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In this issue BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION plus objects of devotion, an infrastructure revolution and the making of modern Germany

University of Cambridge research magazine www.cam.ac.uk/research/ Issue 17 2 | Guest editorial

Contents Issue 17, February 2012 Biodiversity conservation M A R K

Research news 3–5 M N I S Z K Spotlight: 6–17 O Biodiversity conservation Research, policy, practice: 6–7 conservation in the round Canopy commerce: forest 8–9 conservation and poverty alleviation The crystal ball of 10 –11 conservation Conservation clusters: 12 making the case Games for nature 13 A lost world? How 14 –15 zooarchaeology can inform biodiversity conservation Landscape, literature, life 16 –17 Cambridge is famous as the centre of ‘Silicon Fen’ – the cluster of high-tech businesses drawn together geographically by the benefits of a world-leading research-intensive University and Preview 18 –19 rich networking opportunities. Much less well known is the fact that Cambridge is home to one of the world’s largest clusters of people and institutions working to understand and Kaiser, Reich and the making conserve global biodiversity. of modern Germany Life on Earth is at risk from an unprecedented rate of environmental change that threatens the natural resources on which humanity depends. Biodiversity – the genes, species and Features 20 –31 ecosystems that comprise nature – provides food, fuel, medicines and other vital ‘ecosystem Autophagy: when 20 –21 services’, along with countless intangible benefits, for society. ‘self-eating’ is good for you But biodiversity is in steep decline, and its sustainable management is a major challenge for the 21st century. In response, Cambridge researchers from diverse disciplines, along with Objects of devotion 22 –23 conservation practitioners and policy experts – all linked to global networks – have created the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI). As a partnership between the University and world- Infrastructure revolution 24 –25 leading conservation organisations 1, CCI aims to help secure a sustainable future for Flower power: how to get 26 biodiversity and humanity through interdisciplinary and innovative research, learning, ahead in advertising leadership and action. Some of the collaborations between researchers and practitioners described in this issue Solar-grade silicon at low cost 27 of Research Horizons illustrate how this University Strategic Initiative is addressing global challenges. Achieving food security while conserving the raw materials provided by It’s not history 28 –29 biodiversity, reducing carbon emissions and alleviating poverty through forest conservation, Extreme Sleepover: 30 –31 and measuring the benefits an area’s biodiversity brings to society are but three of 14 projects breathless at Everest Base Camp supported through the CCI Collaborative Fund that offer solutions to real-world problems. Similarly, we see how innovative thinking can begin to transform the landscape of The back page 32 biodiversity conservation. Studies which identify new emerging issues for biodiversity conservation, which explore whether computer gaming can reconnect people to nature, and which draw on disciplines as diverse as business, archaeology and English show how Images of Gola Forest, Cambridge offers a distinct and often novel approach to conservation. Sierra Leone, a biodiversity hotspot of Over the next three years, our vision is to create an interdisciplinary conservation campus global significance. at the heart of the University, bringing together over 500 professional conservationists from Read about innovative across organisations and University departments, in a centre of international conservation approaches for protecting the forest’s excellence. The campus will facilitate and sustain the flow of conservation research and future on page 8. practical solutions, enhance global conservation capacity and leadership, and help to Original photography: transform public understanding of nature. David Monticelli, Jeremy Lindsell, Koen Leuveld; image manipulation: Fred Lewsey and Nick Saffell.

Editor: Dr Louise Walsh Design: Cambridge Design Studio Dr Mike Rands Printers: Falcon Printing Executive Director, Cambridge Conservation Initiative Contributors: Alex Buxton, Tom Kirk, Fred Lewsey, Genevieve Maul, Stuart Roberts, Louise Walsh; others as identified 1CCI partners: BirdLife International, British Trust for Ornithology, Cambridge Conservation Forum, Fauna & ©2012 University of Cambridge and Flora International, International Union for Conservation of Nature, RSPB, TRAFFIC International, Tropical Contributors as identified. All rights reserved. Biology Association, UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, University of Cambridge Research news | 3 Cambridge gives Newton papers to the world Cambridge University Library has launched its new digital library by making available online Isaac Newton’s papers, including his own annotated copy of his Principia Mathematica . R E The Library holds the world’s largest and most P R O significant collection of the scientific works of D U C E

Isaac Newton (1642 –1727), described by many D

B Y

as the greatest and most influential scientist K I N who ever lived. Now, more than 4,000 pages of D

P E its most important Newton material has been R M I S uploaded to the Cambridge Digital Library to S I O N

view and download anywhere in the world, O F with more to follow over the next few months. T H E

S

Within a day of its announcement, the site had Y N D

recorded millions of hits. I C S

The University Library aims to develop O F

C a digital library for the world and will move A M B on from Newton to some of its other R I D G

world-class collections in the realms of E

U N

science and faith. These will include the I V E R archive of the celebrated Board of Longitude, S I T Y

a selection from the Darwin papers and L I B R some of the earliest surviving religious A R manuscripts. Y “Over the course of six centuries Cambridge University Library’s collections Some of Newton’s early calculations for determining the area of a hyperbola, 1665; MS.Add.3958 folio 79r have grown from a few dozen volumes into one of the world’s great libraries, with an in June 2010. For the digital launch of the “Newton’s copy of his Principia shows how extraordinary accumulation of books, maps, Newton papers, the Library has been aided by methodically he worked through his text; manuscripts and journals,” said University funding from JISC (Joint Information Services marking alterations, crossing out and Librarian Anne Jarvis. “These cover every Committee), which has enabled the linking of annotating his work in preparation for the conceivable aspect of human endeavour, the Library’s high-resolution facsimiles with second edition. Before today, anyone who spanning most of the world’s cultural transcriptions produced by the Newton wanted to see these things had to come to traditions.” Project at the University of Sussex. Cambridge. Now we’re bringing Cambridge The digitisation of the Newton papers and “Now, anyone, wherever they are, can see University Library to the world.” development of the sophisticated technical at the click of a mouse how Newton worked infrastructure that will underpin the new and how he went about developing his For more information about the digital library were made possible by a £1.5 theories and experiments,” added Grant Cambridge Digital Library, please visit million lead gift from the Polonsky Foundation Young, Digitisation Manager at the Library. http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/ Cambridge-Elan Centre for Research Innovation and Drug Discovery launched World-leading researchers will work together on therapeutic advances in neuroscience.

The Cambridge-Elan Centre, which will be world leaders in the development of Elan Centre, Professor Christopher located at the University, will provide a therapies to combat neurodegenerative Dobson FRS, the John Humphrey highly interdisciplinary environment disorders, these compounds will be Plummer Professor of Chemical and uniquely positioned for delivering world- translated into new treatments to prevent Structural Biology at the Department of leading translational research focused on such diseases. A new ten-year agreement Chemistry, said: “I believe that we are innovative therapies for Alzheimer’s and paves the way for a long-term creating a Centre that will become Parkinson’s diseases. collaboration between Elan and the globally recognised for innovation. Our For more than 10 years, Cambridge University of Cambridge. collective expertise, proven ability to scientists have been engaged in research The process of bringing together collaborate and open innovation model to understand the fundamental molecular researchers at the University of provide an exciting basis for the origins of neurodegenerative disorders Cambridge and at Elan has already future. The new Centre will bring together such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s created novel insights and opportunities the skills of scientists working in an diseases. The primary goal of the new in drug discovery. The new Centre builds academic institution and in a Centre will be to extend these activities to on the successes of this initial interaction biotechnology company to develop new discover novel compounds and to to establish a long-term relationship to and more effective therapies for some of characterise the fundamental physico- lead to novel and effective therapies for the most devastating and increasingly chemical mechanisms by which they alter the most debilitating, costly and rapidly common human diseases.” the behaviour of proteins associated with proliferating diseases in the modern neurodegenerative disorders. world. For more information, please contact Based on this understanding, and Speaking about his relationship with Professor Christopher Dobson with the help of scientists in Elan who are Elan and the launch of the Cambridge- ([email protected]). 4 | Research news Weaving electronics into the fabric of our physical world Professor Arokia Nathan has taken up a new Chair in Engineering at the University, where he will be exploring electronics that could turn science fiction into reality.

The integration of electronics with materials opens up a world of enormous possibilities, the surface of which is just being scratched. From interactive paper to clothing that generates energy and lightweight material with X-ray capabilities, the weaving of electronics into everyday materials opens up a world of opportunities. The Electrical Division in the Department of Engineering is leading the charge for Cambridge, both in terms of fundamental research and application within industry. To aid this approach, the University has recently recruited Professor Arokia Nathan from University College London (UCL) to a new Chair of Photonic Systems and Displays. Nathan, a world leader in the development of display technology, will work between the three primary groups in the Electrical Division (electronic materials, photonics and energy), acting as a conduit Electrical Division, Department of Engineering and catalyst for ideas and research. “For me this is a fantastic opportunity to Initially, Nathan and colleagues within the images and videos on magazine pages. collaborate with researchers at the top of their Division will be developing electronic systems “With these non-conventional materials game, working on this idea of systems that that can be seamlessly layered on to a material you have a great deal of freedom,” he can integrate functionality such as or substrate, such as plastic or polyester, with explained. “We believe this approach to communications and energy into materials to embedded transistors and sensors for circuitry in substrates will lead to the creation enhance everyday life,” he explained. One of transmitting and receiving information. While of smart substances, and once you start his primary visions for Cambridge is the at UCL, Nathan and a team of collaborators thinking about the possible applications, the foundation of a new Design Centre to from CENIMAT/FCTUNL, Portugal, possibilities are endless!” demonstrate the potential of this technology demonstrated the first inverter and other to industry through prototyping and to circuit building blocks on a piece of paper, For more information, please contact encourage investment from around the world. representing the first step towards animated Professor Arokia Nathan ([email protected]).

