate Scottish communities of the high risks of infec­ tion by a tick­borne virus.

Activities under this pro­ ject would include devel­ oping a citizen­science project, coordinating with outdoor working groups, hunting groups, and pro­ fessional bodies to uncover the health issues associ­ ated with tick­borne vir­ uses to the public.

Our desire to explore the outdoors must not be met with fear of tick­borne diseases, but rather with increased awareness of precautionary measures that can be taken to re­ duce the chances of ‘get­ ting ticked’ and limit the chance of being infected.

This could include wear­ ing light coloured clothes, using a tick­repellant, hiking on less­grassy paths, or even doing a self­pat after a hike to en­ sure you haven’t had any unwanted visitors. There is no need to panic, as not all ticks can spread dis­

This article was written by Denver Fabiano, who is an immunology undergraduate at the University of Glasgow.

This article was specialist edited by Dzachary Zainudden and copy­edited by Holly Leslie. Layout design by Nina Kratky

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eases; however, as a few infected ticks are capable of transferring some of the aforementioned infectious pathogens, it is important to be aware of tick­borne diseases. Interested to learn more? Explore the European Centre for Dis­ ease Prevention and Con­ trol website! (10)

Roadmap to the Future

SOMEBODY'S GOT TO DO IT: Heroism from Halfworld In the world of superheroes, there is always someone who needs saving from villainy or catastrophes. Today, Dzachary Zainudden reveals how one hero from Halfworld helped him achieve happiness with his tales of guarding the galaxy.

M

y first foray into philosophy was in the classroom, discovering how our ways of thinking and those defined by scholars were applied in the modern world. Les­ sons from that classroom created an avenue for me to appreciate the world through a scientific lens and, gratefully, from an imaginative point of view.

It was by venturing down this avenue that I ex­ amined the positive effects of roleplaying in Dun­ geons & Dragons (D&D), and interviewed furries about adopting alternate identities in previous art­ icles for theGIST (1­2).

And recently, Wizards of the Coast released a new subclass in D&D which allows Paladins, sacred warriors with abilities to defend allies and smite foes, to take an Oath of Glory (3­4). These warri­ ors are encouraged to ‘face hardships with courage’,

demonstrate actions that speak louder than words, and ‘overcome failings’ to become better people.

With these principles of heroism, players trans­ form into legends through their deeds and the lives they touch. But while these characters originate from many walks of life, their flaws remind us that with great power comes great responsibility.

victim, and mother of a miniature Hulk. Mean­ while, another drew com­ parisons between Iron Man and his wife to re­ mind us that heroes have weaknesses; they have cracks in their impressive armour. Finally, a third account praised Wonder Woman as a pillar of strength that paved the way for superheroines in the comic book industry.

Hang on, why does this remind us of superheroes?

Like any form of art, one person’s takeaway from heroic stories in a game or a comic book will be dif­ ferent from another. Such is the case in Liesa Mignogna’s anthology of essays in which superher­ oes helped people deal with their childhood, grief, and demons (5). Among these essays, one author reflected on how the rage she harboured against her father pulled her through as a suicide survivor, rape

With that in mind, why do we feel inspired to change for the better when we come across a book, movie, or video game about individuals with extraordinary powers? What is it that makes us connect with them to the point we want to step into their shoes to achieve eudaimonia?

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From Halfworld with big guns According to Chris Ga­ valer and Nathaniel Gold­ berg, professors from Washington and Lee Uni­ versity, heroes are distin­ guishable from one another based on their ‘superpowers and good­ ness’ (6). Before we define what eudaimonia is, we need to choose one super­ hero to analyse the values they represent and con­ template how they inspire

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others. I believe an un­ conventional choice would not only be a non­hu­ manoid life form but also one with personality and grit that some question how they became a guard­ ian of the galaxy.

That’s right, we are go­ ing cosmic with none oth­ er than Rocket Raccoon!

(Author’s note: The Rocket referred to is from the Earth­616 universe, which is explored in published comics and separate from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.)

For the uninitiated, the Guardians of the Galaxy are a group of superheroes who protect the galaxy from whatever tyrannical and powerful forces threaten it. Among these superheroes is Rocket Raccoon who hails from Halfworld and was offered

by Peter Quill, or Star­ Lord, to become one of the Guardians we know today.

His reputation as a mas­ ter tactician, first­class marksman, and accom­ plished pilot has been pivotal to the Guardians’ many exploits across the cosmos.

But masked beneath his expertise is a snarky and cynical personality that could paint him as an anti­hero in some people’s eyes. Star­Lord possesses qualities that make him a charismatic leader and a likeable hero whereas Rocket is abrasive, vulgar, and more likely to shoot first than ask questions.

This led him to attract unwanted attention for himself and the Guardi­ ans (sometimes the Avengers on Earth), and consequently make others underestimate him… or disregard him as a cute, widdle raccoon.

“I’ve saved this planet el­ even times. Eleven! You’d think one of you idiots would recognise me.” — Rocket (7) What exactly makes Rocket a superhero… or more importantly, what kind of superhero is Rock­ et? What principles do we look for in him to improve ourselves as individuals and achieve eudaimonia?

The krutacking kind, that’s what!

Eudaimonia,

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according

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to Aristotle, is the notion that whatever actions we make throughout our lives, they are considered best for delivering the ul­ timate goal: our happi­ ness. People who practise eudaimonia, known as eudaimonists, follow spe­ cific principles central to themselves that promote virtues necessary to live their best lives. The word itself is derived from eu, meaning good, and dai­ mon, which means spirit.

Thus, by maintaining a good spirit with virtuous actions, our lives flourish with prosperity. So, how would superheroes achieve eudaimonia?

Gavaler and Goldberg noted that a majority of Marvel and DC Comics’ hero rosters can be split into two categories: con­ sequentialists and deont­ ologists.

To elaborate further, I will refer to D&D vernacular with two contrasting subclasses available to Paladins: the Oaths of Devotion and of Vengeance.

A consequentialist, like Superman and Paladins of Devotion, focus on de­ livering the most happi­ ness to the most people possible. Their reasoning is that as long as their ac­ tions deliver positive con­ sequences and benefit humanity, they can be justified as positive ac­ tions. Batman, on the other hand, is driven by ‘duty rather than con­ sequence’ as a deontolo­ gist. After his parents

Roadmap to the Future were murdered, Batman swore an oath to safe­ guard others from crimin­ als, albeit driven by retribution in a similar fashion to Paladins of Vengeance. However, keep in mind that deontologist heroes can also bind themselves to altruistic duty without demanding an eye for an eye.

But enter Rocket, someone so arrogant and volatile he would butt heads with Superman and Batman’s ideals, dismiss­ ing them as just some guys in capes who should step aside for the profes­ sionals (like himself).

With the array of skills at his disposal, he likes to remind others of how problems can be fixed with the pull of a trigger or an explosion from his contraptions.

Be­ sides that, making a quick buck as a bounty hunter or do­ ing criminally question­ able jobs is Rocket’s idea of spending a day off duty.

It would take a massive paycheck or ego boost to convince him to re­ cover stolen land rights or help aliens stranded on Earth return home (8).

self­serving and selfish, yet more fulfilling than satisfying a corporation’s ‘cute sentient animal’ quota (9). (Personally, I believe if he can save spacefaring civilisations and look cute for office morale, who are we not to applaud him for a job well done in both?)

But in spite of that, what if his pride is his way of seeking validation from his peers, and him­ self?

“Everyone else, the police, the other ‘super heroes’, the other aliens, they all see you as a joke. Even your own team, right?...

