I, Science - Issue 4 (Spring 2006)

I, science Issue 4 Spring 2006

The Imperial College Science Magazine

cover-contents-back.indd 1

8/3/06 7:17:09 pm

I, science

From the Editor

Issue 4 Spring 2006 Editor-in-chief Mun Keat Looi Section Editors Imperial Features Letitia Hughes Helen Thomson External Features Amber Bauer Stella Papadopoulou Interviews Lilian Anekwe News and Events David Brill Opinion Duncan McMillan Daniela de Angel Reviews Alex Antonov Helen Morant Web Editor Laura Goodall Graphics and Layout Amber Bauer Alex Antonov Liv Hov-Clayton Elizabeth Connor Advertising Manager Viviane Li Image Editors Gloria Jaconelli Tony Wu Illustrations and Cover Art Katherine Antoniw

I, Science is produced and published in association with Felix, the student newspaper of Imperial College Felix Newspaper Beit Quad Prince Consort Road London SW7 2BB Tel: 020 7594 8072 Email: felix@imperial.ac.uk Registered newspaper ISSN 1040-0711 Copyright © Felix 2006 Printed by St Ives Roche Ltd., Victoria Business Park, Roche, St. Austell, Cornwall PL26 8LX

Enhancement enchantment “From smart pills to designer babies and extended life spans, technology now promises to transform our very nature…”

So reads the cover of a new DEMOS booklet, Better Humans? The politics of human enhancement and life extension. Attending the launch in February, I was intrigued. We have seemingly reached a stage where what was once ‘science fiction’ is now close enough for people to start worrying about it.

Human enhancement covers several technologies: surgical, chemical, robotic, genetic. These range from cybernetic implants to the dream of treating ageing as a disease and the ‘next big thing’, nanotechnology.

But a lot of it is surprisingly familiar. Cosmetic surgery is now commonplace, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) can screen for embryos carrying hereditary diseases.

Perhaps the closest to home is the pharmacological side. Your morning coffee is a form of enhancer, giving you that extra edge over your sleepy peers. Students will be familiar with ProPlus at exam time and Red Bull at play time. As an episode of Desperate Housewives showed, people misuse Ritalin medication (used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder) for that extra push on a tiring day. Viagra can be taken for impotency, or just to enhance your sex life. ProVigil treats narcolepsy, but could also let you party for two days straight. There’s a “pill for every ill”1 (or perhaps a smartie for every party). Cognitive enhancers, ‘smart drugs’ to increase your concentration and awareness, are not so farfetched. US pilots were rumoured to use ProVigil regularly during the Iraq war. Imperial’s Russell Foster said recently, “In 10 to 20 years we’ll be able to pharmacologically turn sleep off.”2 The use of drugs by healthy people raises new issues, including changes in regulation and safety testing. The effect of drugs is never homogeneous or predictable. Research at Cambridge University3 found that Methylphenidate (Ritalin) only had an effect in novel situations, not familiar tasks and worked better for those with poorer memories. Moreover, a single drug can’t do everything. Methylphenidate can improve short-term memory and planning, but it can’t make you more attentive. Cognitive enhancer cocktails raise other safety issues. And this is just part of the story. Neuroscience alone covers the genetics of intelligence and behaviour as well.

Where do you draw the line? When does treatment become enhancement? One could argue that dieting or wearing glasses is a form of enhancement, making our bodies better than they are. ‘Enhancement’ is everyday practice to some degree. Some feel PGD will inevitably lead to designer babies. But there are hundreds of books providing ways to help your kids grow-up smarter. On the other hand, steroids are illegal in sport. Will smart drugs lead to dope testing for students before exams? Enhancement could potentially reduce social inequality, allowing the weak to compete with the strong. But it could just as easily create an ‘unenhanced underclass’ of those who cannot afford the technology.

The prospect of enhancement raises a number of questions, but the big one is: does enhancement reduce our humanity? One could see it as a new kind of evolution. Indeed, the futurist Ray Kurzweil said, “We’re a species that instinctively seeks to go beyond our limitations.” As Cambridge’s Aubrey de Grey said at DEMOS booklet launch: “It is time to think of [enhancement] not as science fiction, but science foreseeable.”

Mun Keat Looi References 1. P Miller and J Wilsdon (eds.), ‘Better Humans? The politics of human enhancement and life extension’ (London: DEMOS, 2006).

2. Lawton G, ‘Get ready for 24-hour living’, New Scientist No. 2539 (2006) 3. MA Mehta et al,‘Methylphenidate enhances working memory by modulating discrete frontal and parietal lobe regions in the human brain’, J Neurosci 20, noRC65 (2000).

Story of God Thanks for all the entries received for the Robert Winston competition. We asked which you thought was better, science or religion? The winner is James Leung who said: “I go for religion, since there are no top-up fees.”

Comments, contributions, cash and credit cards are all welcome. If you’d like to get in touch, please do so at i.science@imperial.ac.uk

http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/media/iscience

Next issue: 8 June 2006

2 I, science cover-contents-back.indd 2

Spring 2006

8/3/06 7:25:19 pm

Issue 4 Spring 2006

I, science

10

16

20 Features

Interviews

7 Happy anniversary, Einstein

10 RoboKev

CERN and IC on WWW and TV.

9 Keys are just so last year…

Technological implants: the future isn’t so far away.

Kevin Warwick,the controversial cybernetics expert, talks implants, cyborgs and why scientists have it in for him.

20 Facing the future

13 Feeling the effects

I,Sci speaks to Alex Clarke, Clinical Psychologist for the world’s first face transplant.

14 Engineering man

Regulars

Scientists who experiment on themselves.

They’re not mad, honest.

Bioengineering: the application of engineering and scientific principles to the human body.

16 Research on the last frontier

Papua New Guinea that is, not space. That would be the final frontier.

19 Extinction on a grand scale

The Permian extinction, the forgotten extinction. Perhaps because everything died?

23 The world at your fingertips

Soon our iPods will be the size of our thumbs.

Battery life will still be crap though.

Spring 2006

cover-contents-back.indd 3

4-6 News and Events On the QT and very hush, hush.

24-27 Opinions

We don’t pay these people to think. In fact, we don’t pay them at all…

28-31 Reviews

Review: a musical show consisting of often satirical skits, songs, and dances. Sadly, this is the other kind of review.

I, science

3 9/3/06 12:03:32 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

News from Imperial and Beyond X-ray vision moves one step closer

The beat goes on

FEBRUARY: Man has long desired the ability to see through solid objects such as bathroom walls and changing room curtains. New research suggests that this may one day be possible.

The project, a collaboration between researchers at Imperial College and the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, involves shining a laser at a newly-developed solid.

“The material goes from being opaque to being completely transparent. There is a little circular window that you can see through,” said Professor Chris Phillips.

“At the moment the effect can only be produced in a lab under specific conditions, but Colin’s new x-ray specs helped him remember what it has the potential to lead to he did with his mobile phone. all sorts of new applications.”

“This real life ‘x-ray specs’ effect relies on and so fundamental.”

While the immediate impact of this new a property of matter that is usually ignored - that the electrons it contains move in a material is likely to lie in the fields of laser wave-like way. What we have learnt is how to technology and computer networking, control these waves directly. The results can Professor Phillips did not rule out the be pretty weird at times, but it’s very exciting possibility of a new range of lingerie.

FEBRUARY: Traditional bypass operations involve stopping and opening the heart, while using an artificial pump to keep blood flowing around the body. But new robotic software may soon remove the need to even open the chest.

The software works with a surgical robot called da Vinci, enabling it to synchronise the movement of its tools with the beating of the heart.

Some surgeons currently slow the heart down by cooling it, but this is still risky. “It’s a difficult procedure on a stationary piece of tissue, let alone when it is moving,” said Dr. Rajesh Aggarwal of Imperial College, speaking at the Medical Devices Technology Conference in Birmingham this month.

The da Vinci robot, along with the new software, uses a-two camera endoscope to create a 3D view of the heart. The software tracks the movement of the surgeon’s eyes as the heart beats, and compensates by moving the endoscope, generating an image that appears stationary and enabling the surgeon to concentrate on the procedure itself.

So far the technology has only been tested on an artificial silicone heart, but further refinements could one day remove the need for traumatic open-heart surgery and even enable surgeons to operate with the chest closed.

Chill out Dad

Poo parasite catalyst for schizophrenia

JANUARY: Expectant fathers may have an important role to play in the physical recuperation of their partners following a caesarean section.

A study of 65 women at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital has revealed that the anxieties of birth partners strongly influence those of the mother.

Both women and their partners were questioned throughout the birth process about their fears and expectations, while the pain levels of the women were also constantly assessed. According to the study, women with negative expectations before the procedure experienced the most fear during it, which in turn was associated with greater post-operative pain and a longer recovery time.

“Whilst some women say that birth partners improve birth experiences, others report less positive outcomes. It is not unreasonable for the birth partner to have some feelings of anxiety and fear about the operation they are about to witness,” said Dr. Ed Keogh of the University of Bath, lead researcher along with Dr. Anita Holdcroft of Imperial.

The solution could be better preparation for the partner as well as the mother. “Rather than removing them from the operating theatre altogether, it would be better to target the emotional wellbeing of the birth partner to help reduce the anxiety and fear experienced by the mother,” suggested Dr. Keogh.

JANUARY: Scientists at Imperial have we are certainly not saying that exposure identified a new reason to avoid eating cat to this parasite does definitely lead to the droppings. development of schizophrenia, this and Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite found previous studies do show there may be a in feline faeces, has already been linked link in a few individuals, providing new to the development of schizophrenia and clues for how we treat toxoplasmosis and toxoplasmosis. schizophrenia.”

Rats infected with T. gondii display Clinical trials using anti-T. gondii therapies behavioural abnormalities such as for schizophrenia have already begun at unawareness of danger, which may manifest Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. itself in a suicidal attraction to cats. New research shows that anti-psychotic and mood-stablising drugs, used in the treatment of schizophrenia, are highly effective at alleviating these symptoms, strengthening the case for the parasite’s role in the development of the disease.

The lead author of the report was Dr. Joanne Webster, from Imperial College. “By showing that drugs used to treat schizophrenia affect the parasite T. gondii, this does provide further evidence for its role in the development of some Cats really can drive you crazy. cases schizophrenia,” she said.

“Although

4 I, science news_events.indd 2

Spring 2006

8/3/06 7:29:29 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS

Dust be good to me FEBRUARY: After an anxious wait, NASA finally got around to posting the London team their share of cosmic dust.

The NASA stardust mission, which landed in the dusty desert of Utah on 15th January 2006, had been on a three billion mile round trip to collect dust off the tail of comet Wild 2 in 1999.

N A S A’ s Preliminary Evaluation T e a m , comprising a select panel of only 100 e x p e r t s Stardust arrives at worldwide, Imperial will be in possession of the cosmic dust for six months before any other scientists in the world get their hands on it for further research.

The four UK scientists in the Preliminary Team - Matthew Genge, Phil Bland, Anton Kearsley and Gretchen Benedix, of Imperial College and the Natural History Museum will be kept busy by the dust samples for the next few years. The research aspires to target key scientific issues, such as the origins of the oceans, the origins of the Solar System, and the origins of life itself. “It’s a great time to be into dust,” as Dr. Genge puts it. DDA

Aliens, watch this space FEBRUARY: Krypton, Dagobah, Vulcan and Arrakis have long been hailed as inhabited worlds by science fiction junkies. But now astronomers have boldly gone some way towards identifying genuine planetary candidates for alien life.

Margaret Turnbull, of the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC, has considered an exhaustive range of factors to compile a shortlist of stars where extra-terrestrial life could most likely live long and prosper.

Beta CVn, a binary star 26 light-years away, is named as the leading contender, while epsilion Indi A is also a force to be reckoned with.

This enterprising search is far from exhaustive, however: “There are bazillions of stars in the sky to look at, but we can’t look at every single one with the scrutiny that we’d like to,” said Dr Turnbull. “These are places I’d want to live if God were to put our planet around another star.”

“Nuqjathl? Nuqdaq oh puchpa’e? Hab sosli’ quch!” said a Klingon source.

Spring 2006

news_events.indd 3

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS

Attack of the killer flatworms FEBRUARY: Residents of the Pacific island of Guam may have to think twice before dipping their toes in the ocean, following the discovery of a poisonous saltwater flatworm off their coasts.

The worm uses tetrodotoxin, the same poison found in puffer fish, and was only revealed as a formidable killer when accidentally placed in the same container as a cowrie, a speckled shelled mollusc. Back at the lab in the Smithsonian Marine Station, Florida, the cowrie’s shell was empty and the flatworm “was really fat.” The worms engulf their prey and seal it in toxin-laden water because spitting out the shell.

The worm isn’t the only sea-critter with a penchant for poison: the same poison is also used by other worms, frogs and the blue-ringed octopus. Marine flatworms are particularly good at borrowing the weaponry

Sex more fun with someone else Sex could be 400 percent more satisfying than masturbation, according to new research published in Biological Psychology.

Researchers measured blood levels of prolactin, a hormone released after orgasm, which induces a feeling of satisfaction.

Prolactin levels in both sexes were found to be 400 percent higher following an orgasm from sexual intercourse than one from masturbation.

of other sea creatures. It is likely that this particular menace gains its poison from bacteria living on its skin.

