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Issue 3
A Giant Leap or a Distant View?
Tuesday, 26 April 2005

Virginia Hooper, Alistair Crosby and Louisa Dunlop investigate the pros and cons of funding for manned exploration of the Solar System versus continued support of the Hubble Space Telescope and other unmanned, space-borne observatories

Kennedy did it in 1961. George Bush Sr did it in 1989. Last year, George Bush did it once again, and heralded the start of a great journey to send men to the moon and then on to Mars. Just days later, it was announced that the famous Hubble Space Telescope would not receive its planned lifeline. We examine both Hubble’s achievements and the new plans for space exploration and ask: does Nasa have its priorities right?

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Focus - Ask the Experts
Tuesday, 26 April 2005

Would you advise that future missions to space should concentrate on understanding the cosmological history of the universe, or instead on exploring our planetary neighbours, perhaps by sending humans there?

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Giving Elephants Wings:
The Science of Proteomics
Tuesday, 19 April 2005

After the sequencing of the human genome, the next big challenge for modern biology is to uncover our 'proteome', the identity of the proteins in our cells. Nicholas T. Hartman reports.

In many ways a living cell is analogous to a computer. The DNA, or hard disk, stores the necessary programming codes to produce the proteins, or programs, found within the cell. Proteomics is the field focused on identifying all the proteins in an organism or cell type, what their functions are, how they interact with one another and how their expression level varies in response to environmental changes. Proteomics is considered one of the hottest areas of science today. A search of the scientific publications database PubMed for the terms ‘proteomic’ or ‘proteomics’ yielded 373 articles published prior to 2001. By comparison, in just the first two months of 2005, a staggering 393 articles have been published on the subject. This is the story of how the physical and biological sciences join forces to create such a dynamic field.

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What Does F# Taste Like?
Tuesday, 19 April 2005

Andrew Lin examines the phenomenon of synaesthesia 

What colour is the letter D? To most people, this question is meaningless, but some would feel confident saying that D is yellow, or that F-sharp is spicy and sour. These people have synaesthesia — literally, ‘joined sensation’ — a rare and fascinating condition that mixes different senses, so that a perception that normally occurs in just one sense, like hearing, also triggers secondary perceptions in another such as taste. Though these mixed perceptions may seem simply like overextended metaphors, they are very real to synaesthetes, and may even provide insights into human consciousness.

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The Killer Within
Tuesday, 19 April 2005

Bojana Popovic goes hunting for superbugs 

Antibiotics, from the Greek words anti (against) and bios (life), are chemicals produced by microorganisms that are capable of killing bacteria or inhibiting their growth. They have enabled the effective treatment of once life-threatening infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. Over one hundred years after the discovery of penicillin, the role of antibiotics in the treatment of infectious diseases is still as important today. An unfortunate side-effect of widespread antibiotic use has been the appearance of bacteria that are resistant to most commonly used antibiotics. Very recent examples of this type of resistance are the methicillin-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, the socalled MRSA superbugs.

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Dude, Where's My Phone?
Sunday, 17 April 2005

Ramsey Faragher pin-points the latest innovation in mobile phone technology 

You have arranged to meet a friend in a busy high street in London. She isn’t answering her phone, and you haven’t got a hope of finding her just by wandering around. Wouldn’t it be handy if you both had mobile phones that could be instantaneously and accurately positioned? The applications for such a technology are endless: keeping a watchful eye on your children; tracking goods and deliveries; seeing exactly where the bus you are waiting for is (and being able to decide whether to wait for it any longer); navigating when you are lost; finding a cash machine, petrol station or hotel; and perhaps, crucially, enabling the emergency services to locate you immediately when you call them.

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The Quantum Conundrum
Tuesday, 19 April 2005

Peter Mattsson looks at Einstein's battle with quantum theory 

Einstein is most famous for his two theories of relativity — special and general — but he also made significant contributions to quantum theory. In fact, his Nobel Prize was awarded for his quantum explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905. Despite his initial contributions, however, he came to be deeply concerned about some of the counterintuitive predictions of quantum theory. He became so disillusioned that he spent much of his later life devising thought experiments to show the apparent absurdity of quantum theory.

