Cambridge’s Science Magazine produced by in association with Issue 2 Lent 2005 www.bluesci.org Hangover Hell The morning after the night before Einstein 100 years of E=mc2 Our Origins The genes that make us human • Robots: the Next Generation? • Mobile Medicine • • Climate Change • Forensic Science • Issue 2 5 0 0 2 t n e L contents Features Outsmarting the Cheats Emma McIlroy investigates the future of performance enhancing drugs in sport....................09 Patent Pending Alistair Moore discusses the patenting of inventions arising from scientific research.............10 Robots: the Next Generation? Anna Lacey goes in search of artificial life..........................................................................................11 The Genetic Origins of Humanity Andrew Lin explains how small genetic changes go a long way towards making us human..12 Hangover Hell Charley Barber examines the remedies for the morning after......................................................14 Mobile Medicine Katherine Borthwick finds out how a simple text message helps the medicine go down.....16 Nature’s Motor: Putting a Spanner in the Works Jonathan Gledhill on interfering with ATP synthase, the motor that makes our cellular energy...18 What Children Leave Behind Joanna Maldonado-Saldivia investigates the long lasting effects of pregnancy.............................19 Regulars Editorial ............................................03 Away from the Bench ...................22 Cambridge News ...........................04 Initiatives ..........................................23 Events ............................................... 05 History ............................................. 24 Focus .................................................06 Arts and Reviews .......................... 26 On the Cover .................................20 Dr Hypothesis ................................28 A Day in the Life of... ....................21 The front cover shows Paul Cuddon’s image of a neuron (green) resting on a bed of astrocytes (red). The nuclei of both types of cell appear in blue.To find out more, turn to page 20. Next Issue: May 2005 Want to write for BlueSci? We are currently looking for submissions for our Easter Term issue. We need to receive submissions by 5pm on 28 February 2005. We want articles on all kinds of science, but in particular we are interest- ed in receiving contributions concerning the physical sciences. So whatever your scientific passion, why don’t you share it with our readers? Photograph Competition Would you like to see your photograph on the front cover of BlueSci? With a print run of thousands, what better opportunity to have your work distributed throughout Cambridge? Microscopy, MRI, views of the galaxy… the choice is yours! To enter, send your picture and a brief explanation to [email protected] by 28 February 2005. Article enquiries: [email protected] General enquiries: [email protected] New for 2005: BlueSci online Read all the articles on our website www.bluesci.org Issue 2: Lent 2005 Produced by CUSP & From Published by The Editor Varsity Publications Ltd Editor: Edwina Casebow When the BlueSci team gathered to judge ken with its Cambridge connections to take a Managing Editor: Louise Woodley the photographs for our cover competi- special look at the physicist’s remarkable life tion, we were impressed by the diversity and work. Submissions Editor: Ewan Smith of images we’d received. Cambridge’s sci- Back in the scientific world of 2005, entific community is certainly very het- Katherine Borthwick reports on the latest Business Manager: Eve Williams erogeneous! With such a high standard of innovative applications of modern technology entry, it was difficult to pick a winner. I in MOBILE MEDICINE; Emma McIlroy exam- Design and Production think you’ll agree that Paul Cuddon’s ines how scientists are researching new tech- Production Managers: photograph of neurons is stunning. As niques to detect athletes who use PERFORM- Tom Walters, Jonathan Zwart always, you can learn more about it by ANCE ENHANCING DRUGS, and Alistair Moore Pictures Editor: reading our ON THE COVER article. considers the pros and cons of filing for Sheena Gordon The human brain, which contains billions of PATENTS. If that’s not enough to whet your Production Team: neurons, cannot fail to be one of the most capti- neuronal appetite, look beyond the human Victoria Leung,Tasleem Samji, vating objects of scientific study. How though, mind and enter the world of ARTIFICAL INTEL- Helen Stimpson does it make us different from our closest rela- LIGENCE in Anna Lacey’s insight into the next Webmaster: tives in the animal world? Andrew Lin’s com- generation of robots. Mark Woodbridge pelling article on THE GENETIC ORIGINS OF If your abstemious New Year’s resolutions HUMANITY offers an intriguing insight into the have already been broken, take cheer, and turn Section Editors biological basis of this complex problem. to Charley Barber’s article on HANGOVER Cambridge News: EINSTEIN is considered to be one of the CURES to soothe your fragile nerve