The biological effects of aging are clear for all to see.

The average age of the British public is steadily rising. Life-expectancy has increased substantially in recent years, and this coupled to a decline in birth rate means that society now has more pensioners than teenagers.

The biological effects of aging are clear for all to see: the inevitable appearance of wrinkles, reduced mobility, increased incidence of arthritis and diabetes, reduced heart and kidney function and loss of sight. Most of these put a strain on global health services, as well as increasing dependence and the burden of care. But what if we could slow down the aging process? What if poor health did not have to go hand in hand with advancing years?

Many researchers have investigated the aging process and the ways in which it can be manipulated to better the quality of life in later years. A common feature of many of the afflictions associated with aging is reduced function in proteins that hold the cells and tissues of our body together. Many of these proteins have a life that spans tens of years. They are therefore subject to many chemical and enzymatic modifications that can affect their native function over time.

One such modification that is prevalent in old age is protein glycation. Glycation occurs when a sugar molecule – most frequently glucose – chemically reacts with a protein or its derivatives. The resulting protein modification is known as an Advanced Glycation End product (AGE). This AGE has the potential to chemically link itself to a second protein to form a cross-link that restricts flexibility and elasticity and thus reduces protein function.

The proteins that are most commonly damaged by glycation are those that are not recycled quickly by enzymes in the body. Protein recycling can keep cross-links in check as AGEs are destroyed with the protein. If this ‘turnover’ is very slow, however, glycation accumulates. The protein collagen is one such affected molecule as in some instances it may not be replaced within a lifetime. Collagen makes up 30 % of total protein in the body and forms the basis of many vital organs such as the heart, kidney and skin. Because of its ubiquity and age, collagen is very commonly subject to glycation in the elderly. Cross-linking of collagen can reduce elasticity of the skin or lead to the formation of cataracts in the eyes. It can also cause stiffness in the arteries and walls of the heart that may eventually lead to heart failure.

Besides the elderly, people who suffer with Type II diabetes are particularly badly affected by AGE cross-linking. Whilst older people have an abundance of long-lived protein that has slowly accumulated the cross-links, Type II diabetics have abnormally high levels of glucose in their system leaving a surplus available to glycate the protein.

Ultimately AGE cross-linking will affect us all as we grow older, however, it is not all bad news. Studies indicate that a simple yet effective solution to this problem is at hand: exercise. It was discovered that the more weight-bearing exercise one does, the more frequently collagen is turned over and so fewer cross-links accumulate. This is a great preventative measure for people who are concerned about the effects of aging in later life. Few octo- and nonagenarians, however, are predisposed to wrestling a 10 mile jog twice a week.

Dietary restriction is another simple way to keep AGE accumulation in check. Reducing the amount of sugar consumed can help to reduce the surplus that is available and thus help to prevent protein modification. Furthermore, foods cooked at high temperatures such as grilled or fried meats are a source of externally-formed AGEs. When consumed these can form cross-links with proteins residing in the body. Restricting the consumption of these foodstuffs would also help slow AGE accumulation in bodily tissues. Regular exercise and a moderate diet that is rich in lightly cooked vegetables – sound familiar?

From a more medical standpoint, numerous would-be therapeutics are currently in development. These aim to reduce AGE formation in the body by inhibiting different steps in the chemical reaction. One such drug is aminoguanidine. It sequesters reactive intermediate components of the glycation reaction and thus ultimately prevents the linking of glucose to the protein. This drug is currently in clinical trials but so far has shown low activity and some nasty side-effects such as anaemia in humans and kidney tumours in rats. Other drugs are being developed that follow the same kind of mechanism, but no stand-out success stories have been reported yet.

Collagen is a major structural protein in the human body.

Although the solutions and treatments mentioned above offer great ways to prevent protein cross-linking from occurring in the future, few of them do anything to tackle the proteins that have already been cross-linked within the body. We need a treatment that can destroy AGE- linked protein without altering other important proteins that reside close to the damaged sites.

A promising small molecule drug that went by the name of Alagebrium was designed to breakdown protein cross-links in order to restore the proteins to their natural state. It showed encouraging results in human clinical trials. Some patients reported dramatic improvements in movement and flexibility, along with other health benefits such as improved kidney function and hypertension. In several instances where Alagebrium was fed to old-aged dogs, their quality of life reportedly improved as agility, flexibility and general youthfulness was restored. Unfortunately, the company that pioneered this treatment encountered financial difficulties and terminated all investigation in to this promising therapy.