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Of Flies and Men
Tuesday, 19 April 2005

Zoe Smeaton explores how the fruit-fly revolutionized experimental biology 

The science fiction author Isaac Asimov once said: “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka !’ but ‘That’s funny…’” In modern science’s quest for progress, experimentation undeniably takes centre stage and sometimes the results of even a single experiment can prove revolutionary. Classic examples aside, one of the most exciting experiments of recent years remains relatively unknown outside the scientific community. It involved the geneticists’ favourite pet, the fruit-fly Drosophila melanogaster, and the results fundamentally altered scientists’ attitudes towards the usefulness of ‘model’ organisms in studying primary processes such as development. The results also provided further evidence to support the theory of evolution.

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Waters of the Mediterranean
Tuesday, 19 April 2005

Lila Koumandou discovers why the Mediterranean Sea is quite so clear 

Have you ever wondered why the waters of the Mediterranean Sea are so blue and crystal clear? Is it because the sun is shining so brightly whenever you go on holiday there? Or because there is little pollution? These factors may have something to do with it, but the main reason is that the Mediterranean Sea is oligotrophic. The word ‘oligotrophic’ comes from the Greek for ‘little, or not enough, food’ and it means that the waters of the Mediterranean don’t contain enough nutrients to support massive growth of algae — or phytoplankton — leaving the waters clear.

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Culture in the Animal Kingdom
Sunday, 01 May 2005

Mark Harrison explores the evidence for cultural behaviour in animals.

Culture has historically been thought of as a uniquely human characteristic: the Oxford English Dictionary defines culture as “the civilization, customs, and artistic achievements of a people, especially at a certain stage of its development or history”. However, recent discoveries have confirmed that, like the use of tools and a highly developed brain, culture is fairly common in the animal kingdom. Yet studies reveal that it is not just restricted to our closest relatives.

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Work Hard, Sleep Hard
Sunday, 01 May 2005

Jann Yee Chin wonders why we all need a good night’s sleep.

As a medical student, there have been many times when I wished sleep was unnecessary: the desperate moments cramming, hoping it will be enough for the exam the next morning. Yet each hopeless attempt ends in a cowardly retreat to bed, overpowered by that desire to sleep. We find ourselves increasingly burdened by the need to balance a successful career and secure finances against social and family lives. The frequent outcome — sleep deprivation — impairs our efficiency and causes mental and physical disorders. Whether sleep deprivation is a global problem or not has become a hot topic of debate.

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Looking Beyond
Tuesday, 26 April 2005

Owain Vaughan talks to artist Martha Fleming about her journey across the great divide 

Artists and scientists, so the story goes, stand at opposite ends of a cultural playground, crossing over only to call each other names. The scientist, devoid of soul and imagination, sets about dissecting nature in pursuit of cold hard facts. The artist, unhindered by such niceties as facts, sets about understanding the world with their head in the clouds. The story is mostly fiction, but for some a mutual incomprehension pervades, stalling any chance of a constructive relationship. Enter Martha Fleming. As Research Artist in Residence at the Institute of Astronomy (IoA) here in Cambridge , her life’s work has been intent on making this divide irrelevant.

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Science and Subtext
Monday, 25 April 2005

Emily Tweed talks to Hugh Alderslay-Williams about subtext in great scientific publications 

Journals, papers and articles are the day-to-day battleground of the sciences; places where discoveries are announced, debates rage and reputations are made. What can they reveal to us about the personal motivations and preconceptions of their scientist authors?

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History — Who, What, Where and When
Thursday, 28 April 2005

The key publications from three decades:

1970s: Throughout this decade scientists became increasingly involved with issues of human impact and sustainability, giving birth to the discipline of ‘environmental sciences’. 