Cambridge Enterprise announces 2011 results Income generated from the Enterprise portfolio raised more than £189 innovation-led economic recovery, through University of Cambridge’s million in funding, including $200 million collaborative research, technology licensing, raised by Plastic Logic. consultancy projects and new company commercialisation activities One of the most exciting companies in the formation,” said Dr Tony Raven, Chief Executive continued to rise in 2011, as did portfolio is Eight19, spun out from the of Cambridge Enterprise. “The growth enjoyed the number of intellectual Cavendish Laboratory in 2010. The company, by Cambridge Enterprise this year property, consultancy and equity which is building upon the Cavendish’s demonstrates the value that industry attaches agreements signed on behalf of expertise in the area of organic photovoltaics, to Cambridge research, and the contribution the University is making to our national the University and its has recently completed trials of its IndiGo system, a personal pay-as-you-go solar economic recovery.” researchers. electricity system, in Zambia, Kenya, Malawi and India. The system could provide safe, The 2011 Annual Review is available for Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s download at www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/ commercialisation group, has recently sustainable and affordable power for some of announced its year-end results. Income from the 1.6 billion people worldwide without licensing, consultancy and equity transactions access to electricity. exceeded £10.2 million, of which £8.3 million Another Cambridge company that enjoyed was returned to the University, departments a highly successful year was PneumaCare, and researchers. which has developed a non-contact method of Over the past year, the Cambridge measuring lung function for the one third of Enterprise team completed 116 licences, patients who are unable to use current signed 183 consultancy contracts and returned methods. The company was named a winner at more than £468,000 to its evergreen seed the prestigious Medical Futures Innovation funds through equity transactions. Income Awards, and its product is now in use across the from licensing increased 24% from 2009/10, UK. income from consultancy increased by 37%, “Universities such as Cambridge have an and the companies in the Cambridge important role to play in supporting an PneumaCare’s PneumaScan instrument Research news | 5 New database for Winton Programme vital model funds new research organism Two research fellows and six scholars have been appointed to work on fundamental launched physics research related to sustainability. A new database promises to be The Winton Programme for the Physics of an invaluable resource to Sustainability, which was launched in 2011 scientists who study human following a donation of £20 million to the diseases. Cavendish Laboratory by alumnus David their Harding, has made its first scientific physical properties. As PomBase, a new database for the fission appointments. The donation, the largest a Winton Fellow, yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe , a single- received in the history of the Laboratory since she will work on new celled fungus, has been launched by a its creation in 1874, supports the basic science electrode materials for use consortium of researchers at the University needed to underpin the generation of new Solar cell in lithium (Li)-ion batteries, which are of Cambridge, the European Bioinformatics technologies to meet the demands made on currently restricted to small portable Institute and University College London. our already strained natural resources. electronic devices, such as mobile phones and Because its cell functions much like our Directed by the Cavendish Professor of laptop computers. To make Li-battery own cells, fission yeast is an important Physics, Sir Richard Friend, the Programme has technology suitable for electric vehicles, and model for studying cellular processes appointed six scholars embarking on PhD other higher power applications, she will focus frequently associated with heritable studentships and two fellows on five-year diseases and cancers in humans. The on creating new electrode materials with research programmes. These appointments improved performance. Her materials interests organism has equivalents of human genes mark the beginning of annual Scholarship and that are known causes of rare genetic also map closely with research in the Fellowship appointments that will continue to diseases and syndromes, as well as Cavendish on high-temperature bring bright physicists to work in Cambridge counterparts of human genes implicated in superconductors and related materials. on exciting and novel ideas. diseases with multiple causes, such as The new appointments highlight how the New Winton Fellow Dr Alex Chin’s research many cancers, deafness, neurological Programme is helping the Cavendish to take is focused on the theoretical aspects of the diseases, heart disease and anaemia. new research directions that tap into the new field of quantum effects in biological The launch of the database is the first enormous potential for imaginative systems. He combines techniques from stage of a five-year project funded by the exploitation of basic physical principles, as condensed matter theory, quantum optics and Wellcome Trust to provide a model Professor Friend explained: “A central objective physical chemistry to investigate the novel organism database that allows researchers of the Winton Fellowship scheme is to initiate around the world to participate directly in physics of biomolecular processes at the research programmes that are new to the the curation process, in addition to using boundary of quantum and classical Cavendish that have the potential to take automated procedures based on the descriptions. Chin will look for the general physics in new directions.” genetic blueprint of fission yeast. design principles that optimise the The project uses Ensembl software for performance of light harvesting in natural For more information, please contact genome browsing, which is already used to photosynthesis, and then go on to explore Winton Programme Manager Dr Nalin Patel present data for many other important how these biologically engineered strategies ([email protected]) or visit experimental species. Novel tools and might be used to improve artificial www.winton.phy.cam.ac.uk/ resources generated by this project will technologies, such as photovoltaic devices. also be available to researchers working on Dr Siân Dutton’s work involves the other species, including human pathogens, chemical manipulation of materials to optimise to help them create similar databases. Steve Oliver, Professor of Systems Biology and Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry, who is spearheading the initiative, commented: “Organism-specific database projects frequently have limited resources and large backlogs of uncurated literature. An important novel component of this project is the construction of intuitive tools to allow the research community to involve itself in database curation, and ensure that the scientific information published in their papers is visible to the entire biological research community. These tools can also be shared with other groups and implemented for their organism of interest.”

The community curation initiative for PomBase will be launched in Spring 2012. The database can be found at: www.pombase.org/ 6 | Biodiversity conservation

Research, policy, practice: conservation in the round

Conservation scientists working in partnership with practitioners and policy makers are building practical tools for real-world conservation.

ust under a decade ago, a target was set or conservation practitioners by the world’s governments: to slow the identifying the questions that Jdecline in biodiversity within 10 years. need tackling and, through a But by 2010 it was clear that global efforts dialogue with scientists, turning had largely failed. The state of biodiversity these into tractable research had worsened and the ecosystem services questions that researchers can that we rely on for food and water, a stable answer in ways that are fit for climate, and protection from natural disasters purpose. It’s conservation in the continue to be in jeopardy. round.” As plans were drawn up for a new Smart collaborations are a key strategic plan for the next decade, the part of the vision of the Cambridge Secretary-General of the United Nations Conservation Initiative (CCI), a stated that conservation efforts are all too pioneering collaboration between the often undermined by conflicting policies; yet, University and eight leading conservation “conserving biodiversity,” he said, “cannot be organisations and a conservation network an afterthought once other objectives are based in the Cambridge area that integrates addressed.” research, policy, practice and learning. It’s a sentiment echoed by Professor Collaboration and funding through CCI have Andrew Balmford, who helps lead the enabled Balmford and Green to address a University of Cambridge’s Conservation series of questions that have important Science Group in the Department of Zoology: implications for global conservation and to identify “Conservation has to be mainstreamed. It environmental management. focal crops, can’t be on the margins. It has to be part of How, for instance, can the world respond Phalan has been policy and practice across a whole range of to the growing demands for increased food intersecting detailed maps sectors if we are to have a chance of production and yet conserve the raw of bird and crop distributions in the counteracting the rapid declines in the extent material that biodiversity represents? A tropics, where agricultural expansion is most and condition of natural ecosystems.” project led by Dr Ben Phalan from the likely to affect biodiversity. Once completed With this in mind, he and Professor Rhys Department of Zoology, and funded by the later in 2012, the study will help decision Green, the Royal Society for the Protection of Newton Trust and CCI partners BirdLife makers identify the most damaging crops Birds (RSPB)’s Principal Research Biologist and International, RSPB and the United Nations and the most vulnerable areas, both now also based in the Department of Zoology, Environment Programme World and under future scenarios of agricultural have created a series of highly effective Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP- change. partnerships with conservation practitioners WCMC), is using recently developed global Another collaboration deals with the and policy makers. These in turn have datasets to understand better how conflicts problem of how to assess the full benefits developed a suite of tools aimed at helping between conservation and farming in the that an area’s biodiversity brings to society – decision makers make informed judgments. tropics might be resolved. its ‘ecosystem services’. These can include the “Conservation has for too long suffered “The expansion and intensification of formation of soils, provision of clean water, from key disconnects,” explained Balmford. agriculture are the greatest source of threat production of crops, regulation of climate “One of the main problems is conservation to biological diversity,” explained Phalan, and opportunities for recreation. Most are research is often about biology, but the “and yet there is little information about how hard to measure without expert support. So global loss of nature is really about people far priority areas for conservation and food when faced, for instance, with pressures to and what they do. To tackle fundamental production overlap. To what extent will the cut down a natural forest to increase food questions about this relationship, quantitative expansion of a particular crop threaten wild production, how can local decision makers research studies need to be linked to policies species? Are there areas where expansion of accurately value the ecosystem services and and practice that are capable of effecting food production would be less of a problem weigh up the implications of the proposed behaviour change.” for biodiversity?” change in land use? “It’s an iterative process,” added Green. Following input from policy experts at a An ambitious Ecosystem Services Toolkit “Smart collaborations involve policy makers workshop held in the project’s early stages to do just this is currently in its testing phase, Biodiversity conservation | 7 © S A S S A N

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leaders of the study, explained: “It’s not enough to be aware of “Smart collaborations involve changes to biodiversity levels. It’s policy makers or conservation a bit like having a depth gauge on practitioners identifying the Titanic – why would we want to know how fast things are questions that researchers can getting worse unless we have an answer in ways that are fit for idea of why, and whether our purpose.” attempts to do something about it are doing any good?” The Linked Indicators concept is based on a response –pressure –state – benefit model. It proposes a set of linked indicators for each system of interest. For fisheries, for example, the pressure on marine animals from fishing and ocean temperature is related to the resulting state of marine life, as well as the benefit fishing brings in terms of employment and food, and also the policy response to reduce losses to led by Dr biodiversity by creating marine protected Kelvin Peh from areas. The links between such indicators the Department of represent the best available knowledge of Zoology with a team from how the ecosystem involved works and the Anglia Ruskin University, BirdLife causal relationships between its components. International, RSPB and UNEP-WCMC. The Where Linked Indicators can help result is a manual (and eventually an online decision makers is to provide them with program) that enables non-experts to make better tools to assess whether the amount state-of-the-art assessments of ecosystem and type of response to biodiversity loss have services in their region, so that they can been implemented on a sufficient scale to gauge for themselves how changes in local arrest or reverse it. The study, which was biodiversity will affect them. developed by a team from the Department of “Linking declining levels of biodiversity Zoology working with BirdLife International, with the benefits biodiversity delivers, and RSPB and UNEP-WCMC, was presented at Professor Andrew Balmford the pressures and responses affecting it, is meetings of the Convention on Biological (left) and Professor Rhys Green crucial to taking us forward in the ‘post-2010’ Diversity (CBD) last year. The ideas it suggests For more information, please global strategic plan for biodiversity,” are helping the CBD to improve its ability to contact Professor Balmford explained Green. A new approach to track progress towards biodiversity targets ([email protected]) and understanding this relationship has been the post-2010. Professor Green driving force behind yet another project – “Even in the first few years, all of these ([email protected]) at the ‘Linked Indicators’, which, like the Ecosystem projects have demonstrated the value for Department of Zoology Services Toolkit project, was supported by the money that smart collaborations can (www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/), or visit CCI Collaborative Fund. generate,” added Balmford. “By building the CCI website The idea behind the project is that accessible tools and strengthening the (www.conservation.cam.ac.uk/). indicators of biodiversity levels are easier to evidence base for decision makers, we can help them make wise and informed decisions understand, communicate and act upon if The Linked Indicators and Ecosystem Services Toolkit they are linked together in a set that connects for the future of people and the rest of the projects were funded by the CCI Collaborative Fund, policies to outcomes. Green, one of the planet.” which is generously supported by Arcadia. 8 | Biodiversity conservation

Innovative approaches for protecting the future of Sierra Leone’s Gola Forest – globally important for its biodiversity and its carbon reserves – are being developed by a collaboration of conservation agencies and Cambridge researchers.

Canopy commerce: forest conservation and poverty alleviation

ola Forest, situated at the westernmost tip of a once extensive Gswathe of forest that stretched a thousand kilometres from Sierra Leone to Togo, is classified as a biodiversity hotspot of global significance. Its 71,000 hectares are home to over 330 species of bird, including the rare White-necked Picathartes and Rufous Fishing Owl, more than 500 species of butterfly, and a long list of threatened and endangered plants and animals. The forest, which was recently designated a National Park, is recovering from a history of commercial logging and mining, White-necked Picathartes, endemic to the Gola Forest and areas have also been cleared by local communities for agriculture. Without protection, logging and mining activities would undoubtedly be resumed and destroy countries in the world protect its nature at the together with RSPB, BirdLife International and what remains. same time as improving the livelihoods of the the Universities of Wageningen and Chicago, But the forest is not only important for its local communities.” are working with local villagers to establish biodiversity. Like other forests, Gola is a vast Now, innovative approaches to forest how best to reward them for forest carbon store, both in the biomass of the trees conservation and poverty alleviation are conservation. themselves and in its storage of carbon as being pioneered by two projects made dead organic matter beneath the forest floor. possible by the Cambridge Conservation Carbon credits for conservation For the past 20 years, the Royal Society for Initiative (CCI). Each project is a unique Current estimates suggest that around 12%– the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has been collaboration between researchers, 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions working with the Conservation Society of practitioners and policy makers. result from deforestation and forest Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leone Plant scientists Beccy Wilebore and Dr degradation. A drive to reduce emissions Government to protect the Gola Forest. David Coomes, with CCI partner organisations from deforestation and forest degradation Safeguarding its future in perpetuity is a RSPB and the United Nations Environment (REDD+) by incentivising countries to keep priority, as Dr Jeremy Lindsell, Senior Programme World Conservation Monitoring forests rather than clear them is currently Conservation Scientist at RSPB explained: Centre (UNEP-WCMC), are conducting being developed internationally by “Without the Gola Forest Programme, it’s research for a scheme to fund forest governments, conservation agencies, likely the forest would eventually be lost. Our conservation through carbon credits. And Dr scientists and the private sector. goal is to find a mechanism by which richer Andreas Kontoleon and Dr Maarten Voors “Long-term funding for conservation of countries can help one of the poorest from the Department of Land Economy, forests like Gola is difficult to secure, so Biodiversity conservation | 9 © J E D R

A carbon markets offer one possible solution,” E M V I D Y

explained Lindsell. “To do this, we must be

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N able to demonstrate that the Gola Forest S T E I L C L

