Welcome to SciBox - Our Home of Science News and Commentary

In addition to promoting public engagement with science in general, the Oxfordshire Branch of the British Science Association also want to bring you a collection of science news! 

This will be a collection of opinion and editorial pieces from our contributors, news stories covering things happening locally in Oxfordshire, as well as other stories we find interesting, quirky or downright astounding! 

We have also just added a little sidebar to SciBox we're calling Bits and Bites. Here we'll simply highlight an interesting article, paper or interview with a few words of our own! 


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The British Science Association bids farewell to CEO Sir Roland Jackson
by Carina Brehony & Eloise Aston 19th March 2013

L-R: Peter Hatfield, Eloise Aston, Carina Brehony, Cara Lewis

On March 5th the British Science Association hosted a farewell party for its departing CEO, Sir Roland Jackson, in the distinguished surroundings of the Royal Society. Those in attendance included volunteers from branches across the country (including the Oxfordshire branch), honorary fellows, and current and past presidents and chairs. There was a strong University of Oxford connection, with illustrious names in attendance such as Lord May of Oxford and Lord Krebs, both of whom have been associated with the Department of Zoology in Oxford for many years; incoming CEO Imran Khan is a 2006 graduate of the Oxford Biology course.

BSA President Lord Krebs, Chair Professor Dame Julia Goodfellow and former Vice President Colin Johnson spoke. Johnson joked by way of introducing Sir Roland, “'You know that running a not-for-profit organisation is tough when even the Pope decides to quit'”. Jackson was quick to reply that he wasn’t aware the Catholic Church was not-for-profit!

Sir Roland thanked all those who came on the night and those who made his work and the BSA possible during his tenure, expressing particular thanks for volunteers all over the country. He took over the post in September 2002, before which he was acting head of the Science Museum, and in these 10 years a great deal has changed including the rise of social media, the proliferation of science festivals and the increasing emphasis on science communication to the public.

He will continue to work for Sciencewise, the national centre for public dialogue in policy-making involving science and technology issues, and will be a Visiting Fellow at the Royal Institution. He also plans to do more mountaineering and write a biography of the great Irish physicist and Fellow of the Royal Society, John Tyndall: Sir Roland joked that Lord Krebs’s estimate of six months to write the book may be a slight underestimate!

Imran Khan will take over as CEO on April 2nd.

Sir Roland reflects on his decade at the helm here

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Stroke Vs Brain: Harnessing the Brain’s Survival Skills
by Ranya Bechara, 27th February 2013

photo credit: http://www.vascularinfo.co.uk

Can we use the brain’s inherent survival mechanisms to develop better stroke treatment? In an exciting new study in Nature Medicine, scientists at the University of Oxford reveal a novel way in which the brain protects itself in response to stroke. 

Strokes are a major cause of death and disability worldwide, with 150,000 people affected in the UK every year. Most strokes happen when a blood vessel that supplies blood to the brain is blocked due to blood clots or fat deposits. Once blood is cut off from an area of the brain, brain cells are starved for oxygen and nutrients and start to die within minutes. Current treatments for stroke are focussed on breaking up the clots, improving blood flow to the affected area, and ultimately reducing the brain damage caused by the stroke. However, the so called ‘clot-busters’ are only effective if given within one to two hours of the stroke, so other ways of protecting the brain against stroke damage are in high demand.

In this study, the research team from Oxford University (in collaboration with other researchers from Greece, Germany, and Canada, and the UK) decided to try a new approach. They investigated a phenomenon that has been known for years: some brain cells have an inherent defence mechanism that allows them to survive when deprived of oxygen. These cells are located in the part of the brain responsible for forming memories: a pretty sea-horse shaped structure called the hippocampus. The scientists analysed the proteins produced by these cells and found that the key to their survival is a protein called hamartin. This protein is released by the cells in response to oxygen deprivation, and when its production was supressed, the cells became more vulnerable to the effects of stroke. 