A fierce war­

rior. A master strategist.

There’s nobody else like you out there. Is there?” — Kraven (10) Whose sadness dwarves all Throughout his history as a Guardian, Rocket comments on how nothing in the galaxy (or the uni­ verse) is exactly like him.

When read between the lines, it could be inter­ preted as him admitting he is alone and nobody among the stars will un­ derstand him. This is re­ inforced in the No Road Home storyline when the living planet Eu­ phoria refers to him as one ‘whose sad­ ness dwarfs’ the other heroes present (11).

It would seem as though underneath the fur and bravado

Thus, Rocket would only engage in heroism if the consequences satisfied his happiness or allowed him to demonstrate how su­ perior he is to everyone: to prove he saves lives just because he can. Therefore, his means of achieving eu­ daimonia is extremely

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Roadmap to the Future is a lonely creature… at least were it not for his partner­in­crime and trusted friend, Groot. This gentle, wooden giant acts as the voice of reason when Rocket acts rash, prompting him to be hero­ ic when he is tempted with vices and prospects of cash. And during an ad­ venture where Groot is tasked with rescuing his friend, Rocket explains to his kidnapper the differ­ ence between them (12): “See… me? I don’t really care about people — I spend most of my time shooting them.

But Groot… Groot likes people.

Always sees the best in them. Gives ‘em a shot.

And even if it hurts, he al­ ways goes out of his way to help.”

Whether intentionally or not, Rocket stated why he values a

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friend such as Groot. On his way to rescue him, Groot comes across a vari­ ety of characters ranging from shapeshifting Skrulls to a robotic Mantron from a refuelling station. Re­ gardless of their reputa­ tion, skill, or appearance, Groot cares more about what they can achieve when nudged in the right direction. Perhaps Groot has been doing the same for Rocket all this time: pointing the way for him to embrace his duty as a Guardian of the Galaxy.

And maybe Rocket paid Groot forward by giving me a nudge when I found his comics in the library?

Having lived internation­ ally for years, it was diffi­ cult finding my place in the world. I strived to fit in and be accepted, yet I wor­ ried constantly about oth­ ers’ expectations and felt inadequate amongst peers.

But issue after issue, Rocket demon­ strated how he

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did not pay any mind to what others thought of him and proved himself worthy of being a Guardi­ an. In fact, when the team was fractured during the early days of the Guardi­ ans’ tenure, it was Rocket who picked up the pieces when no one else did, con­ tinuing to help others with Groot by his side (13).

There’s another one of me?

So why did connecting with a lonely raccoon de­ fending the galaxy help me flourish as a human being? What was my takeaway from seeing eye to eye with him? If I have to be frank, it would be to accept the fact that no one in the galaxy is like me… except me.

I think that was what I admired in Rocket.

Whether travelling the stars with the Guardians, Groot, or solo, he could stand on his own. What won me over

Roadmap to the Future was his acknowledgement that he is lonely, something I could relate to. We both hated being alone, yet Rocket was telling me through his stories that it was alright to embrace the solitude. To make our decisions and show no concern for what others thought. To put on a brave face and fight for others even if no one stands with us. To be her­

oes in our own way. And if walking in the footsteps of a raccoon helps me achieve my eudaimonia… after all, when somebody's got to do it, somebody’s got to do it.

“You can do it all – you just gotta tell yourself, and believe it when you say it – ‘I'm the baddest mother @#$&#$% in the whole universe.’” — Rocket (14)

Thank you, Rocket. And if you run a D&D cam­ paign to put Tony Stark in his place, hit me up and I’ll bring my Paladin along (15).

This article was written by Dzachary Zainudden, specialist edited by Rebecca Budgett and copy­edited by Lauren Taylor. Layout design by Miriam Scarpa. Artwork created by George Bell (Glasgow Comic Creators Club)

Dzachary Zainudden is a Microbiology Honours graduate from the University of Glasgow specialising in virology, and our own Head of copy­editing.

Dzachary is an avid enthusiast of fantasy; he can be found rolling dice and role­playing characters in Dungeons & Dragons, and reading Marie Brennan’s ‘Memoirs of Lady Trent’ book series.

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Roadmap to the Future

Sleep pressure: Is this why we crash?

Anastasija delves into what we mean by ‘sleep pressure’ and why we might feel on the verge of falling asleep after a cup of coffee.

D

o you sometimes feel like the energy has suddenly been drained from you and the only thing you want to do is sleep? Or you wake up and still feel as though the 11 hours spent sleeping did nothing to make you less exhausted?

When talking about sleep patterns and difficulties, we often only cover our internal body clock — the circadian rhythm. However, our sleep and wakefulness cycles are controlled by another important process called sleep pressure. Together, sleep pressure and circadian rhythm influence when we fall asleep and wake up, and how we feel when we are awake.

What is sleep pressure?

Sleep pressure (or homeostatic sleep drive) can be defined as the “need to sleep”. It is a biochemical system that urges us to sleep based on the amount of time we have been awake and the intensity of brain activity during the day. Sleep pressure gradually builds throughout the day, making us feel drowsy. When we awaken after a good night’s sleep, we have low sleep pressure and no strong need to sleep. As the day goes on, sleep pressure accumulates until it is high enough that we fall asleep. After another night of sleeping, this sleep pressure resets for a new day.

Usually, most of us stay awake for the greater part of the day and have one consolidated sleeping phase. However, if

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sleep pressure was the only mechanism controlling our sleep schedule, we would be prone to napping throughout the day — staying awake for a couple of hours, then dozing off to decrease sleep

..our sleep and wakefulness cycles are controlled by another important process called sleep pressure pressure, before repeating the cycle all over again. Also, we are usually as alert at 1 pm as we are at 6 pm, even though our sleep pressure gradually increases throughout the day. This shows that sleep pressure doesn’t work alone in controlling our sleep schedule; it operates together with the circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is our internal biological cycle that rises and falls over 24 hours. Usually, this clock promotes wakefulness in the morning hours and sleepiness closer to our bedtime, thus determining the best time to sleep.

Building up the “need to sleep” In the late 20th century, researchers found that adenosine, an essential chemical in our bodies, can decrease wakefulness and increase sleep drive, specifically triggering the deeper stages of sleep (1). So, sleep pressure arises from the accumulation of adenosine in the brain. During wakefulness, our brain uses up a lot of energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is our main energy currency and stored in

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neuronal activity and changes in the the brain as glycogen. ATP is released animal’s sleep behaviour (3). In other from neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain studies, depriving animals of sleep led and is then degraded to form adenosine in the extra­synaptic space. High to a plateau in basal forebrain neuronal activity leads to substantial adenosine levels, yet adenosine neurotransmitter release and sequential continued to rise in other brain regions, ATP release from the glycogen stores, thus increasing the need for sleep in the which results in more adenosine being wake hours. created. Adenosine then acts in the basal forebrain, which is crucial in the sleep Reversing the process and wake cycles. Adenosine binds to one of four adenosine receptors; although, So, if adenosine builds up during the evidence suggests that only two receptors day to promote sleep, how do we wake — A1 and A2A — play a major role in up? Besides the innate body clock sleep regulation (2). A1 receptors dampen bringing us up from our slumber, we also the activity of neurons responsible for create molecules of ATP from adenosine wakefulness at various sites in the brain, during sleep, which decreases sleep but specifically in pressure.

This the basal ..adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is our process is the forebrain.

A2A main energy currency and is stored in reverse of what the brain as glycogen receptors are more occurs when we localised, and in are awake. Sleep pressure is mostly the preoptic area of the hypothalamus, related to deep sleep occurring early in they excite the neurons that encourage the night. Because deep sleep requires sleep.

