TheTHE SOCIETY OF BIOLOGY MAGAZINE ■ ISSN 0006-3347Biologist ■ SOCIETYOFBIOLOGY.ORG VOL 60 NO 3 ■ JUNE/JULY 2013 TOUCH WOOD How arboreta can protect the UK’s forests PHARMACOLOGY RESEARCH INTERVIEW RADIOACTIVE REMEDIES GET INVOLVED BRUCE HOOD Fighting cancer with The 10 best citizen Psychology, neuroscience rare radioisotopes science biology projects and our sense of self TheBiologist THE SOCIETY OF BIOLOGY MAGAZINE Volume 60 No 3 June/July 2013 Contents 24 20 12 16 The eureka amoeba News The single-celled organism ThTHE SOCIETY OF BIOLOGY MAGAZINEe ■ ISSN 0006 3347Biologist ■ SOCIETYOFBIOLOGY.ORG VOL 60 NO 3 ■ JUNE/JULY 2013 IN THIS helping to fight epilepsy. 4 Society news 34 Member news 20 The nuclear option 40 Branch events ISSUE Dr Ulli Köster explains how TOUCH 42 Branch news rare radioisotopes help WOOD How arboreta can protect treat cancer. the UK’s forests Regulars 9 Where have all the botanists gone? 24 Ten great citizen 3 Nelson’s column Botanist Sarah Whild science projects 8 Opinion PHARMACOLOGY RESEARCH INTERVIEW RADIOACTIVE REMEDIES GET INVOLVED BRUCE HOOD explores the apparent decline James Borrell’s top 10 Fighting cancer with Th e 10 best citizen Psychology, neuroscience 10 Policy update rare radioisotopes science biology projects and our sense of self in plant identification. projects from around 32 Spotlight the world. 37 Reviews 12 Seeing the wood for the trees 28 Professor Bruce Hood 45 Biofeedback Simon Toomer explains the The experimental 46 Museum piece modern day arboretum’s role psychologist on why our 47 Crossword in managing our forests. identities are an ‘illusion’. 48 Final word Vol 60 No 3 / THE BIOLOGIST / 1 THE BIOLOGIST Vol 60 No 3 June/July 2013 Contacts Society of Biology Charles Darwin House, Allan Jamieson BSc PhD CBiol FSB 12 Roger Street, EDITORIAL STAFF Catherine Jopling BSc PhD MSB London WC1N 2JU Director of Membership, Marketing Susan Omar BSc PGCE CBiol CSci MSB MRSPH FRGS Tel: 020 7685 2550 and Communications Leslie Rose BSc CBiol FSB FICR MAPM Fax: 020 3514 3204 Jon Kudlick [email protected] Editor www.societyofbiology.org Sue Nelson ADVISORY PANEL Managing Editor Ian Clarke, Horticulture Research International, UK Views expressed in this magazine are Tom Ireland MSB Clive Cornford, Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand not necessarily those of the Editorial [email protected] Board or the Society of Biology. Communications Assistant Sharon Grimster, BioPark, UK Karen Patel AMSB Marios Kyriazis, © 2013 Society of Biology [email protected] Biogerontologist and anti-ageing physician, UK (Registered charity no. 277981) call 0844 858 9316 For membership enquiries Alan Lansdown, Imperial College London, UK The Society permits single copying [email protected] Walter Leal Filho, call 020 7685 2556 of individual articles for private study For subscription enquiries Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany or research, irrespective of where [email protected] Don McManus, Bancroft Centre, Australia the copying is done. Multiple copying Peter Moore, King’s College London, UK of individual articles for teaching EDITORIAL BOARD Brian Osborne, Australia purposes is also permitted without J Ian Blenkharn MSB FRSPH specific permission. For copying or John Scott, University of Leicester, UK Phil Collier MSc PhD CBiol FSB FLS FHE reproduction or any other purpose, Robert Spooner-Hart, University of written permission must be sought from Cameron S Crook BSc MPhil CBiol MSB MIEEM FLS Western Sydney, Australia the Society. Exceptions to the above are Rajith Dissanayake MSc PhD FZS AMSB Kathleen Weathers, Institute of those institutions and non-publishing Catherine Duigan BSc PhD FSB FLS Ecosystem Studies, USA organisations that have an agreement or John Heritage BA DPhil CBiol FSB Steve Wilson, Pfizer Animal Health licence with the UK Copyright Licensing Agency or the US Copyright Clearance Sue Howarth BSc PhD CBiol FSB Centre. Access to the magazine is available online; please see the Society’s website for further details. BIOPHYSICS QUANTUM BIOLOGY MAKING THE The Biologist is produced on behalf QUANTUM LEAP of the Society of Biology by Biologist reveals how The Professor Johnjoe McFadden quantum physics could help explain some of biology’s most mysterious phenomena Think Publishing Ltd. the classical laws break down 124-128 Barlby Road completely, corresponding to our Nowhere is this more apparent intuition that stochastic fl uctuations, Famed for the than in heredity, where the colour rather than classical laws, govern ödinger’s ‘Schr of a person’s eyes, their propensity the dynamics of objects composed of ore than 60 years ago Cat’ thought to disease, perhaps even their small numbers of particles. experiment, which Erwin Schrödinger, one Although the physical nature demonstrates the intelligence or personality, depends London W10 6BL of the founding fathers of M problems of on the dynamics of just a single of heredity had not yet been quantum mechanics, insisted that quantum physics,ödinger inherited molecule of DNA. Nothing established in 1944, it