E Programme is not only benefiting L L

I biodiversity, but that it is also reducing deforestation and securing the carbon stocks – essentially that our intervention makes a positive difference.” This is where the expertise of the plant scientists comes in. Wilebore, whose research is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, is working with RSPB to determine how much carbon is in the forest and in the surrounding mosaic of land, which has been ‘slashed and burned’ for agriculture and is now regrowing as secondary forest. “Once we know the baseline – the level of emissions we would expect from deforestation and forest degradation in the Exposed tree trunks visible in the Gola Forest are the telltale sign of human activity in what might otherwise absence of the Gola Forest Programme – the appear to be thick forest impacts of the conservation programme on future carbon stores can be gauged,” she team has carried out extremely detailed global pressures at the least cost to explained. To calculate the baseline, she is surveys of more than 2,800 households across biodiversity. gathering information from ground-based 180 villages during the past two years. This has The Gola Forest Programme might be inventory plots, satellite imagery of land provided a ‘pre-treatment’ baseline recording regarded as something of a test case for how a cover types and, soon, three-dimensional all aspects of the villagers’ economic and social large and dynamic biodiversity conservation images of forest structure obtained by lives. project can be implemented sustainably in a airborne remote-sensing devices. A rigorous With the support of the Gola Forest developing country. “The stakes are high in system will be developed by the research Programme, the team then tested the terms of the biodiversity and carbon that is at partners to measure current forest carbon jeopardy, the impacts on human welfare, and stocks and predict changes in forest carbon impacts of a series of different conservation– the conservation funds spent,” said Kontoleon. stocks in the future. livelihood interventions using randomised “A vital ingredient for the success of the “An important aspect of the new field experiments with ‘treated’ and research projects in providing reliable methodologies will be to advise policy ‘control’ groups (within ethical experimental assessments is the degree of collaboration, makers on the relative merits of different norms). nurtured by CCI, between academia and approaches for estimating how much carbon For example, in one study, they conservation organisations, which cannot be would have been lost if the forests had been experimentally assessed ways to improve taken lightly.” left unprotected,” added Coomes. “UNEP- co-operative behaviour within communities, WCMC will contribute greatly towards given that pro-social behaviour is known to be ensuring that lessons from the development essential for the effectiveness of conservation of methods for Gola will influence the programmes. In another study, they evaluated development of REDD+ policy at a critical how effectively conservation funds intended point in time.” Over the next year, the data will for community projects were actually spent help the Gola Forest Programme assess how under different managed regimes. And they carbon trading can be used to protect the explored how social cohesion and support for forest and at the same time cut global carbon conservation can be best advanced by emissions. comparing aid payments allocated to village chiefs versus funds allocated directly to Assessing livelihood impacts individuals, or through a voucher-for-work Agreements have been struck with forest- scheme. After a return visit for a follow-up survey, edge communities to limit activities such as Dr David Coomes (left), Beccy farming and hunting in the new National the researchers are now analysing the data, Park. In return, substantial funds have been with results expected early in 2012. “All in all, Wilebore and Dr Jeremy set aside by the Gola Forest Programme for the project will provide the first detailed Lindsell (Dr Andreas livelihood improvement for these formal policy evaluation of a major Kontoleon not shown) conservation programme,” said Kontoleon. communities. The funds support such For more information, please projects as the building of schools and “The results should allow us to derive reliable contact Dr Coomes latrines, as compensation for benefits that inferences on the livelihood and behavioural ([email protected]) have been foregone. impacts of conservation policies.” at the Department of Plant Sciences Although it’s widely acknowledged that, (www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/) and to be successful, conservation programmes Predicting change Dr Kontoleon ([email protected]) at must be coupled with poverty alleviation Over the next year, the two project teams will the Department of Land Economy schemes, “there is scant hard scientific begin working more closely. Their combined (www.landecon.cam.ac.uk/), or evidence on the impact of conservation data will help the researchers understand visit the Gola Forest Programme policies on livelihoods, or on specific aspects what drives changes in land use, and what website (www.golarainforest.org/) of human behaviour that are related to effect this has on the environment and the and CCI website conservation,” explained Kontoleon. The impact of support programmes. Against a (www.conservation.cam.ac.uk/). project he leads aims to address this gap. background of a rising world population and Pooling expertise from economics, an increasing demand for food, studies such These projects were funded by the CCI Collaborative anthropology and conservation science, the as these will prove vital for balancing Fund, which is generously supported by Arcadia. 10 | Biodiversity conservation

An innovative horizon-scanning exercise, which has just delivered its latest report, highlights emerging topics of relevance to the world’s natural environment and the diversity of its species. The crystal ball of conservation

umanity faces a breadth of environmental challenges that will Hcontinue to put pressure on policy makers, industry and civil society groups to develop solutions, and on researchers to provide evidence. What if we could look ahead to predict the emerging issues at an early stage, enabling knowledge to accumulate in advance of crucial decision making? For the past four years, just such a ‘horizon-scanning’ process has been undertaken in Cambridge by a group of experts from academia, conservation organisations and government. Led by conservation scientist Professor Bill poorly known and, crucially, not prepared for. over 250 individuals contributed to the Sutherland, the Miriam Rothschild Professor “What followed were some actions that identification of a starting list of 80 issues that of Conservation Biology, the group aims to arguably caused more damage than the were deemed under-considered yet spot trends, novel technologies, new issues burning of fossil fuels, such as the chopping potentially important either for maintaining and even solutions that relate to biodiversity down and draining of ancient peat-rich species or ecosystems or regions of global conservation. The idea is to identify serious tropical swamp forests to make way for environmental interest. A 22-strong potential conservation issues and biofuel crops,” explained Sutherland. “Once international panel, including horizon- opportunities before they turn into major the issues were identified, there was then scanning experts from across a wide range of challenges. some acrimonious debate and calls for back- institutions and agencies, then independently Take biofuel, for instance. Planting crops peddling of policies that could have been scored each issue to derive a shortlist of over as a fuel source could help mitigate our avoided if society had identified the merits 40 emerging issues of importance. It was dependency on fossil fuels. But when and problems of biofuels earlier.” these issues that were reviewed at a President George Bush announced the United For the horizon-scanning exercise to be workshop in Cambridge in September 2011, States’ commitment to biofuels in 2006, and really useful, the group must identify where another round of voting resulted in a the European Union followed suit, many of emerging issues that are not well known but final line-up of 15 issues that have just been the ecological, climate-change and social could have substantial impacts on the published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution impacts of an expansion in biofuels were conservation of biological diversity. This year, (see panel). Biodiversity conservation | 11 © E V A N

L “We can’t hope to spot all potential issues. But if some of the issues E E S O prove to be important, then identifying and publicising them early N on will better prepare us for future environmental challenges.”

Global conservation issues for 2012 Fifteen potential threats and opportunities in climate, technology and human behaviour have been identified in a recently published horizon-scanning exercise.

The full list of 15 issues is as follows: • Warming of the deep sea • Mining in the deep ocean • Methane venting from beneath the ocean floor • Climate-driven colonisations in Antarctic waters • Increases in pharmaceutical discharges as human populations age • Sterile farming to increase food safety • Transferring nitrogen-fixing ability to cereals • Increased cultivation of perennial grains • Rapid and low-cost genomic sequencing • Electrochemical seawater desalinisation • Rapid development and extensive application of graphene • Nuclear batteries • Effect of increased cement demand on karst forest and cave ecosystems • In-stream hydrokinetic turbines • Arctic tundra burning

The article, ‘A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2012’, was published online in Trends in Ecology and Evolution on 30 November 2011.

Global conservation issues area, could be seen in products in the home Several of the issues identified by the within the next few years. horizon-scanning exercise relate to the Human behaviour also comes under deep oceans, which are rarely observable scrutiny. As a result of an ageing population, by the public and yet are strongly affected there has been an increased release of by changes in human activity. Deep-sea pharmaceuticals into the environment temperatures, which have been low and through waste water and sewage discharge, stable for millions of years, are known to be prompting concerns relating to the spread increasing. The report highlights concerns of antibiotic resistance through the related to the warming seas, including the ecosystem. potential release of plumes of methane previously trapped beneath the sea bed, Evidence-based conservation and the spread of predators, such as red Horizon scanning is a key priority for the king crabs, which normally live only in Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), the colder parts of the ocean. many of whose partner organisations are Also affecting the oceans are rich deposits involved in the process that has created the of rare earth elements, such as yttrium used latest report. Fitting with CCI’s philosophy, for electronics and as a source of green the exercise involves policy makers and energy, which have been discovered in the practitioners at all stages of the discussion deep-sea mud of the Pacific Ocean. The process. report recognises that increased deep-sea Sutherland is a keen advocate of mining could become more frequent in the ‘evidence-based conservation ’ and event of a global shortage of these precious has created a free web resource minerals. (www.conservationevidence.com/) that Professor Bill Sutherland The horizon-scanning process also helps busy practitioners base conservation For more information, please highlights areas that will grow in prominence decisions on hard evidence, without contact Professor Sutherland over the coming years. For example, the having to keep up with the research literature. ([email protected]), the experts have identified an increasing He believes that a forward-thinking shift Miriam Rothschild Professor of demand for two new technologies that may in focus has an enormous role to play in Conservation Biology, at the have as-yet-unknown environmental impacts conservation: “We can’t hope to spot all Department of Zoology – nuclear batteries and graphene. Nuclear potential issues. But if some of the issues (www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/). batteries hold promise in providing a safe, prove to be important, then identifying and cheap and almost endless supply of energy, publicising them early on will better prepare The latest horizon scan was funded by the Natural particularly for remote communities that lack us for future environmental challenges. Our Environment Research Council, the Royal Society for energy infrastructure. Graphene is the hope is that horizon scanning will foster the Protection of Birds and the European Centre for Environment and Human Health. Professor thinnest and strongest material ever detected research to examine the advantages and Sutherland is generously funded by Arcadia through and, given the magnitude of research in this consequences of possible changes.” the Miriam Rothschild Conservation Programme. 12 | Biodiversity conservation S T R E L I T Z I A

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A new study reveals how the gathering together of conservation organisations in one location – a ‘conservation cluster’ – can work best to reap global rewards. Conservation clusters: making the case

ilicon Valley, Bangalore, Shanghai. Initiative (CCI) since 2007, and is also a Business School, who co-supervised the study At one time or another, each of these Strategic Initiative of the University. with Dr Rands. “The purpose is to bring oil Slocations, among others, has become “In Cambridge’s case, the network took and water together – to forge links between home to a successful ‘business cluster’ of the form of the Cambridge Conservation different organisations. It’s through bringing industries. Although the term was coined as Forum (CCF),” explained Dr Mike Rands, together different kinds of people and recently as 1990, clustering of businesses in Executive Director of CCI. “Out of CCF bubbled organisations that innovation happens.” the same geographical locality has taken a series of programmes that people wanted Dr Rands agrees: “If there is a lesson that place for centuries, driving productivity, to do together. Then came the process of I’ve learned it’s to keep fostering the mixing of innovation and expertise. co-ordinating these collaborative researchers and practitioners across A comparatively new phenomenon is the programmes and raising the funds to deliver disciplines. Only then can we demonstrate co-location of institutions whose goal is to them.” that together the members are able to do protect and manage biodiversity worldwide. A representative and democratic things that they could never have done on The difference is that whereas business governance mechanism and a neutral their own, and yet still progress their own clusters are built on inter-firm competition facilitator to guide the collaboration were also individual organisation’s mandate and resulting in enhanced economic growth, identified as key features of successful interests. This study makes a strong case for conservation clusters are built on inter- clusters. The study concludes that ideally the global conservation community to organisation collaboration resulting in these features should take the form of a harness the concept of clusters to deliver innovative solutions to a global threat. ‘cluster initiative’ that improves the stronger and better conservation solutions for A new study by Vena Kapoor, a student collaborative potential of the cluster and the world’s biodiversity and the natural on the MPhil in Conservation Leadership raises independent funds for it. Although rare capital it provides.” Programme in the Department of Geography, in conservation, cluster initiatives have has identified 17 conservation clusters become a popular feature in business, often currently in existence globally. Clustering with government support. brings advantages, as she explained: “Like “Collaboration between organisations their business counterparts, conservation linked by a common cause has the potential clusters benefit from the physical proximity of to unleash synergies and spur innovation that similar organisations in terms of the potential can positively impact the world,” added for knowledge spill-over and a growing pool Rands. “But even the best initiatives can be of skilled employees.” derailed. At this early stage in the creation of Her study explores how conservation conservation clusters, it’s important to be clusters function optimally, highlighting best aware of the challenges as well as the rewards.” practices and lessons learnt for current and For a cluster to be successful, the future conservation clusters. “Probably the advantages of being part of the collaboration most important aspect for success is for a must continue to outweigh the cluster to be based on a social network that disadvantages, as Kapoor explained: “In the Dr Mike Rands (left), Vena initiates and facilitates a trusted beginning, members get something from Kapoor and Dr Stelios collaboration,” she said. “Those clusters that each other – they all learn about each other’s began with an injection of funds but no practices, research agendas and tools. But Zyglidopoulos underlying social network have been less tension can develop when a member For more information, please successful.” perceives a growing competitive overlap with contact Dr Rands Cambridge is home to the largest another member, a feeling of dominance by a ([email protected]) at CCI conservation cluster in the world. Comprising single or few members, or a lessening of their (www.conservation.cam.ac.uk/). eight conservation organisations, a branding or niche position.” conservation network and departments of “This is where a neutral facilitator can This research was funded through the MPhil in Conservation Leadership Programme by the MAVA the University, the cluster has been continually bring value,” said Dr Stelios Fondation pour la Nature and a scholarship from the co-ordinated as the Cambridge Conservation Zyglidopoulos, from the Cambridge Judge Ravi Sankaran Inlaks Fellowship Programme. Biodiversity conservation | 13 S F L O O N W Y

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A Conservation scientists Bruno T M H A E T R G I

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A computer gaming is a new 2 0 N 0 Y 8 . frontier for conservation.