Through the simultaneous less brain activity, it is hypothesised that inhibitory and excitatory effects of A1 the replenishment of glycogen, and and A2A receptors, respectively, therefore ATP, happens during this stage adenosine promotes sleep.

(4).

To demonstrate that adenosine affects The formation of ATP from adenosine the sleep and wake cycles, some can also explain sleep inertia — the researchers injected adenosine into the grogginess we can feel after waking up. brains of various animals. These This grogginess can mainly be ascribed injections were associated with modified to our body not being able to transform

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Roadmap to the Future all of the adenosine produced during wake hours into ATP, thus leaving a surplus of adenosine, even after a full night of sleep.

So, what makes us 'crash'?

Have you ever seen someone bounce around one second, then nod off in the next moment? This may be due to the cup of coffee (or two) they had a few hours earlier. Many of us rely on caffeinated beverages like coffee, tea, soda, and energy drinks to get us through the day. We use caffeinated products like chocolate to cheer ourselves up and over­the­counter medicines to get rid of headaches. So, it comes as no surprise that caffeine is the most used psychoactive compound (a substance able to alter our mental processes) in the world. Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist — it binds to the A1 and A2A receptors in the brain as adenosine does.

By doing so, it blocks adenosine and prevents drowsiness (5). However, adenosine is still being produced even though it cannot bind to its receptors. So, once the caffeine is metabolised and its effects wear off, all the built­up adenosine starts binding to adenosine receptors. This flood of adenosine causes a sudden change in neuronal activity, resulting in a caffeine crash. For those who consume coffee, the symptoms of a caffeine crash — irritability, dozing off,

19

and extreme drowsiness — are familiar.

This is simply the body being told to go to sleep more intensely than usual.

When a high amount of adenosine accumulates in the body, the excess cannot be converted into ATP during sleep. This results in the sleep inertia mentioned earlier and encourages us to indulge in more caffeinated drinks.

Ultimately, this endless cycle leads to poorer sleep, reliance on caffeine, and energy crashes.

As an endnote, understanding what sleep pressure is can help make healthier lifestyle choices. Grabbing several cups of coffee or cans of energy drink a day might give you a short energy boost, but it comes at a price. The impossible drive to sleep after the caffeine wears off only pushes us to mask sleep pressure with yet another caffeine source. Many of us are stuck in this vicious cycle of relying on anything but the only true way of reducing sleep pressure — sleep.

This article was written by Anastasija Slapina, a BSc Immunology student at the University of Glasgow. This article was specialist edited by Adriana Alcaraz Sanchez and copy­edited by Lauren Taylor. Layout design by Deep Bandivadekar.

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Speckles Solve the Secrets of twin Suns NASA research team uses innovative tech to solve the orbital mysteries of dual star solar systems.

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stronomers have been working with data gathered by the Kepler and K2 missions for more than a decade. Even now, twelve years after the Kepler space telescope’s initial launch, they are coming up with innovative techniques to map the stars in the night sky. In this time, several large discoveries have been made about exoplanets, one of which is that around half of all dis­ covered exoplanets orbit stars existing in a solar system with two stars.

However, there is a ques­ tion that comes with this realisation ­ How do they find out which of the two stars an exoplanet is or­ biting in one of these sys­ tems? Steve B. Howell and his team at the NASA Ames Research Centre in California may have found the solution and it all comes down to “speckle interferometry”, a high­ res imaging technique that has existed since the 70’s.

Between the launch of the Kepler spacecraft in 2009 until its retirement

by NASA in 2018, the space telescope discovered

more than 2600 planets in solar systems outside of our own, with follow­up missions helping to boost that number to over 4000 (1). We call these distant planets “exoplanets” and studying them has kept scientists in the field busy for years. Howell and his team were one such group of scientists trying to tackle a problem of an as­ tronomical scale.

Detecting an exoplanet can be quite simple. A satellite is used to meas­ ure light coming from a distant star, and when a dip in light levels coming from a star occurs regu­

..when a dip in light levels coming from a star occurs regularly, it means an exoplanet orbiting it has passed between us and the star.

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larly, it means an exo­ planet orbiting it has passed between us and the star. Researchers can then tell a lot about an exoplanet from this in­ formation such as estim­ ating the size of an exoplanet using the radius of the star it orbits and how far the light level drops (2). When a solar system has two stars at its center, it is called a binary system. Howell stated “About one half of all exo­ planets orbits a star residing in a binary sys­ tem, yet, until now, we were at a loss to robustly determine which star hosts the planet”. It can be difficult, and some­ times almost impossible, to work out information about an exoplanet in these systems because we don’t know which star it is orbiting. The situation can get worse based on how close the two stars are or how similar they are in size. Thus, to try and solve this problem, Howell’s team used a machine called Alopeke, a massive telescopic camera that takes pictures at incred­ ibly fast shutter speeds of less than a tenth of a

20

Roadmap to the Future The how will be discussed later, but this ability helped the Ames team discover a secondary use of speckle imagery that no one had realised. Prior to the team’s work, it was entirely unknown what the make­up of this exo­ planet orbiting the stars of Kelper­13 was. But with their work, they were able to almost confirm it to be a huge gas giant like our own Jupiter, one with drop in light levels when a very hot atmosphere second (3). In essence, the the exoplanet passed by most likely due to radi­ Alopeke imager takes pic­ Kepler­13A, the slightly ation. This was clear be­ tures at high shutter brighter star of the pair. cause the light levels speeds to ensure outside Speckle analysis only al­ witnessed a much larger influences, like the lows light in for less than drop at low wavelengths Earth's atmosphere, do a second, and the team of light than at higher not diminish the picture studied around 1000 of ones, meaning the exo­ quality. these tiny light exposures planet had to be better at The result of these come taken over the course of 4 blocking out blue light out as “speckles” and hours. This timeframe is than red. "Combined with studying these images very short compared to Gemini's large primary helped astronomers de­ how long it would nor­ mirror, Alopeke has real termine whether a light in mally take to examine the potential to make even the night sky originated orbit of an exoplanet, and more significant exoplanet from a single star or a the amazing success of discoveries by adding an­ binary pair. Speckle ima­ the team’s endeavours other dimension to the ging has already helped doesn’t stop there. search" said Andrew identify a number of the Stephens, a scientist at binary pairs and exoplan­ the Gemini ets that ..the Alopeke imager takes pictures at high Observatory we know shutter speeds to ensure outside influences, like who aided the of, but the Earth's atmosphere, do not diminish the Ames team in there was picture quality. their work. still the So, Howell orbit is­ Just like how our and his team may have sue we mentioned earlier; Kepler­13 system has not only proved that and that’s where the twin stars, the Alopeke speckle imaging is a reli­ NASA Ames team came instrument has its own able way to solve the in. The team aimed to twin called Zorro, another problem of exoplanet or­ demonstrate that speckle huge instrument at the bits in binary systems, but imaging was the solution Gemini­South observatory also discovered a revolu­ to working out which star located in the mountains tionary new way to ana­ an exoplanet in the binary of Chile. When used in lyse exoplanets all over star Kepler­13 solar sys­ tandem, Alopeke and the universe. Speckle tem was orbiting, and Zorro can provide meas­ imaging could be the fast their work paid off. Their urements of both high and and reliable future of exo­ analysis of data gathered low wavelengths of light. planet analysis. As Chris

by Alopeke showed a huge

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Roadmap to the Future Davis of the National Science Foundation claimed, “this dual win has elevated the import­ ance of instruments like Alopeke in exoplanet re­ search”, and the work of Steven Howell and oth­ ers at the NASA Ames research centre stands as proof of the potential it has.

