Into The Void Science - JUNE 2018 - Issue #2

JUNE 2018

INTO THE VOID

SCIENCE

Adam Spencer Gets His Geek on

Limbitless Future Prosthesis

Famelab Winner Vanessa Pirotta Talks Whale Snot

Cover Image

A dry fracture of a Vero cell exposing the contents of a vacuole where Coxiella burnetii are busy growing. Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

Into the void

Science

June 2018 / Issue #2 WWW.ITVSCIENCE.COM

Founder / Editor Cameron Costigan Editorial Contributors Aaron Dingle Elizabeth Suk-Hang Lam Jesse Crowe Professional Proofreader Susan Dunn Business Sponsors BC Marketing Imperial College London Brainbee University of Cambridge This is 42

WWW.ITVSCIENCE.COM

About Us Science is all around us in the modern world but too many of us take it for granted. Our mission is to ‘Inspire the World with Science’ and to help people think of science as more than just another subject at school.

Foreword - Cameron Costigan Do you know what a femtosecond is? Well, I hope so because we have introduced a new section, celebrating scientists working tirelessly right now. We also welcome ‘This is 42’ into this issue and thank them for organising the DR Michio Kaku 2018 tour around Australia. I was lucky enough to meet Dr Kaku last time he was in Australia and the night was amazing. Grab your tickets now.

Advertising Inquiries We offer competitive advertising rates for select pro-science businesses. Contact us today to see how we can boost your exposure to key demographics in your industry.

Send us your inquiry to marketing@itvscience.com

Congratulations Vanessa Pirotta Australia’s 2018 winner of Famelab

Whales are massive marine mammals well equipped for living in the ocean. One of their most well-known adaptations is the position of their nostrils, which is located above their head. This allows for the rapid exhalation of carbon dioxide and the rapid intake of fresh oxygen. Previously, that spray or whale blow, which can be seen rising from the surface of the water as a whale takes a breath, was thought to be just water. However, over recent years, scientists have discovered this to be much more. It’s an organic mixture of biological health information which contains health information such as DNA, hormones, bacteria and so much more coming from the lungs. By sampling whale snot, we can learn more about whale health.

In the past, health information such as whale snot came from whales that had stranded on shore, in which case their health was compromised or taken from those deliberately killed (hunted).

Current attempts to capture whale snot from free-swimming whales often involves the use of a pole with collection device at the end of it. This does work however, this involves very close boat approaches to large whales which can be dangerous for both the whale and scientists.

My research uses new technology such as drones to make sampling from whales a lot easier. I worked with a drone pilot and engineer Alastair Smith from Heliguy Scientific and together we designed and built waterproof drones with flip-lid Petri dishes. Our aim was to collect whale snot from free swimming humpback whales for an assessment of whale health. After a year of development and testing, we were able to refine our method and successfully collected whale snot from northward migrating humpback whales off Sydney, Australia.

In the lab, I carefully extracted bacterial DNA from the samples.

The samples were then sent for next-generation sequencing. This provided a library of the types of bacteria found in our samples. We compared our samples with sea water and air samples also collected off Sydney and were able to show that our drone was indeed collecting whale snot. This was great news.

These samples provide baseline information for the types of bacteria living in free swimming humpback whales off the east coast of Australia. I was also able to compare our findings with similar studies conducted in the Northern Hemisphere and found some overlap in the types of bacteria found in whale lungs. This is just the first step toward non-invasive sampling of whale health.

We can compare these samples to sick whales and other humpback whale populations around the world to learn more about whale health. In the future, I would like to adapt this method to learn more about the health of more threatened whale species, such as the southern right whale.

Vanessa will now go on to Cheltenham in the UK to compete in the international Famelab competition in June. We wish you the best of luck.

Once a whale was spotted, the drone was flown from the back of a research vessel over to the whale or pod of whales. As a whale took a breath, the drone was flown through the densest part of the whale snot. The use of the flip lid ensured that we minimised contamination of our samples. This meant the petri dish was opened just before a whale took a breath and then shut immediately after the drone flew through the sample.