Flower , an interactive video game, indirectly delivers a green Games for nature message using the movement of a flower across a landscape

eep in the rainforest, a monkey runs development companies, and funded by the virtual and real worlds, creating new down a river, leaping from log to log Cambridge Conservation Initiative. Our goal is opportunities for nature conservation. Dover the mouths of the waiting crocs. to promote a platform for potential In the course of this pilot project and So begins Congo Jones and the Loggers of collaboration and research on the use of workshop, have we answered all our Doom , a computer game that challenges games for nature conservation purposes. questions? Unsurprisingly, we have not. Did players to work alongside local communities But why should conservation we conclude that they were important? to protect the Congo rainforest from loggers. organisations care about games for nature? Absolutely: gaming is a deadly serious Offered free by a UK charity that supports Video games are an increasingly important industry whose business depends on the indigenous peoples, the game is just one social force. In the USA, 87% of the pleasure it gives its customers, but it also has example of a new trend in the gaming population play video games. Globally, half a a vital role to play in shaping the way industry towards games relevant for billion people play online games for at least decisions are made about human use of biodiversity conservation. an hour a day. Games are also not the nature. As Bissell argues in Extra Lives, “we’re The emergence of such games is perhaps preserve of the homework-shy schoolchild: going to change the world and entertain in a not surprising. Computer gaming is the average age of gamers is about 30. way that nothing else ever has.” That’s a expanding fast. Worth $29 billion worldwide Is this a good thing? Many commentators promise no conservationist (and indeed no in 2005, the industry reached $40 billion by say it’s not, pointing in particular to the university) can afford to ignore. 2010. The underlying technology is violence of games like Halo or Grand Theft advancing at an unbelievable pace, stretching Auto . Others disagree. Jane McGonigal, media to unexpected places. author of Reality is Broken: How games make us However, astonishing graphics are not better and how they can change the world , the main factor driving people towards argues that video games are a powerful playing digital games. According to Tom platform to solve global problems. Another Chatfield (author of Fun Inc .), “the games commentator, Tom Bissell, in Extra Lives: why industry has discovered that the most video games matter , says much the same, successful games of all are those that come tracing the power of gaming narratives to closest to real life, not in terms of ever more engage the player in ways that literature, realistic sounds and images, but in terms of music, film and visual art cannot. social interaction and interfaces with the So if video games are taking over the human world.” On both counts, conservation worlds of leisure and social interaction, and ticks the boxes. forming the world that people – particularly Although debate has begun about the younger people – live in, what implications implications for the gaming industry o f does this have for traditional areas of social ‘games going green’, the risks and concern, such as the environment? There are opportunities for nature conservation have a number of games about human use and Professor Bill Adams (left), as yet been little explored. Can games abuse of nature, such as Red Redemption’s Bruno Monteferri and adequately explain the complex ecological, Fate of the World . These form part of a Dr Chris Sandbrook political and social basis of biodiversity growing field of ‘serious games’ with a social For more information, please loss? Will virtual nature start to outshine context and purpose: the antithesis perhaps contact Bruno Monteferri living nature in the eyes of a game-obsessed of the classic ‘post-apocalypse’ warring worlds ([email protected]; world? Or can games engage a generation of popular imagination. www.gamesfornature.org/), who have already lost contact with wild Moreover, conservation organisations Dr Sandbrook or Professor Adams, nature? have started using the underlying principles Moran Professor of Conservation For the past six months, we have been of games to make conservation initiatives and Development. Dr Sandbrook running a pilot project to address such more engaging for audiences. For instance, a is funded by the MAVA Fondation questions, culminating in a recent workshop number of games are being developed that pour la Nature. for conservation organisations and game require players to carry out activities in both 14 | Biodiversity conservation

A new study of tropical forests will provide a 50,000-year perspective on how animal biodiversity has changed, explored through an archaeological investigation of animal bones. A lost world? How zooarchaeology can inform biodiversity conservation

s dawn breaks, a Cantor’s Roundleaf the challenge of how best to manage and The bare bones bat flies through the lush rainforest conserve what is left of some of the most The idea behind the new study grew out of Acanopy searching out its colony. Its biologically diverse and complex habitats on Stimpson’s PhD research at the Great Cave as home is the Great Cave of Niah, Sarawak, in Earth. part of a major research project begun in northern Borneo, where it accompanies tens Stimpson, along with other 2000 under the leadership of Graeme Barker, of thousands of other bats, careening zooarchaeologists around the world, Disney Professor of Archaeology and through the cave after a night’s work believes he has something new to offer the Director of the McDonald Institute for hunting insects. It’s a scene that has debate: “Conservation efforts draw on Archaeological Research in Cambridge. The probably been replicated daily for tens of relatively recent ecological evidence. To long-term investigation, which was funded thousands of years. formulate effective priorities for biological principally by the Arts and Humanities Evidence for the longevity of bat conservation, zooarchaeology, or the study Research Council, involved a team of 40 colonisation of the cave has been revealed of ancient animal bones, can provide a archaeologists and environmental scientists through analysis of some 12,000 bat bones, remarkably long-range perspective. It can from a dozen universities. The team found as well as 1,400 bird bones, uncovered by tell us something about the nature of animal astonishing evidence for sophisticated archaeologists digging in Hell Trench at the communities before humans intensively West Mouth of the cave, and examined and modified their habitats, as well as provide a methods used by early Modern Humans to dated by Cambridge zooarchaeologist deeper understanding of the role that exploit the rainforest as far back as 45,000 Dr Chris Stimpson. His recently completed humans have played in structuring tropical years ago, from specialist hunting study, which was funded by the Natural forests across millennia.” techniques to the neutralisation of poisons. Environment Research Council, suggests Tall, moisture-loving, closed-canopy Famously, the oldest reliably dated that bats have been living there for 50,000 forests form a band around the equator and Modern Human fossil in Southeast Asia yet years. have been described as of “disproportional recorded, known as ‘Deep Skull’, had The forest surrounding the Great Cave of importance” in driving patterns in global previously been discovered within the cave Niah once blanketed the entire state of biodiversity and the global carbon cycle. in the 1950s by Tom and Barbara Harrisson. Sarawak, but today only pockets remain The ambitious study begun by Stimpson will As a result of Barker’s research, its age was such as the Niah National Park, where the measure changes in animal communities in confirmed as 37,000 years old. cave is located. Conservation efforts here tropical forests over 50,000 years and across “There had been some debate as to and elsewhere in the world are faced with three continents. whether the rainforests were a major barrier Biodiversity conservation | 15 D D R R An analysis of 12,000 West Mouth of the

C C H H ancient bat bones is Great Cave of Niah, R R I I S S

being combined with Sarawak S S T T I I M M similar archaeological P P S S analyses from around O O N N the world to provide a long-term assessment of changing biodiversity

four species of hornbill, although only a single To do this, he is pulling together species remains in the forest today. published zooarchaeological datasets from Using the distal part of the humerus 26 studies at archaeological sites in Central bone (close to the elbow) as a taxonomic and South America, Central Africa and marker to differentiate between species of Southeast Asia, with a view to eventually bat, Stimpson found that a colony of wrinkle- increasing this to 40 datasets. Each dataset lipped bats, which may have numbered as represents a faunal inventory listing all of the many as three million individuals at its peak, different animal groups that are evident had disappeared by the 17th century: “This from the thousands of bones retrieved in the may be because the colony was disturbed course of excavation. He will then compare when people began to visit the cave this with the fauna that exist in the region regularly to collect the nests of cave today. swiftlets, whose edible nests were much Because the project is so broad in its prized as the main ingredient of bird’s spatial and temporal coverage, it will allow nest soup,” he said. Stimpson to characterise the direct and By contrast, he found evidence to indirect effects of human hunting behaviour suggest the persistence of the Strategy I in geographical regions over millennia. He bats, a guild of bats that need closed-canopy will be able to ask whether trends exist in forest to hunt. “If you lose the closed-canopy the spectrum of targeted animals and what forest, then you lose this group of bats,” he ecological role these animals play in tropical explained. “This finding presents a robust forests. case for the existence of closed-canopy As his studies progress, Stimpson will rainforest for at least 50,000 years, putting work closely with conservation scientists in Cambridge: “I’m trying to knit biological “I’m trying to knit biological starkly into perspective the fact that recent forest felling has reduced the forest by two conservation and archaeology together.” conservation and archaeology thirds in the past 40 years.” The results, he believes, will provide a together.” powerful tool to improve current Looking for ‘lost worlds’ understanding of ecosystem change in “Attempts to contextualise and quantify the response to anthropogenic pressures. Crucially, the long-term benchmark data to the dispersal of modern humans because extent of human impact on the biodiversity produced by the project will be of direct of the difficulties of foraging in an and resilience of the tropical forest are relevance to conservation initiatives working environment where food is widely dispersed hampered by the lack of studies that in the tropical forest biome; his aim, as he and ephemeral, and sometimes inaccessible consider tropical forests from millennial explained, is to ask: “How can we utilise in the canopy. But the findings in the Great timescales,” Stimpson said. “Yet, such studies these data in the best possible way to inform Cave showed that they weren’t flailing can provide benchmarks far deeper in time conservation priorities for protection?” around. They coped well, were thinking than ecological snapshots, which rarely ahead and adapting to change,” said approach 50 years in duration.” Stimpson. Although the title of the new research Tropical forests such as the Niah National project, ‘A lost world? Zooarchaeology and Park are often regarded as the world’s last biological conservation in the tropical forest ‘virgin landscapes’. Yet this runs contrary to biome’, tips its hat to Sir Arthur Conan Stimpson’s and others’ findings, as he Doyle’s tale of an expedition to a South explained: “These communities may have American plateau where prehistoric animals been subject to exploitation and still survive, it does so because it considers modification by humans for thousands of study sites at times before the recent years. Essentially, what we regard as ‘pristine’ intensive modification of habitats by ecosystems are in fact ‘degraded’ humans. In other words, tropical forest ecosystems. Zooarchaeology can help those communities that might now be considered involved in conservation efforts to ‘lost worlds’. understand how ecologically representative “I’m interested in what role humans have remnant stands of forest are.” played as active predators in structuring the Dr Chris Stimpson After painstakingly analysing the vast animal communities of tropical forest For more information, please contact number of animal bones found in the cave, habitats and what implications this has for Dr Stimpson ([email protected]) Stimpson discovered that people were the animal communities we see today,” at the McDonald Institute for hunting hornbills at least 19,000 years ago explained Stimpson, whose new research is Archaeological Research and eating cave-dwelling fruit bats 42,000 funded by the McDonald Institute for (www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/). years ago. He was able to identify bones from Archaeological Research. 16 | Biodiversity conservation

Over the past few years, the genre of ‘nature writing’ has seen a new sense of urgency, fostered by a growing awareness of a natural world under pressure. Dr Robert Macfarlane, from the Faculty of English, believes that writers have played, and continue to play, a central role in conservation by engaging our hearts and our minds.