More information about the ‘Alopeke and Zorro instruments and the Gemini Observator­ ies can be found at (4).

While further research from the NASA Ames re­ search centre can be found at (5).

This article was written by Andew Cook, who is an undergraduate studying Physics at University of Strathclyde.

This article was specialist edited by Deep Bandivadekar and copy­ edited by Miriam Scarpa. Layout design by Deep Bandivadekar.

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Roadmap to the Future

Life beneath the ice Deep below the ice shelves of Antarctica, some creatures call this hostile environment home. Jennifer investigates how these ice shelves formed over generations and explores how scientists today made the startling discovery of immobile life beneath the ice shelf.

J

ust as Spock proclaimed in the 1960s TV show Star Trek: The Original Series, life on Earth “..as we know it” (or assume to know it) doesn’t always fit the norm, especially when we look at the most extreme of environments.

From the bellies of volcanoes to the pinnacles of mountains, deep within seemingly endless sea trenches and even inside highly radioactive nuclear react­ ors, you can find evidence of organic life.

Life beneath the ice shelf is also hostile and isolated. Creatures living here must survive in dark, icy cold water with lim­ ited access to sources of food. Yet life does exist here. Small creatures swim around under the ice shelf, following food drift­ ing inwards from the ice shelf border. In fact, until recently, it was thought that all life under the shelf must be able to move around to find food. However, to the surprise of the scientific community, a group of sessile (immobile) creatures have been seen surviving, against all odds, on a boulder deep, deep down un­ der an ice shelf in Antarctica. How they live here, seemingly unable to move to find food, is entirely unknown, but could hold the key to the survival of life follow­ ing cooler periods in our Earth’s history such as the end of the last glacial period (when Earth was extremely cold), which ended ~12,000 years ago (1).

Now we journey back, millions of years in time, before the Antarctic even exis­ ted, to explore how these ice shelves be­ came such a hostile place to live and uncover how scientists today made the

startling discovery of immobile life below an ice shelf.

Before Antarctica became the continent we know today, it was originally part of a giant southern hemisphere supercontin­ ent called Gondwana, alongside South America, Africa, Australia­New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar and parts of the Arabian and Indian subcontinent.

When Gondwana began its separation, some 180 million years ago, Africa and South America broke off first, leaving In­ dia, Australia­New Guinea, Madagascar and Antarctica still connected. Eventually, India and Madagascar separated about 40 million years later, leaving a much smal­ ler Gondwana, now encompassing Antarc­ tica and Australia­New Guinea drifting further South (2).

During this time (the Cretaceous Era, lasting from ~145 to 66 million years ago), the Earth was pretty hot. Unlike today, there was no ice at either the North or South Poles and ocean temperatures were on average a very comfortable 35oC (3). In fact, the Australia­Antarctica landmass was likely a lush, tropical jungle playing host to an abundance of life. However, this all changed, and rapidly, geologically speaking. Around 85 million years ago, Antarctica and Australia began to drift apart, taking ~50 million years to fully separate. Freed from its ties to Australia, Antarctica continued on a south­ward journey towards the South Pole. And, in

“It is not life as we know or understand it.

Yet it is obviously alive, it exists” 23

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less than 20 million years, the surface of Antarctica froze, with a blanket of glacier ice (fallen snow which is densely com­ pressed, forming a thick plate of persist­ ing ice) turning a once luscious rainforest into a frozen tundra.

The knowledge of how Antarctica froze so swiftly (~34 million years ago) is still a mystery. However, scientists think that a global cooling event caused the freezing.

During this time, carbon dioxide levels decreased in the air (carbon dioxide is a gas that is very good at trapping heat).

Scientists also found evidence for changes in how the ocean currents circu­ lated, which could have prevented warm­ er water from reaching Antarctica. One or both of these events might explain why such rapid chilling occurred (4).

Today, Antarctica, the most southern continent on our planet, still remains an isolated, polar desert double the size of Australia. Approximately 99.7% of this extreme environment is covered with 4 kilometre thick glacier ice, accounting for over 90% of the ice on planet Earth! In fact, the only ice­free regions are pro­ truding mountain tops, poking out from the vast icy wilderness. As snow is un­ able to build up at these peaks, glacier ice cannot form (5).

of this time, scientists found an array of fauna (animals) and flora (plants). In fact, we have evidence that some plant species alive today were spread throughout Gondwana, including Ant­ arctica, prior to its separation from Aus­ tralia (6). Interestingly, there is no evidence of indigenous (native) humans in Antarctica.

Despite the harsh climate today, Ant­ arctica hosts life, most of which are ad­ apted to marine living, with ~23 species of mammals including seals and whales, marine invertebrates like krill, some terrestrial invertebrates, communities of largely coastal plants, birds and even bacteria and fungi have been found in this vast tundra (7). Life has also been seen on the seafloor underneath the ice but very little is known about what lives here, and more importantly, how organ­ isms can survive in this environment.

Most of what is known comes from drilling holes down through the ice (about 700 kilometres deep) and peeking through the hole using small cameras.

And what does live there is a mix of macroscopic creatures which are less than 1 cm in size and benthic creatures such as crustaceans and sponges which live around the seafloor (8).

Life under the ice shelves is harsh and the further away you travel from the border of an ice shelf, the harder it be­ comes to live. We see much less diversity the further ‘inland’ under the shelf you

During the ‘hot’ years, when Antarctica existed as part of Gondwana (~100 mil­ lion years ago), the average temperature around summertime was estimated to be around 20oC. Looking at the fossil re­ cords (fossilised evidence of life at earlier times during Earth’s geological history)

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Roadmap to the Future go. This is because available nutrients become increasingly scarce, with the level of sunlight reducing meaning the chance of generating energy by photo­ synthesis (the process of converting sun­ light into energy) is rare. Most organisms can swim or float around in the water under the ice shelf allowing them to move, or to be carried to, areas where there might be sources of food.

Recently, a group of geologists inad­ vertently uncovered something very un­ expected deep beneath an ice shelf in the Antarctic. They picked a spot 260 kilo­ metres from the front of one of the largest ice shelves on our planet, the Filchner­Ronne ice shelf (which is ~422,000 km2 in area and borders the Weddell Sea, a part of the Antarc­ tic/Southern Ocean), then drilled through ~900 metres thick ice to reach the cold seawater below.

Heading down through the water, they had hoped to find the seafloor to collect samples of sediment (9). Instead, on the way down (~500 metres down into the water), they hit something.

Wanting to know what they hit, the re­ searchers sent a GoPro camera deep into the freezing seawater and what they came across was an almost impossible finding. Deep beyond the ice, they dis­ covered a boulder in the murky darkness ~1230 metres down, and on that boulder was life. In fact, the boulder appeared to be playing host to around 38 creatures, including sponges and other creatures which could not be identified. What was so unexpected about this observation was that these creatures appeared to be sessile; they cannot move from this boulder to find food elsewhere. Instead, sessile creatures wait for food travelling in the surrounding water to pass by or filter food out from the watery soup. How could life here be possible?

No sunlight penetrates through the ice into the chilly seawater below. This means that whatever creatures live in the darkness are unable to generate

25

their own food using photosynthesis. In fact, the closest photosynthetic plants (which could provide a rich and tasty food source), are likely well over 600 kilo­ metres away! And it’s not just that one boulder hosting these creatures, scient­ ists also found evidence of life at another nearby site revealing how little we know about sub­ice shelf living and survival.