WWW.ITVSCIENCE.COM

3

’s sn

ot w

ater

4

That

Europa’s Ocean This image shows two views of the trailing hemisphere of Europa. The left image shows the approximate natural colour appearance of Europa. The image on the right is a false-colour composite version combining violet, green and infrared images to enhance colour differences in the predominantly water-ice crust of Europa. Europa remains one our solar system’s greatest candidates for finding life outside our planet.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DLR

WWW.ITVSCIENCE.COM

ADAM SPENCER Australia’s Comedy & Math Genius

Adam Spencer has been a breakfast radio announcer on Triple J and ABC Sydney, tv personality on everything from comedies, Good News Week and The Glasshouse to weekly sports wrap the Back Page and is a member of Sleek Geeks Science Team with Dr Karl Kruszelnicki. So we thought it was high time we sat down and had a chat with Adam to get the low down on math, Comedy and AI. Q: I was in my late teens when I used to listen to you on Triple J and loved your humour and I was surprised to see your mug on a book about numbers some years later. Have you always loved numbers and math or was this something that developed later in life?

Adam: Absolutely from my earliest days. And I was actually at The University of Sydney doing a PhD in Pure mathematics when I won Triple J’s inaugural Raw Comedy. That’s how I got started in radio. It was such a big part of my thinking at that time, I carried a lot of the geeky maths across into the radio show – not to everyone’s delight I must say!

Q: For kids and teens or even adults struggling with math, what advice can you offer to inspire them?

Adam: The important thing is to hang in and keep trying. Don’t be afraid to ask someone about things that don’t make sense and don’t move on to the next bit until the current bit makes sense. You’ll get there.

Q: What’s your favourite number or equations?

Adam: The thing I most enjoy explaining to people, to really blow their minds, is that some infinities are bigger than others!

Q: Why do you think so many kids fall out of love with maths?

Adam: I won’t run down teachers – it’s a noble and dignified profession and one we don’t value enough. But we need more primary school and early high school teachers who really love mathematics and can communicate their passion for the subject.

Q: Do you think the government could be doing more to encourage kids to take up STEM? Adam: If I could change one thing in the Australian education system, I’d have every primary school equipped with one classroom that was a ‘lab’ with a specialist science teacher. Every school I’ve seen that uses this model gets incredible results. Kids queue up during lunch to get the best seats. That kindles the fire from the youngest of ages.

Q: We love it when we see or hear an accurate scientific idea portrayed in pop culture media, do you think pop culture (TV shows, comics, movies etc) have a role to play in inspiring younger generations?

Adam: Yes, but we have to be wary of the downside. For all the good “Big Bang Theory” may do normalising physics, there is the damage that can be done by movies or TV shows that depict one dimensional mad genius scientists, (who are always white men) and potentially turn off a generation of students.

Q: Favourite element in the Periodic table?

Adam: Carbon goes pretty well.

Q: Now we know you’re a funny dude so tell us your best science or math joke Adam: The square root of minus one is chatting to his psychologist.

“Describe yourself in one word” the psych asks. “Complex” Q: There is a lot of positive and negative reporting on AI. What’s your thoughts on the topic?

Adam: Massively important. Will definitely happen. Potentially of great benefit to humanity, but we must be extremely wary of the downsides of creating a generalised super intelligence if we haven’t worked out how to put safeguards in place to make sure it’s operation aligns with our goals.

Get 20% off Adam’s new book ‘The Number Games’ with coupon code STEM from www.adamspencer.com.au WWW.ITVSCIENCE.COM

JUNE 2018

Cosmic Symphony Listening to the sounds of the universe

By Elizabeth Suk-Hang Lam

While many of you might have pointed your telescopes to the sky to watch the stars on the 23rd May, have you ever thought about listening to the universe instead? While visually cosmic worlds are spectacular, their melodies can be magical.

Most of us assume that studying astronomy is observing the universe through telescopes with our eyes but, our ears can also “observe” the universe too! Instead of watching the distant stars and galaxies some scientists study the universe with sound!

The sound of the Cosmos Scientists have been listening to the sound of the universe for some time now. In fact, Voyager 1, the spacecraft tasked with the mission to study the outer Solar system, has recorded the sounds of electrons in outer space. Waves of electrons in ionized gas (plasma) occur at frequencies that we can hear, by studying the pitch and frequencies of the sound scientists can know the position of Voyager 1. It has a lower pitch when Voyager 1 is still under the influence of the wind from the sun, while it has a higher pitch when it is in the outer most parts of space.

Mapping astronomical data into sound Voyager 1 has debunked the tagline from the movie Alien, “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Other than recording the actual sound in outer space, scientists have found ways to convert data received from the cosmos into sound.

Our ears are actually better at recognizing and distinguishing patterns than our eyes. Our eyes can distinguish flashes of images at a frequency of 50Hz, but our ears can sense up to 20 kHz! Our ears are almost 400 times more sensitive than our eyes! So, scientists have made use of our hearing power and have translated astronomical data into sounds for investigations!

