Spin 17

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SCIENCE

SPIN

IRELAND’S SCIENCE WILDLIFE AND DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

FUSION Escaping from the fossil fuel prison NANOTECHNOLOGY The next big thing WIRELESS Connections on the move

GEOSCIENCE What’s under Dublin?

Ireland’s sea dragons

INDUS

Y TR

SPIN

ISSUE 17 August 06

energy • transportation • industrial automation • building technologies • information & communications • healthcare • domestic appliances

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SCIENCE

SPIN

Publisher Duke Kennedy Sweetman Ltd 5 Serpentine Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. and Foxford Woollen Mills, Foxford, Co. Mayo Tel: 01 4545231 www.sciencespin.com Email: tom@sciencespin.com Editors Seán Duke sean@sciencespin.com Tom Kennedy tom@sciencespin.com Business Development Manager Alan Doherty alan@sciencespin.com Design and Production Albertine Kennedy Publishing Cloonlara, Swinford, Co Mayo

UPFRONT

2 10

Restoring an astronomical gem

Anna Nolan was at UCC’s Crawford Observatory.

Fusion

14

Shane Leavy asks if this is the way out of our fossil fuel prison?

18

Nanotechnology — the next big thing Brian Skelly reports on the benefits of going down in scale.

20

Eco-sensor network Maeve Nic Samhradáin reports on cultivating science at the Botanic Gardens.

32

Seán Duke reports on how experts at UCD are looking at how we move.

34

Bluetooth bites into wireless

Seán Duke reports on a diversity of applications.

38

Precious metal

Clodagh Mulcahy writes that platinum is worth a lot to medical science.

Reviews

Celebrating cork

40

22

Ring of fire sparks again

John Gambble explains that survivors of an earthquake are due another shock.

Printing Turner Print, Longford

GEOSCIENCE

IN D U

RY

What’s under Dublin?

Sea dragons in Irish waters

PIN

ST

Proofing Aisling McLaughlin

Contributors in this issue Tony Bazley, John Gamble, Shane Leavy, Maeve Nic Samhradáin, Anna Nolan, Brian Skelly.

Science on the move

S

Taking a lead from nature, industry is starting to build from the bottom up.

24

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.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 1

SPIN

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UPFRONT Building the Wavebob at Harland and Wolfe, and deployment into the Atlantic off Galway. Photographs Andrew Downes.

Power from the sea

In a move towards harvesting energy from the sea, a scaled down version of a wave generator has been launched off Galway. The Wavebob, developed

by William Dick, was built in Belfast

by Harland and Wolfe, and before deployment about three km off Spiddal, the device underwent

Water watch

Researchers from Cork, Dublin, Galway, and Limerick are working together to develop a network of water monitoring systems. The aim, according to the Marine Institute, is to give everyone access to data on water quality in our lakes, rivers, and seashore.

The Centre for Sensor Research at DCU, Tyndall at UCC, MAC in Limerick, Marine Informatics in Killaloe, the South West Regional Authority, and the Marine Institute at Newport, Co Mayo, are working on a continuous monitoring system for the coast, SmartCoast. In this, sensors are to be linked via wireless to a web interface.

On another front, the Tyndall Institute, and UCC are collaborating on a miniaturised detection system for micro-organisms. In this, cell counting technology is being combined with antibody and fluorescence markers.

extensive testing at the Hydraulics and Marine Research centre at UCC. Ireland, at the edge of the open Atlantic, is in a stronger position to harvest energy from the sea than most other countries, yet relatively little has been invested, so far, in developing the necessary technology. Paradoxically, one of the problems is that there is an excess of raw energy, so, for devices to work and survive the engineering has to be extremely robust.

The Biochemistry Dept at UCC, Luxcel Biosciences in Kildare, and the Environmental Research Institute at UCC are working on the development of an oxygen sensing system, and the overall aim is to combine all for countryside monitoring.

EU regulations on water quality made it necessary for Ireland to come up with an efficient monitoring system, but as the Marine Institute points out, a positive response could work out to everyone’s advantage.

An efficient system, based on remote sensors, will make it possible for Ireland to meet its obligations at low cost, and it could open up a new market. Ireland is not alone in having to comply with water quality rules, and the Marine Institute has estimated that the market for monitoring systems in western Europe alone is worth about 550 million euro.

Donegal

Abbot, with six manufacturing plants already established in Ireland, is produce blood glucose monitoring strips in Donegal town.

Many engineers favour floating rather than fixed, shore-based, devices, and to facilitate work in this direction, the Marine Institue has set up a 35 ha test site. Entrepreneurs and engineers have been invited to make use of the site, and the Wavebob is the first to go into action. The Marine Institute, and Sustainable Energy Ireland, are backing developments by funding R&D. To date the two State agencies have invested just over a million euro in wave energy R&D, a relatively modest amount given that good results are likely to cut down Ireland’s alarming, and economically reckless dependence on imported fuel.

Microscopes

Gone are the days when the wavelength of light set a limit to how much we can see through a microscope.

At a recent laser science conference in California a researcher from Colarado State University unveiled a microscope capable of resolving details smaller than 38 nanometers. According to the American Institute of Physics, the microscope is essentially based on a conventional light instrument, but the wavelength from an extreme ultra-violet source is much shorter.

The UV laser light is radiated from a vapourised cadmium plasma.

Conventional lenses would absorb this extreme UV, so a series of closely packed tiny concentric rings focus the light.

Higher resolutions have been achieved with similar microscopes, but these required the use of a synchrotron.

The table-top microscope will appeal to chip makers, where nano scale flaws need to be picked up in manufacturing.

Another advantage is that the extreme UV pulses are brief, just 4 picoseconds, so fast movements can be frozen.

SPIN

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 2

UPFRONT Plasma plus

Researchers at Queen’s have been awarded £3.2 million to keep them up to speed on plasmas. The cash comes from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Plasmas, in which materials exist as charged particles, are of increasing importance to industry. Usually described as the ‘fourth’ state of matter, like gases, liquids, and solids, most matter in the Universe exists as a plasma, and within a generation we may get our energy from plasma generators.

There are plans to build a powerful plasma generator at Queen’s, and one of the aims there is to link-up with researchers at other institutions. To facilitate this, the Queen’s researchers under Prof Bill Graham and Prof Ciaran Lewis, are to develop a webbased teaching programme for plasma physics.

Diversity

Scientists are concerned by loss of diversity, because with every extinction, genes, that may have survived for millions of years are lost.

While plants and animals are being pushed out of existence a similar loss of cultural diversity appears to be accelerating. Linguistic diversity is in decline, and according to Dr Conchúr Ó Giollagáin of Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, “up to ninety per cent of the world’s languages are in danger of dying out in less than one hundred years.” At an international language conference held recently at NUI Galway, Dr Ó Giollagáin was among those to make a call for protection of minority languages. In much the same way as biologists are fighting to maintain genetic diversity, linguists are arguing that we need to protect cultural diversity.

In issue 16 Prof Colin Birkinshaw and Seamus Dolan, writing about modification of wood, mentioned the problems of securing local supplies. Roy Johnston suggests looking no further than the nearest hedgerow. The ivy infested

Science challenge

Through a programme being run

by Junior Achievement, people in business and industry have been bringing their experience into the classroom. In 1919, Junior Achievement was started as a non-

Design for value

Irish manufacturers have to learn how to live with competition from low cost regions. However, knowing that there is a problem is not quite the same as doing something about it. Brendan Murphy at Enterprise Ireland believes that eliminating unnecessary costs and adding value to products is the way for Irish industry to go. “For many years European companies striving for better productivity concentrated mostly on increasing productivity, which involved examining each cost factor individually and reducing it to a strict minimum. It was not usual to start questioning the design of the product itself, except to resolve sheer production problems. Since then, it has gradually been realised that to improve results further, it is, in fact necessary to rethink the product, considering as untouchable only its final purpose, namely the users’ real needs, in one word functions. A

profit organisation in the US, and activities began in Ireland in 1995. Through the organisation, people involved in business work with teachers in the classroom. Earlier this year 96 volunteers from high-tech industries were involved in a science roadshow, which toured Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Waterford. Primary and secondary students who took part in a series of workshops held in third level institutions gained hands-on experience of real-life S&T in action.

Looking at science at work, Joanne Sheedy and Gillian Nolan, Newmarketonfergus, with Suzanne Cannon from Abbott.

method has been developed to do precisely that, it is called Value Analysis. Initially directed towards improving existing products, value analysis has moved on to seek readjustments of functions to true market needs. This often leads to innovation in the nature of the products and the technical solutions.”

Companies practicing Value Analysis, he adds, claim to be saving 15 per cent a year on costs.

How do companies find out more?

A two-day training event in design for value will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Santry in Dublin on 12th and 13th September. The cost, covering documentation and lunches, is €700, and special rates are available for accommodation.

To book, contact Dermot Murphy, Enterprise Ireland, Glasnevin, Dublin 9.

Phone 01 8082732. Email: Dermot.Murphy@enterprise-ireland.com

Hedgerow resources hedgerows, he points out, have the potential to yield hardwoods and wood fuel for pelleting. Dr Johnston said he has noticed how often the press reports on single issues, such as ivy-covered trees and threats of rhododendron invasion, but he sees

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 3

little evidence of ‘joined-up’ thinking on managing timber as a renewable resource. As Roy Johnston observes, with management, hedgerows could provide far more than just shelter.

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UPFRONT Managing S&T

Business students and researchers from around Ireland joined forces to compete in the first MBA Strategy forum. The event was organised by the MBA Association and IRCSET, the organisation funding young researchers. As IRCSET director, Martin Hynes has pointed out, most young researchers follow careers into industry, yet on taking up jobs they start off with little or no experience of business. In much the same way, business students can find it hard to relate to scientists and engineers, yet most businesses now are based on, or depend on research.

Bringing senior MBA students and researchers together is a good way of bringing down the barriers between people who have a lot to gain from understanding each other. For the forum, teams made up of MBA students and researchers, came from six different Irish colleges. On arriving at the UCD Smurfit School of Business, the teams were presented with a

Fostering firms

Where does Ireland’s wealth come from? Not as much as we would like from Irish industry. According to TCD economists, Philip Lane and Frances Ruane, Irish-owned firms bring in less than ten per cent of our export sales.

More than half of Ireland’s corporate tax comes from the multinationals.

Relocation of multinationalis to lower cost countries, state the economists, would hit the Irish economy.

If multinationals are not embedded they have no reason to stay, and this is one of the reasons why R&D is so important to Ireland. The massive tax income to the State, and high expections in employment, would be hard to sustain without the continued presence of US multinationals.

However, although the cash continues to flow in, Irish firms, particularly in manufacturing, find it hard to survive. Throughout the world, including the US, these smaller firms drive the economy. Among those to observe that we risk losing our homegrown economic drivers is David Moffitt, chairman of IBEC’s Plastics

The winning team from DCU. Clockwise from back: Bruce Phillips, David Matthews (PhD scholar in biomedical engineering), Paul Allen, Conor Kellett, Caroline McDonagh, Brian Murphy, Barry Ryan (PhD scholar in biotechnology). study of Samsung, a world leader in production of memory chips. Their task was to analyse Samsung’s performance and come up with a strategy for the company’s future.

Following the presentations, the team from DCU were presented with

the winning award. Congratulating all participants, Prof Jane Grimson, chair of IRCSET, said the forum is to become an annual event. Next year, she said, a high technololgy Irish business will be selected for analysis, and the directors will be there to provide feedback.

Industry group. In this year’s Plastics Industry yearbook, David Moffitt argues that we need to make it easier for Irish manufacturing firms to survive.

Recent Central Statistics Office figures, confirm that all is not as it should be with local firms. While stating the blindingly obvious, that owner-managers work longer hours than their employees, a more serious is raised by pay comparisons, which show, according to the SFA and IBEC, that mid-rank State employees, with cradle to grave security, are paid more on average than the risk-taking owners of local SMEs. It could be argued that entrepreneurs get a higher level of job satisfaction, and of course they can hit the jackpot, but the real significance is that one is being paid from tax, while the other is obliged to earn a profit or starve.

Another warning sign that we should not become victims of our own Celtic Tiger success comes from the Central Bank. High earnings are going back into property, rather than manufacturing, which gives a poor rate

of return. With 100 per cent loans on offer, half the population is into gambling their future on property.

Every loan tots up, and the national level of dept in Ireland has been rising faster than any other EU state. While it lasts, brickies get rich, but getting more start-ups into business might be a better long term investment.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 4

Energy demand

No doubt the oil producers are over a barrel as panic about shortages helps to drive up prices.

Energy demand can be good for business, and high prices, in turn, are making more companies look at the alternatives as a source of future profit. One of the latest to follow this trend is National Toll Roads, which is diverting some of its profit into a biofuel business, Bioverda. The company is to process slurry in Cork, and construction of a rapeseed biodiesel plant is reported to have started in Germany.

BIM is offering a FETAC Certificate in Commercial Fishing and an intensive one year Department of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources Fishing Vessel Engineer Class 3 course for new entrants scheduled to commence in September 2006.

CommerCial Fishing This course consists of the following modules: u Safety at Sea

u Communications

u Fishing Vessel Operations

u IT Skills

u Workboat Handling

u Navigation & Stability

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u Net Construction

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u Computer Applications

u Care of the Catch

u Work Practice

engineer oFFiCer This course is one of the approved ways towards obtaining a Certificate of Competency and consists of the following modules: u Safety at Sea

u Bench Fitting

u Engineering Workshop Theory & Processes

u Turning and Milling

u Material Science

u Manual Arc & Gas Welding Skills

u Engineering Drawing/Basic Draughting

u Marine Engineering Practice

u Mathematics for Engineering

u General Engineering Science 1 & 2

u Communications/Information Technology

u Work Experience

For application form please complete the Please send me a Training leaflet & application Form. coupon and send to: Name: Training Services Section, Address: Marine Services Division, BIM, P.O. Box 12, Crofton Road, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

Tel: 01 2144100 or Fax: 01 2144254 or Phone No.: Email: Email: training@bim.ie

38688_BIM_Ad_SSpin.indd 1

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UPFRONT Marine centre

The 11,000m3 HQ for the Marine Institute in Galway was officially opened in June. Most of the 200 strong staff are now based at Oranmore, marking the completion of the transfer to Galway. The building includes laboratories and a 150 seat auditorium.

The Marine Institute now has two fully equipped research vessels, and extensive facilities outside Newport, Co Mayo, and with the nearby Institute of Technology, and the Martin Ryan Marine Institute at NUI, Galway’s status as an international centre for marine science has never been higher.

Cash for transfer

Support for technology transfer from higher education into business and industry has been increased. €30 million has been made available through Enterprise Ireland, and the aim is to get better returns from R&D by developing better procedures and transfer systems.

Colleges are invited to submit applications for support in taking on people with experience of technology transfer and business development. Joint applications are also being invited for projects involving colleges collaboration with other bodies, such as hospitals.