Although researchers do not yet know if these newly found creatures are new spe­ cies or not, the presence of sessile life here is certainly puzzling. It raises some exciting possibilities of understanding how life adapts to extreme cold, for ex­ ample across the glacier periods in Earth’s history. There is also a lot we do not know about the creatures living at these depths. Are they an entirely new species? How do they prevent themselves from freezing? What is their source of food? How do they eat? How long do they live? Where did they come from? What happens to them when our planet warms up too much?

Of course, much research still remains to answer these questions but, what this discovery really highlights is that the di­ versity of life on planet Earth goes bey­ ond our own comprehension and understanding of the natural world. Who knows what other curious creatures are living in the remote parts of our world?

This article was written by Jennifer Ann Stortz, who studied parasitology at the Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre studying neglected tropical diseases.

This article was specialist edited by Alison Hughes and copy­edited by Miriam Scarpa.

Layout design by Holly Leslie.

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How Not To Use AI In Engineering Callum explores the benefits of artificial intelligence for engineering applications, while advising caution against carelessly employing these methods to solve all problems.

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eyond the hype and perceived threat of artificial intelligence (AI), there are many useful ap­ plications for intelligent methods. These range from the super large lan­ guage models powering search engines and auto­ mated writing, to simple regression models that find trends in data. No field is immune from the current expansion of AI – including engineering.

While it is met with scep­ ticism and distrust from some engineers, AI has the potential to greatly assist them in their work and help solve very chal­ lenging problems. Here I will make the case for why AI can be valuable in en­ gineering if properly un­ derstood, while considering what can go wrong if we employ AI blindly.

Discussion of AI invari­ ably conjures up images of super­intelligent robots and technological apoca­ lypses, likely due to its portrayal in Hollywood.

While this is quite far from the reality of where AI is currently, it is inter­ esting to note that most people are aware of AI yet cannot explain exactly

what it is. Even in the field, AI is a very fuzzy concept that lacks a single formal definition.

A simple way of thinking of AI is as a collection of methods that takes in­ spiration from human in­ telligence to improve a solution to certain prob­ lems.

..No field is immune from the current expansion of AI – including engineering.

Some of the most com­ mon architectures which fall under this broad cat­ egory of AI are neural net­ works, originally designed to replicate processes found in brains; evolu­ tionary algorithms, which mimic biological evolution; and knowledge­based sys­ tems, which store and use data to derive patterns that can be matched to new data. There are many methods that are classi­ fied as AI, but we do not have space here to discuss them all.

Engineering uses a vari­ ety of tools from maths and sciences to solve real­ world problems. AI is one

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such applicable tool in a wide variety of engineer­ ing domains. A few ex­ amples are as follows: Optimisation: maximising or minimising a charac­ teristic of a system so it operates at peak perform­ ance. This could be min­ imising energy use for heating a house or max­ imising the output of a manufacturing process.

Autonomy: where we design a machine to oper­ ate on its own without hu­ man supervision. One relevant example is plan­ etary rovers which you cannot send a technician to fix.

Uncertainty: similar to autonomy, dealing with uncertainty requires ma­ chines to display some level of what could be called intelligence. As one example of uncertainty, any machines that inter­ act with humans, such as self­driving cars, need to take the uncertainty of human behaviour into ac­ count.

Knowledge extraction: re­ trieving useful informa­ tion from vast corpuses of

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Roadmap to the Future data can be sped up using computers. This can accel­ erate research and devel­ opment by quickly finding relevant literature for a given project.

Complexity: when prob­ lems become too complex for traditional solutions to work, AI can be used in­ stead. Control of large systems, such as national grids with intermittent energy sources and vary­ ing demand, is one ex­ ample of a complex problem that benefits from AI. Clearly, the uses of AI for engineering prob­ lems are numerous and beneficial. But is there motivation from engineers to use these tools, and will people embrace them?

To gauge how AI is viewed by engineers, I searched for AI as a keyword in IMechE news articles (1). Most head­ lines were positive about its potential, like: “How artificial intelligence can help the hunt for new ma­ terials”, “AI drones to speed up search and res­ cue missions”, and “US researchers use AI to identify alternatives to li­ quid batteries”. These also highlight the range of ap­ plications of AI within en­ gineering. However, skills gaps have been identified in engineers regarding these new technologies, as discussed in Dr Jenifer Baxter’s response to a Se­ lect Committee report on artificial intelligence. She says: “The report high­ lights that as AI decreases

27

demand for some jobs, but creates demand for oth­ ers, retraining will be­ come a lifelong necessity.

I would suggest that it will become more import­ ant for the next genera­ tion to understand how AI can be used to en­ hance their work, rather than fear the effects on their roles and whether their jobs will be re­ placed.” (2) Looking particularly at where she notes “it will become more important for the next generation to understand how AI can be used”, this would suggest engineers currently lack this understanding. This could pose a problem giv­ en the already wide­ spread use of AI.

...AI decreases demand for some jobs, but creates demand for others...

Many practitioners of AI will often treat it as a so­ called “black box”. This is a term given to a system where data go in and res­ ults come out, but its in­ ner workings are hidden from the user. One of the most widely used classes of methods, called deep learning, is very powerful but lacks what is called “explainability”.

This means that, although they may perform well on a given problem, the de­ cision­making process of the algorithm is non­ transparent and cannot easily be interrogated or

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understood by humans.

There is currently a lot of research interest in ex­ plaining how deep learn­ ing systems work but this is not straightforward. As an example, consider the convolutional neural net­ work (CNN) shown below: its structure has several “layers” which create in­ creasingly abstract rep­ resentations of input data.

Each layer is a mathem­ atical transformation of the previous layer de­ signed to extract useful features from the data. In the latter part of this CNN example, there is a neural network. This part in effect uses the feature representation from the previous layers to gener­ ate a decision output ­ again via a series of mathematical transform­ ations. These can accur­ ately classify images or predict values, but cannot be easily interpreted by humans except as complex mathematical expressions.

Why is this a problem?

After all, many of the most advanced AI systems today are treated as black boxes, but they still “work”. We simply feed the black box multitudes of data for a given prob­ lem and it outputs solu­ tions. To illustrate the problem with this, I will use a common toy ex­ ample of training a black box AI to classify whether or not an image is of a cat.

We train a black box mod­ el on labelled pictures of cats and not cats before showing a new picture. In

Roadmap to the Future

The structure and mechanisms of a convolutional neural network. While these were originally intended to mimic brains, they are a far cry from what we would recognise as ‘human’ decision making

the case shown below, it correctly recognises this as a cat. Depending on the dataset and how it has been trained, we might well be able to fool this black box model. As shown below, we could present an image of a person in a cat mask, which it incorrectly identifies as a cat, or a sphynx cat, which it as­ serts is not a cat. We can chuckle, in this case, at the computer’s error and try retraining it. But what if the stakes were higher?

someone on a women’s sports team, or applica­ tions from all­female col­ leges. Although developers behind the algorithm ed­ ited it such that those terms would not have an effect, there is still the

possibility due to its black box nature that it could find other ways to dis­ criminate against women.

As noted later in the art­ icle, similar algorithms could favour words which appear more often on male CVs. Such are the issues with using black box AI. So what is the better alternative?

For problems that are suited to AI approaches, it is tempting to throw the black box at them and see the amazing results that emerge. However, as en­

A black box AI attempts to solve the age old problem of ‘Is this a cat?’

In this Reuter’s report from 2018 (3), they dis­ cuss Amazon’s attempt to make an AI­driven auto­ mated recruiting tool.

Screening job applications is time­consuming, so you can see why a large com­ pany like Amazon would try to automate this task.

