Science spin 27

ISSUE 27 March 08 €3 including VAT £2 NI and UK

SCIENCE

SPIN

IRELAND’S SCIENCE NATURE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

Tracking the seasons Blinding light and Dark matter Hot origins Du Noyer winners

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Rock around Ireland A guide to Irish geology

In this colourful book Peadar McArdle, Director of the Irish Geological Survey explains how all the rocks we see around us came to be there. Words and photographs help us to explore and understand Ireland’s varied landscape. From granite hills we cross a limestone plain to the western coast and some of the most ancient rocks in the world. From the black columnar basalt in the north Peadar brings us south to red sandstones, formed when Munster was the edge of a desert. There is a wealth of information here for everyone with an interest in rocks and the Irish landscape.

Rock around Ireland available NOW from independent bookshops and direct from Science Spin. 112 pages A5 landscape, full colour. Price €15

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Rock around Ireland is a companion volume to Colour, what we see, and the science behind sight, in which Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy explain how we live in a colourful world.

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SPIN

SCIENCE

SPIN

UPFRONT Early planets smashed into each other sending molten fragments into space. Artist’s impression by Lynnet Cook for Gemini Observatory.

Dolmen at Carrowmore, by Lynda Hart, one of the photographs from the GSI Du Noyer competition.

Publisher Duke Kennedy Sweetman Ltd 5 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. www.sciencespin.com Email: tom@sciencespin.com Editors Tom Kennedy tom@sciencespin.com Seán Duke sean@sciencespin.com Business Development Manager Alan Doherty alan@sciencespin.com Design and Production Albertine Kennedy Publishing Cloonlara, Swinford, Co Mayo Proofing and web diary Marie-Claire Cleary marieclaire@sciencespin.com Printing Turner Group, Longford

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Cutting edge research in the institutes

Tracking the changing year

Marie-Catherine Mousseau reports that research around Ireland is on the rise.

Paul Whelan writes about keeping in tune with nature.

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Mulch mats

Hot origins

Tom Kennedy writes that we live on a second hand planet.

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Blinding light

John Moore writes that light pollution needs to be brought under control.

Missing mass

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Chris Coughlan wonders where most of the Universe has gone.

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Safer driving off to flying start

Controlling movement at NUIM.

Awarding excellence

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Recognising school performance. .

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Coford is giving trees a blanket start.

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Drug delivery cluster

SFI supporting the Irish Drug Delivery Network..

Geo views

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A picture spread of winning images.

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Heat wells

Tom Kennedy writes that we could tap into the Earth’s heat.

Rising standards

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Tony McGennis reports on the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

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Contributors in this issue: Chris Coughlan, John Moore, MarieCatherine Mousseau, Tony McGennis Articles published in Science SPIN may reflect the views of the contributors and not the official views of the publication, its editorial staff, its ownership, or its sponsors.

Geological Survey of Ireland Suirbhéireacht Gheolaíochia Éireann

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 1

Higher Education Authority An tÚdarás um Ard-Oideachas

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UPFRONT New Science Gallery

prepare to be illuminated!

THE Science Gallery at TCD opened its doors in February with its first exhibition: Lightwave, which explored how light can be used and controlled through science, technology and art.

The gallery is not so much about explaining science, as providing a platform for interactive debate involving the public, artists and scientists. Light played a big part in the launch, and spectacular 3D footage of the Sun’s surface were part of the exhibition, along with film of an aurora borealis.

Relaxation and fun are high on the agenda, and the Gallery aims to focus on making science appeal to the 15 to 35 year olds.

The gallery site is at: www.

sciencegallery.com

What’s on

Organising a science event?

Send us the essential details and we’ll put them up for everyone to see on the Science Spin website.

Details to: marieclaire@sciencespin.com

Nano congress for Athlone

ON 16th May the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland will run a one day conference at Athlone Institute of Technology.

The theme for the conference is nanotechnology, and a number of expert speakers will be giving presentations.

Prof Dermot Diamond from the National Centre for Sensor Research at DCU will talk about molecular switches, Prof Michael Morris from UCC and CRANN will talk about self-assembling nano-devices, and Dr Marie Davoren, from DIT Kevin Street, will discuss the human and environmental impact of nanomaterials. The programme also includes speakers from industry, and Dr James Kennedy will talk about the Centre for Nanotechnology and Material Research, CNMR, at the Athlone Institute of Technology.

The world in our hands — at the launch of Planet Earth were, from left: Prof Ed de Mulder, international co-ordinator of IYPE, guest speaker, Prof Aubrey Manning; the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan; and Dr Peadar McArdle, Director of GSI. THIS is the international Year of Planet Earth, and at the launch the Irish programme, the distinguished scientist and broadcaster, Dr Aubrey Manning, described how life and the rocks evolved together. We often think of rocks as solid, inanimate objects, but in fact large tracts of our landscape have been formed by billions of living creatures. The chalk, which stretches from Dover to the Crimea, he reminded us, is nothing more than an accumulation of calcium carbonate skeletons, deposited by an astronomical number of tiny creatures, the cocoliths. The iron that drives much of the car industry is also organic in origin. Back in the early days of planet Earth, when micro-organisms began producing oxygen, dissolved ferrous salts in the oceans came out of solution as ferric iron, depositing rust in vast quantities. When the Earth’s plates moved, so did the animals, so if you look at geology, he said, you are also looking at life, the two are intimately interlinked.

An ambitious programme of events has been organised for the year, with a series of public talks in venues around the country. GSI Director, Peadar McArdle, said a number of bodies, such as the Royal Irish Academy, the NI Geological Survey, had worked together in creating a varied programme, including walks, talks and school based activities. In welcoming the programme, Minister, Eamon Ryan, said that the events bring home the message that geology is an all embracing science. “While many people may be aware of the role of geosciences in the exploration of mineral resources, they may not be so aware of its wider remit in relation to the environment,” he said.

Full details are on the Planet Earth website:

www.planetearth.ie

Analytical skills

THE Analytical Measurement Competition established to foster a range of scientific skills, and for the past ten years third level students have competed for the annual awards. Although the competition mainly attracts students from the Institutes, it is in fact open to all students of the analytical sciences who have not yet entered the third year of their course. Teams of two, chosen by their own institution for their skills, take part in laboratory competition, and later the same day, prizes are awarded. This year the finals are being held at DIT Kevin Street on 7th March.

The competition, initiated by Dr Sean Cawley of Carlow Institute of Technology, is promoted by the Association of Heads of School of Science, and Eurochem, a European association of professional analysts.

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SPIN

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UPFRONT

Three centuries of Irish Science

At the launch of the two volume book at the RDS were, from left: Dr A Mescal; the author, Dr Charles Mollan; and Dr A Scott.

THERE is nothing new about science in Ireland, yet, until quite recently, not many Irish scientists made it into the history books. Most of our heroes were poets or warriors, and it seems that, when science was removed from the primary curriculum, the scientists were also cast out into darkness. As Charles Mollan, author of a splendid two volume book about Irish scientists suggests, a large part of this former neglect was due

Marine Institute

Foras na Mara

www.marine.ie

It’s part of what we are, Dr Charles Mollan. RDS. Two volume set available from the RDS at €60 (not including postage).

Marine Institute Rinville Oranmore Co. Galway telephone 353 91 387 200 facsimile 353 91 387 201 email institute.mail@marine.ie

to our problem in coming to terms with our common past. We are all familiar now with the name Tyndall, and one of our great institutions even carries his name, yet there was a time when it would have been highly inconvenient to celebrate this Carlow born scientist lest it drew attention to his politically “incorrect” views.

National amnesia is a strange thing. The Celtic Revival threw up some dazzlingly brilliant talents, such as AE, George Russell, who produced that classic Crock of Gold, but, while there were no real political or religious issues about accepting writers and painters, whatever their background, it seems that there was too much of a whiff of sulphur about many Irish scientists, so they were all best ignored.

In this book Charles Mollan has certainly gone a long way in getting the record right, and as can be seen from his accounts, spanning three centuries of Irish scientists, that they were quite a mixed bunch, and about the only thing they had in common was curiosity. True, there were those who inherited wealth, like Boyle, or who married into it, like the Parsons, yet a glance through the scores of distinguished names reveals that most of our Irish scientists came from what we might now regard as ‘perfectly ordinary families’. Quite a few were children of clergymen, prompting the author to whimsically wonder if celibacy had been detrimental to Irish science. Charles Mollan does not so much describe, as enter the lives of these extraordinary scientific characters. Cycling by a graveyard makes him recall Dunlop, who, as he tells us, did not actually invent the pneumatic tyre, and besides, he was a Scot. Then, there is another inventive scientist, James Murray, who turned chemical waste into a tidy profit. Murray, born in Co Derry at the end of the 18th century came up with ‘fluid magnesia’, a patented cure for acid stomach upsets.

The modern form, ‘milk of magnesia’ remains as popular as ever, and we can also thank Murray, the entrepreneur, for superphosphate fertilizers, which he produced initially to get rid of the waste accumulating at his Belfast chemical works.

I think most readers would be familiar with a few of the names here, but I wonder how many would know about Robert Adrian, John Brinkley, Cadwalllader Golden, Henry Hennessey, Vincent Barry, Dionysius Lardner, Edward Sabine, and more than 100 others. In these 1770 finely typeset pages Charles Mollan has certainly lifted the veil from our scientific past, and the RDS deserves credit for publishing this two volume work.

(Tom Kennedy)

Foras na Mara

Details at: www.rds.ie

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UPFRONT Encouraging R&D

Funding for industrial R&d has received a €500 top-up and applying for grants has been made easier.

According to Minister, Michael Martin, the streamlined procedures should encourage more companies of all sizes to become involved with research.

Funding is no longer confined to manufacturing companies, so services are included, repayable grants have been abolished, and there is more focus on helping SMEs to get a start on research.

Gut interaction

LikE to know what goes on in your gut? Microbe Magic is a web site for primary schools and teachers offering lots of information about how much we depend on microbes for healthy digestion. Students can explore the body or download a computer game, gut Reaction, in which Mike the Microbe deals with the bad bugs before they do us harm. The Microbe Magic website was established and run by the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, APC, based in Cork.

The APC site is http://apc.ucc.ie

At the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition were, from left: Frank Gannon, Director General of SFI; competition winner Catherine Duane; Minister Hanafin; runnerup Aidan Rowe; Professor Frank Barry, REMEDI; and Noreen Moloney, Medtronic.

Panacea or Pandora’s Box

CAThErinE Duane, a fifth year student at holy Faith, Clontarf in Dublin, was presented with a laptop for her well balanced account of stem cell research. School students from all around ireland were invited to give their views about genetic engineering in the essay competition organised by the regenerative Medicine institute at nUiG and sponsored by Medtronic. Catherine emerged as the winner from a short list of ten essays, and apart from the laptop, her school was presented with a €500 science bursary. The runner up, Aidan rowe, who is studying for his Leaving Cert at St Gerald’s College, Castlebar, was presented with an iPod and the school received a €250 science bursary.

This was the third competition organised by rEMEDi working in conjunction with the national Centre for Biomedical Engineering. Watch out for details of the next competition in Science Spin, or visit the website: www.remedi.ie

Closing the net

EUroPEAn researchers are becoming concerned that one of their linking mechanisms is about to wither away from lack of support. At a meeting in Brussels, researchers discussed the future of what is known as the networks of Excellence. According to the organisers of the meeting, more than 60 networks exist, yet only 17 have received support under the Framework 7 programme.

Under the previous programme 101 networks had been supported, and those involved fear that the initial investment in setting up these groups might now be lost. networks were established for topics, such as control of antibiotic resistance, replacement of fossil fuels, and food contamination.

During november representatives from organisations across Europe met in a bid to secure a better future for the networks. ireland, however, was not represented.