Landscape, literature, life

ast November a new word – “scrattling” ways that are both factual and emotionally – emerged briefly into the world. The affecting. Ljournalist Mark Cocker, a regular How literature shapes, and is shaped by, contributor to The Guardian’s Country Diary our awareness of nature – and how this column, coined it to describe the sound awareness, or the lack of it, intersects with made by starlings settling down to roost our behaviour – is central to the research overnight in his roof in rural Norfolk. Cocker and writing of Cambridge academic talks about the wild “excess of energy” in the Dr Robert Macfarlane, who has made a arching movements of a flock of starlings substantial contribution to placing nature and the “grey, clamped-down stillness” of writing centre stage of recent environmental November. In focusing on his own delight in discussions in this country. His work explores 2007; and a third, The Old Ways , to be the ebb and flow of a flock of birds in the the traditions of British, Irish and North published in 2012), Macfarlane is keen to darkening sky, he expresses something American literatures that deal with nature reconcile the two broad areas. Talking about universal about our inmost connectedness and its relationship with humankind – from his respect for conservationists, he quotes with nature. the late 18th century through to the present the poet W.H. Auden: “When I find myself in Country Diary has long been a tiny day. His research is located within the lively the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby island of nature writing, taking readers away interdisciplinary field known as ‘cultural curate who has strayed by mistake into a from their homes, trains and offices to the environmentalism’, which considers the ways drawing-room full of dukes.” He is eager, wilder and less-trammelled spaces of moor in which not only literature but also however, to highlight the role that and mountain, coombe and common, sculpture, dance, film and music might literature has played in the history of wilderness and wasteland. There was even a influence ecological awareness and environmentalism. sense that those who wrote for this slot and environmental activism. “Whenever I ask professional others like it were an endangered species, “Literature is just one of the cultural conservationists what first inspired them to donning their boots to tramp back into a forms that shape our place-consciousness, get involved in the protection of the landscape that no longer held any relevance and that carry out particular kinds of environment, they invariably mention either for most of us. thinking about how we fit within the a book or a place,” he said. “The experiences Not any more. Prompted largely by a biosphere,” he explained. “The sculptures of of reading, or the physical effects of being in growing awareness of a world under threat, Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy, and the landscape – of being exposed to the a steady resurgence in forms of ‘new nature the scripts of the latest blue-chip David elements and feeling the land underfoot or writing’ has been seen during the part Attenborough nature documentaries also under-hand – have proved profoundly decade. The human population is expanding bear upon the ways we treat that web of influential for so many environmental policy and limited natural resources are under species, interrelations, co-dependencies and makers and researchers. Nature writing has, pressure; scientists recording the numbers chemicals that we have relatively recently in the past, been cartooned variously as and diversity of flora and fauna show us that come to know by the group-noun reactionary ruralist or as sentimentalist. But, precious habitats are being lost and ‘environment’. ” in many ways, and for many people, it’s been vulnerable species driven to extinction. Increasing specialism within the decisively life-shaping.” Nature writing is succoured by accurate conventional British education system has Our everyday discourse is rich with description, while at the same time draws often set science and literature at opposite metaphors and similes taken from earth, sea attention to large-scale environmental crises ends of a spectrum. In his teaching and and sky – from the subtext of individual and local losses. It is driven by a sense of research, and as the author of two highly sounds in words to the grandest panoramas purpose that gives it an important role acclaimed books of nature/travel writing of desert and wilderness that have become within modern conservation, informing us in (Mountains of the Mind , 2003; The Wild Places , symbols of states of mind. We live Biodiversity conservation | 17 R O S A M U N D

M A C F A R L A N E “Whenever I ask professional conservationists what first inspired them to get involved in the protection of the environment, they invariably mention either a book or a place.”

Next year an opera with music by the jazz double-bassist Arnie Somogyi and with a libretto by Macfarlane will be performed on Orford Ness, a vast offshore shingle spit on the Suffolk coast that is both ecologically and historically unique. The opera has been part-commissioned by the National Trust, which owns the Ness and is keen to explore Crummock Water, Cumbria artistic responses to this extraordinary landscape. For Macfarlane, it’s an opportunity to bring culture and increasingly in cities, yet some of our greatest essays became crucial in determining the environment together in a thoroughly literature draws on nature not just as national-parks policy of Theodore Roosevelt. unacademic fashion, and to create, with backdrop but also as active agent, shaping Or I think of the thunderclap publication of Somogyi, an artistic form that will be character, behaviour and morality. The Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), which led responsive to the character of the landscape. classics of children’s literature, in particular, to the banning of DDT in the US and arguably What Macfarlane and Somogyi find most use wetlands and waterways, farm and forest stimulated the creation in 1970 of the State fascinating and suggestive about the terrain as the settings and atmospheres for powerful Environmental Protection Agency. And then is how the lean and tapering shape of Orford characters and narratives. there’s the vast and as-yet-unmapped Ness is constantly shifted and reformed by Yet what we love, and what feeds us both influence of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road time and tide – a scaled-up, slowed-down, literally and metaphorically, we also destroy. (2006), a novel that chills its readers to their stone-and-water version of the wild It is in drawing attention to the vulnerability cores, and which the campaigner George wheeling arc of starlings in the sky. of the natural world to greedy humanity that Monbiot described as the most important nature writers can play a role, believes environmental book ever written.” Macfarlane: “Wendell Berry, the American Macfarlane has been working hard to bring farmer and essayist who is too little known in lost or neglected works from the nature America, let alone in this country, once wrote writing tradition back to light, and to that environmentally we require not ‘the introduce them to new generations of piecemeal technological solutions that our readers. He has written essays to accompany society now offers, but ... a change of cultural reissues of books by W.H. Hudson, Edward (and economic) values that will encourage in Thomas, Nan Shepherd, J.A. Baker and John the whole population the necessary respect, Stewart Collis, among others. Next year, restraint, and care.’ I’m interested in how HarperCollins will reissue works by Jacquetta literature might have urged, or at least have Hawkes ( A Land ), Richard Jefferies ( Nature tried to urge, such changes.” Near London ) and Hudson ( Adventures Among “Every now and then,” he continued, “the Birds ); all three will carry introductions by imaginary forms of literature feed back into Macfarlane, who added: “Over the past five or the lived world with startling consequence. six years I’ve become addicted to digging They assume real-world agency in ways that into the ‘lost decades’ of 20th-century British Dr Robert Macfarlane exceed the cliché of ‘life imitating art’. In nature/topographic writing. I feel passionate For more information, please contact terms of environmental history, I think of about championing writing which I feel Dr Macfarlane at the Faculty of John Muir, who took himself off to become a might change its readers’ relationship with English (www.english.cam.ac.uk/). shepherd in the Sierra Nevada and whose nature.” 18 | Preview

An epic new history of the final 300 years of Germany’s first Reich reveals how the period gave birth to modern German identity and principles that still underpin its attempts to lead Europe today. Kaiser, Reich and the making of modern Germany

Map of the Holy Roman Empire 1492 –1618

decade in the making, Germany and eventually became meaningless. Even some the Holy Roman Empire (1493 –1806) , well-respected histories of Germany give its Aby the University of Cambridge final decades only a handful of pages. After historian Dr Joachim Whaley, is the most 10 years researching and writing the book, comprehensive survey of Germany’s early Whaley argues that it is time to look again. modern history ever undertaken, the first book of its kind since the 1950s, and one of State of the nation the most substantial works of historical Rather than being a weak, dysfunctional scholarship published in the UK in 2011. precursor of the strong Germany that The two-volume study tells the story of emerged in the 19th century, the latter-day more than 300 principalities and about 1,500 Holy Roman Empire was a successful political other minor territories. Together, these made entity in itself, the new study suggests. up the later Holy Roman Empire, which What we struggle with, he believes, is covered much of northern and central that its model was very different to our own Europe and constituted Germany’s original idea of what a ‘state’ should be. In an era Reich. Whaley believes that their story before nations, the Empire was a ‘federative challenges much of what we think we know state’ – made up of territories with about Germany and its people today. With interlocking identities. People saw territories together as a legal and Europe in crisis and many nations looking to themselves as both local and German, but cultural community, in spite of numerous Germany for leadership, he argues that the there was no Imperial capital and ‘Germany’ changes and external threats.” period reveals a deeper history of political comprised territories that today are part of This community, the study suggests, co-operation and consensus, which is France, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic laid much of the groundwork for usually overlooked because of Germany’s and Austria, as well as the Federal Republic German identity today. It began in the recent, often darker past. Today, the very of Germany. While this political system may 1490s, when the Emperor Maximilian I word ‘Reich’, which has associations with the sound alien now, the book argues that by and the German princes and cities disastrous Third Reich, has become taboo. and large it worked. carved out a two-tier system of The first Reich was very different. “The history of German-speaking Europe government based on the concept of Historians themselves have also in this period has been seen as the history of Kaiser und Reich . At one level, the neglected the last three centuries of the localities and territories, but it is also the Emperor provided governance in Holy Roman Empire. Typically, the period has history of the union of those entities and negotiation with the princes through been portrayed as one of decline, in which their survival,” said Whaley. “Usually the diet, the Reichstag. At the same time, the Empire fragmented into warring historians see this time as one of division in however, all of the territories essentially territories, was split by the Catholic– which the Empire failed to function as a governed themselves. Protestant divide of the Reformation, was nation state. What we forget is that for 300 Although subject to their immediate ravaged by the Thirty Years War, and years, it also held the German-speaking ruler, people were also vassals of the . d , 9 d e n n r v e e , 1 a e o o a

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New discoveries by Cambridge scientists about a molecular waste-disposal process that ‘eats’ bacteria are influencing the clinical management of cystic fibrosis, and could be the basis of innovative new treatments to fight off bacteria.

Molecular sacs of cell debris (pink) are delivered to the lysosome (dark red), where the contents are degraded and recycled Autophagy: when ‘self-eating’ is good for you

roken pieces of internal structures, (CIMR) and Papworth Hospital have noticed damaged organelles and harmful that patients with chronic lung diseases such Bclumps of proteins are all examples of as cystic fibrosis (CF) are becoming the molecular detritus that builds up increasingly infected with a highly pathogenic, continuously in our cells. Fortunately, we are multi-drug-resistant (MDR) NTM called equipped with an intracellular process called Mycobacterium abscessus . Their research, autophagy (literally ‘self-eating’) that gathers published recently in the Journal of Clinical up the debris, wraps it in a double membrane Investigation , suggests that M. abscessus and delivers it to an intracellular sac called the infection may be linked to long-term use of lysosome. Here, the material is ingested, azithromycin, an antibiotic with anti- digested and recycled, ready to be used again. inflammatory properties. They propose that Recent work has suggested that azithromycin blocks autophagy in a type of autophagy may also be important in killing white blood cell called the macrophage, intracellular bacteria that are able to escape effectively tipping the balance in favour of the the normal processes that control infection Mycobacterium surviving in the cell. within cells. Autophagy appears to be critical It’s an ominous outcome for patients, as in controlling infections of Mycobacterium lead researcher Dr Andres Floto explained: tuberculosis (MTB) and related species called “Developing an infection with Mycobacterium non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), which abscessus is a big deal for patients with CF. It’s are able to block degradation by lysosomes resistant to virtually all antibiotics, is very hard and thereby replicate within cells. to treat, can accelerate lung damage and may Researchers working at the University’s rule out future lung transplantation. While the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research benefits of long-term azithromycin therapy in Features | 21 U N

I CF are clear, our data suggest that there may V E R

S also be a downside to watch out for.” I

T Papworth Hospital and a new Heart and Lung Research Institute Y

O He added: “Recent studies showing the

F Papworth Hospital, the UK’s largest specialist cardiothoracic hospital and main heart

E

D benefit of azithromycin therapy in asthma I

N and lung transplant centre, will be moving to a new location on the Cambridge B

U and smoking-related chronic obstructive

R Biomedical Campus to facilitate closer links with the University’s School of Clinical G

H pulmonary disease (COPD) will no doubt ,

Medicine and Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Construction of the new 300-bed facility, W

E increase the numbers of patients on long- L expected to be complete by late 2015, also offers a unique opportunity for the L C