Our lab is looking for new types of these ‘AGE-breaker’ treatments. We are funded by the SENS Foundation who work to develop and promote rejuvenation biotechnologies that address the disabilities and diseases of aging. Finding a successful AGE-breaker is a very challenging prospect. By their very nature, protein cross-links are hidden deep down within tissues and fibres, and so it is very hard for any conventional treatment to reach them and break them down.  While it would seem sensible to use an enzyme to chew its way through cross-links, freeing the proteins and renewing tissue flexibility, unfortunately even enzymes may be too big to fit into the tiny gaps between densely-packed collagen fibres. On the plus side, the AGE cross-links are quite dissimilar chemically to anything else in the body. Therefore specifically targeting them should be straightforward if we can find the right drugs to do the job and if we can actually get these to the AGEs in the first instance.

But who would be willing to pay for the research necessary to find these age-busting treatments? In an aging society, we are always striving to prevent wrinkles, to stay youthful and to keep our health, looks and fitness for as long as possible. The cosmetics industry feeds millions of dollars every year into research to find the next big skin cream that ‘reduces the signs of aging’. If a proportion of this funding was directed toward investigation into protein cross-link breakers, success in this area could be quick and plentiful.

For now, the problem remains to find a treatment which can help prevent or remove protein cross-linking to improve health and quality of life in the older generation. For a new post-doc at Cambridge the issue seems a bit remote, but one day everybody will reach old age. It will be at this time when we really wish more effort had been diverted towards holding off or even reversing the decline in physical and mental faculties that today are the inevitable result of getting old. Continued research into this area may one day reveal the sought after cure that allows us to stay healthy, youthful and productive for longer.

 Rhian Grainger is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology.

The fossils include part of the Yutyrannus tail, and crucially, its skull. They reveal the sharp teeth and pointed head of a typical theropod – a carnivore that walked on its hind legs. Although smaller than its T.rex cousin, Yutyrannus weighed 1.4 tons and is by far the largest feathered dinosaur ever to have been discovered; 40 times heavier than Beipiaosaurus, the previously plumed record-holder.

Yutyrannus weighed 1.4 tons and had six inch long feathers

The paper, published in Nature, raises intriguing questions as to why some of these scaly reptiles developed this ‘fuzzy down’-like plumage typical of a newly hatched duckling. The six inch long feathers of Yutyrannus were only simple filaments, certainly not adequate for flight, supporting the theory that they evolved for insulation. The surrounding soil dates back 125 million years to the mid-Cretaceous period; and this was thought to be a particularly chilly time. Although it is not known whether Yutyrannus was warm or cold blooded, even a thin insulating plumage could aid survival in these climates. Conversely, the feathers may have been used in mating displays, hinting at complex behaviours not traditionally associated with these terrifying lizards.

Feathers are notoriously hard to preserve in the fossil record, so the true extent of feathered dinosaurs may never be known. The sheer size of Yutyrannus however is decisive, as we can now say with confidence that feathers were not solely evolved for flight. Instead, evolution hijacked existing features of sexual selection or adaptations to the cold to propel dinosaurs into the skies.

Written by Zac Baynham-Herd

DOI:10.1038/nature10906

Scientists at Northwestern University, Illinois have been the first to develop a nanoparticle that can deliver anti-cancer drugs directly to the nucleus of a cancer cell. This is a notable step forward for targeted cancer therapies, as well as related biological and chemical fields.

The nanoparticles themselves are actually gold stars, approximately 25 nanometres in width. They have been described by Teri Odom, who led the study on human cervical and ovarian cancer cells as “tiny hitchhikers”. This is because the stars are attracted to a protein on the surface of the cancer cell which then “conveniently shuttles the nanostars to the cell’s nucleus”.  Upon reaching the nucleus the drug is released from the surface of the nanostar and starts targeting the cancer.

Nano-hitchhikers target the nuclei of cancer cells

The research carried out by Odom and her team is also impressive as they have been the first to image how the nanoparticles interact with a cancer cell’s nucleus. Using electron microscopy the team observed how the drug-loaded nanoparticles radically changed the shape of the cancer cell nucleus from a smooth ellipsoid to a deformed, uneven shape with deep folds. This change was due to cells dying and the cell population becoming less viable –both very good news for cancer treatment.