Interestingly, the scientists were also able to make other cells more resilient by inducing them to produce hamartin. The study suggests that hamartin works by causing the cell to undergo autophagy, a process by which the cell ‘eats itself’ by using its internal machinery to degrade unwanted or troublesome parts. Autophagy is thought to be a way for cells to survive harsh conditions; it reduces the cells’ need for energy, making them more likely to survive for a while without oxygen. The role of autophagy in the brain’s defence against stroke is still quite controversial, but the study does shed some light on what makes certain cells more resistant than others to damage caused by stroke.  
By better understanding the brain’s inherent survival mechanisms, scientists hope to eventually design new therapeutics for the treatment of stroke, possibly by using molecules that mimic the effect of hamartin. 

Original article is available here

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Access to green space encourages more exercise..........at home!
by Sarah Loftus, 14th November 2012

England’s green and pleasant land

A research team from Oxford University has recently found that the amount of physical activity we do corresponds with the amount of green space we have access to in our local environment, but interestingly, not with the amount of time we spend taking part in green-space-related activities.

The research team from the university’s Department of Public Health took information from the Health Survey of England, an annual survey containing questions on health and health-related behaviours as well as physiological measurements and compared it to the national land use database, a national survey of environment type. Statistical analysis revealed that those with more access to green space, excluding their own gardens, were generally more physically active, but when they looked at how green space availability related to the amount of sporting activity, walking, and ‘green space leisure’ physical activity people were involved in, no significant association was found. Interestingly, the association between green space and overall physical activity was stronger in urban areas, suggesting that it cannot be explained by people living in rural areas being more active in general.

We are forever being encouraged to exercise frequently to help keep us healthy and avoid conditions such as heart disease, obesity and cancer. The UK government has even issued guidelines for the amount of physical activity we should do, recommending we have five sessions per week of moderate to vigorous exercise of at least 30 minutes duration. It would seem logical that those people who have better access to green spaces such as parks and countryside would be more physically active than those for whom green space is limited. However, previous research yielded confusing results. One study demonstrated that a lack of green space was associated with increased overall and cardiovascular mortality rate, leading to the conclusion that these results reflected lower levels of physical activity in those living in areas with less green space. However, another study revealed that levels of obesity were in fact higher in those living in greener areas, casting doubt on the importance of green space in promoting exercise. The Oxford study is the largest study of this kind performed to date, involving 31,049 survey respondents chosen to be fully representative of the English population.

Physical activity was measured by assessing the number of individuals that met government exercise targets (i.e. 30 minutes exercise, five times per week). However, when the statistical analysis was re-calculated taking into account any 30 minute period of exercise, the association between green space availability and physical activity was lost. In fact, the amount of time people spent walking and doing “green space leisure” activities decreased for greener areas. This unexpected observation may have arisen in part as a result of people living in more built-up areas (i.e. less green areas) being more inclined to walk, for example to the local shop, so as to avoid traffic, whereas those in more remote rural areas may be more inclined to drive.  The study showed that individuals with greater access to green space did more physical exercise relating to their jobs, housework, gardening and DIY, which most likely accounts for the effects on overall activity observed. It is suggested this trend occurs because people who live in areas with greater access to green space, tend to have larger gardens and have more physically active jobs such as forestry, park maintenance and farming.
The results of this study, recently published in the journal “Health and Place” have implications for planning policy. If more green space led to more green-space related physical activity, governments should be encouraging the preservation and an increase in number of these areas. The latter would be problematic in already built-up areas. However, if the relationship between a healthier lifestyle and living in a green area is caused by an increase in other activities such as gardening and housework, government health improvement campaigns should perhaps concentrate on widening existing gardens, improving access to allotments and encouraging the development of small patches of urban space into gardens for communities to develop.

Original Article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3444752/

To Comment, click HERE for the full article text and scroll to the bottom.

