Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Page 1 of 11
Newsletter 030 - June 2018
Contents
Future Talks ................................................................................................................................. 2
Malaria genetics: study shows how disease became deadly ........................................................ 2
A low-profile killer. ....................................................................................................................... 4
Could a Multiverse be hospitable to life? ..................................................................................... 5
Artificial Intelligence .................................................................................................................... 7
Iron Bridge ................................................................................................................................... 7
Professional Engineering April/May 2018 .................................................................................... 7
Harrow and Hillingdon Geological Society ................................................................................... 9
Pinner and District RSPB .............................................................................................................. 9
Institute of Physics Lectures ......................................................................................................... 9
Interesting Websites .................................................................................................................. 10
Recommended Reading ............................................................................................................. 10
Interesting Quotes ..................................................................................................................... 11
Back to Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... 11
Page 2 of 11
Future Talks
Date Title Speaker
06/06/2018 Order & Identity Michael Pascoe
20/06/2018 Magnets John Howard
TBA Henry Cavendish Judy Peddie
TBA Ernest Rutherford Judith Sinclair
TBA Archimedes Andy Austin
Just a short list of possible future talks to think about, and maybe volunteer:-
Artificial intelligence, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Albert Einstein and General Relativity, Dorothy Hodgkin, Alan Turing, Helen Sharman the first British Astronaut, Tim Peake Astronaut, Telescopes, Stem Cell Transplants, The Building of Crossrail.
Back to Table of Contents
Malaria genetics: study shows how disease became deadly
The secrets of how malaria became a deadly human-killer have been revealed by a genetic study.
The work, led by researchers from Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge, compared seven types of malaria - tracing the parasite's family tree.
This revealed that, about 50,000 years ago, the parasites diverged, with one "branch" evolving into the most deadly human-infecting species.
The findings are published in the journal Nature Microbiology.
One element of this diversion was a genetic switch that enabled malaria to infect human red blood cells - a "chunk of deadly DNA" that previous studies suggest could yet provide a target for a malaria-blocking vaccine.
Page 3 of 11
"Our study has pieced together the sequential series of steps that set up the critical storm. allowing the parasites to not only enter humans but to stay, divide and be transferred by mosquitoes," explained one of the lead researchers, Dr Matt Berriman.
Global killer
According to the World Health Organization, more than 200 million people are infected with malaria every year; the disease caused the deaths of almost half a million people globally in 2016, and the majority of those deaths were children under the age of five.
By far the deadliest species of the parasite which causes this global health scourge is Plasmodium falciparum.
While this species infects and often kills people when injected through the bite of a female Anopheles mosquito, there are many other related species which infect some of our great ape cousins - chimpanzees and gorillas.
The rescued animals at the Gabon sanctuary are 'blissfully ignorant' of their value to science
To study those, the researchers collaborated with a team caring for injured and orphaned apes in a sanctuary in Gabon. As part of the animals' health checks, veterinary staff take blood samples from them.
"It turns out that healthy animals have a really high background level of parasites in their blood," Dr Berriman told BBC News. "These animals are blissfully ignorant of the scientific value in their blood."
The blood samples provided a series of malarial genetic codes that the scientists could use to trace its evolutionary history.
"We don't have fossils for tracing the history of a parasite," said Dr Berriman.
But comparing the genomes of these malaria species allowed him and his team to trace back how the genetic code had been "reshuffled" as the parasite evolved - and how and when that shuffling led to the deadly genetic recipe that is Plasmodium falciparum.
Close relatives
The researchers examined seven different types of malaria - three that infect chimpanzees, three that infect gorillas and the deadly human-infecting species.
Page 4 of 11
Scientists discovered that the evolutionary lineage leading to Plasmodium falciparum emerged 50,000 years ago, but did not fully diverge as a human-specific parasite species until 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.
"The recent expansion of modern humans created the home in which the parasites irreversibly evolved into a human-specific form," explained Dr Berriman.
Prof Janet Hemingway, director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine said the discovery was "really important" because it built a picture of how and when a disease crossed the species barrier, going on to become a deadly human disease.
Understanding how that happens, could enable scientists to recognise - and even avoid - patterns that might lead to the same scenario in future.
"These days most people think of malaria as a human disease, and forget that this was a zoonotic disease that crossed the species barrier 50,000 years ago and then co-evolved with its new human host to become one of the most deadly diseases known to man," said Prof Hemingway.
"It does perhaps underline why it is so important that we react to current movement of animal parasites and viruses into humans and do not give them chance to become permanently transmitted from human to human."
BBC News
Sheppy
Back to Table of Contents
A low-profile killer.