With the power of listening, not only can scientists analyze and find similarities and differences between galaxies from a large pool of data, people with limited knowledge in astronomy can also discern details of the data. Astronomy is not the world for scientists with good eyesight, people with visual impairment can also study the cosmic world and continue to bring advancement to the field!

Background Image Credit: NASA

So how is sound related to astronomical objects? Some scientists have developed strategies for mapping astronomical data into sound. For example, the high and low pitch of musical notes can represent the velocity and motion of stars, while the volume of sound can symbolize their energy.

An astounding auditory observation of the universe is the merging of black holes. When the two black holes collide, they produce gravity waves and they have the same frequency as sound waves!

As the black holes come closer and closer together, the gravitational waves have a higher frequency and so we can hear a higher pitch when they merge. Scientists call these sounds “chirps” because they sound like a bird’s chirp.

Not only we can hear sound from deep space, we can also hear sound within our solar system! The largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter makes some weird noises. The fast-spinning metallic core of Jupiter creates a strong magnetic field, creating sounds of sea waves, and when one of its satellites, Io, interact with the magnetic field, we will hear sounds like popping popcorn!

Symphonies of the universe Recently, scientists have brought the sound of the universe to life, converting data into a beautiful melodic symphony. Since different phases of gas in the galaxies have different features in their emission, scientists used different instruments to represent them; acoustic base represents gas atoms, wood blocks or piano represent gas molecules, and saxophone represents gas ions. In addition, since the motion of the gas is related to its frequency (Doppler shifts), the velocities of the gas correspond to the pitch of musical notes. The intensity of the emission determines the rhythm, with brighter emissions, having longer note durations. These all together result in “Milky Way Blues”, which describes how gas orbits around the centre of our galaxy. Scientists from the University of California have even launched the Astronomy Sound of the Month that features the melody produced from real astronomy data.

While new discoveries are expected to come, let’s sit back and watch and listen to the “wow” of the universe!

Listen to the Cosmos now!

Limbitless

How will we replace lost limbs in the future?

By Aaron Dingle

Humans have been losing limbs since the dawn of time, be it from an altercation with a sabre tooth tiger or a YouTube fail video.

Historically, battle wounds incurred during major wars have been the primary cause of limb loss and amputation. These days, vascular diseases such as diabetes are the leading cause of limb loss through amputation, affecting both men and women throughout the community.

While this has been shown to work in mice, the number of cells required to repopulate a human limb (or part thereof) is significantly greater, which represents a significant hurdle to achieving applications in humans. None the less, limb transplantation is entirely possible, and likely to become more frequent as our ability to modulate the immune system of both the donor and the recipient advance.

The loss of a limb is a life-changing event, that bears significant disability, not only affecting the individual but their family and the wider community as a whole. Throughout history, we have tried to overcome such disabilities by replacing limbs with prostheses. The oldest record of prosthesis use comes from ancient Hindu texts Rig Veda, describing the story of a Warrior-Queen fitted with an iron leg, allowing her to return to battle; first published between 3500 and 1800 B.C. The earliest physical evidence of a prosthesis comes from Circa 710 B.C; a big toe made of cartonnage (an ancient Egyptian form of paper maché) found on a female mummy in Egypt. The fact that the toe was included in the mummification indicates that the toe was more than a functional replacement for a lost toe, but may have been a spiritual endeavour to enter the afterlife “whole”. This toe highlights the importance of not only replacing the function of lost limbs but also providing the person with a feeling of completeness and self. So where do we stand today, as far as replacing the function and feeling of wholeness for those who have lost limbs?

Limb regeneration is one of the most desired methods for replacing lost limbs; however, it is also the least feasible. Several species have the ability to regenerate lost limbs; such as the Salamander and are thoroughly researched for their ability to do so. Unfortunately, mammals lack the ability to regenerate. There is a long-standing debate amongst surgeons that babies operated on while still in utero do not form scars and hence have the capacity to regenerate, which is somehow lost as we develop. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that adult mammals can regenerate very small amounts of tissue, such as fingertips under the right conditions. What constitutes these ideal conditions are yet to be discovered.

Electrical stimulation of amputated rodent limbs has shown an ability to enhance regeneration ever so slightly, but significantly.

Just how electrical stimulation would affect the human ability to regenerate, is yet to be studied.