Before you cancel your holiday to Guam, however, it’s worth noting that the flatworm is about the size of a 50 pence piece and prefers to prey on molluscs rather than swimmers. KN

In brief... … Six Imperial academics included in The Times Higher Educational Supplement list of the UK’s top 100 science entrepreneurs… … Institute of Physics gives annual award to Professor Karl Krushelnick for work with lasers… …Professor Peter Barnes named a ‘Doctor of the Decade’ by Science Watch… … Imperial Deputy Rector, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, announced as a Governor of The Wellcome Trust… … King Faisal International Prize for science to be awarded to Professor Simon Donaldson… …Professor Fotis Kafatos announced as first Chairman of the Scientific Council of the new European Research Council (ERC)… … Professor Sir John Pendry part of team awarded Descartes Prize for Research…

Men have taste for revenge JANUARY: Men appear to take greater receiving rewards.

“Men expressed more desire for revenge pleasure than women in exacting revenge on their enemies, according to a paper in and seemed to feel satisfaction when unfair people were given what they perceived as Nature.

A team at UCL set up a tactical game for 32 deserved physical punishment,” said Dr. Tania volunteers called The Prisoner’s Dilemma, in Singer, the lead researcher on the team. which players can co-operate or double-cross each other as they see fit. Four actors also infiltrated the group, and played with certain agendas set by the researchers.

Participants were subsequently placed in an fMRI scanner to monitor their brain activity, and shown images of their fellow players receiving mild electric shocks.

When ‘fair’ players received a shock, both sexes showed a similar empathetic response in the fronto-insular and anterior cingulate cortices, brain areas that relate to pain.

When ‘cheating’, ‘untrustworthy’ players received a shock however, Ooh, my nucleus accumbens is tingling... activity in these areas dropped “This investigation would seem to significantly in men, suggesting a lack of empathy with their suffering. Furthermore, indicate there is a predominant role for men demonstrated a rise in activity in the men in maintaining justice and issuing nucleus accumbens, an area associated with punishment.”

I, science

5 8/3/06 7:29:54 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

Events ©Tobie Kerridge

The Rise and Fall of Civilisations Rebecca Coe

One ring to rule them all.

Bio-Bling |

Stella Papadopoulou

18 JANUARY: The Science Museum’s Dana Centre hosted a somewhat bizarre exhibition showcasing ‘Biojewellery’, a new and controversial project about jewellery made from lab-grown human bone tissue. Funded by the NHS, Biojewellery was pioneered and launched three years ago by Royal College of Art researchers Nikki Stott and Tobie Kerridge, to promote awareness of tissue engineering technologies.

It all began with two low-key adverts in New Scientist and Bizarre magazines, inviting couples to take part in the process and design wedding rings, using precious metals and their own lab-grown bone tissue.

Four couples were recruited to donate bone cells (osteoblasts), isolated by scraping their jaw bone while they had their wisdom teeth removed. The cells are to be seeded onto ‘bioactive glass’ immersed into a nutrientrich liquid medium that encourages rapid cell growth. The bioactive material will gradually break down, leaving the newly-grown bone tissue. This will be taken to the Royal College of Art, where Nikki and Tobie will combine it with precious metals to make the rings. The couples’ rings, made from lab-grown tissue of their significant other will be on display at Guy’s Hospital in May this year.

Nikki and Tobie revealed the incentives behind the idea and opened the debate about the ethical, social and cultural issues attached to tissue engineering. They were inspired by the semi-living tissue culture works of Australian artists Oron Catts and his partner Ionat Zurr. Since 2000, Catts and Zurr have replaced their easels with microscopes and Petri dishes to create sculptures of wings, dolls, even hamburgers (!), made of animal cells grown onto polymer scaffolding.

The evening wouldn’t have been complete without a word from the four donor couples, who were eager to talk about their involvement in the project.

Alongside them was medical ethicist Iain Brassington from the University of Keele, who discussed the ethics of body modification and enhancement.

Away from the talks, visitors were treated to a hands-on demonstration of the technologies that allow the combination of human tissue and precious metals. Most left with a round silver plate embossed with impressions of their own hair.

The whole experience was a little unusual, but the intimacy of the speakers ensured that it remained informative and highly rewarding.

Nobel Spirit Lives On | 7 DEC – 15 MARCH: Alfred Nobel lived in an era of optimism, wild ideas and projects on a grand scale. Upon his death in 1896, no heir inherited his industrial fortune.

Instead, he left an outlandish solution in his will. Thus the most prestigious prize in the world was created, awarding annual prizes for outstanding achievement in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, economics and peace. The spirit of Nobel was celebrated recently in a British Library exhibition. Beautiful Minds focused on the creative aspects of Nobel achievement and asked ‘what does it take to win a Nobel Prize: genes or genius, education or environment?’

Quotes on the walls gave some clues: “We haven’t got money, so we have to think”, said Sir Ernest Rutherford. A set

6 I, science news_events.indd 4

Mun-Keat Looi

of glass cases along the sides displayed various objects linked to ten decades of Nobel laureates: a working model of Ahmed Zewail’s rapid laser technique, Watson and Crick’s DNA model, a Petri dish of penicillin, the hand-written letters of Kim Die Jung, a plate representing Richard Feyamann’s analogy of energy levels in the atom.

The history of the prize was depicted in totems of video, models and news headlines. Each gave the background of a decade, a winning idea, and the, now traditional, controversy surrounding a Nobel announcement. The stories of those who didn’t get a prize are almost as famous as those who did. Nevertheless, the list of winners encompasses an incredible collection of achievement, everything

26 JANUARY: Guest speaker Jared Diamond packed out the Imperial Great Hall with his lecture: Collapse – how societies choose to fail or succeed, timed to coincide with the publication of the paperback version of the book of the same name (signed copies available in the campus Waterstones).

The talk described the demise of previous civilisations and the lessons we can learn from them.

Diamond presented the familiar example of the Polynesian inhabitants of Easter Island, famous for their giant stone statues and infamous for their downfall. The Polynesians managed to completely deforest Easter Island, leading to soil erosion and failed crops. Civil war and cannibalism then ensued.

Diamond has identified five main factors that determine a society’s survival: overexploitation of the environment, climate change, enemies, reliance on trading partners and finally the political and socio-economic problems internal to the society. He believes that despite the obvious differences between ancient and modern societies, the lessons are plain to see. The unfortunate fate of the Polynesians of Easter Island can be seen as a metaphor for our entire planet. Alone in the universe, or at least isolated, no one else is going to rescue us if we destroy Earth.

However, we do have advantages over previous doomed societies: archaeology, history and modern global communication permit us to learn from communities remote in time and space. Diamond wrote Collapse to motivate the masses, and his brand of ‘cautious optimism’ makes a refreshing change from the doom and gloom we’re so often subjected to. Whether mankind can break the habit of a lifetime and actually learn from previous mistakes remains to be seen. from the transistor radio to plastics, The Jungle Book and the Red Cross. The history of the prize is a history of 20th century civilisation. Financially, the prize is now worth ten times what it was at the start, with just over a million Euros awaiting each winner in 2005. Even at its conception, the prize was two or three times what a scientist would earn in a year. Some say this is too much, but how much is knowledge and progress worth? Nobel represents more than just achievement. It embodies the struggle to better ourselves, intellectually and morally.

Hanging above one of the exhibits, a huge rolodex shuffled banners of 700 laureates in an intellectual fashion parade. The speeches of past laureates echoed in the background.

Alfred Nobel lived in an era of optimism, wild ideas and projects on a grand scale.

That spirit lives on.

Spring 2006

8/3/06 7:32:49 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS

Happy Anniversary, Einstein On 1st December 2005, Imperial College took part in a massive online event: Beyond Einstein, a live 12-hour webcast to celebrate the centenary of Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Beyond Einstein was an event organized

by CERN, the European particle physics lab based just outside Geneva, appropriately the birthplace of the World Wide Web. The headline acts included Stephen Hawking and Nobel laureates Leon Lederman and Murray Gell-Mann. Engineers at the CERN control centre succeeded in juggling connection speeds and IP addresses from video conferencing suites and webcams all over Europe, America, Asia, Africa and even Antarctica.

The webcast was also shown on satellite TV: live for the whole show on Pakistani television, on Italian TV ‘La Sette’ and for most of the webcast on Hotbird.

The UK contribution came from Imperial and covered the Internet, Grid Computing and Neutrinos.The section was hosted by Gareth Mitchell, presenter of BBC Radio’s Go Digital and an Imperial lecturer in Science Communication. Doubts about whether anyone would bother watching it at all were unfounded – around 30-50,000 people watched the webcast, with the Imperial sections amongst the most viewed.

Beyond Einstein was an interactive event.

Throughout the webcast, viewers were invited to put their questions and comments to the participants. Dave Colling, who helped organise the Imperial section, said “We had emails from all over the world .. as many in the first hours as some shows get in a week, including questions from places as diverse as Africa and Malaysia, as well as closer to home in Kent.”

It wasn’t just on-screen that Imperial College members made a major contribution to the webcast. Students from the Science Communication Group, including myself, and the Media Services department provided much of the preparation and management. In case you missed it, here are the highlights: 16:30 – 17:00 The development of the web and the Internet: “We brought pioneers of the Internet and World Wide Web together and heard how today’s information society was born”, says Gareth Mitchell. Through

videoconference we hear from CERN’s Robert Cailliau and Bob Kahn, inventor of the TCP/ IP protocol used to transmit information on the internet. Peter Kirstein joins us in the studio. Now an eminent computer scientist at University College London, Peter laid the foundations for the internet in the 1970s,

©CERN

Letitia Hughes

era. Action.

Lights. Cam

Spring 2006

CERN.indd 1

the sharing of files, computer power and data storage capacities over the web. At present, most computer centres still act as independent organisations. The aim is to change these fundamental processes in infrastructure and the way we, as computer users, work together. This could lead to solutions to scientific problems which would not be possible if working on an individual basis. Grid computing has the potential to carry out data processing on a massive scale. CERN’s new Large Hadron Collider, for example, requires a lot more computing power than your average pocket calculator.

Bruce Allen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin, elucidates the virtues of the Grid from the view of the public. The aptly called ‘Einstein at Home’ project has the intriguing idea of using the extensive processing power of computers in homes and offices. Your computer could be contributing to the next great physics discoveries while you sleep.

17:30 – 18:40 Neutrinos: Animations are used to describe this difficult concept in the simplest way possible. Paola Catapano joins the webcast as host from CERN. We learn the history of neutrino discovery and are shown various large-scale neutrino detection experiments. Professor Dave Wark of Imperial clarifies the ‘different flavours’ of neutrinos, such as electron and muon neutrinos. Other guests include Ken Long and Yoshi Uchida, also at Imperial.

Tom Gaisser speaks from the Antarctic on the Ice Cube Experiment, a gigaton neutrino detector currently under construction at the South Pole The live link is a great feat, only slightly marred by a 20 second delay for the questions to be heard by the Antarctic’s inhabitants!

Imperial’s section was supposed to be over by 18:30, but the epic Antarctic adventure means the show must go on.

18:40: The webcast is finally over, allowing the team to relax and reflect.

A huge amount of material was covered, as we tried to fulfil the challenge of “doing justice to the full range of Einstein’s achievements and the developments which have flowed directly and indirectly there from”.

You can view archived material of the webcast at http://wyp.digitalidentity.it/ ■

Watching me watching you . persuading sceptical funding bodies and government about the vast potential of the internet.

Without these pioneers, the webcast itself would not have been possible.

17:00 – 17:30 The Grid: Otherwise known as Distributed Computing, the Grid is an extension of the internet, allowing

I, science

7 8/3/06 7:59:49 pm

REVIEWS FEATURES

© 2006 Accenture All rights reserved.

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

We helped carry the torch for London’s Olympic bid.

It makes you think.

Graduate careers in consulting As a Premier Partner in the 2012 Olympic bid, Accenture played a key part in bringing the Games back to London. If you’re a graduate, we could help you achieve things that are just as exceptional. You’ll be a valued member of a world-leading management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, one that employs more than 115,000 people across some 48 countries.

And you’ll play your part in delivering the innovation that helps our clients become high-performance businesses.

You’ll work with the very best people, the most prestigious clients and the latest technology. You’ll tackle complex projects with access to superb training and support. And you’ll be rewarded well, with a salary of £28,500 and an additional £10,000 over your first 13 months.

2:1 degree and have 24/300 UCAS points, we can offer you a truly exceptional career.

All of which makes ours a proposition that’s well worth thinking about.

Accenture is committed to being an equal opportunities employer.

For intelligent people with the right personal qualities, consulting is possibly the best job in the world. If you’re genuinely interested in business and technology, expect to achieve a

accenture.com/ukgraduates 2 I, science Implants.indd 2

Spring 2006

8/3/06 7:43:00 pm

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS © iCube Solutions

FEATURES REVIEWS

Keys are just so last year...

Opening doors. Turning on lights. Paying for pints. All of this using a tiny chip implanted in your arm? Intrigued, but a bit jealous of these ‘Cyborgs’, Helen Thompson investigates the realities and possibilities of technological implants.

“W

HAT DO you think about implants?” The “well, more than a handful is a waste” answers aside, the majority of engineers at Imperial College were excited about the future of implant technology. And rightly so.

The radio frequency identification chips (RFIC) are similar to those commonly used for livestock identification and merchandise tracking. Working in a similar way to London’s Oyster Cards, they require no power source and become active only when scanned. Measuring only 13mm in length, I could have one inserted close to my index finger during a five-minute procedure and after a few modifications, be able to unlock my car door, access my bank accounts and potentially store my medical records.

Amal Graafstra, a Washington state business owner has already undergone implantation “for the very real function of replacing keys. It saves me having to walk around with a huge chain of keys in my pocket.” Graafstra, in his own words, could be “buck-naked and still be carrying the virtual keys to unlock my home”. After unashamedly spending far too much time wondering just why, and how often, Graafstra finds himself in this condition, I came to the conclusion that he actually has a point.