1980s: Scientists working on the synthesis of large organic compounds in the atmosphere of red giant stars discover a new crystalline form of carbon.

1990s: A paper claiming to provide evidence for life on Mars captures the media’s attention but draws criticism from the scientific community for its line of reasoning.

These are extended versions of the text that appears in the print edition

 

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Initiatives &mdash Walking with Scientists
Sunday, 17 April 2005
 Tamzin Gristwood investigates a new way to explore science in Cambridge

We’ve all heard of famous Cambridge scientists such as Isaac Newton, Henry Cavendish and Ernest Rutherford — to name but a few. But do we really know what they did, and where their groundbreaking research took place? In a twist to the standard Cambridge tour, SeeK (Science and Engineering Experiments for Kids) are hoping to address such questions by developing ‘walking and doing science’ tours of Cambridge scientists past and present.

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Initiatives &mdash Back to School
Sunday, 17 April 2005

Lucy Adam goes back to the classroom to inspire the next generation of scientists

For the school child, the word scientist tends to conjure up images of mad, test-tube-waving old men whose bubbling cauldrons may contain the elixir of life or the ability to reduce the world to dust. In an effort to counter such opinions, the scientific research councils are keen to involve PhD students in Researchers in Residence (RinR), a scheme to encourage interaction between children and genuine researchers.

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Away from the Bench &mdash Saving the Taiga
Sunday, 17 April 2005

Sophie May gets involved in Siberian conservation 

Siberia has long had the reputation of being a cold, inhospitable wilderness. Nonetheless, it is to be my destination for the summer of 2005.

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A day in the life of ...
A Hollywood Science Advisor
Sunday, 17 April 2005

Nerissa Hannink talks to Wayne Grody about his work as a scientific advisor for film and television

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On the Cover &mdash Illuminating Aluminium
Sunday, 17 April 2005

Victoria Leung speaks to the materials scientist Tom Quested, who took our cover image

The office of the Microstructural Kinetics Group is a spacious room in the otherwise labyrinthine Annexe of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, and houses five researchers, piles of paper, computers and the odd microscope. This is home to Tom Quested (below right), the materials scientist responsible for our cover image, who works on simulating the behaviour of liquid luminium as it cools into its solid, crystalline form, during the industrial process known as casting.

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Drug finding to save millions of pounds
Tuesday, 19 July 2005

Essential thrombocythemia (ET) is a rare disorder characterised by over-proliferation of certain types of blood cell which can lead to an increased risk of leukaemia, haemorrhage and thrombosis in patients. Typically, treatment involves taking two drugs: hydroxyurea and low-dose aspirin. Professor Tony Green and colleagues at the University of Cambridge and Addenbrookes Hospital(1) have completed a large-scale randomised study comparing the benefits of the old-style therapy with its newer alternative – a new drug called anagrelide which is allegedly more effective at treating ET.

Despite the new ‘anagrelide plus aspirin’ combined therapy being more expensive than its traditional counterpart, it appeared to be significantly less effective at controlling arterial thrombosis, serious haemorrhage and cellular transformation – when cells switch from non-cancerous to cancerous forms. Moreover, subjects on the novel drug were more likely to withdraw from the treatment due to unwanted side-effects. The authors of the study concluded that as the older approach involving hydroxyurea administration was preferable from both therapeutic and economic points of view, it should continue to be used as the first line of defence in treating ET in subjects vulnerable to thrombosis, a move that could save the government millions of pounds a year.

(1) Harrison et al. (2005) Hydroxyurea compared with anagrelide in high-risk Essential Thrombocythemia New England Journal of Medicine 353:33-45.

 
Antibody based treatment trial for asthma
Sunday, 17 July 2005

A local start-up company, Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) announced preliminary results from a clinical study into a potential treatment for severe asthma on June 23rd. The trial found no adverse effects to the new treatment, CAT-354, a human anti-IL13 monoclonal antibody. Monoclonal antibodies are derived from a single cell type, or clone, and all have identical antigen binding sites on target cells. CAT-354 targets cells that produce IL-13, a type of protein called an interleukin. Secreted by cells in the immune system called TH2 lymphocytes, IL-13 causes inflammation of the airways which exacerbates asthma symptoms and is therefore a highly relevant target molecule for asthma treatment.

