Into the Void Science - Issue 7 - November 2018

NOVEMBER 2018

INTO THE VOID

SCIENCE

The Science Behind Living Longer

Smart or Rich Which Helps More

Insect Extinction In Puerto Rico

Cover Image

Multiwavelength Image of the Crab Nebula Image Credit: NASA/Hubble

Into the void

Science

October 2018 / Issue #6

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Founder / Editor Cameron Costigan Editorial Contributors Elizabeth Suk-Hang Lam Jesse Crowe James Kolacz Professional Proofreader Susan Dunn

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 We run Into the Void Science from a deep desire to share science with the greater community, but we need your help. Running a magazine cost some real dollars and without your help, I am not sure how long we can continue. If you can, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Even a $1 a month commitment goes a long way to helping us.

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Cat’s Paw Nebula

This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Cat’s Paw Nebula, so named for the large, round features that create the impression of a feline footprint. The nebula is a star-forming region in the Milky Way galaxy, located in the constellation Scorpius. Estimates of its distance from Earth range from about 4,200 to about 5,500 light-years.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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The Science Behind Living Longer

By Jesse Crowe ‘The Travelling Scientist’ Do you wish you could live longer? Join the club. For thousands of years, humans have been looking for ways to live forever. Unfortunately, no such secrets have been discovered yet so nobody can live forever but some places around the world are home to groups of people that seem to live for a very long time. They are called “Blue Zones” and by studying the inhabitants of these zones we might be able to uncover the science behind their longevity.

There are 5 well documented Blue Zones located around the world.

1. Sardinia, an island off the coast of Italy 2. Okinawa, an island off the coast of Japan 3. Icaria, an island off the coast of Greece 4. Nicoya, a peninsula on the coast of Costa Rica 5. 7th Day Evangelists of Loma Linda in Los Angeles.

Seeing a pattern here? Four of these blue zones are all relatively small communities living in a coastal environment. The outlier in Los Angeles is a tight-knit community that follows strict religious practices. It is well documented that people living within these five Blue Zones have a significantly longer life expectancy relative to the average human lifespan.

So what is the secret to longer living?

Many would argue that your genetics largely dictate your life expectancy, but this theory has been disproven. A Danish study in 2006 determined that your genes are responsible for only a quarter of your lifespan and several review papers suggest that environmental and lifestyle factors have a major impact on one’s life expectancy. Using this information, it would be wise to look at the lifestyles of people living in the Blue Zones if you want to live a long, healthy life.

The Blue Zone diet involves eating almost no meat.

Numerous studies have shown that avoiding meat significantly reduces your risk of suffering from heart disease and cancer. A diet rich in vegetables, legumes, nuts and whole grains offers all of the nutrients required to live a long and healthy life.

Image: Okinawa Japan

Another important part of the Blue Zone diet is moderation, people don’t eat until they are stuffed and they don’t drink until they fall down, they only consume what is essential. It may not sound as appealing but that is the price you pay to keep your body living longer.

Blue Zone dwellers exercise daily, regardless of age.

They don’t go to the gym, they garden, they care for animals, they do chores to maintain not only their homes but also their bodies. Again, science backs this up with countless studies showing that the amount people exercise directly correlate with their life expectancy. To paraphrase the old adage ‘use your body or lose your body’.

Finally, people living in Blue Zones live with purpose!

Whether it is to provide for their family, to serve their religious beliefs or simply to tend to their garden.

It is theorised that having a purpose gives people a sense of well-being that keeps their bodies happy and healthy. Alternatively, in the western world, a large portion of people die within their first year of retirement, suggesting that once you lose your purpose in life you could lose your life. Therefore to live a long healthy life, give yourself a purpose in life and live for it!

There are a number of other factors that contribute to the longevity of the Blue Zone inhabitants (not smoking, strong social communities, family care, low-stress levels, healthy water intake) but the main reason for their long lives is a balance of a traditional lifestyle with modern day benefits such as improved wealth, living conditions and medical care.

Unfortunately, we can’t all live a traditional lifestyle in a small coastal community but we can learn from them and change our lifestyles to improve our health and wellbeing. As a result, you will be living more happily, more sustainably, and you will probably add years onto your life. So go ahead and start living your own Blue Zone lifestyle today.

Check out Jesse’s latest science videos

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In the field at Science Writers 2018 Conference

By Elizabeth Suk-Hang Lam

Flying from Australia to Washington D.C. was exhausting but being able to meet science writers from all around the globe at the Science Writers 2018 conference makes it all worthwhile.

Why is science writing important?

If a scientist or researcher could not tell the public about their research, they could not create a great impact from their findings. Science writing in the modern era bridges the gap between the science community and the general population. It does not only enhance public understanding of science but also sparks discussions and start conversations on frontier research, science policy and global issues. It requires great language skills to make abstract research accessible for people outside the field, and also a critical mind to speculate the science reports, identify those with good scientific methods and even shine a light on funding issues surrounding conflicts of interest.

The conference kicked off with a simple question, “Science writers are responsible for building public trust in science”.

Science writers can promote public understanding of science, but are they responsible for building public trust?