An opinion paper on the subject is available from www.supportresearchoes.eu

Tommy Maher (left) at the innovation event in Helsinki, with Microsoft Vice President, Ralph Young (centre), and Dr Kevin Marchall (right), Academic Programme Manager for Microsoft Ireland.

Winning teacher

ToMMy Maher, Principal of Scoil naomh Fiachra, Co kilkenny, emerged as the winner in an international event to honour outstanding teachers. At the Microsoft innovative Teachers Forum in helsinki Tommy Maher’s project, ‘impossible Dreamers’ came tops for quality of content. The project, inspired by the famous Don Quixote novel of the knight on horseback ‘tilting’ at windmills, involved designing a robotic version of the story. The idea was to design a windmill that would knock a robotic Don Quixote from his horse.

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Tommy commented that the Microsoft project challenges teachers to think in an innovative way. Faced with a problem, he said, children will devise and test possible solutions.

As a winner, Tommy Maher is to visit the Microsoft campus at redmond, Washington, this year.

Kevin Marshall, Academic Programme Manager with Microsoft ireland, said that teachers, such as Tommy, have a vital role in stimulating innovation.

Moon view

EVER imagine what is would be like to fly over the surface of the Moon?

The recent Science@Culture email newsletter, produced by science journalist, Mary Mulvihill, reports that this dream has become a reality. Thanks to a Japanese space craft, Kaguya, orbiting 100 km above the Moon’s pitted surface, we can view a long fly over until it finally fades out into the dark side. Its well worth a look, and all you have to do to see the high definition video is click on the link http://tinyurl.com/2vztx9

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UPFRONT

Presenting science

ScientiStS may claim to be shaping the world, but journalists shape the way science is seen. the press has an enormous influence on public perception of science, and many scientists believe that the value of what they are doing is not being recognised.

However, as Quentin cooper, well known for his popular BBc 4 programmes on science, explains, simply stating that something is important is not the way to command attention.

Quentin was one of the speakers at the european Open Forum on Science Journalism, organised by the european commission and held recently in Barcelona. the meeting was organised to stimulate dialogue between scientists and the media.

One of the speakers, tim Radford, said that in the early 1980s, “while minding the shop” he got the idea of bringing up the level of science reporting in The Guardian newspaper.

As he explained, he had no special background in the sciences, but he was quite determined to make science interesting and relevant. the last thing he wanted to do, was to run ill-informed features that would only provoke readers into complaining that “didn’t we know that every schoolboy knows that.”

While not too sure about how to go about it, tim quickly found that extracting dense impenetrable articles from distinguished top-of-the tree scientists was not the way to go. So, he took a chance, and started asking young scientists to write. this turned out to be quite a good decision. “they proceeded to write very well indeed because they got the point that it’s no good writing unless you are read.” One of them became scientific editor of The Telegraph, one of them became scientific editor in the BBc, one of them became the Foreign editor of The Sunday Times, one of them became a novelist, and one became a film maker. “They made the switch from science to the media quite effortlessly.”

Science journalists at a workshop discussing ways to gain more space for research news in the media.

Photo: Tom Kennedy.

A lesson that tim has learned from this, he said, is that there is no great divide between science and journalism. in research, you have a mission, a budget, a director who points out a problem that needs to be solved. the researchers starts of with a literature search, after which a hypothesis is framed, and then the search for evidence begins. At the end a paper is written, and following peer review, it is published. “Up to that point,” he said, “you would not know if i have been talking about science, or journalism, because the process is identical — what happens in laboratories, also happens in newspapers.” in both cases, work is published, but as tim pointed out, “no one reads scientific papers, everyone

Research support

OVER 300 firms are reported to have taken up the offer of innovation Vouchers. the vouchers, worth up to €5,000 in commissioning third level research are available through enterprise ireland. the voucher scheme

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reads the newspapers.” As tim found, by applying the direct journalistic approach of asking questions, even the editors of the weighty international scientific journals can understand some of the articles. “this is not a criticism of editors,” he said, “but it does illustrate just how technically difficult it can be for an outsider to know what’s going on in science.” (tom Kennedy) l the meeting in Barcelona follows an event at the RiA in Dublin where research institutions looked at ways to increase media coverage of science. A report on this meeting is available from the iRcSet website: www.ircset.ie

was started to encourage more small companies to link up with knowledge providers in third level institutions. 22 knowledge providers are participating in the voucher scheme, including it carlow, Moorepark technology, and St Angela’s Food technology centre in Sligo.

Hot origins

Tom Kennedy reports that the prevailing view of how and when the planets formed could be wrong.

As the Solar System formed, hot planets splashed into each other, sending showers of molten fragments into orbit.

Geologist, Ian Sanders, argues that we should take a closer look at the evidence brought to us in meteorites.

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or as long as we have existed, the Solar System has been flinging evidence about our origins at us.

Only now, however, are we beginning to realise just how much information about our ancient past is preserved in meteorites. These are those chunks of rock that fly into us from the Asteroid Belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The meteorites become extremely hot when plunging through our atmosphere, but because the period of passage is so brief, the inside remains relatively cool, so the core minerals arrive unchanged, neatly packaged in an outer skin of glass.

The chemistry and physical appearance of these minerals can tell us a great deal about how these rocks originated, and amazingly, they have been found to incorporate material that is much older than our Earth.

One of Ireland’s leading experts in this field is geologist, Dr Ian Sanders, and his interest in the early Solar System was originally sparked when the late Robert Hutchinson, one time Curator of Meteorites at London’s Natural History Museum, published evidence that threatened to upset the prevailing view on how and when planets were formed. As Ian Sanders

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Artist’s rendering by Lynette R Cook for the Gemini Observatory based on observations of the Pleisades star cluster where similar events are taking place.

commented, the scientific community reacted to the news with horror. The details of how the Solar System began remain controversial, yet, as Ian Sanders explained to a recent meeting of Astronomy Ireland, there is now compelling evidence to suggest that “the books have got it wrong.”

Meteorites, said Ian, can bring us back more than 4,500 million years, to a time, in fact when the Solar System was taking shape. Of particular interest are those meteorites known as chondrites.

As Marie-Catherine Mousseau’s comprehensive feature in Spin 23 explained, there are many different SPIN

types of meteorite, but most of those that reach us are classed as chondrites.

Geologically, said Ian, these are cosmic sandstones, in which most of the grains, known as chondrules, are frozen droplets of once molten rock.

“A most remarkable feature of chondrites,” said Ian, “is their chemistry.” In almost all respects this chemistry is identical to that of the existing Solar System, and this chondrites are widely regarded as representing the original ‘primitive’ materials. However, Ian challenges this view on the antiquity of chondrites and the chondrules within them.

On some essential points there is no dispute, such as the evidence of early heating. When thin slices of a chondrite are examined under a microscope, it can be seen that the condrules have fuzzy edges. Geologists, explained Ian, are familiar with that feature, which shows that the grains were heated to a temperature of about 900ºC to 1,000ºC after they had already come together.

No one has any problems accepting this as evidence of an extremely hot environment, but this is where the accepted explanations began to get into trouble. To understand why, it is necessary to look at the chondrite slices in more detail.

Alongside the chondrules are rare fragments, called calcium-aluminium rich inclusions, or simply CAIs for short. Dating methods, based on the delay of uranium show that CAIs were formed 4,567 million years ago, and are the oldest objects ever dated from the Solar System. That’s not all.

CAIs show peculiar ratios in their magnesium isotopes. Magnesium occurs in three isotopic forms, 24, 25, and 26. Throughout the Solar System the proportions are always identical, except in CAIs. In CAIs there is more 26Mg than normal.

26 Mg is produced from the decay of radioactive aluminium, 26Al, so the elevated levels indicate that when the CAIs were formed the Solar environment was highly radioactive.

As 26Al decays heat is generated, and it was this factor that made scientists such as Robert Hutchinson and Ian Sanders realise that the prevailing views on how and when the planets formed must be flawed.

All scientists, said Ian, agree that cosmic dust formed a great disc around the newly formed Sun. The conventional view holds that this dust first began ‘somehow’ to stick together, forming

fluffy clumps. These then became rapidly heated by solar flares or shocks, causing them to form chondrules, which in turn became the building blocks for the first generation of planets.

Hutchinson disagreed with this view, arguing instead that the first generation of planetary bodies must have existed before chondrules were made.

“Hutchinson’s key evidence,” said Ian, “was rare pieces of basalt rock, sitting side by side with chondrules in several different chondrite meteorites, one of which fell in Ireland in 1969.” Basalt can only be made on an existing planet.

“A planet must have existed, and been broken up to make basalt fragments, before the chondrules came together,” said Ian. This evidence, he added, is quite convincing, and he points out that an early heat-driven phase of planetary evolution makes more sense of what is seen. We know from the 26Mg evidence that the level of radioactive 26Al was high. “There was enough 26Al around to completely melt any small planetary bodies,” said Ian, who added that 6 to 7 kilojules of radioactive energy would have been locked into each gram of original dust, and this could have produced about the same energy as the cat food that keeps our pets running around. Whether from cat food or 26 Al, this release of energy would have resulted in the melt down of any object over 20 km in radius. Under these conditions, any planets larger than this, forming from coalescing dust, would very quickly have melted. Basalt would have come to the surface, and molten iron would have flowed into the centres.

These molten bodies would then have collided and splashed into each other, resulting in huge cascades of molten drops, which would have cooled to form chondrules.

Those early chondrules, said Ian, would still have been radioactive, so the planets into which they were added would, again, have melted, and that process would have continued as long as the level of 26Al fuel remained high.

The half-life of 26Al is a relatively short three quarters of a million years, so after about 2 million years most of the fuel would have been spent, and chondrule formation by splashing could cease.

“This two million year time interval is totally consistent with recently measured ages of chondrules,” said Ian. Measurements, based on decay of uranium, show that chondrules are close to two million years younger than the time when CAIs were formed. Residual radioactive heating, while unable to cause melting, would, however have caused a high temperature of about 900°C to 1,000°C, producing the distinctive fuzziness in chondrule edges. “Thus, it seems highly likely that chondrules came from the first planets, and not, as the books say, that the first planets were made from chondrules.”

In most places gravity tidied up a lot of the debris from all these collisions, and small planets coalesced to make the larger ones we have now. However, in the Asteroid Belt, it seems that the pull of Jupiter interfered with the process, so millions of rocky fragments preserving frozen droplets from the molten interiors of earlier planets, remain in orbit.

Dr Ian Sanders showing some of the samples sent out from TCD.

To give young students some hands-on experience of geology, Ian Sanders and his team at TCD have been busy distributing enough rock samples to full two skips. Over 60,000 samples, representing the six most common type of rocks in Ireland have gone out to almost 5,000 primary and secondary schools throughout Ireland. The sets, consisting of sandstone, mudstone, limestone, bazsalt, granite, and schist, are accompanied by a booklet explaining their origins and how they are all part of Ireland’s past.

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County Mayo landscape. Tom Kennedy.

Below, swan’s nest. Tom Kennedy.

Tracking the changing year Paul Whelan writes about keeping in tune with nature

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ny society that realises its survival depends on an acute understanding of the interrelationships in nature must bestow great importance on this understanding. For 50,000 years before European man set foot in Australia (1788) the Aboriginals had incorporated this understanding of Nature into their culture. Rather than define seasons by a rigid calendar that is based on the rotation of the planet around the Sun, or to the 24 hours of a day (Earth’s rotation on its own axis), they chose instead to use the cycles of events noticed in the local flora and fauna and climatic events such as prevailing winds. With such a dynamic phenological calendar, they mapped out the year with between 5 and 10 seasons.

For example, the Fruiting season or Midawarr lasted eight weeks for the Yolngu tribe. This is often equivalent to our March and April.