Prostheses still represent the most widely applicable method for limb replacement globally. Furthermore, prosthetic technology has moved in leaps and bounds over the last decade, to now encompass a range of robotic upper and lower limb replacements capable of replicating many of the functions of the limbs they replace, including a sense of touch. The current limitation to the widespread adaption of this technology is the ability to integrate the robotic prosthesis with the biological tissues of the limb stump, particularly nerves that control the limb, to enable natural control of the prosthesis. America is currently the world leader in developing this novel technology, which is likely to become a widespread reality within the next decade or so.

Limb transplantation is now a reality that serves to replace an amputee’s limbs with that of a deceased donor. Over 100 hand and upper limb transplants have been performed globally, with excellent patient outcomes and high graft survival. However, as with any transplant, the risk of graft rejection is a distinct possibility and so lifelong immunosuppression is required. New technologies to reduce the incidence of rejection without the need for immunosuppression is a high priority for many nations but remains elusive due to the complexity of the immune system. One distant option is to completely remove the cells from a donor limb and repopulate the limb with the cells of the recipient; ultimately avoiding detection of the limb as foreign by the immune system.

Image Credits: Open Bionics

As these collective technologies advance, both independently and collaboratively, we are likely to be witness to many of these exciting advances in limb replacement. For the time being, prosthesis remains the most widely applicable technology for replacing limbs. As the new age of robotic prostheses dawns, complete with neural control and the ability to experience touch, we may ask the question, do we even need to replace our limbs with tissue, or can we improve the human condition past the limitations of this meat sack that houses and protects our brain?

“Biochemical reaction that produces OH radicals and breaks down bacteria.”

NanoZyme

Killers The Fight Against Bacteria Just Went Nano

CURRENT RESEARCH

by Cameron Costigan

Scientists from RMIT University have created a new artificial enzyme that uses visbile light on the nanoscale to nuke bacteria. This discovery could be a game changer for hospitals and doctor’s offices that have to deal with deadly bacteria like Golden Staph and E-Coli. This could be a greatly needed change in the winds of war against antimicrobial resistance bacteria which, kills thousands of people every year and as their names suggest, even our strongest antibiotics are useless against them.

The NanoZymes work in a solution that mimics the fluid in a wound. This solution could be sprayed onto surfaces, mixed into paints, blended into ceramics and possibly other consumer applications.

Just imagine never having to be worried about the surfaces in a public restroom and think of the amount of chemical cleaning that would not have to be performed anymore. The researchers believe their new technology may even have the potential to create self-cleaning toilet bowls.

Golden Staph is the number one cause of hospital-acquired secondary infection and E-Coli can cause gastroenteritis, severely hindering a patients chances of recovery. The new ‘NanoZyme’ is made up of tiny nanorods which are 1000 times smaller than a human hair. “Our NanoZymes are artificial enzymes that combine light with moisture to cause a biochemical reaction that produces OH radicals and breaks down bacteria. Nature’s antibacterial activity does not respond to external triggers such as light,” says Professor Vipul Bansal, an Australian Future Fellow and Director of RMIT’s Sir Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility.

“The next step will be to validate the bacteria killing and wound healing ability of these NanoZymes outside of the lab,” Bansal said. “This NanoZyme technology has huge potential, and we are seeking interest from appropriate industries for joint product development.”

“For a number of years we have been attempting to develop artificial enzymes that can fight bacteria, while also offering opportunities to control bacterial infections using external ‘triggers’ and ‘stimuli’,” Bansal said. “Now we have finally cracked it.”

“We have shown that when shined upon with a flash of white light, the activity of our NanoZymes increases by over 20 times, forming holes in bacterial cells and killing them efficiently” “This next generation of nanomaterials are likely to offer new opportunities in bacteria-free surfaces and controlling spread of infections in public hospitals.”

A 3D rendering shows dead bacteria and where it has been eaten by the NanoZymes.

Image Credit: Dr Chaitali Dekiwadia/ RMIT Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility

17

3×10 Femtoseconds of Fame Real Scientists Explain Their Work

Transparent Conductors Dr. Hugh G. Manning, Boland Research Group

AMBER Centre & School of Chemistry Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland Transparent conductors are the not so well known, but vitally important, optically transparent and electrically conductive layer in touch-panels, screens, solar cells etc.

The material which has typically been used for this application is called indium tin oxide, or ITO. The problem with ITO is that it’s expensive and it’s very brittle, so no good for flexible applications.