Since the initial research the nano-hitchikers have had similar effects on twelve other types of human cancer cell lines, suggesting the development could lead to generalised treatment for different cancers. The large surface are of the nanostars are a very efficient method of drug delivery, as a high concentration of drug molecules can be loaded onto the star.

Nanostar development seems to have advanced several important areas in cancer treatment and drug delivery design, with positive and valuable results. In years to come people may well be thanking their nanostars.

Written by Laura Stevens

DOI: 10.1021/nn300296p

Leeches can 'store' mammalian DNA

Now a team of researchers from Copenhagen and Cambridge publishing in Current Biology has shown that mammalian blood can be identified from within leeches for at least four months following feeding. The scientists then investigated 25 specimens of the Haemadipsa leech from the Central Annamite rain forest in Vietnam from which they were able to identify mitochondrial DNA specific to 6 mammal species, including that from Capricornis maritimus, a goat-antelope threatened by environmental degradation from logging. Other mitochondrial DNA recovered serves as the first confirmed record of the Annamite striped rabbit (Nesolagus timminsi) being present in the area sampled.

Other species of leech are used in biomedicine research due to the naturally occurring anticoagulant they produce. Now the scientists hope this tropical species and others like it will help conservation biologists monitor biodiversity inexpensively and more easily in hard to reach tropical environments.

Written by Nick Crumpton

DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.02.058

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Scientists from Oregon state University have found that placing oestrogen capsules in male snakes makes them attractive to other males and even preferred over the smaller females. This gives an important insight into how the male snakes seek out a partner. Every spring, red-sided garter snakes emerge from limestone caves to form their unique ‘mating balls’, which involve one female becoming swarmed by several males during mating. Oestrogen is important for producing the female sex pheromones released into the air by females. By flickering their tongues to sense the pheromones, males can assess the species, sex, size, age and reproductive conditions of the female, helping them choose their mate. Surprisingly, the oestrogen capsules were able to fool the snakes into believing they had found a suitable partner. This link between oestrogen and mating helps explain the phenomenon of ‘she-males’—males who are found to produce female sex pheromones in response to exposure from oestrogen mimicking pollutants in the environment.  Martha Stokes

Levitating Flies

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Studying the consequences of weightlessness is no longer confined to experiments in space. Scientists from Nottingham University have successfully studied the effects of weightlessness on fruit flies without leaving their lab. The researchers created their own microgravity environment using an extremely powerful super-conducting magnet. Fruit flies and other organisms are diamagnetic, which means they are repelled by magnetic fields. Normally this is too weak to be noticed but inside the hollow core of the scientists’ magnet, the magnetic field was just strong enough to balance out gravity, making the flies essentially weightless. The potential to use this ‘diamagnetic levitation’ for studying microgravity was first shown in 2000 when Dutch researchers levitated several small animals, including a live frog. The fruit fly study now shows that this technique effectively mimics conditions in space, as the flies’ responses inside the magnet corresponded perfectly with that of flies living in the International Space Station. Understanding the consequences of weightlessness is very important for enabling long-term space stays, but investigating it has been very expensive. The new method greatly reduces the research costs, so these levitating flies may well represent an important step towards deep space exploration.  Emma Bornebroek 

That’s a Rap

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Researchers from Purdue University have designed a medical implant for monitoring bladder and blood pressure. However, this is no ordinary device; instead of using batteries, it is powered by the acoustic energy of rap music. The mini device contains a small lever capable of converting vibrations into electrical power. The lever vibrates and charges a capacitor while the music plays at the low frequencies usually found in rap. When the lever stops vibrating, the stored energy triggers a pressure sensor to take a reading and the data is transmitted back to a receiver via a radio signal. If hip-hop is not your thing, then slight tweaks to the lever length or thickness would allow it to respond to a range of musical genres. Previous devices required precise alignment between sensor and receiver, short transmission ranges and complicated circuitry. This novel device overcomes these challenges and has the bonus of being powered by your favourite tunes.  Yvonne Collins

Although the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) no longer has to worry about Nazi raiders, life in it is still tough. From its conception as a World War II survey post, to studying melting caused by global warming, the BAS calls for unusual researchers. Two such scientists—Pierre Dutrieux, an observational oceanographer and Paul Holland, a computer modeller—spoke to BlueSci about the unique nature of their work.