Their algorithm would take in applicants’ CVs and rate them, suggesting the best CVs to go for­ ward. The problem lies in the fact that they trained this AI using data from 10 years of candidate CVs, which were dominated by men. This caused beha­ viours such as downgrad­ ing CVs containing the word “women’s”, such as

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Roadmap to the Future

gineers, it is clearly better to understand the problem well before using tools to solve it. Such is the case with, for example, finite element analysis, which uses computer models of mechanical parts and components to simulate how they respond to forces. In these analyses, an important first step is evaluating the problem, locating likely areas of maximum stress, or pos­ sibly performing hand cal­ culations to validate simulations. This is where AI overlaps with the broader (and older) field of data science. When faced with a new dataset, we can gain more insight into the problem through ana­ lysis of the data and bet­ ter pre­ and post­processing.

Various statistical meth­ ods exist which give in­ sight into causal relationships or more rel­ evant features present in the data. This is useful as we can now improve our own understanding of the problem, while also creat­ ing a model which achieves what we set out to do. Furthermore, as in the recruitment example above, algorithms inherit bias from the data on which they are trained, thus raising many ethical

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issues. Whatever the ap­ plication, we must strive to make AI equitable by ensuring training data is representative, carrying out independent audits of algorithms, and establish­ ing standard ethical guidelines for AI practi­ tioners, especially engin­ eers, to follow.

In summary, it is clear that AI consists of various tools which are incredibly useful to engineers. These tools will be used in the future to solve some of the toughest challenges we currently face, like climate change. Unfortunately, we cannot solve climate change by handing the problem and a lot of data to a black box.

However, we can use AI to improve climate models to understand how the planet changes; accelerate societal adaptation to fu­ ture necessary lifestyle changes; and reduce emis­ sions from electricity by optimising power grids.

This will only be possible if we have engineers who properly understand how to use AI.

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This article was written and illustrated by Callum Wilson who is a PhD student at the University of Strathclyde and is part of the ICELab research group within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

This article was specialist edited by Natasha Padfield and copy­edited by Deep Bandivadekar. Layout design

by Ross Laidlaw.

Roadmap to the Future

Immersive Reality: History and Current State of Affairs How much do you really know about Virtual Reality? Sarune Savickaite describes the ever evolving Virtual Reality technology throughout history and current research into the practical applications.

V

irtual Reality (VR) systems are a soph­ isticated interplay of tech­ nology and human perception. However, it has not always been this way; it started with a simple stereoscope. In 1838, Charles Wheatstone discovered that different two­dimensional images presented in each eye are processed slightly differ­ ent and form a single three­dimensional object.

This led to the invention of the stereoscope. Today, Google Cardboard utilises the same principles as the very first stereoscope.

With the arrival of new technological development in the 20th century, the concept of VR has become a reality and more ad­ vanced systems were starting to emerge. Expec­ tedly, the majority of work on VR came from the air force and military. In 1929, Edward Link built the first flight simulator, which was electromechan­ ical and mimicked real flight experience. A year later, Stanley G. Wein­ baum wrote a piece of sci­ ence fiction titled Pygmalion's spectacles which predicted what VR

eventually was going to become. The story de­ scribed a pair of glasses, which let you experience a fictional world through all of your senses. Further­ more, in 1960, Morton Heilig patented a Tele­ sphere Mask. Although it lacked technological soph­ istication, it is incredibly similar to our current VR headsets. Two years later, Heilig made another con­ tribution to the develop­ ment of VR. He patented Sensorama, which was a small cabinet designed to create a virtual world that

"With appropriate programming such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked."

(Sutherland, 1965) stimulates all human senses. It used vibrating chairs, various smells, sounds, fans, and a ste­ reoscopic display for a three­dimensional view of the world. In 1965, Ivan Sutherland described VR as: "The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the

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existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Hand­ cuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal. With appropriate programming such a dis­ play could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked".

In 1968, Sutherland cre­ ated the first head­moun­ ted display—The Sword of Damocles. Images dis­ played were simple wire­ frame rooms.

Head tracking was necessary and was accomplished by attaching wires, hanging from the ceiling, to the headset itself. Soon after, during the 1970s–1990s VR research was domin­ ated by military research: predominantly via NASA and British Aerospace.

Research and work in VR stalled in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but it picked up again when Oculus Rift, a start­ up company, was pur­ chased by Facebook in 2014. Oculus Rift de­ veloped an affordable headset that had all the specifications required for

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Roadmap to the Future

full VR immersion.

In 2015, the HTC Vive headset was introduced, and there has been a great in­ crease in VR research ever since.

Definitions

VR is as difficult to define as the experience itself.

Merriam­Webster dictionary defines VR as "an artificial environment experienced through sensory stimuli, such as sights and sounds, provided by a computer, in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment." However, general understanding of VR is narrower and often refers to an artificial envir­ onment experienced through a variety of senses, which is created by a computer and accessed via a display, often a Head­Mounted Display (HMD). An HMD is a pair of large glasses strapped onto the head, it displays a virtu­ al environment using two different images, one projec­ ted to each eye, creating the compelling illusion of a three­dimensional scene all around them. Alongside state­of­the­art graphics, a VR system usually incorpor­ ates one or more input devices (for example, con­ trollers, gloves or motion trackers). VR system capab­ ilities vary greatly depend­ ing on the capacity of the device and the quality of the three­dimensional world built by it.

However, all VR systems share three main features: immersion, interaction, and a sense of presence. The im­ mersion feature refers to

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Roadmap to the Future

how well the system isol­ ates the user from reality and is inherently linked to hardware capabilities.

The interaction feature allows the user to interact with objects within the virtual environment in real­time. The sense of presence feature is a con­ sequence of both immer­ sion and interaction features; it is the psycho­ logical feeling of being present in the virtual en­ vironment despite the awareness of not actually being there. These fea­ tures combine to provide highly immersive envir­ onments and safe, but realistic, scenarios.

Current tions

Applica­

Entertainment has been one of the first fields to adopt VR: where particu­ larly the gaming industry has been the driving force for VR research over the past few decades. It has produced some amazing graphics which can now be used in other fields.

Additionally, there has

been an increased interest in VR cinema. However, the logistic challenges have not been overcome yet. Regardless, there are a small number of short films resembling VR games, but they are still limited when it comes to user interaction. VR has also been actively used by museums where you can enter the museum re­ motely (1) or you can ex­ perience the historical setting of the displays.

VR in education provides new teaching and learning tools for the exploration of objects, tex­ tures, safe spaces and en­ vironments that we normally could not attend, especially in cases of adult training, for ex­ ample, construction work or architecture training (2). Using this technique, teachers can provide an exciting new learning en­ vironment for pupils and help them better retain information. Some tools used in teaching, like web conferences, can easily transfer to other fields,

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such as business or polit­ ics. Although there are some challenges in VR use for education that re­ quire further research.

One of those challenges is addressing how safe VR is for younger children.

University of Glasgow has partnered with Edify (3) to find out how stu­ dents in higher education learn in the virtual world (4). During this era of re­ mote working and learn­ ing, Edify has established a novel concept of VR­by­ Proxy., where teachers can create a lesson in VR and broadcast it in real­ time with conferencing tools like Zoom or Mi­ crosoft Teams.

VR has been used in military and aerospace extensively and has spread out over various applications in these fields. Combat training is one of the most common uses of VR in the military, as it provides a safe train­ ing environment and mul­ tiple simulation scenarios.

