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< Back to Issue 2 Spirituality and Science Science is limited by the philosophies which govern it. Common thinking is that science is a rigid, cold and largely academic field which sneers at the domain of spirituality. I posit that one must move beyond this point of view in order to do good science, and to find the true aims and values of the discipline. by Hamish Payne 10 December 2021 Edited by Irene Yonsuh Lee & Khoa-Anh Tran Illustrated by Quynh Anh Nguyen When I was fifteen, I thought that I could thwart my English teacher. He had given us homework that was simple enough; discuss with our families whether true altruism exists. I did not have this discussion with my household but instead hosted the debate in my head, coming to a measured conclusion. However, the privacy of my argumentation showed the next day when my teacher asked me to share. He immediately suggested that I had only been thinking by myself and had not welcomed others into my discussion. This is not my most interesting story, but it did teach me something important: every thought that I have had contains traces of me. Even when I am fiercely debating contrary viewpoints on a subject, even when I am having my most dissonant thoughts, it is my own voice against which I argue. Whenever I have drawn my pen across the page, I have been leaving my fingerprints in the ink. At the time, these traces of me made me very uncomfortable. I have always heard that the beauty in science is that it does not matter if it is considered in isolation or in consultation with others; its facts and its theorems are invariant. This vision of science as a haven for unchanging logic was popularised by Descartes. For the cartesian, the body is split from nature, allowing one to consider the latter more sterilely. But the mind is also split from the body, and our talents, ambitions and passions are split apart in our minds. This thinking for centuries has spurred enormous strides forward in physical technology and has made humanity feel in control of our environment largely because the cartesian divide heralds natural determinism wherein each phenomenon has a direct and exploitable cause[1]. However, there is no room for individual expression in the Cartesian framework – no place for perception, experience, or spirituality. Though my retelling is likely apocryphal, the story of Galileo serves in my mind as a symbol of this divide. From the instant Galileo sought to place the sun at the centre of our solar system, he toppled the heavens and was thus persecuted by the purveyors of spirituality. The persecution of both the scientist and his heliocentric principle barred faith and belief from the scientific process and hence placed reason and logic at its centre. Yet it should not be forgotten that the clergy of the Roman Inquisition paid Galileo in kind and forbad the scientist a spirit. But what are the consequences of taking such a divided view of nature? When I hear people talk about scientists today, they treat the scientist not as someone who lives but as someone who develops rules about life. Scientists must never strive for innate beauty, but for inert truth, guided by cold logic – even Oscar Wilde wrote that “the advantage of science is that it is emotionless”[2]. As a continuation of Galileo being branded apostate, the scientist has been stripped of the right to ambiguity in his explanations, and uncertainty in his world view. If science is not complete, it is deemed a failure. But this is ludicrous. Any scientist must know and accept that the cartesian split neglects certain aspects of the world – those properties of a system which emerge only when all its parts are combined. Moreover, nature still eludes science on a very deep level. For example, there is still no widely accepted philosophical explanation of quantum mechanics, no ability to predict the chaotic flow of a surging river, no profound understanding of the synchronisation of heart cells. Science is so woefully incomplete and incapable of dealing with the sheer scale of disorder in the world that most real-world systems must undergo several fundamental simplifications to be modelled, lest they take years to understand. And when things are cut apart, it becomes even more difficult to stitch them back into the complete picture. Then what remains of the aims of science if it is only an imitation of nature – a painting with no colours, shadows on the wall? When I ask myself this question, I find Feynman’s words echo back in my head: doing science is no more than thinking about “the inconceivable nature of nature”[3]. Science seeks to connect us with nature. It is not about disassembling it and organising it, splitting it into more and more isolated pieces, but about marvelling at the whole system, attempting to let it all sit in your mind - to look at the dancing shadows and understand what is casting them, enjoying the dance all the same. Likewise, in his book, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, Steven Strogatz humorously lists life under the list of unexplored scientific domains[4]. He does not relegate, however, science to its usual, removed, and sterilised place in this. Instead, he suggests that nature is so complex, that one cannot help but marvel at it with no real hope of controlling or quantifying it. I argue that these two scientists are just as much talking about what it means to be spiritual as scientific. To be spiritual is to try relentlessly to understand our life and our world and their relationship, even as they mercurially shift and change. Simply put, spirituality arises from a profound connection with nature. For example, the unity of the mind and the natural world is the bedrock of Eastern mysticism. The discipline seeks to connect the two through considered meditation and direly avoids their division. Such is highlighted by the Buddhist philosopher Asvaghosha; “When the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is produced, but when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things disappears.” Western religions similarly connect nature and the spirit. Polytheistic traditions like the ancient Greek and Roman ascribe to their gods an element of the world each to control. The communication of the individual with a god is thus the interaction of the individual with the natural world. Similarly, the God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is often present in awesome acts of nature. Particularly in the oldest parts of the Bible, God is seen to communicate through natural disasters and great floods and great fish and plagues and pestilences. Whilst I must admit that this analysis is somewhat superficial, it certainly illustrates the place nature holds deep in our minds and mythology. In an overwhelming number of cases, nature begets spirituality. Science is likewise born of nature and, for me at least, is therefore spiritual. But the value in reclassifying science as something spiritual as well as logical is not argumentation for naught. The scientist who is spiritual and fully connected with nature is better equipped than any. Guarding the connection between the individual and nature as sacred allows us to question our world on a more fundamental, truer level. Take as an example a question I hear often in my studies of physics: “Why is this theorem true?” Whilst it sounds reasonable enough, this type of question leads its asker down a reductionistic rabbit hole, in pitting mathematics against nature. Instead of seeing mathematics as a tool to describe nature, nature is seen as a product of mathematics. The rich physical world is reduced into rigidly true or false statements when we know such dichotomies are severely inept in the real world. Perhaps the scientist who is more holistically, spiritually connected with nature would be prompted to ask instead: “How true is this theorem to the world?” One does not have to look far to see how this subtle shift in approach to science can be incredibly successful. A fundamental principle of quantum physics states that matter is simultaneously particle-like and wave-like. This ambiguity in physical explanation, which would not be allowed from a cartesian point of view, is acceptable because it matches completely what is observed rather than attempting to reduce nature into the language of mathematics. Werner Heisenberg even wrote that “we cannot speak about atoms in ordinary language”, demonstrating the need for scientific holism. Approaching scientific discovery from a spiritual perspective allows us to move beyond the constraints of a reductive language. Likewise, studying science increases our spiritual relationship with nature. Albert Camus, perhaps rather unknowingly, said much the same thing in his unpublished novel, La Mort Heureuse. The protagonist, Mersault, on the brink of his death, says of the red, sunset clouds: “When I was young, my mother told me that [the clouds] were the souls of the dead who were travelling to Heaven. I was amazed that my soul was red. Now I know that it’s more likely the promise of wind. But that’s just as marvelous.”[5] What is spiritual is natural. Intellectual curiosity is rooted in the physical world, even as it changes and develops, becomes completely chaotic and throws more and more unanswerable questions in our faces. Science persists not because it seeks to provide answers to all of life’s questions, but because it provokes the mind into deeper questioning and, in that, deeper connection with nature and its ineffable, uncapturable beauty. The most marvellous thing about taking this perspective is that the science I do becomes more personal and ignites a stronger passion. I no longer must worry about the traces of myself; they are a necessary part of my understanding of the world and have shown me that, although science is “emotionless” in its methodology, it should not be so in its execution. Science is not spiritual because it precludes knowledge that is born from blind faith, but because it pushes knowledge to somewhere that is deeply human and that is beyond faith. References: [1] Fritjof Capra. 2000. The Tao of Physics : An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. 35th Anniversary Edition. Boston: Shambhala. [2] Wilde, Oscar. (1890) 2018. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York, Ny: Olive Editions. [3] Feynman, Richard. 1983. “Fun to Imagine with Richard Feynman.” Documentary. BBC. [4] Strogatz, Steven H. (2014) 2019. Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos : With Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering. Second. Boca Raton: Crc Press. [5] Camus, Albert. (1971) 2010. La Mort Hereuse. Paris: Gallimard. Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

