Energising Cambridge

A new student campaign, Energise Cambridge (http://www.energisecambridge.org/), has been launched to try and persuade the University of Cambridge to buy a larger proportion of its energy from renewable suppliers.

The University is currently the fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide of all UK higher education institutions. On 31st January, representatives from Energise Cambridge submitted a policy proposal to the University’s Environmental Strategy Committee. The University is due to finalise its next energy contract in September 2013. With this in mind, the proposal states that, ‘the University’s decisions and actions over the next few years will… define its national and international place as either a leader or a laggard in the response to the global challenge [of climate change].’ The proposal continues, ‘each of us has a moral responsibility to reduce our emissions as much and as quickly as possible.’

The University has been sympathetic to environmental concerns in the past, but currently maintains that any emissions cutting measures should be cost-neutral. This new proposal contains four key recommendations: to commit to an ambitious reduction in carbon intensity, to recognise that adequate action requires investment now, to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of renewable energy options and to further student and staff awareness on such issues.

According to a spokesperson for the campaign, John Wallis, ‘The aim is to encourage the University to do more to combat climate change, to lead the way among top universities, and to inspire students to get involved. Renewable energy policy is extremely complex and we are hopeful that the University will build on our efforts to establish much more ambitious targets.’

The campaign is asking students and staff to complete an online survey in order to gauge the level of support (http://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/770617/Energise-Cambridge). Of the 180 respondents so far, 93% agree or strongly agree that climate change is a serious threat to humanity and 90% would be prepared to pay an extra £10 per year in university fees to help fund the purchase of renewable energy.

The campaign is also organising a rally on Parker’s Piece on 10th February to show support for the policy proposal. The team plan to arrange participants in the shape of a giant wind turbine, which will be photographed from the air.

Written by Tim Middleton

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/em/sustainability/environment/climate/cmp.pdf

Posted in Earth & environment, Science and Policy | Leave a comment

BlueSci: Issue 24 Magazine Meeting

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The magazine meeting for the next issue of BlueSci will be at 7pm on Tues 7th February at the Earth Sciences Common Room in the Downing Site.

This is the chance for you to get involved in several aspects of the magazine.

We are looking for writers and ideas for the regulars, namely Behind the Science, Perspective, History, Arts and Science, Science and Policy, Away from the Bench, Technology and a new section on ‘Hidden Science’. All of these titles and sections are  flexible, so don’t feel constrained by them and bring any ideas you have along to the meeting.

We also need writers for reviews (books and films), weird & wonderful, and the focus article. The focus will have an Olympics theme but the actual topics are entirely up to you. We can have any kind of science from biomechanics to pharmacology to materials science.

We’ll also be signing up people to get involved in editing articles, sourcing pictures and producing the magazine. These are all great opportunities for trying something different and developing new skills.

If you can’t make it to the meeting but want to get involved, please e-mail our Issue Editor, Ian Le Guillou (issue-editor@bluesci.co.uk).

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Bacterial bio-pixels could detect poisons

Researchers led by Prof. Jeff Hasty at the University of California have created “bacterial bio-pixels” by combining two methods used by Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria to communicate with each other. The bio-pixels can then be assembled into circuits that could ultimately be used to detect poisons such as arsenic.

Electron micrograph of a cluster of E. coli bacteria

The two methods of bacterial communication exploited by the researchers were quorum sensing and gas-phase redox signalling. Quorum sensing is an interaction that occurs between cells in a colony, which can be tailored to produce a burst of fluorescence. Although this is a strong interaction within the immediate area, it relies on the propagation of chemical species that diffuse slowly, leading to loss and delay of the signal over longer distances. Gas-phase redox signalling is a comparatively faster communication method and is therefore suitable for use over a longer distance; however, this type of signal is weak and short-lived.

The group combined these two methods with great success. Quorum sensing was used to synchronise the fluorescence of cells within a colony, while gas-phase communication – involving the release and interaction of hydrogen peroxide – was established to rapidly synchronise all the colonies in an array of up to 12,000 colonies, some 2.4 centimetres in length. The colonies were effectively “bio-pixels” in the array, which functioned in a similar manner to a liquid crystal display.

Further engineering of the circuit enabled it to be used as an arsenic-detector. The researchers designed an ON/OFF detection system whereby the bio-pixels fluoresced in the presence of arsenic. Remarkably, they could also quantify the amount of the toxin present in an unknown sample by measuring the effect on fluorescence.

The main drawback to this method is the bulk and expense of the microscopy equipment required to observe the fluorescence. If these problems could be overcome, the researchers believe that their genetic circuit could be implemented in an inexpensive hand-held device for the detection of arsenic and other toxins. 

Written by Ruth E. Gilligan

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Clever corvids: quoth the raven ‘look at this’

Ravens have recently been seen to use the types of gestures previously thought limited to just the great apes and us. These are known as deictic gestures and they serve to bring another individual’s attention to an object of interest. Familiar examples include pointing at or presenting an object to another, which human infants begin to do at around 1-year old.