Long memory

A first for Athlone, or a first for Ireland? Reader, Donal O’Brolcháin, wondered if we had forgotten that about 25 years ago Georgia Tech wanted to set up a link with Limerick. ”The venture failed, perhaps because of the state of the economy in Ireland during the 1980s,” he said, adding that he hopes that attitudes to funding have changed for the better. Donal would love to see the Georgia Tech thrive here, but he fears that changes for the better have not yet gone far enough. ”Are other universities here likely to collaborate with the new kid on the block, given the competition for funding from all sources, including the private sector? ” he asks.

President’s award

Institutions have been asked to submit recommendations for the next round of President of Ireland Researcher Awards. The awards are given to researchers at the early stages of their career who have shown exceptional potential and leadership, especially in areas underpinning ICT and biosciences. Institutes can submit up to eight recommendations, and these can include researchers currently working outside Ireland. The deadline for submissions is early September.

Slippery

Decreasing scale is making us think again about familiar old ideas. Among the lastest subjects to come under investigation is friction. Just how close do objects have to be before friction comes into play? One scientist, Seppe Kuehn, from Cornell, suggests that anything closer than 1 nanometer can be considered to be in contact. Mind you, this is not likely to have the same stopping power as the brakes in your BMW, but Kuehn argues that the ridges and valleys of surfaces begin to interact, and a lot depends on the material chemistry. Various materials were tested at Cornell, and by setting a tiny single-crystal cantilever into motion, the researchers found that its movement slowed down as it approached a surface. Weak magnetic forces, caused by movement of the molecules, is believed to have caused contactless friction.

Outreach network

At the Tyndall Institute were, from left, Breda Kyne, Regenerative Medicine Institute (REMEDI), NUI Galway; Emer McHugh, Applied Optics Group, NUI Galway; Catherine Buckley, Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, UCC; Ita Murphy, REMEDI, NUI Galway; Patricia Hegarty, Tyndall National Institute, UCC; Radoslav Szymanek, Cork Constraint Computation Centre (4C), UCC; Helen McVeigh, Royal College of Surgeons, Keelin Murphy, Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN), TCD and Pamela O’Shea, LERO Irish Software Engineering Research consortium.

Colleges and institutions have been reaching out to schools and the public with information and education programmes. With the rise in outreach programmes the people involved have formed a national association. Last month the TREO, Third Level Research and Outreach, members met at the Tyndall Institute in Cork to discuss how they could become more effective in attracting more young people into science. Ita Murphy, Communications and Outreach Manager at the REMEDI

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 6

Institute, NUI Galway, said that TREO works with students and teachers in a variety of ways. Activities include tours, hands-on workshops, and teacher placements. Under the SFI funded STARS programme, a number of teachers have spent time working with researchers. This year 44 secondary teachers will work for up to eight weeks in research labs, giving them valuable experience which they bring back to the classroom.

SPIN

Schools awarded for science excellence

T

hree hundred and three primary schools received Awards of Science Excellence at a series of ceremonies nationwide last month. The Awards were given in recognition of the increased participation and knowledge gained through the Discover Primary Science (DPS) programme.

Participation in the programme has increased year-on-year and now reaches some 1,300 schools nationwide and is set to reach a further 1,600 new schools registered for induction days in the next academic year. The Discover Primary Science programme was developed to help primary school children understand the extensive part that modern science plays in their everyday lives. A significant growth of interest in science at primary level is reflected by the 303 schools who achieved awards this year, and the participation in the Discovery Primary Science programme by registered schools.

The Government Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation, launched in June, details plans to develop student interest in the sciences from primary level to continue to Leaving Cert and third level.

Commenting on the success of the programme and the Awards, Micheál Martin, T.D., Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment said: “It is imperative that Ireland continues to foster interest in the areas of science, engineering and technology to maintain our leading position and competitiveness in these sectors into the future. Each award has been thoroughly deserved and teachers nationwide should be commended for their enthusiasm and the encouragement they give their students.”

Commenting on the Awards, Peter Brabazon, Director of the Discover Science & Engineering programme said “We were delighted with the level of participation in the Awards of Science Excellence and the interest shown by both students and teachers alike. Discover Primary Science has helped young children to learn more

Pictured at Awards of Science Excellence in Cork: Minister Martin with school children from Passage East National School, Cork from l to r: Ultan Duggan, Hannah Hutchinson and Michael McGuiness. about how their world works and foster an interest in the applications of science and technology to their own lives.”

Hands-on training sessions are provided for a nominated teacher from each school participating in the programme, while a range of resources are then supplied to participating classes.

In addition, teachers are introduced to the dedicated website www.primaryscience.ie which is full of useful information and includes a seasonal newsletter for registered schools.

Attractiveness of science and engineering careers highlighted by new report Micheál Martin TD launched a report last month by Forfás which indicates that starting salaries for science, engineering and technology graduates are amongst the highest of all Irish graduates. The report Comparative Starting Salaries and Career Progression in Science, Engineering and Technology highlights the exciting careers and levels of opportunity open to graduates and students in the science, engineering and technology sector.

Minister Martin said, “These graduates and students are at the forefront of Ireland’s transition as a world leading knowledge economy, working at the cutting edge of innovation and research.”

Attracting students to the science, engineering and technology disciplines

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 7

from primary through to fourth level will be critically important to delivering the long term aims of the strategy and the outcomes of this report will enhance the attractiveness of this sector to potential students. The investment in the Strategy for Science, Technology & Innovation will also ensure that the opportunities and development of the science engineering and technology sector will continue well into the future.

The report shows both graduates and those currently examining science, engineering & technology as a career option that there are opportunities available to them, not only in these disciplines but across a wide range of areas. The report also highlights the flexibility that a qualification in the science, engineering & technology discipline offers to graduates in terms of the number of employment sectors and occupations that they can enter ranging from the healthcare sectors to business information systems.

The full report which includes the main findings can be found on Forfás website www.forfas.ie.

The main findings:

• Across a range of qualifications from primary degree to PhD level the report shows that graduates in disciplines with a strong science and technology content tend to be better paid than graduates in other disciplines.

• Graduates in medicine and healthcare, disciplines which have a substantial scientific content, are amongst the best paid. At primary degree level 75% of dentistry graduates and 68% of paramedical graduates earn in excess of €33,000 in their first year.

• The next highest paid graduates at primary degree level are those in engineering and computing and science. Within the engineering disciplines chemical and processing engineers are the highest paid in their first year of work with 23% earning in excess of €33,000.

• Within the computer sector business information systems graduates are the highest paid with 21% of these graduates also earning in excess of €33,000.

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UPFRONT

Journals on line

Getting access to international scientific journals is difficult, and very expensive. Lack of access has been identified as a big problem for researchers in Ireland, but a project has been launched to solve this difficulty.

With the backing of SFI and HEA, college libraries and the National Library of Ireland are making 25,000 academic journals available on line.

The cost of providing the service up to 2009 is about €39m, with the Higher Education Authority providing full funding from 2008. The service is being supervised by the university librarians, and is being managed by IRIS, a non-profit company owned by the universities.

At the National Library to launch eLearning were Dr Bill Harris (SFI); Marie Reddan (NUI Galway); Mary Hanafin TD, Minister for Education and Science and Tom Boland (HEA).

Initially there was access to biotechnology and communications technology, but the scope has been broadened to include the humanities and social science.

Sizzle drops Dr Conor Heneghan, BiancaMed, Winner of the NovaUCD Innovation Award.

Home diagnosis

Instead of calling on a busy GP or joining the ever lengthening queues in hospitals, some common disorders could be diagnosed from home. With better sensors, smarter software, and more convient hardware, devices are being made that bring medical care to the patient. A number of researchers at UCD are busy working in this field, among them Dr Conor Henegan, winner of the Nova 2006 award. In 2002 Dr Henegan and Dr Philip de Chazai started up a company, BiancaMed to produce healthcare products. The latest product is for heart and respiration monitoring. A big advantage of these products is that they can link up with mobiles and other communication systems, so if there is a problem, medics do not have to sit in traffic before looking at the data.

Bio cash

As anyone who has ever watched water droplets dance around on a hot hob can see, a variety of forces seem to come into play. Scientists at the University of Oregon have been investigating what is known as the ‘Leidenfrost’ effect, and they now believe that the random gliding around can be brought under control and applied to the cooling of microchips.

On a perfectly smooth surface, the drops, floating on a cushion of vapor, fly around in all directions, but if the surface is rough, the ridges can act like a rachet. As the researchers, collaborating with

scientists in Australia, found, if the ridges follow a direction, droplets can be forced to go up an incline.

The US Physical Review Letters reports that this novel method of moving drops in a direction can be applied for pumping of different liquids. Water, liquid nitrogen, acetone, methanol, and other liquids could be pumped around on a small scale, and one of the promising applications is in cooling of computers, where temperature control is a big problem. The heat generated by a computer might even drive the pump.

Inventive Galwegians

Researchers at Nortel in Galway have been busy, clocking up over 60 inventions in the recent past. The US owned company is a global player in wireless and mobile communications technology. Half the 300 staff at Nortel’s Galway base are engaged in R&D, and their score rate in patent applications is considered exceptional for industry. Geoff Hall, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, said the inventions are going to be good for Nortel’s bottom line.

Celebrating their achievements were, left to right Keith Griffin, Senior R&D Designer; Scott Wickware, Nortel’s Vice President of Strategy; Mike Conroy, General Manager, Nortel Ireland; Geoff Hall, EMEA Chief Technical Officer and Neil O’Connor, Senior R&D Designer of Nortel Ireland.

Biotechnology companies are to get more support for R&D. Under an Enterprise Ireland programme €2 million is being made available to support R&D priorities. The priorities were identified through consultation with business managers and scientists.

Chairman of the advisory board, Paul Logue, from Elan, said that the programme will help industry to collaborate with academia on research projects.

SPIN

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 8

Research

cocktail

do this by detecting crowd noises and the excitation level of the commentator, head and shoulder shots of players, action replays, changes on the scoreboard, and where the camera is pointing. If you get the combination of a very excited commentator, a change in the score, an action replay, and an excited crowd, that’s a likely indicator that something important has happened.”

A day in the life…

The

wonderful thing about digital technology is that it crosses many disciplines, spreading as it does like an omnipresent blanket over our lives. The SFI-funded Adaptive Information Cluster in DCU is running with this theme, allowing “an unusual cocktail of chemists, engineers and computer scientists to do some unusual, far out research”, according to Alan Smeaton, Professor of Computing and founding director of the Centre for Digital Video Processing (CDVP) at Dublin City University.

A heady cocktail

His diverse research projects offer the universal accessibility of historic manuscripts and artifacts, bespoke highlights of your favourite field games, or video diaries that generate a summary of your week. The CDVP is part of the Adaptive Information Cluster, and this research is carried out within that framework. For Smeaton, AIC has created a critical mass that sucks in other activities.

AIC is in the enviable position of obtaining outsourced project work from Google and Microsoft. The Google project is particularly pleasing for Smeaton. With a quest almost on a par with finding the Holy Grail, Google wants to make all information in the world searchable. In a rare move it ventured beyond its corporate citadel and outsourced some of the research. AIC was chosen because it has internationally recognised expertise in video analysis and has applied it to making images of handwriting searchable.

The aim of the “no strings attached” funded research is to make old manuscripts and rare historical documents available and searchable on the web. “One of the techniques we use is to match the shape

of an object against another shape, and we have developed a very clever algorithm to do this, which we have patented. We are now applying our shape matching to matching the shape of words against other words.

Every time we handwrite it’s different, and our algorithms can detect these variations in shape.” The method is suitable for anything after the 17th century that is cursive (joined up script), and AIC researchers have used the handwriting in George Washington’s diary with good results. But high volume material that’s not high profile like births, deaths and marriages records are a special target.

AIC also has an interesting project with the National Museum of Ireland that allows you to take a picture of a priceless artifact like the Ardagh Chalice and create a 3D model of it using dozens of images. “Far cheaper than laser technology, all the clever stuff is done in the software. We stitch the images together in a way that allows scholars and archeologists to discover if the relief work on one artifact appears on other artifacts.”

With this kind of cheap technology a large digitized database can be created, with only the priceless artifacts being laser scanned.

The big match

With the patented Automatic Sports summarization, AIC has developed a technique to take a field sport in digital form and automatically generate highlights of whatever length you want, giving you the most highlighted highlights, or all of the exciting events. It can automatically detect goals, points, sending offs etc. “We

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 9

From the roar of the crowd to the daily humdrum of life, SenseCam, as developed

by Microsoft Research, takes pictures by default about every 50 seconds, triggered by a range of built-in sensors. The picture quality is not as good as a mobile phone, and you can store twenty days worth before downloading to your PC for viewing.

On an individual basis they are not great quality photographs – but if you stick them all together and show them very fast as a movie you get a better view of what is happening. Being able to capture this information is great but it’s an inelegant way to watch your day.

The device is a solution looking for a problem, and that’s why Microsoft released SenseCams to groups like AIC, who already proven expertise in image processing, to develop technologies which would make it more usable. “We are applying our technology to taking a day’s SenseCam images and dividing them up into logical events that are much more digestible. For each image we pull out descriptors like colours and textures and we compare similarities between each image and each adjacent image e.g. (indoors versus outdoors, far away versus near).

In combining this we segment an entire day into different events using the visual appearance.”

Another approach they are taking is to extract features from each image, and detect different levels of events from a day, and grouping them into bigger events. The morning at work event might include desk time, lab time and meetings. “We detect events that are similar across the days and group them together. We then generate a summary of the week where the unusual events get more prominence and more regular events get less prominence.”

An obvious application is for Alzheimer patients. AIC is working with the Alzheimer Association and getting feedback.

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Restoring an astronomical gem The 126-year old Crawford Observatory located in the heart of the UCC campus has now been fully restored and refurbished. Anna Nolan went to the official opening on 22nd June.

The

Crawford Observatory is the only astronomical observatory situated on an Irish university campus. Originally built in 1880, after many decades, it gradually fell into disuse. It has now been rescued for use thanks to a restoration programme costing €800,000 and will again be used by staff and students for course work and research, and is open to the public.

“If students use equipment like this to start off with they can then understand what today’s sophisticated instruments do,” said Dr Paul Callanan, an astronomer and astrophysicist at UCC who was one of the prime movers in getting the refurbishment project going.

In its early days the Observatory had been used on a regular basis by university staff, but later on it was only used intermittently and then only sporadically after the 1920s. However, this lack of use over the years has a silver lining for today’s UCC staff and students. “This lack of heavy use was good because it preserved it in a state where we could refurbish it,” said Paul.

The Physics Department of UCC has been the custodian of the Observatory down through the years, and made various interventions that

As it was, and as it is now, complete with copper dome. kept the place viable. The Observatory is a small building, tiny even, but still manages to contain three highly important telescopes, the Equatorial, the Transit Circle and the Siderostatic.