< Back to Issue 2 Hidden Worlds: a peek into the nanoscale using helium ion microscopy How do scientists know what happens at scales smaller than you can see using an optical microscope? One exciting method is the helium ion microscope which can be used to view cells, crystals and specially engineered materials with extreme detail, revealing the beauty that exists at scales too small to imagine! by Erin Grant 10 December 2021 Edited by Jessica Nguy and Hamish Payne Illustrated by Erin Grant The room is white, with three smooth walls and a fourth containing a small sample prep bench and high shelves. In the centre is a desk with three monitors. Next to it, occupying most of the space, is the microscope. Eight feet tall, a few feet wide, resting on an isolated floor surrounded by caution tape; “NO STEP” written in big block letters. Wires protrude from its tiered shape in orderly chaos. It is a clean, technological space; we are ready to explore science. A colleague and I are at the Materials Characterisation and Fabrication Platform of the University of Melbourne to finish off the last steps of a scientific paper I’ve been working on for many years. What I need, as the icing on the cake, is an image. What does my sample look like way down there, at the nanometre scale? Objects that are only nanometres in size are very hard to imagine when we’re used to thinking about metres, centimetres, or maybe even millimetres. We can see those length scales; they are part of our everyday. So, if you’re told that proteins have a diameter of a few nanometres, what does that mean? Well, to be precise, a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre. A human hair, the go-to yardstick for describing small things, has a width between 0.05-0.1 millimetres, which means that if you wanted to slice a hair into nanometre-wide strands you’d end up with nearly 100,000 pieces. Unfortunately, that’s still hard to visualise, but I’ve found that when working with and thinking about scales like this every day, you gain a sort of mental landscape that small things occupy, perhaps not entirely in context, but a space that contains an overall ‘vibe’ of smallness. I first noticed this when I worked in a laboratory that studies the tiny nematode worm C. elegans. These creatures are half a millimetre long, so although they are clearly visible to the naked eye, you need a microscope if you want to use them for science. After looking at these tiny creatures under magnification for many weeks, I came to recognise a feeling almost like being underwater. Upon putting my eyes to the lens, my focus would change from the macroscopic world around me, to one of minutiae. This change in perspective was quite immersive, I almost felt like I was inhabiting that small petri dish too. Working with samples even smaller than that now, I have carried some of that mental landscape with me. It now feels commonplace to imagine tiny systems, such as crystals or molecules which were once foreign. Much of this ability to visualise small things comes from the fact that in many cases, we can actually see them too. Physics has given us many tools with which we can peer into the smallest systems that exist. Helium ion microscopy, which I have come here to carry out, is one such technique. Dr Anders Barlow runs the helium ion microscope (HIM) at this facility. He warmly welcomes me and my colleague into the quiet room and jumps straight into an enthusiastic explanation of the machine – he can tell we’re not just here for some pictures, we want to know the inner workings of the microscope too. The HIM is a bit like the more mature surveyor of minuscule worlds: the electron microscope. While a regular optical microscope uses light to illuminate a sample, the electron microscope uses electrons. When they collide with the sample these electrons can bounce off or lose energy through several mechanisms. The lost energy can go into heat or light, but more usefully, the energy might be transferred to other electrons in the sample, called secondary electrons, ejecting them like a drill removing rocks from a quarry. The secondary electrons can be detected at each point across the sample as the beam is scanned over its surface. If more electrons are detected, then the pixel at that point is brighter compared to areas where there are fewer electrons. This tells you about the topography or composition of the sample at that point on its surface and provides a grayscale image. The HIM works in the same way, but it can generate sharper images because helium ions are heavier than electrons. This is important because the increased resolution of electron and helium ion microscopes is enabled by their quantum mechanical properties - namely the particle’s wavelength. You may have heard about the wave-like nature of light, which is a basic property of quantum mechanics. Particles also have a wavelength, called the de Broglie wavelength, which is inversely proportional to their mass - the heavier the particle, the shorter the wavelength. Having a shorter wavelength allows smaller details to be resolved because of a pesky phenomenon called diffraction. Diffraction occurs when a wave encounters a gap that is of the same or smaller width to its wavelength. When this happens, the wave that emerges on the other side will be spread out. You can think of the features that you want to image as being similar to gaps, so when light, or a particle, interacts with features that are very close together it will spread out, making those features blurry or even invisible. But if you can ensure that the wavelength is smaller than whatever feature you want to see, diffraction will not occur. Interestingly, physicists can actually take advantage of diffraction, and another phenomenon called interference, when they study periodic structures like crystals, but that’s a different article! So, because the de Broglie wavelength is very short for particles with mass, like electrons, an electron microscope can generate images of higher resolution than an optical microscope. Likewise, helium ions are even heavier than electrons because they are composed of one electron, two protons, and two neutrons. This makes them about 7,000 times heavier than a single electron (electrons are very light compared to protons and neutrons!) and consequently the images they can make are very sharp. With our samples ready, lab manager Anders loads my sample into the microscope and begins lowering the pressure in its internal chamber. Having a high vacuum – approximately a billion times lower than atmospheric pressure – is essential because it prevents air from interfering with the helium beam. Making the beam is perhaps the most miraculous part of this technological feat. At the very top of the microscope’s column, there’s a tiny filament shaped like a needle. Not like a needle, in fact, it is the sharpest needle we humans can make. To achieve this, the point is shaped by first extreme heat, and then some extreme voltages until the very tip is composed of only three atoms, reverently referred to as the trimer. Once the trimer has been formed, a high voltage is applied to the needle, resulting in an extreme electric field around the tip. Next, helium gas is introduced into the chamber and individual helium atoms are attracted towards the region of the high electric field. The field is so strong that it strips each helium atom of one electron, ionising it, and these now positively charged ions are repelled from each of the three atoms in the trimer as three corresponding beams. Using sophisticated focusing fields down the length of the column allows Anders to choose only one of the beams for imaging; we are creating a picture using a beam only one atom wide! Generating such a precise beam requires constant maintenance, but once Anders is satisfied with how it looks today, he begins scanning over a large area for what we’ve come to find: tiny proteins stuck to a diamond. In an experimental PhD, you often find yourself answering small incremental questions and today I want to know how well I’ve attached these proteins to my diamond and what the coverage looks like. Other measures have told me that I probably have a lot of them, but the best way to know is to have a look! That’s what Anders does for researchers at the university; he helps us find out whether we have done a good job putting things together or coming up with new techniques. This is something he loves about his job. “I love the exposure I get to many areas of science,” he says, “Imaging of all forms is ubiquitous in research, and the HIM