The trial included 34 mildly asthmatic patients who had the treatment administered intravenously in gradualy increasing doses. There are plans to start a 2nd clinical study, which will take place at the end of 2005 and in which patients wil be exposed to a repeat dose of the allergen.

CAT has developed 100 billion monoclonal antibodies for use in the treatment of disease. The company has partnership projects with biotechnology companies worldwide, and CAT-354 is the first of seven antibodies at various stages of development to make use of this technology.

http://www.cambridgeantibody.com

 
Large scale loss of ozone layer over Arctic
Tuesday, 24 May 2005

Findings from the EU SCOUT-03 project, co-ordinated by the Department of Chemistry, have shown that over last winter up to 50% of the ozone from the stratosphere, 18 km above the Earth’s surface, was lost. Polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) were present above the Arctic between 14 and 26 km up from late November to late February, which affects the chemical balance in the stratosphere. PSCs are formed during the winter, when no light reaches the Arctic and strong winds called the Polar Vortex form that have the effect of isolating the air over the polar region, which means it can become very cold (-70°C or more) for extended periods of time. The same process happens over Antarctica during the southern hemisphere winter.

PSCs are unusual for clouds because they are not made of water droplets, but nitric acid trihydrate. As the temperature drops even further, large droplets of ice with nitric oxide dissolved in them can form. Chemical reactions take place on the surface of PSCs that create reactive chlorine and bromine from the breakdown products of CFCs and other compounds. When the sunlight returns in the spring, reactive chlorine and bromine catalyse the reactions that breakdown ozone: the more chlorine and bromine about, the quicker these reactions happen. One of these reactions is most effective at very low temperatures, just like those found in the Polar Vortex. This winter the problem was exacerbated by unusually low temperatures in the ozone layer. The prognosis for the ozone layer is not good: as the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperatures in the stratosphere decrease, via a complicated feedback process that is not yet fully understood.

The scientists are working on improving the predictions of future ozone and stratospheric changes and their impact on climate, as well as on the effect of UV rays on the environment.

http://www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/tour

 
Goodall in Cambridge
Sunday, 17 April 2005

ImageWorld-renowned primatologist Dr Jane Goodall DBE, visited Cambridge on 22–23 February to lecture on her current work and on the Roots and Shoots programme, an organisation that encourages young people to become more involved in their communities. Dr Goodall gained her PhD from Cambridge in 1965, unusually without having studied for an undergraduate degree beforehand.

Roots and Shoots started in 1991 with 16 Tanzanian students, and has since grown to a membership of around 6,000 groups in 87 countries. It helps young people to take an active role in their communities by undertaking projects that will benefit people, animals and the environment they live in. The goal is to promote understanding and also to give people self-respect and hope for the future, fostering the belief that the individual matters and can make a difference.

Whilst Roots and Shoots takes up most of Goodall’s time — she is on the move 300 days a year — her research station in Gombe, Tanzania, is carrying out vital research into chimpanzees in the surrounding area. There are many questions about the chimp family structure that have remained a puzzle up until now. “With new DNA profiling techniques, we can take DNA from faecal samples and this can tell us exactly who the fathers are, which we could only guess before,” says Goodall. “This opens up a whole new question of whether there is any kind of bond between a father and his offspring, and if there is, how do they know?” she says. The behaviour of known individuals is being monitored over a long period of time, so the researchers can find out what kind of effect the type of mother and family experience has on young chimps.