O term azithromycin therapy. Physicians will

M construction of a new Heart and Lung Research Institute, which is to be built E

need to be aware of the potential for harm I M adjacent to, and integrated with, the new hospital. Together, the University and A

G with this treatment, and carefully monitor

E Papworth Hospital aim to create a world-class environment for heart and lung S ,

W patients for mycobacterial disease”. research leading to improved care for future patients. E L L C O

M ’Forced stoppage’ of the cleaning

E For more information, please visit www.papworthhospital.nhs.uk/content.php?/

L I B crew

R about/new_papworth_hospital/ A

R Floto is a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Y ,

L O Fellow in the Department of Medicine and N

D exploited therapeutically to treat multi-drug-

O Principal Investigator in the CIMR. He is also N resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), for which Director of Research at the Cambridge Centre there is an urgent need to find new for Lung Infection at Papworth Hospital. The treatments. In 2008, the World Health Centre cares for over 260 adults with CF and Organization estimated that of the 9.4 million almost 2,000 patients with recurrent or new TB cases 440,000 were MDR-TB. “It’s a difficult lung infections. massive challenge”, explained Floto, “We “We’d been struck by the rising rates of believe that stimulating autophagy to kill TB M. abscessus infection in CF patients in will bypass the problem of multi-drug centres around the world and wondered resistance and may lead to potential new whether it could be connected to an treatments for MDR-TB.” increased use of long-term azithromycin,” Meanwhile, Floto’s work on azithromycin explained Floto. “Azithromycin is a broad- has already begun to influence clinical spectrum antibiotic which paradoxically is practice in a number of major CF centres in used to treat some mycobacterial infections. the UK. Although at pains to stress that a In patients with CF and, more recently, other larger, prospective multi-centre study is inflammatory lung diseases such as asthma needed before universal guidance can be and COPD, it’s being prescribed as a long- given for the management of patients on term anti-inflammatory therapy.” chronic azithromycin therapy, Floto explained The association between azithromycin how the Cambridge Centre for Lung Infection use and M. abscessus infection was first has adopted a policy that is already proving suggested when Floto and colleagues carried successful: “We give patients who are not out an epidemiological study of adult doing as well as we’d expect a holiday off the patients with CF at Papworth Hospital and medication for a month while we screen found that those patients with NTM infection carefully for NTM. When we do this, we often were much more likely to be taking long-term find a mycobacterial infection brewing in the azithromycin. When they looked at cells in lungs and can treat it immediately, instead of culture, they discovered that the antibiotic allowing the infection to take hold covertly impaired autophagy, effectively causing a without being detected.” ‘forced stoppage’ of the waste-recycling unit Floto’s research exemplifies the and preventing cells from clearing infecting importance of a seamless link between mycobacteria. Moreover, azithromycin had a fundamental research and clinical translation, profound effect on M. abscessus infection of a and will benefit still further from the planned mouse model; whereas untreated mice were move of Papworth Hospital to the Cambridge able to clear the infection rapidly, those given Biomedical Campus (see panel). “Papworth the drug developed persistent lung infection. has a unique group of patients and an international reputation for the treatment of Exploiting autophagy patients with difficult lung infections,” he The interactions of mycobacteria with explained. “Forging greater links between immune cells are extremely complex and Papworth and the University will inevitably poorly understood. In a paper published in promote research into a number of clinically 2006 in Science , Floto together with Professor important areas and smooth the route from Paul Lehner at the CIMR began to define how bench to bedside, and back again.” immune cells respond to specific proteins from mycobacteria which then control the immune response. Subsequent work has suggested that the ability of macrophages to kill mycobacteria can be enhanced through a The antibiotic impaired number of pathways, including autophagy. autophagy, effectively causing a Working with Professor David Rubinsztein ‘forced stoppage’ of the waste- Dr Andres Floto at the CIMR, who has been interested in recycling unit and preventing For more information, please contact enhancing autophagy to clear the build-up of Dr Floto ([email protected]) at the damaging clumps of proteins in cells from clearing infecting Cambridge Institute for Medical neurodegenerative diseases, Floto has begun mycobacteria. Research (www.cimr.cam.ac.uk/). to study whether autophagy might be 22 | Features C O U R T E S Y

O F

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M U S E O

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T O L E N T I N O

In this 16th-century votive offering, the Viadana family prays to St Nicholas to save them from an Objects of devotion earthquake

n earthquake ravages a small town in in other Catholic countries, shrines are Why did Renaissance shoppers central Italy. Catastrophic fissures rip sometimes bursting with objects and fill their baskets with rosaries, Athrough the buildings; desperate cries pictures like this one, each recording the crucifixes, Christ-dolls and can be heard from those whose houses are miraculous activities of God’s busiest saints. collapsing; others try to attract attention by I have been drawn to thinking about ex devotional paintings? A new standing on rooftops and waving their hands votos as part of my project on ‘Objects of study by historian Dr Mary Laven but to no avail. Only one home stands firm Devotion: The Material Culture of Italian investigates the significance of while the buildings all around it crumble to Renaissance Piety, 1400–1600’ funded by a Catholic clutter, as she explains. the ground. Here, the Viadana family kneels Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. in quiet prayer; husband, wife and four sons, My research reacts against the common all neatly attired and strikingly tranquil amid misconception of the Renaissance as a the chaos, appeal to their local saint, Nicholas secular age, characterised by luxury, of Tolentino. individualism, worldliness and scepticism. This compelling image is preserved By focusing instead on the widespread among the remarkable collection of ex votos ‘consumption’ of religious objects, I will cast at Tolentino, in the Marche region of central light on the vibrant piety that shaped Italy: nearly 400 painted wooden boards, Renaissance lives. Through rosaries, dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries, crucifixes, Christ-dolls, statuettes, religious usually about a foot long and orientated jewellery, devotional books and paintings, horizontally, purchased or commissioned by pilgrim souvenirs, and even instruments of those who had been granted a miracle self-mortification (the hair shirts or flails with thanks to the intervention of St Nicholas. which people in this period sometimes Ex voto means ‘in fulfilment of a vow’ and tested their faith), I aim to show that the idea was that when one prayed to the Renaissance shoppers filled their baskets Virgin Mary or to the saints for a miracle one with items that testified to a profound piety. would promise to leave an offering in return But I shall also be asking why Catholic culture for a favour granted. This is why, in Italy and was defined by such a clutter of objects. Features | 23

A gentleman is healed of a gunshot wound, 1523 (left); a couple give thanks for the recovery of their son, 1516 (centre); parents thank St Nicholas for saving their baby daughter after she falls from a balcony (right); all images courtesy of the Museo di San Nicola in Tolentino The man who avoided Marys Familiar, yet unfamiliar Although focused on objects, my research Miracle books also shed light on the many will often be pursued via texts. Inventories different kinds of ex votos that were and account books are the best means of commissioned: not just painted informing us about patterns of expenditure representations of the miracle granted, but a in the Renaissance; trials carried out by the whole range of three-dimensional objects, Inquisition can tell us about the uses and including wax items that have rarely abuses of religious artefacts; meanwhile, the survived. Most typical are the anatomical printed genre of the ‘miracle book’ provides models: a pair of wax eyes or ears to record essential context for understanding ex votos . the recovery of a person’s sight or hearing, or During the first century or so of print, books a wax foot paid for by the mother whose that related the miracles accomplished by a little boy had been healed of a bad toe. The particular saint were bestsellers. And when rich commissioned the same objects in you come to read them, you can see why. silver. More humble folk might invest in Their dramatic recounting of some candles identical in length to children that potentially horrific incident followed by a had been healed. Others hung up their pious conclusion makes for a highly crutches as a memento of their cure. Similar satisfying read. practices go back to antiquity and continue Among my favourite stories is that of a today at the great Catholic healing shrines lascivious and promiscuous man who such as Lourdes in France and Loreto in Italy. nevertheless drew the line at having sex As a historian therefore I’m left with a with any woman called Mary (an act which quandary. To what extent is the instinct to he considered profoundly blasphemous). appeal for help from a saint or a divinity, or Seeing an opportunity, the devil instigated a to make a public expression of gratitude for tryst between our hero and a woman who a calamity averted, a human constant? turned out to be named Maria. Fortunately, To return to the ex voto commissioned before the dreadful deed was committed, by the Viadana family: at one level, the scene “This was a world in which the the man discovered the truth, and such was is all too familiar. Today, earthquakes, floods, Virgin and saints were regular his remorse that he was saved from mortal tsunamis, terrorist attacks and bombings sin by immediate death. That he then went continue to cause cities to crumble. And yet visitors, and in which materialism straight to heaven, thanks to the the appearance in the painting of a tonsured could be good for the soul.” intervention of the Virgin Mary, was a monk, buoyed along in a fluffy white cloud miracle indeed, even if it’s hard from a in the sky, is strikingly alien. It is this balance modern perspective to see that as a happy between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the ending. universal and the particular, which will Other stories chart the aversion of exercise me most during my research project. disasters involving children – narratives with In my attempt to establish what was which anxious parents today can easily distinctive about Renaissance piety, I shall be identify. We learn of the miraculous rescue of pursuing religion out of the church and into a girl who falls from the roof of her home the neighbourhood and the home. It is where she has been sunning herself, and of already clear to me that the Italian the baby who incurs ‘monstrous’ injuries to household – far from being a site of worldly the face and blindness in one eye after her individualism – was saturated with religious nurse allows her to tumble into the hearth. practices and beliefs during this period. New One particularly graphic tale from a attention to domestic devotions and the rich Florentine miracle book is of a boy who culture of objects that supported them will Dr Mary Laven nearly suffocates when he becomes challenge our assumptions about the For more information, please submerged in excrement after hiding from Renaissance mindset. This was a world in contact Dr Laven ([email protected]) his mother in the latrine. He is pulled out which the Virgin and saints were regular at the Faculty of History unharmed, and miraculously fragrant, by the visitors, and in which materialism could be (www.hist.cam.ac.uk/). Virgin Mary herself. good for the soul. 24 | Features

Infrastructure revolution

ondon Bridge, so far as we know, is not Horror stories about what could happen Technology has advanced to the falling down. Whether we would be if it all went wrong sometimes crop up in the point where the condition of Lable to tell if it was about to, however, news. In 2007, the I-35W Mississippi River is a different question. And, if it was, we Bridge near Minneapolis fell down during bridges, tunnels and buildings would need to calculate how much time it the evening rush hour. Thirteen people were can be monitored in had left, so that we could establish when to killed and more than 100 were injured. This unprecedented detail. Now a deny people and traffic access for their own tragedy, it later emerged, was a direct result new Centre at Cambridge has safety. Such matters have been of the fact that those responsible for been formed to kick-start the preoccupying researchers like Professors maintaining the bridge simply did not know Robert Mair and Kenichi Soga for most of enough about its condition to predict and smart infrastructure revolution. their careers – and with good reason. prevent the collapse. Next to many icons of British Yet such ignorance is fast becoming a infrastructure, London Bridge (39 years old thing of the past. Thanks to rapid advances in its present incarnation) is a mere spring in technologies like wireless sensors and chicken. Every day, millions of us use fibre optics, it is now possible to keep both bridges, tunnels and pipelines constructed old and new infrastructure under constant in the Victorian age. Our cities and towns are surveillance, monitoring strain, temperature, densely populated networks of displacement, humidity or even a crack in a infrastructure, much of it a century old or wall. Researchers believe we are on the more. They are shaped by the clash of verge of developing ‘smart infrastructure’, political and public expectations, but they which will allow buildings, tunnels, bridges, are also home to some of the most sea defences, or road and railway cuttings to important listed buildings, structures and be subjected to regular health checks at the heritage sites in the world. Given the scale of touch of a button. the job involved in ensuring that Britain’s Mair and Soga, both Professors of Civil infrastructure remains standing, it seems Engineering at Cambridge, are among a both astonishing and oddly reassuring that group of academics at the University making most of it does. that vision a reality. Last year, an Innovation Features | 25 P R

O Knowledge Centre (IKC) for Smart Potentially, a very small turbine could be Japan, parts of the world where monitoring F E S

S Infrastructure and Construction was set up, included to harness the wind power infrastructure is vital given the greater threat O R