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Researchers report rapid re-infection of HCV via sexual transmission at HCV2012 Conference
by Rebecca Grey 14th November 2012

Cautious optimism was the general tone of the recent HCV 2012 meeting, where some recent set-backs for new direct-acting anti-retroviral (DAA) drugs in Phase III trials were discussed along side of promising results for other options. However even as we inch closer to a pharmaceutical cure for all genotypes, epidemiological realities still present significant barriers to the goal of eradication.  

Even after a successful clearance of the virus following treatment, re-infection with a new virus is a major concern for high-risk individuals.  At the meeting, Janke Schinkel’s group from the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam reported that among MSM co-infected with HIV, re-infection rates following successful eradication of the virus was >30% over 5 years. Re-infection with a different genotype (typically genotype 4) occurred much more frequently than re-infection with the same genotype (typically genotype 1a, the most common in Amsterdam), suggesting that a partial immunity to re-infection may only be protective against the original genotype. 

These data are worrying for a number of reasons, says Schinkel. Treatment with DAA’s is now beginning in this cohort, and individuals for whom the treatment was not successful may contribute to some of the re-infections. This means that potentially drug-resistant variants could be transmitted, a huge cause for concern for future treatment options. Although drug-resistant variants appear to have a lower fitness and are ‘outcompeted’ by the non-resistant variant in the absence of therapy, previous studies have found that drug-resistant variants may persist for months after treatment and their ability to initiate a new infection is unknown. Second, new genotypes are now entering the Amsterdam area, which may provide a new opportunity for additional re-infection events for which there is little cross-immunity. Finally the fact that these infections are in MSM with little to no reported IDU behaviour suggests that this might be a population for whom closer monitoring is warranted. 


If you want to find out more about HIV and AIDS why not join us for our December SciBar: HIV/AIDS: The Past, Present and Future with Prof Brian Gazzard.

To Comment, click HERE for the full article text and scroll to the bottom.

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Fear beyond the Amygdala
by Ranya Bechara, Feb 6th 2013

For decades now, scientists have thought that fear could not be experienced without the amygdala,
an almond-shaped structure located deep in the brain (pictured on the left). The amygdala has been
shown to play an important role in fear-related behaviours, emotions, and memories, and patients
with damage to the amygdala on both sides of the brain were thought to be incapable of feeling
afraid. However, a recent study in Nature Neuroscience reports that these ‘fearless’ patients do
experience fear if made to inhale carbon dioxide- a procedure that induces feelings of suffocation
and panic. Moreover, the patients reported being quite surprised at their own fear, and that it was
a novel experience for them! Scientists behind the study have suggested that the way the brain
processes fear information depends on the type of stimulus. The results of this study could have
important implications for people who suffer from anxiety disorders such as panic attacks and post-
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

More details can be found here

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Can you boost your child’s IQ?
by Ranya Bechara, Jan 28th 2013

If you still think that your intelligence is determined solely by your genes, think again. A new study in Perspectives of Psychological Science shows that specific lifestyle factors such as diet and early education have a strong impact on children’s IQ scores. Introducing foods containing fish oils (present in salmon and sardines) into children’s diets boosted IQ scores by an average of 3.5 points, while enrolling children in preschool bumped up their IQ scores by 4 points. Interestingly, by interactively reading with their children, parents are able to boost their children’s IQ by 6 points. Some of these effects depend on the children’s age and socio-economic background, and while IQ is a limited measure of intelligence, the study does shed some light on what factors influence our intelligence.

More details on the study here

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Stress and cancer- a vicious cycle
By Ranya Bechara, Jan 28th 2013

The idea may seem a little voodoo, but behavioural stress seems to have a much more direct effect on cancer than was previously thought. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation reports that stress can make cancer cells grow faster in a mouse model of prostate cancer, and that it can reduce the effectiveness of cancer treatment. Since a cancer diagnosis, especially prostate cancer, can cause a surge of anxiety in patients, stress and cancer may feed on each other in a vicious cycle. On a more positive note, beta blockers, medication that block the effects of the stress hormone adrenaline, counteracted the effect of stress on cancer growth, and will be investigated further as a possible adjunct to cancer therapy. 

