Front Page Bang! Oxford Science Magazine 4th Edition Hilary Term 2010 Contents orial.............................2 Edit ws....................................3 Ne Killer Tits................................5...6 k By Lightning........ Struc Size Matters..............................7 Choosing Children......................9 The Las t Piece of the Puzzle.....11 Just F orget About ......................12 Star Gazing fr om the Spir A Br es........13 oken R elationship?................15 Müß es Sein?...................................17 Modern Da Sci-Phi. y Ne wt ons...........................19 .....................................................20 Beauty is in t The P he Br oe Embr ain of t try of Pi..............................................23 acing Em he Beholder 350 Y Artwork checklist ear pat Ask A Lectur ..........21 PREFLIGHT s of Blue Skiesh....................................26 Preflight check done y.........................................25 Riddler’ DOCUMENT Correct size Correct file name er London. Business. s Diges ....................................................27 Full bleed (if required) COLOUR Correct Pantone/CMYK t..................................................28 Set up asMasters. spot/CMYK Unused colours deleted TYPE Correct Basedfonts in the City of London, the heart of global business, We offer 18 full-time and Kerning part-time specialist Masters SpellcheckCass has been called the best located business school in Europe. Double spaces programmes in the areas of: Bang! Science Magazine, Hilary Term 2010 IMAGES Our accredited portfolio of specialist Masters not only combines world-class • Finance Hi-res theory with hands-on learning, but utilises our links with international industry • Quantitative finance CMYK Editors - Nicola Davis and Thomas Lewton None largerleaders than 125% and policymakers to ensure our graduates are placed at the cutting edge • Actuarial sciences of global business. • Real estate Creative Directors - Leila Battison and Holly Rouse-Sweeney Editorial Team - Neil Dewar, Bryony Frost, Alya Hazell, Chloe McIvor, Matthew Robinson Once the Cassabove Businesshas been checked School’s students and graduates come from over 100 countries • Insurance PACKAGE • Shipping Creative Team - Genevieve Edwards, Max Gordon-Brown, Mark Ho, Anna Pouncey, Louisa Stoppard Artworkworldwide packaged to FINAL and artwork have folder access to a 26,000-strong alumni network. 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We have always sought unifying principles behind such con- nections in an attempt to better understand the world around us: on the most funda- mental level, physicists have for millennia been piecing together the forces of nature in the search for a ‘Theory of Everything’. Creating order out of chaos has revolution- ised the way we view the world and our place in it, while also allowing us to manipu- late our surroundings and even ourselves. Yet a breakdown often occurs across the most vital connection of all: that between scientists and the public. Articulate, engaging communication of scientific research is needed to share the wealth of inspirational scientific discoveries with the public. But more than this, it is vi- tal in avoiding misconceptions that can ob- struct the progress of innovative scientific ideas. Advances in reproductive technolo- gies have already caused alarm but, on the flip-side of the coin, with guided restrictions they have the potential to change many people’s lives for the better. Often influenced by these public percep- tions, politicians must restore their trust and commitment to science as it comes to play an increasingly important role in the political challenges of today. Faced with short-term financial difficulties, politicians must respect the ability of science to produce huge, unex- Become one of the pected benefits in the long-term and direct funding accordingly— it is the unforeseen discoveries of open ended research that of- ten have the greatest impact both socially many faces of Bang! and economically. Likewise, across the whole scientific spec- We are seeking talented applicants for the trum, it is the surprises which cause us to review existing paradigms and make the roles of greatest advances in our understanding of Editor, Creative Director, Web Nature. The discovery of bat-eating birds sheds new light on the nature vs nurture Designer, Artist and Writer debate; while it is literal sparks of lightning that have changed our understanding of the To apply, email process of evolution. [email protected] You’ll find all these ideas and many more by monday 8th week in this issue of Bang!. It is the moment of il- lumination from a novel discovery or the re- alisation of a hidden connection that makes science so exciting and we hope to share this with you. Thomas Lewton and Nicola Davis 1 Art: Louisa Stoppard 2 Editors. News Golden ratio discovered in of some atoms can be reversed by up is limited to ‘modern’ society. Moreo- could all change with a simple and cheap refridgeration will now benefi t. “You could Quantum World the process of quantum tunnelling. ver, the reddish pigments found were a new method of producing vaccines that even picture someone with a backpack subtle blend of iron minerals suggesting are stable even at tropical temperatures. taking vaccine doses on a bike into re- “You might expect to see random that a particular ‘look’ mote villages,” said Dr Cottingham. complex form of mathematical sym- fl uctuations of the spins at this criti- was desired, Oxford University researchers demon- metry linked to string theory has been A cal point, but what we uncovered calling into strated that the Hypodermic Rehydration Some things are set in glimpsed in the laboratory for the fi rst time, was a remarkable structure in the Injection System (HydRIS), patented by as published recently in the journal Science. resonances of the magnetic spins Nova Bio-Pharma Technologies, success- stone indicating a perfectly harmoni- fully enables storage of two diff erent virus- The patterns, observed by Oxford Univer- ous state,” explained Radu Col- based vaccines for six months at 45 °C alaeontologists at Oxford Uni- sity researchers, were the same as those dea leader of the team at Oxford. with no degradation. What’s more, the vac- Pversity have found evidence of in the 248–dimensional mathematical cines could be kept for over a year at 37 °C, pre-Cambrian animal locomotion in object E8. The extra dimensions refer to The pattern of spin alignments removing the need for fridges or freezers. fossilised trails, providing crucial in- mathematical degrees of freedom rather matched that of the golden ratio, sights into evolutionary processes. than everyday spatial dimensions. E8 also occurring throughout nature in, for exam- HydRIS works by suspending the ac- appears in string theory, a contender for ple, the swirl of a snail shell. The golden ra- tive virus of the vaccine in a thick sugary The fossil record is packed with informa- a ‘Theory of Everything’ which aims to tio is also a characteristic signature of E8. syrup, like a fl y stuck in amber. No longer tion from the Cambrian period (542-488 unify the incompatible theories of gen- bombarded by surrounding molecules, the million years ago), a time which saw an eral relativity and quantum mechanics. However, scientists have stressed that al- to strengthen the overall struc- virus avoids degradation. Key to the meth- explosion of animal life, however fos- though E8 does show up in string theory cal- ture against breakage— a fea- od’s success is the use of a membrane sils from the earlier Ediacaran period “The patterns were the same as culations, observing the symmetry in mag- ture also found in Tokyo’s railway. for eff ective drying of the sugar solution. (630-542 million years ago) are rare. those in the 248–dimensional netic crystal experiments does not provide mathematical object E8.” any direct evidence for string theory itself. “Remarkably, what we have found is that “The beauty of this approach is that a sim- All previously recorded Edicaran fossils a simple organism such as a slime mould, ple plastic cartridge, containing the mem- have resembled fern-like or disc-shaped They observed the exotic states by ap- Simple slime mould mimics which makes all decisions ‘locally’ without question the assump-