Restoration

Extensive restoration works involved conservation of the building itself – including the moving dome and the Meridian room shutter – and the three main telescopes together with an observer’s chair.

The need to maintain these historically important telescopes in locations where they are sometimes fully exposed to the weather – the roof is open during observations - was a major challenge for the restoration team.

Despite the difficulties, the work was largely faithful to the original design, but some changes were required, such as the replacement of the canvas dome with a copper structure.

Transit Circle Telescope

Transit instruments were used for astronometry – that is measuring the position of the stars to a high degree of accuracy. As well as satisfying the thirst of astronomers for more and more information and data, the results had practical applications in improving navigation for ships at sea. At the time, as with much

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 10

The restoration team included Howley-Hayes architects, Cornerstone Construction Ltd, the University Archives and Heritage Office, UCC Buildings and Estates Office and the Department of Physics at UCC. Bertie McClure from Belfast, restored many of the old instruments.

“The Observatory is a wonderful survival with beautiful 19th century panelling in the interior,” said UCC curator Michael Holland. “It has been sympathetically cleaned and given a new lease of life. Its life span has been expanded by another hundred years.”

Funding

The original Observatory was built and fitted out in 1879/1880 through the generosity of benefactors, mainly William Crawford, a member of the local brewing family of Beamish and Crawford, and the Duke of Devonshire of Lismore Castle.

Alumni of UCC, other friends of the university, as well as some

of the instrumentation in the Crawford Observatory, the design was innovative. One particular advantage was its stability.

The observer’s seat was also innovative. The inclined chair, padded with horsehair, is on rollers for the comfort of the user. The chair has been beautifully restored by the Furniture Centre in Letterfrack.

Equatorial Telescope

Everything has been carefully restored, including the observer’s chair.

anonymous donors, funded the recent restoration work. As with several other UCC projects, the University Heritage Committee was involved in restoration.

An archivist was appointed by the Heritage Committee, and this was followed by the appointment of a curator, Michael Holland.

Howard Grubb

The Observatory was designed by the famous Sir Howard Grubb, and houses a unique collection of his finest work. Grubb built all the instruments contained in the Observatory, including the telescopes and their associated equipment such as the clocks and the dome.

The Grubb family business, which was based in Dublin, along the banks of the Grand Canal, next to the HQ today for the Construction Industry Federation, was Ireland’s foremost maker of scientific instruments. The firm was set up in the 1830s by Thomas Grubb, the father of Howard Grubb, and soon gained an international reputation for excellence.

The significance of the Crawford Observatory lies largely in the quality of its instruments, rather than in the findings made by astronomers using the instruments.

“No fundamental astronomical discoveries were made in the Crawford Observatory itself,” said Paul Callanan.

“Its significance was that it is a perfect

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A narrow spiral staircase with high stone steps reaches the Equatorial Telescope. The climb must have been hard on the knees of the astronomers as they nightly toiled up and down.

It was worth their exertions, though, because at the top is a telescope that received a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition before it was installed in what was then Queen’s University Cork. “Crawford and the Duke of Devonshire said that they would buy it for the Observatory if it won the medal,” noted Michael Holland.

The location gave this telescope the advantage of height, so that it had an uninterrupted view of the sky down to the horizon.

Both Thomas and Howard Grubb were especially well known for their large reflecting telescopes, and they pioneered the use of equatorial mountings with clock drives. These improved mountings meant that the telescope could be pointed at any object above the horizon and could maintain its position in the field of view for a long time.

With the growth of photography astronomers found that the longer the exposure the more details they could make out, so this was a big advantage of the mounting.

The equatorial telescope was used to take photographs of sections of the northern sky for the Carte du Ciel project. This project, which was set up by international agreement in Paris in 1887, involved several observatories around the world working together to make a photographic map of the sky.

The room in which this telescope sat in was painstakingly engineered.

For example, the entire dome could be rotated by hand, using a lever.

One historical quirk is that before batteries were used to power the telescope, the Observatory was connected into Cork’s tram system.

At the time the Crawford Observatory was built, there were far fewer buildings around and light pollution didn’t exist. Nowadays the area is built up, and there is more light pollution about, but to maximise the effectiveness of the Observatory there is an arrangement with the university, whereby the campus lights are dimmed when the telescopes are in use.

example of the work of Grubb, a proving ground and a showcase. It was absolutely leading edge technology of its day. The Siderostatic Telescope, for example, is the ancestor of that used today in Kitt Peak in Arizona and the work done there is still relevant over a hundred years later.”

Siderostatic telescope

Observatory

Nestled inside shrubbery, the Crawford Observatory building is in the same ecclesiastical style as the other early buildings of UCC. The layout was conventional enough for its day, with a two-story central section, and single-story wings. There are four small rooms in the Observatory, three on the ground floor and one upstairs.

The visitor enters through the centre room, which is now used to display detailed information about the Observatory. To the left, in a singlestory East wing, is the Meridian Room – which is also called the Transit Room – and to the right a room housing the Siderostatic Telescope.

Bill Mc Clure working on restoration of the telescope, a showpiece of Grubb engineering.

This telescope is located to the right of the central hall, in the West wing.

It is called the Siderostatic Telescope because it works by counteracting the rotation of the Earth and this means it offers the observer a stationary image in a stationary eyepiece.

This design originated in France in the 1830s, and the Crawford Observatory telescope is the first one that Howard Grubb built along these lines. A modern addition to this room is a large screen and internet connection, so that telescopes can be controlled over the web.

“We can also show here what can be seen on the Equatorial Telescope upstairs, and classes can be taught here,” said Michael Holland. It is also planned to make audiovisual presentations to visitors in this area.

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Forests and climate change mitigation and adaptation

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he earth’s climate is warming at an alarming rate, due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), mainly CO2. About 75% of humaninduced CO2 emissions arise from fossil fuel use, with the remainder due to land-use change, particularly associated with deforestation in tropical and semitropical areas.

Attempts to reduce emissions have led, at the international level, to the agreement of the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and, in 1996, the Kyoto Protocol, which limits emissions in signatory countries in the developed world, to 5% below the 1990 level, over the period 2008-2012.

Given the rapid growth of the Irish economy over the past decade, GHG emissions are running well ahead of the 13% increase on the 1990 level (allocated to the country under the EU burden-sharing agreement). The latest year for which emission data are available, 2004, show them running at 23.1% above the 1990 level (EPA).

Under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, carbon sequestration by forests may be used to offset greenhouse gas emissions. For the first commitment period, 2008-2012, net carbon sequestration and emissions

by Article 3.3 forests1 (including afforestation and deforestation) come under the protocol’s accounting framework Private and state afforestation expanded the forest estate by ~ 186,000 ha over the period 1990-2000.

Assuming a business-as-usual-scenario, and based on current research, it is estimated that the contribution of Article 3.3 forests (just over 2 million tonnes CO2 per annum) will account for ~ 16 % of the required reduction in emissions (13.05 Mt CO2 equivalents per year over the period 2008 to 2012) in national emissions for Ireland to meet its Kyoto target (see Figure 1).

were associated with differences in leaf area index and litter inputs during stand development.

Cross-validation of standard inventory and real-time measurements (Figure 3) suggest that inventory-based estimates of C sequestration were slightly lower than ‘full accounting’

Figure 1: Estimated sink capacity of Irish forests under article 3.3 of the Kyoto protocol. The model (CARBWARE) assumes different afforestation rates (legend) since 2006. The current National afforestation target is 15000 ha per year. Declines in sequestration are related to projected wood harvest.

Future research

Figure 2: The conceptual of a carbon reporting model (CARBWARE) that simulates stocks and fluxes of carbon in a forest ecosystem and wood products and the role of forests in the global carbon cycle.

Research

The CARBiFOR project cluster, funded

by COFORD, was established in order to provide improved estimates of biomass carbon (C) stocks and sequestration rates for the dominant forest type in Ireland. Based on inventory methods, the average C sequestration rate, over 45 years of the life cycle of a Sitka spruce chronosequence, was estimated to be 5.7 t C ha-1 yr-1. Age-related changes in biomass increment and soil C stocks

(eddy covariance, Figure 3) assessments. The lower inventory estimates may be associated with unaccounted C fluxes, including fine root production/turnover and below ground losses. Additional long-term assessments of C stock changes in different aged stands, and for different forest species, are required to provide a comprehensive assessment of emission factors and C pools, which are not accounted for when inventory methods are used.

Research, FIPS (forest inventory) and planting record data were used to develop a national carbon stock change reporting model (CARBWARE) to estimate national sequestration rates for both Kyoto (post-1990 afforested areas, Figure 1) and UNFCCC reporting on LULUCF2 (all forest activities). These estimates were based on generalised conifer and broadleaf forest growth models and emission factors associated with decomposition and land-use change into forestry (Figure 2). The CARBWARE model is currently being modified to account for species and soil specific changes in C stock in all of the forest ecosystem and end products (see Figure 2).

Work in the future will be aimed at: • Developing a fundamental understanding of forest and harvested wood product carbon dynamics and cycling (Figure 2).

• Refining CARBWARE estimates of the sink capacity of Irish forests for reporting to the Kyoto Protocol and the UNFCCC, using National Forest Inventory data and new research techniques (Figure 3).

• Assessment of the impact of IPCC3 climate change scenarios on forest ecosystems, the development of adaptation strategies, as well as the role of forests in overall climate change adaptation.

Dr Kevin Black, UCD Email: kevin.black@ucd.ie Tel: 01-716 2260

Figure 3: Real-time measurements of CO2 exchange between the atmosphere and a forest ecosystem using eddy covariance equipment located above and below the forest canopy.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 13

1 Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry 2 International Panel on Climate Change 3 Afforestation since 1990.

Star power

Fusion of hydrogen atoms keeps our nearest star burning bright, and on Earth the same process is being harnessed as a source of clean energy.

Left one of the winning photographs in the Irish Universities Promoting Science competition by Thomas Kinsella, Gonzaga College.

Below: The torus chamber of a tokamak, built to contain an intensely hot plasma. Photograph, General Atomic, US.

FUSION The way out of our fossil fuel prison?

Experimental Reactor (ITER). When the final official agreement to build this fusion reactor in the south of France is signed this May, construction will begin on one of the most ambitious scientific projects of all time.

Nuclear fusion is the process that powers stars and hydrogen bombs, but it has never been harnessed to produce electricity. ITER aims to finally demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power plants. Present power plants like Sellafield use nuclear fission, a similar technique but with many disadvantages. So how does it all work?

Splitting and fusing atoms

The world’s first nuclear fusion reactor, which aims to harness the same energy that powers the Sun, is being built. This ITER project involves scientists from all around the world and could provide a roadmap for a clean energy future, writes Shane Leavy.

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BOUT 4.6 billion years ago a vast cloud of gas and dust began to drift together through space. It grew and grew, drawing more gas inwards with its increasing gravitational pull.

The pressure and heat caused by all that matter squeezing together became so intense that some atoms actually

fused together in a nuclear reaction.

They released a massive burst of heat and light, and our Sun was born.

Now imagine if we could harness the same power that runs every star in the Universe, and use it to make electricity. Sounds like science fiction?

Well a new project in France is attempting to do just that.

ITER

The United States, China, Russia, India, Japan, South Korea and the EU (altogether about half of Earth’s population), jointly fund the International Thermonuclear

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In the middle of any atom is the nucleus consisting of protons, (with positive electrical charges) and neutrons (with no charge). Orbiting around that are the electrons (with negative electrical charges).

In ordinary nuclear fission, a neutron slams into an atom with a large nucleus, (such as uranium or plutonium), splitting it into two smaller atoms. A number of neutrons escape the reaction, smacking in turn into other atoms, splitting them and creating a chain reaction.

But something strange happens some of the matter. Instead of joining the new atoms, it is transformed into energy – huge amounts of energy – which is then used to generate electricity.

Fusion is like a reverse of fission, in that two small atoms, like hydrogen,

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are forced to fuse together to form a bigger atom – helium. Again, some of the matter is turned into energy, giving stars their heat and light.

But fusion is a lot harder to achieve on earth than in the cores of massive stars where the pressure is so much higher. To make up for it, man-made fusion reactors have to get hot – very hot.

“You have to heat the atoms up enough so that when they slam against each other they can overcome the repulsion of the two positive ions,” explained Dr Bert Ellingboe, one of Ireland’s team of scientists working on fusion-related research in his laboratory in Dublin City University. “It turns out that you need to get up to about 100 million degrees.

That’s pretty hot!”

Trying to make a container that could hold material at 100 million Kelvin was one of the major stumbling blocks in the history of fusion research, an obstacle that Ellingboe says has been overcome.

Tokamak

At very high temperatures, hydrogen atoms are stripped of their electrons, creating a mix of hydrogen ions (the hydrogen nuclei) and electrons. This mix is called a plasma. At 100 million

An impression of the world’s first plasma power plant. Right; the technology to control fusion power is advancing rapidly.

degrees Kelvin, if the plasma were to touch the walls of any container it would immediately cool down so much that fusion would be impossible.

So scientists designed a torus (doughnut-shaped) device with a powerful magnetic field that would actually keep the plasma from touching the walls of the container.

This device, called a Tokamak, keeps the plasma swirling in a circle while it is being heated externally.

Firstly, a massive current induced in the plasma helps to heat it. Then high-power beams of atoms are fired into the torus, which strike off the plasma particles and increase their energy. Finally electromagnetic waves matching the frequency of the plasma will transfer their power to the plasma at precise locations.

Ultimately, however, the goal of fusion research is a “burning plasma”.

This means the stage at which the heat created in the fusion reactions will be enough to sustain itself and continue the reaction, without needing external heating.

So far, this “burning plasma” stage has never been achieved in a fusion reactor. And that is one of the biggest challenges facing the future of ITER.

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Plasma

At the moment, physicists just don’t really know how the plasma will respond to self-sustained fusion. The plasma is already riddled with instabilities that scientists are attempting to control. But computer models predict that the “burning plasma” will be fine, and the scientists that work on it are even more optimistic.

“On a personal level, a large part of my research over 40 years has been closely related to the programme to develop fusion as an energy source,” comments Professor Mike Mansfield of the Physics Department of University College Cork. “There have been many ups and downs in terms of public support of the fusion programme but progress has nonetheless been impressively steady. I have always believed that the programme will be ultimately successful and that its success is vital to the provision of essential energy needs.”

ITER has the political support it needs to proceed, but at €10 billion,

what makes it appear so attractive compared with the seemingly cheaper conventional energy sources like fission and fossil fuels?

Advantages

Pollution

When fossil fuels are burnt in power plants, they release carbon dioxide, a “greenhouse gas.” Glaciers are shrinking, seas are rising and we could be facing serious emerging environmental problems.

Nuclear fission plants do not release any greenhouse gases, but do produce highly radioactive nuclear waste.