Caballero and Niguidula, in 2018 (5), described a

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Roadmap to the Future disaster risk management and emergency prepared­ ness software developed for VR. The software sim­ ulates a variety of emer­ gency situations and offers a selection of guidelines on how to pro­ ceed. Stress management is another important ap­ plication of VR: it enables soldiers to learn resilience and empowerment.

However, if such prepara­ tions still fail, VR has been extensively used for the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Dis­ order (PTSD). Albert Rizzo and colleagues, in 2015 (6), introduced a Vir­ tual Reality Exposure (VRE) system, which sim­ ulates virtual scenarios of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars and World Trade Centre destruction. The VRE system can be used for safe exposure and treatment of PTSD. Medicine is another field where VR has been used more recently. In 2016, Andrea Chirico’s team (7) described a system in which distractions during painful procedures help cancer patients deal with the pain. A similar dis­ traction technique has been used for children that were afraid of injec­ tions. A simulated game places the pain of the needle piercing the skin in a different context and this reduces children's fear of the procedure.

Furthermore, VR has been used in the rehabil­ itation of stroke patients, helping them overcome challenging motor and

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precision tasks (8). Al­ though VR presents a lot of exciting opportunities, the ethics surrounding its use are still debated, par­ ticularly in the field of medicine.

Psychology has adopted VR only fairly recently for the management of emo­ tions, addressing fear of public speaking and treat­ ment of a broad range of mental health problems (9). These applications have recently sparked in­ terest in the field of visual perception and it prom­ ises more research in the area.

There is a broad range of other applications for VR technology. Hyoung Seok Kang et al. , in 2015 (10), listed VR applica­ tions in manufacturing industries.

In 2017, Shuchisnigdha Deb et al.

(11) explained the efficacy of VR in pedestrian safety research, and Martin Meißner et al. (12) dis­ cussed how VR can be used to enhance shoppers’

experience. There has also been some interest in us­ ing VR to aid with care for the elderly.

The world of immersive technology is evolving rapidly. Alongside VR, we currently have Augmen­ ted Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR) and the all­ encompassing term—Ex­ tended Reality (XR). De­ velopment of VR headsets is leaping forward too.

The new Oculus Quest 2 is a pair of standalone glasses with two control­ lers, all of which you can purchase now within a consumer budget (13). It is unclear where we will be in the next year, let alone in another 10 years.

One thing is certain, im­ mersive technology is rap­ idly becoming a household name and will soon find its place just like laptops and smartphones that came before it.

This article was written

by Sarune Savickaite. It was specialist edited by Ioannis John Vourganas and copy­edited by Mais Al­Attili. Layout by Rebecca Budgett.

Sarune Savickaite has a BA Hons Illustration from the University of Bedfordshire, BSc Hons Psychology from the University of St Andrew and she currently is a PhD candidate in the School of Psychology, College of Science & Engineering. Her PhD involves looking into perceptual aspects of Autism and exploring it using Virtual Reality.

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we so afraid of it?

The Importance of Fat Annabell Macphee has a look at the vital biological functions of fat and questions the demonisation of this organ in today’s day and age.

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hen one types the word “fat” into any online search engine, the internet presents a full list of almost threatening reasons why one should immediately consider los­ ing weight. Incidentally, it provides seemingly ma­ gical remedies against obesity simultaneously, ranging from protein shakes and powders to strict diets and workout regimes. It comes as no

big surprise that although advertising companies promise to improve your health first and foremost, the diet industry has gained an even larger net worth and influence on the stock market since the start of the pandemic (1).

The multi­billion pound industry benefits from the public’s fear of weight gain and fat. But what exactly does fat do in the human body? And why are

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Fat, or in more scientific terms, adipose tissue, is loose connective tissue made of various cell types (about a third of them be­ ing adipocytes). These cells store fat in the form of triglycerides (2). Fat can be categorised into three separate subgroups: white, brown, and beige adipose tissue. White fat, which is found under­ neath the skin and around the organs, makes up most of the fat found in the human body. It has been attributed with en­ ergy storage and releases power when needed, for example, during exercise (3). Brown fat, on the oth­ er hand, serves to gener­ ate heat by burning energy but only makes up around 1­2% of adult adipose tissue. Beige fat describes the presence of brown fat cells in white adipose tissue. As well as brown fat, this tissue also burns energy to generate heat, but the genetic makeup of beige cells dif­ fers from its brown coun­ terpart (4).

..why are we so afraid of it?

These functions were once thought to be definit­ ive. However, an increased interest in research sur­ rounding fat tissue due to a rise in cases of morbid obesity has slightly turned the tables. The first signi­ ficant breakthrough that shifted the perspective surrounding the function

34

of fat away from this very two­dimensional under­ standing was the discov­ ery of the leptin hormone.

This hormone is respons­ ible for signalling sati­ ation to the brain.

Researchers found that fat cells secrete leptin into the bloodstream propor­ tional to the amount of fat present; the more fat tis­ sue in the body, the more leptin is released and, consequently, the farther

mone secretion into the blood. It turns out though that these hormones are only a fraction of what fat cells have in store; they can also secrete proteins and even genetic materi­ al, meaning they can in­ fluence various other reaction pathways. In re­ turn, they can also re­ ceive signals from their surroundings.

For instance, fat cells respond to cortisol (a ..the diet industry has gained an hormone even larger net worth and influ- crucial for ence on the stock market since the the body’s response to start of the pandemic. hunger levels fall. Re­ versely, prolonged fasting decreases the amount of leptin in blood and hence makes one hungrier. Be­ cause of this significant impact leptin has on the metabolism, any changes to this system such as fasting or genetic muta­ tions can cause hormonal imbalances that, espe­ cially in the case of muta­ tions, can have adverse health implications such as obesity (5).

However, leptin is only the tip of the iceberg.

Many other hormones secreted by adipose tissue, also known as adipokines, have since been dis­ covered. The current sci­ entific consensus agrees that fat is not just a depot for energy, but instead functions as a metabolic­ ally active, endocrine or­ gan (6). This means that chemical reactions take place in fat cells that partly contribute to hor­

35

stress) and insulin. The latter is critical for the body’s ability to balance blood sugar levels.

All these properties en­ able adipose tissue to in­ fluence many vital functions of the human body. But this means that when fat cells are dysfunc­ tional, the effects can be detrimental to physical health. The general public associates adipose tissue swiftly with illnesses such

..is it all too little too late?

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as diabetes and cardiovas­ cular disease, and it has been proven that many diseases, including 13 dif­ ferent cancers, are linked to obesity (5). It is import­ ant to note though, as seen with mutations linked to leptin, that un­ derlying causes for these health complications are not just diet and exercise.

These causes are incred­ ibly complex, varied, and depend on genetics, hor­ mones, as well as lifestyle and environmental factors (not having yet considered underlying socio­economic reasons).

Additionally, current research implic­ ates that the distribution of fat is actually more im­ portant than the amount in the body, which is why there is a distinction to be made between metabolic­ ally healthy body fat per­ centage distribution and unhealthy obesity. The latter is characterised by properties such as insulin resistance and high levels of inflammation, whereas with healthy body fat dis­

tribution, where most of ..fat is not just a depot for So far, what we are the fat is located under energy, but instead functions certain about is that fat the skin, these features as a metabolically active, well­functioning tissue is essential for are lacking. This shows endocrine organ our health and functional that health related to body metabolism.