It would be handy to access your locks, computer and bank account without having to remember multiple passwords or bunches of keys. But is ‘handy’ a sufficiently impressive adjective to justify the research costs? In fact, this technology has a finger in several pies. There are significant applications for this technology in medicine. Using these implants, doctors potentially can help patients recovering from nerve-related injuries. More complex implants, made up of an array of 100 hair-like wires, attach to the median nerves in the arm, nerves that contain both sensory and motor information. The implant is linked to a radio transmitter/receiver that is connected to a computer. The signal which passes from the brain to the hand, making

Spring 2006

Implants.indd 1

it move, is intercepted by the implant and recorded. The two-way technology has made it possible to input signals from the computer back into the implant. In patients with nerve damage, signals from the brain cannot reach their destination. In these cases, the computer replaces the lost signal via the implant, subsequently moving the desired body part.

Even more impressively, Dr. John Donoghue, a neuroscientist at Brown University, Rhode Island, has developed an implant designed for insertion into the brain where the setup for transmitting and receiving signals is far more powerful. By using the brain’s subtle electrical signals, his device may allow quadriplegics to move their own limbs, using the implant to send signals from the brain to the muscles. Controlled by one’s own thoughts. The signal leaps over the damaged nerves (the previous cause of paralysis) and creates new movement. “Once you have an output signal out of the brain that you can interpret, the possibilities of what you can do with those signals are immense,” said Donoghue. This ‘bio-interfacing’ may also aid disorders such as Parkinson’s, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.

Implants are also being used for a variety of non-medical purposes. Spanish nightclubs are already using RFIC chips to let customers

“Be buck-naked and still carry the virtual keys to unlock your home” put drinks on their tabs and enter VIP lounges. Also, just days ago, a company in Ohio implanted chips into two employees to ensure only they can enter certain areas of the work place. This is the first documented case of US workers being tagged electronically for identification. Implants have also been developed that have a much longer signal

range, a range that can be tracked by satellite.

Top fighter pilots could have these implants fitted to transmit signals to airplane controls, enabling them to fly the planes without their feet ever having to leave the ground.

In the future, perhaps gun owners could have chips inserted which prevent them from entering schools. Or we could use them to identify the whereabouts of kidnapping victims, climbers stuck on mountains or injured soldiers lost in battle. The list of possible uses seems hindered only by the imagination.

But will we voluntarily submit to being tracked wherever we go? The suggestion of national identification cards caused rumblings of disapproval. A suggestion of national implantation may provoke a more violent reaction, not to mention the somewhat unnecessary expense of overhauling all the technology in your home and workplace. Or am I being naïve? Perhaps implants will become next season’s stripes.

To do away with keys and credit cards, know where your children are and to have medical details available in an emergency, that surely justifies the cost? At least, that’s what you can tell your gran when you sell her to afford one. But before you go break the news to her, you may be interested to hear that some Christian groups have already called this technology the “mark of the devil”, derived from the Biblical statement that “if any man worship the beast and his image, [he will] receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand” (Rev, 14:9). I’m no fundamentalist, but I’m not sure I’m willing to risk it.

The future of implant technology is focusing on aiding the medical world and not those of us who are too lazy to keep a bunch of keys in our pocket. For me, the thought of implanting what is essentially computer technology into my body has filled me with a sudden horror as my computer freezes for the hundreth time. Will the day come when we go to the doctor with a virus of the techno kind? Better get onto Norton sharpish. ■

I, science

9 8/3/06 7:41:25 pm

REVIEWS FEATURES Photos of implants and cyborg experiments © iCube Solutions

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

He was cut open twice and risked paralysis for selfexperimentation. His vision of ‘evil machines’ could redefine the meaning of technophobia. Critics say he relentlessly self-publicises at any given opportunity.

By Viviane Li

Is Kevin Warwick a visionary cyborg, or just an overexposed cybore?

I

CANNOT think of another living scientist with as contradictory a public image as Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading. On one hand he has many academic accolades, such as The Future of Health Technology Award from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). On the other hand he is ridiculed as an attention-seeking quack scientist.

Warwick acquired international fame as the world’s first cyborg when he had a microchip implanted into his arm in 1998.

He went even further four years later with Cyborg 2: he had a hundred microelectrodes pneumatically hammered into his nerve to investigate two-way communication between technology and the nervous system.

Unusual for a scientist, he has no hangups about self-experimentation. “Going back to the first implant, I realised there was a possibility that something could go wrong, and if it did go wrong with me, alright it was my fault. But for one of the researchers... I just couldn’t live with that. Maybe it’s a personal ethical thing. I am driving it forwards, so I take the blame. But then when it came to the second implant, having experienced the first, I enjoyed it. It was good fun. It worked and it opened my mind as to where we could go to next.”

Warwick identifies the pioneering spirit as his driving force, which necessarily incurs

10 I, science KevinWarwick04.indd 2

risks. He first thought objectively about the brain and mental processes at the age of eight, when his father developed a fear of open spaces. This was cured by neural surgery, which incidentally changed his dad into quite a good snooker player. Yet as a schoolboy, he did not enjoy science because of the unquestionable nature of its teaching.

He worked for British Telecom for six years, before reading Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Aston University at 22. A PhD at Imperial College was followed by academic posts at Oxford, Newcastle and Warwick Universities. He gained his professorship at Reading in 1988, at the age of 32.

A supporter of ‘strong AI’ (the prediction that machines will become more intelligent than humans), Warwick foresees a potentially grim future. “I think if it learns and adapts, whether it’s a machine or animal, it opens up possibilities of going outside the bounds that you set on it... [that’s] why machines will take over, because we’re taking a lot of the negative aspects of human kind as the initial seeds for machines, in military, in finance, and sprinkling in a bit of learning.” He warns against judging computers on human terms.

For example, in asking whether computers are conscious may be wholly irrelevant. “In a battlefield scenario... here’s a cruise missile [with an on-board computer programmed to destroy targets] coming to blow you up, [saying]

Spring 2006

8/3/06 7:38:08 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS ‘you are not conscious you can’t hurt me’ is not going to have any effect whatsoever.”

No stranger to bad press, Warwick believes a combination of incidents in 2000 led to heightened criticisms – his appearance on the cover of Wired magazine, and presenting the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures both caused jealousy. “I know another group had been campaigning for a number of years to get the christmas lectures in the area of

“...they quote you as having said something.

If you’ve actually said it, you’d be lucky.” robotics and artificial intelligence. But then it was me that was offered it, and I think they were not [happy], having done quite a bit of work to try and get [it].”

Further criticisms came in September 2002 when he commented on the possibility of tagging eleven-year-old Danielle Duval. This happened nine months after Ian Huntley was convicted of murdering ten-year-olds Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells. Both Danielle and her mother were in favour. Warwick has no regrets, “I think ethically the question had to be raised”. He believes ethics and society should steer scientific progress, but the issues need to be raised first in order for that to happen. He still receives requests from parents worldwide. “There are quite a few people saying ‘please, I won’t tell anybody. Let us have this technology so that my child can be safe’... then there are children’s societies who say ‘no, you shouldn’t be doing this’, or ‘we don’t know what you should be doing’...

I think I was really just in the middle of that. I am not ashamed or feel that I shouldn’t have been a part of that.”

Warwick does not consider himself a ‘media whore’. He believes in communicating science in an understandable way and sees television as an excellent medium, “from an education point of view, rather than talking to a room full of 30 people with half of them being asleep, you can communicate with three or four million actually sitting up and listening.”

Academics face international competition, he says MIT raises funds through publicity, which includes appearing on television. “I think there has been a tradition in the UK and in Europe, of scientists almost doing the

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

opposite, making the science they do seem a little more important than it actually is by making it unfathomable.” Despite favouring mass communication, he agrees that the media distorts the portrayal of science. “Of course they do, but they distort everything... [for example] they quote you as having said something. If you’ve actually said it, you’d be lucky... for sure it’s gonna be modified and reworded to a certain extent, you just have to accept that.” When it comes to the media, “having to talk 20 pages in a book into one or two lines” is inevitable. Sometimes, he pushes things further to get a point across, “from a philosophical view, it can be good to make a point strongly. If you are having a debate, there’s no point agreeing with each other over things. You’re trying to take different sides, to raise issues and promote your side in a colourful, attractive way that draws people into the argument.”

Given the negativity towards him, Kevin Warwick denies having made any career misjudgements. He says he tries to be a good scientist and strives to be an even better one. So what does he think is good science?

“I think it’s a mixture. You do need to look at the boundaries of science as we know it now and push back the boundaries to look outside them, and then to substantiate what’s being done with further studies, to dig into the direction you’ve gone more deeply. That means good science is not sitting where you are with the science we know, twiddling with alphas and betas just to ink out your career, publish a few papers and become a fellow of this society or that society... in this country, there are a lot of scientists doing that.”

“good science is not... twiddling with alphas and betas just to ink out your career” Determined to push the boundaries, don’t expect Cyborg 2 to be the end, “Cyborg 3, as I see it, would be someone paralysed receiving a brain computer implant.” Neither is selfexperimentation over, he will do it again in Cyborg 4. I tempted him with the suggestion of a brain implant, “...it is a dangerous thing.

I would like to experience it, but I think I’d need to learn quite a bit first.” You’ve been warned, I think he likes to get things done. ■

Opposite page: the professor reading at his desk. Below from left to right, Cyborg 1: the RFID implant (shown next to a 2p coin); the implant surgery. Cyborg 2: a microelectrode array (shown on a 1p coin); two surgeons performed a two and a half hour operation on Kevin Warwick.

Spring 2006

KevinWarwick04.indd 3

NEWS & EVENTS

Cyborg Experiments Cyborg 1

August 1998

A radio frequency identification device (RFID) was implanted into his arm for nine days, allowing the University building to react to his movements.

Cyborg 2

March to June 2002

An array of 100 microelectrodes were ‘hammered’ into the median nerve of his left arm using a pneumatic gun.

The implant was in place for three months to investigate the following: • ultrasonic extra-sensory input • control a robot and drive a wheelchair with nerve impulses • mirror human hand movement with a robotic hand • remote neural stimulation over the internet • interact with the network in the university building • interactive wearable technology (collaboration with the Royal College of Art jewellery department)

Win a copy of I,Cyborg I,Science has a signed copy of the book ‘I,Cyborg’ from Kevin Warwick.

To win it, tell us: Which part of your body would you upgrade and why?

E-mail your answer in 25 words or less, marked ‘RoboKev’, to i.science@imperial.ac.uk by 30th April 2006. The best answer wins the prize!

I, science 11 8/3/06 7:38:57 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

Not without You Our training is accredited by the IEE, IMechE, ICE, IoM3. Our individual development plan will make sure that you're supported by mentors, experts and peers throughout your early career.

Corus is involved in exciting projects, on the railways, and in the construction, automotive and packaging industries. At the same time we also need to ensure the optimum efficiency of our own multi-million pound plant through investment, maintenance and process enhancement.

All applications are on-line. To find out more about the Engineering opportunities awaiting you at Corus and see where you could fit into our future, visit our website. We preferably look for a minimum 2:1 in terms of degree requirements.

Benefits include, pension scheme, quarterly bonus, 35 days holiday, employees share-save schemes and interest-free loan.

For more information about a career with Corus, call our recruitment hotline – 01926 488025

www.corusgroupcareers.com

2 I, science mp3.indd 2

Spring 2006

8/3/06 8:43:02 pm

REVIEWS

FEATURES REVIEWS

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS

NEWS & EVENTS

Feeling the Effects

If one thing in science can capture popular imagination, it’s self-experimentation.

Writers and directors love the drama inherent in scientists testing their hypotheses on themselves, revealing obsession, genius and madness.

Liv Hov-Clayton

© Spencer Hill www.spencerhill.co.uk

T

HE MOST captivating stories in science are of scientists who apply their work to their own bodies.

Those dull, white-clad beings, locked up in labs, solving complex problems most people wouldn’t understand, reveal streaks of obsession, bravery, audacity, recklessness and madness. Robert Louis Stevenson’s story of Jekyll and Hyde takes this image to the extreme – the peaceful scientist turns into a homicidal monster.

Professor Kevin Warwick (p.10-11) had computer chips operated into his arm, branding himself “the world’s first Cyborg”.

He has been accused of conducting publicity stunts rather than science, and is himself the first to admit that publicity is vital. His approach works: his homepage boasts how he has helped raise over £2M a year in research funding for his university as a result.

Self-experimentation is questionable within a discipline that depends on objectivity.

The scientist becomes the centre of his own work, and puts himself in potential danger.

It would be difficult to recruit volunteers for trials conducted by scientists or institutions with reputations for self-harm.

Last year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine, awarded to Dr Barry Marshall, may have contributed to legitimise self-experimentation in modernday science. Dr Marshall and his colleague Dr Robin Warren‘s claim that stomach ulcers

Spring 2006 self experimentation.indd 1

are caused by a bacterial infection was met by scepticism from the scientific community.

Dr Marshall settled the issue by downing a portion of the bacteria, contracting acute gastritis and hence revolutionising treatment of stomach ulcers. Marshall’s deed received much publicity at the time of the award.

Warren, who also shared the prize, did not get many headlines.

Ideal for today’s media-saturated society, self-experimentation reveals a highly social aspect to science. Suddenly scientists share the spotlight with Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me fame and artists such as Orlan whose concept of carnal art involves surgically transforming her own face.

In the early days of science, selfexperimentation was commonplace and carried even stronger social ties. Sir Humphry Davy, the early 19th century scientist, discovered the effects of nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, by inhaling it. He observed the numbing effects, using it to relieve his own toothache, and suggested its use for medical purposes, although this was not practised for another forty years.