These by-products can remain dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years, handing down an ugly legacy to future generations.

Fusion releases no greenhouse gases either, and although it does create radioactive by-products, this waste has a high-level radioactive lifetime of only about 10 years and a mediumlevel radioactive lifetime of around 100 years, after which it can safely be dumped in a standard landfill.

“I’m happy to make a decision today that says I’m imposing this burden on me and my peers,” explains Dr Ellingboe. “To be imposing it on many future generations is something that we aren’t comfortable with.”

Pacer Power Even in the height of the 1970s Cold War paranoia, one scientific team had been considering putting nuclear weapons to the peaceful use of generating electricity. The “peaceful nuclear explosive reactors” or PACER was a plan to explode Hydrogen bombs (H-bombs) underground with the resulting heat boiling water to drive electrical turbines.

Hydrogen bombs use a nuclear fission explosion to spark off a colossal nuclear fusion reaction. The biggest ever H-bomb explosion was carried out by the USSR in 1961.

It was 2,500 times more powerful than the atom bomb that killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima and its mushroom cloud rose 64km into the air.

Nuclear explosions

Nuclear fission is a self-sustaining process. Every large atom that is split releases neutrons that can go on to split more atoms causing a chain reaction that could run out of control.

In fission power plants, moderators are intentionally added to the mix to prevent this. But if there is a major failure in some of the fission reactor mechanism it could cause an explosive release of radioactive material, which is what happened in the Chernobyl disaster.

Nuclear fusion is incredibly difficult to initiate in the first place, so it does not run the same risk. At the moment, self-sustaining fusion reactions have never occurred in a laboratory. If there is a mistake in the reactor, the reacting plasma within the Tokamak will simply cool, quench and turn itself off.

Availability of fuel

Oil, gas and coal are finite resources and sooner or later available stocks will all be burnt up. In any case, being entirely reliant on imported fuel is a political and economic nightmare as can be seen from the soaring oil prices due to unease in the Middle East.

Fission needs supplies of plutonium and uranium fuel, which are also in limited supplies.

One advantage of the PACER system was that excess nuclear weapons could have been destroyed safely while providing useful electrical power. But the PACER system was never put in place. A 1996 study by the IBM Research Division argued that it was not economically viable compared with regular fission power.

Another worry was that the demand for nuclear weapons to constantly resupply the underground explosions would cause serious security risks.

Normally, the parts of nuclear weapons are constructed separately and then shipped together under heavily-guarded convoys. With a large increase in H-bomb production, the costs of such protection would be too much to make PACER practical, so it took a back seat to the Tokamak system.

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Nuclear fusion will have two main fuels: deuterium, which can be easily found in water, and tritium, which is developed from the plentiful metal lithium. Nuclear power is so much more efficient than fossil fuel power that 100g of deuterium and 3 tons of natural lithium in a 1 Gigawatt fusion plant would produce as much electricity as 1.5 million tonnes of coal.

The website of the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Britain says: “If all the world’s electricity were to be provided by fusion, known lithium reserves would last for at least one thousand years.”

24-hour power

There has been quite a bit of research into renewable energy sources like wind, solar, wave or bio-fuel and in Ireland there are already a number of wind farms. All of these will help to take over as fossil fuels become a thing of the past. But there are problems.

Sometimes, it is just not windy.

Storing electricity is extremely difficult so wind farms cannot just charge up during a hurricane to make up for the windless days. There is one suggestion that surplus electricity from windy days could be used to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen, which could be burnt together on calmer days to give a consistent supply of electricity, but this is not very practical.

“It’s very hard to store three days of Ireland’s current need of hydrogen in a way that isn’t a very easy terrorist target,” points out Dr Ellingboe. “That’s a lot of chemical explosive capability there and you would want to be very careful how and where you keep it.”

At the moment, fossil fuels and nuclear fission plants provide the 24-hour high quality electricity needed for a developed economy, with renewable fuels supplementing the supply. When fossil fuels and fission are a thing of the past, fusion looks like the front-runner to replace them.

Inexpensive

“The €10 billion price tag for ITER does not overwhelm me in the least,” says Dr Patrick Mc Carthy, who has worked on several ITER study contracts from the physics department of University College Cork. “At present global oil consumption rates of about 85 million barrels per day, ITER will cost about two days and six

hours worth of global oil production – a trivial amount for the potential payoff.”

Dr Ellingboe agrees that fusion is an economically viable option.

“Depending on the physics scaling that we use, and assuming we can continue to push the physics, we’re very competitive with current costs onto the grid for gas-fired plants, which puts us substantially better than a lot of the other alternative technologies such as wind and wave.”

Future

Do not get too excited about this energy of tomorrow, though, because it will not be up and running for quite a while. From the signing of the agreement this May, there will be ten years of construction and another ten years running it to verify the engineering processes. After that, there will be a whopping 15 years of research and development, bringing us to around 2040 before any kind of commercial application for fusion power can be considered.

But with constantly rising demands on electricity and the fall of fossil fuels to supply it, fusion might be the power source that keeps the lights on into the twenty-second century.

How it works

In space, conditions are extreme enough for atoms of hydrogen to fuse, releasing energy as they form helium. On Earth it has been found easier to work with the isotopes of hydrogen, tritium and deuterium. While hydrogen has one proton and one electron, deuterium has a proton, an electron, and a neutron. Tritium, often referred to as super heavy hydrogen, has a proton, an electron, and two neutrons.

When deuterium and tritium are fused, helium is produced, energy is released, and the neutrons, flying off to bombard a blanket of lithium, generate more tritium which can be recycled back into the system. Energy from fusion is drawn off to produce steam for a conventional turbine driven generator.

Cold Fusion In the 1980s blockbuster movie Back to the Future crazy scientist Doc Brown replaces the plutonium power source on his time machine with a “Mr Fusion Home Energy Reactor” that he brought back from the future. The Mr Fusion device converted garbage into energy – a delightful though clearly impossible concept.

However, while most of the world’s attention has been on building the huge Tokamak fusion reactors, a few scientists have attempted to achieve something like that Mr Fusion device – cold fusion.

A cold fusion reactor would mean one that creates a surplus of electricity from a small tabletop device without having to heat it to the millions of degrees needed in Tokamak reactors.

In 1989 a group of scientists claimed that they had achieved this and so, given humanity a near infinite power source that would revolutionise energy production. The claim turned out false, giving cold fusion a bad reputation, but limited cold fusion has

made some headway over the years.

One idea is that the electrons that normally orbit hydrogen atoms would be replaced with particles called “muons”. A muon has a negative charge like an electron, but is far heavier, and orbits much closer to the positive nuclei. This means that the hydrogen atoms would appear smaller and so the nuclei in different hydrogen atoms can naturally become closer together.

Sometimes, these nuclei become close enough to spontaneously fuse. The muons are ejected after the fusion and can go on to catalyse further fusions.

“Unfortunately, it takes a lot of energy to create the muon and to hold onto it for long enough time,” explains Dr Bert Ellingboe. “There are very few people who are seriously pursuing the cold fusion technique. I wouldn’t rule it out 100% but at the same time it doesn’t seem to be the panacea that people thought maybe it was for a few months.

It would be neat to see how far you could push it.”

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In 2005 a group from the University of Los Angeles made a similar device, which relied on the unusual properties of a crystal of lithium tantalite connected to a container of hydrogen.

By warming the crystal up by just 100°C, a gigantic electrical field of 100,000 volts was created. The tip of a metal wire was placed near the crystal to concentrate the electrical charge and shot the positive hydrogen nuclei away at great speeds. The nuclei smacked into each other with enough force to actually cause some of them to fuse.

Once again the amount of energy needed to start the process is far greater than that which emerged from the fusion that occurred, but it is a step in the right direction. This technology could be used in making small scanning machines since the fusion releases neutrons and X-rays.

On the other hand, sadly, it does seem that the Mr Fusion Home Energy Reactor is going to remain science fiction for a long time to come.

NANOTECHNOLOGY the next big thing The science of very small things, or nanotechnology, has emerged as one of the next big things in research.

Brian Skelly spoke to the director of TCD’s CRANN Institute, about why nanotechnology is emerging as a key enabling technology in many areas.

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nyone travelling along Pearse Street recently will doubtless have been struck by the major building work going on at the northeast corner of Trinity College. This site will be the new home of the Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN) Institute, the SFI-funded centre for science, engineering and technology, which was established two years ago to conduct research into nanotechnology – the study of objects that are measured in nanometres (a nanometre being a million times smaller than a millimetre).

The new €70m building, titled the Naughton Institute, after Martin Naughton, Chairman of the Glen Dimplex Group who donated €5 million, is due to open in the first quarter of 2007 (see panel). Until then, it’s business as usual at CRANN, which is currently housed in an inconspicuous college building near Lincoln Gate.

“There is a lot riding on the success or otherwise of CRANN’s work – the future of the multi-billion-euro semiconductor industry for a start” the chip manufacturer has relied on Moore’s Law – the principle that the density of transistors on integrated circuits will double roughly every 18 months – to increase the speed of its processors, but the physical limit is fast approaching and Intel is looking at other ways to achieve the same effect.

Challenge

Chips

There is a lot riding on the success or otherwise of CRANN’s work – the future of the multi-billion-euro semiconductor industry for a start. It is not a coincidence that CRANN’s main industry partner is Intel (another major industry partner will shortly be announced). For the past 40 years

Intel has achieved extremely high transistor densities by chopping up wafers of silicon into ever-smaller pieces – the so-called ‘top down’ approach to nanotechnology. The problem with this, said CRANN director Prof John Boland, is that it leads to a limited understanding of what you’re dealing with.

“I always liken it to a baker,” he commented. “A baker makes bread but doesn’t know the chemistry of it; how the bread rises, yeast works and so on, but they can do a very good job.

It’s the same with Intel, but Intel is now getting to the point where it can’t keep on doing this. This is where nanoscience comes in.”

How it will look, a model of the new centre, at present under construction, and due to open next year.

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For Intel, the challenge is twofold, not only dicing the silicon into ever-smaller pieces, but making the pieces the same size.

If the size varies, so too does the electrical current running between different pieces of silicon – differentials that can cause havoc within the transistor. Nanoscience promises to solve both these problems. “A molecule of benzene, say, is the same size as any other molecule of benzene,” explained Prof Boland. “They are quantised, they come in discrete little bundles. And so, when you stack them together, they add up to give you perfectly-sized structures.”

This is what’s called the ‘bottom-up’ approach to nanoscience – combining individual atoms and molecules to create nanoscale devices or structures designed for different applications. The

problem is that the bottom-up theory is mostly just that – theory – because as soon as you start to experiment with these incredibly small pieces of matter, the fun really begins. For a start, it’s very hard to pick them up and work with them. Nanotechnologists use powerful microscopes called STMs (scanning tunnelling microscopy) or SPMs (scanning probe microscopy) to picture and make contact with atoms or molecules close up. It is a timeconsuming and highly experimental process.

“The probe sat on this particular molecule here for a week,” said Prof Boland matter-of-factly, pointing at a small grey blurry dot on a chart showing a molecule’s energy levels.

“We touched it this way and we touched it that way; it didn’t like being touched here and it liked being touched there. But, here’s the big surprise: as you touch the molecule, it changes. This, for us, is the real wonder: how do you touch things in a way that you don’t change their properties and make them uninteresting — because you want to keep the things that are interesting and hook them up. But, until we learn how we connect or contact things properly, we’re never going to be able to exploit the power of nanoscience.”

very soft and toffee-like to one that bends and then breaks. So it goes from being ductile to being completely brittle. You can do this to a special degree in nanomaterials because you can control how the grains in the wire arrange themselves.”

Bottom-up nanofabrication and testing of nanoscale integrated devices is just one of three strands of research being done at CRANN. The second is magnetic nanostructures and devices.

This involves using spin electronics – the magnetic properties of an electron – as a way to build new electronic devices. Huge market demand is anticipated for such machines because they eliminate the production of heat in electronic devices – the traditional bane of IT equipment – and, thus, reduce the cost of cooling them which can be very substantial in the case of large IT installations.

The third area is nanobiology of cell surface interactions. This investigates how cells of the musculoskeletal system respond to mechanical

Research

It sounds like the ultimate scientific frustration: being able to see something, being aware of its incredible characteristics and yet not being able to handle it, so you can put it to good use. And then there is the related challenge of metrology – finding a way of precisely measuring the effects of experiments in this uniquely miniaturised environment.

A related strand of research at CRANN involves measuring the strength of materials such as nanotubes and nanowires. Through such work it is hoped to understand the precise relationship between size and mechanical strength and also whether the properties of particular materials can be dramatically altered. CRANN researchers have shown they can.

“We’ve done some work on silver, a very soft metal and very ductile – you can pull very long wires,” says Boland. “But, if you try to add some chemistry to the wire such that it has some structure in it – we call this microstructure – you can actually change it completely from a wire that’s

Centre of the nano-universe When it opens next Spring, the €70m Naughton Institute will be one of the most advanced research facilities of its type in the world. The striking building, which will resemble an iron, or the bow end of a ship, will cover 6000 sq metres and rise to five storeys. Underneath will be a basement that will include an environmentally controlled, vibration-free facility that is totally insulated from the rumble of nearby traffic and DART trains.

As an SFI-funded centre for science, engineering and technology (CSET) CRANN has an educational remit to raise public consciousness of science, so an integral part of the new

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stimulation, which it is hoped will lead to insights into key physiological processes.

Collaboration

Prof Boland believes that part of the appeal of nanotechnology is that it is discipline-neutral – it is not rooted exclusively in biology, physics or chemistry, but borrows from all of them, and he sees his role as director of CRANN as striking a balance between retaining strong individual disciplines, while encouraging more collaborative work between them.

“Nanoscience straddles disciplines, it really allows you to bring people together. My challenge as a director is to really encourage collaboration.

A lot of people talk about doing interdisciplinary research, but to really make it work is very difficult and it requires people taking chances. They need to move beyond their centre of gravity, but they can’t move too far or else they’ll topple over.”

building will be a two-storey Science Gallery facing onto Pearse St that will act as a forum for public engagement in science and technology.

The top three floors of the building facility will house 120 scientists, spread among ten research groups. A number of labs will be dedicated to industry interaction.

The facility has secured almost €70m in capital and research funding provided by SFI and TCD, as well as industrialist Martin Naughton of Glen Dimplex fame, who has contributed €5m to the institute that will bear his name.

According to Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, executive director of CRANN, the scale of the new facility reflects Ireland’s growing reputation in the nanotech area. “Ireland has a number of niche strengths and nano is one of them. The Irish nanoscience sector is competitive internationally. The amount of funding it has received from Science Foundation Ireland has been significant and it has been peerreviewed. This new facility provides a unique opportunity and we all share a great sense of excitement about its prospects, as well as a sense of responsibility to ensure it succeeds.”