Goodall has been studying the chimps at Gombe for 40 years, and in this time, the relationship between scientists and the media has changed dramatically. “My first book, ‘My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees’, with National Geographic, made Robert Hinde (her PhD supervisor) furious! Everything in the book was accurate, just in a different format — scientists didn’t write popular books then.” She believes that the interaction between scientists and the media is important, but often misused. “The media can play a huge role in the shaping of public opinion”, she says. It’s important that people have the knowledge to be able to make informed decisions about the science that is being presented to them, the danger being that they will choose charisma over substance if they don’t understand. “Also, scientists should keep an open mind, and be first a human being, and second a scientist. That’s really important.” LB

www.janegoodall.org

www.srcf.ucam.org/curas

BlueSci would like to thank the St Catherine’s College Amalgamated Societies and Cambridge University Roots and Shoots for their kind invitation to this event.

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Ice-shelf Melting
Sunday, 17 April 2005

ImageThe causes of polar ice melting, past and present, are being investigated by scientists working at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).“ In the past two decades a lot of the ice-shelves along the spine of the Antarctic Peninsula have been breaking up and disappearing,” says Dr Dominic Hodgson from BAS. By studying the marine sediments underneath and near current ice-shelves, and shelves that have recently broken up, the scientists can tell when they had previously broken up, and whether or not these were random events. “Previous breakups of both kinds of ice-shelf corresponded to periods of extended global warming,” says Hodgson. One of the break-ups occurred when an ice-shelf was being warmed from below by the ocean, and from above by an increase in atmospheric temperature. “When iceshelves break up completely, the flow of inland glaciers into the sea increases greatly, and this is what causes the rise in sea-levels.” These collapses can occur very quickly once the shelf becomes unstable: in March 2002 the Larsen B ice-shelf collapsed in the space of a month. “By studying previous collapses, we can understand how ice-shelves responded in the past, and therefore predict how they might respond in the future.” It is clear that we are going to see significant effects on the Antarctic ice-shelves if global temperatures continue to rise. LB

 www.antarctica.ac.uk

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Spinning Out
Sunday, 17 April 2005

Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) is the first University of Cambridge spin-out company to be floated on the US-based NASDAQ exchange. Trading under the symbol OLED commenced in December 2004 and this initial public offering raised 30 million dollars. CDT’s chief technical officer Dr Jeremy Burroughes discovered that Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) could be made using conjugated polymers — materials which can conduct electricity and emit light when a current is passed through them — when he was working in Professor Richard Friend’s group in the Cavendish Laboratory; this lead to the first of many patents being filed in 1992.

CDT’s Polymer LED technology ‘PLED’ can be used to make thinner and more energy-efficient displays that are also brighter and have higher contrast than conventional LCD displays. In addition, they have superior video-imaging performance and give a very wide viewing angle. PLED technology is already available in many existing products including Philips mobile phones and MP3 players. Manufacturing licences have been granted to companies involved in information management, communication and entertainment, such as OSRAM and Seiko-Epson. AF

www.cdtltd.co.uk

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The Male Brain
Sunday, 17 April 2005

On 28 February, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen presented his case for autism being an extreme form of the male brain, discussing the sometimes controversial issue of the differences between male and female brains. In a lecture hosted by the Cambridge University Scientific Society, he argued that males are generally more prone to ‘systematic’ thinking, showing a preference for toys such as Lego and cars, whereas females show a preference for more ‘emotive’ toys that involve social interactions. Autism sufferers have below-average empathetic (social) skills, but usually have above-average systemizing skills, which would indicate an extreme form of the male brain. According to Professor Baron-Cohen there are four males displaying autistic traits to every female, and males affected by Asperger’s syndrome outnumber females by nine to one.