Davy invited several of his friends, including poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, to sample the substance and record their sensations. In an age where individual experiences expressed through art were developing, artists used science extensively

in their discovery.

Self-experimentation can obviously go wrong. 18th century anatomist Sir John Hunter did, according to legend, inject himself with “juices” from a prostitute. She apparently had both syphilis and gonorrhoea, and it took Hunter three years to recover enough to get married. Hunter famously said: “Don’t think, try the experiment.” He is not the only person to have contracted STDs with that sort of attitude, but his intentions were probably nobler than most.

Even death can be a consequence.

American physician Jesse Lazear died from yellow fever after having inoculated himself with the virus. Frances Bacon is rumoured to have died from eating infested chicken as part of an experiment. That is not true – he tried to preserve chicken by stuffing it with snow, caught pneumonia and died.

Even here the social appeal peaks through the tragedy; the sensational and heroic deeds of a scientist giving his life for universal benefit. Max von Pettenkofer, a German scientist, swallowed cultures containing cholera during an epidemic. He survived and gallantly declared that man “must be willing to sacrifice even life and health for higher, ideal goods”. When these higher, ideal goods become publicity and a race for funding, one may ask whether life and health is really worth the sacrifice. ■

I, science 13 8/3/06 8:03:22 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

Going beyond bridges and buildings, engineers are applying their skills in new ways to biology.

Mohammad Sabry Waked

S

INCE THE days of the Pharaohs, the principle of bioengineering in medicine has played a major role in treatment of patients with various conditions, evidence of that can still be seen today on the walls of their temples and the skeletons of their dead.

The cane walking stick is in fact the most ancient bioengineered device known to man.

However, bioengineering plays perhaps one of the most important roles in healthcare today, whether it is sustaining the lives of people in intensive care, aiding prematurely born babies or in the most critical of surgical operations, it is often due to this field that people live longer and healthier.

“Pictures could be generated of the inside of a patient’s body, essentially allowing the doctor to work on a ‘see-through’ body.”

Bioengineering can be simplified by stating that it is the application of engineering and scientific principles to diagnose, treat or study the human body to improve quality of life. The importance of bioengineering arose when research showed that many medical conditions were very mechanical or physical in nature. However, the complexity of this field is encompassed in the abnormal anatomical orientation of the human body and its response to physiological and pathological stimuli. The scope for bioengineering is vast; its results are in use throughout many areas of medicine.

Monitoring systems intended to monitor patient condition in intensive care units or during surgery were designed by bioengineers. These systems are electronic in nature and monitor physical parameters exhibited by the human body, such as heart rate, temperature and blood circulation.

They alert doctors if a patient is endangered, ensuring quick response to any problems, thus increasing the patient’s survival chances.

With the current quality of telecommunication, a futuristic step is being taken by bioengineers in developing what is called Telesurgery which would enable doctors to operate on patients thousands of miles away. This is particularly helpful if a specific expertise is required for a rare condition such as in military operations or for astronauts in space.

A major area of future bioengineering work is Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for surgeons. Surgeons could use the ‘eyes’ of an MRI system to image the patient constantly during surgery. At present MRI scanners are used to take pictures of a patient’s body whilst laying still. An MRI is essentially a huge magnet which aligns hydrogen atoms within a patient’s body. By directing a frequency pulse at the patient, the changes in energy absorbed and released by the hydrogen atoms can be detected and measured using

14 I, science engineering man2.indd 2

Engineer in

a computer that translates the data into an image of the internal body.

If doctors were able to use this technique during surgery, pictures could be generated of the inside of a patient’s body, essentially allowing the doctor to work on a ‘see-through’ body. However the main challenge is in designing non ferromagnetic surgical instruments which would not interfere with the magnetic imaging technique. Bioengineers are at present investigating the possible use of laser or high water pressure tools in order to overcome this hurdle to make MRI’s of use to surgeons.

At Imperial, the Department of Bioengineering is one of the newest departments in the college. It is growing exponentially with superb research activity in various fields including many of those previously mentioned.

One of the strongest research branches of the department is looking into physiological flow, involving the study of blood circulation and related conditions such as atherosclerosis.

Atherosclerosis is a medical condition by which fatty deposits build up along the inner lining of an artery.

If such a case occurs in the heart, brain or limbs then it can lead to a heart attack, stroke or gangrene respectively.

Professor John Lever, Head of Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College recently commented on their achievements, “our better understanding and mapping of the distribution of atherosclerosis within the sites of complex flow could eventually bring us closer to a solution for dealing with or preventing the adverse effects of atherosclerosis.”

Some of the college’s work also investigates how motion is detected by our eyes, which lead to the design of the Intelligent Artificial Retina, currently undergoing clinical trials following approval by the US Food and Drug Administration. If successful, this would open new horizons for restoring the sight of partially sighted patients.

Bioengineering is a vast discipline which uses various engineering backgrounds to improve the quality of human life. After examining its vast uses, one wonders where the healthcare industry would be without such people.

Spring 2006

9/3/06 12:30:54 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS

er ing Man T

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

Kidneys. Livers. Hearts. Scientists might soon be able to grow any organ you need.

HE ROYAL School of Mines is all about the science of the very big and the very permanent. But tucked behind its austere façade on Prince Consort Road is a team dedicated to the study of the tiny and the impossibly fragile. They are, helping to put Imperial College at the cutting edge of tissue engineering, a field that promises everything from sophisticated tissue repair to DIY organs and ‘soft’ cybernetic implants.

Led by Dr. Molly Stevens, the team is a diverse one, including surgeons, computer scientists, cell biologists and engineers.

Much of this expertise is focussed on manipulating microscopic artificial environments in order to cultivate and control different types of cell.

Basically, if you can understand what external processes control the activity of cells you can replicate those to your own advantage. As Stevens says: “If we can discover what the correct intricate melange of cues is and engineer materials to present these cues then we may be able to make much more intelligent materials for tissue regeneration.”

That “intricate melange” means that tissue engineering isn’t simply a matter of making a kidneyshaped mould, pouring in a bunch of stem cells and waiting for a functioning organ to appear. Researchers are finding that a much more subtle design is necessary, a design with a scale in the region of millionths and billionths of a metre.

Stevens and team member Julian George published a review paper in Science last year that outlined the challenges of engineering environments for growing tissue cells. Much of the latest research is aimed at mimicking the properties of an exquisitely fine structure within tissues called the Extra Cellular Matrix, or ECM. The ECM provides support for cells – cells that aren’t ‘anchored’ to the ECM become free agents. Such cells commit suicide, so the ECM is crucial to maintaining the health of the tissues in an organ, but its role goes much further than simply giving cells something to hold onto. This environment helps coordinate everything from cell movement in developing embryos to organ growth and wound repair. The structure and chemical composition of the ECM can help determine the internal composition of cells – even which genes they express. Bioengineers have realised that if you can create an artificial scaffolding to copy the properties of structures in living organs, you can have far greater control over the cells you put inside that scaffolding.

So, how do you build an artificial scaffold

Spring 2006

engineering man2.indd 3

NEWS & EVENTS

Duncan McMillan with struts many times narrower than the cells they hold? One approach being developed is electrospinning. Electrospinners create incredibly fine artificial threads by injecting a polymer jet across an electric field of around fifty thousand volts. Stevens’ team recently finished building one of their own in a setup whose Heath Robinson appearance belies its careful design. They have begun working with the polymer PMMA, better known as Perspex, and are now moving on to try biodegradable polymers, such as collagen and peptide-polymer hybrid systems.

When I went to see the electrospinner in action, I half-expected arcing blue electricity and great tumbleweeds of plastic. The reality is somewhat more modest, but no less fascinating; as the electrospinner warms up gossamer-thin threads begin to stream down from the nozzle at the top, to a wire frame on the base of the box. After a quarter of an hour, the collector resembles a spider’s jungle gym, covered in whispery filaments measuring in the nanometre range up to 10 micrometres in diameter.

The end product is all very pretty, but what’s the point? According to Stevens, they: “plan to use it to make highly controlled bioactive nanofibres that we can pattern into 3D scaffolds to support cell growth.” Making those fibres bioactive will involve adding to the polymer mix proteins, like fibronectin and laminin, giving the cells something to bind to. Later investigations will try to tease out the roles of the many other proteins in what Julian George calls the “symphony of interaction” between cells and the ECM. As he says, they can hope to find out “what effect each piece has on cells by re-inserting them into our synthetic matrices....just, there’s quite a few pieces to choose from!”

“Researchers have worked out how to use adult stem cells to recreate whole new teeth.”

What next with all this? Regenerative medicine will be one of the primary applications of the work being done by Stevens’ group. According to a 2004 report the medical uses for tissue engineering range from replacement heart valves and corneas to neurological repair and even transplantation of whole new organs. Stevens suggests that, in time, people will have tissue-engineered organs and enhancements grown from their own stem cells. Researchers at Kings College, London have already worked out how to use adult stem cells to recreate whole new teeth.

The Science paper ends by describing a variety of potential future applications. These include biosensors, implanted directly into the body, which could be used for detecting specific substances or pathogens. Using tailor-made structures, so-called ‘cybernetic’ components would be partially or completely derived from living tissue, rather than simply being implanted “spare parts”. Whether such enhancements are desirable, or even practicable, is open to debate, but it’s certain that we have only just begun to investigate the possibilities of tissue engineering and that Imperial College is at the forefront of those investigations. ■

I, science 15 9/3/06 12:31:19 pm

REVIEWS FEATURES

All photos © Darren Bito and Katayo Sagata

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

Papua New Guinea. Few places can rival its natural and cultural diversity.

Both foreign and native scientists are dazzled

by Papua New Guinea’s unique natural repertoire, yet are flummoxed by the challenges they face studying it. Stella Papadopoulou met conservation biologists Darren Bito from the Binatang Research Centre and Katayo Sagata from The Wildlife Conservation Society to find out what it’s like for scientists to work on one of our planet’s ‘last frontiers’.

16 I, science PNG.indd 2

I

MET Darren and Katayo at a party. I was instantly intrigued by the affable, swarthy-skinned scientists from Papua New Guinea. Mixed feelings, a hybrid of urgent curiosity and all-consuming travelling fever, ensued. I left that party with questions tickling my mind: why is it that biologists, both native and foreign, are doing research in Papua New Guinea, and what is it like to work there?

A patchwork of folded mountains, spreading rainforests, vast river deltas and unspoilt coral reefs, Papua New Guinea, or PNG as it is locally known, is the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, the last in a string of islands spilling down from South-East Asia into the Pacific.

PNG’s staggering array of wildlife has bewitched explorers and scientists for centuries. The lowland and mountain regions of PNG are blessed with 124 million acres of tropical forests renowned for their highly rich plant and animal life, the largest

intact rainforest outside the Amazon and the Congo. The forests provide a natural sanctuary whose sheer remoteness has nurtured countless species, such as iridescent birds of paradise, famous for going to great lengths in the name of love. The country’s coastal regions contain some of the largest and most pristine tracts of mangroves, many of which can be found nowhere else in the world. “PNG is one of the last frontiers on Earth,” Darren noted.

Natural remoteness coupled with a poor transport infrastructure (there are only about 430 miles of paved roads covering just the coast and a limited section of the Highlands) welcome western scientists with a punch in the stomach!

“People coming from outside, like America, Australia, and the UK, are humbled by the sheer physical challenges, so those who want to come to PNG to do science should not only be physically prepared but mentally too to take

Spring 2006

9/3/06 12:12:30 pm

All photos © Darren Bito and Katayo Sagata

FEATURES REVIEWS the geographical isolation and the physical strains”, Katayo said.

But before anyone rushes to their local gym to renew their membership, tackling the physical demands of research work in PNG is just the tip of the iceberg. PNG houses some 800 Micronesian and Melanesian tribes, each with its own language, traditions and customs.

Since the PNG Constitution wishes for traditional villages and communities to remain as viable units of Papua New Guinean society, the PNG legislature has enacted various laws in which a type of tenure called ‘customary land title’ is recognised.

This means that the traditional lands of the indigenous peoples cannot legally be taken away from them.

“Whatever you see in PNG, even total wilderness...belongs to someone.”

According to Katayo, “whatever you see in PNG, even total wilderness... belongs to someone”. Indeed, almost 97% of the total land area of PNG is owned by tribal clans.

As a result, all scientists must have permission to work on a piece of land from the respective clan before they embark on any activity. For that, “it is important to establish good relationships with the community so local people will accept you and welcome you to work in the forest or in the river system,” Katayo added.

So, how are western scientists coping?

“Some are getting really frustrated,” Darren said with an amused twinkle in his eyes.

“When they try to contact people, they [soon] give up! It really takes quite a bit of patience and negotiation because very clear understanding has to take place before you can work on people’s land. Scientists must understand how culture is part of science

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

here. It’s a big challenge.”

And what if the the tribes are not convinced? “They kick you out,” Darren answered without hesitation.

To make the most out of time and resources, scientists often need to turn to the local communities for help. “The area can be studied much better with the help of the local people,” Darren said.

To promote collaboration between scientists and local villagers, Darren and other members at the Binatang Research Centre in Madang are training locals to become parataxonomists.

“Parataxonomists are trained to organise and carry out research surveys in remote parts of New Guinea. They also understand and carry out complicated sampling procedures for any insect or plant group to be studied, with little supervision required”, Darren said. “Over the past 10 years scientists of the Binatang Research Centre have trained some 20 energetic young men within the area, who know the plants and insects in their traditional names and have good survival skills; western scientists can benefit from that knowledge, but also village people get to know a bit of science by contributing to the work.”