SPIN

Eco-Sensor Network

Maeve Nic Samhradáin reports how the Botanic Gardens continue to cultivate science in education.

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hen Walter Wade first petitioned the Irish Parliament in 1790 for funds to establish a botanic garden it was with the aim of promoting a scientific approach to the study of agriculture.

The gardens soon evolved into a centre for the pursuit of botanical knowledge with the addition of plants from around the world and the construction of the landmark glasshouses from 1843. Now in 2006, the gardens have seen yet another evolution; they have become the base for an innovative primary school project; the Eco-Sensor Network for Science Education Project.

Professor Brian MacCraith and his team at the National Centre for Sensor Research (NCSR) in DCU, which is funded by the HEA through the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) and the Fund for Digital Research (FDR), had been working with programmable Lego blocks called Mindstorm platforms. The aim

was to create a science programme for primary school children. The team had been developing sensors that worked in conjunction with the Lego Mindstorm; technology the children would be familiar with. “One of our fears in the fallout of interest in science is that the resources are boring,” explained Professor MacCraith. “We wanted to give school kids technologies that will excite them and will allow them to express their creativity as well as make measurements.”

Bananas thriving in warm, humid conditions.

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In Professor MacCraith’s experience with Primary School children, he found that there are three main areas that interest them; space, medicine and the environment. Therefore, in developing a programme for primary school children to interact with the sensors, the environment proved to be the one they could tackle most easily and efficiently, plus they had, as Professor MacCraith enthuses, “the national jewel of the Botanic Gardens nearby.”

The glass houses in the Botanic Gardens were the ideal location for the motes, although the glass houses that would host the sensors had to be chosen carefully: “the metal frame of the glasshouses can interfere with a signal,” explains Clare Taylor, a Science Education Assistant with the project, ”the signal is better in a wooden structure.”

The team developed a programme using the sensors they had been developing with Intel motes; wireless platforms which incorporate sensors and communicate

with each other in the form of a network. The team added their own sensors to the Intel motes, the motes themselves are quite small, that is until DCU get their hands on them, “the smallest ones might be the size of a two euro piece, they are getting smaller all of the time, and we are adding a range of sensors to these which adds bulk,” explains MacCraith. These types of sensors are ideal for the type of work being carried out in the greenhouses; they sit unobtrusively at a height, behind a plastic casing, where they transmit signals every thirty seconds.

The sensors work by measuring the light, temperature, humidity and pressure in their environment. The team have placed two sensors in the Orchid House, two in the Palm House and one in the Cactus House and a control on the outside of the glasshouses, to act as a comparison.

The data ‘hops’ from mote to mote and then on to the base computer.

The information is then transferred to a website, www.ecosensorweb.dcu.ie, where a friendly animated bumblebee leads the visitor on a tour of the greenhouses. Due to the different functions of the separate houses, the results from the three houses vary considerably. For example, the humidity in the Orchid House might be 54% and the temperature 28°C, while the Cactus House is recording humidity at 57% and temperature at 30°C, yet the Palm House can vary massively, with the humidity at 87% and the temperature at 27°C. The visitor can then click on different plants in the houses to learn about their native environments to understand the need for the different pressures. The information is relayed by a series of slideshows and videos hosted by Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson, the director of the Botanic Gardens.

There are a range of activities on the site that ensure the learning can continue. An activities page hosts a series of PDF files the teacher can download to use in the classroom; these activities vary from making your own barometer, testing absorbency to demonstrate how a cactus works, to an experiment in temperature that involves making vanilla ice-cream!

Clare Taylor with one of the sensors.

But perhaps the page which is most exciting on the website is the ‘Graphing Page’, where students can graph the temperature in a house over a twenty-four hour period on an excel spreadsheet. This introduces students to the concept of graphing in a fun and approachable way. This learning approach, explains Brian is fundamental to the programme; ”we The HEA’s Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions has been credited with playing a major role in changing the Irish research landscape. Those interested in finding out more about the programme can now access an interactive guide on the HEA’s website. The guide gives details of over 50 research areas funded covering five thematic areas — Environmental and Natural Resources; Bioscience and Biomedical; Physical Sciences and Technology; Social Science and Humanities, and Library.

The link is http://www.hea.ie/PRTLI/

are finding that the children are getting familiar, unknown to themselves, with data spreadsheets and graph plotting it’s routine!”

The website is the key to the success of the project as Prof MacCraith explains; “of its very nature a website is global access, all data can be accessed by anyone logging on to the web itself.” At present, there are about six schools in the Dublin area taking part in the programme. The students get to work with sensors in the classroom by using the Lego Mindstorm base and sensors developed in DCU. Making the programme tie in with the curriculum was a priority explains Prof MacCraith; “we looked closely at the objectives of the new primary school science curriculum and we built some of the experiments the children would carry out around that.

It makes the curriculum itself real as it’s all about project based learning.”

Yet the educational benefits from the projects do not run on a one-way system, the NCSR are finding they are learning as much as the pupils. “This is research and development,” explains MacCraith, “We are now making robust mass producible sensors that work in a range of environments; there is no point in giving school kids sensors that don’t work, otherwise you turn people off science altogether.”

There is also benefit for the development of the more general aim of education outreach and the information gathered here is as invaluable as the data gathered in the greenhouses. “We are learning what makes children tick in terms of what excites them,” explains Professor MacCraith, ”we are learning how to work with teachers and schools and that is very important.” And of course the centre is helping to encourage the scientists of the future to blossom ”we know now what works for kids, teachers and so on so there is the added bonus of dealing with the future pipeline of scientists.”

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 21

Ring of fire sparks again The recent earthquake that hit Indonesia occurred in an area called the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region very prone to earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. John Gamble, UCC Professor of Geology explains how natural forces create these unstable conditions.

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n 27th May 2006 at 5.54 am (local time) a magnitude 6.2 earthquake shook southern Java, one of the major islands of the Indonesian archipelago.

The epicentre (the point at the Earth’s surface above the hypocentre) was located about 37km south of the historic city of Yogyakarta, a busy metropolis of over 3 million people

Image of Merapi Volcano taken by ASTER, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer.

and one of the most densely populated regions of Indonesia. The hypocentre, which is the point in the Earth at which the earthquake nucleated, was about 15km deep, quite shallow for this type of subduction zone earthquake.

Between 6000 and 7000 people lost their lives, and as memories of the December 2004 tsunami were still fresh, there was widespread panic.

Measurements

The Earthquake magnitude, referred to as M is the intensity, and this has usually been recorded in the open-

ended Richter Scale (ML). This scale is logarithmic, meaning that an intensity of two, is ten times more intense than a magnitude of 1 and so on. Nowadays, seismologists, using sensitive digital instruments, are changing over to a more precise, Moment of Magnitude, (Mw) scale, but the overall values of magnitude remain much the same.

Thus, earthquakes of magnitude greater than 5 may result in slight damage to buildings, greater than 6 to moderate damage, but to a great extent the amount of structural damage is determine by other factors such as building codes, soil structure and how far one is from the epicentre. A magnitude of 9 or more (M9+) is a very rare event, and only four earthquakes

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Merapi Volcano has become more active, and dome collapse is likely to trigger an eruption. of this severity were recorded in the latter half of the 20th century, Kamchatka, 1952, Alaska 1957, Chile 1960 and Alaska, 1964.

Devastating

The latest Indonesian quake, although quite devistating, was relatively modest. About 100 earthquakes of this type are recorded globally every year.

A combination of high population density in the region affected, and non-existent building codes in the older parts of Yogykarta, added to the casualties as many buildings collapsed.

The energy release and resultant ground shaking may have triggered an episode of dome collapse and increased activity on the 3,100 m high Merapi Volcano, which has become more since April this year.

Subduction

The Indonesian islands are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the popular name given to the girdle of active volcanoes that encircle the Pacific Ocean basin.

These volcanoes, and the associated earthquakes, are associated with subduction, a process in which large sections of the Earth’s crust sink

back into the mantle. This large scale recycling the oceanic lithosphere is associated with an inclined WadatiBenioff Zone, named after the scientist who first described the feature.

The surface trace of this zone is delineated by the deep oceanic trenches that parallel the continental margins, for example the Java Trench to the south of Java and west of Sumatra.

The rate at which subduction takes place varies from place to place from a few millimetres per year to a few hundreds of millimetres per year.

That’s roughly in the same range of speed that it takes human fingernails to grow, 20 mm per year, or human hair at 300 mm per year.

However, in the time scale that geologists work in, a motion of 20 mm a year becomes 200 km over a period of 10 million years.

Volcano

Merapi volcano, which has a height of 3100 m, is one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, with recent eruptions in 1969-70; 1972-73; 1976-78; 1979-84; 1986; 1989-92; and 1994-95. In the present phase of activity, a lava dome

is growing in the floor of an older crater.

The dome is composed of andesite, a volcanic rock common to all Pacific Ring of Fire volcanoes in Japan, Kamchatka, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Central America, Northwest USA, and the Aleutian Islands.

Andesite magmas are very viscous, or sticky, and unlike basalts, which are typical of Hawaiian volcanoes, do not tend to form thin fluid lava flows.

At Merapi, viscous andesite has built up a lava dome over the vent from which it is fed from beneath This process causes the dome to grow by injection of fresh magma from beneath.

As it grows, the sides of the dome steepen and become unstable. Dome collapse ensues, and this process decompresses the interior of the dome, leading to explosive eruptions.

Moreover, the material collapsing from the oversteepened dome itself decompresses, causing a form of avalanche called a pyroclastic flow – one of the most dangerous of volcanological hazards. Also, decompression may lead to decompression in the upwelling magma body, vesiculation – the growth of bubbles in the magma due to gas escape – and a vertical blast.

The subsequent upwardly directed column of gas and volcanic ash may for a time, like an uncorked champagne bottle, be able to sustain upward movement, but this eventually becomes unstable and collapse back to earth along the flanks of the volcano generating more pyroclastic flows.

These flows have deadly consequences for those people living within 20 to 30 km of the volcano.

Professor John Gamble, UCC, is a geologist and volcanologist. He has spent many years studying volcanoes in locations all around the world, including Indonesia, New Zealand, the Southwest Pacific, North America, South America, and Antarctica.

SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 17 Page 23

SPIN

GSI supporting the geosciences

Fine grained Portland stone was used in the construction of the well known classic Casino building in Marino, Dublin. Softer stones, such as these, often suffer from weathering, so it’s important to be able to match up with original sources when restoration is needed.

T

he Geological Survey of Ireland, GSI, is Ireland’s top earth science agency, providing geological services, information and advice to all sectors of government in support of policy and decision-making at EU, national and regional level. GSI is a major sponsor of the earth science group, ES2k, and the agency is involved in a whole range of activities, a few of which are outlined here.

WATER SUPPLY — Up to a quarter of Ireland’s drinking water comes from underground sources, so protecting this supply is vital to public health.

The Cavan and Galway Groundwater Protection schemes are among the 16 schemes now being implemented across Ireland to ensure that pollution free supplies are maintained to the highest standard.

OLD MINES — A Historic Mine Site Inventory and Risk Assessment project, has been launched in conjunction with Environmental Protection Agency.

Under this project old mine sites, and their history, will be fully documented.

The old mine sites are an important part of our industrial heritage, and as part of the project the risks associated with public access are to be assessed.

STONE IN HISTORIC BUILDINGS — GSI is collaborating with the Office of Public Works (OPW) to discover where the stone in many of our buildings and monuments came from. Identifying the sources will help in repair and conservation of these important buildings, and the project is similar in scope to the Natural Stone Database for Northern Ireland, which we reported on in Science Spin 15.

INFOMAR — Phase II of the highly successful Irish National Seabed Survey started following an exchequer allocation of €4 million to cover 2006.

This phase, entitled INFOMAR, is a

Modelling deposits in the outer reaches of Dublin Bay. Colour coding shows up where deposits build up. Historically the shallows across the mouth were the cause of many shipwrecks. joint venture with the Marine Institute, and it extends surveying into the near shore environment. Under INFOMAR the surveyors are moving into water less than 50 m in depth.

If you want to know more about these projects and others, simply log on to the GSI web site and follow the links to its regularly updated newsletter called ‘Geology Matters’ – www.gsi.ie

Geoscience section sponsored by GSI and edited by Tony Bazley for ES2k SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 17 Page 24

IRISH

GEOLOGY WEEK

Tony Bazley reports that a series of events took place around the country.

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t all happened between April 29th and May 7th and was organised by ES2k. A total of 26 excursions, led by experts giving freely of their time, took place across the country from Ulster to Leinster, Munster and Connacht. There were a number of special exhibitions, including one at the Natural History Museum, Dublin with the very first viewing of a new dinosaur from Kazakhstan. And a chance in Newtownards, Co Down to visit the Tellus survey aircraft and even take the pilot’s seat.

Here, as an example, we focus on just one event, a trip to Black Head in County Antrim. The southern end of Islandmagee, a peninsula swathed in history and folklore. It was here that the Stone Age peoples had one of their earliest settlements in Ireland.

The Vikings landed and settled, there is a ‘Druids Alter’ and some poor women were convicted of witchcraft in the early 1700s.Then in the late 19th century a series of innovative iron bridges and walkways was built to lead tourists around the cliffs just above wave level. In the early 1900s this, the Gobbins walkway, attracted more visitors than the Giant’s Causeway.

The event was a walk along a cliffside that also benefited from Gobbins-style construction in the late 1900s. Trains at that time brought tourists to Whitehead. We set out

from a similar place to walk around Black Head with its Swallow Cave and Boatinghole Rock. Our interest, however, was in happenings long before mankind set foot in the area.

The leader was Paul Lyle, Ireland’s leading expert on the Antrim volcanic province and the black basalt rocks that make up Black Head. The basalt is black volcanic lava that spewed out from fissures and volcanoes about 60 million years ago. Yet the features that can be seen exactly match those of lava from modern volcanic areas like Hawaii and the Canary Islands.

The one difference is that the modern lavas are commonly full of air bubbles whereas these old lavas have been buried and the same air bubbles have filled with fluid in which crystals have formed. The crystals are mostly white and called zeolites (Hydrated silicates of calcium and aluminium, sometimes with sodium and potassium). The white crystals within these bubble cavities, called vesicles, contrast against the black basalt. They are most common, as might be expected, Top, zeolites in basalt.

Right, vertical parallel vesicle cylinders.

Right, The red lava flow at Black Head.

Below: Paul Lyle leading the way.

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towards the top of the lava flows of which there are quite a number visible in the high cliffs. In some cases, however, the gas bubbles can be seen to be rising upwards through the lava as it stopped moving and cooled. Indeed there is certainly one of the world’s finest examples of parallel vesicle cylinders in a thick flow near where the path climbs to the lighthouse.