The prelude to its onset was the arrival of a north-westerly wind. Such a variable definition of the seasons does not fit comfortable with our western scientific tradition. It was inevitably pushed aside by modern phenological recording practises.

Modern phenological recording in Australia began as late as 1856 under the British regime. The Government employed the German botanist Baron von Mullen. In more recent decades Australia’s phenological research has become fragmented in duration and

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spread across many different sciences such as agriculture, ecology, entomology, human health and fisheries. No doubt, the Yolngu tribe still know when their fruiting season is about to begin.

Phenology is the study of the ‘show’ or appearance of biological events that arise periodically. More specifically it involves looking at the seasonal reactions of our flora and fauna to climatic conditions, specifically temperature. Traditionally the terms seasonal and periodic are frequently treated as similar or interchangeable, but phenologists retain the word seasonal for non-biological events such as the amount of sunlight falling on an ecosystem at a particular time of the year. In its popular form it is referred to as Nature’s Calendar, Spring Watch or other descriptive phrases.

Almost every biological event is influenced by the weather, particularly SPIN

temperature. The migration of birds, the tinting of leaves in autumn and the arrival of mackerel around our coastline are some obvious examples of phenological events. Synchronicity, a much understudied aspect of ecosystems, is tightly bound to phenology. Flourishing ecosystems work because they have achieved a perfectly harmonized syncronosity.

Ireland’s climate, since the last Ice Age, has stabilized to give us our much spoken about Temperate climate: not too much of a difference between Winter and Summer temperatures and an even distribution of rainfall throughout the seasons. Perhaps this is about to change. Although physical data, such as our mean temperature or precipitation data, collected and collated by Met Eirann, may be seen as delivering a more immediate indication of climate change, phenological studies reveal the affect of such changes on individual organisms. The behaviour of an individual organism may be critical in the maintenance of an ecosystem.

Phenological studies worldwide have enhanced our understanding of how ecosystems work. The most prominent work in phenology has come from workers in forestry and agriculture. From the point of view of observation, phenology is as old as agriculture itself; however as a science it is a relatively recent study. Despite the fact that some countries have been collecting phenological data for several hundred years it is only in the last 30 years that this data has been examined scientifically to look for signs of climate change.

Worldwide, since around 1850, the scientific community has made several attempts to embrace phenological observations and to create a science by building up databases of measurable phenological events.

Outside of Europe, China was one of the first countries to take phenology seriously. In 1931 Dr. Kezhen Zhu in China summarised 3000 years of phenological observations. His own scientific data collection began in 1921. In 1934 he set up China’s first phenological network of gardens using observation principles developed in Europe during the 1860s. Although interrupted by war, the studies were re-established in 1963 and ran consistently until 1996. The renewed interest in climate change and the scientific recognition that phenology

Forest edge flowers, such as this Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) , bloom before Summer leaves block the light.

Photo: Tom Kennedy.

can make significant contributions to ecology and climate studies brought about resumption of the studies again in 2003. The current studies use both herbaceous and woody plants. Fauna includes bees, swallows, martins and cuckoos. Agricultural plants include rice, corn, wheat, peanuts, potato and millet.

Japan set up its phenological studies in 1953. Initially it had over

100 stations taking event observations.

The data was published regularly.

Unfortunately, increasing population and urbanisation in Japan has made observations unreliable. Flora and fauna close to buildings often behaves in an unpredictable way. Despite this, Japanese scientists have issued many reports based on phenological data. For example, Shigehara et al.

(1991) showed that Prunus yedoensis

One thing leads to another, so when flowers appear, insects can feed. Alexanders (Symrnium olusatrum).

Photo: Tom Kennedy

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(the wonderful flower-cherry that we associated with Japan) flowered later by between 0.6 to 1.8 days every 10 years from 1953 to 1987. The data showed that every 1º C drop in temperature delayed flowering by 4 days.

It is almost inexplicable as to why phenological observations were not to the forefront with the early European colonisers of North America. Surly, being in a new land, it was imperative that an understanding of the seasons be quickly established. This is not to say that phenological events were not monitored at all, it is just that they were very haphazard and local, often made by individual nature lovers. In 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved from Concord, Massachusetts, to live near Walden Pond. There he made many phenological observations.

Even today, despite efforts made by Meteorological stations, observations are haphazard. One possible explanation for this is the formulation of the Bioclimatic Law developed

For many people primroses (Primula) are one of the sure signs that longer, brighter days have arrived.

Photo: Tom Kennedy.

by Hopkins in 1938. Hopkins stated in very general terms that Spring developed from south to north in the temperate regions of North America, and for every degree north in latitude, or five degrees longitude in an easterly direction and 400 feet in altitude, Spring was four days late. With a law as seemingly clear as this, why bother making any further phenological observations?

The varied and harsh climates of parts of Canada lead to a long history of phenological observations.

In modern times fur traders and missionaries kept nature’s calendar diaries to increase their catch and make their day’s hunting more efficient. Today, Canada runs extensive ‘nature watch’ programs. Ireland needs to increase its awareness of phenological events.

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Phenological data of scientific value has been collected in Europe for several hundred years. In the early days these recordings were often made by landowners. One of the longest records was maintained by the Marsham family in Norfolk, England, between 1736 and 1947.

In 1959 the IPG or International Phenological Gardens were established in an effort collate the collection of phenological data in Europe. To date there are 50 phenological collecting points or gardens throughout Europe. Data is sent to their centre in Humboldt University in Berlin.

Ireland’s interest in phenology started in 1966 with recording stations set up at Venetia, Co. Kerry, JFK Arboretum in Co Wexford and the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin. Johnstown Castle joined the group in 1967. The data collected at these five stations is collated by Met Eireann before being dispatched to the IPG in Berlin.

In Germany the phenological data is collected by Deutscher Wetterdienst,

the National Weather Service. National Weather Service’s also run and collate data in Austria and Switzerland.

Poland has 70 phenological recording stations, again collected and collated by the meteorological services. The Spanish Meteorological Institute has collected an enormous amount of data from a large number of stations. Estonia has been recording systematically since 1869 and is currently the leader in data collection in Europe. Despite efforts to set up phenological networks in Europe the total number of collecting stations or gardens has dropped from around 500 in the 1970s to around 50 at the time of writing.

The current popularity of Spring Watch or Nature’s Calendar in the UK may be traced back to the autumn of 2000 when the Woodland Trust and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology joined forces to bring phenology to the UK public.

Attempts have been made to obtain data from the Irish public with the establishment of a schools monitoring program by the Native Woodland Trust. Phenological data resides with various wildlife groups in Ireland, including Bird Watch Ireland, The Dublin Naturalists’ Field Club, The Heritage Council and the wonderful Hedgerow web site run by Stuart Dunlop. In 2005 Biology.ie (www. biology.ie) set up an interactive web site to try and attract records from the public. This more recent attempt, aided by Web technology using attractive interactive maps has a small but consistent group of recorders. The EPA part funded a pilot project for 70 secondary schools on Biology.ie in 2007. This may be extended further for Spring 2008. Involvement of schools, garden centres and avid gardeners is imperative if Ireland is to build up a database of phenological events that can be used by the scientific community. Most scientists agree that 20 years of data is needed before any respectable conclusion can be drawn from it.

The Biology.ie website gives guidelines on how to track the seasons.

Government buildings such as Garda Stations, schools and other institutions should be made available for recording phenological events.

With the aid of a Wildlife Grant for the Heritage Council in 2007, Biology. ie developed its Nature’s Calendar project. The survey continues in Spring 2008. Biology.ie gives some guidelines on how to observe phenological events. Events include

the appearance of first flowers (Alder, Hawthorn, Purple Lilac, Primrose and Wood Anemone); budburst (the first opening of leaf buds in Alder, Ash, Elder, Horse Chestnut, Oak, and Silver Birch); other species include the first swallows and the hearing of the first cuckoo. Check it out on www. biology.ie and click on the tab marked Nature’s Calendar.

Paul Whelan is an independent biologist and runs the project-based nature mapping website on www.biology.ie. Current projects on the web site include the National Parks & Wildlife Service Road Kill survey on the incidental killing of Annex IV species and Daniel Buckley’s survey of the Ireland’s Feral Ferret.

He can be contacted on info@biology.ie.

SPIN

Willow catkins (Salix).

Photo: Tom Kennedy

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 11

Blinding lights John Moore reports on the darker side of light.

U

se of outdoor lighting for social and security needs today has become ever more important as we live and work during the hours of darkness. Turning night into day seems as natural to us as breathing, and in a way we’ve all become habitually complacent to its usefulness.

But there’s a problem. It now seems that our over-eased use of artificial outdoor light is causing most of our darkened sky to disappear, literally, before our eyes. Instead of going downwards to where we actually need the light, a lot is spilling upwards into the sky causing it to glow.

Termed ‘light pollution’, this straying light, which emanates mainly from around cities as a faint yelloworange glow in the sky, is robbing us of darkened skies, and affecting both nature and our environment. Most important of all, however, it has crept slowly into our ‘sense of place’ in the Universe, where stars and galaxies once easily visible by the naked eye have now become dimmed.

“The main contributors are road and street lamps,” says Albert White of the Irish Light Pollution Awareness Campaign based in Dublin. “Some have a glass bowl underneath that spreads part of the light upwards, however, by using a Full Cut-Off (FCO) lamp, which incorporates a flat piece of glass instead, most of the light can be

kept from going above the horizon.”

FCOs are currently used by the National Roads Authority in Ireland whenever a major road is being built, however, the ESB haven’t fully committed to installing them everywhere. As most of the light goes down instead of out, using FCOs, lamp-poles would have to be put closer together, but as this means expense and disruption for the ESB, the distance between poles is currently left same, and their height is increased instead.

While they have started to use a more shallower bowl replacement rather than using FCOs, these still aren’t good enough to reduce light going upwards.

Light pollution, however, doesn’t all have to fall on the ESB and their policies as most of us can make a contribution as well. By installing skyfriendly fixtures, reduce over-lighting and over-wattage, shield and turn outdoor lights off when not in use, we can significantly reduce its effects and the growing impact it has in areas like, for example, the environment and nature.

In the case for the environment: it’s estimated that up to two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted into our atmosphere by power stations each year, while approximately 2 million barrels of oil per day is wasted in producing energy for over-lighting.

Up to a third of these damaging effects

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 12

could be knocked off if light pollution was taken seriously worldwide.

In the case for nature: by increasing the length of day using artificial lighting, the reproductive cycle and peak-body weight of some mammals can be affected, while in plants some cease to flower. “A number of animals and birds navigate using the moon and stars through astral navigation,” says Dick Warner, well known environmentalist and nature specialist.

“However, there is evidence that light pollution can affect this mechanism — the most obvious example would be the effect it has on moths.”

A German report in 2003 showed that a single streetlight would kill, on average, 150 insects per night. As these are a primary food resource for predators like bats, birds and frogs, the knock-on effect of over-lighting is increasingly putting strain on those higher up in the food chain.

Counties Dublin, Clare and Kerry have already incorporated some form of light pollution prevention into their Development Plans. Suggestions include discouragement of using floodlights, sensible illumination of buildings to not exceed a level of lighting that is necessary for safety and security, and any new applicants should include in their plans a lighting scheme of minimum requirement.

A light pollution policy has also SPIN

been introduced in Armagh – home to one of Northern Ireland’s leading astronomical research institutes, the Armagh Observatory. “We are organising the 9th European Symposium for the Protection of the Night Sky in 2009,” says Prof Mark Bailey at the observatory. “In a year or so, I hope to begin a longterm programme to measure the varying brightness of the night sky in Armagh…and announce some results at the 2009 meeting.”

Cities across Europe — Italy, Belgium, Czech Republic, France and the latest, Slovenia — are all in some way contributing to reducing light pollution. Ireland is making a small effort, but more still needs to be done.