More details on the study here

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Ageing, sleep and memory
by Ranya Bechara, Jan 28th 2013 

Are sleep problems and memory loss related to brain changes in the elderly? We have known for a while that sleep helps consolidate memory; and that both sleep and memory are disturbed with ageing. A new study in Nature Neuroscience shows that both of these problems are linked to specific anatomical changes in the brain. In this study, older people performed worse on a memory test than a younger group, and also showed disrupted sleeping patterns, neither of which are surprising findings. However, using imaging analyses to study the participants’ brains, the scientists showed that the aged group also had significant deterioration in a part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex.  These results support the idea that disrupted sleeping patterns due to brain cell loss could underlie age-related memory decline. 

More details on the study here

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The "Dirty Little Secret" about Vaccines

by Gavin Hubbard, Aug 31 2012

In some ways, it’s like a brain: it can learn, it can adapt and, so it’s ready for the next time, it can remember. This is, perhaps, the single most important feature of our immune system. 

The immune system has the chance to learn a unique signature on the surface of an invader every time we’re infected by something, be it virus, bacteria or even a parasite. Once it learns these signatures the body produces antibodies or ’killer cells’ to fight it. When the infection has been defeated, special cells – B-cells – remember it, for as long as a life time. If the invader returns it won’t have such an easy time: the immune system will be ready.

Like most things that learn, the immune system can also be taught – in this case, by using vaccines. Depending on what the target disease is, a vaccine might be a weakened, or dead, version of a virus or bacteria or some specific component of them. Vaccines too can provide a life time of immunity.

For vaccines it’s not just quantity that counts – it’s also quality. And the quality of a vaccine, in terms of its effectiveness, can be improved by the addition of an adjuvant. Adjuvants act like boosters for vaccines, amplifying the immune system’s response. But not all adjuvants are created equal: some work better with one vaccine, but not others. So the search to find new, improved ones is still on.

Now, a team led by Professor Quentin Sattentau, at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University, has shown that by using a polymer, called PEI, as an adjuvant, mice were completely protected from an otherwise lethal dose of flu virus. With just a single dose of vaccine and PEI adjuvant.

PEI is more commonly known in the life sciences as a ‘transfection reagent’, something which can safely shuttle things like DNA into the interior of cells, and its discovery as an adjuvant was somewhat serendipitous.

Read the full article text HERE

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Egging on Heart Disease..and Controversy
by Rebecca Gray, Aug 22nd 2012

Media reports this week have been buzzing over the link between egg consumption, smoking and heart disease. The study has already received much criticism, many because causation (egg intake) does not equal causation (plaque build-up), and because, as has been noted by the authors, these results do not take into account saturated fat intake (or indeed dietary measures of any other kind other than eggs), exercise, or alcohol consumption. Furthermore, only one dietary questionnaires was used (upon referral to the clinic). Yes, it was based on the participants’ memory of their food intake, which has been pounced upon, but this is typical of most nutrition studies and very difficult to get around (you can’t keep people in a lab for 2 years and feed them through test tubes, after all). 

However, many studies looking at the impact of nutrition suffer from similar faults, and that doesn’t mean the study is invalid. Aside from the obvious ones mentioned above, there are other factors about this study that concern me more.
David Spence and colleagues report a correlation between ‘egg-years’, defined as the number of egg yolks eaten per week times the length of time this amount had been eaten, and the size of carotid plaque area, which is a significant predictor of cardiovascular risk (1). This association held up even after authors adjusted their results for the number of cigarette years (number of packs/wk multiplied by the number of years smoking). The authors also adjusted for age, since older people have larger plaque areas. A total of 1231 individuals were considered in the analysis.