The tops of the lava flows are more or less reddened depending on the time they were exposed to weathering before the following flow swept across the area. A very good example of a red flow top was seen at the second bridge along the path. Then, on the foreshore at the end of the path, is a small volcanic vent shown by blocks of lava in a finer reddish ash matrix.

These are the details within similar lavas to those of the Giant’s Causeway, described so dramatically by Mary Mulvihill in the last issue of Science Spin. Helped by Paul Lyle about 52 people enjoyed a fascinating afternoon.

ES2k thanks Paul, the other 25 leaders and the many more in the background who organised events. Next year the ‘week’ may be bigger still as we start to celebrate the International Year of Planet Earth. Make a note to join in!

Paul Lyle retires

Finally we must mention that Dr. Paul Lyle has recently retired. He was a senior lecturer in geology at the School of the Built Environment in the University of Ulster, Jordanstown where apart from other things he ran a seriously commercial rock-testing laboratory. He has travelled widely to overseas volcanic lands in the interests of understanding our own rocks and has been an inspiration to students and amateurs alike.

His book on The north of Ireland, published in 2003, has established his place in Irish geology. He is a leading supporter of the Earth Science 2000 group and we hope to see even more of him now he is relieved of lecturing duties. Good luck for the future, Paul.

Complicated history

Restoration of two Rhomaleosaurus (illustration by Adam Stuart Smith)

Dublin’s Jurassic

“Sea-Dragon” Adam Stuart Smith, Department of Zoology, University College Dublin, describes how an ancient monster is being prepared for public display.

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n 1848, the fossil skeleton of an unusual giant reptile was unearthed by workers in an alum quarry at Kettleness on the Yorkshire coast. This 7 m long fossil, hidden away in the Natural History department of the National Museum in Dublin is still the world’s largest completely articulated pliosaur.

Pliosaurs were an unusual group of short-necked acquatic reptiles that patrolled the oceans during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Like all other plesiosaurs Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni, as it is now known, propelled itself through the water with four wing-like limbs. The large triangular skull, reinforced to help resist torsion, bears a ferocious set of teeth – a combination perfect for snatching and killing cephalopods, fish, and other marine reptiles. This was the top predator in early Jurassic oceans.

Specimen under study

The Dublin plesiosaur is an important specimen for a number of reasons.

Historically it is the source of a number of casts on display in museums worldwide. Scientifically, it is the holotype specimen for its respective species, genus and family. Plus, it occurs early in the evolutionary history of the plesiosaurs (the Early Jurassic Period) thus providing vital data for understanding the evolution of the group. This is why the specimen is forming the basis of my ongoing PhD project based at University College Dublin, resolving the systematics of Lower Jurassic pliosaurs.

Complete dinosaur skeletons are very rare.

Their present-day value when they come to auction tends to be measured in millions, whether it is euros, pounds or dollars.

The history of this specimen is long and convoluted. Immediately after its discovery, the magnificent fossil was secured for five years at Mulgrave Castle, the home of the Marquis of Normanby who owned the quarry.

But the specimen was soon on the move again … to Ireland. The Marquis presented the fossil in 1853 to his friend, Sir Philip Crampton, who brought the specimen to Dublin for display as the centrepiece in the 1853 British Association annual meeting.

A specially constructed building (a tent-like structure) was created by the Zoological Society of Ireland to accommodate the huge specimen and so the fossil found a temporary home on the grounds of what is now the Dublin Zoo. In 1863 the specimen was loaned for display in the Royal Dublin Society museum, and there it was briefly described and named. Later, the Royal Dublin Society museum was merged with the National Museum of Ireland who paid £200 in 1877 to acquire the specimen permanently.

In 1890, the fossil moved buildings again, from the main gallery into the museum’s ‘fossil hall’. But in 1979 the hall was demolished, and the specimen, together with rest of the geological collection, went into storage.

The collection was moved yet again in 1992 to the National Museum of Ireland (Natural History) reserve stores at Beggars Bush, where the giant reptile currently resides.

The fossil casts

Even though the actual holotype material is in storage, this plesiosaur is a well-known, even iconic specimen.

A number of casts were made of the Dublin plesiosaur including the ones displayed today in the Natural History Museum, London; the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute; and in Cornell University, New York.

The casts were probably purchased from Henry A Ward, who dealt in replica fossils throughout the late1800s.

However, each of the casts is unique in some way. Look closely, and you will notice that the two forelimbs of the Bath cast are identical copies of each other, and note the limbs on the London cast — these have been completely recreated.

SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 17 Page 26

The future

Unfortunately, during 150 years of to-ing and fro-ing, the specimen has often been neglected or damaged. At one point, the specimen was even broken into moveable pieces with a sledgehammer! The skull and body were broken into many parts and eventually became separated. With the help of museum staff (there are some very heavy segments) all of the pieces of the plesiosaur have now been relocated and gathered together again — I have been able to reconstruct the pieces of the skull, and begin describing the skeleton. An initiative has now been implemented to treat this specimen further, to make it suitable for a detailed study and for display.

Spot the difference – two casts of the Dublin plesiosaur Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni. (left) Cast of the Dublin plesiosaur on display in the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, with curator for scale (photograph by Adam Stuart Smith). (right) Cast of the Dublin plesiosaur on display in the Natural History Museum, London (composite photograph courtesy of Matt Williams).

Other plesiosaurs in Ireland?

It is ironic that Ireland possesses such an important plesiosaur specimen, as no diagnostic plesiosaur material is known from any Irish rocks.

However, there are other significant plesiosaurs in Irish collections. In the NMI alongside Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni, there are a number of partial skeletons, and high up on the wall of the James Mitchell Museum in Galway University is an almost complete specimen of a plesiosaurus from Lyme Regis.

Plesiosaur research

Plesiosaurs were amongst the first fossil reptiles to be recognised but they have received surprisingly little research in their long history. In recent years, plesiosaurs have received renewed attention, and this ongoing study of the Dublin specimen will certainly shed new light on the poorly understood evolution and palaeobiology of these intriguing prehistoric ‘sea-dragons’.

Giant bones were an obsession of fossil collectors in the early 1800s. What did the bones mean and how did they fit into current thinking of man’s place in the Universe? If you want to read more, I recommend The Dinosaur Hunters by Deborah Cadbury published in 2000 by Fourth Estate, London. A gripping tale of discovery, envy, malice and eventual understanding. (Tony Bazley).

www.geoparks2006.com

One of the largest geoscience conferences ever to be held in Ireland takes place from September 17 – 21 2006 in Belfast.

The final piece of the puzzle – the author reconstructing the skull of Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni in Beggars Bush, Dublin (photograph by Remmert Schouten).

It is the 2nd International Conference on Geoparks with Keynote Speakers Walter R Erdelen (Assistant Director for Natural Sciences, UNESCO and Aubrey Manning (Natural Science Television Presenter), amongst others.

Marketing, economy, tourism, conservation and heritage will all feature with post-conference field trips to the Irish geoparks, The Burren, Fforest Fawr and Anglesey in Wales, North-West Highlands of Scotland, and the North Pennines in England.

Log onto the web site above for details.

SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 17 Page 27

TUNNELLING UNDER DUBLIN NILBUD REDNU GNILLENNUT

GSI’s Ronnie Creighton and Beatriz Mozo report on modelling the hidden depths of Dublin.

U

nderstanding the rocks beneath central Dublin is important for the government’s recently announced “Transport 21” initiative. A central part of the plan is the construction of underground rail lines that will require extensive tunnelling in the city centre area. The nature of the subsurface geology is crucial to the engineering design and therefore to the ultimate cost of the project. Key factors are the types of superficial deposits, their depth to bedrock and underground water levels.

Boreholes in Dublin

Information on the subsurface is largely dependent on data derived from boreholes and over many decades there has been extensive drilling in Dublin city centre. Much of the earlier drilling was to relatively shallow depths, whereas in recent years, to prove foundations for larger structures, it has had to go deeper. So bedrock

has been intersected much more frequently. All this information is stored in the National Geotechnical Borehole Database held by the Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI).

Using this data, a depth to bedrock contour map for central Dublin has been published and recent work has centred on producing the pictured 3-D model. To give an idea of the work involved, the model is based on 4,399 interpreted and digitised boreholes of which 1,528 boreholes met bedrock.

What is under central Dublin?

In central Dublin the bedrock is “Calp” limestone (Carboniferous age and called the Lucan Formation) and is estimated to be up to 800m thick. Lying on and completely hiding this limestone bedrock are glacial and postglacial deposits. Glacial till (Boulder Clay), left by the ice sheet of the last Ice Age, has a widespread distribution across central Dublin. It varies greatly in thickness from a few metres to over 20m and in places included within the till are water-

bearing lenses of sand and gravel.

Glacial and postglacial gravels are found along the River Liffey, overlain by recent alluvium. There is a considerable area of intake from the sea in the east of the city where seawater intrudes into the glacial materials.

The ancient Liffey channel

A major buried channel - the route of the pre-glacial river Liffey downstream of Islandbridge - dominates the bedrock topography. The 3-D model shows the channel in the bedrock surface. Away from this channel the bedrock lies at average depths of 5-10m below surface across the city centre, but goes down to 40-45m at the Ringsend Peninsula. The course of the buried channel turns south of the present River Liffey just to the west of Heuston Station at Islandbridge and then turns northwards under the Guinness brewery towards Broadstone.

Thereafter it veers northeast towards

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 GEOSCIENCE Page 28

GEOSCIENCE the north Circular Road area and the East Wall before turning to the south-east cutting diagonally across the Alexandra Basin and the Ringsend Peninsula, where it reaches a width of approx 2.5km. The channel walls and floor are well defined here by the many boreholes that have been drilled for port development works.

The modern Liffey channel

By contrast, the modern River Liffey flows straight past Heuston Station eastwards towards the sea crossing the buried channel between the station and the Four Courts. The next section as far as City Quay crosses an area of shallow rock just 5-10m below the surface. It then crosses the plunging south bank of the buried channel where the bedrock descends from –10m to – 20m below sea level in the area of the East Link Bridge. As the river widens eastwards in the port area it crosses the deepest part of the buried channel (40m below sea level) in the area of the South Port.

The abandonment of the old, buried, channel by the modern River Liffey for much of its passage through the city centre is due to processes of erosion and deposition related to changes of sea level after the melting of the last ice sheet. As the ice retreated, the original channel was re-excavated to almost its original depth, and this was followed by the deposition of glacially-derived clays and gravels. Then began a long period of sea level rise into the bay.

Overlying the till and glacial gravels is a firm laminated clay with shells deposited in an intertidal or estuarine environment. It has an average thick-

Limestone bedrock exposed at Lucan. Under central Dublin the calp limestone is up to 800 metres in depth. ness of 3-5m but thickens to over 20m in the vicinity of the power station.

Then, foreshore deposits of gravel and sand, followed by offshore marine clays and sands were deposited. At the top of the sequence are the recent mud deposits of the River Liffey. The preglacial channel was effectively filled up with these sediments.

A clear understanding of the buried channel, the depth to bedrock and the nature of overlying deposits across central Dublin is crucial in the context of underground infrastructure planning and design. The 3-D model shows a first approximation of the bedrock surface in Dublin city centre.

It will be further refined and improved as more boreholes are drilled and added to the database.

Overlying the limestone foundation is glacial and post-glacial till, ranging in depth up to 20 metres.

SPIN

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VISIT THE NEW SCIENCE SPIN WEBSITE — www.sciencespin.com SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 GEOSCIENCE Page 29

New initiative for schools. Teaching teamwork and the skills of time management, research, presentation, debating – and more! The students even made a film for television.

GOLD RUSH

FOR NATIONAL SCIENCE WEEK

Tony Bazley reports tudents from nine schools in the north of Ireland: Little Flower Secondary School, Belfast; Sacred Heart Grammar School, Newry; Methodist College, Belfast; Foyle and Londonderry College, Londonderry; Coleraine Academical Institute, Coleraine; Oakwood Integrated College, Derry/ Londonderry; Friends School, Lisburn; Assumption Grammar School, Ballynahinch; Grosvenor Grammar School, Belfast, tried to strike gold when they competed in a staged (but it seemed real!) planning inquiry for a gold mine in the Sperrin Mountains of Co Tyrone.

The competition was organised by the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland (GSNI), in collaboration with W5, as part of National Science Week.

S

Challenge Day at the Odyssey

The School Challenge Day took place on Wednesday 1st March in W5 at the Odyssey, Belfast. The event aimed to raise awareness, appreciation and understanding of Earth Science among schools and the general public. It targeted lower sixth form students of geology, geography, citizenship, government, politics and media studies. Students were presented with a fictitious scenario that involved the proposed development of a gold mine in an area of outstanding natural beauty in Northern Ireland.

The students had prepared beforehand but on the day they were allocated randomly amongst eight teams. They had to show teamwork, time management, critical thinking, analytical, numerical, presentation and debating skills. The tasks ranged from obtaining planning permission to recover the precious metal to handling potential objections from the Environment & Heritage Service, local government and the general public.

It proved an action - packed and fun - filled day.

Facilitators included BBC’s Martina Purdy, UTV’s Jamie Delargy and Alban Maginness of the Irish News.

Top right: Little Flower Secondary School, Emma McQuillan, Claire McGonagle, Marie (GSNI) & Amanda Smith.

Top right: Claire Jackson, Grosvenor Grammar School, Belfast.

Bottom: Jill McAteer and Niel Bleakly from Grosvenor Grammar School.

permission was denied – he had almost forgotten this wasn’t for real!

Dr Sally Montgomery, Chief Executive of W5 who presented the prizes, said: “This day showed just how central science is to our every day lives and how decisions taken following scientific advice can change the environment and the economy around us. At W5, we are always looking for new ways to communicate science and to engage our next generation in scientific debate and study.

We were very happy to work in partnership with the GSNI team to develop this role play scenario which we see as an example of best practice in interactive learning.”

Planning Inquiry

The day culminated in a planning inquiry, wherein group leaders presented their cases in front of Professor Sharon Turner, Chair of Environmental Law at Queen’s University, Belfast, who made a ruling once all the evidence had been presented. To the dismay of the facilitator from the gold mine currently operating in the Sperrins Dr Marie Cowan (GSNI) giving nuggets of advice to Graham Richardson of Methodist College Belfast and Jenna Calderwood from Friends School Lisburn.

SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 17 Page 30

GEOSCIENCE Andromeda, nearest among the countless galaxies beyond our own, may harbour some form of life. Below, these tiny black squiggles in a microscope section could be traces of early life on Earth. Photographs, Hubble, and Geological Society of America.

So the very comets that brought the original water to Earth were ‘infected’ by bacteria or some sort of simple living cells.

Maybe we are not alone in the Universe

We now know that there are plenty of worlds out in space that might support life. Life might have been ‘seeded’ in more places than just Earth. So there is a growing case for suggesting that we are not alone in the Universe.