Finding out what happens beneath five hundred metres of ice in pitch-black darkness is not easy. Dutrieux describes his work with Autosub 3, a submarine designed to travel beneath the ice. The little submarine observes everything from ice thickness to water type by sonar, and is significantly autonomous. Not that it is infallible—the two men reminisce about a near disaster:

“It’s a bit like sending a robot to the moon.”

“It got stuck in a crevasse.”

“Sixty metres into the ice, away from any form of human life […] for two minutes, it was crawling along this wall.”

Such instances are not unusual. There are many researchers who ‘go south’ just to find that weather conditions make science impossible, and remain in tents for the whole trip.

Observation time is strictly limited as the Antarctic is only accessible for a few months a year. Britain lacks icebreaker ships and their object of study, the Amundsen Sea, is one of the most inaccessible regions, taking two weeks on a ship just to get there. The journey is rough on the nerves.

The British Antarctic survey teams operate in extreme conditions, with limited resources.

“In general you have sixty people cooped up on the boat, including only something like twenty-two to thirty scientists, and the rest just make the boat run. Most crews I’ve been with have been able to forget their egos for two months and get on with the job. Though there are some people who find it very, very difficult to adjust,” Dutrieux notes.

Holland agrees, “It was really, really long hours, no days off, and a night shift every day. I found it really hard to be stuck in a small ship with everyone every day.  You learn to have to hide your emotions, but you get to see some amazing things. Seals, icebergs…”

That the modeller has also been to the Antarctic is surprising. “There’s a strong feeling that the observations should not just be treated as ‘the truth’.  The people here felt that I needed to go South to understand the difficulties involved in what they were doing every year. And to learn how far you could trust the measurements.”

By some accounts, these experiences are still mild compared with the experience of other BAS staff. Rothera Ice Station “supports SCUBA diving through the entire winter period”. The inhabitants of Sky-Blu base refer to it as a penal colony. The non-scientific staff at the bases stay for 6–18 months at a stretch. “One Antarctic winter and two Antarctic summers is the traditional [amount of] time before people become completely insane,” Dutrieux notes wryly.

So how does one get this ultimate ‘away from the bench’ experience? Ironically, it is through the most in-the-library and at-the-blackboard skills. “For the job that we do, the critical skills are maths and physics. This is something many people suffer from, people who have done degrees in meteorology and geography will often not get a job in preference to someone who has no experience [but] has a background in physics, because people take the view that physics is hard to teach people while oceanography is easy to teach people. So, study maths.”

Hugo Schmidt is a 4th year PhD student in the Department of Biochemistry

“There are known knowns…there are known unknowns…but there are also unknown unknowns—there are things we do not know we don’t know.” 

— Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld was talking about weapons of mass destruction, but his remarks are just as pertinent in other spheres of policy-making. In 2009, the swine flu pandemic killed at least 18,000 people; in 2010, the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull severely disrupted air traffic in northwest Europe; and in 2011, the tsunami that followed the Japanese Tohoku earthquake killed tens of thousands and precipitated a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power plant. Were these known unknowns or unknown unknowns? Should we have been able to predict these disasters? Or could we have been better prepared for the unpredictable?

Risk and uncertainty regularly crop up in the field of science and policy. Risk is the product of the likelihood of a certain event and the severity of its consequences should it occur. Last year, the Government Office for Science published the “Blackett Review of High Impact Low Probability Risks”. The review presents a number of ways in which such risks can be assessed and quantified. Unfortunately, though, it is not always possible to assess the relevant probabilities and consequences; what you’re left with is uncertainty. So what can we do in the face of such uncertainty?

One proposed solution is the precautionary principle, namely that in the absence of scientific consensus, the burden of proof that an action is not harmful falls on those taking the action. The principle has proved increasingly popular and is enshrined in much of international law, but it remains a slippery concept. As many as 14 different definitions of the precautionary principle have been found in the legal literature; as a result, different parties interpret and apply the principle in different ways. A nagging problem also remains: the precautionary principle does not allow for the risk of doing nothing. For example, the side-effects of a vaccine may not be understood well enough to justify its use, but if it is not employed the disease remains a threat.

Policy making for high impact, low probability events can be a risky business.