K based in the Department of Engineering, but produced by passing trains in the tunnel, of earthquakes and other natural disasters. E N I

C involving colleagues from across the making the system entirely self-sufficient. On Mair and Soga have already used optical H I

S University – in the Department of bridges, similar technology could utilise the fibres successfully in a project on the O G

A Architecture, the Computer Laboratory and vibrations from vehicles. Singapore metro. “The infrastructure of some Judge Business School. The IKC works with Optical-fibre monitoring, another key of these countries is in a state of very fast construction, infrastructure and technology research focus for the IKC, has similarly huge growth,” Soga added. “Like us, they are firms. Its aim is ambitious: its founders potential. Recently, when a new tunnel was starting to realise that smart monitoring believe that it could kick-start a new industry built beneath the century-old Thameslink could have huge benefits.” dedicated to smart infrastructure and tunnel in London, Cambridge engineers construction in the UK. installed optical fibres around the inside of “The analogy I use when describing our the old brick tunnel. These produced IKC is that of a car,” Mair said. “A modern car continuous measurement of the changing has sensors that can tell you such things as strains and temperature at every single point when the brake lights have failed, or the fan along the fibre. Previously, engineers would belt is broken. Smart monitoring can give us have had to use conventional survey equivalent information about buildings, techniques to analyse the impact of the new bridges and tunnels as well.” tunnel. Now, optical fibres can be used to In spite of their huge potential, the latest measure strain directly and continuously – sensor technologies are not routinely used usually at a cost of just 10 pence a metre. in infrastructure at the moment. The Forth In 1994, Mair headed the geotechnical Road Bridge, where corrosion in the main group examining the impact of London’s cables has been monitored since 2003, is a Jubilee Line Extension on the stability of that rare exception. Mair and Soga believe that greatest of British landmarks, Big Ben. Then, we have barely begun to exploit the huge amounts of meticulous manual potential of the latest technologies; little is measurement went into assessing whether done to monitor how most bridges are the clock tower was under threat. When performing and there is virtually no such boring begins for the huge Crossrail project monitoring of buildings. underneath London this year, he and his team Alongside the priority of public safety, will again be analysing the impact on other there is a strong business case for constantly buildings, but this time also with fibre optics scrutinising infrastructure. Worldwide, its and sensors. “The technology we have now maintenance costs billions of dollars every offers a whole new dimension compared to year. Even a small percentage improvement what was available for the Jubilee Line in efficiency would engender major savings. Extension,” he reflected. “London Underground needs to know if the In new structures, incorporating optical Northern Line is good for another 20 years, fibres during the construction process itself or another 80, or longer,” Mair said. “At the would enable an unprecedented level of moment, nobody really knows.” ‘cradle to grave’ analysis of how stable our infrastructure is. At the moment, considerable Sensors and optical fibres over-estimation goes into the use of many “London Underground needs to One of the aims of the IKC is to develop a new components in buildings and structures to know if the Northern Line is generation of wireless sensors to the point of guarantee safety. Better monitoring would good for another 20 years, or marketability by 2016. These small devices allow construction firms to make far more another 80, or longer. At the measure a structure’s physical conditions, accurate judgements about how much moment, nobody really knows.” such as temperature, vibration and strain. material to use. With technology also They are ideal for monitoring those parts of enabling the off-site manufacture of building infrastructure that cannot be reached with components, it should be easier for these ease, like inside a tunnel or under a firms to insert sensors and optical fibres into suspension bridge. walls, facades and beams, by adding them to The Cambridge Engineering Department components in the factory before they reach has already conducted trials with such the building site – thereby creating the ‘smart’ technology, including one that monitored building. humidity in the anchorage chambers of the Humber Bridge, where the steel anchor Smart infrastructure cables have to remain relatively dry to avoid The IKC has been funded to the tune of corrosion. Wireless sensors have also been £17 million, £10 million from the Engineering installed to monitor a tunnel on the London and Physical Sciences Research Council and Underground, where they measure changes the Technology Strategy Board, and the rest in inclination and cracks. from industry collaborators. By 2016, Mair and With wired sensors now a thing of the Soga hope that the Centre will have Professor Kenichi Soga (left) past, the ‘Holy Grail’, as Mair puts it, is advanced both the technology and business and Professor Robert Mair removing the need for batteries. At the cases sufficiently to be able to support its For more information, please contact moment, the sensors need to have their future through industry collaboration alone. Professor Mair ([email protected]) batteries replaced. One of the IKC’s projects If all goes to plan, Britain could by then be and Professor Soga will look instead at using micro-electrical well on its way to becoming a centre for ([email protected]) at the mechanical systems (MEMS), in which smart infrastructure and construction on a Department of Engineering miniature devices and circuitry can be etched global scale. Work is already taking place with (www.eng.cam.ac.uk/). on to a silicon chip as part of the sensor. partners in the USA, China, Hong Kong and 26 | Features B L A T H L E A

Flower N

O N

F L I C K power: R how to get ahead in advertising

Some plants go to extraordinary lengths to attract pollinators. A unique collaboration between plant scientists and physicists is revealing the full extent of botanical advertising. Bees are important pollinators of daisies and many other flowers

f you want to stand out from the crowd, intense and pure colour than a pigment plants use structural colours, both at the you might dress to impress. The world of creates. cellular and genetic level, but also the Iflowering plants is not so very different. Dr Silvia Vignolini, who works on the nuances of how pollinators respond to these Plants that depend on insect and other project in the Department of Plant Sciences signals, as Glover explained: “Knowing how animal pollinators to carry their pollen from and the Cavendish Laboratory, has been pollinators and plants are linked is important one plant to another employ sophisticated characterising the incidence of structural because we don’t know to what extent these mechanisms to attract attention, and it’s not colour among species of flowering plants. In interactions might become uncoupled as simply a case of scent, colour and a sugary recently published findings, she showed that the climate changes. The ranges of plants or nectar reward. the bright and glossy appearance of a animals might move, or their developmental The lengths to which flowers go to self- buttercup’s petals is the result of interplay timings might change. The more we advertise are now being revealed through a between two extremely flat surfaces in the understand these interactions, the better collaboration between botanist Dr Beverley epidermal layer of the petal. Reflection of light placed we are to develop strategies to Glover and physicist Professor Ulli Steiner. by the smooth surface of the cells and the air enhance the signals that make crops Their research project, funded by the layer below the epidermis effectively doubles attractive to pollinators.” Leverhulme Trust, is characterising how the gloss of the petal and reflects a significant plants signal to pollinators not only through amount of UV light. pigments but also through structural Many pollinators, including bees, have Dr Glover explains the structure of a mechanisms that modulate light, and their eyes sensitive in the UV region. “To stand out daisy’s head in our newly launched results have important implications for crop against the green background, some flowers Under the Microscope series: productivity. reflect light at a wavelength best suited to www.cam.ac.uk/research/tag/ “Botanists have long known that there the photoreceptors in a pollinator’s eye,” Under-the-Microscope/ are many tricks with which plants attract explained Vignolini. In the case of some pollinators but not all are visible to the daisies, for example, the researchers have human eye,” explained Dr Glover. “We need to shown that the outer ring of ray florets (petal- look at flowers like an insect looks at them, like structures) reflects UV, whereas the inner using sophisticated optical instruments and ring does not; this, they speculate, could measuring ultraviolet (UV) reflection.” result in a ‘bulls-eye’ effect that draws the Taking a physical optical approach to pollinator towards the centre. understanding flowers is a new field, as Vignolini’s work has demonstrated that Professor Steiner explained: “Using modern some plants produce iridescence through optical methods such as spectroscopy with ordered striations in the plant epidermis high spatial resolution we have been able to which, rather like the grooves of a CD, have study the optical function of surface the effect of creating colour through structures on plant petals and discover interference. Remarkably, bumblebees can something new about how they give rise to learn that the shifting colour is a signal of a Dr Beverley Glover (left), Dr Silvia structural colour in flowering plants.” rewarding flower and can remember that Vignolini and Professor Ulli Steiner Structural colour is the generation of a signal even when presented with novel For more information, please contact visible colour independently of chemical flower colours. The results so far indicate that Dr Glover ([email protected]) or pigments by influencing the behaviour of iridescence has evolved several times in the Professor Steiner ([email protected]) light. A physical structure within the petal flowering plant kingdom and is more at the Department of Plant Sciences reflects a narrow bandwidth of light phylogenetically widespread than previously (www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/) and the wavelength, allowing all other wavelengths realised. Cavendish Laboratory to pass through to the interior, where they The project aims to understand not only (www.phy.cam.ac.uk/), respectively. are absorbed. The effect is often a more the various physical mechanisms by which Features | 27 B .

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Solar-grade silicon at low cost

A new process that has the potential to drive down the cost of manufacturing solar-grade silicon could increase the use of photovoltaic devices for capturing the sun’s energy. Edge of an ingot of silicon, currently the most commonly used photovoltaic material in solar panels

n less than the time it takes to read this the first time and is now in its final research whose research was funded by the paragraph, the sun will have provided as and development stages. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Imuch energy to Earth as used by all of For PV cells to work, there must be no Council. human civilisation in one day. No wonder impurities in the silicon that could sabotage “Crucially, this process requires minimal that, as electricity prices increase, more the movement of electron charge carriers energy consumption, generates O 2 rather homeowners and businesses are opting to within the material. When photons of than CO 2 as a by-product, and is easily up- harness this energy by installing solar panels. sunlight strike the PV cell, their energy is scalable because it involves fewer Yet, despite the huge opportunities solar absorbed by the semiconducting silicon, production stages,” he added. “Many power affords as a renewable source of exciting electrons into a higher energy state attempted scale-ups for other processes energy, it still represents a small fraction of and creating an electric current. have been thwarted due to the sheer our current capacity to generate power. Although various new materials are difference in scale between a pilot plant and One factor holding back the growth of under development, silicon is the most a commercial plant.” Based on the results of the photovoltaic (PV) industry, which commonly used material in PV cells today. an independent economic survey, he provides the modules that make up a solar Numerous attempts have tried to find a new believes that the process will drive down the panel, is the high cost of the solar-grade process for producing solar-grade silicon but, cost of manufacturing solar-grade silicon silicon on which it currently depends. as Cox explained: “All are energy intensive, from around the current $40 –200/kg to a Moreover, the manufacturing methods with a myriad of complex stages, and none maximum of $8/kg, making solar power a commonly used to make crude silicon has become a commercial process that can more affordable option to generate power. produce some 10 tons of CO 2 for every ton of compete with the production scale and silicon produced, and the refinement stage product quality of the Siemens process.” (the Siemens process) produces a further The two-stage process he has been

45 tons of CO 2 as well as toxic gases. developing uses white sand and calcium “It’s somewhat ironic that such an chloride (a product used commonly in the environmentally destructive process supplies food industry) as raw materials. First, tablets 95% of the silicon required by the PV industry of compressed sand are immersed into the to harness a clean and sustainable energy calcium chloride electrolyte and heated to source,” said materials scientist Dr Antony 900°C. The silicon in sand is present as an Cox. “In fact, a solar cell fabricated with the oxide and, during the FFC process, the Siemens process would need to be operating oxygen atoms are ionised, migrate to the for up to six years to match the same energy anode and are discharged as oxygen, which required to make it.” is the only by-product of the reaction. Sand is Cox has been developing and up-scaling not easy to reduce to silicon and Cox has a new process to make solar-grade silicon spent the past four years solving this that he estimates will cut energy fundamental challenge and up-scaling the consumption and costs by 80% and CO 2 first stage of the process. Professor Derek Fray (left) and emissions by 90%. Based on a procedure In the second stage, an electrorefining Dr Antony Cox known as the FFC Cambridge process process within the same cell takes silicon For more information, please contact developed by Professor Derek Fray and from 99.99% purity to the Holy Grail of Dr Cox ([email protected]) at the colleagues in the Department of Materials 99.9999% purity. “Preliminary investigations Department of Materials Science and Science and Metallurgy, the new were very encouraging and we are now Metallurgy (www.msm.cam.ac.uk/). modification has extended FFC to silicon for developing the second stage,” said Cox, 28 | Features

It’s not history

Cambridge linguists have pieced together the curious evolving history of the word not across the languages of Europe. In doing so, they suggest that overuse of words such as literally may be a natural linguistic development.