What illness are you most scared of? The one that terrifies me is sepsis, said Dr Mark Porter in The Times. It kills 40,000 people a year in the UK, yet remarkably few people know about it. Sepsis, or blood poisoning, occurs when the immune system responds to an infection by attacking the body’s own organs. Rapid diagnosis and treatment are vital – but sepsis is often missed, because people are focusing on the infection that triggered it. So, learn what to look out for. Think SEPSIS: Slurred speech or confusion; Extreme shivering or muscle aches; Passing no urine in a day; Severe breathlessness; I feel like I might die; Skin that is mottled or discoloured, or a non-blanching rash. In children, add to that list rapid breathing and
Page 5 of 11
abnormally cold extremities. If you develop any of the symptoms, seek help urgently. And always ask whoever is helping you: Could it be sepsis?.
From The Week.
Carol Mitchell
Back to Table of Contents
Could a Multiverse be hospitable to life?
A Multiverse – where our Universe is only one of many – might not be as inhospitable to life as previously thought, according to new research.
Questions about whether other universes might exist as part of a larger Multiverse, and if they could harbour life, are burning issues in modern cosmology.
Now new research led by Durham University, UK, and Australia’s University of Sydney, Western Sydney University and the University of Western Australia, has shown that life could potentially be common throughout the Multiverse, if it exists.
The key to this, the researchers say, is dark energy, a mysterious “force” that is accelerating the expansion of the Universe.
Multiverse theory
Scientists say that current theories of the origin of the Universe predict much more dark energy in our Universe than is observed. Adding larger amounts would cause such a rapid expansion that it would dilute matter before any stars, planets or life could form.
The Multiverse theory, introduced in the 1980s, can explain the “luckily small” amount of dark energy in our Universe that enabled it to host life, among many universes that could not.
Using huge computer simulations of the cosmos, the new research has found that adding dark energy, up to a few hundred times the amount observed in our Universe, would actually have a modest impact upon star and planet formation.
This opens up the prospect that life could be possible throughout a wider range of other universes, if they exist, the researchers said.
Page 6 of 11
The findings are published in two related papers in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Durham University led paper can be read here and the University of Sydney led paper is here.
The simulations were produced under the EAGLE (Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments)project - one of the most realistic simulations of the observed Universe.
Star formation
Jaime Salcido, a postgraduate student in Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology, said: “For many physicists, the unexplained but seemingly special amount of dark energy in our Universe is a frustrating puzzle.
“Our simulations show that even if there was much more dark energy or even very little in the Universe then it would only have a minimal effect on star and planet formation, raising the prospect that life could exist throughout the Multiverse.”
Dr Luke Barnes, a John Templeton Research Fellow at Western Sydney University, said: “The Multiverse was previously thought to explain the observed value of dark energy as a lottery - we have a lucky ticket and live in the Universe that forms beautiful galaxies which permit life as we know it.
“Our work shows that our ticket seems a little too lucky, so to speak. It’s more special than it needs to be for life. This is a problem for the Multiverse; a puzzle remains.”
Dark energy
Dr Pascal Elahi, Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, said: “We asked ourselves how much dark energy can there be before life is impossible? Our simulations showed that the accelerated expansion driven by dark energy has hardly any impact on the birth of stars, and hence places for life to arise. Even increasing dark energy many hundreds of times might not be enough to make a dead universe.”
However, the researchers said their results were unexpected and could be problematic as they cast doubt on the ability of the theory of a Multiverse to explain the observed value of dark energy.
According to the research, if we live in a Multiverse, we’d expect to observe much more dark energy than we do - perhaps 50 times more than we see in our Universe.
Although the results do not rule out the Multiverse, it seems that the tiny amount of dark energy in our Universe would be better explained by an, as yet, undiscovered law of nature.
New law of physics
Professor Richard Bower, in Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology, said: “The formation of stars in a universe is a battle between the attraction of gravity, and the repulsion of dark energy.
“We have found in our simulations that universes with much more dark energy than ours can happily form stars. So why such a paltry amount of dark energy in our Universe?
Page 7 of 11
“I think we should be looking for a new law of physics to explain this strange property of our Universe, and the Multiverse theory does little to rescue physicists’ discomfort.”
The research was conducted with Liverpool John Moores University, UK, and Leiden University, The Netherlands.
It was funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK, the European Research Council, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, the John Templeton Foundation, the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, and Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D).
Judith Sinclair
Back to Table of Contents
Artificial Intelligence Dr Demis Hassabis, a pioneer in artificial intelligence, speaking at The Royal Society warned that public trials of driverless vehicles were irresponsible because engineers could not predict how they will behave ‘in the Wild’. Advocates of self-driving cars say they will be safer because the majority of accidents are caused by human error.
Daily Mail 15 May
Pete Underwood
Back to Table of Contents
Iron Bridge The historic cast iron bridge across the River Severn at Ironbridge is going to be under scaffolding until the end of the year while it is painted to match its original dark red-brown hue. The bridge was built by Abraham Darby 111 in 1779. His grand father had pioneered the smelting of iron using coke from 1709.