Like primates, ravens use gestures to communicate

Simone Pika from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and Thomas Bugnyar from the University of Vienna observed the behaviour of 7 raven dyads living in the Austrian Alps, and found 38 examples of such non-vocal communication.  All involved the showing or offering of inedible items such as moss and twigs to another individual. Since the recipient is usually of the opposite sex, it is thought that such communication may be used to gauge the interest of a potential mate, or to strengthen pre-existing bonds.

Ravens, along with other members of the corvid family, were already known to be amongst the most cognitively sophisticated of birds. However, it is not only within the sphere of deictic communication that corvids give primates a run for their money. Ravens are unusually co-operative and invest a great deal of time in establishing relationships, since both parents are required to raise the young. Corvids also perform well on problem-solving tasks that require tool use and innovation.

The study of such non-verbal communication is of interest to those retracing the evolutionary steps of our ancestors and their acquisition of language. The convergent evolution of gestures in a distant relative such as the raven may help to shed light on the purpose of such behaviours.

Written by Rosy Southwell

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BlueSci Film: Wanted – Scientists in the field

We are interested in showcasing the work that scientists here at Cambridge do when away from the city. So if you’re interested in sharing your experiences, contact BlueSci Film Editors Nick and Alex at film@bluesci.co.uk.

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‘Great Lake’ on Jupiter’s moon may harbour life

Scientific analysis of the surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, suggests that warm water rises from its deep oceans to form shallow nutrient-rich lakes that could support life.

Europa's icy surface

Scientists suspect that Jupiter’s icy moon has a salt water ocean 10-30km beneath the ice crust that contains more liquid water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. However, Europa is so far from the Sun that its surface is covered with an ice sheet thought to be tens of miles thick. A thick ice layer makes aquatic life difficult as energy and nutrients can’t circulate between the moon’s surface and its ocean.

Now a team lead by Britney Schmidt from the Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin, has been using images from the Galileo spacecraft to analyse circular, bumpy features on the surface of Europa called ‘chaos terrains’. Chaos terrains are seen on Earth in ice shelves and glaciers that cover volcanoes, and indicate an area of thinner ice. The team have now developed and published a model in Nature, which may explain these phenomena on Europa’s thick ice sheet. They theorise that plumes of warmer water rise from the moon’s depths, melting and fracturing the ice sheet and enabling Europa’s icy crust and ocean to mix vigorously. This allows the transfer of energy and nutrients that favour life.

The model resolves previously conflicting observations of Europa’s ocean; some of which had suggested that the ice shell is thick, others that it is thin. As the current model depends on the analysis of images of the surfaces of Europa and Earth, however, the existence of these plumes can only be confirmed by a future spacecraft mission to probe the ice shell.

Written by Joanna-Marie Howes

DOI: 10.1038/nature10608

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Using antibodies to help prevent HIV infection

Researchers in California have developed a novel form of gene therapy for preventing HIV infection. In a recent Nature paper, the group showed that mice treated with a single dose of this therapy produce long-lived antibodies that fight off HIV and help maintain a normal immune system.

Electron micrograph of HIV-1 (in green) budding off the surface of white blood cells

Thirty years since the first reported case of AIDS, effective treatment for the prevention of HIV transmission has yet to be found. The increasing prevalence of HIV worldwide has made such a discovery even more pertinent today. In 2009 alone, 34 million people were infected with the virus, and nearly 2 million people died.

While many researchers in the field are attempting to confer immunity through vaccines, this new method involves immunization by gene transfer. It actually manipulates the genetic code of muscle cells to enable them to produce stable antibodies that target HIV for destruction.

The researchers who developed this novel therapy at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Los Angeles, have termed it “vectored immunoprophylaxis.” It uses an adenovirus, delivered intramuscularly, to encode for neutralizing antibodies that recognize a protein expressed on the surface of the HIV virus. This protein, known gp120, plays a vital role in helping HIV infect the CD4 T cells of the immune system.

Mice given a single dose of the adenoviral therapy sustained higher levels of CD4 T cells than those not given treatment. Additionally, these mice sustained production of the gp120 antibody for a minimum of 52 weeks and at serum concentrations 100-fold greater than levels achieved with other vectors. The mice’s spleens also showed no staining for antigens expressed by HIV.

This work demonstrates that it is feasible to translate the existing repertoire of neutralizing antibodies into functional HIV therapy for animals. In humans, the antibody’s half-life is even longer, so its effects may be even longer lasting. Future clinical trials will prove how efficacious this novel therapy may be for humans.

Written by Leila Haghighat

doi:10.1038/nature10660

Posted in Life sciences, Medical & clinical | Leave a comment

BlueSciFilm: We are Sitting in the Mollusc Store

Snails, clams, squids and octopoda… Dr. Richard Preece took BlueSci film editor Nick Crumpton behind the scenes in the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge to see the 100,000 specimens of bivalves, gastropods and cephalopods kept behind the museum’s closed doors. For the past year researchers in the museum have been taking stock of the collection, photographing historical specimens and making the resource available to the public online. Dr. Preece talked to BlueSci about why this was undertaken, what the collection holds and why the Cambridge material is so important.