Over the past 5 years, and funded by the European Research Council we have been looking at a new material called a nanowire network. A nanowire is a wire, just on the nanoscale. It has a diameter which is about 1000 times the width of a human hair.

elements like touch-panels, screens, lighting, solar cells, and more.

One area of our research involves measuring the properties of the nanowire, we work with our collaborators in the school of physics to build computational models which predict the performance of these materials and look at ways of improving them. We make precise electrical measurements on the junctions, the overlap between two nanowires, if this connection is very good the network performance is good if the connection is bad it needs to be improved.

You can contact Hugh on: manninh@tcd.ie

We deposit nanowires made of silver onto a surface and form a network. We use a simple spray deposition process which allows us to put these networks onto plastics. Due to the size of the wires and the gaps between them they let a lot of light through. This makes them transparent and because they are made of silver they can be highly electrically conductive.

These network materials are also very flexible and can be bent or rolled and stretched while still being electrically conductive. This allows us to think of new types of devices which have flexible

WWW.ITVSCIENCE.COM

Want to feature your work? Contact us!

On the quest for the ideal sunscreen Natércia Das Neves Rodrigues, PhD student at the University of Warwick It is now well established that ultraviolet (UV) radiation is related to skin cancer. Despite the body’s own protection (melanin) and the wide availability of commercial sunscreens, skin cancer incidence is still rising. Consequently, the sunscreen industry is looking to improve their current sunscreen active ingredients in order to provide optimum photoprotection. Employing ultrafast laser spectroscopy techniques to the study of light-induced processes in sunscreen molecules can provide a molecular rationale for sunscreen development.

The ultraviolet (UV) radiation which reaches the Earth’s surface – mainly UVB (280 – 315 nm) and UVA (315 – 400 nm) – is essential for sustaining life. In humans, for example, UV radiation initiates production of vitamin D, which provides protection against musculoskeletal disorders, as well as autoimmune and cardiovascular diseases. Nevertheless, UV radiation is also related to erythema (sunburn), skin ageing and carcinogenesis – namely, to melanoma, one of the most aggressive human cancers. While the skin has its own natural protection against radiative stress (in the form of melanin) and despite a wide range of commercially available photoprotective lotions, i.e. sunscreens, skin cancer incidence is still on the rise.

The urgent need for more efficient sunscreens is, therefore, obvious. The ideal sunscreen should not only be a strong UVA/UVB absorber which poses no risk to human health or the environment while being easily incorporated in an aesthetically pleasing commercial formulation it also needs to follow energy relaxation mechanisms which ensure no harmful photochemistry/photophysics (jointly termed photodynamics) take place.

This implies that relaxation is fast (excited states are short-lived) so that there is less probability of energy transfer to other components of the sunscreen mixture or the skin itself, and that the relaxation mechanisms does not yield reactive photoproducts.

Such mechanisms typically occur within an ultrafast timescale, that is, femtoseconds to picoseconds (10^-15 and 10^-12s, respectively), hence ultrafast laser spectroscopy techniques need to be employed in their study.

Once the photoprotective mechanisms of action are established, the molecular structure of sunscreen agents can be manipulated in order to either enhance the desired energy redistribution mechanisms or hinder any relaxation pathways that may lead to harmful side photochemistry or energy transfer to neighbouring species. The effects of molecular structure and/or the environment, as well as the behaviour of sunscreen agents when part of a complex sunscreen formulation, also need to be evaluated. Such a bottom-up approach has the potential to revolutionise the field of sunscreen design.

You can contact Nat on: N.das-Neves-Rodrigues@warwick.ac.uk

Targeted Neuropl Research Into A New Method Of Learning Called “TNT” Is Exploding! By Jesse Crowe ‘The Travelling Scientist’

Remember that scene in ‘The Matrix’ where Keanu Reeves is plugged into a computer and suddenly he opens his eyes and states “I know kung-fu”? Well, that technology is being developed as we speak.

Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) is currently undergoing research funded by the US military. The theory is that external stimulation of the nervous system might induce the release of neuro-modulators in the brain to increase synaptic plasticity and strengthen the formation of new neuronal connections throughout the brain. By combining this increased plasticity with specific training programs, new skills could be learned and mastered at a much faster rate than traditional learning strategies.

Another advantage of bioelectric medicine maybe its reduced side effects when compared to nootropic drugs. While such drugs have been shown to improve memory formation and attention spans, they can cause unwanted side-effects including headaches, anxiety and even addiction. The stimulation of nerves is specifically targeted and, as a result, should have a negligible effect outside the brain, although further testing is needed to confirm this.