Another approach is to ‘ask the experts’. Again, though, this is not a perfect solution: if the science is inherently uncertain and there is little evidence to call on, then what use is a scientist’s gut feeling? Worse still, the public will be angry if the scientists prove to be wrong. Italian scientists are currently on trial, charged with manslaughter, for failing to communicate the risk before the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake. If scientists are asked to make pronouncements in cases where evidence is scant and the cost of getting it wrong is so high, then they are unlikely to be forthcoming.

A third possibility is to build so-called ‘resilient systems’. A resilient system can maintain operations despite suffering from unpredictable faults. The internet is a good example: computer scientists have been pretty adept at constructing a system that does not break too often and is readily fixed. But how does one go about developing resilience in natural systems—how can we protect against unpredictable outbreaks of disease?

The only real way to proceed is with humility, transparency and through open discussion; but admitting that you simply do not know is rarely politically simple. The way in which risk and uncertainty is perceived and communicated is therefore vital. Managing the public’s fears is, in many senses, as important as tackling the disaster in hand.

As Niels Bohr is alleged to have said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” The rather frustrating challenge that remains for policy-makers is what to do about it.

Tim Middleton is a 4th year undergraduate in the Department of Earth Sciences

The decade since the publication of the human genome sequence has seen an explosion in the sequencing of genomes. Prior to its release in 2001 only 42 other genomes, mostly of low complexity, had been sequenced, and of these only 4 were non-bacterial. As of 2011 this number is over 60 times higher, with over 250 non-bacterial genomes now available, including dog, mouse and chimpanzee.

The publicly funded Human Genome Project (HGP) took 10 years to complete, at a cost of $400 million. In 2000, US President Clinton announced that the publication of the human genome “will revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of most, if not all, human diseases.” A year prior to that Dr Francis Collins, who led the public effort, predicted that within a decade patients would be able to undertake prophylactic drug regimes based on predictive genetic tests. Understandably, such bold claims generated great anticipation and heralded the dawning of a new medical era.

The woolly mammoth is one of several extinct species to have their genome sequenced.

Ten years on, there is a definite feeling of public disappointment; Matt Ridley, of the Wall Street Journal, wrote disparagingly that “genomics has always been sold as a medical story, yet it keeps underdelivering useful medical knowledge.” Collins has also conceded that the genome has not yet yielded as many clinical successes as predicted. A group of researchers in Switzerland even argue that in hindsight, the HGP could be described as an economic ‘social bubble’ where investment far outstrips any rational expectation of financial return.

With severe austerity measures in place globally and subsequent science funding cuts, we might ask if continued genome sequencing is of value—or are we merely embarking on more ‘bubbles’? 2011 saw the publication of both the wild strawberry and naked mole rat genomes, whilst the genomes of the woolly mammoth and South American opossum were published in 2008 and 2007 respectively. How do such obscure genomes benefit society or science?

Continued sequencing has driven revolutions in sequencing technology. When the HGP started in 1990, traditional techniques could read up to 25,000 DNA bases—the subunits that make up our DNA—in a week; at its conclusion this had increased to a dramatic 5 million bases. Current next-generation sequencing techniques, which were used to assemble the wild strawberry genome, can now sequence an astounding 250 billion bases per week with a simultaneous 100,000 fold decrease in cost. However, these developments have brought other hurdles with them. Assembling an unknown genome is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without being able to see the picture on the box. If the HGP was a 100-piece puzzle then the new projects are 1000-piece puzzles—the pieces are more numerous and a lot smaller, making it harder to put them together. Naturally, as more genomes are published, the easier assembly will become with the availability of similar ‘reference genomes’. The wild strawberry provides a basis for genomes of commercially important crops of the same family, including peaches and cherries. It will also aid sequencing of commercial strawberries which, like many crops, has been severely inbred and possesses several genome copies each—making sequence assembly even harder.

The wild strawberry (left) genome will help improve commercial strawberry crops (right).

Despite many readily available plant genomes, crop breeding has not been able to take advantage of the genomic revolution. Traditionally, traits that improve crops are difficult to breed in from wild varieties, and it can take up to 10 years of crossing to gain desired traits and breed out unwanted ‘wild’ characteristics. Fortunately, this is set to change with a recent study published in Nature Biotechnology. To speed up the process, researchers made use of both the rice genome reference, published in 2005, and the new, quicker sequencing techniques. They were able to take a natural rice strain and mutate it, causing random changes within the genome that changed the plant’s characteristics. They were able to find exactly where the mutations occur by re-sequencing new plants and comparing their results to the reference genome. They created the ‘MutMap’, which maps mutations with different plant features. This aids the tracking of characteristics during breeding and thus reduces breeding times to one year. It is already being used to breed more salt-resistant rice strains for growth in Japanese paddy fields affected by salt water from the 2011 tsunami.