Daily Mail 16 May
Pete Underwood
Back to Table of Contents
Professional Engineering April/May 2018 Page 13. As a 17 year old Ngalula Mubenga lived in Kikwit in the Democratic Republic of Congo when her appendix burst. There was no fuel for the hospital power generator for 3 days so she had a 3 day wait for surgery or death. During her wait she decided that if she lived she would become an electrical engineer and develop devices for people living in places like Kikwik so they would have power available to them.
Now an engineer at the University of Toledo in Ohio she is working on a patented bilevel equaliser that will control packs of lithium-ion batteries. Perhaps one of you could explain how this works!
Page 8 of 11
Page 15. After a decade of work, a US research team has achieved a breakthrough that could make solar panels more efficient. The team has coated tiny particles with an organic dye which greatly enhances their ability to capture near-infrared light and re-emit it as visible light. They still have further ideas to work out for coating panels for great improvement in output.
Pages 23 – 27. This edition’s Editor Amit Katwala writes of Merging Man and Machine. Engineers are building human - machine interfaces that can make mind reading a reality or lead to medical devices that can transform people’s lives. He reports a session at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas – Elon Musk, owner of Neuralink showed his team wearing handsfree headsets and playing a video game through thinking their moves.
Other discussion mentioned picking up particular brainwaves and reacting to them. Miniaturising down to something like headphones.
The article mentions Andrew Johnson ( a sufferer from extreme Parkinson’s) whose neurosurgeons drilled into his skull and inserted wires into a target area. Later they gave him a neurostimulator positioned under his collar bone which provides steady pulses of electricity through the wires in his skull.
MIT’s Media Lab demonstrated a wearable device the hangs over the ears and can pick up signals from thinking a movement (with 92% accuracy !)
Now, there are several pages of this article and, like me, you must be thinking but surely in the UK we hear about remarkable things being achieved frequently. What about Stephen Hawking and our own David Gibbons and amazing things regularly reported on the BBC. Perhaps we could discuss such things at one of our Open Sessions.
Pete Underwood
Back to Table of Contents
Page 9 of 11
Lectures Harrow and Hillingdon Geological Society Cavendish Pavilion, Field End Road, Eastcote, HA4 9PG Map
Second Wednesday of the month. Doors open 19:30.
Free to members of HHGS. A £3 donation is asked of visitors.
13/06/2018 The Earth’s surface in the Anthropocene Prof. Heather Viles
11/07/2018 Was Palaeogene volcanism on the Isle of Skye, NW Scotland, initiated by meteorite impact?
Dr Simon Drake (Birkbeck)
12/09/2018 A Plethora of Plesiosaurs - Life in the Jurassic Sea
Sarah Brazier (Etches Collection, Kimmeridge)
10/10/2018 Dippy and the Whale Lorraine Cornish (NHM)
14/11/2018 The Ruislip Bed and other stories Dr Jackie Skipper
12/12/2018 Douwe van der Meer Atlas of the Underworld
09/01/2019 Earthquakes and active faults in central Italy
Zoe Mildon (Plymouth)
13/02/2019 The effects of stratigraphy on the London Underground
Dr Jonathan Paul (Imperial)
Back to Table of Contents
Pinner and District RSPB St John the Baptist Church Parish Hall, Church Lane, Pinner HA5 3AA Map Second Thursday of the month. Start at 8 pm unless otherwise stated. Members £2.50, Visitors £3.50
13/09/2018 Birds of the Russian Far East Chris Collins
11/10/2018 Costa Rica Steve Carter
08/11/2018 Upland Birds followed by Life of Bees Andy Sands
13/12/2018 Wildlife of Finland and Norway Mary Braddock
Back to Table of Contents
Institute of Physics Lectures All our lectures are free to all and last about one hour. There are usually 10 to 15 minutes afterwards for the audience to ask questions
Page 10 of 11
Lectures held at 6.30 p.m. in the Franklin Room, Institute of Physics, 80 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT. Map Refreshments are served from 6.00 p.m. on the day of the lecture. Please register online to attend lectures. E-mail [email protected] or call 020 7470 4938 for further information.
Link to IOP website Back to Table of Contents
Interesting Websites For the less scientifically minded of us How Stuff Works
For the Cosmologists NASA
For those who want to help with scientific research Zooniverse
For the astronomers amongst you Chromoscope
Back to Table of Contents
____________________________________________________________
Recommended Reading 'And so shall ye reap', by Colin Tudgh.
It is about feeding a growing population - recommended by Michael Pascoe
'Radiation and Reason' by Alison Wade - recommended by Michael Pascoe
Back to Table of Contents
Page 11 of 11
Interesting Quotes
If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.
Ernest Rutherford, 1871 to 1937
Physicist
Picture of the month
Kilauea
Back to Table of Contents