It should be provable

ANCESTORS LURKING AMONGST THE STARS Tony Bazley reports on a controversial Belfast lecture

“Up to 25 years ago life was thought to be confined to Earth”,

S

o started a recent, rather controversial, lecture by Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University to the Irish Astronomical Association meeting in Belfast. “ There is a growing case that our genetic ancestors are still lurking amongst the stars,” was his conclusion.

His argument was that the more we learn about the formation of the Earth, so the idea that all life came from a single bacterium gets more difficult to sustain. The Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago. It was then bombarded by comets that brought water, which in turn gave an atmosphere and clouds. The rate of comet, asteroid and meteorite impact in those early times was huge. Then the cataclysmic bombardment ceased

and, as it did so, 3.8 billion years ago, life started!

What we do not know is how nonlife can turn into life. Once that first cell or bacterium is formed, then the rest of evolution is relatively easy to understand.

Life too complex to come from a single cell?

The argument continues that the complexity of life on Earth cannot be explained by evolution from a single cell. There must have been a pool of many genes in that primeval sea and they came from the cosmos. In fact, he claims they came with the cataclysmic bombardment when the Earth was young.

The good thing about much of the speculation is that some of it should be provable. If there is life out there, we will eventually find it.

One thing that must be said is that the logic of a creation remains as good a theory as any other.

Since this controversial lecture the Stardust mission by Nasa to collect dust from the tail of the Wild 2 comet has been successful. It safely landed back on Earth in January after nearly 7 years in space and when the results are released they may add fuel to speculation about life in the stars. Terry Moseley of the IAA who kindly drew my attention to the lecture will no doubt keep us informed.

Early life on Earth?

What about that early life on Earth?

Can it be proved and what does it look like? In a recent paper in a Geological Society of America Bulletin (Vol.118,No 1, pp3-22) there are photographs of Australian rocks with bacterial microfossils. Thin sections of rock show the microbial materials, which must be the smallest fossils found in the world.

The rocks are dated as 3.2 billion years old (3,200,000,000 years!).

SCIENCE SPIN GEOSCIENCE Issue 17 Page 31

si s

ot

M

UCD

ion analy gets moving The study of human and animal movement is a growing area of science that can achieve many things.

It can help to improve the performance of an elite athlete or a valuable thoroughbred racehorse.

It can help people to recover from injuries, and improve the physical functioning of people that suffer from physical disability. UCD has considerable expertise in this field, and this is set to grow with the development of its motion analysis laboratory, writes Seán Duke.

T

he analysis and capture of movement is the central theme of several cross-disciplinary research themes at UCD involving computer scientists, veterinary scientists, biomedical engineers, physiotherapists and psychologists. At the centre of it all is the motion analysis laboratory, which is located in the school of physiotherapy and performance science. A raft of technologies are in place here to help researchers better understand movement.

Falls

One important area of research, one that is being undertaking by Dr Stuart Smith and his colleague Dr Nuala Brady, at the school of psychology, centres on why exactly people fall.

It is thought that people fall for a variety of reasons, and this includes age-related loss of sight and hearing, but there is also evidence that people might fall, because they ‘expect’ to fall.

The psychologists are taking a broad approach, and are looking at the effect hearing, balance, sight and physical functioning, all relate to each other, and the propensity for people to fall. This is a new study method, and one that is important given that injuries related to falls makes up a huge cohort of people admitted to Accident and Emergency departments each year. The elderly are at particular risk, but admissions for falls are high among all age groups.

Ankles

Wearable sensors can provide researchers at the motion analysis laboratory with a wealth of information to help people with their physical rehabilitation Some people, it appears, have a good inherent positional sense of where the ground is at all times, and these people are unlikely to suffer from ankle sprains. Others don’t have such a good positional sense, and this means, even in athletes, that they can repeatedly suffer strains. A person can be re-taught how to move to avoid ankle strain, and, for an athlete, this is crucially important.

Like falls, ankle injuries give rise to a high number of hospital A&E admissions Findings by Dutch researchers, if they are Horses extrapolated to Ireland, The science of motion analysis actually indicate that it costs the Irish started with horses in the 1870s, as state in the region of €160 a result of a bet placed by Leland million per year to Stanford, the founder of deal with ankle Stanford University. Stanford Sensors injuries alone. employed the photographer Prof Barry Smyth and his Research in the UK Eadweard Muybridge to Prof Barry Smyth, team located in the school has shown that successfully prove that there school of computer of computer science and between three and was an airborne period science and informat- informatics are working with six per cent of during equine trotting. ics is working to colleagues in the school of admissions to A&E Researchers in UCD are there are due to ankle develop wearable sen- physiotherapy and now revisiting this area by sprains. There are in sors that can be fitted performance science to extending their motion cheaply into clothing develop ‘wearable’ sensors the region of one analysis research into equine that are both cheap and small million admissions to biomechanics. Dr Emmeline enough to fit into clothing in order A&E in Ireland every year, Hill and Dr Lisa Katz of to analyse gait, muscle contractions and extrapolating the UK the school of agriculture, and other parameters in real time. figures to Ireland, that means food science and veterinary The sensors provide information about that there may be between medicine are working with how movement is taking in real life, or Ulrik McCarthyPersson of the Dr Emmeline Hill is 30,000 and 60,000 admissions an ‘unconstrained’ environment. This school of physiotherapy and investigating the links per year here for ankle makes that information very valuable. injuries. performance science to between biomechaniThis research fits in nicely with The scale of the ankle develop a new programme cal, physiological and injury issue means that it not a general trend in medicine towards of research aimed at genetic factors that surprising that a substantial remote monitoring of patients at work establishing the links together can make a amount of research at the or at home, and, if there is a problem, between biomechanical, the GP, or a family member is top-class race horse. motion analysis laboratory is physiological and genetic alerted. For example, if an elderly concerned with ankle sprains. factors in race horses.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 32

advance as manually The suit, which looks assisted gait training is something like a running physically difficult for suit, has built-in physiotherapists to orientation sensors that perform over an extended provide precise period of time. When the information relating to robotic trainer arrives at the position of body Belfield it will form a segments during central part of a major exercise. The player then Gaming collaborative research receives instruction from Computers and computer gaming programme between an on-screen virtual are regularly blamed for the NRH and UCD. trainer during the increasingly sedentary nature of performance of Yoga Dr Brian Caulfield, school of lifestyles in modern society leading exercises. “The ultimate physiotherapy and performance Engineering to health problems such as obesity goal,” said Dr Caulfield, science, pictured here surrounded The study of motion also or heart disease. However, the “is to develop an by a range of high tech equipment crosses into the field of picture is not all bad because motion inexpensive motion at the motion analysis laboratory biomedical engineering analysis techniques can be combined capture suit with wireless and the research of with computer motion sensors that Professor Richard Reilly and Dr gaming technology could be used to teach Madeleine Lowery at the school of to promote healthy movement or exercises electrical, electronic and mechanical lifestyles. as part of a rehabilitation engineering. This school has a long Professor Paddy programme”. tradition of biomedical engineering Nixon at the school research and has been involved in of computer science many projects with the National Robot and informatics, for Rehabilitation Hospital, or NRH, since Dr Rebecca Beck, a example, is working 1984. The biomedical engineers have research fellow in the on a system that provided assistance to the NRH with school of electrical, integrates overall the development of aids and devices electronic and body motion into that help therapists treat people mechanical a computer game, Post-doc physiotherapy student requiring rehabilitation. engineering is looking with the aim of Diarmuid Fitzgerald (also a member forward to the One of the main areas of interest encouraging of the Tipperary senior hurling team) introduction of the to Professor Reilly and Dr Lowery increased levels of pictured here being helped into a spe- first-ever robotic gait is neural engineering, or how the physical activity in cial shirt by fellow doctoral student trainer to Ireland. Dr nervous system controls movement. children.

Pauline Walsh. The shirt contains The researchers can Beck and Dr Movements are built in sensors that detect posture. Brian examine patterns of muscle integrated into the activity in healthy and Caulfield game, so the children are getting diseases states by using the have travelled to Zurich exercise and having fun at the same electrical activity of muscle and visited the Hocoma time. tissue using company that makes a electromyographic signals, robotic gait trainer for Training or EMG. These researchers patients with neurological Another advantage of combining are also seeking ways to injury. motion analysis and computer place sensors in Dr Beck also works in gaming is that it can be used appropriate parts of the the NRH, where this robotic as a ‘virtual’ trainer or physical body in order to provide trainer will be located, so therapist. A frequent problem in useful information in real she acts as a critical link physical rehabilitation is time about walking person between the difficulty in ensuring patterns – information that clinical physiothat patients perform therapists, Stuart Jackson, PhD student can be used by their ‘homework’ occupational at the school of psychology, physiotherapists and exercises properly and others that are helping therapists, displays devices that are according to schedule. people with their doctors, and worn on key areas of the Placing wearable motion researchers at body to learn more about rehabilitation. sensors on patients can Gait analysis in a UCD. movement. help alleviate this laboratory situation can be The Hocoma problem. somewhat artificial and not reflecting robotic trainer, called Towards this goal, Dr how people walk in real life situations, Lokomat, consists of an Brian Caulfield and his so the biomedical engineers are seeking overhead bodyweight team at the school of to develop low cost sensors and support system and an physiotherapy and equipment that can be used at home exoskeletal robot to guide performance science are or work. “The approach we take is to leg movements on a developing a motion use classic engineering techniques and treadmill. The user, or capture suit that will be Dr Richard Reilly, school apply them to biomedical problems,” patient, is enabled to integrated into a virtual of electrical, electronic and participate, once inside said Dr Lowery. reality game to help mechanical engineering is the support system, in people learn how to investigating how the upright assisted gait perform Yoga exercises SPIN nervous system controls training. This is a major and poses. movement. person falls, their GP would be alerted immediately via a text message or email. In addition, these sensors could provide a means of monitoring whether patients are taking the correct medication or doing the right exercises.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 33

Biting into the wireless market Bluetooth is an emerging wireless technology that has a number of advantages over other wireless options. The possibilities this technology offers are described by Seán Duke.

T

he commonly cited down-side to Bluetooth is that it has a short range, a couple of hundred metres usually (though this limitation can be overcome). Its strengths are that it requires little power, and has a low implementation cost as it doesn’t need an expensive fixed infrastructure to be built before it becomes operational. It is ideal for connecting portable devices and machines, and there are many applications in industrial, research and medicine where this is very important.

Arguably there isn’t another wireless technology as well suited to linking portable devices, and with such devices proliferating everywhere, this is a crucial asset.

Organisation

The name Bluetooth refers to a technology, but it also refers to a trade organisation. There are about 4,000 companies that are Bluetooth members around the world, ranging from very big players, to small, start up companies. When a company signs up to be a Bluetooth member the agreement is that all the IP from the company regarding Bluetooth is put into a common pool, from which all the other members can benefit.

A small company of 10 people,

perhaps, that is a Bluetooth member can tap into the expertise of multinational giants, provided that it agrees to share any Bluetooth IP that it develops with the others members.

This means that for members, the use of Bluetooth is for free, and that is different from other wireless technologies where the technologies must be paid for.

Irish members include Securicom and Rococo Software. Securicom is an alarm company that provides alarms for residential or business purposes, as well as medical alarms to alert ambulances when an elderly or ill person — perhaps living alone — has become seriously ill at home. Rococo Software, meanwhile, works with business customers to help them to use the internet to control, manage and utilise voice communication services.

Anders Edlund is the worldwide marketing director for Bluetooth. He

Why the name?

In the 900s the King of Denmark was a man called Harald Bluetooth. He united Denmark and part of Norway into a single kingdom as well as introducing Christianity into Denmark. The technology similarly could be said to unify communication devices, and the choice of name certainly shows how important Nordic countries are in the global communications industry.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 34

was in Dublin recently at a Bluetooth information event, and spoke to Science Spin, about the emergence of this wireless technology and the business concept behind it that has proved very successful.

“When we started this was a rather unique concept – I don’t think it was tried at all in ’98, said Anders Edlund. “The first product showed up in 2000, so it a young technology, with consumer products on the market for five or six years. It is growing quite rapidly now and at the end of the year we will have some one billion devices on the market. And maybe this year alone is more than half of those, so it is realistic that this year’s shipment will be around 600 million units.

“That is also very important that you can use the technology globally.

Typically with radio technologies it is not the case – look at GSM for example, now you have phones that are quadruple band phones, in the US they have different frequencies than they have in Europe with GSM, so you can’t have one band only, you have to have three or four. This is expensive for the manufacturers, and in a way very silly, but that is how it has been”.

“Also Zig Bee is another technology typically for sensors and they have one frequency for Asia and Europe and one for the USA, devices for the US are different than those in Europe, which is also not good. You have to have two product lines, maybe three sometimes because of different frequencies – not so good. Messy.”

SPIN

Applications

The use of Bluetooth in industry is just beginning, and the typical current application involves the programming of a computer within a machine to ensure that the machine properly performs some kind of repetitive action.

That action by the machine might involve, for example, monitoring a production process, or checking that fridges are operating at the right temperatures. A number of machines will send signals to a remote signal gathering point, which, in turn, sends signals back to an operator sitting in front of a screen. When something goes wrong, a signal is sent to the operator and the appropriate action is then taken.

The typical range of Bluetooth (though there are ways around this) is a couple of hundred metres. That is enough to make it viable to use this technology across most production plants.

Wiring for industrial applications is costly, and even more so when the production process needs to be regularly updated, or changed, with the installation of new wiring. There is also the cost of wire breakages, and the cost of repair, and production

time lost. For this reason, going wireless might be a good option in the most dynamic of industries, where production might go up and down, or where technological changes are happening at a very fast rate.

However, it is not just fixed, dynamic production plants that are using Bluetooth. For example, the Bus Authority of Milan is making use of Bluetooth to monitor its bus fleet. The movement of buses, and their speed is constantly monitored during

How it works When any two devices need to ‘talk’ to each other they have to agree on a number of things before the conversation can begin. The first thing they must decide is how they will talk, will it be over wires, or through some form of wireless technology?

Once that is decided they must then decide how much data they will transfer at one time, and what set of communication commands and responses – protocol – they will use.

The Bluetooth technology requires that a small radio chip be plugged into to computers, printers, mobile phones and other devices to make them Bluetooth enabled. The chip is designed to replace cables by taking the information normally carried by a cable and transmitting it at the specific Bluetooth frequency.

Engineers at Ericsson first developed Bluetooth and they chose the 2.4 GHz frequency because it was internationally available, and was unlicensed. That means that

companies and individuals around the world can use the technology for free, unlicensed.

The typical way that Bluetooth works is that there is a ‘master’ device that initiates connections to other devices, and establishes the various protocols for communication.

The other devices are called the slaves. Once these connections are made, something called a ‘piconet’ is set up, and agreements are made about how voice and other data transfers will take place. The devices within the piconet join forces to shared bandwidth between them.

So, Bluetooth provides protocols between devices to allowing the ‘talking’ to begin. It is wireless, inexpensive, and automatic.