Wouldn’t 2009 be a good date for the Irish Government to get involved more, and take some serious action in minimising light pollution across the whole island?

For more information see: www.ilpac.eu

Lighting up Europe, hot spots of higher density flooding the night sky in this satellite image.

John Moore, a UCC science graduate, with a H Dip in Applied Physics, writes about science and astronony. His Moon site is at www.moonposter.ie

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What we see is only a fraction of what exists.

Image of a star forming region, Rio Ophiuchi, 470 light years away from Earth. The infra-red image was captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

The MysTery of The Missing MaTTer 2008 marks the tenth anniversary of the discovery that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.

This exciting discovery in itself has led Cosmologists to an even more profound implication that visible matter accounts for only four per cent of the total mass of the Universe. So, where has the other 96 per cent gone?

Chris Coughlan reports.

I

n an attempt to resolve the mystery of the missing matter cosmologists have been led to conclude that there are two invisible components that permeate the Universe – entities called Dark Energy and Dark Matter. The relative quantities of these two entities that are present, cosmologists believe, will determine whether the Universe will, at some point in the future, start to contract and disappear, or whether it will continue to expand forever.

Relativity

Albert Einstein’s original equations of general relativity implied that the fabric of space could expand or contract, and was not static or fixed.

This meant that the Universe might have a definite beginning, or a definite end. This defied the accepted thinking and the prevailing wisdom of the day and of Einstein himself who maintained that the Universe was fixed and unchanging, and, therefore, eternal.

To overcome the possibility of a dynamic Universe, Einstein modified his original equations on general relativity and introduced something called a “cosmological constant”.

A cosmological constant set as zero implied a changing Universe, so Einstein through this mathematical trick set a nonzero constant with just the right value so as to maintain a static Universe that conformed to his thinking and the thinking of the day, and brought the status of the universe back to an unchanging state.

The expanding Universe

The wavelengths of the spectrum of light have shorter wavelengths

“The existence of Dark Energy and Dark Matter will put human existence in further perspective as if these exist it means that we humans are not even made of the same stuff that the majority of the rest of the universe is comprised” SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 14

towards the blue end and longer wavelengths towards the red end.

Astronomers, by studying the electromagnetic spectrum of light emanating from stars, can deduce their temperature as well as their chemical composition.

In studying the light from distant galaxies and stars within these galaxies, astronomers found that the light spectrum shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. This effect can be considered to be the equivalent of the ‘Doppler Shift’ of sound. For instance, when we hear a change in the pitch of sound when an ambulance moves past us at speed with its siren blaring, this is the Doppler Shift of sound.

The change in pitch of the sound from the siren is explained by the change in frequency of the sound waves moving towards our ears as the ambulance moves further away. When the ambulance is nearby the sound waves are bunched up together so they strike our ears at a high frequency, and we perceive a high pitch sound. When the ambulance is further away, the sound waves are less frequent, and we perceive in these circumstances a low pitch sound.

There is a similar kind of phenomenon to explain the shift towards the red spectrum of light emanating from stars and galaxies as they move away from us. In 1929, Edwin Hubble, a US astronomer, by SPIN

measuring this cosmological ‘Red Shift’ of distant galaxies found that they were receding, or moving away from us at speeds directly proportional to their distance. He regarded this as proof that the Universe was expanding.

This work by Hubble actually gave support to Einstein’s original theory of general relativity, and suggested that Einstein’s introduction of a cosmological constant to maintain his theory was not necessary. In the 1930s, Einstein abandoned the cosmological constant and claimed it was the greatest blunder of his scientific life.

This was not the end of this story, however, for in 1998, the concept of the cosmological constant came up again, as two independent groups of cosmologists studying supernovae (exploding stars that shine brightly as they explode) in distant galaxies found that contrary to their assumption that the Universe slowed as it expanded, that the reverse appeared to be true and that the expansion of the Universe was in fact accelerating.

A view of what we cannot see, data on hydrogen was used to construct this model of how dark matter appears to be distributed in the Universe.

Image: NASA/ESA and R Massey, Cal IT.

Dark Energy

It was time for Einstein’s cosmological constant to return to centre stage with a value that could be used to account for the increased accelerated expansion of the Universe. A re-introduced or new cosmological constant value could be set so that it represented the energy associated with empty space.

This implies that gravity changes from an attractive force to a repulsive or antigravity force that not only counteracts the gravitational attraction or pull between all objects and bodies in the Universe but also explains its acceleration.

In simple terms this force or energy uniformly fills all space and exerts a negative pressure or push that overcomes the gravitational attraction or pull. Because the force is due to space itself, the push becomes stronger over larger distances. This energy of space is now popularly referred to as ‘Dark Energy’. Compared to the vast space of the Universe, the space or distance scale of our solar system is negligible and, therefore, the repulsive force or push is also negligible.

This means that Newton’s Laws are maintained and valid within the confines of our solar system.

Science has now reached the point where cosmologists believe that Einstein was right after all to introduce a cosmological constant,

In this composite image combining ground based observations with data from Hubble, the magenta blobs represent the distribution of dark matter in the Abell 901/902 supercluster.

There are more than 60,000 galaxies behind Abell 901/902, and dark matter causes lensing distortion of their light.

Credits: NASA, ESA, C. Heymans (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), M. Gray (University of Nottingham, U.K.), M. Barden (Innsbruck), the STAGES collaboration, C. Wolf (Oxford University, U.K.), K. Meisenheimer (Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg), and the COMBO-17 collaboration.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 15

albeit for the wrong reasons and different value. Einstein’s original use of the cosmological constant was to justify a static Universe, while today the cosmological constant is used for practically the opposite purpose, namely to explain the expansion of the Universe generally, as well as its accelerated expansion and ultimately the existence of Dark Energy.

Universe origins

The ‘Big Bang’ Model to explain the origin of the Universe maintains that the Universe emerged from a singularity, something of zero size and infinite compression, around 15 billion years ago. As we know the galaxies that evolved are travelling away from each other and, therefore, the Universe is expanding. However, one of the fundamental questions of cosmology is, will this expansion continue indefinitely or will it stop expanding and start to contract?

The answer, scientists believe, depends on the amount of matter

This image of galaxy cluster 1E 0657-556, the ‘bullet cluster’ is believed to provide proof of the existence of dark matter, as the presence of hot gas alone cannot explain the appearance of this cluster which was formed by the collision of two galaxies.

in the Universe. More precisely, the answer depends on the critical density of matter in the Universe, which in turn determines the overall spacetime geometry or shape of the Universe.

The critical density is calculated to be about five hydrogen atoms per cubic metre of Universe.

If the critical density is exceeded the Universe is ‘closed’ and its spacetime geometry has positive curvature in a three dimensional shape that is conceptually analogous to the surface of a sphere which will eventually contract back to a ‘big crunch’ as the resultant gravitational force generated across the Universe will be strong enough to halt and reverse the expansion.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 16

If the critical density is not reached then the Universe is ‘open’ and its spacetime geometry has negative curvature in a four dimensional shape that is conceptually analogous to an infinitely extending saddle or valley between hills. The gravitational force will be too weak and the expansion will continue forever.

If the Universe is neither ‘open’ or ‘closed’, but balanced right at the critical density and its spacetime geometry has zero curvature then it is a flat Euclidean shaped Universe where the fabric of space and time will just barely expand forever.

Missing mass

In the 1930s, Jan Oort, the Dutch astronomer measured the Red Shifts of stars moving near the galactic plane, around the same time Fritz Zwicky of CalTech was studying the Galactic Coma Cluster.

The basic findings were that the stellar rotational velocity remains constant or flat with increasing

distance away from the galactic centre. The rotational velocity, based on Newton’s Law of Gravity, should steadily decrease for stars further away from the galactic centre. Since the galaxies were not flying apart it implied that there must be enough matter present that the gravitational pull kept the outer stars from flying away into space. Therefore, to account for these observations it was postulated that to maintain this velocity more mass would be required than was visible.

At the time this discrepancy was referred to as ‘missing mass’.

However, over time, the description ‘Dark Matter’ replaced the term missing mass as it became apparent that the mass was present, but simply not visible. Later the anomaly was explained in the form of Dark Matter located in a spherical halo enshrouding each galaxy.

Flat Universe

The case for a flat Universe is supported by studies of the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, and by ‘inflation theory’ applied to the standard Big Bang model. The CMB is the afterglow radiation left over from the Big Bang. The CMB initially appeared equal in all directions, but in 1992 the satellite Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) detected fluctuations in CMB temperature. Cosmologists believe this supports the thinking that the Universe is spatially flat. The CMB fluctuations represent the fluctuations in the density of matter that were imprinted shortly after the Big Bang and that these can reveal a great deal about the early Universe and the origin and formation of galaxies and other large objects in the Universe.

Inflation theory explains the origins of fluctuations in the CMB and why the Universe is balanced at the critical density. It proposes that at a time of the very early Universe it underwent a period of exponential expansion which would have stretched away any possibility of large scale spatial curvature leaving the geometry of the universe flat. !n 2003 the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) measured the CMB fluctuations. Cosmologists were able to determine from these measurements the basic parameters of the Big Bang and the density and composition of the Universe that seemed to confirm that the Universe is

flat with a density break as 4 per cent visible matter, 23 per cent Dark Matter and 73 per cent Dark Energy.

What is Dark Matter?

Cosmologists have divided Dark Matter contenders into two main categories, Baryonic Dark Matter and non Baryonic Dark Matter. Baryonic is matter that we are familiar with, as it is composed of atoms or particles that are known to science. Examples of objects composed of baryonic dark matter include super massive black holes and Brown Dwarfs.

Brown Dwarfs begin life as potential stars, but there is not enough mass to initiate fusion in their cores, so they end up as non-visible bodies.

Brown Dwarfs and similar Baryonic Dark Matter objects, known as MACHOs or Massive Compact Halo Objects, are not luminous enough to be detected or directly observed by telescopes. However, they can be indirectly observed by gravitational microlensing, where the gravity of the dark invisible MACHO acts like a lens and bends light passing near it.

The problem for science is that Baryonic Dark Matter only accounts for a fraction of the total Dark Matter that is present in the Universe.

Therefore, some cosmologists and particle physicists have speculated that there are non-Baryonic particles and matter that remain unknown that make up the remainder of the missing Dark Matter. They call these, as yet, hypothetical particles WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles).

Perspectives

The existence of Dark Energy and Dark Matter are by no means fully accepted concepts among many

cosmologists, particle physicists or astronomers. Some maintain that there are too many gaps in our knowledge, including an incomplete understanding of gravitation, to be even able to speculate. Others have put forward alternative theories of gravity, such as MOND, or Modified Newtonian Dynamics, where extra strong gravity takes the place of Dark Matter. Others still maintain that the CMB may have become distorted or corrupted over time and, therefore, the interpretations of its measurement are not reliable.

In broad scientific terms the existence of Dark Energy and Dark Matter will relegate the validity of current physics to explaining only a narrow 4 per cent of our Universe.

This is the equivalent of trying to determine the picture of a hundred piece jigsaw with only four pieces.

In broad philosophical terms the existence of Dark Energy and Dark Matter will put human existence in further perspective as if these exist it means that we humans are not even made of the same stuff that the majority of the rest of the Universe is comprised. Our existence and composition, if these exist, would, therefore be made up from a miniscule portion of four per cent of the matter of the Universe. Does this imply that we are insignificant in the great scheme of things, or unique, exotic and very important?

Dr Chris Coughlan is a Senior Manager at Hewlett-Packard, Galway, and an adjunct Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

These snapshots taken by Hubble, reveal five supernovae, or exploding stars, and their host galaxies. Supernovae are used to measure the expansion rate of the universe and how that expansion is affected by the repulsive push of dark energy.