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Weird and Wonderful

A selection of the wackiest research in the world of science

The brain-burning smoke alarm

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Scientists from japan have discovered how to wake the hearing impaired in the event of a fire, and in doing so have won themselves the 2011 Ig Nobel prize.  The ingenious “Odor Generation Alarm and Method for Informing Unusual Situation” is a standard fire alarm with a difference. Instead of relying on sound as an alert when a hazard is detected, it sprays an unpleasant scent.

In the design of their alarm, the inventors made use of wasabi, a relative of the horseradish. Commonly served with sushi, the condiment is given its pungency by the chemical allyl isothiocyanate. The scientists discovered that this odourous chemical can stimulate pain receptors in the nasal passages. In fact, this stimulation occurs to such an extent that inhalation of the optimal concentration of airborne wasabi can wake a sleeping person in under two minutes.  Because smell perception changes during sleep, scent alone is not enough to rouse a person, but the brain-burning sensation produced by wasabi is, since pain receptors continue to function normally during sleep.

The researchers suggest that the alarm could be further developed into an alarm clock or even a doorbell. Nicola Love

It’s a wrap!

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Ever wondered what happens after death? For Alan Billis, a taxi driver from Torquay, the answer was on-air mummification in a Channel 4 documentary entitled “Mummifying Alan: Egypt’s Last Secret”. Alan was mummified in the style of 18th dynasty Egyptian pharaohs using techniques developed by the archaeological chemist Stephen Buckley.

Buckley’s team began by making an incision in Billis’s left side and removing all internal organs but the heart, which was thought to be the seat of intelligence and wisdom by the ancient Egyptians. They then packed his body cavity with linen bags and covered him with sesame oil, beeswax, and resin. This mixture protected his skin while he was immersed for five weeks in a bath of concentrated Natron salt. After drying his body, the team wrapped Billis in linens containing family mementos—important tokens for his journey into the afterlife.

CT scans showed that Billis’s body was well-preserved 93 days after starting the mummification process. His body will remain ‘entombed’ for further scientific observation. The team’s success makes Billis the first person to be mummified in this way in 3500 years. Described as “shocking” and “not an easy watch” by reviewers, the documentary sparked considerable controversy.  Jordan Ramsey

Could you live on caffeine?

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University of Iowa scientists have identified bacteria that can live on caffeine. One, known as Pseudomonas putida CBB5, was even found lolling in a flowerbed on the University campus.

Caffeine is found naturally in more than 60 different plants. Its molecular structure features three clusters of carbon and hydrogen atoms, known as methyl groups, enabling caffeine to resist degradation by other bacteria. Human liver enzymes, which have the task of breaking down caffeine and other drugs, can only get part of the way. This bacterium uses four newly identified digestive enzymes to chop down caffeine into a carbon dioxide and ammonia molecule. Through this process, the bacterium harvests energy, achieving things with caffeine that humans are unable to.

Ryan Summers, the doctoral researcher who led the study, said no previous research has located caffeine consumption in any other microbe species. He and his collaborators also noted that this finding could someday have implications outside of the highly caffeinated Petri dish.

The bacterial digestive enzymes could be used to develop new medications to treat heart arrhythmias or asthma, or to boost blood flow.  They could also be used in large scale processes to help break down excess caffeine, which is often generated as a by-product of decaffeinated coffee and tea processing. Mariana Fonseca

Posted in Life sciences, Medical & clinical, Technology | Leave a comment

A Day in the Life: The Science Diplomat

Ian Le Guillou interviews David Clary

Prof. David Clary, Chief Scientific Advisor to the FCO

David clary is a Professor of theoretical chemistry and President of Magdalen College, Oxford. In 2009 he was appointed the first Chief Scientific Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). In an interview with Ian Le Guillou he discusses what this role entails and how science is involved in foreign policy decision-making.

The FCO was one of the last major government departments to appoint a Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA). Why did it eventually decide it needed one?

There are several departments in the FCO that deal increasingly with matters linked to science, so having a Chief Scientific Adviser was a useful step to take.  There’s climate change and the science behind that, which has to keep in communication all the time. There are new renewable energies coming forward and the debate about whether to have nuclear or not, to have wind or not, the importance of shale gas and so on.  Counter-proliferation and counter-terrorism are obviously of great interest; I can’t say much about that for confidential reasons but it really is a major concern of the FCO. Also there are territories that are still administered by the FCO and there are major scientific aspects of several of these.

What is your role within the FCO?

Some government departments have a very large budget and staff for science but not the Foreign Office, where the emphasis is more on influence with other countries. A very important part of the work that I do is to build partnerships to encourage collaboration between UK science and overseas science. I also work to promote UK public science and the FCO’s role in that, and to strengthen the science and engineering capacity in the FCO. In addition, I engage with the cross-government group of science advisers and provide advice to the Foreign Secretary, ministers and officials on science, technology and innovation.

Read More »

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