Giving local communities access to a “bit of science” has far-reaching implications for raising awareness on conservation issues. Conserving the natural resources of PNG is vital since most of the inhabitants are subsistence farmers. “At the Wildlife Conservation Society in Goroka, we are trying to incorporate conservation into the local lifestyle and normal activities because people have to be aware that their resources are limited,” Katayo said.

But, how are they trying to do that? “From the top down and from the bottom up,” Katayo explained. “Top down is influencing policy-making at the government level and bottom up is working with local communities through education programmes on conservation.”

NEWS & EVENTS

Did you know? w Despite being only slightly larger

than California, PNG contains a remarkable 5% of the world’s biodiversity.

PNG is home to more than 700 species of birds; of the 43 species of birds of paradise known to us, 38 are found in PNG, 36 of which have been described nowhere else.

w

w Kimbe Bay is home to at least 860 species of reef fish and 350 species of hard coral, making it one of the world’s richest and most diverse marine ecosystems. w Over 6,000 species of butterfly and moth have been found in PNG, including the Alexandra Birdwing butterfly and the Hercules, the largest moth species in the world. w PNG is one of the most diverse countries on Earth, with more than 700 indigenous languages and at least as many indigenous societies, all within a population of just over five million people.

Yet it is not smooth sailing. Due to the country’s oil reserves and urban development needs, the national government has been liaising with foreign corporations that wish to explore the opportunity. At the same time, rapid population growth pushes village communities to clear more forests for farming and fuel. Darren and Katayo believe that teaching new generations is the way to go. “They are the future leaders and the future resources of the country. so [whilst] they are growing up, they [need to be] aware of all that surrounds them and how to protect it”.

Although the road may seem bumpy at times, PNG holds strongly to its title of being one of the best places to study our planet’s biodiversity. For that, PNG will continue to fuel the curiosity of scientists for many years to come. ■ Ecological studies of rainforest insects can easily be done in field conditions, such as the Field Research Station in Ohu village (Madang Province).

Parataxonomist from the PNG Binatang Research Centre in Madang.

Spring 2006

PNG.indd 3

I, science 17 8/3/06 8:24:20 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

2 I, science self experimentation.indd 2

REVIEWS FEATURES

Spring 2006

8/3/06 7:52:18 pm

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS ©U.S. Geological Survey

FEATURES REVIEWS

Extinction on a Grand Scale Imperial College earth scientists have found evidence suggesting that volcanic eruptions caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth’s history. Michael Marshall investigates.

I

T IS the universe at its most Hollywood.

Hordes of giant reptiles roam the Earth, the unquestioned dominant species.

Then, one day, there is a low rumble, inexorably rising to a screaming roar. The noise is literally deafening. And then the meteorite strikes home. The force of the explosion is so great that much of the dust is thrown up into the stratosphere and the world enters a permanent winter. Within years, the age of the dinosaurs is over.

The story is so dramatic that we often forget one crucial fact: the Cretaceous extinction, which wiped out the dinosaurs, pterosaurs and plesiosaurs, was by no means the most severe mass extinctions the Earth has experienced.

The Permian extinction occurred some 248 million years ago, before dinosaurs had evolved. The fossil record tells us that 70% of all land families were destroyed, along with 95% of all marine life, seemingly at a stroke.

The causes of the Permian extinction have been hotly debated for many years. The two main theories have been a meteor impact, as with the Cretaceous extinction, and massive volcanic eruptions.

Dr Mark Sephton, of the Department of Earth Sciences at Imperial, has been studying the Permian extinctions for ten years. Over the past decade, he and his team have amassed evidence in support of the volcanism theory, and against the impact theory.

When a meteor strikes the Earth, it brings with it certain chemical elements that are not ordinarily abundant. Most famously, it was the discovery of high levels of iridium in late Cretaceous rocks at the end of the 1970s that spurred Luis Alvarez to propose a meteor as the cause of the Cretaceous extinction.

Dr Sephton and his team went on an expedition in 2004 to look for these signature elements in late Permian rocks. He says: “We looked for extraterrestrial helium and couldn’t find any. We looked for osmium – couldn’t find any. We looked for iridium, and we did find some, but on two levels.” Iridium was present, but at a much lower level than in the Cretaceous rocks, and much of it had been laid down several million years after the extinction. In a paper in the December 2004 issue of Geology, Dr Sephton concluded that a meteor was not the primary cause of the extinction.

Spring 2006

geology.indd 1

At the time of the Permian extinction, vast volcanic eruptions were occurring in what is now Siberia. The eruptions continued for one to three million years, forming a vast expanse of igneous rocks known as the Siberian Traps. Today, according to researchers from the University of Leicester, the Traps cover around 2 million square kilometres.

The volcanoes pumped out a range of poisonous substances, such as sulphur, which acidified the environment. Soils became more acidic and acid rain fell. This killed off rooted vegetation on the land.

At the same time, lava from the volcanoes was striking the sedimentary rocks of the region. These rocks contained chemicals such as halogens, which were released into the atmosphere. In the chemical melting pot of the Traps, organohalogens such as CFCs were produced. When these escaped into the atmosphere, they depleted the ozone layer, and as a result levels of ultraviolet radiation began to rise.

‘70% of all land families were destroyed, along with 95% of all marine life’ Dr Sephton explains, “You can observe the results of this by studying pollen fossilised during the extinction. Pollen is normally shed in tetrads, which means you get four grains stuck together, and these later separate. However, the tetrads from this period failed to separate, and this meant they weren’t viable.” The failure has been traced to a single mutation, which appears to have been caused by the increased UV. The combined effects of acidification and increased UV appear to have been enough to wipe out the majority of land plants, and cause the food chain to collapse.

Meanwhile, the destruction of the land ecosystem was beginning to take its toll on the oceans. Ordinarily, the roots of plants bind soil, holding it in place; with the land plants gone, soil was left loose. It was rapidly eroded, washed into rivers and carried down to the sea. This point is the crux of Dr Sephton’s most recent paper, in which he and his team showed that plant remains found in sedimentary rocks laid down by

Permian oceans were actually derived from land plants, and must therefore have been transported into the sea.

As the soil washed into them, the seas became murky and turbid. Less light was able to penetrate into the depths and the bacteria and plants that depended on light for their food began to die. Such plants are responsible for producing much of the oxygen normally dissolved in seawater; without them, oxygen levels dropped and marine animals also came under threat.

The soil in the oceans brought with it large quantities of phosphorus. This led to a process known as eutrophication in which vast ‘blooms’ of algae develop, feeding off the phosphorus and in the process using up dissolved oxygen. With oxygen levels under attack on two fronts, many marine animals had no chance.

What can we learn from this catalogue of disasters? Firstly, we should remember that when mass extinctions occur, they provide opportunities for new species to come into prominence, replacing those which have been wiped out. The dominant land animals of the Permian era were amphibians; their destruction cleared the decks for the emergence of the reptiles, most famously the dinosaurs. Similarly, the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago undoubtedly gave the mammals the opportunity they needed to flourish.

A second issue for consideration is whether an extinction on this scale could happen again. Soil erosion, so critical to the Permian extinction, has been claimed to be a major environmental issue today. Eutrophication is very much a modern concern, as it is caused by fertiliser runoff. The Gulf of Mexico is now the site of a ‘Dead Zone’, in which certain species of bacteria thrive and other organisms cannot be found at all.

Research into the extent of modern soil erosion is sketchy; we do not have a clear idea of how much is occurring worldwide. We have, at present, very little information on the rate of soil erosion necessary to trigger such events in the oceans; it may be that our agricultural methods have pushed us close to the critical rate, but it is equally possible that we are far below it.

As Mark Sephton says, “We don’t know where the tipping point is.” ■

I, science 19 8/3/06 8:26:58 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

Facing the future Dr. Alex Clarke talks about the psychological acceptance of facial transplantation, the importance of the selection process, and why we all have a role to play in helping those with facial disfigurements.

David Brill and Helen Morant

Y

OU CAN imagine that if someone very unusual walked into this room now, we’d all look as the door opened and do a double-take. The noise volume in the room goes down and that can be devastating. “There’s a lot to be done in how we treat people.” says Dr. Alex Clarke, Clinical Psychologist on the face transplant team at the Royal Free Hospital, London.

Increasingly, facial transplantation may become an option for the severely disfigured. The concept raises some obvious practical questions: how long will the procedure take? Will the transplanted face regain complete function? What will it look like? With so much attention focused on the logistics of the procedure the psychological management is often forgotten. Dr. Clarke’s role is to provide the equally important psychological component of the patient selection procedure, and to remain closely involved in their care after the operation.

Hand transplants give us some idea as to how people might respond to a face transplant. “One of the health professionals involved in hand transplants described going into a room and seeing one of the transplant subjects biting his nails. What wonderful evidence that someone has accepted their hands as their own.”

Although the first hand transplant was a

20 I, science Alex Clarke.indd 2

physical success, the subject later requested that it be removed, raising the issue of psychological rejection. “As I understand it, he disliked the fact that he had a nonfunctioning hand. So you could say that was a failure of selection.

I suspect that what he wanted was a hand that he could move and feel, but it didn’t fulfill any function as far as he was concerned. So he made a very logical decision actually it didn’t meet his expectations so he didn’t want it. There have been 24 hand transplants across the world and only one of them failed, but it’s the one everyone mentions.”

“Films like Face Off contribute to the myths surrounding plastic surgery” Self-acceptance of a new appearance is obviously a major step in the successful transplantation of a face, but is likely to be a long process. “Your body image is very robust,” explains Dr. Clarke. “You have a well entrenched sense of yourself, and people who’ve had disfiguring injuries do say that it takes a long time to look in the mirror and recognise yourself. And even after you’ve

geared yourself up to look in the mirror, you can still be caught out by catching yourself in a shop window when you’re not prepared to look. So the fact that somebody with a transplanted face didn’t necessarily recognise themselves straight away wouldn’t worry or surprise me – I would expect that and would prepare somebody accordingly.”

So it is unsurprising that selecting suitable candidates involves a rigorous screening procedure. “We have tried to make the selection process as objective as possible, so we’re using standardised scales that are used for other forms of facial assessment. These ask about social anxiety and social avoidance, for example. So we’d ask you to identify the kind of things that are difficult for you, for example having a very visibly different appearance, and the sorts of situations you avoid”.

“Some people have the idea that you would move from having an identified abnormality to being normal again. But most reconstructive procedures can’t do that. A poor psychological outcome here would be someone who was expecting to look like they looked before, that they could just walk away from the operation, done and dusted, and disappear. That would be the worst outcome from my point of view – somebody who hasn’t realised that they’re moving into

Spring 2006

8/3/06 8:53:32 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS a career as someone with a transplanted face.

They’ll need to keep in very careful and close contact with medical professionals for the rest of their life.”

Facial transplantation is a drastic procedure, and Dr. Clarke stresses that she would only consider it for herself under the most severe circumstances. “If I had panfacial burns which meant that I’d got no nose, no eyelids, my sight was threatened, I couldn’t eat properly because I hadn’t got any lips and I had lots of tight scarring and restricting movement of the face, then certainly I would consider it as an option.

I wouldn’t just because I had an unusual appearance and didn’t look like everybody else.”

Acceptance by others seems to be as important as acceptance by the patient themselves. “The recipient of a hand transplant once spoke of what a difference it made when his little boy first saw him and, pleased to see his daddy with hands again, bent down and kissed them. It was actually the acceptance of other people that made the biggest difference towards that individual.”

“We’ve got ethical permission to develop a screening process, and that’s the first step.”

NEWS & EVENTS

The history of facial transplantation July 1994 – Surgeons in India successfully reattach a face which had been torn off by the force of an accident.

September 1998 – World’s first hand transplant carried out in Lyon, France.

December 2002 – The potential for face transplantation is first discussed at the winter meeting of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons.

November 2003 – The Royal College of Surgeons of England commissions a special working party to investigate the possibility of face transplants on the NHS. Their report acknowledges the potential benefits of the procedure, but decides that “it would be unwise to proceed with facial transplantation until further research was performed”.

August 2004 – The face transplant team at the Royal Free Hospital in London develops a surgical and psychological screening process for the operation.

September 2005 – Surgeons in the USA are given permission to begin short-listing potential candidates.

November 2005 – French surgeons perform a successful partial face transplant on 38year-old Isabelle Dinoire. with very severe facial burns and presume that their life must be dreadful, that they never go out, that kind of thing. Not true at all. I’ve worked with a lot of people with very severe disfigurements who weren’t coping well, but actually changed things around following psychosocial intervention.

This takes the form of teaching people how to cope with comments and staring - the sorts of intrusions that come from others.

The classic situation that facially disfigured people describe is traveling on the tube and sitting on those seats that face other people.

They feel that other people notice them and are fixated on their face, staring at it and exploring it. They have to be able to deal with that and they can learn to do so.”

The world’s first partial-face transplant, carried out in France last November, was accompanied by intense media coverage and Dr. Clarke believes that this has had a positive impact on public opinion of the procedure. “People’s perception of what was being planned was wrong, and their perception of who it was being planned for

was wrong. I think that was partly because there were no really good images available, but also because of previous films like Face Off, which contribute to the myths surrounding plastic surgery. But as time has moved on we can provide people with better information about what exactly is planned, and the kind of patients for whom it would be considered. In that regard the French operation is a great example, and the media coverage of that transplant has been really very good. People can see that it would have been a very difficult reconstructive challenge and that maybe a facial transplant was the best solution on offer.”

“People who look unusual wouldn’t have a problem if it weren’t for the rest of us.”

Official permission for the procedure has not yet been granted in the UK, but Dr. Clarke is pleased with progress so far.