Recent studies have shown that external stimulation of the peripheral nervous system (painless electroshocks to the skin) can promote brain activity in areas associated with learning. By extending this research, scientists are attempting to understand more about maximising this brain activity and inducing synaptic plasticity. As a result, an individuals attention span, memory formation and learning ability could all be greatly enhanced.

This type of bioelectric medicine could also potentially be used to help people suffering from depression, attention deficit disorder (ADD), and other learning difficulties. Even serious diseases such as epilepsy could be treated through nerve stimulation, improving quality of life while preventing the need for invasive brain surgery or excessive drug treatments.

Background Photo credit : Illustration by Danny Jones.

Original images from EyeWire.

Matrix. Photo credit: Warner Bros.

lasticity Training The US military feels that certain skills such as marksmanship, cryptography and foreign languages require intense training regimens which are both costly and time-consuming, but expertise in such skills can mean life or death in military situations. Therefore, the development of new methods that could rapidly improve human cognition could save not only time and money but also lives in the long term.

In the future, such research could lead to the development of “downloadable knowledge�, the idea that if you want to learn about a certain topic, you could simply download it to your brain and instantly become an expert, although that could still be a few decades away. Experts at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are hoping to discover that learning efficiency can be improved by about 30%, proving that TNT is an effective method to enhance training.

So if you want to learn Kung-Fu instantly like in the Matrix, you might need to wait a few more years and probably join the U.S military. Or you could learn kung-fu the old fashioned way, repetition, repetition, repetition; but who has time for that right?

Nano Honeycomb could MAKE YOUR BATTERY LAST 100 TIME LONGER

By Cameron Costigan Scientists from The University of Missouri may have just solved one of the worlds greatest problems; Battery Life. If scalable into the real world their discovery could mean no more wall hugging in public places charging your phone or laptop just to get by. Their unique discovery employs a ‘Honeycomb’ lattice the exhibits distinctive electronic properties.

“Semiconductor diodes and amplifiers, which often are made of silicon or germanium, are key elements in modern electronic devices,” says Deepak K. Singh, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Missouri and principal researcher of the university’s Magnetism and Superconductivity Research Laboratory.

“A diode normally conducts current and voltage through the device along only one biasing direction, but when the voltage is reversed, the current stops,” Singh explains. “This switching process costs significant energy due to dissipation, or the depletion of the power source, thus affecting battery life. By substituting the semiconductor with a magnetic system, we believed we could create an energetically effective device that consumes much less power with enhanced functionalities.”

The researchers created a 2D nanostructure by depositing a magnetic alloy on the honeycomb structured template of a silicon surface. The new material conducts unidirectional currents and the material also has significantly less dissipative power compared to a semiconducting diode.

The magnetic diode is a trailblazing discovery and could lead to magnetic transistors and amplifiers that dissipate

very little power. This could allow future engineers and designers to create batteries that last 100 times longer than current technologies. Lower dissipative power in electronics could also reduce the amount of heat generated in devices too.

“Although more [work needs] to be done to develop the end product, the device could mean that a normal 5-hour charge could increase to more than a 500-hour charge,” Singh says.

“The device could also act as an ‘on/off switch’ for other periphery components such as closed-circuit cameras or radio frequency attenuators, which reduces power flowing through a device. We have applied for a US patent and have begun the process of incorporating a spin-off company to help us take the device to market.”

ART GIVEAWAY Do you want some gorgeous science inspired are for your home, office or lab? Then look no further because we are giving some away! To go into the draw to win your choice of a faux canvas print all you have to do is support us on Patreon during the month of June for as little as $1 & like our Facebook page to into the running. It’s that easy and all money raised will help us continue creating inspiring science projects.

Pick your favourite and let us know 1- Sunrise (Block Print) 2- Winds of Jupiter 3- LaunchX 4- Lunar Kaleidoscope

Terms & Conditions 1- Competition is open only to residents of Australia, USA, EU and UK. 2- One winner will be drawn at random on the 30/06/2018 3- We will announce the winner via Facebook, so please ensure you have liked the Into the Void Science page.

4- We will allow a max shipping cost of $30 AUD, any amount higher than this to reach you will need to be paid via PayPal prior to shipping.

5- The winner will be able to choose one of the faux canvas prints or woodblock print displayed in the magazine as their prize.

6- The winner will have 2 weeks to make contact with us to provide us with their full name and shipping address. After this period we reserve the right to draw a new winner.