is applicable to most fields, so we see samples from materials science, polymers, nanomaterials, and biomaterials, through to medical technologies and devices, to cell and tissue biology of human, plant and animal origin. I never get tired of seeing what new specimens may come through the lab door.” Unfortunately, the first images we see are very dark and washed out, like a photograph taken in low-light; not many secondary electrons are making it to the detector. To combat this, Anders uses a flood gun to stop charge build up on the surface of the diamond. When the helium ions create secondary electrons, they are ejected from the surface at low speeds. As electrons are negatively charged, the bombarded surface, which now lacks electrons, will become positive and the low energy secondary electrons will be attracted back to the surface instead of making it to the detector. In an electron microscope this is avoided by coating insulators, such as my diamond, with a conductive material like gold. If the surface is conductive, the positive charge that is left behind by the secondary electrons will be offset by electrons from the metallic coating that can flow towards the sudden appearance of positive charges. In this case, the ejected electrons can escape and be detected. However, a coating like this would reduce the resolution of the image; if you want to measure proteins that are twelve nanometres high, but you put a three-nanometre coating over them, you’ll lose a lot of the resolution! To get around this, the HIM uses the flood gun, which lightly sprays the surface with electrons of low energy as the helium beam passes over. This neutralises the surface and lets the secondary electrons escape in the same way as having a conductive layer. Once Anders turns on the flood gun, the contrast increases, allowing us to zoom in on a small region of the diamond, and there they are! Thousands of spherical proteins arranged neatly across the surface, only twelve nanometres in diameter. The sight is spectacular, only one try and we got what we came for. I am three years into a PhD and I’ve become very used to the feeling of disappointment that can accompany new experimental techniques. Things rarely work out the first time around, so to see those little spheres straight away was magical. Dotted across the diamond surface is another, extra, gem. To keep protein nice and happy, you must prepare it in a salty solution. So, when the protein was deposited, some regular table salt, NaCl, came too. We can see this salt in our images as crystals in two distinctive and very beautiful patterns which you can see in the images below. Protein on the surface of my diamond. Each small pale circle is one of these spherical proteins. The first image shows a large creeping pattern, reminiscent of snowflakes or tree roots, which spreads its soft fingers across several hundred nanometres. These crystals have taken on an amorphous pattern, where the crystal structure is broken up rather than being one continuous arrangement of the atoms. The second pattern however, shown in the right image, is what a continuous NaCl crystal looks like. When large enough crystals can form without becoming amorphous they look like precise cubes of various sizes all strewn about. One of my favourite aspects about looking at very small things, is how the patterns you see often mirror those at much larger scales. Look at a fingerprint and you’ll find mountains and valleys, or the roots of a tree and you’ll see a river system. Salt (NaCl) can take on a highly ordered structure shown by the cubic crystals (left) or an amorphous pattern similar in shape to tree roots (right). The astonishing images we get from this single session are all in a day’s work for Anders. He has imaged numerous kinds of cells on all manner of interesting substrates, patterned surfaces covered in needle-like protrusions, and many kinds of man-made materials. Today, there are vials on his prep-bench which, at first glance, look much like jars of hair. However, they are not hair, in fact they are strands of carbon fibre covered in various coatings, awaiting examination. ‘What are your favourite types of samples to look at?’ I want to know. “Cell biology is fascinating,” he says. “We’ve imaged red blood cells, pancreatic cells, stem cells, and various bacterial cells in this microscope. Most often researchers are interested in cell life and death, and the HIM assists by providing high resolution images of the structure and surface topography of the cell membrane.” Recently however, Anders has been helping researchers look at polymer materials for water filtration. “These are hierarchical porous structures, meaning they’re engineered to have pore sizes that vary through the membrane. It is stunning to see the materials at low magnification with large pores, and as we zoom in and in and in, to see new pore sizes become visible at each level, like a material engineered with a fractal quality.” One of the unique things about the HIM, Anders reminds me, is that it’s not just for imaging. Since helium ions are heavy, they carry a higher momentum than electrons. “We leverage the momentum of the ions to actually modify structures too. We can create new surface properties, new devices, new technologies, on a scale that is often too small for any other fabrication technique. This is some of the most exciting work.” If you know anyone who needs some nanoscale drilling done, then the HIM is your instrument! Today’s excursion across the university campus has been thrilling. I got what I came for and I’m excited to find other projects that could benefit from the insight and beautiful images the HIM can provide. Imaging instruments have always fascinated me and I’m looking forward to witnessing how far we will be able to delve into the nanoscale world in the years to come, thanks to the fast pace of engineering and physics research. Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

< Back to Issue 4 From the Editors-in-Chief by Caitlin Kane, Rachel Ko, Patrick Grave, Yvette Marris 1 July 2023 Edited by the Committee Illustrated by Gemma van der Hurk Scirocco, summer sun, shimmering on the horizon. Salt-caked channels spiderweb your lips, scored by rivulets of sweat. Shifting, hissing sands sting your legs. You are the explorer, the adventurer, the scientist. A rusted spring, you heave forward, straining for each step, hauling empty waterskins. ----- The lonely deserts of science provide fertile ground for mirages. An optical phenomenon that appears to show lakes in the distance, the mirage has long been a metaphor for foolhardy hopes and desperate quests. The allure of a sparkling oasis just over the horizon, however, is undeniable. The practice of science involves both kinds of stories. Some scientists set a distant goal and reach it — perhaps they are lucky, perhaps they have exactly the right skills. Other scientists yearn to crack a certain problem but never quite get there. In this issue of OmniSci Magazine, we chose to explore this quest for the unknown that may be bold, unlucky, or even foolhardy: chasing the ‘Mirage’. Each article was written entirely by a student, edited by students, and is accompanied by an illustration that was created by a student. We, as a magazine, exist to provide university students a place to develop their science communication skills and share their work. If there’s a piece you enjoy, feel free to leave a comment or send us some feedback – we love to know that our work means something to the wider world. We’d like to thank all our contributors — our writers, designers, editors, and committee — who have each invested countless hours into crafting an issue that we are all incredibly proud of. We’d also like to thank you, our readers; we are incredibly grateful that people want to read student pieces and learn little bits from the work. That’s enough talking from us until next issue. Go and read some fantastic student writing! Previous article Next article back to MIRAGE

< Back to Issue 2 Tactile communication: how touch conveys the things we can’t say Our daily dose of touch has decreased through months of lockdowns. But why is touch so important to us, and why do we feel the lack of it so severely? by Lily McCann 10 December 2021 Edited by Juulke Castelijn and Ethan Newnham Illustrated by Janna Dingle In a confusing world, thrust in and out of lockdowns, estranged from family and friends, you may have felt somewhat lost and out of touch in recent years. What helps to bring you back to a sense of self and belonging? For me it's a hug from my partner, a pat on the back from a sibling or a cuddle with my dog. Positive physical contact helps ground us and reassure us of our place in the world. It's an instinct cultivated from our first moments of life and one crucial to development. As the first sense to form, touch is the start of our gradual awakening into the world and informs our developmental progress. Even touching a mother’s stomach in pregnancy can alter the behaviour of the foetus within[1]. In the mid-late 20th century, researchers began to study the impact of sensory deprivation on children and infants, examining those placed in institutions who suffered from neglect[2]. This was a poignant problem following World War II, when millions of children were orphaned or displaced. The limited number of carers in overcrowded orphanages that attempted to harbour them meant that infants and young children were often left to lie day after day without a hug, stroke or any other form of caring contact. Upon studying these children, it became clear that the impact of deprivation was devastating, resulting in a number