Plant genomes are not alone in benefiting science and society. Methods for handling ancient DNA through sequencing the pre-historic woolly mammoth helped with the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, which could give us an idea of what it is that makes us human. Other non-human genomes also helped in the two to three years following the human genome publication. At the time it was only 90 per cent complete and filling in the gaps was difficult; however comparing sequences with other mammals significantly helped complete it. Today, comparative genomics can suggest a gene’s function. For example, researchers at the Babraham Institute have used genomes from marsupials, which have primitive placentas, and compared them to the human genome to identify factors important in the growth of a developing placenta. Moreover, as many mammals suffer from the same diseases as humans, having multiple genomes to compare will be invaluable. In this light, it is hoped that the naked mole rat will help us understand ageing.

Salt-resistant rice crops would aid social recovery after tsunamis.

Despite the perpetrated “under deliverance” of the HGP, it has still fuelled the discovery of more than 1,800 disease genes and over 2,000 genetic tests are available. A map similar to the ‘MutMap’ called the ‘HapMap’ has also been created, mapping all human mutations and is indispensable in identifying disease-causing genes. In the late 1980s, the gene and mutation associated with cystic fibrosis took many years and $50 million to find; nowadays with the genome and ‘HapMap’ it could take mere months.

The first law of technology states we invariably overestimate the short-term impacts of new technologies and underestimate their longer-term effects. This is undoubtedly true for genomics. The last decade has perhaps seen more genomes published than medical cures, but the technology and reference genomes gained through international collaboration will certainly yield huge social and academic benefits in the coming decades.

Nicola Stead is a 4th year PhD student at the Babraham Institute

In 1952 Joseph Needham, along with a team of five other internationally respected scientists, was commissioned by the World Peace Council to investigate the allegation that the US was using biological weapons in China and Korea. Whilst the majority of the Western world put it down to nothing more than Chinese whispers, the commission gathered evidence from doctors and local citizens as well as American prisoners of war. Its final report concluded that the American military were indeed experimenting with biological weapons, although the US continues to deny this. In peace time, as in war, the relationship between the Eastern and Western worlds came to consume Needham’s work and he is now widely regarded as the greatest sinologist to be spawned from the West.

After a somewhat turbulent childhood, Needham secured a place to study Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. When he arrived at Gonville and Caius College in 1918 he intended to follow his father into the medical profession. However, under the guidance of Frederick Hopkins, he became ensnared by the chemistry of biological processes. The recruitment of Needham and other promising young scientists was part of Hopkins’s attempt to establish biochemistry as a field distinct from either medical physiology or organic chemistry. In 1924 the Dunn Institute of Biochemistry (now renamed after Hopkins) was opened, and Biochemistry became its own department with Hopkins at the helm. In the same year, Needham married fellow biochemist Dorothy Moyle, now acclaimed for her work on muscle contraction. Needham focussed on embryo development, searching for the chemical agents that enable a single cell to develop into a complex and differentiated organism. Needham was so interested in the field that he wrote a million word survey, entitled Chemical Embryology, detailing its historical and latest findings.

Joseph Needham having lunch with his wife Dorothy (right) and his assistant Lu Gwei-djen (left).

Cambridge’s scientific community nurtured much more than Needham’s academic development, it also provided him with political allies. In the context of straining international tensions, the Cambridge Anti-War Council was set up. An adamant pacifist, Needham took the chair for its first public meeting in 1932, in the company of physical scientist and socialist JD Bernal and chemist Dorothy Hodgkin. The council organised a demonstration on Armistice Day in 1933 to protest against the militarisation of research and in favour of peace. The demonstrators soon found themselves the targets of projectile attack, after being ambushed by the Cambridge University Conservative Association. As they continued along their planned route towards the town war memorial, the remnants of eggs and rotten tomatoes seeped into their clothing. The Evening Standard reported the day’s events under the headline ‘Hooligans in Cambridge’, but the protesters were surprised to read that the headline was intended to describe them rather than their Conservative opponents.