One piece of evidence that points to male-female differences involves picking out a simple shape buried within a number of other shapes. Males — and to greater extent autism sufferers — are on average quicker than females at picking the shape out, and this is due to the more ‘systematic’ style of thinking of people with autism. Research carried out by Baron-Cohen and others on foetal testosterone has provided a potential physiological explanation for autistic traits such as little eye contact at an early age and speech development problems. These correlate with the amounts of foetal testosterone present during pregnancy, adding further weight to the male brain hypothesis. AF

www.autismresearchcentre.com

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Mystery of Neutrinos
Sunday, 17 April 2005

ImageThe properties of mysterious particles called neutrinos will be unravelled by a multinational collaboration based at Fermilab near Chicago, US. The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search, or MINOS, will look at the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations, where neutrinos change between one of three flavours — electron, muon or tau — as they travel through space or matter.This has implications for the Standard Model, which determines how the different particles that make up matter interact with each other. Dr Mark Thomson from the Cavendish Laboratory has been looking at the distinctive patterns generated when neutrinos produced at Fermilab crash into two huge detectors at almost the speed of light. “We have written software to try and work out what these patterns mean, testing it using sophisticated simulations so we can make the best of the data.” Neutrinos rarely interact with matter, so to increase the chance of one hitting the detectors, the latter weigh in at a massive 1000 and 5500 tonnes. “The experiment is very neat; we will be able to compare the energy spectrum of neutrinos at the first detector — before they have had a chance to oscillate — with the spectrum at the far detector. ”This will enable scientists to work out the differences between the squares of the masses of the different types of neutrino, which could then be used in the Standard Model. LB

www-numi.fnal.gov

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Disease Diagnosis for All
Sunday, 17 April 2005

DiagnovIS, a recently established Cambridge start-up company, promises an inexpensive diagnostic tool with the potential to cure millions. The business idea sprang out of a research project headed by Dr Charles Pritchard and Dr David Rubin at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. At the time Nic Ross, a student of Dr Pritchard, was developing software algorithms that examine tissues under a digital microscope and then screen them for malaria. This technology is the basis of the business. The integrated, automated, diagnostic platform makes use of advances in computational mathematics, digital imaging, automated electron microscopy and proprietary optical recognition software.

DiagnovIS has recently designed an innovative hardware unit, through participation in the IfM Design Challenge, as well as through inputs from Cambridge-based technology consultants, and a local microscopy developer. The platform is currently being tested on a model system of four different strains of malaria, and is almost ready for phase one clinical trials. In parallel, the method is being developed for the diagnosis of a wide range of infectious and parasitic diseases, including tuberculosis and STDs. DiagnovIS was founded in 2004 by Pritchard, Ross, Sonja Marjanovic and Ilian Iliev, after they entered the 2003 Cambridge University Entrepreneurs business plan competition, sponsored by The Cambridge-MIT Institute. They won the ‘People, Planet and Productivity’ category, and the prize money was used as start-up funding. Since then they have gone from strength to strength. The company’s next aims will be to secure further financial backing for broadening the disease software portfolio, and hardware development. BP

www.diagnovis.com

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Huntington’s and Sleep
Sunday, 17 April 2005

Dr Jenny Morton in the Department of Pharmacology and her colleagues from the Brain Repair Centre and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology have obtained breakthrough results in their study of Huntington’s disease (HD). They have identified sleep disturbances in human HD patients to be a pathological feature of the disease. This has significant potential for the treatment of HD and in improving the quality of life for sufferers and their carers.

Sleep disturbances in neurological disorders are common, not only in HD, but for other disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s as well. Using mice carrying the HD mutation, the researchers found that HD mice had profound abnormalities in their circadian rhythms, reflecting those seen in HD patients.They also found that behavioural disturbances were accompanied by changes in the expression of circadian clock genes. These genes are involved in maintaining the internal biological clock, fundamental to all living organisms, influencing hormones that play a role in sleep and wakefulness, in metabolic rate, and in body temperature. The researchers plan to follow up this work by studying circadian rhythms in HD patients and determining if sleep abnormalities contribute to cognitive deficits. The long-term goal is to find treatments and new drug targets for this devastating neurological disorder. BP

Further information can be found in Morton et al. , J. Neurosci. 25 : 157–163 (2005)

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Shelters for victims of conflicts
and disasters
Sunday, 17 April 2005

A new type of emergency shelter is being developed by the Department of Architecture in collaboration with Shelter Centre that promises to significantly ease suffering after a disaster. Shelter Centre is a non-profit-making organisation aiding sheltering and settlement of populations affected by conflict or natural disasters. The initiative is led by Dr Tom Corsellis from the Department of Architecture and is playing a crucial role in the development of the Lightweight Emergency Family Shelter (LEFS). This shelter is lighter than a traditional tent and is made from rope, water pipe, plastic sheeting and a steel reinforcement bar. One major advantage of this design is its ability to withstand high winds. In addition, it has the standard double wall in addition to a dual wall system for ventilation and condensation.