of cognitive, behavioural and physical deficits. Studies have since established that increasing tactile contact with developing children is protective against such problems[3]. For instance, simply stroking isolated premature babies improves mental development and physical growth[4]. It seems that touch provides a message to the infant’s body, communicating that it is safe and guarded and in an environment where it can grow and flourish. As you might expect, this process is closely related to stress responses. Studies have shown that in stressful situations of food deprivation, mice populations prioritise survival, neglecting breeding and exploration. When food is plentiful, this is reversed. A mother’s touch has a similar effect on human infants, decreasing stress levels and facilitating development and exploration[5]. We see another good example of this in dogs. Along with other domesticated animals, dog display something called ‘Domestication Syndrome’, which describes a set of features animals shaped by human breeding efforts share[6]. The ‘cute’ physique of such animals (floppy ears, snubby nose, curly tails) are correlated with increased stress tolerance and more tame behaviours. Interestingly, in dogs this decrease in stress is also paired with increased desire for and pleasure in touch. This is clear even between dog breeds: the working Australian Kelpie with its active herding instincts is more likely to chase down a bicycle than snuggle into you and ignore it like the floppy-eared Cavalier. Correlation studies abound, but what about the mechanism behind all these associations? How does touch affect our body? How is its message conveyed? The key mediators of tactile communication are nerve cells, otherwise known as neurons. These cells conduct signals to, from and within our brain. They’re particularly important for sensation, transferring information about our external environment to our inner mind. For touch, there are neurons in our skin with specialised endings that can sense pressure, vibration, temperature and stretch. They respond to these stimuli by firing little signals that tell our brain we’re touching something. There are actually two distinct types of touch that we use. Typing, turning book pages or handling tools are all mediated by the first type, discriminative touch, which is mainly limited to the palmar surface of our hands and fingers. Have a look at your palm now, then flip it over and examine the back of your hand. Notice anything different? The main difference is that the inner surface of your hand is smooth. Check out the back of it – it’s hairy. Hairy skin is differentiated by – you guessed it – hair, but also by the method of touch sensation. The type of touch experienced by hairy skin is affective touch. Affective touch holds the key to explaining our emotional dependence on tactile communication because it describes touch that has emotional and social relevance. It relies on a type of sensory nerve called CT fibres, which are specialised for positive social touch: they respond best to the temperature of human skin and a gentle, stroking pressure. Parents automatically use this sort of touch when interacting with their children[7]. This caring touch is incredibly powerful. It can cause the release of oxytocin (the “bonding hormone”)[8], decrease stress levels[9], and trigger the facial muscles that form a smile[10]. It can stimulate unique emotional responses, such as excitement, affection or calm. It even has the power to speak to DNA itself: research has shown that changing touch exposure in mice affects how DNA is structured and expressed[11]. Social touch is an essential component of how we define ourselves as humans. Without it, touch would mean nothing more than that a person is present, that their skin is warm or cold, dry or wet. The warmth of our partner’s hand wouldn’t create a sense of belonging, hugging a friend wouldn’t trigger memories of time spent together, stroking your child wouldn’t give rise to feelings of love. Affective touch colours our world and gives it meaning. Whilst some suggest that social touch encompasses all intentional, consensual interpersonal touch, I would argue that even accidental touch has a social impact[12]. In recent times we have all felt the change of walking down empty streets. Where bumping or brushing against another person was taken for granted as simply unavoidable on the morning train a couple of years ago, COVID19 has introduced new connotations to such accidental touch, all but prohibiting it. Whilst you may have been frustrated by clustered train carriages, you can’t help but notice that it feels a little lonely when the train is quiet, and the nearest passenger is more than 1.5m away. Even accidental touch signals to the body that you are part of a community, part of a herd, and for a social animal that must be comforting. Look at sheep, for instance: under stress, harassed by sheepdogs or farmers, they automatically cluster together in a group. Whilst an individual bump between two sheep in the herd may be fortuitous, the fact that crowding together maximises interpersonal contact is no accident. The comfort of touch is a fact of human life, but one not often actively acknowledged. Lockdowns and isolation have reminded us all how necessary social contact can be for our wellbeing. Touch is a part of the chatter that defines our place amongst others and our identities as part of a community. So if your pet, friend or partner are in need of comfort, administer a bit of affective touch and see the miraculous calming effects of the actions of those CT nerve cells. Stay safe and sanitise, but remember, hugs are helpful too! References [1]Marx, Viola, and Emese Nagy. 2017. "Fetal Behavioral Responses To The Touch Of The Mother’S Abdomen: A Frame-By-Frame Analysis". Infant Behavior And Development 47: 83-91. doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2017.03.005. [2] van der Horst, Frank C. P., and René van der Veer. 2008. "Loneliness In Infancy: Harry Harlow, John Bowlby And Issues Of Separation". Integrative Psychological And Behavioral Science 42 (4): 325-335. doi:10.1007/s12124-008-9071-x. [3] Ardiel, Evan L, and Catharine H Rankin. 2010. "The Importance Of Touch In Development". Paediatrics & Child Health 15 (3): 153-156. doi:10.1093/pch/15.3.153. [4] Rice, Ruth D. 1977. "Neurophysiological Development In Premature Infants Following Stimulation.". Developmental Psychology 13 (1): 69-76. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.13.1.69. [5] Caldji, Christian, Josie Diorio, and Michael J Meaney. 2000. "Variations In Maternal Care In Infancy Regulate The Development Of Stress Reactivity". Biological Psychiatry 48 (12): 1164-1174. doi:10.1016/s0006-3223(00)01084-2. [6] Trut, Lyudmila. 1999. "Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment". American Scientist 87 (2): 160. doi:10.1511/1999.2.160. [7]Croy, Ilona, Edda Drechsler, Paul Hamilton, Thomas Hummel, and Håkan Olausson. 2016. "Olfactory Modulation Of Affective Touch Processing — A Neurophysiological Investigation". Neuroimage 135: 135-141. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.04.046.v [8]Walker, Susannah C., Paula D. Trotter, William T. Swaney, Andrew Marshall, and Francis P. Mcglone. 2017. "C-Tactile Afferents: Cutaneous Mediators Of Oxytocin Release During Affiliative Tactile Interactions?". Neuropeptides 64: 27-38. doi:10.1016/j.npep.2017.01.001. [9]Field, Tiffany. 2010. "Touch For Socioemotional And Physical Well-Being: A Review". Developmental Review 30 (4): 367-383. doi:10.1016/j.dr.2011.01.001. [10]Pawling, Ralph, Peter R. Cannon, Francis P. McGlone, and Susannah C. Walker. 2017. "C-Tactile Afferent Stimulating Touch Carries A Positive Affective Value". PLOS ONE 12 (3): e0173457. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173457. [11]Bagot, R. C., T.-Y. Zhang, X. Wen, T. T. T. Nguyen, H.-B. Nguyen, J. Diorio, T. P. Wong, and M. J. Meaney. 2012. "Variations In Postnatal Maternal Care And The Epigenetic Regulation Of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 1 Expression And Hippocampal Function In The Rat". Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences 109 (Supplement_2): 17200-17207. doi:10.1073/pnas.1204599109. [12] Cascio, Carissa J., David Moore, and Francis McGlone. 2019. "Social Touch And Human Development". Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 35: 5-11. doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2018.04.009. Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