Other factors that the authors include in the multiple regression analysis that were significant were body mass index (BMI), total cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, gender, and diabetes. Triglycerides and HDL or LDL cholesterol separately were not significant. 
The authors state that ‘egg-yolk years was more predictive than fasting cholesterol or BMI’; however, BMI and total cholesterol are actually negatively associated with plaque size. That is, individuals with a higher BMI have smaller plaques. This seems a bit puzzling, although the authors note in the article that the association between dietary and serum cholesterol is not always positive. “I suspect the negative associations…may be related to interactions with age and diabetes, and maybe sex” notes Spence.  

Read the full article text HERE

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World AIDS Day
by Amanda Coutts, Dec 1st 2012

World AIDS Day takes place annually on December 1st as an opportunity to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS.  Although new HIV infections have been significantly reduced in the past decade, it is still estimated that roughly 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV.

In the UK figures suggest that 100,000 people are infected with HIV and last year 6,000 new cases were diagnosed.

Today we pay tribute to people living with HIV/AIDS and commemorate those who have died. It's also an opportunity to educate ourselves and raise awareness. If you want to learn more about HIV/AIDS join us on Dec 20th for our SciBar with internationally renowned HIV expert Prof Brian Gazzard.

http://www.un.org/en/events/aidsday/
http://www.worldaidsday.org/

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Can climate change cause the collapse of civilisation?
by Amanda Coutts, Nov 10th 2012

*

There are many theories as to what caused the collapse of the Maya civilisation, but research recently published in Science (nov 9, 2012: 338 pp.788-791) suggests that climate change may have been the culprit. Douglas Kennett and colleagues from Penn State University, using a type of cave deposit called a stalagmite, developed a model of the climate during the rise and fall of the Maya civilisation. The researchers suggest that extreme weather, leading to drought, may have ultimately resulted in the collapse of their civilisation.

A link to this research and a podcast interview with Douglas Kennett can be found here: www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6108/825.2.full

If you want to find out more about extreme weather and climate change why not join us for our November SciBar: Waking the Giant: why climate change triggers earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes with Prof Bill McGuire.

*By Simon Burchell (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 used under (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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Past Articles
Click HERE to go straight to our Article Archive

February 2012

Bacterial Evolution in the Lab
by Amanda Coutts
Human Brain Predicts Social Network Size
by Sarah Loftus
Mind Reading
by Sophie Douglas
Hard Drives Without Magnets
by Steven Farkas

January 2012

New Evidence Suggesting Badger Culling is Counter Productive
by Sarah Loftus
An Alternative to Exercise
by Sophie Douglas

December 2011

Bugs not Burgers
by Gavin Hubbard

November 2011

The Future of Discovery - A Cancer Biologist's Perspective
by Sarah Loftus
A Neat tug to move a Gene
by Amanda Coutts
Fruit Fly Work Identifies New Possibility For Drugs to Combat Aging
by Gavin Hubbard
New Insight into the Social Evolution of Primates
by Sarah Loftus

October 2011

Mid-Brain Light Sensor helps birds respond to seasons
by Sarah Loftus
Laughing away the Pain
by Amanda Coutts

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Science Blogs!
If you are looking for one, then here are some of our personal favourites:

Not Exactly Rocket Science - Ed Yong
Ed Yong is an award-winning British science writer. His work has appeared in New Scientist, the Times, WIRED, the Guardian, Nature and more. Not Exactly Rocket Science is his attempt to talk about the awe-inspiring, beautiful and quirky world of science to as many people as possible.

The Science Punk Blog - Frank Swain
SciencePunk is the brainchild of Frank Swain. He has lots of certificates on his wall certifying an unsuccessful £15,000 gamble on higher education. He now works as a freelance science writer and blogger, a career that promises to resolve his debts in around 500 years' time.

**Frank was also our December SciBar speaker - click here to get the podcast**

The Oxford University Science Blog
It only seems right that we include the science blog from our friends at Oxford University!

Nature Blogs
Commentary from one of the most distinguished and well known names in science publishing

British Science Association Oxfordshire Branch Blog
Well we did say we'd blow our own trumpet didn't we? Our own Gavin Hubbard has been blogging on our website for the last 8(ish) months. Check it out!