Before the debate, 64% of the participants agreed with the motion. The debate began, and some science communicators pointed out that science writers should not be the sole cheerleaders for science. When science fails, science writers have the obligation to present true stories instead of hiding the problems in science. Science grows from debates, failures and rebuttals. One of the audience members, Jill Adams argued whether political leaders should be responsible for building trust in democracy. Richard Harris from NPR continued to pick up on that, “Are sportswriters responsible for building trust in sports? How about business writers, are they responsible for building public trust in businesses? I think not.” It follows, therefore, that science writers should not be responsible for building trust in science. At the end of the debate, 60% of the audience was against the original motion.

“The ultimate goal is the appreciation of and support for the systematic approach to knowledge and discovery that science represents when it’s at its best,” said science communicator Louise Lief.

November 2018

It’s Smarter to be Rich Than Intelligent

By James Kolacz

Imagine as a child you are offered 2 pills and, ignoring mum’s sage advice about taking lollies from strangers, you select one. The blue pill makes you slightly smarter, whilst the red will make your parents significantly richer. Which one should you take? Recent Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) hint that, if you want to finish university, the red pill is far more valuable.

In simple terms, a GWAS analyses the entire genome of thousands of people and correlates certain mutations with certain traits. It allows researchers to scan a genome for mutations that might have a very small effect on an individual but, in collaboration with other mutations, might have a large impact on a certain trait. For example, there’s no ‘one gene’ that will single-handedly make someone tall, however, there are a plethora of genes that, when expressed together, might nudge someone out of Tom Cruise territory and into the Tom Hardy zone.

Similarly, there’s no single gene that determines whether you’ll be smart enough to create a matter transporter, or if you’ll spend your time trying to squeeze Simpsons references into articles where they just don’t fit.

A study published in Nature earlier this year analysed the genomes of over a million individuals.

It found associations at over 1,200 individual sites that correlated with an 11% variation in the chances of finishing university. Essentially, each of these sites in isolation had little to no effect on someone’s likelihood of finishing university but taken all together they start to build a more impressive picture. Researchers were then able to show that many of these genes were heavily expressed in brain development, further emphasising their potential importance for educational attainment.

Recently, economists took a surprising interest in genetic testing. They incorporated data concerning the genetic potential for educational attainment of 20,000 individuals with the income of the individual’s fathers. Essentially, prodigious children of low-income families had a 24% chance of graduating from university, whilst children with similar polygenetic scores but from high-income families had a whopping 63% graduation rate.

Indeed, even the children regarded as less

genetically endowed graduated at a rate of 27% -provided they were the children of wealthy parents.

Further to this, it was discovered that genes implying academic success were distributed evenly across income groups, yet actually observed success was anything but.

Now while these results may seem somewhat upsetting for the less financially lubricated amongst us, it’s important to note that all the genetic data was sourced from people of European descent, whilst all the economic data was drawn from retired American men, so just how relevant it might be for a slightly more socialist nation such as Australia (let alone any non-Europeans) is up for debate. The economists also used graduating from university as a proxy for financial gain, but as anyone who’s ever met a tradie post-apprenticeship could tell you, this is hardly the case.

There must also be a degree of scepticism attached to data from people who went to school over 40 years ago. Would the genes that implied success back then still imply success in the modern day, in an evolving schooling system?

This is one of the first forays of GWAS into the social sciences and, while there is still certainly room for improvement, it has allowed for greater control of results. Previously, to measure intelligence researchers had to rely on IQ tests, but results of these tests are impacted immediately by upbringing.

Previous studies have shown that a child’s IQ score can be impacted by their parent’s career, education and wealth. Here, genetic testing has allowed us to isolate potential from an environment and show that, in some cases, the environment is more than twice as important.

17

3×10 Femtoseconds of Fame Real Scientists Explain Their Work

Realising the medical potential of virtual reality Dr David Randall M.Phys. M.Sc. Ph.D. Research Associate, Medical Physics, Infection Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease, University of Sheffield Contact: drandall1@sheffield.ac.uk As a medical physicist, one of my aims is to apply new technology to address medical challenges. During my PhD I explored the use of virtual reality to examine complex data and soon concluded that this is a potentially influential technology with many applications in medicine. One example is to benefit people with nystagmus.

Nystagmus is an eye movement disorder where the eyes wobble uncontrollably, leading to significant visual impairment. If nystagmus develops early in life, the brain often adapts to the eye movements but for those who develop the condition after infancy, the effects are debilitating. To them the world is in constant motion as their eyes move erratically.

My research aims to use virtual reality to raise awareness of nystagmus, aid clinical decisions and improve vision in these individuals. We have released an app (“Nystagmus Oscillopsia Sim VR”) which allows people to experience what it’s like to have the condition. We are now trying to extend this work to produce real-time display stabilisation to provide improved vision for these individuals.

Want to feature your work? Contact us!

Inspiring the next generation Dr Sheila Kanani Education Outreach and Diversity officer Royal Astronomical Society Contact: skanani@ras.ac.uk

My job is Education, Outreach and Diversity Officer at the Royal Astronomical Society. I have no typical day at work! I got to where I am today from a very varied route. I have a PhD in Planetary Physics and spent five years as an astronomer. But it wasn’t like you imagine – I very rarely used a telescope or spent all night awake!