< Back to Issue 2 Hiccups Evolution might be a theory, but if it’s evidence you’re after, there’s no need to look further than your own body. The human form is full of fascinating parts and functions that hold hidden histories - from the column that brought you a deep-dive into ear wiggling in Issue 1, here’s an exploration of why we hiccup! by Rachel Ko 10 December 2021 Edited by Katherine Tweedie and Ashleigh Hallinan Illustrated by Gemma Van der Hurk Hiccups bring a special brand of chaos to a day. It’s one that lingers, rendering us helpless and in suspense; a subtle, internal chaos of quiet frustration that forces us to drop what we’re doing to monitor each breath – in and out, in and out – until the moment they abruptly decide to stop. It’s an experience we’ve all had – one that can hit anyone at any time – and for most of us, hiccups are a concentrated episode of inconvenience; best ignored, and overcome. Yet, despite our haste to get rid of them when they interrupt our day, hiccups seem to have mystified humans for generations. Historically, the phenomenon has been the source of many superstitions, both good and bad. A range of cultures associate them with the concept of remembrance: in Russia, hiccups mean someone is missing you (1), while an Indian myth suggests that someone is remembering you negatively for the evils you have committed (2). Likewise, in Ancient Greece, hiccups were a sign that you were being complained about (3), while in Hungary, they mean you are currently the subject of gossip. On a darker note, a Japanese superstition prophesises death to one who hiccups 100 times. (4) Clearly, the need to justify everything, even things as trivial as hiccups, has always been an inherent human characteristic, transcending culture and time. As such, science has more recently made its attempt at objectively identifying a reason behind the strange phenomenon of hiccups. After all, if you take a step back and think about it, hiccups are indeed quite strange. Anatomically, hiccups (known scientifically as singultus) are involuntary spasms of the diaphragm (5): the dome-like sheet of muscle separating the chest and abdominal cavities. (6) The inspiratory muscles, including the intercostal and neck muscles, also spasm, while the expiratory muscles are inhibited. (7) These sudden contractions cause a rapid intake of air (“hic”), followed by the immediate closure of the glottis or vocal cords (“up”). (8) As many of us have probably experienced, a range of stimuli can cause these involuntary contractions. The physical stimuli include anything that stretches and bloats the stomach, (9) such as overeating, rapid food consumption and gulping, especially of carbonated drinks. (10) Emotionally, intense feelings and our responses to them, such as laughing, sobbing, anxiety and excitement, can also be triggers. (11) This list is not at all exhaustive; in fact, the range of stimuli is so large that hiccups might be considered the common thread between a drunk man, a Parkinson’s disease patient and anyone who watches The Notebook. The one thing that alcohol, (12) some neurological drugs (13) and intense sobbing (14) do have in common is that they exogenously stimulate the hiccup reflex arc. (15) This arc involves the vagal and phrenic nerves that stretch from the brainstem to the abdomen which cause the diaphragm to contract involuntarily. (16) According to Professor Georg Petroianu from the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, (17) many familiar home remedies for hiccupping – being scared, swallowing ice, drinking water upside down – interrupt this reflex arc, actually giving these solutions a somewhat scientific rationale. While modern research has successfully mapped out the process of hiccups, their purpose is still unclear. As of now, the hiccup reflex arc and the resulting diaphragmatic spasms seem to be effectively useless. Of the existing theories for the function of hiccups, the most prominent seems to be that they are a remnant of our evolutionary development, (18) essentially ‘vestigial’; in this case, a feature that once served our amphibian ancestors millions of years ago, but now retain little of their original function. (19) In particular, hiccups are believed to be a relic of the ancient transition of organisms from water to land. (20) When early fish lived in stagnant waters with little oxygen, they developed lungs to take advantage of the air overhead, in addition to using gills while underwater. (21) In this system, inhalation would allow water to move over the gills, during which a rapid closure of the glottis – which we see now in hiccupping – would prevent water from entering the lungs. It is theorised that when descendants of these fish moved onto land, gills were lost, but the neural circuit for this glottis closing mechanism was retained. (22) This neural circuit is indeed observable in human beings today, in the form of the hiccup central pattern generator (CPG). (23) CPGs exist for other oscillating actions like breathing and walking, (24) but a particular cross-species CPG stands out as a link to human hiccupping: the neural CPG that is also used by tadpoles for gill ventilation. Tadpoles “breathe” in a recurring, rhythmic pattern that shares a fundamental characteristic feature with hiccups: both involve inspiration with closing of the glottis. (25) This phenomenon strengthens the idea that the hiccup CPG may be left over from a previous stage in evolution and has been retained in both humans and frogs. However, the CPG in frogs is still used for ventilation, while in humans, the evolution of lungs to replace gills has rendered it useless. (26) Based on this information, it seems hiccupping lost its function with time and the development of the human lungs, remaining as nothing more than an evolutionary remnant. However, we cannot discredit hiccupping as having become entirely useless as soon as gills were lost. Interestingly, hiccupping has only been observed in mammals – not in birds, lizards or other air-breathing animals. (27) This suggests that there must have been some evolutionary advantage to hiccupping at some point, at least in mammals. A popular theory for this function stems from the uniquely mammalian trait of nursing. (28) Considering the fact that human babies hiccup in the womb even before birth, this theory considers hiccupping to be almost a glorified burp, intended to remove air from the stomach. This becomes particularly advantageous when closing the glottis prevents milk from entering the lungs, aiding the act of nursing. (29) Today, we reduce hiccups to the disorder and disarray they bring to our day. But, next time you are hit with a bout of hiccups, take a second to find some calm amidst the chaos and appreciate yet another fascinating evolutionary fossil, before you hurry to dismiss them. After that, feel free to eat those lemons or gargle that salty water to your diaphragm’s content. References Sonya Vatomsky, "7 Cures For Hiccups From World Folklore," Mentalfloss.Com, 2017, https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/500937/7-cures-hiccups-world-folklore. Derek Lue, "Indian Superstition: Hiccups | Dartmouth Folklore Archive," Journeys.Dartmouth.Edu, 2018, https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/folklorearchive/2018/11/14/indian-superstition-hiccups/. Vatomsky, "7 Cures For Hiccups From World Folklore". James Mundy, "10 Most Interesting Superstitions In Japanese Culture | Insidejapan Tours," Insidejapan Blog, 2013, https://www.insidejapantours.com/blog/2013/07/08/10-most-interesting-superstitions-in-japanese-culture/. Paul Rousseau, "Hiccups," Southern Medical Journal, no. 88, 2 (1995): 175-181, doi:10.1097/00007611-199502000-00002. Bruno Bordoni and Emiliano Zanier, "Anatomic Connections Of The Diaphragm Influence Of Respiration On The Body System," Journal Of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, no. 6 (2013): 281, doi:10.2147/jmdh.s45443. Christian Straus et al., "A Phylogenetic Hypothesis For The Origin Of Hiccough," Bioessays no. 25, 2 (2003): 182-188, doi:10.1002/bies.10224. Straus et al., "A Phylogenetic Hypothesis For The Origin Of Hiccough," 182-188. John Cameron, “Why Do We Hiccup?,” filmed for TedEd, 2016, TED Video, https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-do-we-hiccup-john-cameron#watch. Monika Steger, Markus Schneemann, and Mark Fox, "Systemic Review: The Pathogenesis And Pharmacological Treatment Of Hiccups," Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics 42, no. 9 (. 2015): 1037-1050, doi:10.1111/apt.13374. Lien-Fu Lin, and Pi-Teh Huang, "An Uncommon Cause Of Hiccups: Sarcoidosis Presenting Solely As Hiccups," Journal Of The Chinese Medical Association 73, no. 12 (2010): 647-650, doi:10.1016/s1726-4901(10)70141-6. Steger, Schneemann and Fox, "Systemic Review: The Pathogenesis And Pharmacological Treatment Of Hiccups," 1037-1050. Unax Lertxundi et al., "Hiccups In Parkinson’s Disease: An Analysis Of Cases Reported In The European Pharmacovigilance Database And A Review Of The Literature," European Journal Of Clinical Pharmacology 73, no. 9 (2017): 1159-1164, doi:10.1007/s00228-017-2275-6. Lin and Huang, "An Uncommon Cause Of Hiccups: Sarcoidosis Presenting Solely As Hiccups," 647-650. Peter J. Kahrilas and Guoxiang Shi, "Why Do We Hiccup?" Gut 41, no. 5 (1997): 712-713, doi:10.1136/gut.41.5.712. Steger, Schneemann and Fox, "Systemic Review: The Pathogenesis And Pharmacological Treatment Of Hiccups," 1037-1050. Georg A. Petroianu, "Treatment Of Hiccup By Vagal Maneuvers," Journal Of The History Of The Neurosciences 24, no. 2 (2014): 123-136, doi:10.1080/0964704x.2014.897133. Straus et al., "A Phylogenetic Hypothesis For The Origin Of Hiccough," 182-188. Cameron, “Why Do We Hiccup?” Michael Mosley, "Anatomical Clues To Human Evolution From Fish," BBC News, published 2011, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-13278255. Michael Hedrick and Stephen Katz, "Control Of Breathing In Primitive Fishes," Phylogeny, Anatomy And Physiology Of Ancient Fishes (2015): 179-200, doi:10.1201/b18798-9. Straus et al., "A Phylogenetic Hypothesis For The Origin Of Hiccough," 182-188. Straus et al., "A Phylogenetic Hypothesis For The Origin Of Hiccough," 182-188. Pierre A. Guertin, "Central Pattern Generator For Locomotion: Anatomical, Physiological, And Pathophysiological Considerations," Frontiers In Neurology 3 (2013), doi:10.3389/fneur.2012.00183. Hedrick and Katz, "Control Of Breathing In Primitive Fishes," 179-200. Straus et al., "A Phylogenetic Hypothesis For The Origin Of Hiccough," 182-188. Daniel Howes, "Hiccups: A New Explanation For The Mysterious Reflex," Bioessays 34, no. 6 (2012): 451-453, doi:10.1002/bies.201100194. Howes, "Hiccups: A New Explanation For The Mysterious Reflex," 451-453. [1] Howes, "Hiccups: A New Explanation For The Mysterious Reflex," 451-453. Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