Therefore, fat percentage is depend­ man body. A crucial factor next time the internet of­ ent on the individual’s in gaining a better under­ fers quick solutions to specific circumstances (4). standing in adipose tissue “improve” your body fat is to diversify which ex­ percentage in a few short Yet, one thing is import­ perimental subjects fu­ weeks, remember that ant to keep in mind: re­ ture theses will be tested this organ is too complic­ search surrounding fat on. For example, most re­ ated for it to be “fixed” tissue is far from com­ search thus far was con­ simply by drinking an plete. There are so many ducted on male mice, even overpriced detox tea. chemical pathways linked though it is known that to fat that have yet to be fat functions differ­ understood, and their full ently in male discovery will raise more and female questions around the im­ organisms portance of fat in the hu­ (5).

This article was written by Annabell Macphee, specialist edited by Siobhan McGeechan and copy­edited by Evita Muller. Layout design by Miriam Scarpa.

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Should I stay or should I go?

The balance between work and life in academia Julia Salafranca questions the current dynamics in academia regarding work-life balance.

P

ursuing a PhD after graduating often seems like a sensible idea to life sciences students who enjoy laboratory work. A career in aca­ demia allows for more ex­ ploratory and independent research which offers a very interesting perspect­ ive for many “science lov­ ers”. While passion for one’s work is often a great asset in this field, it can be taken advantage of.

Total commitment is often taken for granted since scientists’ work is seen as vocational.

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This perspective on sci­ ence might be due to a combination of low funds assigned to R&D, excess­ ive working hours, modest salary, and the fact that a high number of scientists chose their career path due to their interest in science (1).

Following conversations with PhD students at sci­ ence fairs or from differ­ ent laboratories, the main sensation is discourage­ ment. Their experiences are usually marked by high stress, lack of social

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life, or even health prob­ lems. In a survey of 50,000 graduate students in the UK, 86% of the re­ searchers declared high levels of anxiety (2), while a survey of 6300 gradu­ ates from around the world reported that 36% needed help with anxiety or depression related to their PhD (3).

Researchers are highly pressured to obtain res­ ults, achieve grants to continue their research, and publish break­ throughs in their field in

highly influential and renowned journals. Since academia is highly com­ petitive, working overtime and even on the weekend

Working overtime and even on the weekend seems like an assumed reality for many scientists, especially during their PhD seems like an assumed reality for many scient­ ists, especially during their PhD. This led me to question the current dy­ namics of academia and the importance of main­ taining a work­life bal­ ance. I can tell you now: the main advice I can offer you is summarised in one of the most famous songs of The Clash, asking whether “should I stay or should I go now”.

between three and five years to complete. It is key to understand that the work in academia and during a PhD is a long­ distance race. Thus, it is important to establish and complete smaller goals to keep yourself motivated, ensuring you are on track and com­ pleting your tasks.

• Make a schedule and ensure you don’t overwork yourself. Many students take on extra teaching commitments to earn ex­ tra money, adding more to their workload. So, it is important to make a dis­ tinction between your life and your work. Taking time off will improve your mental health and in­ crease your productivity.

It is likely you will see coworkers not taking time off and coming in during the weekends, but do not

It is highly worrying that rates of anxiety and depression are so high and on the rise for PhD stu­ dents. Many researchers who are passionate about their field end up con­ sumed by their work, spending almost 24 hours thinking about their re­ search and not enjoying life outside the laboratory.

Therefore, it is key to es­ tablish guidelines, both at individual and organisa­ tional levels, to ensure improvements to mental health in academia. Some suggestions are:

give in to peer pressure.

You are doing your job well and you need to rest as well. Hence, make sure you take holidays and use all of your allocated days.

Moreover, try to balance your schedule by avoiding working at the weekend or taking an afternoon or day off the following week if you had to come in on a Saturday.

• Establish small goals.

Carrying out a research proposal can take many years, and PhDs take

• Practice resilience. Fail­ ure has always been part of life and it is often present in research. We

You are doing your job well and you need to rest as well.

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have to come to terms with the fact that our ex­ periments are not always going to have our expected outcome, yet we can al­ ways learn from these ex­ periences. Additionally, it is critical to change the notion that negative res­ ults are not important in research, since they con­ tribute to the field’s know­ ledge and can save money and time in resources. Be­ ing resilient is also key to facing and accepting neg­ ative feedback for a presentation or a thesis that you have been work­ ing very hard on since these suggestions will help you become a better scientist and will improve the quality of your re­ search.

• Seek help and advice to improve your mental health if you find yourself struggling with stress, de­ pression, or anxiety. It is essential to have a strong support network and to request the help of profes­ sionals if necessary. You can reach out to your fam­ ily, friends or even lab col­ leagues. If we have learned anything from this very isolating year, it is that many people share our struggles and will be there to lend a helping hand in support.

• Stay active. Laboratory work promotes being sedentary and researchers spend many hours sitting down reading papers, us­ ing their computers, and planning experiments. It has been proven that

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physical activity and exer­ cise are linked to better mental health, reduced stress and improvements in quality of sleep (4). You should do at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity each week (5). Although this sounds like a lot, it is only 30 minutes for 5 days. So, take a walk at lunch, get off the bus one stop earli­ er, take the stairs, or do yoga. Moreover, if you are seated down for many hours, try to keep good posture and get up every 1 or 2 hours to stretch and walk a few steps.

• Self­care is critical. Find time for yourself, read, knit, roller skate, play video games, paint… The list is endless. Just find a hobby that makes you happy and helps take your mind off work.

• Meet your team. It is im­ portant to promote team­ work within the department, through

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laboratory meetings and activities, as well as col­ laboration with other de­ partments within the institute. This will not only improve the quality of research but also provide a more welcoming and friendly environment since some laboratories can be quite isolating. If you are the only student in your lab, don’t worry; most research institutes have a PhD student net­ work to meet people from other laboratories.

Moreover, if your institute is affiliated to a uni­ versity, you can always join activities offered by them or their Erasmus group.

• It is time for the institu­ tions to react. It would be interesting for research institutes to consider ex­ tra support for their workers such as counsel­ lors or accessible re­ sources to cope with stress and any other difficulties.

Finally, statistics show

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that struggling with men­ tal health and failing to maintain a work­life bal­ ance is a common situ­ ation in academia, especially amongst early­ career researchers. There­ fore, it is worth consider­ ing implementing seminars where research­ ers share their experi­ ences with this issue and their means to tackle it.

Although pursuing a ca­ reer in academia can be challenging, it should not subject researchers to ex­ treme stress and an un­ reasonable level of commitment. We must put our mental health first and take necessary ac­ tions to avoid these situ­ ations, for example, by following the suggested guidelines above. Never­ theless, work­life balance cannot be improved with measures only at an indi­ vidual level but the dy­ namics of academia need to change. This will provide a better working

environment, an improve­ ment in mental health and consequently an in­ crease in productivity.

Personally, I am still very confident and excited to start my PhD next aca­ demic year. However, as an overachiever and somebody prone to over­ work, I know I will have to organise myself well to avoid becoming burnt out.

After many students shared their research ex­ periences with me, I am certain that a good work­ life balance is critical to accomplishing a PhD and not becoming a science zombie. To do so, I made a promise to myself to try to avoid working on week­ ends, take all my assigned holidays, travel as much as I can, and enjoy my PhD whilst producing good and meaningful data.

So in a few words, next time we are in the lab un­ til 8 pm we should ask ourselves, as The Clash did, “should I stay or should I go now?”

This article was written by Julia Salafranca Gomez, specialist edited by Emma Parsons and copy­edited by Dzachary Zainudden.

Layout was designed by Miriam Scarpa and Artwork was done by Maria Clara Liuzzi.

My name is Julia and I am a 4th year Immunology student from Spain. My main field of interest is Rheumatology and I want to pursue a PhD in academia when I graduate.

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