cells. Laura Blackburn most cerebrally gifted scientists of all time. I hope you enjoy this brain stimulating issue! Events: 2005 marks the hundredth anniversary of his Carolyn Dewey most ground-breaking papers. To mark this Edwina Casebow Focus: unique occasion, our HISTORY section has bro- [email protected] Ewan Smith Features: Joanna Maldonado-Saldivia, Helen Stimpson, Owain Vaughan On the Cover: Jonathan Zwart A Day in the Life of…: Nerissa Hannink Away from the Bench and Initiatives: Tamzin Gristwood History: Emily Tweed Arts and Reviews: From Owain Vaughan Dr Hypothesis: The Managing Editor Rob Young CUSP Chairman: The first issue of BlueSci was launched last tea table at that postdoc who sneaked back to Björn Haßler term and was enthusiastically received.We the lab with the last copy! Secondly, we’ve are thrilled with the response, and are glad appointed a webmaster and have lots of ideas [email protected] that you, the readers, agree with us that for improving our website (www.bluesci.org). PostScriptPicture there’s a real niche for what we’re trying Thirdly, we’re trying to broaden the scope of (VarsityBlack EPS Newest.eps) to achieve. We hope that in giving our articles to include both more on the phys- Cambridge scientists a chance to express ical sciences, and to appeal to budding science Varsity Publications Ltd themselves we have managed to entertain journalists out there. So if you are interested in 11/12 Trumpington Street non-scientists and scientists alike, and contributing to BlueSci, especially in either of have also provided a forum for everyone these areas, or have ideas for the coming year, Cambridge, CB2 1QA in Cambridge to find out about events then please get in touch. Tel: 01223 353422 across the University. Finally, thanks again to Varsity and CUSP, Fax: 01223 352913 We have no intention of restraining our without whose support the magazine would www.varsity.co.uk ambitions this year, and have plenty of ideas to not exist. [email protected] establish ourselves firmly in the Cambridge sci- Looking forward to a scientifically enlight- ence community. Firstly, we’re hoping that ening 2005! BlueSci is published by Varsity Publications Ltd and printed by Cambridge Printing Park. All copyright is the exclusive property of improving our distribution will mean that Louise Woodley Varsity Publications Ltd. No part of this publication may be repro- there will be more copies in hands in all [email protected] duced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or departments, so no more scowling across the by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher. www.bluesci.org 03 s w e N e g Cambridge News d i r b Dancing on the Role for Volcanoes in m a Brain Origins of Life C An unusual collaboration between Dr Researchers from the Department of Rosaleen McCarthy from the Earth Sciences have shown that volcanoes Department of Experimental Psychology may have played an important role in the and choreographer Wayne McGregor origin of life on Earth by fixing nitrogen. may lead to new insights into how the All life needs nitrogen to survive, but brain processes and comprehends move- most organisms can’t use atmospheric ment. The Choreography and Cognition nitrogen as it is in the wrong form. project, funded by the Arts and Bacteria and fungi in the soil can fix Humanities Research Board and Arts nitrogen into a form that plants can use, Council of England, examined how which in turn is used by animals further dancers retain movement and how they up the food chain. In the primordial put movement together. When the soup, however, no such bacteria existed, dancers were asked to visualise a routine so where did the fixed nitrogen come whilst repeating a word over and over, from? Tamsin Mather and David Pyle they found they could run the routine measured the composition of gases above through in their minds with no interrup- a hot lava lake at the Masaya Volcano in tion. However, when they repeated the Nicaragua and found that there was a visualisation whilst tapping a sequence of higher level of fixed nitrogen in the vol- dots on a page, they found that the canic plume than elsewhere. The heat sequence in their minds became disrupt- from the volcano allowed the formation ed. Dr McCarthy hopes that this will help e of fixed nitrogen, and the results suggest v i h to understand how the brain thinks about c that volcanoes could have been as impor- r movement whilst the body is carrying A tant as lightning and asteroid impacts in y t i s out different tasks, thus helping patients r fixing nitrogen for use by the earliest a with brain injury or movement disorders. V micro-organisms. Minute Microcages Developed The development of multi-fingered microcages by Dr Jack Luo and colleagues in the Department of Engineering could offer a much better alternative to the instruments currently available for holding minute objects such as biological cells. The device is made from a metal and Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) bimorph layer deposited by a process used in industrial microelectronics.