In 1937, with a return to war looking ever more likely, the Cambridge Department of Biochemistry prepared to welcome three new visitors from abroad, the Chinese scientists Lu Gwei-djen, Wang Ying-lai and Chen Shi-zhang.  Lu became Needham’s assistant, and he developed a strong attachment to her and her interest in the history of Chinese civilization. In 1942, Needham jumped at the chance to visit Lu’s homeland when he was tasked by the British Council to establish a Sino-British Scientific Cooperation Bureau in Chongqing; this aimed to facilitate the provision of scientific equipment and literature to universities and laboratories across Western China. Needham spent four years in China, practising the language that Lu had taught him, and was always keen to discuss the history of Chinese science.

On returning to Cambridge, Needham resolved to continue delving into China’s scientific past. He discovered evidence of historically neglected advancements; the Chinese were the first to have knowledge of magnetic polarity, the earliest to manufacture cast iron, and should have been credited with the discovery of gunpowder. Needham began work on an extensive record of his findings. The first volume of Science and Civilisation in China was published in 1954 and a further seventeen had been added by the time Needham died in 1995 at the age of 94. Work on the project continues today, based at the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge.

One issue troubled Needham particularly—why, after achieving so much in ancient times, did scientific advancement fizzle out in China while in Europe it began to accelerate, laying what we identify as the foundations of ‘modern science’? This has become known as Needham’s Grand Question.

British scientific equipment and literature arriving in West China for distribution to universities and laboratories.

In developing a grand answer, Needham emphasised the impact of Confucianism and Taoism on the pace of Chinese scientific discovery, and contrasted what he called the Chinese ‘diffusionist’ approach with the ‘inventive’ approach favoured in the West. Scientific progress did continue in China, but simply could not keep up with the exponential growth of scientism sparked by the European Renaissance. However, it seems that the tables are on the verge of turning once more as China is rapidly becoming a scientific powerhouse; while scientific activity in many nations stagnates, China’s share in scientific publishing has more than doubled over the past decade, now second only to the USA. The rich tradition of Chinese science highlighted by Needham looks set to continue.

A polymath academically, Needham’s personal life also reveals his multifaceted identity. He sustained a lifelong attachment to religion, attending church in the Essex town of Thaxted, where the revolutionary socialist priest Conrad Noel presided, though Needham converted late in life to Daoism. He was also a keen Morris dancer and joined the Cambridge Morris Men soon after arriving at University—he was reportedly a skilled performer, light on his feet and a renowned accordionist.

Known throughout China as Li Yuese, Needham was a truly remarkable person and his achievements are many and varied. He was Master of Gonville and Caius from 1966 to 1976, bestowed the title of Companion of Honour, and elected a fellow both to the Royal Society and the British Academy. However, his lasting legacy will be his work in the field of the history of science; Needham’s love of China started with an attempt to bring knowledge of Western science to the East, but ultimately inspired him to bring knowledge of Eastern science to the West.

Helen Gaffney is a 3rd year undergraduate in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science 

Beth Venus looks at how thought experiments have explained scientific phenomena.

It is a misconception that the poet is more of a dreamer than the scientist. Yet a huge range of crucial and inspired thought experiments—the exquisite dreams of scientists—have signposted scientific progress in almost every field. In particular, insights gleaned from mental laboratories have had world-changing consequences in physics and are helping to provide an understanding of our own minds.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa enabled Galileo to illustrate his theory.

Galileo, one of the first modern scientists, unveiled a number of pivotal thought experiments fundamental to classical physics. Prior to Galileo, it was argued that Earth must be stationary. According to proponents of this argument, if Earth rotated to the east, a ball dropped from a tower would land to the west. In reality, though, we never see this happen, so Earth must be stationary. Galileo countered the argument for a still Earth by considering a man below decks on a ship moving with uniform velocity. The man can pace around his compartment and be completely unaware of the movement of the ship. From this thought experiment came the principle of relativity, which states that uniform motion cannot be distinguished from rest. Galileo’s ship informs us that it is too hasty to conclude that Earth is stationary—it could be rotating uniformly and the ball would plummet to the base of the tower nonetheless.