< Back to Issue 4 PT by Saachin Simpson 1 July 2023 Edited by Caitlin Kane, Rachel Ko and Patrick Grave Illustrated by Jolin See 'Pt' (medical abbreviation for ‘patient’) recounts a patient visit on an early-morning ward round at Footscray Hospital in my first placement as a second-year medical student. The line “I came to hospital with my innocence” was actually said by the patient and stuck with me, eventually inspiring this poem, which I wrote in a Narrative Medicine class run by Dr Fiona Reilly and Dr Mariam Tokhi. The poem depicts a dramatic rise and fall in tension during the patient visit. It is bookended by soulless technical medical abbreviations that exemplify patient notes on electronic medical records. Pt Pt alert and oriented, sitting upright in chair. Breathing comfortably, responsive to questions. Bilat basal creps, bilat pitting oedema to knee. Pt gazes out window at the opposite concrete wall Pt’s cataracts suddenly shimmer, a sorcerer’s crystal ball. Pt need not speak for his stony grimace conveys Pt’s sheer and utter avowal of his final dying days. Pt’s power becomes apparent in his mighty ocular grip Pt’s lungs echo black tattered sails of a ramshackle timber ship. “I came to hospital with my innocence” Professional, qualified eyes dart from computer To patient And back. “and now I muse on dark and violent tricks” Med student looks at intern looks at reg looks at consultant. Feet shuffle, lips purse Pretending not to hear. “Your poisons gift no remedy, your words fat and hollow” Like a serpentine hiss, his derision rings through sterile air 5-step Therapeutic Guidelines for Reassurance (vol 23.4, updated 2023) does little for his despair. Pt need not speak for his stony grimace conveys Pt’s sheer and utter avowal of his final dying days. Pt need not speak for his stony grimace conveys Pt’s sheer and utter avowal of his final dying days. Pt to await GEM. Frusemide 40mmHg. Cease abx. Refer physio. Refer OT. Call family. For d/c Monday. Previous article Next article back to MIRAGE

< Back to Issue 7 Neuralink: Mind Over Matter? by Kara Miwa-Dale 22 October 2024 edited by Weilena Liu illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin What if I told you that you could control a computer mouse with just your thoughts? It sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, doesn’t it? But this isn’t fiction… Welcome to the brain-computer interface, a device which is able to record and interpret neural activity in the brain, enabling direct communication between your mind and a computer. Tech billionaire Elon Musk founded ‘Neuralink’, a company developing coin-sized brain-chips that can be surgically inserted into the brain using a robot. Neuralink made headlines a few months ago by successfully implanting their brain-chip, dubbed ‘Telepathy’, into their first trial patient, Noland Arbaugh. While there were a few technical glitches, it seems to be working relatively well so far. Noland has been able to regain some of the autonomy that he lost following a devastating spinal cord injury. He is even able to play video games with a superhuman-like reaction speed, thanks to the more direct communication route between the Neuralink implant and his computer. But it doesn’t stop there; Elon Musk’s ultimate vision is to have millions of people using Neuralink in the next 10 years, not only to restore autonomy to those with serious injuries, but to push the boundaries of what the human brain is capable of. He thinks that Neuralink will allow us to compete with AI and vastly improve our speed and efficiency of communication, which is ‘pitifully slow’ in comparison to AI. Neuralink implants may seem like an incredible leap in scientific technology, but what will happen if they become normalised in our society? Let’s imagine for a moment … Jade, April 7th 2044 Shoving my jacket into my bag, I dart out of the hospital and pull onto the main road in my Tesla. As I speed past the intersection, I see a giant advertisement plastered on a sleek building: ‘Neuralink: Seamless Thoughts, Limitless Possibilities’. When I signed up to get a Neuralink implant, all I’d thought about were the infinite possibilities of how it would change my life – not what could go wrong. I wish I could say that I was brainwashed into getting a Neuralink, or that I had no choice in the matter. But the truth? I got an implant so that I could be ‘ahead of the crowd’ and because I was so frustrated at feeling inadequate compared to the other doctors at my hospital. When I graduated medical school, at the top of my class, people told me that I would do ‘great things’ and ‘change the world’. I followed the standard path, landing my first job and climbing the ranks one caffeine-fuelled shift at a time. I loved my job. Every time I saved a life, it felt like all my effort had paid off. Then Neuralink happened. I still remember the day Dr Maxwell - a doctor I worked with - proudly announced that he’d ‘bitten the bullet’ and gotten the implant. Over the coming weeks, we watched in awe: his diagnoses were quicker and more accurate than any human could imagine, and he went home as energetic as he’d arrived. Now, the extra hours I spent figuring out tricky cases were no longer a representation of my work ethic, but a symptom of my inadequacy compared to the Neuralink-enhanced doctors. One by one, my colleagues signed up for the implant. I hated the thought of having something foreign nestled in my brain, recording my brain’s neurons every second of the day. I told myself I wouldn’t let peer pressure get to me. But, as I watched those around me get promoted while I continued to work endless days, the frustration started to build. One afternoon, the department head came into my office to tell me that they were reconsidering the renewal of my contract. I wasn’t ‘keeping up’ with my Neuralink-enhanced colleagues. “We respect your personal decision, of course,” she said with hollow politeness. I wasn’t keen on being pressured into it, but at the same time, I genuinely believed that the implant would improve my life. When I told my friends and family about getting an implant, they were concerned. They tried to list all the things that could go wrong, but I came up with enough reasons to convince myself that it was the right decision. Once they saw how incredible the Neuralink device was, I thought, they would want one too. *** I’m jolted back to reality as the car veers slightly left, and I manually yank the wheel to correct it. Perhaps my implant glitched for a second… *** Everything changed after I had my Neuralink implanted. I was the only person in my family who had one, although a couple of friends did. At first, I felt invincible. The phenomenal speed with which I was able to come up with previously challenging diagnoses was thrilling. I was able to process enormous amounts of data and draw connections that I had never been able to before. It was addictive to feel that I was working at my full potential, using my newfound ‘superpower’ to save more lives than ever. About a month in, my thoughts began racing uncontrollably, until I felt like I was drowning in a flood of information. Sometimes, the input was so overwhelming that my head pounded and I struggled to breathe. My thoughts didn’t even feel like mine anymore. Family and friends started to grow more and more distant from me. This device was stuck inside my brain like superglue, and sometimes I just wanted to dig it right out of my skull. When I asked the doctor about removing it, he looked at me and smirked, “Why on earth would you want to get rid of such a game-changing device? Neuralink’s the new normal, honey. Get used to it.” *** A honk startles me as a car zooms past, nearly colliding with mine. I turn into a quieter street to regain my composure. But then – suddenly – thoughts of accelerating the car bombard my mind – so loud that I can barely hear myself think. The speedometer rises from 60 to 80 to 100 km an hour. I desperately try to disconnect my Neuralink from the car, to manually override the system – anything that will slow the car down. I start pushing random buttons hoping that I will get some kind of response. A red light flashes on my dashboard. ERROR. SIGNAL DISRUPTED BY UNKNOWN USER. I look up and meet the panicked eyes of a woman pushing a man in a wheelchair. Noah, April 7th 2044 The sun makes its final, glorious descent below the horizon, painting a beautiful array of pinks and oranges across the sky. I take a deep breath as Sophia, my support worker, pushes me along the road. We’re on our way to the grocery store, just in time for the end of day specials, which are all I can afford right now. Since my accident, I’ve tried my best to appreciate what I have, but it isn’t easy. Some days, I’m filled with rage as I struggle to complete daily tasks that I did on autopilot before my accident – back when I wasn’t confined to a wheelchair. It’s been hard to come to terms with this new body that I’m stuck with, and all the ways it seems to betray me. I miss the simple things – going to the grocery store by myself or playing board games with friends. But most of all, I miss working as an architect. I loved seeing my clients’ faces light up as they imagined the memories they would make in the new homes I had designed. This sense of satisfaction was taken from me the moment I was paralysed from the neck down. It’s why I’m so desperate to get a Neuralink implant. I would get one right this second if they weren’t so expensive. The Neuralink device isn’t covered by my insurance because the government claims that it wouldn’t be ‘cost effective’. While it won’t restore movement in my arms and legs, this implant would give me some precious freedom back. Maybe if I keep saving and take out a loan, I’ll have just enough to cover it and get my life back … *** “God, these Tesla drivers think they own the road!” I chuckle at Sophia, as a Tesla races towards the crossing in this 40km zone. As we begin to cross the road, I realise that the Tesla is showing no signs of slowing down. The car swerves violently, hurtling towards us without mercy. Sophia’s face pales as she frantically tries to push me out of the road. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for impact. Bibliography: Cernat, M., Borțun, D., & Matei, C. (2022, April). Human-Computer Interaction: Ethical Perspectives on Technology and Its (Mis) uses. In International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (pp. 338-349). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39386-0_16 Fridman, Lex. (Host). (2024, August 3rd). Elon Musk: Neuralink and the Future of Humanity (No 438). [Audio podcast episode]. In Lex Fridman Podcast. https://lexfridman.com/elon-musk-and-neuralink-team/ Jawad, A. J. (2021). Engineering ethics of neuralink brain computer interfaces devices. Perspective , 4 (1). https://doi.org/10.23880/abca-16000160 Oravec, B. Neurotechnology, Ethical Privacy, and Information Technology. Knighted , 36. https://www.mga.edu/arts-letters/docs/knighted-journal/Issue-6.pdf#page=37 Youssef, N. O. A., Guia, V., Walczysko, F., Suriyasuphapong, S., & Moslemi, C. (2020). Ethical concerns and consequences of Neuralink. Natural Science. https://rucforsk.ruc.dk/ws/files/75503337/NIB3_Group1_Neuralink.pdf Previous article Next article apex back to

< Back to Issue 10 Terrible Lizards and their Terrible Reconstructions by Kaya Czerwinska 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Esme MacGillivray Edited by Vicenta Wheatley This comes as a surprise to nobody, but it isn't the easiest task in the world to figure out an extinct creature’s appearance, habitat and behaviour from a few bones. Our understanding of animals is constantly evolving with new discoveries and technology, much like the species themselves. Yet, no matter how cunning we are to glean all kinds of fascinating history about those who lived so long before us, we humans can't always get it right. Let’s take a walk down memory lane to look at some of history’s more eccentric paleontological reconstructions! Stegosaurus Figure 1 W.H. Ballou’s Vision of a Flying Stegosaurus. Note. Image reproduced from (3). Stegosaurus is one of the more well-known dinosaurs and can be easily spotted among a child’s plastic figurine set. When presented with something Stegosaurus -shaped, one is left with very little doubt in their mind that it is, indeed, a Stegosaurus . There’s no modern animal quite like it. However, this distinctness is exactly what gave scientists trouble when they first discovered it. More specifically, why did it have plates on its body, and where were they supposed to go? Othniel Charles Marsh, the paleontologist who discovered it, initially believed that the plates sat flat over its back like armour or roof tiles (1). This is where its name, which translates to ‘roofed lizard’, came from. The confusion did not end after realising the plates were supposed to stand upright, though. Imaginations ran wild as their function remained unclear. One 1912 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer claimed that they were used for defence against predators, calling Stegosaurus the ‘most grotesque animal’ and ‘a freak of nature’ (2). Another article, written by William Hosea Ballou, was published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner in 1920, suggesting that it used its plates like wings for gliding or flight (3). This was considered absurd even for the time, but was certainly charming to picture. To this day, what our spiky friends used their plates for is up for debate. Some of the more recent hypotheses are that they assisted with regulating temperature or colourful displays, which have been supported by the discovery of channels inside the plates that might have held blood vessels (4). However, even once we conclusively figure out what their true function was, flying Stegosaurus will remain a whimsical and creative interpretation. Elasmosaurus Figure 2 Cope’s Initial Reconstruction of Elasmosaurus with its Head on the Wrong End. Note. Image reproduced from (5). Sometimes, one can get so distracted by workplace drama that they can’t make head nor tail of the work they’re supposed to be doing - literally. This was the case for Edward Drinker Cope, a rival of Othniel Charles Marsh (who described Stegosaurus ). Both paleontologists competed to discover more new species, often criticising and even sabotaging each other’s work. In 1869, Cope attempted to describe a new marine creature called Elasmosaurus , which had four flippers and a long neck, almost like the Loch Ness monster (5). Unfortunately, he made one crucial error. In his reconstruction, he had mistakenly attached the head to the tail end instead of the neck. While it was quickly pointed out and fixed, Cope’s blunder was much to the amusement of Marsh, who frequently mentioned it in order to call Cope a ‘careless’ scientist who rushed his work (6). People tend to use this moment as an example of the many insults and arguments Marsh and Cope threw at each other during their lifelong feud. However, an animal like Elasmosaurus had not been seen before, and it’s very common for lizards to have long tails. Deciding that the longer end must be the tail wouldn’t have been a completely unreasonable guess at the time. At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that paleontologists during their time were working from much less information than we have today. Hallucigenia Figure 3. Initial Reconstruction of Hallucigenia Walking Using Spines. Note. Image reproduced from (7). Hallucigenia ’s name means ‘hallucination’ or ‘dream producer’, which is a good indicator of the experience scientists had while attempting to figure this creature out. It lived around 505 million years ago during the Cambrian era, a time when evolution was being particularly experimental (7). All kinds of strange, worm-like creatures were wandering the ocean floor, and many of them were very small. This certainly doesn’t help scientists trying to interpret the vague and cryptic shapes these animals can create when they become fossils. The first proposed idea about Hallucigenia was that it moved on a set of stiff, straight legs, with tentacles coming out of its back (8). If that wasn’t confusing enough, there was also a mysterious stain near one end of the initial fossil’s body, prompting debate about which side was the head. The mystery was finally solved when a second specimen was discovered, sitting in the rock at a different angle that allowed its legs to be seen more clearly. The ‘legs’ were actually spines on its back, and its real legs were the ‘tentacles’ (9). Scientists had been looking at it upside-down the whole time. While we finally know roughly what it looked like, Hallucigenia continues to be somewhat of an enigma to this day, with many things left to figure out about its place in the tree of life and its relatedness to other species. Oviraptor Figure 4. Oviraptor Embryo from Flaming Cliffs. Note. Image reproduced from (12). As a fossilised animal’s behaviour can’t be observed in action, scientists often rely on context clues from the environment that the fossil was found in. This was the case for a dinosaur discovered on top of a nest of fossilised eggs in 1924. The new species was named Oviraptor , meaning ‘egg thief’, in reference to the belief that it preyed on the eggs of another dinosaur called Protoceratops (10). However, some later analyses revealed that Oviraptor didn’t have teeth well-suited for eating eggs, and probably didn’t include them in its diet (11). It was later discovered that the eggs from the original specimen contained not Protoceratops , but baby Oviraptor embryos - Oviraptor had been framed for eating its own children (12). While the mistake has been rectified for several decades by now, it is still food for thought that humanity’s first instinct was to assume this dinosaur was hunting the eggs and not incubating them. There has, first through our knowledge gaps and later through pop culture portrayals, persisted an idea of dinosaurs as nothing more than scaly, destructive beasts. Dinosaurs are unintelligent and run purely on impulse. Dinosaurs kill on sight. Dinosaurs would never take care of their children. Yet, they did. Humans are not the only animals capable of caring or compassionate acts, and Oviraptor is a reminder to be careful of anthropocentrism. Woolly Rhinoceros Figure 5. Reconstruction of the ‘Unicorn’ by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Note. Image reproduced from (13). Almost the holy grail of paleontological blunders is the Magdeburg Unicorn. Not knowing how to put together a Woolly Rhinoceros skeleton is understandable, but this specific reconstruction of one has many notable issues, including a lack of back legs and a completely missing torso. The glaring inaccuracies can be attributed to the fact that the fossil was discovered and reconstructed in the 1600s, long before any other examples in this article (13). Paleontology as a discipline was still in its infancy, and beliefs in creatures such as unicorns were still common. Thus, when a number of woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth bones were discovered in a cave, inexperience and superstition combined to manifest them into a brand new creature. The origin of the horn is somewhat dubious but was most likely a narwhal tusk (14). As paleontology advanced, the unicorn’s status as a plausible reconstruction gradually slipped away. However, on a bad day, it’s still helpful to picture a living Magdeburg Unicorn frolicking through fields in all its bizarre glory. Perhaps if this article had been written a few years from now, there would be a few new entries about animals that we think we understand well today. The only constant truth in science is that it never stops moving forward. With every step, we leave behind a piece of what we thought the truth was, and it’s only fair to show some appreciation for those who laid the path. However, two things can be true at once. We can respect the hard work of each scientist in history who has made attempts to improve humanity’s understanding of the world around us. And we can also laugh at the fact that in hindsight, many of those attempts turned out to be spectacularly strange. References Marsh OC. A new order of extinct Reptilia (Stegosauria) from the Jurassic of the Rocky Mountains. Zenodo [Internet]. 