Image: NASA, ESA, and A Riess (STScl)

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 17

Ones to watch

Safer driving getS off to a flying Start

D

r Selim Solmaz was born in Ä°zmir, Turkey and since his early childhood, he has been fascinated by mechanical and electrical devices.

Also, since early school days he enjoyed the study of mathematics and science.

This combination of talent and curiosity made him suitable for an engineering career, and his particular interest in flying vehicles led him to study aerospace engineering at the Middle East Technical University, which is one of the most prestigious engineering schools located in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

His curiosity and determination enabled him to graduate with the top graduation record in 2001 and earned him a number of scholarships to conduct graduate studies.

With a funding from the Purdue University at West Lafayette, located in Indiana, USA, he commenced the MSc programme in the School of Aeronautics & Astronautics with a focus on dynamics and control. He initially conducted research in the area of orbital mechanics, which aims to model motion of objects in the planetary system. But towards the end of his masters programme, he developed a bigger interest for the general area of control theory. Control engineering, as a discipline, is about mathematical modelling of dynamical systems, and it utilizes control theory to design controllers that will cause systems to behave in a desired and stable fashion.

Also, many engineering (mechanical, chemical, aerospace, etc.) and nonengineering (e.g., finance, sociology, biology) disciplines overlap with control engineering, as the results of control theory can be applied to any dynamical system, where a mathematical model can be derived to describe the dynamics.

One of Selim’s lecturers at Purdue University, Prof Martin Corless, recommended him to apply for a PhD at the Hamilton Institute, which is an applied mathematics research center located in NUI Maynooth. Having been impressed by the institute’s multidisciplinary research environment,

and with generous support from Science Foundation Ireland, Selim commenced his PhD studies under the guidance of Prof Robert Shorten in 2003. During the first year of his PhD, Selim worked as a visiting researcher at Daimler Chrysler Research AG in Esslingen, Germany, where he had first hand experience with the state of art research in automotive dynamics control. Motivated by this, he was involved in the development of novel estimation and control algorithms for automotive vehicles since his return to the Hamilton Institute in October 2004.

For Selim, automotive vehicles are particularly interesting among other engineering systems due a number of reasons. First of all, vehicle dynamics control is very challenging due to cost constraints, which forces researchers to think of new and radical ways of utilizing existing sensors and actuators.

While designing controllers for other engineering systems, there are fewer constraints with regards to the availability of sensors, actuators and the processing power; so if you need an extra sensor or a faster processor you just include these in the development process of your product and the cost is usually justifiable with your customer.

However, when it comes to cars this is not the case. Improving or adding new safety systems to cars and keeping production cost at low levels often involves conflicting requirements, and this is why control engineers such as Selim spend weeks and months on trying new software algorithms to improve the way we

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 18

drive. Another reason why Selim finds this area interesting is because there are still many open problems centred on safety, efficiency, and driving dynamics enhancement. Selim also believes that improvements in vehicle safety and fuel efficiency can have significant impact on our society. Considering the fact that the global vehicle fleet is in the range of hundreds of millions makes it easier to understand how environmentally friendly vehicles equipped with a range active/passive safety systems can affect our society.

During his PhD programme Selim worked on several theoretical problems on the stability of switched dynamical systems, which are motivated by and applied to the control of automotive dynamics. Selim believes that viewing a car as a switched dynamical system is rather a radical approach for designing control systems for cars, as the current industry practice for designing active control systems is often based on dynamical models with fixed and known parameters. While they simplify the design and development process, the assumptions of known and fixed parameters are too optimistic, which necessitates studying alternative methods to take this changeability into account for improved robustness and performance. Selim studied many such methods during his PhD for a particular vehicle dynamics problem known as the rollover.

Statistically, vehicle rollover causes the highest number of passenger fatalities among all car accidents and its prevention can save hundreds of SPIN

thousands of lives worldwide. Although there are a number of active/passive rollover prevention systems in the market, the high cost of such systems prevent them to be adopted in the automotive industry. Selim has found that one of the most important factors for rollover occurrence is the center of gravity (CG) position of the car, which can change depending on the number of passengers as well as the amount of the load on the vehicle. Accordingly, he developed an algorithm that can estimate the changes in the CG position utilizing the existing vehicle sensors such as lateral acceleration, yaw rate, steering angle and spring displacement sensors, which are available as part of other safety control systems. The estimation of the CG position can then be used to warn the driver about the

impending rollover, or alternatively, the estimation can be used in conjunction with the brakes or the steering system to automatically prevent the accident.

Selim sees a significant commercial potential for this technology in the near future as the technology requires no additional hardware and it can potentially be implemented in existing electronic control units. For taking his ideas to the market, Selim has been working closely with the NUI-Maynooth technology transfer office, as well as Enterprise Ireland.

Another recent achievement for Selim was the securing of a research grant from Enterprise Ireland for developing a device to recognize the hand gestures of a driver. Selim hopes to develop his idea to enable new and alternative ways to interact with cars. He also thinks that

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 26 Page 19

this new technology will help prevent drunk driving, and it may be useful for enabling disabled persons access to cars.

Selim finished his PhD in November 2007; he has been employed as postdoctoral researcher at the Hamilton Institute since then. During and after his PhD he authored many articles which were published in leading academic journals, and were presented in major control conferences, worldwide. Selim is teaching two control related subjects in the NUI Maynooth electronic engineering masters program and he also supervised two master theses.

Selim is also helping with a mathematics competition organized by the Hamilton Institute, which is aimed at secondary school students of all ages, who are studying mathematics at any level.

Award of

Science Excellence The Discover Primary Science programme is intended to be an invaluable resource for teachers and students alike by helping large numbers of young children to understand that science isn’t just about people in white coats carrying out difficult experiments. It’s about fun, discovery and adventure, and it is something which is fundamentally relevant to our everyday lives.

The Awards of Science Excellence was introduced for those schools which excel in their levels of participation in Discover Primary Science; they can publicly display this award as a mark of their achievement.

equipment for their schools as a way of recognition for their hard work and dedication!

There are plenty of things you can do to earn an Award of Science Excellence this year like visiting one of the 26 Discover Centres, taking part in the Greenwave project (www. greenwave.ie), or logging on to www. steps.ie and trying out some of their fun science and engineering activities!

494 schools attended our Awards of Science Excellence Ceremonies held during the month of June with 15 ceremonies at 7 different locations throughout Ireland.

To apply for an Award of Science Excellence log onto www. primaryscience.ie before 31st March 2008 to submit your intention to apply, and send your Discovery Logs into us by May 2nd for your schools chance to win an Award of Science Excellence.

This year we will have a fun interactive science show where our magical scientist will need willing young volunteers to help with the experiments!

Also at each location nationwide we will invite local universities, institutes of technology, discover centres and industry to setup fun and interactive science activities. That way our budding young scientists and their teachers can get ‘hands-on’ and learn more about science in their community from scientists who work in their community and get some new ideas for science activities in the classroom. Also, Molly Cool will be taking a break from the science lab and will be touring the country to meet and greet all our young scientists who have been working very hard all year to get their award! We look forward to seeing you there!

for further information Call the DPS team at 01 607 3184.

This year, schools who are receiving an award for the second time or more will receive a voucher for science

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 20

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CUTTING EDGE Research in the institutes

Marie-Catherine Mousseau finds that research throughout Ireland is on the rise. Fourteen hot spots for research include Cork, Dundalk, Galway, Sligo, Limerick, Waterford, Tralee, Letterkenny, Athlone and Carlow.

C

utting-edge research using the most advanced technology, highly motivated staff, collaboration with world leading experts; if I tell you all this is happening in Ireland, what comes to mind? Irish universities surely; but what else?

Research done in industry? Think further. I’m talking about 14 places in

Ireland. They are not new, far from it — the first ones were founded in 1970 — but only became autonomous in 1993. Their original remit was to deliver training for a wide range of specialised and technical jobs, hence their original name ‘Regional Technical Colleges’.

Ok, you’ve got it; I’m talking about the Institutes of Technology, or ITs.

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Interdisciplinary research in Athlone

No doubt ITs have moved a long way from their original brief. “The past 15 years have seen an enormous rapid change, and different colleges have developed in different ways,” Margaret Franklin, senior lecturer in the Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT), explains. She describes how Athlone was one of the first 5 colleges to be founded. Like the 9 others founded afterwards, they have responded to the needs of a rapidly evolving knowledge-based society and started to engage in university-level research.

“There are a number of strands of research being conducted here, much of it interdisciplinary,” Margaret says.

Dr Clement Higginbotham, director of one of the two research centres in AIT, insists on the originality of their approach: “Athlone IT has traditionally been in the top three ITs in the country in terms of research. Our interdisciplinary research, in general, distinguishes us from a number of other ITs. We are absolutely unique in our polymer and toxicological research, and the marriage between polymer technology in the School of Engineering, and toxicology in the School of Science, which lead to the formation of the CBBR, is also unique.”

Both Margaret and Clem nevertheless agree that in Athlone there is still not enough staff doing research, and no motivation for their involvement in research. “For historical reasons, the full time teaching load at the Institutes of Technology is 16 class contact hours per week for a lecturer,” she says. They are also expected to ‘volunteer’ to extra-curricular activities such as Science Week and promotion of science generally. “All of this takes a lot of time and you have to be very committed to be engaged in research,” she says.

New GRID computing in Tallaght Still, many are. Specialising in astrophysics, Kevin Nolan is a permanent lecturer in physics for IT Tallaght (ITTD) and with Dr Eugene Hickey he is also initiating a new research group in ‘GRID Computing’, which involves using computers connected around the world as a powerful research tool.

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Of course, a key factor in developing a research project successfully is money. Kevin indicates that for their GRID Computing project they were awarded the first Strand 1 HEA grant in 2007. Overall, “ITTD carries out a range of multi-million Euro projects across various biological and chemical sectors that ensure that ITTD is shooting far above its weight in terms of research success and ambition”, he says. ITTD’s key interests include research on medical devices, combating difficult and antimicrobial resistant pathogens, and translational molecular cell biology.

“Our recent success was the award of over 9 million euro from PRTLI,*” Kevin notes.

Strategic Research Clusters in Cork

The Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) benefits on an even bigger scale.

Dr Niall Smith, Head of Research in CIT, indicates that last year they received 27M euros in research funding, including 18M from PRTLI. That is everything they had dreamed of. The money has been channelled into three main areas of research – namely wireless, photonics and biopharmachem. “We call them strategic research clusters as their core activity is supported by several teams within the institute,” Niall explains.

For instance, the teams involved in the wireless research cluster are interested in how wireless technology can improve our interaction with the environment. They particularly focus on ‘intelligent buildings’ that are more responsive to our needs – i.e. switching on and off devices such as central heating or TV automatically.

“This adaptative wireless research, including 11 other partners with a total of €30.6M invested, is the second largest project funded by PRTLI,” Niall indicates.

Waterford one of the largest ICT research groups

In the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), the story is similar. Dr Willy Donnelly is head of Research and Innovation for the WIT, and he is also the director of the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group (TSSG). “With approx 130 staff, it is one of the largest ICT

research groups in Ireland”, he says.

They also focus on wireless technology, but less on hardware and more on the communication aspect itself. “The area of wireless communications is particularly challenging and we are at the forefront of delivery solutions both at the network and service level,” Willy says. “We are the major academic participant in the European framework programme,” he continues, explaining how they have developed strong partnerships with major European companies and academia and how he enjoys working with some of the world leaders in this area.

No doubt the Waterford Institute, like the Cork Institute, is committed to research. “Our range of research activity covers engineering, life science, humanities, business and health science,” Willy says. And contrary to many other institutes, it benefits from its privileged position of being the only third level institute in the South. “We are one of the most active with DIT and CIT. In the ITs, we would account for about 50% of all postgraduate students doing research (this does not include DIT),” says Willy.