hat would we do without the word evolution, and have done so at vastly not ? Language depends on different times in history. Take French, for Wnegation: ‘the defendant is not example. To say I don’t know in Old French, guilty’, ‘it’s not fair’, ‘it’s not you, it’s me’. Not ne was used before the verb (as in Je ne sais ) can impart a subtlety of meaning to speech, as until about 800 years ago, when it became in the chastising ‘are you not home yet?’ strengthened to the ne…pas version ( Je ne compared with the query ‘are you home yet?’ sais pas ) that we recognise today. And this is But little do many of us realise that the word largely how it has remained: “Standard has a fascinating linguistic history, involving a French is effectively at stage II of the cycle,” pattern of change that has been echoed again explained Willis. “In everyday spoken French, and again in languages across the globe. people are losing the ne, but children are Now, research at the University of taught to use the full two-word form of the Cambridge has traced how and why the negator. With this conservative influence, it words used to express negation have will be interesting to see whether the changed in the languages of Europe and the language will complete the cycle or stay Mediterranean over the past millennium. indefinitely at stage II.” Led by Dr David Willis at the Department of English, on the other hand, had finished Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, the its cycle by the mid-14th century, moving study is the first comprehensive attempt to from the Old English ne before the verb, to look for patterns across such a breadth of the strengthened ne…nawit (nothing) in languages and over such a timescale. It has Middle English, to the simplified, post- also involved the first systematic analysis of verbial not of Early Modern English. And the history of negation in languages such as some languages completed the cycle even Arabic, Berber, Breton and Welsh. earlier, such as Scandinavian, which had Not only does the new research on the completed the cycle before written records history of not provide a better insight into began, as shown through the reconstructed how languages evolve, and indeed provides history of the language. Other languages a marker of the stage at which a language such as Spanish or Russian have yet to begin has reached in the evolution of negation, the cycle. but it also sheds light on how emphatic “Cycles of usage such as that seen in words such as literally creep into common negation appear to be a normal part of parlance. language development,” continued Willis who carried out the research with Dr Anne Jespersen’s cycle Breitbarth and Dr Chris Lucas. “We are It was at the turn of the 20th century that a interested in what these cyclical linguist named Otto Jespersen discovered a developments are and what they tell us cyclical pattern in how languages express about why languages change. The results negation. Put simply, the cycle moves from a have helped us draw out a new single word meaning not, placed before the understanding of how language contact, verb (stage I), through a stage in which two language acquisition, and psychological words are used either side of the verb and social factors might influence the One of the earliest instances of written use of the (stage II) and then back to a single word after evolution of language in the past and in new not in Welsh, found by Dr Willis in one of the the verb (stage III). the future.” Mabinogion romances contained in a late 14th- Jespersen’s idea was that at some stage century Welsh manuscript (Jesus 20) at lines 4 –6, which reads ‘and a big dark man you will see at the the original negative word is found to be Patterns and pathways end of the mound who is not at all ( dim ) smaller insufficient to express negation and To complete the study, which was funded by than two men of the men of this world’ becomes strengthened by a second, the Arts and Humanities Research Council emphatic word. In due course, the emphatic and is resulting in a series of publications word is used so frequently that it becomes including a two-volume book in 2012, vast the only word needed to express the amounts of written texts were analysed for negative view and the first word drops away. examples of stage I, II or III expressions. Up Many different languages have to a thousand years of linguistic history were independently gone through this cyclical interrogated to observe Jespersen cycles in Features | 29 T H E

P R I N C I P A L

A N D

F E L L O W S

O F

J E S U S

C O L L E G E ,

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some languages. Fieldwork interviews were certain verbs, usually as part of a measure used to resolve how negation is used in phrase, as in It didn’t help a bit , but that spoken Arabic, where the written form is children misinterpreted this, and extended distinct and conservative. use of the emphatic negator to all phrases.” “One of our greatest difficulties was The effect is called bleaching: essentially working out when a change in the expression where the meaning of a word is reduced or of negation was meant emphatically or not,” broadened. said Willis. “This can tell us at what stage the An example of bleaching that many will language is at. At the transition between be aware of today is the linguistic misuse of stage I and II, a second word starts being the word literally (as in I literally ran all the used as a means to emphasise the negative. way ). “Although it strictly means the literal When it is used more frequently, the use of a word, for some it now means that language progresses to a stage when the first they have a strong emotional commitment to word is dropped, and stage III is complete.” what they are saying,” explained Willis. “The For Welsh, the researchers identified the word has caught the eye of prescriptivists, emphatic use of the negative by comparing who dispute its overuse as an emphatic, and Welsh and English versions of the Bible. “In it has also become quite generally overtly Welsh, ni was the first negator, with dim or stigmatised. This may well impede a natural ddim coming into use sporadically for linguistic development of just the same kind emphasis from the end of the 13th century. that we have seen time and time again for In the 16th and 17th centuries, usage went the development of negation in different up enormously. Welsh then remained in languages across the whole of the last stage II for about 200 years and then moved millennium.” into stage III, dropping the use of ni around 1820.” The team’s discovery that Welsh only began Jespersen’s cycle at the time that “Cycles of usage such as that English had completed it helps to answer seen in negation appear to be a why different languages show different cycle lengths. In some cases, the researchers can normal part of language point towards one language influencing the development.” development of a nearby language. For example, the initiation of Jespersen’s cycle in North African Arabic dialects was triggered H

by contact with Coptic in Egypt at the end of O W A

the first millennium. But just as often, as in R D

the case of Welsh and English, contact seems B E A U

to have no effect and Jespersen’s cycle M O

progresses independently. “We believe that N T stage II is generally unstable and that prescriptive pressure, as seen in French, can sometimes retard progression from stage II to stage III,” said Willis.

The influence of emphasis One question the study has considered is how a word that is used emphatically to Dr David Willis strengthen certain phrases becomes For more information, please contact mainstream. The researchers believe that Dr Willis ([email protected]) at the language acquisition by children has a role to Department of Theoretical and play in this type of language change, as Willis Applied Linguistics explained: “We suggest that adults initiated (www.mml.cam.ac.uk/dtal/). using the second negator emphatically for 30 | Features C H R I S

M U R R A Extreme Sleepover: breathless at Y Everest Base Camp

Dr Andrew Murray (right) with his colleagues Dr Nick Knight and Dr Cameron Holloway on the approach to Everest Base Camp

won’t sleep well tonight, not with the camping mat, and right now my bladder is fit Physiologist Dr Andrew Murray nightmarish sounds coming from the to burst. I’d make the short trek to the toilet studies his own and others’ Isleeping bag next to me. Nick, my PhD tent, but it’s –20°C outside and a toasty –7°C responses to extreme altitude as student (and currently tentmate), has been in the tent, so I’m not heading anywhere until struggling to control his breathing for the morning. No, I won’t sleep at all well tonight, part of a programme that will past hour, and as each breath becomes but then again, I never do on my first night at improve hospital treatments for lighter than the last, I recognise the classic altitude. critically ill people. Here, he signs of what physiology textbooks call In the morning, the world feels very describes what it’s like to be Cheyne –Stokes respiration. Momentarily, I different. I’m breathless from simply pulling breathless at Everest Base Camp. wish that my undergraduates were here to on my boots, but as I step blinking into witness this, but suddenly, with a bone- daylight, I gaze around me at the mountain rattling gasp, Nick sits bolt upright, flinging giants that have been keeping watch over open his sleeping bag and drawing in breath our restless night: Pumori, Lhotse, Nupste, after desperate breath. As he settles down, and the mother goddess of the world herself, drifting back to sleep, the cycle begins again, Sagarmatha – Mount Everest. Strange pillars and I am left wondering whether to be more of ice rise around us in stark, desolate perturbed by this human terror or the contrast to the glistening waterfalls and lush external soundtrack to our evening – the rhododendron forests we trekked past on distant rumble of an avalanche on the South our way here. No rock flowers here and no Col and the shotgun-like cracks in the ice of birds; just a few dozen yaks and 5,000 tents the Khumbu Glacier on which our tent is to remind us that this is not some lifeless pitched. alien planet, but an extraordinary However, my most pressing concern is environment on the roof of our own Planet closer to home. My kidneys have been Earth. working overtime to fine-tune my blood pH, Everest Base Camp, deserted three helping me to acclimatise. It’s sparing me weeks ago, has been transformed into a from the periodic breathing that is troubling hustling, bustling, cosmopolitan canvas city Nick, but it’s not easy to get comfortable on a constructed upon rock and ice – a living, Features | 31 A N

breathing epicentre of the world’s D R E mountaineering ambition. Next to our camp, W

M a Malaysian expedition, the first from that U R R A

country, is raising their national flag, and on a Y hillock nearer the icefall, the Scouts have set up their camp for the season. Their base camp manager scuttles between tents, wielding a satellite phone and messages from home, while an expedition Sirdar nonchalantly fries eggs for the lads’ breakfast, using only the magnified light of the brilliant morning sun as fuel. As brightly coloured prayer flags flap and fall in the breeze, sounds of a puja ceremony greet us from across this makeshift metropolis. Reverent chanting gives way to the celebratory clanging and banging of pots and pans. The climb has been blessed, and a team are readying themselves for departure. The wise and wizened climbing Sherpa checks his trusted ropes, while the Everest first-timer fiddles nervously with the buckles on her pack, Sherpas set up camp in the rock, ice and rarified air of Everest Base Camp, while a yak looks on gazing upwards towards her magnificent, deadly destination. The views take away whatever breath we Extreme Sleepover: the series have left, but there’s little time this morning If you missed the recent series of reports from Cambridge researchers describing for idle wonder. We’re here as members of their extreme sleepovers, you can read all 12 at www.cam.ac.uk/research/tag/ Caudwell Xtreme Everest, a large-scale Extreme-Sleepover/ medical research expedition, attempting to Each provides a flavour of what it feels like to experience research in the ‘field’, understand how our bodies respond to low the depth of understanding this can bring, and the times when the unexpected oxygen at extreme altitude in order to help happens… critically ill patients at home, for whom low oxygen can be life-threatening. Featuring: Before breakfast, we complete our • Geographer Sarah Radcliffe working with impoverished women in Ecuador diaries – some are simple measures of mood, • Zoologist Ben Phalan measuring biodiversity in a Ghanaian forest appetite and headache, but there’s also a • Historian Gabriela Ramos travelling to a festival high in the Andes step test, throughout which we monitor • Earth scientist Marian Holness examining rocks in East Greenland heart rate, blood pressure, haemoglobin • Architect Michael Ramage building strength out of weakness in South Africa saturations and breathing rate. The test that • Astronomer John Richer surveying the universe from the Chilean Atacama was light exercise back in London and Desert Kathmandu feels Herculean up here where • Historian Catherine Porter understanding political and cultural identity in the there is half the oxygen to which our Democratic Republic of Congo lowlander bodies are accustomed. I pity our • Engineer Robert Hird testing the stability of saline soils in Turkmenistan teammates struggling with the same test • Medic and scientist Ak Reddy on call in Cambridge and studying the effects of 1,000 metres above us in the Western Cwm. changes to the body clock The tests get tougher, though I’d far rather • Glaciologists Ian Willis and Alison Banwell measuring meltwater on the pedal to exhaustion on an exercise bike than Greenland ice sheet give another blood sample; I never did get • Anthropologist Robin Irvine living a traditional nomadic life in Mongolia along with needles. Most embarrassing though for an academic are the cognition tests. What was a doddle at sea level becomes mind-bendingly impossible at this “I’m breathless from simply altitude. I struggle to recall a list of 15 memorable words or join together some pulling on my boots, but as I step numbered dots. blinking into daylight, I gaze As the light fades and temperatures around me at the mountain plummet, we make our way to the mess giants that have been keeping tent. Exchanging stories of red blood cell watch over our restless night.” counts and resting heart rates, we while away the evening until it’s time for bed once more. Stepping outside, I notice a clear night sky awash with constellations and spend a moment counting satellites Dr Andrew Murray and shooting stars. Another light blinks For more information, please at me from high on the ridge above the contact Dr Murray icefall. A head-torch: perhaps one of our ([email protected]) at the own team preparing for the next stage of Department of Physiology, their summit attempt. I’ll sleep really well Development and Neuroscience tonight, I always do on my second night (www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/). at altitude. 32 | The back page

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