In his most legendary thought experiment, Galileo dropped a heavy cannonball and a lighter musket ball from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Galileo’s contemporaries believed that the heavier cannonball would fall faster. He righted this by testing the case of a musket ball attached to a cannonball: based on  accepted belief, since the combined mass of these two balls is greater than that of the cannonball alone, the compound object should fall to the ground faster than the cannonball alone. Yet, as the musket ball is attached to the cannonball, it should also slow the cannonball down. This implies that the compound object must fall faster than the cannonball yet also more slowly.  The only way to avoid this contradiction is if both balls fall at the same speed. Through this thought experiment, Galileo revealed a stark truth about reality that is not obvious from our day to day experience—that is, the acceleration of bodies falling to earth is constant regardless of whether they are heavy or light. Like any good thought experiment, Galileo’s contemplations brought about a re-conceptualisation of reality, allowing science to switch tracks and divert from serious misconceptions.

Einstein’s thought experiment did not have the effect he had intended.

Enlightening thought experiments are not confined to classical mechanics. In the field of quantum mechanics, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (EPR) constructed a thought experiment that suggests reality is much stranger than our physical expectations. The three were unable to accept the intrinsic uncertainty in the states of elementary particles and attempted to present it as an absurdity. This thought experiment is known as the EPR paradox and is based on a property of particles called spin. The EPR paradox describes a particle with zero spin decaying into two particles with opposing spins. When the particles are produced they would not have a spin in one direction or the other, but both at the same time. It is not until one of the particles is measured that this ‘superposition’ collapses and both particles have definite and opposing spins. Say the particles move off in opposite directions and travel for light years before we measure their spins. Upon measurement, their spins become fixed. One is up and one is down. According to one interpretation of quantum mechanics, the particles must communicate instantaneously across space so that each ends up in the spin state opposite to the other. Believing that such instantaneous interactions are impossible, Einstein concluded that the particles must have possessed the spin states all along. Therefore, quantum mechanics cannot completely describe reality.

It was down to John Bell to prove Einstein wrong. He set up an inequality which, if violated in nature, would show that the ‘action at a distance’ Einstein rejected must in fact occur. Following this, Alain Aspect showed experimentally that Bell’s inequality is violated. In the end, what was intended as a thought experiment to question quantum theory paved the way for establishing a fundamental, unsettling fact about the nature of reality—non-local interactions between particles can and do happen.

Einstein was a master and great advocate of the art of thought experiments. At 16, he lighted upon his famed thought experiment of chasing a light beam. When the observer, in superhero style, reaches the speed of light, the beam would appear to be stationary. The young Einstein, however, realised that such a phenomenon is never seen. After a period of gestation, this insight gave rise to special relativity, which states that the speed of light is the same for all uniformly moving observers. If you pursue a light beam, it will still streak away from you at the same speed it would have if you were standing still relative to it.  This demonstrates the way in which thought experiments can identify loose threads in our thinking and tug out the most apt models of our universe.

The EPR paradox questions the uncertainty in quantum mechanics.

For the mind to comprehend itself would be as astounding as comprehending the fundamental nature of reality. In attempting to grapple scientifically with consciousness and whether mind is more than matter, philosophers have also proposed many thought experiments. One puzzling kind is where one experiment is accompanied with another that undermines it. Consider, for example, the thought experiment about colour vision dreamt up by the philosopher Frank Jackson. Mary, a neuroscientist, is locked away in her laboratory and can only see in black and white, yet she knows every physical fact about colour, including how the brain processes it. Upon escaping the lab for a walk one spring day with the flowers all in bloom, Mary sees colour for the first time. Jackson proposed that she would exclaim, “Now I know what it feels like to see colours!” She appears to have learnt facts about colours that are not physical, suggesting that an explanation for consciousness cannot be coaxed out by science. In response, philosopher Daniel Dennett proclaimed that Mary would remark, “Colour perception is exactly as I thought!” suggesting that science does explain how the mind works. Now we have a dilemma: what, in truth, would Mary say? Only real experimentation could show us whether consciousness is amenable to a physical, scientific explanation or not.

The subtle power of thought experiments to shed light upon tough problems has itself been the subject of research. It is believed that a scientist constructs a narrative mental model of a physical situation and applies logical reasoning to follow the situation through to its end point.  As thought experiments are based on our experiences of the world, the inferred outcome is the one we expect based on the physical information defining the mental model. Subsequently, this outcome can be used to theorise and experiment in the real world, making thought experiments an incredible aid to comprehending the physical world. Thus, our quintessential image of the scientist should be of one catching up with a streak of light.

Beth Venus is a 1st year undergraduate studying Natural Sciences