“At the moment we’ve got ethical permission to develop a screening process, and that’s the first step. We try to be very transparent about what we’re doing, so we publish a lot of our work, and we think it’s important that people are aware of what is happening and have the chance to debate it. We’re certainly not in a race, put it that way, but I couldn’t give you a time frame. So far we are moving ahead and we are happy with the rate at which we are doing so.”

Evidently, the success of facial transplantation will be measured far beyond the reconnection of blood vessels and nerves. Acceptance of the new face by the recipient, and by those around them, will prove to be important. Perhaps it is only the reactions of other people that justify the need for the procedure at all. Dr. Clarke concludes: “People who look unusual wouldn’t have a problem if it weren’t for the rest of us.” ■ For more information, visit: www.facialtransplantation.org.uk ©CHU de Lyon

This example demonstrates the need to prepare not only potential recipients, but also their family and friends. “It’s important to have good social support from people who really understand what a long process it is.

We need to work with them as well because ultimately it’s through them and their interaction with the individual, that people will finally be able to feel that they’ve got a new face which is theirs.”

The reaction of the public also has a significant impact on facially disfigured people. “There’s no relationship between the severity of a facial disfigurement and psychological distress. People look at others

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

Spring 2006

Alex Clarke.indd 3

I, science 21 8/3/06 8:54:03 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

If we haven’t, maybe we should.

Every 19 minutes someone finds a job through New Scientist. Look out for New Scientist’s Graduate Careers Specials in May and October.

SUBSCRIBE TO NEW SCIENTIST MAGAZINE TODAY AND SAVE 50% Get the latest news, opinions and jobs delivered direct to your door every week for just £66 – saving 50% off the annual cover price of £132.60

Hotline: 08456 731 731 quote code 2450 www.newscientist.com/2450

2 I, science geology.indd 2

Spring 2006

8/3/06 8:27:49 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS

The world at your fingertips Mp3, podcast, flashdrive. These words didn’t even exist ten years ago and now many people can’t get by without them. The Mp3 revolution has arrived with a bang and seems to be getting bigger and better.

Meera Senthilingam

W

ITHIN THE last few years, a large percentage of the population have ditched their bulky Discmans for sleek, stylish iPod or other Mp3 player. The craze for CD burning has diminished since the portable Mp3 player eliminated the need for that middle step. Our computer has everything we need, doing away with many of the previously must-have home furnishings, like the stereo. But how has this all come about?

Mp3’s are a rapidly growing form of music technology and, with players ranging in price from £400 for an iPod to just £20 for other general brands, who can resist? The ability to download all your songs from the internet has made it easier than ever to keep up-todate, resulting in a vast increase in popularity for Mp3 players. Given the financial state students are supposedly in, there are still endless numbers of iPods attached to the ears of students passing down the main walkway here at Imperial.

With endless downloads and effortless usability, Apple filled an unnoticed gap in the music technology market, resulting in the huge success of the iPod. They shot straight to the top of the market, with their popularity leading to the rapid release of the iPod Mini and now the Nano. These portable players are decreasing in size and coming with an increasing number of accessories: from armbands to carry them to adapters for enjoying them whilst you drive. All to keep you entertained on the move.

This digital age is constantly improving to make entertainment even easier. The iPod started a trend, resulting in many companies jumping on the technological bandwagon to make complementary gadgets that are soon to hit the market. One gadget that will literally bring music to your ears is CNGTEK’s Mp3 sunglasses. They strap on like normal glasses and, with up to 1GB memory, let you listen to music whenever you want, minus the wires.

They don’t look too bad either.

The latest product being developed is a Wi-Fi enabled package that allows you to download files from anyone passing by. The ‘Push!Music’ technology, designed by Maria

Spring 2006

mp3.indd 1

Håkansson and her team at the Viktoria Institute in Sweden, will automatically transfer songs between Wi-Fi enabled Mp3 players within a 20 metre radius.

“Each song acts as a ‘media agent’ that collects information about itself and others to be able to perform a range of things, such as copy to another device,” explains Håkansson.

However, she is concerned about whether this sharing will be accepted. “Would people be open-minded and enjoy this, or would they request ways of blocking users or certain music?” The technology is not ready to hit the market as yet but shows promise for expanding of mobile music sharing.

“‘Push!Music’...will automatically transfer songs between Wi-Fi enabled MP3 players within a 20 metre radius.”

Further developments in the field come from Royal Phillips Electronics, who are working on software that will allow consumers to download songs they like without lifting a finger. Based on an acoustic analysis of the tunes already enjoyed, computers will request and recommend songs its user may like, involving nothing but acceptance or rejection on the user’s part.

The technology will also act as an automatic classification system, helping to classify collections of music so that in the future a simple description of what type of music a user feels like listening to will prompt the Mp3 player to find appropriate tracks in the collection. Almost like an Mp3 butler.

Competing with these new gadgets is the star of the previous revolution – the mobile phone. Every new phone to hit the market has some form of Mp3 storage, with the latest Nokia N-series carrying up to 4GB, the same as an iPod mini. Mobile phone companies are hoping consumers will seize the opportunity to carry one device that has it all rather than using two separate gadgets.

Some phones have the added bonus of using

Mp3s as a ringtone.

But it’s not all about music. The Mp3 player has brought with it options to learn, catch up on news and listen to radio shows after they have been broadcast. This has all been possible thanks to ‘podcasts’.

These are audio files posted online for all to download and playback at no cost. Podcasts didn’t become popular until last year, but with millions of companies and stations using them, it’s the new way to put information forward. You can hear anything from the chart countdown and headline news to city guides and ‘god-casts’ from your local church. For all the scientists out there, Nature has regular podcasts about the latest published work. To make things even easier, online podcast directories make everything available in one place. The podcast has modernized the consumption of knowledge; allowing you to listen to what you want, where you want and when you want.

One area suffering, whilst the rest are rejoicing, is the music industry. HMV, the UK’s largest selling music store, saw a 19% decrease in their physical sales in 2005.

On the plus side, their downloads saw a whopping increase of 357%, with almost 2 million downloads sold in the final two weeks of 2005. The end of year rush was no doubt a result of numerous Mp3 players received as Christmas gifts. But if physical sales continue to decrease will music stores vanish from our high streets forever? This change fits in with the general increase in online provisions that are reducing the numbers of us visiting the high street for our shopping.

The era of the Mp3 has revolutionised more than just the music industry. Technology associated with this simple, compressed file is flying at us from all sides. Our lives are being made easier every day with the increasingly effortless ability to learn, keep updated and, most of all, enjoy music. In an era based on consumer choice, there is no doubt the Mp3 revolution will continue to thrive. ■

I, science 23 8/3/06 8:31:06 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

Small World

How much smaller and faster can technology get? | William Poviano All good things come in small packages. At least, the computing industry seems to believe so. If the current trends for technological advancements had to be summarized into one sentence, it could be “make it smaller, make it faster”. The two things are closely linked, as a matter of fact.

Take the most obvious example: machine CPUs. The heart of a computer, these small boards of silicon have, for fifty years, followed a famous computer science commandment known as “Moore’s Law”: every eighteen months, the speed of marketed CPUs double. This is a remarkable rate of speed increase – even more so because it has been so consistent over the years. This has been achieved, simply, by cramming more transistors into smaller spaces. Indeed, IBM recently developed the world’s smallest computer and it measures roughly thirty times the size of an atom – a mind-boggling size.

How much smaller can it get? Not much smaller, it seems. This glaring problem has sparked interest in several new research areas.

The integrated circuit field is not the only one starting to see the horizon of its current trends. There has been a frenzy to improve computer graphics. Phones and music players are increasingly miniaturized. It was not long ago that everyone gaped at the palmsized Motorola phone. Things have gotten far more compact since then – ipod Nano, anyone? However, we seem to have reached a point of perfect balance. How much smaller do we want mp3 players to get before they are impossible to handle and get lost with the dust in our pockets?

“All good things come in small packages.”

Of course, this is the common problem. This breathless push towards the smaller and the faster is soon running out of space. But with the end of old paths, come new, revolutionary ones.

Technology is synonymous with revolution, and we are already seeing the limits that physics imposes on us. Perhaps it is not such a bad thing, for one only has to glimpse the new areas of research, that have arisen to solve these issues of size and speed, to see that revolution is indeed on its way.

Integrated circuits will begin to follow quantum computing, exploiting not size, but rather the weird and wonderful properties of the sub-atomic world. Computations at the quantum level are fast but very error-prone, and require a large number of repeated calculations to weed out errors. They do, however, hold the promise of storing bits of information in single atoms.

Interactive media companies are in a rush to develop new approaches to graphics. Instead of focusing exclusively on the visual experience, new ideas are being put forth to maximise the other four senses: smell, taste, touch and hearing. Elaborating on these will truly envelop the user with a complete experience.

Many of today’s popular games have surprisingly low graphics compared to the state-of-the-art standard, Massively Multiplayer Online Games. They bring a new focus on the online play and the community, feeding onto man’s social side rather than his visceral.

And what of the incredibly popular cell phone and music player market? Phones are becoming so multi-use they resemble palmpilots with in-built video cameras. Mp3 players are now competing with regards to design, both visual and technical, as opposed to raw storage capacity.

Making it smaller and making it faster don’t matter as much anymore. The future of devices now appears to lie in their ease of use, their relationships with the untrained customer, and linking all these apparently disparate technologies into an interconnected web.

Instead of making that mp3 player half the size to fit in a tic-tac box, we can turn it into a remote control for the stereo, the heating, the oven, or the TV. Every so many years, technology takes a sharp turn in new directions. With the end of a dominant research philosophy in mind, we are taking the first few steps on a new and hopeful path. ■

24 I, science opinionsFINAL.indd 2

You Gotta Love It Technology, a girl’s best friend | Helen Morant I suffer for technology. Yes, technology has sometimes let me down, but to no greater extent than I have abused it through negligence, ignorance and by drops and spills.

My prodigious exam-failing abilities will, I hope, preclude me from being labelled a geek. Besides, I’m a girl, and we all know from teen movies that girls can’t be geeks. If a girl appears geeky at the beginning of the film, by the end she is the stunningly beautiful romantic heroine. But I do like useful things, especially if they save me time, entertain me, allow me to communicate, or generally have a bit of cred with the boys.

Those who sneer at my passion for nurturing new gadgets and gizmos should in fact be thanking me. I’m an early adopter, and society owes us a debt of gratitude. We are the ones who are prepared to pay over the odds for technologies that may become obsolete fairly quickly, may be bulky and cumbersome, and take time to learn how to use. Six months later, everybody has the new easy-to-use version; but are others grateful to us pioneers? No. More sneers: “Ha ha, yours looks like a brick…”.

It’s expensive, being a technophile. Each new acquisition requires planning, often in the form of judicious idea planting (expressions of need, not desire) to generous gift-givers in the family at just the right time before Christmas and birthdays. Extra income may be required.

Financial priorities need to be assessed. Who needs a pension when you have an iPod? Let’s take the classic example - the mobile phone. I was one of the first in my year at medical school to own one. It was the heady days of the late nineties. Pre-millennial angst was rife, and no one could be completely sure that the world wouldn’t end with the century, when the millennium bug may have been about to cause the simultaneous launching of the world’s nuclear arsenal. Despite the atmosphere of technophobia, I persuaded myself that I needed a “car phone” for personal safety. And it was the size of a brick. It didn’t do text, but back in those days, what did? None of my friends had a mobile and phone calls were prohibitively expensive, so I really only kept it for emergencies. And then everyone got phones and we started to find them useful. I still find it hard to imagine how we managed to plan any social arrangements without mobile phones, but I don’t remember a freshers’ year of isolation. I don’t remember a freshers’ year of much, but that’s another issue.

I won’t list my myriad technological possessions here because of the invitation it might present to burglars, but I can say now that I don’t have a BlackBerry due to a perverse mistrust of anything whose name includes a capital letter that isn’t preceded by a space. And, anyway, why is fruit so popular for naming technology?

I love talking, I like writing, and my computer and my mobile phone are essential to life as I know it. I am not the ultimate technophile, I even know girls who have more kit than me. But I know that people who damn us technophiles for being swept along by shallow marketing campaigns are wrong. If you don’t get the latest gizmo until you’re sure you need it and everyone else has one, just remember that some of us are prepared to suffer for the cause of technology. And to those who proudly label themselves ‘technophobe’ I say this: you’re lazy, and you’re missing out. ■

Spring 2006

8/3/06 8:35:16 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS

My Intimate Friend?

Is modern technology making social incompetents of us all?

Melisa Martinez Alvarez We are all fascinated with how technology is changing our lives, making them easier and happier. It advances so fast that even we, young sophisticated students, find it hard to keep up-to-date with it all! It would be absurd to think of grandpa listening to music on his iPod, but how long will it be before we become obsolete? No-one will dispute that technology has changed our lives, and continues to do so, the question is: is it for better or worse?

One of the fastest developing technologies is computer science, which greatly improves how we communicate. I can talk online, send files, and even see my sister in Australia. But what happens when it comes to one-to-one communication without a screen in front of you? What about meeting new people and socialising? Aren’t we making it easier for people to close up, stay at home and just live in front of a computer? You can make friends and even find love in a chat room without leaving your front door or even meeting those people.

If you have any doubts about what effect this has on people just look around you and try talking to the archetypal Imperial geek.

Shy people born 100 years ago had no choice but to make an effort and communicate if they wanted to get somewhere in life.

Nowadays, you don’t even need to see a lecturer face-to-face if you don’t understand something, just send an email! Introvert children today don’t have to go and play with the other kids in the park, they can just stay at home, surf the net, download games, or play on their PlayStations.