Blurring frontiers

Does all this mean that research in the ITs becomes more and more similar to what’s being done in universities?

Due to their historical origin, ITs would still be expected to engage more in applied research. And all agree that they would do less ‘blue sky’ type of activity (i.e. basic research) in the institutes as compared to their university counterparts.

However, it seems that the debate of basic vs. applied research is lessening. “People sometimes talk about the ITs focusing on applied and the universities on more basic research.

However this demarcation is no longer * HEA’s Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions (PRTLI) provides financial support to universities and other third level institutes in Ireland.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 22

appropriate and in fact the type of research conducted in the ITs covers all aspects of research,” Willy says.

“We really talk about strategic research rather than applied research,” says Niall. “We have researchers who know the subject area at a fundamental level. They develop research lines and then they spin out that knowledge to the interface centres to help industry.” “It’s a continuum of activity,” he concludes.

Even the drive for publication is more and more similar to what’s happening in the universities, “simply because we all have to compete for funding,” says Willy, indicating that their number of journal publications has increased by 50 per cent every year over the past 4 years.

Niall is very optimistic about this evolution: “what we have benefited from most in recent years is international peer reviews,” he says.

“That’s been the critical thing that has allowed, for example us in CIT, to move up to a stage where we can bring in 27 million euros.” Because, as he points out, in the international arena, the distinction between ITs and universities doesn’t count. “The key factor is parity of esteem,” he concludes.

And the truth is that “the best research in ITs compares with that conducted in Universities,” Willy says.

To be or not to be

The fact nevertheless remains that entrenched structures are still shaping research conducted in ITs. As Willy points out, their research is more recent, so, the difference is in scale and investment. Also, the lack of career paths — for instance in ITs there are no professorships — may be a problem in attracting leading experts who might fear their status is not being recognised.

However, ITs may also have some interest in retaining their specificity — and some very good aspects.

Smaller in size they may be more flexible and more prompt in making decisions. Human scale benefits students as well. “IT students get 38 contact hours per week (hours where they can interact with teachers),” says Willy, a contact time that according to him can be as low as 5 to 6 hours in some universities. And, last but not least, their traditional emphasis on the applicability of the research to the

consumer/stakeholders makes them very attractive to industries.

Firstly, ITs attract industries to train their staff regionally. “Because of our flexibility we are able to customise some master programmes for them,” Willy says. But he indicates that there is more than that. The scope encompasses joint projects such as innovation partnerships, new product developments and company spinouts, as well as joint research activity through various funding. “The links with industry are crucial,” he concludes.

Clem’s experience in Athlone is similar: “I am involved in research projects with numerous companies”.

He adds: “Collaboration with industry is the strength of the ITs. Industry benefits enormously from collaborative research with Athlone IT as they have ‘hands-on’ experience of the research project and most industries that I

collaborate with are involved very heavily. This doesn’t happen in the universities.”

“In CIT, we have three new centres whose specific remit is to interface between the research and industry,” says Niall. He adds: “we all have to help industry, because we’re such a small country we can’t afford generating knowledge just for the sake of it”. We don’t have an economy of that scale.”

He also points out that CIT has an innovation centre allowing businesses to rent a place to operate. This is to double in size and to be located next to some of their research buildings, creating as he puts it ‘an industrial research park area with high activity of both industries and researchers’.

“What’s very useful are those ‘coffee morning chats’ where you have researchers interacting in an ad hoc manner, brainstorming and coming up with new creative ideas.”

Niall is optimistic about IT research potential: “what we have in abundance here is intellectual gold, what we need now is sufficient infrastructure — better labs, better buildings.” He adds: “That’s why funding like PRTLI is critical for our research development in CIT – it’s the only way we can get sufficient infrastructure to make good use of that intellectual gold.”

To be or not to be a university is, or soon may be, a debate for many. But at the end of the day, “we’re all trying to move towards supporting the national development plan.” Niall notes. What Irish society needs now is more 4th level education, more masters and PhDs – to support the economy and ultimately, as he puts it, “to move towards a better life for the population in this country.”

“And what the institutes are very good at is evolving to respond to the needs of society,” Willy concludes.

SPIN

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Mulch mats

NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR FOREST RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT AN CHOMHAIRLE NÁISIÚNTA UM THAIGHDE AGUS FORBAIRT FORAOISE

a novel way for trees to outgrow weeds

A

n important part of successfully establishing forests is the suppression of competing weeds: clearly the more vigorous the weed growth is, the more young crops experience competition for light, water and nutrients. Even in the Irish climate, competition between weeds and young, newly planted trees for moisture can be particularly severe, and can significantly reduce early growth, particularly in broadleaves.

Much research in forest vegetation management has been devoted to testing and developing herbicides. While herbicide application is a cost-effective solution, environmental awareness and forest certification processes have led to a reappraisal of herbicide use. Given these developments it is important to examine potential alternatives to herbicides for use in Irish forestry.

A research team based at Waterford Institute of Technology, led by Dr Nick McCarthy, has pioneered work in seeking workable alternatives to herbicides. COFORD has funded the team to evaluate the effectiveness of mulch mats placed around the trees at planting for weed suppression. Mulching is a weed control technique used in agriculture and forestry throughout the world. The primary objective of the work was to investigate the use of a range of mulch mats as an alternative to herbicide use to control weed vegetation to establish forest and other tree crops on both afforestation and reforestation sites.

Eight different photodegradable plastic mulch mats were tested in four plantation types: a Nordmann fir (Abies nordmanniana) Christmas tree plantation at Clonroche, Co Wexford, a eucalyptus (Eucalyptus parvifolia) foliage plantation at Tralee, Co Kerry, and a reforestation site planted with ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), respectively at New Ross, Co Wexford.

Rainfall and air temperature were measured at the three sites. The rainfallsealing effect of the mulches and their effect on soil surface temperatures under each mulch mat treatment were quantified using temperature probes and tensiometers linked to pressure transducers. Other studies have shown that temperatures can increase under plastic mulch to the extent that the soil dries out. This study, however, found no differences in soil temperature under the mats compared with the control.

This concurs with other findings that indicate that black films have the least modifying effect on soil energy budgets

Christmas tree (Nordmann fir) experimental site showing mulch mats used in the trial.

and conserve soil moisture well.

In terms of the overall effectiveness of the mulch mats the results have shown that: • Mulch mats are at least as good as conventional herbicide in controlling weeds, and their use allows trees to get well established, on a range of sites.

• All the mats used in these trials were photodegradable, but in the interim biodegradable mulch mats have come on the market, which are more environmentally friendly.

• Policy developments are likely to further reduce the range and use of herbicides for weed control – thus it is prudent to continue investigating and testing alternatives.

planting for conventional forestry is concerned, technology may develop to the extent that mats can compete with herbicides and eventually partially or fully take their place. One way or another, investment in new approaches to vegetation control is needed, as forest establishment by planting is likely to predominate for the foreseeable future.

The team’s work is summarised in a COFORD report: Mulch mats and their role in establishing forest and other tree crops by Nick Mc Carthy, Claire Mc Carthy and Milo O Rathaille. This line of research is continuing under a new round of COFORD funding, with the objective of coming up with workable, cost effective alternatives to current herbicides.

Although the use of mulch mats is, at the moment, prohibitively expensive for large scale tree planting, they have a use in amenity tree planting and are worth considering in establishing shorter-lived tree cops such as Christmas trees and species grown for decorative foliage. As far as large scale

To order a copy of the report please contact COFORD: phone 01-2130725 or email info@coford.ie.

For further information on experimental methods of vegetation control contact Dr Nick Mc Carthy, Waterford Institute of Technology (nmccarthy@wit.ie) Alistair Pfeifer (COFORD Research Programme Manager), Dr Nick Mc Carthy (WIT) and Dr Eugene Hendrick (COFORD Director) at the launch of the report “Mulch mats and their role in establishing forest and other tree crops” by Dr Nick Mc Carthy, Claire Mc Carthy and Milo O Rathaille.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 24

SPIN

SFI

drug delivery research cluster

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aving secured funding for the next five years from Science Foundation Ireland’s Strategic Research Cluster Programme, the team behind the Irish Drug Delivery Network (IDDN) is finalising details of a research programme that aims to overcome current limitations in biopharmaceutical delivery, while standardising pharmaceutical drug delivery postgraduate teaching across the three schools of pharmacy and the UCD Conway Institute.

Lead by David Brayden, Associate Professor of Drug Delivery at UCD’s Conway Institute, the IDDN’s principal investigators comprise some of the country’s leading drug delivery researchers including Professor Caitriona O’Driscoll (Head of School of Pharmacy at UCC), Dr Sally-Ann Cryan (School of Pharmacy, Royal College of Surgeons Ireland) and Dr Carsten Ehrhardt of Trinity College Dublin’s School of Pharmacy.

As Professor Brayden explained, they recognised the potential synergy between the institutions and the benefits of industry involvement at an early stage: “This is the first time the three schools of pharmacy have pooled their resources in drug delivery research.”

The research cluster has two main objectives: • To produce excellent research into peptide and nucleic acid (siRNA) delivery using polymeric formulations • To implement multi-institutional thematic taught modules for their PhD students, who will be funded for four years According to the WHO, 75 million people have osteoporosis in Europe, Japan and the US. Salmon calcitonin and parathyroid hormone have been shown to be useful in the treatment of osteoporosis by the injected route. The IDDN will seek improvements for oral and pulmonary delivery of these two peptides to overcome the problems of metabolism and poor permeability.

The cluster will be investigating how a selection of novel formulation of biotech molecules that cannot be delivered to the body in an acceptable format by any route of delivery (for example, nucleic acids). It has also established a range of predictive in vitro screening systems

to see if a reformulated drug can be absorbed through the gut or through the lungs or not.

The multi-institutional thematic taught modules tie in with the wider objective of creating a structured teaching programme across all universities. “The centres are offering different modules at different stages,” said Professor Brayden. “We have put together a programme that will ensure our PhDs receive a similar learning experience across all the centres.”

This is particularly attractive since employers are looking for assurance that students have the skills and expertise necessary for future employment.

“Likewise, although we would expect the students based in the four institutions working on similar research projects to interact with each other anyway, it will quickly become apparent that they are all going through the same learning experience regardless of their location,” he continued.

More than two million euro has been committed by three industrial partners — Genzyme Ireland in Waterford, Dublin-based Sigmoid Biotechnologies and Warwick Effect Polymers (Coventry, UK). In return employees will receive pharmaceutics and drug delivery training and company executives will present to the students and researchers on industrialisation and manufacturing.

“Industry involvement was vital, both in terms of participation in the research programme and providing our PhD students with access to potential employers,” said Professor Brayden.

“The companies recognise the onsite modules as a valuable element in employee development. Genzyme also has world class research scientists in its Boston HQ, who we will be interacting with in respect of gene delivery.”

science foundation ireland fondúireacht eolaíochta éireann

Conway Institute researchers will also be able to link to the cluster to research how new biotech molecules can be formulated and delivered in an acceptable format for patients.

The programme will include a drug delivery taught session through a Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre course on drug design and delivery. In the longer term, co-operation could extend to third level institutions in Northern Ireland once we have established our research, explained Professor Brayden.

“There is a School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University, Belfast and the idea of having an all-island grouping is a natural progression. Our counterparts in Northern Ireland seem amenable to the idea and there are all-Ireland grants available. However, we first need to build our credibility by producing good research data in the first few years.”

A number of outreach activities have already taken place with secondary schools and the team is confident that such interaction will have major benefits for second level students.

The timetable for filling the 12 PhD and six post-doctoral places has been finalised, but it will ultimately depend on the availability of high quality candidates, concluded Professor Brayden, who expects the percentage of non-Irish students to be in line with that of similar programmes (in excess of 50 per cent).