When I was a research scientist I mostly did computer programming to find out more about Saturn, using data from the Cassini spacecraft. Nowadays I teach subjects like GCSE Astronomy, I give public lectures and talks, I aid consultations about A Level Physics, I visit schools and groups, I write public information leaflets and web pages… the list goes on! I also really enjoy taking press and media enquiries about current events in astronomy and have been on TV and radio news. Each day is so different and I love my job!

When I was 13, I saw the film Apollo 13 and decided I wanted to be an astronaut. I read about astronaut Michael Foale and he had a PhD in Astrophysics, so I decided that I should get one too!

I’m a qualified science teacher so I would probably be in a school somewhere teaching GCSE Physics right now.

Or I’d be an astronaut up in the ISS. Never let anyone tell you that you aren’t good enough or smart enough to do what you want. Do what you enjoy and what makes you happy and you can achieve anything, even becoming an astronaut and getting to the moon!

“Climate change could disrupt tropical ecosystems more than previously speculated.�

Extinction

InsectS Entire ecosystems are under threat of collapse in rainforest

by Cameron Costigan

When most of us think about extinction we picture dinosaurs, the dodo or maybe even threatened species like the orangutang or Sumatran tiger but in Puerto Rico, insects are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Rican forests over this time and a whopping 2.4°C in the Mexican forest. Insects that have evolved to live in relatively constant temperatures are especially vulnerable to climate change.

A new study from the University of Oslo reports that insects and arthropods in Puerto Rican forests have declined by almost 99% over the past 4 decades.

The bad news doesn’t stop at the loss of creepy crawlies, which some of you would probably be thankful for, but the decline in these populations have also lead to a decline in the number of animals that rely on them as a food source. The researchers found that the average population density of the anole lizard fell by almost 50% and insect-eating bird species populations fell by a massive 90% between 1990 and 2015. This research has shown that climate change could disrupt tropical forest ecosystems a lot more than previously speculated.

Declining insect populations is nothing new but most of these have been documented in temperate ecosystems and are usually attributed to habitat destruction, insecticides and climate change. One of the researchers first collected insects and arthropods between 1976 and 1977 and he returned several times between 2011 and 2013 to compare the populations. The total weight of arthropods collected in traps on the ground was 97% less than in the 1970’s they reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The 10 most common species living in the forest canopy also declined, as did the population of walking stick insects.

A similar study conducted in Mexico saw a decline in populations when comparing the abundance of arthropods in 2014 with their previous survey in the late 1980’s. Climate change is a major contributing factor with a 2°C rise in temperatures recorded in the Puerto

Whip Spider.

Italy & Australia to Build World’s Largest Telescope Representatives of leading Italian and Australian science institutions met in Perth this month to formally enter into a partnership to take the next steps toward the world’s largest telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

The Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) will work together, combining complementary technologies and skills from both organisations, to advance SKA designs prior to full construction of the giant international telescope in around 2020.

The SKA will be established in Western Australia in the form of 130,000 individual radio antennas spread over thousands of square kilometres in the Murchison, 800km north of Perth. A second facility will be established in South Africa and the SKA Headquarters will be located in Manchester, UK. Phase 1 of the SKA will have a construction cost of around $1.1 billion.

At the signing ceremony at Curtin University, INAF Scientific Director, Dr Filippo Zerbi, said INAF is highly committed to developing both the engineering and astrophysics required to explore the Universe with the SKA over the coming decades.

“INAF has developed antennas and electronics for the SKA and we are very pleased to be partnering with our Australian colleagues in this quest,” Dr Zerbi said.

Curtin University John Curtin Distinguished Professor Steven Tingay said the teams from INAF and ICRARCurtin University have worked together closely over the last five years, including on the ground in the heat of the remote Murchison region.

“We have forged a very special relationship and I look forward to strengthening that relationship via this agreement,” Professor Tingay said.

The work that has involved INAF and ICRAR-Curtin University over the last five years now culminates in a Critical Design Review (CDR) to be held in December.

After CDR, ICRAR-Curtin University and INAF will finalise and verify the designs and lead the testing of those designs over the course of 2019.

This collaboration will be supported by $1m in funding from INAF and matching funding from Curtin University with assistance from the Australian Government.

As well as INAF and ICRAR-Curtin University, the work will rely on industry partners in Western Australia, from around Geraldton and Perth, and industry partners in Italy. The project will provide opportunities for Western Australian and Italian industries to participate and work together in the next phase of SKA development toward major construction activities.

The project will be coordinated by the SKA Organisation (SKAO) Headquarters based in Manchester and will potentially also involve other technical teams from Australia (including the CSIRO), the UK, the Netherlands and China. The work will exist within a large body of work coordinated by the SKAO that will involve all 12 SKA Member countries in the lead-up to construction.

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UP CLOSE Sternochetus mangiferae (mango seed weevil)

Image Credit: Pia Scanlon, Nikkon Small World 2018

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