Our infant years greatly influence our personality, childhood traumas are always very hard to overcome. So if you lose touch with society and nature at such a young age, how are you ever going to find it easy in later life? According to Dr Perry, the leader of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, “the most important property of humankind is the capacity to form and maintain relationships […]

The systems in the human brain that allow us to form and maintain emotional relationships develop during infancy. Experiences during

opinionsFINAL.indd 3

“Technology has changed our

this early vulnerable period of life are critical to shaping the capacity to form intimate and emotionally healthy relationships”. How does a computer shape this capacity?

If we lose the ability to socialise how are we ever going live and communicate face-to-face with real people? How are we ever going to have a family? Is technology ultimately leading to the end of the humanity?

Another technological improvement, which greatly impresses people, is how machines can do all the work for us. But who are we kidding? How is that going to benefit us in the long run? It will definitely improve your boss’ life when he can sack you because a machine can do your job constantly, without making any mistakes or demanding a salary. However, there is no need to worry; we can keep employing people if we go on inventing new gadgets and convincing ourselves that we actually need them. As Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams says, “never underestimate the stupidity of the general public”.

Of course, we were all really unhappy with videotapes and could not go on without a DVD player. Did life even exist before those? But hey, we all keep buying the latest gadgets – it’s a chain that would collapse otherwise. Can you imagine if mobile phones lasted for a lifetime?

How would thousands of people make their living? Thank god they keep creating “necessities” for us so this will never happen. ■

9/3/06 12:00:58 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

Golden Genes

With ‘gene doping’ on the horizon, should we continue to test athletes? | Irene Lähde In the current sports scene, the corporate industry is continually developing sophisticated compounds and sneaky methods to increase endurance and strength. But new methods of detecting such doping are being developed at the same speed.

Some say, why bother with doping tests? It seems to the average couch-based sports-enthusiast that every other top athlete has a few skeletons in their closet. Well, a new source of worry for the anti-drug authorities is gene doping. There is no evidence that it’s currently in use, but with new technology being developed, gene doping might become a problem by the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Gene doping could potentially provide an athlete with extra copies of genes which offer a competitive advantage, such as those that increase muscle mass, blood production, or endurance. The products of gene doping would be proteins almost identical to the body’s own versions and would therefore be extremely difficult to detect. The only way to test for gene doping would be to perform a biopsy on the tissues into which gene vectors had been injected. This would require a surgical procedure right before competition. We have definitely come a long way since the Ancient Greeks…

The roots of gene doping lie in gene therapy, the idea of inserting genes into the body’s cells to correct genetic disorders. Although simple in concept, gene therapy has been tricky to carry out reliably in patients. Investigations involving primates have shown that gene therapy can lead to death as the body’s immune system rejects the foreign genetic information.

“It seems to the average couch-based sports-enthusiast that every other top athlete has a few skeletons in their closet.”

Gene therapy can fortify muscle, bones, and other tissue at the first signs of disease or ageing. This approach could slow the progress of muscle wasting from ageing or diseases, such as muscular dystrophy and osteoporosis. This seems appealing to most of us, as eternal youth is the Holy Grail of medicine. However, what happens when healthy, young individuals or top athletes start using this technology to make muscle stronger or to enhance repair mechanisms?

Someday gene doping might become widespread and even acceptable in all sports. This is unlikely to happen before the public, and the media - generally quite paranoid about genetic technologygives it its blessing.

Let’s face it, most people who follow sports still hold the romantic idea of fair play and sportsmanship, but the athletes themselves are likely to value sponsorship contracts with Nike or Reebok and

gold medals more than old-fashioned ideals. Especially the new generations that have grown up surrounded by images of sporting heroes like David Beckham and Freddie Ljungberg, athletes that have become fashion icons.

“Gene doping could potentially change a person’s natural abilities.

But surely, isn’t it only naturally strong, competitive and disciplined individuals become athletes later in life?”

Add to this a society obsessed with nutritional supplements, and increasingly accepting of cosmetic surgery and genetically modified foods. These are all ways to improve what nature’s given us already.

Considering that most athletes are young and at the prime of their life, and arrogant about their invicibility, a few macaques dying in experiments with gene therapy would not scare them off.

Gene doping could potentially change a person’s natural abilities.

But surely, isn’t it only naturally strong, competitive and disciplined individuals become athletes later in life? One could argue, therefore, that it is not like we are creating monsters, but simply that we are getting a little bit more than what Mother Nature gave us in the first place.

A possible outcome of all this would be to give up doping testing, and let the most talented or the most doped-up win. A rainbow of different chemicals, hormones and genes would compete against each other, rather than different abilities. Maybe if everyone was artificially enhanced it would cancel the effect of doping and the winner of the race would still be the one who actually deserved to win.

This scenario creates the problem that the best athletes would come from the nations that could afford the best performance-boosting technology, but one wonders if this isn’t the case already. ■

Is there a problem of consciousness?

Speculating on the possibility of AI Rabinder Lee

I do not, nowadays, find the ‘problem’ of consciousness interesting.

That might come as a surprise to those who know me, since I am in the business of studying and analysing it – using computational neuroscience methods and a lot of introspection. Basically, I detest all the idle talk and vacuous thinking about knowledge, pursuing answers when one has not even posed a worthwhile question.

“Deep Blue never had a burning ambition to win the game of chess it was playing with Kasparov.”

What is it about consciousness that we are supposed to find so enthralling? Perhaps the seductive idea of knowledge, and its promise of self-empowerment, should be countered by at least some humble self-consciousness. With this in mind, just bear with me while I give my opinion on the prevailing theories of consciousness, and use these to speculate about the possibility of conscious machines.

The first question of consciousness pertains to the

26 I, science opinionsFINAL.indd 4

Spring 2006

8/3/06 8:41:05 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS

One more thing ...

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” - Third law of prediction, Arthur C Clark, Author and inventor

mind-body problem – how does my conscious experience arise from a lump of grey matter? This is the hard problem – the easy ones are mainly to do with cognition. Machines (computers) are very good at solving cognitive tasks, but they just don’t do them the way humans do. Deep Blue never had a burning ambition to win the game of chess it was playing with Kasparov. Despite those who think there is no problem, if we could solve the mind-body problem we could start talking about conscious machines.

There are two main theories on how consciousness arises: Process and Vehicular. Vehicular theorists state that what makes consciousness possible is the nature of the agent’s substrate – in other words, the wet, biological squishy stuff, similar to brain matter.

Process theorists state that what all consciousness requires is a certain type of information processing. I, for one, am a Process theorist.

Now, it has been speculated that information processing has

“Perhaps, however, just as we abused the freedom God gave us, our machines could do likewise” a dual aspect, ust as light has wave-particle duality. Light can be seen as a stream of particles, or as a wave – and it is both at the same time. Inconceivable, but true. In the same way, philosopher David Chalmers claims that information has a physical aspect and an experiential aspect. In other words, where there is information processing, there is conscious experience. While this may be hard to swallow, I agree that the theory has a certain elegance.

Given this theory, it is easy to start imagining all of existence as conscious. Perhaps information is communicated between an electron and an atomic nucleus – for example, when an electric attraction takes place – so maybe there is a minimal form of conscious experience there.

The brain then could be seen as an “amplifier” of a general consciousness which is fundamental and all-pervading throughout the universe. The dream of conscious machines would then become the dream of creating better amplifiers of consciousness, with all the blessings (or curses) consciousness comes with – reflective thought, self-awareness, and free will.

If a machine did evolve to such a state, we would then have done what God did in the Christian doctrine – raise up from the clay, man, formed in His own image. Perhaps, however, just as we abused the freedom God gave us, our machines could do likewise. But instead of conjuring up images of wars between robots and humans, let us give more credit to consciousness, artificial or natural. If freedom is a by-product of consciousness, then perhaps, so is love. And just as God teaches us to love, perhaps so could we teach our machines to love – as in our society we condemn racism, ageism and sexism, maybe we could condemn machineism.

But why go to all the trouble of creating conscious machines to be like our Creator? I think it’s much easier just to have a baby. ■

Spring 2006

opinionsFINAL.indd 5

“ In this electronic age we see ourselves being translated more and more into the form of information, moving toward the technological extension of consciousness.”

-Marshall McLuhan, Philosopher “In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them” -John Ruskin, Author “Technological progress is like an ax in the hands of a pathological criminal” -Albert Einstein “Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be” -George Orwell, Author “Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy.”

- Pope Paul VI

I, science 27 9/3/06 11:59:12 am

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

Origins of belief Duncan McMillan considers whether religion is hard-wired.

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief

by Lewis Wolpert

CUP / ISBN 0-521-86001-6

C

P SNOW’S famous “Two Cultures” speech suggested there was a critical breakdown in communication between science and art. Nearly half a century later, the debate is less about science versus art and more about science versus belief. There is a crisis of rationality, a fear that the secular project of science is crumbling under the weight of religious fundamentalism and philosophical relativism.

All the big cheeses of popular science have entered the debate: Richard Dawkins’ Channel 4 series, Robert Winston’s Story of God and Kathy Sykes’ look at alternative medicine. Fellow of both the Royal Society and Imperial College, Lewis Wolpert has now also weighed in on the issue of belief with this new book.

Wolpert is an arch-empiricist; for him, science is the best, possibly the only, explanation. But unlike Dawkins, he does not see religion as the enemy at the gates, battering down the edifice of reason. Wolpert argues that belief is the logical endpoint of the evolutionary developments that made us expert tool-makers and tool-users. He admits that his thesis isn’t particularly well-supported and is effectively asking the reader to just believe in the evolutionary origin of belief. It seems a little perverse however to trumpet the virtues of empiricism with an argument that relies heavily on belief.

His first premise is that the primary function of a brain is to control bodily movement. (A significant number of philosophers, theo-

Bad or mad?

Jonathan Black goes in search of the new tablets of morality.

Hardwired Behaviour: What Neuroscience Reveals About Morality

by Laurence Tancredi CUP / ISBN 0-521-86001-6

T

HE MORE neuroscientists discover about how the human brain works, the more questions are raised about why we think the way we do, and what the consequences are for the individual and for society. A new book investigates these issues.

After leading the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses popped up a mountain and came back bearing two stone tablets that shaped theistic morality for thousands of years. Likewise, not very far into Hardwired Behavior, Tancredi strikes out to find a moral framework around which to base his argument that modern neuroscience is blurring the lines between mad and bad. The results he returns with are much less certain than Moses’ chisellings – Tancredi never states definitively where he thinks morality comes from, and seems to act as his own judge for some of the cases he presents.

What makes neuroscience and morality interesting is that both

28 I, science ReviewsNEW2.indd 2

logians and social scientists would part company with Wolpert here.)

From this, the human brain has evolved around tool use and manufacture (rather than, say, social structures and language), and through that we have developed causal beliefs. Wolpert might have called his book The Belief Instinct because we are primed to develop the concept of cause as an integral part of understanding our actions. Higher thought follows from the constructions of ‘strong’ causal explanations of the world – “explanation is to cognition what orgasm is to reproduction”. Apes have only the slightest ability to understand causality and are separated from us by the development of technology.

Malfunctions of the mental ‘belief engine’ give rise to delusional beliefs, which underpin most psychiatric disorders, from schizophrenia to depression. The fact that hypnosis can also engender such delusional beliefs is a feature of Wolpert’s criticism of psychoanalysis, his personal bête noire. For him, the psychoanalytic treatment of mental illness is equivalent to witchcraft, relying on faulty causal beliefs that nevertheless have their origins in a correctly-functioning belief engine. And here is the kicker in Wolpert’s argument, that there is adaptive value in a belief engine which gives rise to organised religion – ‘delusion’ on the grandest scale. Conversely, scientific beliefs are utterly unnatural; he points out how common-sense views of the world are invariably scientifically false. It is this unnatural quality of science that leaves so many non-scientists cold.

“Explanation is to cognition what orgasm is to reproduction.”

I was with Wolpert’s argument almost all of the way – the brain and its outputs (including religion) can be explained in functionalist terms. But at one point he asks: “If religion is hard-wired, why do so many people get along fine without it?” It is a revealing question, because his bottom-up approach neglects the possibility that some higher thought could be an emergent feature of evolved brain structures, rather than a direct result of them. Maybe people get along fine without religion because it isn’t hard-wired and depends on the fuzzier process of consciousness – something Wolpert deliberately avoids discussing. Despite this, Six Impossible Things to do before Breakfast is a good read – a wide-ranging and provoking analysis of the origins of belief that reveals as much about Wolpert the individual as it does about Homo sapiens the species. ■

make us ask uncomfortable questions about ourselves. To what extent are we responsible for our own thoughts? How do we form our ideas of right and wrong? Am I really in control of my own actions just because it feels like I am? Tancredi does answer these questions, but waits until the very end. Most of the book is taken up with extended case studies from his experience as a lawyer and psychiatrist. He chooses three areas of moral decision making – sexual relations, evil acts and money – and shows how the brain’s electrical circuitry influences the eventual results. By only presenting case studies, it feels like Tancredi is shying away from the implications of the neuroscience he describes. Surely a book that’s just about brain processes could be written by any neuroscientist.

But a lawyer who studies the brain has the advantage of being able to interpret the science in a legal and philosophical way. The reader is left wishing he’d get to the point.

When he finally does, with only twenty pages or so left in the book, things pick up. Tancredi argues that the legal system is ill-

“The legal system is ill-equipped to deal with the findings of neuroscience.” equipped to deal with the findings of neuroscience, since it makes no allowance for people who have a sense of right and wrong, but whose brains won’t allow them to obey it. He makes a good case that mad and bad overlap more than conventional morality would have us believe, and that the legal system ought to change to reflect the science. He also cautions against trying to pre-emptively screen people for amoral brain structures, on the basis that it’s unreliable and detrimental to the individual.