Potential applicants should send their CVs to the Cluster’s project manager, Dr Graham Armstrong.

Email graham.armstrong@ucd.ie or visit the new website at www.ucd.ie/iddn for more information.

Pictured at the announcement of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Investment Awards amounting to €87 million across a number of ground breaking industry-academic projects were (l-r) Prof. David Brayden, UCD; Prof. Frank Gannon, Director General SFI and Prof. Pat Fottrell, Chairperson SFI. Pic MacInnes Photography.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 25

SPIN

Lynda Hart

Dolmen at Carrowmore, Co Sligo.

GEO VIEWS

A selection from this year’s Du Noyer competition.

The annual Du Noyer competition, named after the outstanding 19th century geologist and artist, is run by the Geological Survey of Ireland. These are just a few of the inspiring images of rocks and the landscape from the final selection.

1st Prize Clair Donogher

Peat waterfall, showing the dynamic nature of our peatlands.

David Chew

Folded granite sheets in the Moine Supergroup, Loch Cluanic, Scotland.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 26

David Kirk

The weathered granite of the Mourne Mountains.

Terry Rooney

The distinctive shape of Ben Bulben, Co Sligo. The more resistant limestone stands up above the shale.

Brian McConnell. (below) Steaming scoria cone, Reykjanes, Iceland

Joseph Ropero

Sandstone shaped by erosion.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 27

David O’Dwyer

Sunset and the outgoing tide at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Catherine Bushe

“Elephant’s Head,” at the Grotte de L’Abeil, limestone caves, Department de L’Herault, France.

Samantha Georg

Lough Acorrymore, glacial corrie, Achill Island, Co Mayo.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 28

Winner Overseas Section Gráinne Baxter

Judith Boyle

Moeraki Boulders, Oamaru, New Zealand. Measuring up to 3m. in diameter the boulders – classed as septarian concretions – have been released from the mudstone coastal cliffs through erosion.

Grand Canyon owes its existences mainly to the Colorado River as well as from rain, snowmelt, and tributary streams. It is a remarkable (but incomplete) record of the Paleozoic Era (550-250 million years ago), as well as having scattered remnants of Precambrian rocks as old as 2000 million years. Rain comes suddenly in violent storms, particularly in the late summer of each year, and the power of erosion is therefore more evident here than in other places.

Frank Fagan

Aiguille Du Midi, Mont Blanc, France. At 3842 metres.

Looking towards Italy.

Catherine Breheny

View over lava flow, South Central Iceland.

ENTER If you have taken some outstanding photographs of geological features why not submit them for this year’s Du Noyer competition? The closing date is 10th October 2008. Details are available from the GSI website:

www.gsi.ie SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 29

Heat wells Instead of digging for oil or gas, reports Tom Kennedy, we could be drilling down for heat.

The baths at Louisa Bridge, Leixlip, where visitors once came to take the waters. Photo: Tom Kennedy

A

s we know from volcanic eruptions, the Earth, below the crust is extremely hot. The deeper we go the hotter it gets. For every kilometer down into the Earth’s crust, the temperature goes up by 20ºC. Mines are often deep enough to be oppressively hot, and if we could drill down 150 kilometres the temperature would be about 1,300ºC. Sometimes, when the Earth’s crust is disturbed, water can penetrate down into the depths, and in volcanically active areas, such as Iceland, it circulates back up to the surface in springs, hot enough to generate electrical power.

Ireland is far removed from any earthquake zone, but even so, we do have a number of not so much hot, as tepid, springs. In north Leinster alone there are eighteen wells or springs where the average temperature can be as high as 24ºC. The best known of these, but not, at 17ºC, the hottest, is the old spa at Louisa Bridge in Leixlip.

In the 19th century, this spa was so popular, that a tramline, running out from Dublin to Lucan, was kept busy bringing bathers out to ‘take the waters’.

From data gathered over the years, the Geological Survey of Ireland has concluded that most of our warm springs involve relatively rapid circulation of water from some depth.

High rainfall speeds up the cycle, so water comes back up to the surface with minimum loss of heat.

Compared to Iceland, Ireland’s springs are cool, yet, if we go down

a few hundred metres, there is a virtually inexhaustable source of heat, and this has made geologists wonder why we have been so slow to tap into geoenergy. In one study, Róisin Goodman, Gareth Jones, John Kelly, Ed Slowey, and Nick O’Neill looked at the potential, and they concluded that “Ireland is particulary well suited for the extraction of heat from ground sources.”

When people talk about geothermal energy, they often refer to near surface extraction of heat, and heat exchangers, which work like fridges in reverse, that have become quite a common feature in large energy managed buildings. Often, the heat is extracted from just below the surface,

and strictly speaking this has more to do with energy recovery rather than tapping into geothermal sources.

Although, at one or two metres depth, the temperature gain is small, scale can make extraction worthwhile.

The authors of the report pointed out that we are letting an enormous amount of energy go to waste in cities, and they calculated that heat from buildings, traffic and other activities can contribute as much as one third of the solar gain in city areas. Ground temperatures in urban areas, they found, can be up to 4ºC higher than in open countryside. In Cork and Dublin, buried gravel and eskers underlying some of the most built up areas have the potential to act as large, readily

Warm spots around Dublin. SEI

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 30

SPIN

accessible reservoirs for open loop heat systems.

Of course, there can be a price for an over-enthuiastic campaign of heat recovery, and there have been reports of staff in a large Dublin institution coming back to chilly offices, and as one architect commented about small domestic systems, don’t be surprised if the daffodils in the garden fail to flower.

The ultimate potential for tapping into geothermal energy could well lie in drilling deep, and in general the deeper the better. The problem is that drilling is very expensive, over €1million per 1,000 metres, and that’s just the start. There is nothing certain about actual performance, and so far, investors would prefer to speculate on the old, but also not always reliable, georesource, oil.

Many geologists believe that geothermal energy is well worth developing, and within Ireland the underlying structures give us a good idea where to drill. The north Leinster and Munster springs are warm because they are adjacent to deep faulting, and going north, we see a marked increase in temperature where basalt welling up from the interior thinned the Earth’s crust.

At 500 metres depth there are some hot spots in west Clare, northwest Cavan, north Antrim and east Tyrone, where temperatures range from 25ºC

A heat chart of Northern Ireland where basalt flow has thinned the Earth’s crust. to 27ºC. Modelling from the available data suggests that these hot spots continue well beyond this depth. At 5,000 metres depth is believed that the background temperatures in the south range from 60ºC to 75ºC, but in the north, temperatures at the same depth could be as high as 180ºC. The ancient Iapetus Suture, running from Dublin to Limerick, along which the two sides of Ireland came together about

350 million years ago, has been a big influence at these deeper levels, and in the north, temperatures are also high because of the underlying geology.

The north, compared to the south, is quite hot, and recently the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland commissioned a study to examine the possibility of exploiting this natural advantage. While stopping short of advocating deep drilling, the study concluded that drawing heat from near the surface is now an attractive option for many homes and offices in Northern Ireland.

Nineteen deep boreholes were sunk in Northern Ireland, and the recorded temperatures, of up to 180ºC at 5,000 metres on Rathlin, suggests that it could be worth going deeper in launching a heat mining programme. The temperature range occurring in Northern Ireland compares very well to some of the international test sites chosen for their potential to yield geothermal energy.

Geothermal plant at Wairake, New Zealand

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 31

Tapping into ground heat is on the increase, and while the authors of the SEI report stated that “it is unlikely that Ireland will ever generate electricity from geothermal energy” they thought that with drilling there is “good potential for temperatures between 50ºC and 100ºC.” This potential, while not in the power plant league, is quite significant, and in one example, the swimming pool in Mallow is already being heated from warm water rising from a 75 metre deep borehole. The water coming up from the depths along a natural rock fracture emerges at just over 19ºC. Instead of having to pump heat into the pool from conventional supplies, a top up is enough to keep it up to temperature.

In Cork the Glucksman Arts Museum at UCC draws heat from water in gravel beds 20 metres below the city, but these schemes are relatively modest compared to some of those from abroad.

In the UK, when one of the local authorities, Southampton, opted for an integrated energy scheme in the

1980s, geothermal became an important part of the mix. The city council drilled down into Triassic sandstone, over 1,700 metres below the city. The porus sandstone contained a 24 metre deep aquifer with salt water at 76ºC, and, although this supply has a limited life, the energy has been used continuously for district heating since the scheme began.

In Paris, which perches above a sedimentary basis, more than 40 geothermal systems are reported to be tapping into water at 80ºC. About 30ºC is extracted before the water, which is saline, is pumped back into the basin.

The cost of drilling remains one of the biggest obstacles to the development of geothermal systems, but the possibility of high yields is encouraging engineers to come up with more efficient solutions, such as plans is to fracture deep rocks with explosives. In pumping water down into the hot cracks, the engineers hope to mimic on a grander scale the rain driven cycle that gave us the Spa in Leixlip.

Staying warm in Iceland where water is hot enough to generate electrical power.

COLOUR

What we see and the science behind sight l l l l l l l l

What is colour?

Paints and dyes Green energy Defining colours False and natural Animal sight Colour in art Colour blindness

Chemist, Margaret Franklin, and science writer, Tom Kennedy explain all about colour in this lavishly illustrated paperback.

112 pages, A5 paperback €15 Science Spin subscribers qualify for a special discount price of €12

Order direct from www.sciencespin.com SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 32

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S D R A D

tion Exhibi

2008

N A T S G IN ntis

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It is getting harder every year to reach the standard required to get an exhibit into the RDS Main Hall, and the diversity of projects presented is also wider than ever. Tony McGennis, a maths teacher at St Laurence College Loughlinstown, Dublin, involved in two projects this year, gives his ‘teacher’s eye view’ of the 2008 show.

“Golf, coffee and marijuana” may sound like

features of a hedonistic Caribbean holiday, but they are in fact, some of the topics under investigation by students at this year’s Young Scientist Show, reflecting the incredibly diversity of topics and subjects that students tackled this year.

I had promised a newspaper to report on projects from Donegal, and was afforded an early opportunity to do so on Wednesday of the Young Scientist week. My third year group didn’t appreciate my presence, as they were busy socialising with fellow young scientists. I was also not needed by 5th year student, Sam Hall, who was very competent and confident in discussing his work. He applied Vector Theory in his study of passes in rugby and found more passes were forward than most people would imagine. His enthusiastic and informative explanations attracted the interest of rugby fans, ex-players and even the Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, herself.

As I began to peruse the 500 or so projects, I was offered a very welcome cup of coffee by three Letterkenny students. Carl Whitehead, Colm Greene and Stephen Pearson of St

Overall winner, Emer Jones, Chris, and Minister, Mary Hanafin.

Eunan’s College studied the qualities of different types of coffee grinds to try to hone in on a cup of coffee which has perfect strength and flavour. The trio were delighted to have their hard work recognised with a “Highly Commended” award.

Runner up group, Ellie Townsend, Lisa O’Sullivan, and Ciara McCarthy from Colaiste Choilm, Ballincollig, with Chris and Minister Hanafin.

Commitment

Ara O’Daimhin, also from Letterkenny, did his own detective work and came up with his own saliva test to detect the presence of marijuana. Ara attends Coláiste Ailigh and his was one of 14 accepted projects from the Irish-speaking school. Principal Michéal O’Giobúin is Coffee with Colm Greene and Stephen Pearson of St Eunan’s College, Letterkenny, Donegal.

Eanna Ni Lamhna, scientist and RTE broadcaster, with girls from St Mary’s College, Derry, who had a project entered on testing biofuel.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 33

Chris Clarke, CEO of BT Ireland, Minister, Mary Hanafin, and Henry Glass from Clongowes, runner up.