was known certain aspects of biology were Erwin Schr was in the inanimate world approaches that genes were very small and , (below right) inexplicable byWhat classical is Life? laws. this extreme sensitivity to quantum thereby, Schrödinger argued, In his book an early proponent of the level events. Yet all living cells composed of insuffi cient numbers published in 1944, Schrödinger use of quantum manipulate atoms and molecules of particles to be subject to the www.thinkpublishing.co.uk A WINDOW considered the question of why the laws in biology. according to quantum laws. One of classical laws. The stability of macroscopic world obeys classical the biggest questions of 21st century heredity, Schrödinger insisted, could not be laws (thermodynamics, Newtonian biology is the extent to which this founded on the mechanics, etc) despite the fact that matters. How much of biology statistical laws. macroscopic objects are composed depends on non-trivial Schrödinger proposed 020 8962 3020 of fundamental particles obeying a quantum laws? that genes were some very different set of rules: quantum kind of organic crystal, mechanics. Schrödinger pointed When laws break down but a “more complicated out that the large objects behave Classical laws are√ N classically because their dynamics are limited by the ‘1/ organic molecule in which governed by the dynamics of trillions rule’: fl uctuations scale every atom, and every group of of randomly moving particles whose according to the reciprocal of atoms, plays an individual role...” quantum properties are averaged out the square root of the number of Or, order from order. He called ON THE LIFE to zero; from the averaging of all that particles involved. For example, gas these novel structures aperiodic random motion emerges the classical laws accurately predict the volume20 crystals and proposed that they laws: order from disorder. of a balloon (at fi xed temperature obeyed quantum laws. He further Schrödinger’s revolutionary and pressure) fi lled with, say, 10 suggested that gene mutations Design insight was that living organisms particles of air, because fl uctuations were caused by quantum jumps might be different because some of from the laws20 will be of magnitude within the crystals; and went on 10 10 ) of the predicted their macroscopic properties are 1/10 (1/√ to speculate that biology was driven by small numbers of particles volume, which is clearly negligible. governed by new laws, rooted in in highly structured confi gurations However, if the balloon contains only the quantum world (Fig. 1). that might preserve aspects of Was he right? A decade after Alistair McGown 100 particles then fl√ 100,uctuations one 10th will Watson and Crick their quantum character; what he be of magnitude 1/ What is Life? ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR termed order from order. Life’s of expected values – and no longer / 13 NESTING HABITS 2 / THE BIOLOGIST sensitivity to the dynamics of small negligible. With even fewer particles, Vol 60 No SCIENCES numbers may allow quantum mechanical features to loom large 22/04/2013 15:55 Production editor in the biological world. ILLUSTRATION: JONATHAN EDWARDS JONATHAN ILLUSTRATION: A blue tit feeding its chicks in a tree hole nest. s a bi-monthly magazine FEATHERING Clare Harris o 2 The Biologist i / Vol 60 N 12 / THE BIOLOGIST Sub editors (published six times per year) that carries THE NEST Dr Charles Deeming explores the subtle Sam Bartlett, Sian Campbell factors that will determine the size and the full richness and diversity of biology. shape of individual bird nests this spring Publisher ird fests rafge frzm simple fests were built afd hzw they BIOGRAPHY Science is brought to life with stimulating and scrapes zf the grzufd tz fufctizfed. Geferal zbservatizfs B czmplex wzvef hafgifg suggested that the fests zf these John Innes structures. The rzle zf a bird’s fest familiar birds varied if size but it is usually seef as a receptacle fzr was ufclear why. the eggs zr chicks, but receft ) fest is much larger thaf the research is czfsiderifg the bird (Fig. 1), which suggests that authoritative features, while topical pieces fufctizfal characteristics zf fests the time afd physical effzrt tz czllect if zrder tz better ufderstafd their all this material is efergetically [email protected] rzle if bird reprzductizf. demafdifg (fest mass is a fufctizf Dr Charles Deeming If geferal, bird fests tefd tz be zf female bzdy size4, afd fzzd CBiol FSB has been studying various characteristic zf the species that supplemeftatizf caf shzrtef the aspects of 5 built them if terms zf lzcatizf, shape perizd zf fest czfstructizf ), afd we incubation and discuss science policy, new developments 1,2 afd czfstructizf materials . Nests have fz idea zf hzw zr why such a development in caf be lzcated zf rzck ledges, withif variety zf materials are chzsef. birds, particularly vegetatizf, zf zr abzve the grzufd, If this article I relate studies that ostriches, and zr withif cavities if trees zr the my czlleagues afd I have ufdertakef reptiles for over 30 years.