The idea of shelter development dates back to Dr Corsellis’ PhD years, when he worked on an emergency shelter for Oxfam. Since then, the team has been developing a second generation shelter that would be available in an easy-to-assemble kit form. Last summer this project was continued by Henry Travers, an engineering student at the University of Cambridge, as his fourth-year project under the supervision of Dr Alan McRobie and in collaboration with Corsellis. Travers has recently completed his fourth year in the Department of Engineering and has secured funding for further development and testing of the prototype shelter. BP

www.sheltercentre.org

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New cancer therapy
Sunday, 17 April 2005

A new technology developed by Dr Toru Kondo at the Centre for Brain Repair could lead to innovative cancer treatments, and has been licensed to a company called Stemline Therapeutics that will develop it further and take it into clinical trials. The researchers have been focusing on gliomas, the most common type of brain cancer. “Many patients suffer a relapse of the cancer after they received the conventional treatments,” says Kondo. This suggests that the cancer contained more than one type of cell: cells that spread rapidly, and those that exhibit characteristics of stem cells, proliferating slowly and pumping out anti-cancer drugs to make them resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. These cancer stem cells could be a potential target for therapy, but identifying them correctly is a challenge. “To do this we focused on cancer cell lines. If transplanted into living tissue, they can form the original cancer, meaning that they must contain cancer stem cells,” says Kondo. “We hope to identify specific markers on the surface of cancer stem cells.” The collaboration with Stemline will advance the treatment on a much larger scale through to clinical trials on patients. LB

www.brc.cam.ac.uk
www.stemline.com

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Boating ChaOS
Sunday, 17 April 2005

On 1 March, the Cambridge Admissions Office and Cambridge Hands-On Science (CHaOS) hosted a series of talks and activities aimed at children aged 15–16 that wouldn’t ordinarily apply to Cambridge. 

One of the exciting activities on offer was boat-building, which involved groups of students competing with one another to make boats of paper, card and polythene. A tether pulled the boats along by way of a falling mass at the other end of the tank to ensure the boats were pulled with a constant force.

The boats ranged from the large to the small and the students were quite inventive in their approach to their design. Despite the fact that most of them sank on the first attempt, the students persevered by going back to the drawing board and producing some excellent boats. The boats sank for a variety of reasons: some did not have enough symmetry; others sank under their own weight; whilst others didn’t have enough waterproofing. During this wet and slightly windy day the students were certainly ‘buoyed’ to come to Cambridge! AF

www.chaosscience.org.uk

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From the Editor
Sunday, 17 April 2005

Cambridge is teeming with fascinating research and, as ever, our amazing cover photograph shows an example of what’s going on. ON THE COVER will tell you all about it.


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From the Managing Editor
Sunday, 17 April 2005

The transition from issue 2 to issue 3 has marked an exciting period of intense evolution for Cambridge’s first popular science magazine. One of our goals from last issue was to redress the balance of biological and physical sciences articles, which I hope you will agree we have markedly improved upon for this issue.


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Dr Hypothesis
Sunday, 17 April 2005

Dr Hypothesis needs your problems!

If you have any worries (purely of a scientific nature, obviously) that you would like Dr Hypothesis to answer, then please email him at drhypothesis@bluesci.org He will award the author of the most intriguing question a £10 book voucher. Unfortunately, Dr Hypothesis cannot promise to publish an answer to every question, but he will do his very best to see that the most fascinating are discussed in the next edition of BlueSci.

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