Tancredi concludes that there really is a lot of promise for morality in the land of neuroscience. But like Moses, he spends quite a lot of time wandering in the wilderness before he gets there. ■

Spring 2006

8/3/06 8:45:45 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS

© Warner Independent Pictures

Winter of discontent

Mun Keat Looi watches the tough life of the Emperor Penguin, as viewed through the eyes of humans.

I

N THE summer of 2005, American cinema-goers embraced a new flock of stars, elegantly dressed in their best suits. Luc Jacquet’s documentary was a surprise hit, taking the US box-office by storm as bigger budget blockbusters melted away.

The film records the yearly trek of the Emperor Penguins as they brave the Antarctic winter for mating. We follow them as they march in their thousands across the bleak Antarctic surface. There they meet and mate, hatching a single egg, before a kind of long-distance relay begins, with the males and females taking turns to shelter the young and make the long trek back to gather food.

A combination of stunning photography and an extraordinary story made Penguins the second most successful documentary ever in North America, a stunning achievement for the genre. But was it a supposedly ‘conservative’ message of the story that nudged the film over the line to success? Religious groups latched onto the film as the latest in a line of Passion of the Christ-type movies promoting ‘family values’ like monogamy and loyalty to the family unit. Advocates of Intelligent Design were quick to add the penguins’ story to their list of ‘too strange to be coincidence’ behaviours.

Perhaps this is due to the partial re-composition of the films soundtrack for English-speaking audiences. In the original French (as well

Spring 2006

ReviewsNEW2.indd 3

as other international versions) each penguin is accompanied by a character voiceover, adding ‘personality’ and ‘humour’ to the animals. The American version thankfully dispenses with that, but slaps on its own sickly narrative through the voice of Morgan Freeman.

One imagines The Shawshank Redemption’s Red settling down to tell a heart-warming tale of life…and love. The hyperbole and flute score are, at times, nauseating. The script lays it on pretty thick, insisting that the penguins have found their one ‘true love’ and emphasising the strength of the community as they foil ‘grief-stricken’ mothers in their attempts to ‘kidnap’ replacements for still-born chicks.

But any attempt to directly link animal and human behaviour is a mistake. The narrative glazes over the more perverse eccentricities of penguin nature. The celebrated monogamy lasts for just one year and some penguins have been observed displaying homosexual or bisexual behaviour. A New Scientist article (1 October 2005), pointed out that some kindly ‘adoptions’ of chicks are in fact kidnappings, weak chicks are frequently the victims of infanticide, alibino penguins are attacked and ostracised and prostitution is practiced by at least one species. You won’t find any of this is Freeman’s narration, nor even a sex scene – extraordinary considering that is the climax (pardon the pun) of the journey.

Yet none of this can totally mar Jacquet’s achievement. The ‘making-of ’shots over the end credits reveal the struggles of Jacquet and his team over long months, gathering extraordinary footage of unpredictable subjects in savage conditions. The remarkable photography and fine editing, inject drama into what is largely a single bleak location with several thousand similar-looking protagonists. Just don’t think about what it’s all supposed to mean. ■

Penguin victory March of the Penguins, directed by Luc Jacquet and narrated by Morgan Freeman, won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature earlier this month.

I, science

29 8/3/06 8:46:21 pm

NEWS & EVENTS OPINIONS INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS FEATURES

Rivals in science: Pope Urban VIII, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Tycho Brahe (left to right).

Science wars

Emma Turner revisits two of the nowforgotten science feuds that helped to shape modern science.

Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever

by Hal Hellman

JOHN WILEY / ISBN 0-471-35066-4

* * * The Nobleman and His Housedog: Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler

by Kitty Ferguson

HEADLINE REVIEW / ISBN 0-747-27022-8

T

HERE’S NOTHING like a battle of wills to grab news headlines. Celebrities, politicians, reality television contestants do it all the time. But where are the headlines about warring scientists? Conflicts in science are usually restricted to a few column inches on the letters page. Science is unique in not caring about the ones who got it wrong because the revolutionary ‘breakthrough’ eclipses whatever came before it. But if you look hard enough, you’ll find that for every great theory taken for granted today there is a forgotten battle in the past and a graveyard of hypotheses.

No theory was more revolutionary than Copernicus’ heliocentric solar system. In the 1600’s, a war was waging and it was necessary to pick a side: either believe in the old Earth-centred (Ptolemaic) model of the universe or be a heretic and follow Copernicus. Unfortunately, the old system had the backing of the Church, the aristocracy, and the most respected scientists of the time. But there was one man who was prepared to make a few waves. His name was Galileo Galilei.

Such is the subject of the first chapter in Hal Hellmen’s Great Feuds in Science. Hellman is not wrong to describe this as “Urban VIII versus Galileo – An Unequal Contest”, but what Galileo was suggesting had the power to overthrow the core beliefs of the Catholic Church.

The centrality of mankind fits in well with an Earth-centred idea; take this away and humanity doesn’t seem as important anymore. Moreover, all heavenly bodies were considered perfect in accordance with God’s creation. When Galileo turned up with evidence of sunspots and craters on the moon, Pope Urban got angry. Given the choice of renouncing his belief or being tortured and killed, Galileo crumbled and recanted. The church confiscated his telescope and placed him

30 I, science ReviewsNEW2.indd 4

under house arrest for the rest of his life.

Thirty-three years before Galileo stood trial a Danish and a German astronomer came together for a more domestic version of this argument. The subtitle of Kitty Ferguson’s book promises a tale of two opposing minds, yet out of its 357 pages only 32 describe the pair’s relationship. The rest of the book describes their separate lives, which though informative is not as stimulating. However, Tycho Brahe fought with just about everyone he knew, not just Kepler. Brahe was a dwarf-beating, elk-keeping, drunken aristocrat who certainly lived up to the stereotype of his position. We read how he died of kidney problems after upholding a noble tradition and refusing to leave a banquet to urinate until the host had finished. But for all his eccentricities Brahe was a dedicated scientist who made the most accurate astronomical observations of his day. However, he still believed in the Ptolemaic system but modified it so that bodies complete tiny circular walks or ‘epicycles’ while orbiting the Earth. Modestly, he called this the ‘Tychonic’ model.

‘There’s nothing like a Dane.’ The proverb certainly applied to Tycho Brahe. Ferguson spares no detail in describing Kepler’s experience of staying with the nobleman, which ranged from continuously dodging workmen renovating Tycho’s house to drinking excessive amounts of wine at boisterous banquets. Kepler didn’t want to be there but he needed asylum from religious persecution and wanted access to the Tycho’s brilliant observations. Tycho didn’t want Kepler there, but he saw the brilliance in Kepler’s work and wanted the best analysis of his results. In the end Tycho and Kepler’s rivalry was less about science and more about lifestyle. The short-sighted and quiet Kepler was unaccustomed to the carnival that erupted daily in Tycho’s house, and Fergusen recounts more than one fiery fight across the dinner table.

But in the end their bitter collaboration was a gift to science. The nobleman’s dying wish was not to die in vain, and Kepler kept to his part of the bargain. He inherited the observations that Tycho had guarded so closely and over thirty years developed the planetary laws of motion, which are the foundation of modern celestial mechanics.

“The short-sighted and quiet Kepler was unaccustomed to the carnival that erupted daily in Tycho’s house.”

Hellman and Ferguson both dig up some of the kerfuffle surrounding the great scientific discoveries and lay waste to the notion that all theories develop fluidly. An interesting point made by both is that personality often determines whether an argument will arise.

Though Copernicus is credited with discovering the Sun-centred system nearly a century before Galilieo, his book went unread. However, as Pope Urban had a particular vendetta against the arrogant and sarcastic Galileo, he was the one who ended up in the docks.

Both books are unique amongst scientific biographies in offering a rare glimpse into the human side of scientists and revealing the passion with which they will defend their work. ■

Spring 2006

8/3/06 8:47:06 pm

FEATURES REVIEWS

Faith in science

Anne Corbett unmasks the true source of the rivalry between Dawkins and Gould.

Dawkins Vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest

by Kim Sterelny

ICON BOOKS / ISBN 1-840-46471-2

R

IVALRY AND feuds have simmered between members of the scientific community for centuries.

They are a vital driving force behind research, pushing scientists to prove their own credibility and that of their theories.

Disputes are predominantly low-profile, drawing little attention from scientists outside of the field of interest, let alone from the general public. Still, there are cases in which particularly enduring or vigorous arguments have been thrust into the public arena. One such battle raged between British scientist Richard Dawkins and American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, both highly respected authors and thinkers in evolutionary biology. To the untrained mind, their theories on evolution might appear identical. However, as Kim Sterelny succinctly and clearly explains, their differences lay not only in their views on the fundamental mechanisms of evolution, but also in their personal ideals and the extent to which they believed in science itself.

Following Gould’s death in 2002, Sterelny updated her account of Gould’s ongoing rivalry with Dawkins. This revised edition was

The Eleventh Hour Earlier this year, a science drama made it to prime time. It certainly wasn’t funny, but was it any good, asks Katherine Nightingale.

J

UST IN case we’re sick of science on our screens only ever being either forensic or dull, ITV recently delivered a new four-part drama, The Eleventh Hour. Patrick Stewart stars as bad science trouble-shooter Professor Ian Hood, Special Advisor to the Government’s Joint Sciences Committee, “defending the cause of good science and rooting out bad science”. Hood is a straight-talking Yorkshire man with a keen mind who dashes around making earnest comments like, “I’m here to see that this never happens again.”

By ‘bad science’ the programme makers mean the science often sensationalised in the media: human cloning, deadly viruses and secret military operations. This bad science is nicely portrayed in the first episode, “Resurrection”, in which evil mastermind Geppeto recruits vulnerable young women to incubate cloned foetuses in an attempt to replace the dead son of a rich client. The evil science occurs in a darkened room of a disused warehouse, in contrast to the wholesome stem cell research carried out in a clean, brightly lit laboratory.

Spring 2006

ReviewsNEW2.indd 5

INTERVIEWS OPINIONS

NEWS & EVENTS

released at the end of last year. The concepts that underlie evolutionary theory are complex and intertwined; a layman is often in danger of becoming lost in a bewildering maze of jargon. However, Sterelny presents these basic ideas clearly, and further explains the minutiae of each side of the argument leaving readers to make their own informed choice on this controversial topic.

An understanding of the fundamentals of Darwinian theory leads to more complicated questions that, once answered, present a myriad more. In part, the split between Dawkins and Gould hung on their different interpretations of these minutiae of evolutionary theory. Gould believed that evolution proceeded in leaps rather than smooth gradual transitions, acting on groups of individuals according to the local environment. This was limited by body plans and behaviours ingrained in the organisms’ ancient evolutionary

“They disagreed because of the different ways in which they viewed the world.” history. Dawkins, on the other hand, firmly believes that evolution is a continuous process from which any number of possible outcomes may arise, depending on the scope for change in the organisms’ genetic makeup. He believes that selection acts upon genes and that the organism is merely a ‘vehicle’ that is manipulated by its genes for their own propagation.

Dawkins and Gould held different views on the innermost workings of evolution, yet it was not these differences that drove them apart. Dawkins is a man of science – it is his faith. Gould, however, believed that science does not hold all the answers and thought we needed religion to govern aspects of our behaviour. He despised the imposition of socio-biology on what he believed to be an area outside of science. This opposition in opinion meant that even though their scientific ideas overlapped on the specifics, the two never came to an agreement. The rivalry between these esteemed scientific figures resulted not from a disagreement about science, but from the different ways in which they viewed the world. ■

Rachel Young (Ashley Jensen of Extras) plays Hood’s personal Special Branch bodyguard. Knowing nothing about science, she is useful for Hood to explain the basics of whatever science they are tackling (with the aid of grapes and a pair of tweezers in the case of cloning).

To the scientific ear, these descriptions sound a little patronising but are nonetheless accurate and appropriate.

The script also helps to build a more general awareness of science: “In science, a negative result is as important as a positive one”, Hood says, and, “Once upon a time, Rachel, gravity was just a hunch.” In a moment that will please anyone of the scientific bent, Hood throws the remote at the TV and shouts “bollocks” as yet another skin cream advert claims to remove wrinkles with pseudo-scientific nonsense.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this programme is its inclusion of science into daily life – something rarely done on television. We think of cloning as futuristic, yet here it is taking place in warehouses and council estates. The creators wanted the programme to be about real science rather than speculative science fiction and I think they have achieved at least this.

The programme is unashamedly pro-science. “I think audiences are fed up of being told ‘all science is evil’ by arts graduates with BUPA plans”, said Stephen Gallagher, the creator of the show. He wants to show scientists as real people – all too often in dramas they are the socially inept, cold-hearted geeks in the corner – and he achieves this in the character of Hood. Patrick Stewart manages to leave his Star Trek other-worldliness behind and show Hood’s human side. We learn he’s grieving for his wife and in a discussion about cloning he breaks the science-taboo of the soul: “Alexander is not the same as his DNA, the soul is more than its constituent chemical parts.”

The only danger is that Hood is perhaps too reassuring. It suggests that there is so much malign intent in science that we need a guardian to protect us from a force which would otherwise run amok. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t, but at least science has finally made it onto television without anyone cringing too much. ■

Bad science The Eleventh Hour is a four-part series featuring Patrick Stewart. It was shown on ITV in February.

I, science

31 8/3/06 8:47:37 pm

Issue 3 Winter 2005

I, science Issue 4 Spring 2006

http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/media/iscience/

http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/media/iscience

cover-contents-back.indd 4

8/3/06 7:24:43 pm