AUSTRALIA’S RECYCLING CRISIS

By Jesse Crowe ‘The Travelling Scientist’ Recycling in Australia has stopped! Instead of being processed or shipped overseas, all of our recyclable materials are being stored in warehouses or thrown into a landfill. I know it’s hard to believe, but Australia is incapable of recycling its own waste and we need to find ways of dealing with this national crisis now.

Australia doesn’t have the infrastructure to recycle its own materials, and in the past, we have avoided the issue by shipping much of our recycling overseas to China.

However, the beginning of 2018 saw China banning the import of foreign waste, and as a result, Australia’s recycling has been piling up throughout the country.

A temporary solution has been to fill up several warehouses with our recyclables, storing them away to be dealt with in the future. How they will be dealt with is still uncertain. Many communities around Australia have already given up their recycling programs and started discarding all waste into landfill, claiming that the cost of collecting, sorting and storing the recycling is no longer worth the effort. It’s not a great solution, but apparently, there was no backup plan for our waste management once China stopped taking it off our hands.

One of the reasons China stopped accepting our recycling is because of high contamination levels. If there is non-recyclable material mixed in with recycling it can prevent other recyclable materials from being processed.

Greasy pizza boxes, mouldy milk bottles, soiled nappies, these things cannot be recycled, yet Australians everywhere will throw them in with their normal recycling, unaware that they are contaminating everything within that bin, dooming it all to landfill. In order to improve recycling and reduce contamination, better education around waste management and recycling is needed to inform more people how to dispose of their waste in a sustainable way.

3-Prohibit Plastic: Plastic bags, soft plastic packaging, glad wrap, stop using these things, as they are not sustainable.

Use paper bags, and try to avoid using soft plastics in general.

4-Curb Coffee: Take away coffee cups are not recyclable, and coffee pods from your kitchen aren’t much better. Use a Keep Cup or make yourself an instant coffee to reduce that daily coffee waste.

5-Make the Change: Implement simple changes like these into your everyday life and share them with your friends and family. If we want to keep recycling and protecting the environment in Australia, we need to start making changes to how we manage our waste today!

Australia needs to invest in building onshore recycling facilities in order to remedy this country-wide buildup of recyclable materials. This would also reduce the need for shipping our waste overseas to foreign nations or dumping it into landfill. However, this is a long-term solution that could take many years to organise, and we have waste building up at an alarming rate.

How much longer can this continue? Will we be the generation that depleted our resources and doomed the planet to a plastic apocalypse? Or will we be the heroes that found a sustainable solution to this mess?

Here are a few key tips to improve your recycling 1-Shop smarter: Try to reduce the amount of waste you purchase by finding alternative products that use little or no packaging. Visit local markets, and think critically about what you buy regularly.

2-Rinse Recyclables: Cans, bottles, hard plastics, whatever you’re recycling, make sure it is clean. If it isn’t, give it a rinse to reduce contamination. If you can’t rinse it, don’t recycle it.

We can all do better

Up Close bumblebee

MARS INSIGHT mission InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is a Mars lander designed to give the Red Planet its first thorough checkup since it formed 4.5 billion years ago. It is the first outer space robotic explorer to study in-depth the “inner space” of Mars: its crust, mantle, and core.

Studying Mars’ interior structure answers key questions about the early formation of rocky planets in our inner solar system; Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars - more than 4 billion years ago, as well as rocky exoplanets. InSight will also measure tectonic activity and meteorite impacts on Mars as they happen.

In comparison to the other terrestrial planets, Mars is neither too big nor too small. This means that it preserves the record of its formation and can give us insight into how the terrestrial planets formed. It is the perfect laboratory from which to study the formation and evolution of rocky planets. Scientists know that Mars has low levels of geological activity. But a lander like InSight can also reveal just how active Mars really is.

The lander uses cutting-edge instruments, to delve deep beneath the surface and seek the fingerprints of the processes that formed the terrestrial planets. It does so by measuring the planet’s “vital signs”: its “pulse” (seismology), “temperature” (heat flow), and “reflexes” (precision tracking). This mission is part of NASA’s Discovery Program for highly focused science missions that ask critical questions in solar system science.

InSight Science Mission Objectives The InSight mission seeks to uncover how a rocky body forms and evolves to become a planet by investigating the interior structure and composition of Mars. The mission will also determine the rate of Martian tectonic activity and meteorite impacts.