Primarily, the technology today is used to link devices in the home, but its use is growing, and spreading into high tech industry.

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 35

the time it is out on the road, and when the bus enters the garage at the end of its working day, the information gathered during the day or night is transmitted via Bluetooth to a central computer. That enables the Bus Authority to have information about how to improve its bus services.

Bluetooth is also very popular for medical applications.

Nonin Medical Inc. of the USA, for example, has developed an application where a sensor is put onto a person’s finger and where is then measures the oxygen content in the blood and the pulse. The use of sensors in this way might be applied in future to hospitals where it would allow tiny measuring devices to be placed on patients, and, thus remove, the mass of wires and the possibility of wire breakages.

Another innovative medical application coming down the pipeline is a stethoscope that is placed on the chest, measures heart rate with a sensor and this information is transmitted back to a computer when the heart rate is displayed. It’s essentially an inexpensive EKG. In the world of dental medicine, meanwhile, an Italian company has developed a special kind of device that is placed in the mouth and has a Bluetooth sensor. The device takes an x ray and the X ray exposure information is sent to a screen for reading by the dentist. This process is quick, convenient for the patient and reduces the X ray exposure for the patient too.

SCIENCE GOES BOOM

Mesh networking

So-called ‘mesh networking’ is being used to extend the range of Bluetooth, and generally it is being used in large urban areas where signals are bounced from one sensor to another.

This technology is of great interest to emergency services, as during a major emergency, such as 9-11 or 7-7, a mesh network will remain operational and ‘self healing’. This means that if one part of the network is down, the network will re-route and find a way to keep going.

Outside of the emergency services, mesh networking is of great interest to anyone who has to monitor a large number of machines, or metres, such as the city authorities of St Petersburg.

This Russian city is full of enormous apartment complexes, and it is a major task for public utilities to deploy enough personnel to get readings of gas and electricity usage from apartment metres. For that reason the city authorities decided to install a Bluetooth mesh network, which connects up to thousands of individual metres with each other.

The readings are all send to a central data collection point. This means that people don’t have to be sent around to read metres in every apartment block, just form the central point. There are installation costs involved in setting up such a network, naturally, but these are worth it for the city in the long term by reducing the labour costs.

Future

One of the main issues for Bluetooth users is that the link is secure, and that no-one can break in to the system. There are a lot of security enhancements being worked on to ensure that the system remains secure, and, to date, there has not been a major security breach.

In the next few years industry experts believe there will be a big change in terms of the amount of data that can be transferred via Bluetooth and the speed at which the data can be transferred.

That will happen with the introduction of what is called ‘High Speed Bluetooth’. It will then be possible to transmit 500 megabytes of data per second, as opposed to the 2 megabytes per second that is attainable now. This will mean that data can be transferred 100 times faster via High Speed Bluetooth than today.

In what was possibly the most significant development ever in Irish science, the government last month committed itself to invest a staggering €3.8 billion in R&D here from 2006 – 2013, writes Seán Duke.

T

he enormity of the announcement made in June was perhaps shown by the presence of Bertie Ahern at the press announcement in government buildings flanked by no less than five ministers of the government.

This money means that the massive flow of funds into Irish research begun in the late 1990s continues.

Should the government deliver on its plans, this would bring investment in R&D here up to the level of 2.5 per cent of GDP per annum by 2013. That is a very respectable level, though the EU does have a target of reaching 3 per cent, so there would still be a way to go.

In the very short term, the government said that it plans to spend €2.7 billion by 2008 in order to accelerate the pace of research and the funding will be made available under the second National Development Plan 2007 – 2013.

The government is keen that the international community recognise that the investment in R&D in Ireland in recent years is not a ‘flash in the pan’ and is set to continue.

This is crucial to attract top-class researchers, either Irish or foreign, to work in Ireland.

Another positive development is that the government, for the first time ever, has a coherent strategy in place for the development of science. This has been outlined in a document called “Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation”.

The government is to provide greater support research in the public sector, particularly in the areas of agri-food, health, environment, marine, energy and geoscience.

The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin, is chairperson of the cabinet committee on science, technology and innovation. As such he co-ordinated the drawing up of the strategy document with the Taoiseach and other government ministers.

Speaking at the launch, Micheál Martin said: “Total government expenditure on the plan will amount to €2.7 billion by 2008. The Minister for Finance has made the appropriate financial proposals to facilitate this.

This compares with €2.5 billion for the six-year period 2000 – 2006” “This will mean that programmes can begin to be implemented, competitions held and action start on the ground. This is an area, which doesn’t rate high on most political agendas – it’s not a topic, which you find on the front pages every day. However, we believe that it is fundamental to delivering a prosperous future for this country.”

Some specifics L The number of PhDs is set to double L Remove all obstacles to movement of researchers L IP within the universities is to receive more support L Greater efforts to increase the numbers taking chemistry and physics at school L More support for R&D within industry L Establishment of graduate schools L Business expenditure on R&D to grow to €2.5 billion by 2013 L Support for more all-island R&D

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SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 37

NH3

Cl Pt Cl

NH3

PLATINUM Precious metal for cancer treatment

Platinum is a very rare, soft, dense, white-grey to silver-grey metal that is more expensive than gold on the open market. But, its value could soon be judged in more than monetary terms – as a life-saving anti-cancer agent, writes Clodagh Mulcahy.

C

ancer, in its over 200 forms, remains a deadly disease in 2005, despite the valiant efforts down the years and up to the present day of a myriad of researchers, doctors, surgeons and radiographers to overcome it. On average, one in three Irish people will develop cancer at some stage in their life and over 7,500 people die from cancer each year in Ireland. Platinumbased compounds have played an enormous role in the fight against cancer, and the search goes on for better, more effective, platinum compounds.

Cisplatin

One success story in the fight against cancer involves the discovery of the anticancer properties of a platinumbased compound known as cisplatin, cis-Pt (NH3) 2C12. This compound consists of a platinum metal centre with two ammonia groups attached on one side and two chlorine groups

Normal E coli bacteria were transformed into long filamentous strands. tethered to the other. Cisplatin has greatly improved the prognosis for some types of cancer and today remains the most widely used and successful drug for its treatment.

This story begins in Michigan State University in the 1960s, when Barnett Rosenberg, while studying the effect of electric fields on bacteria, serendipitously discovered the antitumour activity of cisplatin. He noticed

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 38

that E.coli bacteria subjected to an electric field applied across two platinum electrodes in a solution of ammonium chloride, NH4Cl, transformed from normal rod-shaped E.coli bacteria into long filamentous strands up to 300 times their usual length.

This is a phenomenon that occurs when cell division is inhibited, but cell growth is not and Rosenberg found it was due to electrolysis products formed by a reaction of the platinum electrodes with the solution. This reaction formed platinum complexes capable of binding to the bacterial DNA, blocking DNA replication and cell division. A feature of cancer cells is that they divide rapidly, anything that inhibits cell division may help in cancer therapy.

When tested on malignant cancer tumours in mice, the platinum complex, cisplatin, produced excellent results. The mice that received cisplatin treatment experienced a dramatic

SPIN

decrease in the size of their tumours, the mice that did not receive treatment died.

Cisplatin has been in clinical use since 1978 and 27 years later is still the most extensively used and effective drug for the treatment of cancer, particularly testicular, ovarian, oesophageal, head and neck and smallcell lung cancer. It has proven itself to be extremely victorious against testicular cancer, converting this formerly deadly disease to one that is now almost 95 per cent curable.

One of the high profile success stories of cisplatin is that of the American cyclist Lance Armstrong who, in October 1996, at the age of 25 was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had metastasised, spreading to his brain and lungs. After two operations and intensive treatment with cisplatin, in combination therapy, he recovered and went on to win the Tour de France a record seven years consecutively from 1999 to 2005.

Despite its widespread success, there are a number of drawbacks associated with its use. Treatment with cisplatin is unpleasant; the side effects can be quite severe, because, like many anticancer treatments, it does not distinguish between healthy cells and tumour cells. In addition, not all cancers respond and acquired resistance can be a problem. So the search continues for more effective platinum-based alternatives.

Alternatives

Carboplatin, approved in 1989 for the treatment of ovarian cancer, has been found to produce much milder side effects. Nedaplatin, developed in Japan, and oxaliplatin, while differing from cisplatin in their characteristics, have also been found effective and approved for chemotherapy, but many of the platinum complexes never get past the initial clinical trial stage. One complex, known as satraplatin (JM216),

Second and third generation platinum-based anticancer drugs shows a lot of promise because cell culture tests suggest that tumours might not acquire resistance as they do for cisplatin. It also has the advantage of being the first orally administered platinum drug, and as such would be much less unpleasant for patients.

Another one in the research pipeline is BBR3463, reported to be ten times more active than cisplatin, so a lower dose can be given, and because the mechanism of action is different, it may turn out to be effective against a broader range of cancers. This complex has three platinum centres, which may account for its greater activity and also is a charged compound, which means that it may cross the cell membrane easier, and reach DNA quicker. Of course, these are still confined to clinical trials, and it remains to be seen if they will eventually get approval for use in general treatment. It is estimated that out of every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds that are screened only one will become a successful drug.

Platinum drugs remain a cornerstone of cancer chemotherapy and clearly, the future of platinum-

based anticancer drugs is bright. As a post-graduate student I am involved in platinum research, synthesising novel multinuclear complexes in the hope that they may have some implications for cancer therapy. Some of these platinum complexes have been tested for cytotoxicity and anticancer activity in collaboration with the University of Trieste, Italy. The fight against cancer is international and my research has brought me abroad to meet fellow students and work with one of the leading experts in the field of platinum chemistry, Prof. Bernhard Lippert.

There is still a long way to go in the domain of anticancer research but in the words of Albert Einstein “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?�

Clodagh Mulcahy is a science graduate of UCD and is currently a postgraduate research student working under the supervision of Dr Celine J. Marmion at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Promising candidates for future platinum-based anticancer drugs

WATCH OUT FOR SCIENCE SPIN’s NEW WEB SITE www.sciencespin.com SCIENCE SPIN Issue 17 Page 39

REVIEWS Celebrating

CORK

E

veryone has their own associations with Cork city, whether it be the road bowling on Fair Hill, Murphy’s brew, George Pain’s Trinity Church, or Rory Gallagher belting out the blues. In a series of 38 sections this great book, the Atlas of Cork City, has managed to capture this rich diversity. Beginning as a project to celebrate Cork’s ‘Capital of Culture’ status, the contributors came up with more than enough to fill a normal sized book, so this is a fairly hefty volume of 464 pages. Far from being a bland tourist guide, every section is written with a great deal of authority, and UCC academics feature prominently among the 59 contributors. It is fascinating to dip into the book, and discover that the butchers, the weavers, and all the other trade associations had their own bands.

Fintan Lane explains that the bands played their part in demanding more support for home manufacturing and the repeal of the Union, and others were active in promoting temperance, which, of course, was not a great help to the big brewing and distilling industries. No doubt they added some excitement to the streets, but as Fintan Lane writes, the police and the press were less than enthuiastic about the proliferation of bands marching up and down the streets. Apart from challenging the establishment, many of the bands were formed around local and trade rivalries, and fights often led to street riots. In the 1870s the Fair Lane, the Quarry Lane, the Cat Lane and other bands were frequently locked in combat, invading each other’s territories, sometimes with fatal results.

A few sections deal with the physical shaping of Cork, and how people got around the expanding suburbs. Frustrated motorists, struggling up the quays might wish that the Cork and Muskerry Light Railway was back in action. At one stage, as Colin Rynne explains, “No less than five county-based rail networks and one national rail link had established termini within the city

of Cork by the end of the nineteenth century.” The rail network declined in the 1920s, and by the 1934 the Muskerry line was gone. Loss-making lines all got the chop, and with the wisdom of hindsight we see, all too clearly, the flaws of short-term planning.

Not that there was an absence of planning, but a lot depended on who was setting the agenda. Like Dublin, inner Cork suffered more than its fair share of road planners’ blight. In the 1960s a study was commissioned on how Cork might accommodate an increasing volume of traffic. The resulting BKS report proposed a 100

foot wide distributor road, and the city centre was to be given over to traffic and parking. As Kevin Hourihan writes about this appaling scheme “the BKS proposals hung over the city like a sword of Damocles for the next decade.” Fortunately, Cork was spared the sort of blight that would have totally destroyed the quality that makes the city centre so special, and so well worth celebrating.

Atlas of Cork City, edited by J S Crowley, R J N Devoy, D Linehan, and P O’Flanagan, was published by Cork University Press, 2005. Hardback, €59.

Tom Kennedy

Discovers of Earth’s history

A great number of people have written about the Earth and its structure, and in this listing, Paul Mohr introduces the reader to the work of about 150 authors. It’s not a book to read, just a list, but even so it certainly whets the appetite to dig out the originals. Among the authors we find Rudolph Erich Raspe, creator of those brilliant adventures of Baron von Munchausen, and the prolific Irish scientist, Richard Kirwan. For each author there is a brief biographical note and a short description of what they discovered.

From the earliest recorded history, and no doubt long before, people have wondered about the Earth, why is it is there, what it consists of, and of course, how can be tap into its immense resources? There was Pliny the Elder, killed by his curiousity, and Chang Heng, who devised a

SCIENCE SPIN Issue 16 Page 40

clever device of eight balls around a pendulum to detect the direction of an earthquake’s source, and da Vinci’s colleague, Girolamo Fracastoro, who recognised that fossils are the remains of ancient life-forms. As with the sciences in general, it is remarkable how accurate many of the earliest observations were, and Paul Mohr ends his book quoting Aristotle: “But these alterations escape our observation because the whole process of Earth’s evolution occurs gradually over periods of time which are vast compared with a human lifetime, and whole cultures come and go before they can record the changes from beginning to end.”

Discoverers of Earth’s History, Paul Mohr, Millbrook Nova Press, Galway, 2005. Paperback 66 pages.

Tom Kennedy

IN NEWSAGENTS NATIONWIDE or SUBSCRIBE

Books from Albertine Kennedy Publishing Rock around Ireland Peadar McArdle shows us the structure of Ireland. paperback €15 Colour The science and art of colour explained by Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy Paperback €15 The Exemption Vera Hajnal has an extraordinary story to tell of survival through one of the world’s darkest periods. Hardback €25 St Vincent’s Fairview Aidan Collins describes the history and the literary associations.

Softback €20 Bewley’s Hugh Oram account of how the café became a national institution in this facsimile of the original book. Paperback €12

.... and more to come.

Watch out for new titles this year.

www.sciencespin.com

Science Week Ireland offers people of all ages the chance to explore, discover, experiment or invent their way to a better understanding of science.

Science Week 2006 takes place from 12-19 November.

Log on to www.science.ie for regular updates on events and happenings and make sure not a moment is missed from Ireland’s most exciting and diverse week.

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