Best group from Mountbellew, cousins Edel and Fiona Ryan, with Chris Clarke and Minister, Mary Hanifin. so enthusiastic about the competition, that all 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th year students enter projects. “September can be a little hectic as students search for ideas, but the benefits with regard to self-confidence, communication and research skills make it all worthwhile”, he explained, adding: “It is particularly rewarding to witness past pupils returning to the school during the Christmas break to give advice and support to the finalists.” Inevitably some of the projects need last-minute touches and the intense activity just before departing for Dublin lead to this day being termed “Super Tuesday” by everyone involved. Micheal’s hard work over the years was recognised this year as he won the Intel Educator of the Year award.

Another stalwart of the system is experienced teacher, Sheila Porter who was first associated with a project in 1974. She regularly gives up days of her Christmas holidays to go back to Loreto on the Green, and is encouraged by the spirit of the pupils. “There’s a good atmosphere with 50 students co-operating with each other and coming to the school voluntarily”. Shiela noticed how it was becoming more and more difficult to get a project accepted for the RDS. This year, for example, there was only space for 500 projects out of 1,400 entries. For this reason, she approached Tallaght IT a couple of years ago with the idea to run an exhibition for one day.

This year these exhibitions (Scifest) will take place in many locations throughout the country from April (details from www.scifest.ie). “All projects are accepted and students do not have to travel to Dublin to display their work”, Shiela explained. She is particularly keen to promote the physical sciences, and would no doubt be pleased that among this year’s winning projects were studies of food detection by the slug Limax Pseudoflavus, and the physics of perforations.

Sandbags

The overall winner was Emer Jones, from Tralee, who researched and developed emergency sandbag shelters.

Emer was not only the first winner from the Kingdom, but also the youngest ever winner. She explained “I went on a visit to last year’s exhibition with my family and wanted to do my own project, which may be of benefit to people and to the environment.” Emer noticed that temporary sandbag shelters were often supported by barbed wire, which is often not readily available in the countries which are prone to such natural disasters as earthquakes.

Emer developed and tested a solution using bamboo in place of barbed wire.

The models produced by Emer were certainly stress tested – using a “shake table” and sledgehammer. The Kerry student is looking forward to a busy year ahead: “the excitement at home has been brilliant and I’m hoping to travel to California in the summer, as well as to the European Young Scientist Finals in Copenhagen in September.”

The trip to California will include a visit and training to Cal-Earth, a non-profit organisation, which was an important inspiration for Emer’s work.

Cal-Earth was founded by architect Nader Khalili and specialises in building innovations, such as lunar base construction and housing such as emergency shelters for the world’s homeless for the United Nations.

Sport

As the projects entered by my school involved the application of Maths in sport, I was interested in other projects with a sporting theme. I found projects on golf, Gaelic football, athletics, basketball, horse racing, rugby and soccer, inter alia. The height of a golf tee and how it affects the drive was looked at by Darragh Breathnach, Manus MacComhaill and Conal

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 26 Page 34

MacFhionnlaoich of Coláiste Ailigh.

One of the St Laurence College projects demonstrated that betting trebles on soccer matches is a bad idea, and they got the cooperation of Strabane bookie, Bill Quigley. Bill was able to confirm that more money is made for the bookie on multiple bets. He related the story that when he started, an old bookie gave him the advice that “if somebody bets multiples, send a taxi for them.”

St Eunan’s Ciaran Greaney studied 13-a-side Gaelic football matches and concluded that this is the way to go. There were less fouls than in the standard 15-a-side game, and the enjoyment of players and spectators was increased. An interesting study from a trio from Our Lady’s College, Drogheda investigated whether tall people run faster than short people, while Eoin Colgan from Newry displayed his “smart bike”.

Teachers

The range of subjects was very large at the exhibition and teachers were even a subject for investigation from two Galway cousins, Edel and Fiona Ryan.

Edel told me that they surveyed 750 teachers from all parts of the country and found that teachers were under stress yet content with their lot. “88 per cent of teachers were satisfied, although 97 per cent of them were stressed.

Discipline and conflict, workload, administration and dealing with parents were the most common causes of stress.”

Overall they noted 144 stress factors and brought the Best Group award back to Montbellew for their efforts.

Stressed and unstressed teachers were much in evidence on Friday, traditionally the busiest time for school groups to visit the RDS. It was difficult to move at times, especially near the extremelyrealistic “polar bear” show. Saturday brought a lot of attention to the rugby passes project as fans dropped in on the way to the Heineken Cup game between Leinster and Toulouse. Leinster may be indebted to some of the Young Scientist competitors, as Toulouse complained that their preparations were affected by having to share a hotel with lively young scientists. Toulouse lost the game.

Vow

As the St Eunan’s coffee eventually ran dry, this teacher was left with the knowledge that students are capable of great things, especially when left to their own initiative. Winners were congratulated, students vowed to meet newly-made friends again in 2009, and the Young Scientist Exhibition was over for another year.

SPIN

ISOF EXPO 13th to 15th November 2008 RDS Main Hall

A major exhibition on applied research, bringing industry, the colleges, and the agencies together at one venue.

ISOF EXPO will enable participants to interact at stands, in break out areas, and face to face workshops.

Manufacturing companies engaged in R&D will be invited to meet potential employees and researchers, and one of the highlights of the exhibition will be a working laboratory.

In support of the exhibition the ISOF Council is organising associated science and research events throughout the country, and Science Spin, as a media partner is publishing a research handbook and programme.

Organiser

SDL Exhibitions Ltd 18 Main Street, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14. Tel: 01 490 0600 Enquiries to Deirdre Quinn. Direct line 01 405 5547 E-mail: deirdre@sdlexpo.com

The ISOF Council invites scientists, researchers, and staff in organisations to include proposed activities, such as workshops or lectures, in a countrywide programme of events suitable for a scientic or general audience during the week of this exhibition.

To register your interest in ISOF, the Irish Science Open Forum, simply email tom@sciencespin.com to receive an occasional alert on activities.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 35

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Starlings flocking before heading south to wintering grounds. In Denmark, where these photographs were taken by Bjarne Winkler, the flocking from March to mid April has become a tourist attraction.

Starlings, Sturna vulgaris, are an amazingly adaptable species, and when conditions suit them, populations explode. Thousands of chattering starlings perching under the eves of big buildings can make quite a mess, so they are not always welcome. In western Australia, a ‘starling watch’ is kept in a bid to prevent breeding birds from invading Perth. Evening flocks are often seen in Ireland, settling on city rooftops before taking off to wheel and turn over commuter traffic.

Top series: Bjarne Winkler. Row in wire, Tom Kennedy.

What’s inside the box?

Billions of neurons and up to 240 trillion connections

Memories are made of this

Short recall is not much use to us without long term storage

Don’t upset the biological clock

What sets our internal clock and why the graveyard shift may be the death of you

The sensational brain

We hear, we feel, we smell, we see, but how does the brain make sense of all this information, and why do our eyes sometimes deceive us?

Getting all emotional

Where do we hide our fears, and why are children, and crocodiles, so emotional?

How to become smarter

If some people can be a bit slow, why are they often better at getting the right answers?

Out of our minds

Madness is hard to define but imaging makes it easier to spot what’s actually going wrong

Getting high

Why do people take drugs, and why are they so addictive?

Girl brain, boy brain

OV ISC ER

YS ERIES

ISBN 0 906002 16 8

D

Is there a difference, or does the sex of your brain matter?

Albertine Kennedy Publishing Cloonlara, Swinford, Co Mayo. Ireland.

Published in association with Ireland’s science and discovery magazine Science Spin

THE SENSATIONAL BRAIN by VERONICA MILLER

Dr Veronica Miller, researcher and writer, lifts the lid on what goes on inside our head

THE SENSATIONAL

BRAIN What is it and how it works Dr Veronica Miller

SCIENCE

SPIN

Dr Veronica Miller explains all you ever wanted to know about the brain — what it is and how it works. Lots of facts without the jargon in a fully illustrated book that will appeal to everyone.

Have you ever wondered what’s inside the box? Why do we get so upset by working odd hours, or what are memories actually made of?

Do boys really have different brains from girls, and is there anything we can do to become smarter? The answers are all here and lots more in this entertaining and highly informative book.

Dr Miller, who studied at TCD and UCD before before undertaking brain research in the UK is currently Research Assistant Professor at the Wadsworth Centre in New York.

The Sensational Brain by Dr Veronica Miller Hardback, full colour, 160 pages. €25.00 Available now from www.sciencespin.com, GSI store, Amazon and independent bookshops.

Cerebellum granular cells and white matter from an older man.

COLOUR

INK often be anuscripts can a traced back to stery through particular mona by the scribes. the inks used have been an analysis of of substances wide variety freedom of flow, For writing a requirements; basic the Boiled tree found to meet permanency. rooms, high degree of a and , by ink-cap mush clarity mush produced root of the yellow bark, the black ered A owers, powd have been used. blue from cornfl bark even strong coffee flag iris, and winter blackened made from the One was glue. ink or black with milk the twigs mixed from oak galls, of blackthorn of ink was made oak trees. One common type s on insect by d pounds of iron round balls forme , ration was five formula for prepa s of gum, 12 gallons of water pound galls. sulphate, five gallon of oak by volume, 12 12 gallons must and measuring h oak galls for s how big the Collecting enoug lt but it just show sive difficu exten been more have gum, and was. On an even lampblack and demand for ink dirty was made from although very scale Indian ink became a big, grained soot soot, lampblack, n Europe. The producing fine of south easter printers’ ink. industry in parts linseed to make 63 was mixed with

M

COLOUR

The quality of medieval inks had to be high for manuscripts such as this to survive.

This is a page from a medical manuscript, the Book of the O’Lees, preserved at the Royal Irish Academy.

of how colours gives a good idea the colour from The colour wheel By subtracting opposite hue. relate to each other. wheel we get the one side of the

saturation, and Colour has hue, three dimensional brightness, and gh harder to modelling, althou ate to more accur visualise, led ication. systems of classif

The science and art of colour explained by Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy. A colourful and informative paperback. €15 post free from www.sciencespin.com

cliff above against a granite schist lying up Vegetation covered Wicklow. is Lough Oular, Co ne Granite which

plants Carboniferous hibernicus, A. Palaeopteris Co Kilkenny. from Kiltorcan, loachitica, B. Alethopteris Tipperary.

Ballynstick, Co lonchilides, C. Alethopteris colliery, Co from Drumnagh Cork. dendron, D. Root of Lepido Laois.

Co stown, Tower Photographs: Tom

tion is the Mour during initial event. The excep it developed n years old and to the melting only 55 millio , possibly due Atlantic Ocean basalts (see ding Antrim opening of the crust by the ascen ” earlier). of the Earth’s Rocks base of other Volcanic granite in the “Basalts and of hot molten of plates: ation ment gener The move is driven by the l plate sinks to crusta the Earth’s crust idden e, the over-r granite (see Figure where they collid to form liquid ely melts it they release extrem a depth where plates pull apart the crust it in turn melts 3). Where those the mantle which hot basalt from

The granite with granite rocks. is well-endowed out from the Figure 15. Ireland northeast stands Mountains is the er — only 55 million years old. of the Mourne significantly young others in being

Kennedy.

67

ROCK AROUND IRELAND

Peadar McArdle guides us around Ireland’s diversified geology.

Paperback €15 postfree from www.sciencespin.com

2008

Why not take part in the Greenwave Project 2008?...

Encourage your students to get involved and they will have the opportunity to develop the following skills: Observing, Classifying, Recognising Patterns, Estimating and Measuring, Recording and Communicating.

Register now for your free Greenwave thermometer.

The first 3,000 national school teachers to register now on www.greenwave.ie will receive a free Greenwave thermometer!

For further information please email: greenwave@forfas.ie

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 27 Page 3

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