Previous missions to Mars have investigated the surface history of the Red Planet by examining features like canyons, volcanoes, rocks and soil. However, signatures of the planet’s formation can only be found by sensing and studying its “vital signs” far below the surface.

Image Credit: Insight Launch -D. ELLISON Lander & Mars Core, NASA

CHAMPIONS OF SCIENCE

Jocelyn Burnell Jocelyn Burnell is a world renowned astronomer who earned a PhD in radio astronomy from Cambridge University in 1968. So why is she a champion of science? Well, in 1965 whilst studying for her degree, she became one of several research assistants for Anthony Hewish and Martin Ryle. She helped contruct a massive radio telescope designed to monitor quasars and it became operational in 1967. Burnell was given the task of pouring over the huge amount of data that the new telecope produced and her keen eye spotted an anomalie in the information.

After reporting this to her superiors, the research team went about trying to explain the anomoly by eliminating all possible sources of interference which they comically refered to as ‘little green men’.

Once they were sure there was nothing causing the data anomoly in the equipment they were able to deduce that the data was correct and proved the existence of pulsars.

The groups findings were published in an issue of Nature in 1968 and caused an international sensation. At the time it was almost unheard of that a woman would be part of a published scientific discovery, let alone once of such significance. Hewish and Ryle received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974 for the discovery and much to the world’s dismay, Jocelyn Burnell was not included in the award.

Despite this disappointment Jocelyn Burnell didn’t take it to heart and she even rejected the notion that she should have been included due to status as a graduate student at the time, although she has also admitted that gender discrimination may have been a factor.

Well, we want you to know that we think you should have been awarded the Nobel Prize regardless of your status. Jocelyn Burnell, we salute you.

DISCOVERED PULSARS

Want us to feature someone?

Tell us Who! Jonas Salk In the early half of the 20th century Polio was considered one of the world’s largest public health problems, especially in post-WW2 USA. Poliomyelitis, more commonly known as Polio is a debilitating disease that causes symptoms of headaches, neck, back, abdominal and extremity pain, fever, vomiting, lethargy, and irritability. 1 in 1000 infections progress to paralytic disease, in which the muscles become weak, floppy and poorly controlled, and completely paralyzed.

In 1952 the USA experienced the worst outbreak of Polio in the nation’s history with 58,000 cases being reported. 3145 of these cases ended in death, while a staggering 21,269 we left with mild to complete paralysis, with many of the victims being children. Prior to this outbreak, Jonas Salk was already hard at work trying to determine the different types of the poliovirus. Salk assembled a team of highly skilled researchers and spent 7 years working tirelessly to create a vaccine.

Once they were ready for large-scale trials Salk setup one of the largest in modern history, involving 84,000 Doctors and health professionals, 200,000 volunteers and almost 1.8 Million school children. The success of these trails was made public in 1955 and Salk was hailed as a hero around the world. Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, West Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and

Belgium quickly instituted the polio vaccine the year after.

It is estimated that Salk would have made $7.5 billion dollars (adjusted for inflation) from the polio vaccine if he had patented it. When a reporter asked him who owned the patent he simply responded, “Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Jonas Salk saved millions of people around the world from suffering and wanted nothing in return; for this we salute you Jonas Salk

CREATED POLIO VACCINES

Help Us

Inspire the world with science We are more than just a magazine: we are a collective of like-minded science enthusiasts, scientists and all around good guys working toward a better future. We don’t just report science, we do science!

Currently, we are midway through our study of women working in STEM. The purpose of this study is to try and identify hurdles that women face when working within the STEM fields but also what drove them into their careers in the first place.

The study is not finalized yet but the figure to the right represents a small data set of respondents on what inspired them in regards to STEM below the ages of 12.

We hope our findings will further compliment current studies and help guide policymakers to inspire more young girls and women into careers within the Science, Technology, Engineering & Math Fields.

It’s not all datasets and studies either. We are working hard to bring you entertaining science articles, more video content, and even some science-inspired art!

Project Fiona Fox Our mission with this project is to create a series of books explaining and inspiring various different STEM topics to age groups around 6 to 10. The difference being is that the main character, ‘Fiona Fox’ will be a positive female role model. Now, this is not to say that our series will be excluding any gender, but it will focus on Fiona being a strong, smart and fun female role model. Using the data collected from our study and partnering with women working in STEM to help author the series we hope to engage more young girls with STEM.

We have hundreds of ideas to inspire science around the world, support us today!

This magazine was produced with our passion, Just Imagine what we could do with some funding WWW.ITVSCIENCE.COM