1877 Dec 1; Available from: https://zenodo.org/record/1450038#.YoPJRIjMLrc The Ogden standard-examiner. (Ogden, UT), Aug. 15 1920. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn85058393/1920-08-15/ed-1/ . "Was Most Grotesque Animal" Newspapers.com . The Cincinnati Enquirer, 22 June 1912. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-enquirer-was-most-grotesq/113116207/ . Farlow JO, Hayashi S, Tattersall GJ. Internal vascularity of the dermal plates of Stegosaurus (Ornithischia, Thyreophora). Swiss Journal of Geosciences. 2010 Aug 24;103(2):173–85. Cope ED. The Fossil Reptiles of New Jersey (Continued). The American Naturalist. 1869 Apr 1;3(2):84–91. Davidson JP. Bonehead mistakes: The background in scientific literature and illustrations for Edward Drinker Cope’s first restoration of Elasmosaurus platyurus. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 2002 Oct;152(1):215–40. Conway Morris S. A new metazoan from the Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Palaeontology. 1977;20(3):623–40. Stephen Jay Gould. Wonderful life : the Burgess Shale and the nature of history. New York: W.W. Norton & Company; 1989. Ramsköld L, Xianguang H. New early Cambrian animal and onychophoran affinities of enigmatic metazoans. Nature. 1991 May;351(6323):225–8. Henry Fairfield Osborn. Three new Theropoda, Protoceratops zone, central Mongolia. American Museum Novitates. 1924 Jan 1;144:1–12. Barsbold, R. "Khishchnye dinosavry mela Mongoliy" [Carnivorous Dinosaur of the Cretaceous of Mongolia]. Transactions of the Joint Soviet-Mongolian Paleontological Expedition . 1983 19: 5–119. Norell MA, Clark JM, Demberelyin D, Rhinchen B, Chiappe LM, Davidson AR, et al. A Theropod Dinosaur Embryo and the Affinities of the Flaming Cliffs Dinosaur Eggs. Science. 1994 Nov 4;266(5186):779–82. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Protogaea. University of Chicago Press; 2008. Kolfschoten, Thijs. THE WOOLLY RHINOCEROS FROM SEWECKENBERGE NEAR QUEDLINBURG (GERMANY). 157. 39-48. doi:10.11588/propylaeum.868.c11306. Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

< Back to Issue 9 It’s Dangerous to Go Alone by Julia Lockerd 28 October 2025 Illustrated by Jason Chien Edited by Luci Ackland It’s safe to say that as a species, we have done a fair bit of thinking over the years. From microbes to mammals, to mapping the stars, we have always searched for ways to make meaning of the world and its many mysteries. Every day, the amount of knowledge possessed grows, building on the ideas we learn from each other. But what is knowledge without someone to know it? And how can we build a reliable foundation upon which to amass this knowledge? Many modern philosophers take a ‘what’s mine is mine’ approach to epistemology – the development of knowledge – with ideas like trust and collaboration altogether excluded from the recipe for ‘good science’ (1). Philosopher John Locke suggests that an ‘autonomous knower’ (2) – that’s you! – should only accept input from someone existing outside the self if she already possesses empirical evidence confirming that input is true (3). That is to say, don’t believe anything you read online, or in a book, or hear from your friend, or your professor alone. Basically, don’t believe the sky is blue unless you can look outside and see it for yourself. This seems like a hard way to live and makes it nearly impossible to make any headway on scientific advancement. If there is truly no way to build on previous knowledge, how do we measure anything at all? When considering scientific disciplines, the (presumably brooding) ‘autonomous knower’ must give up her lone wolf life and finally make some friends. This is not only for her emotional benefit, but also because science simply cannot occur without it. Epstein (2006) argues that the three main drivers of scientific collaboration are as follows: 1. The topic demands it. This applies to fields such as cognitive psychology, where the topic is an amalgam of different specialisations. 2. To gain a new perspective. Researchers interviewed by Epstein highlighted how collaboration helps them gain new approaches and techniques. 3. To provide additional knowledge. Although it’s all well and good to assert you should only believe what you can prove yourself (looking at you, Locke), collaboration is crucial to avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ every time you want to learn something new (4). This last reason, by its very nature, proves that, despite my best efforts, no one person can possess the whole of human understanding by herself. Thus, the ‘many-headed knower’ makes her appearance on stage. This version of the knower exists as an alternative to Locke’s Autonomous Knower, where multiple individuals can share fragments of a greater epistemic idea. Without it, whole scientific disciplines can be reasoned away as no single person possesses the evidence to prove the scientific idea exists (2). For example, many medical devices could not be realised without input from both clinicians and engineers. If knowledge cannot be shared between these two groups, MedTech might cease to exist at all. With the multiheaded knower by your side, you can now solve scientific conundrums with the power of friendship (or, begrudging teamwork if it’s 11.59pm and you’re still working on that group project due at 12.00am). To fully grasp how systems of collaboration function, we need to investigate the interpersonal relationships that make up the heads of the knower. Generally, these relationships are of two kinds: Moral and Epistemic trust. Returning to our old friend, the multi-headed knower, epistemic trust allows multiple heads to exist, while moral trust in social bonds between researchers keeps her many heads attached. Epistemic trust involves the acceptance of knowledge provided by an external source as true. While trustworthiness often evokes a sense of superior moral value, epistemic trust has far more to do with the perceived competency of the individual providing information. Wagenknecht calls these relationships ‘Epistemic Dependence’ (5). The word dependence here is interesting, as it reveals a certain vulnerability in the relationship between researchers. Wagenknecht likens it to someone asking for directions in a foreign city. Simply, it is a blind trust that one's partner knows the way to go and is capable of leading them there. But where does this trust come from? If trust were truly blind, I could justify my lab results with a simple ‘Trust me bro,’ and my supervisor would go ‘Fantastic. Nobel prize for you.’ Unfortunately, this isn’t how it works, and my career trajectory will (probably) look a little more complicated. It is instead proposed that there are ‘shades of trust and distrust’ that can be influenced by external modifiers, such as accurate conduct of experiments, analysis of results, and epistemic authority. In this model, trust is a dynamic concept that builds or deteriorates between trustees over a chain of interactions (5). If a series of interactions is positive and trust is progressively built up, at some point, an asymptotic limit of trust will be reached. However, the level of epistemic trust between any two researchers is high but never complete, even when there is no reason to doubt the other's testimony. This is good news for Locke, as there still might be a space in which his autonomous knower can exist in happy isolation. Moral trust, the far less popular younger brother of Epistemic trust, is the scrappy underdog in the world of scientific relationships. It is argued that morality shouldn’t even get a seat at the big kids' table, as there is no place for it in scientific collaboration (2). This raises the ever-devious question: why not lie? A little fudge of the numbers could make you the next Elizabeth Holmes, minus the jail time and general disgrace (6). To find an answer, I turn to T.M. Scanlon’s ‘What We Owe Each Other’ (7). Specifically, in chapter five, he discusses the ever-sexy ‘structure of moral contractualism’. Scanlon explores a set of moral requirements that must be accepted or rejected based on the concern we hold for another's well-being, their own personal values, and perspective. Simply, academic falsification is rare because one researcher owes it to another to give a truthful testimony. Returning to the analogy of being lost in a foreign city, what keeps the locals from sending a tourist in the wrong direction out of laziness or fun? I argue that it is the acceptance of a moral principle out of concern for another person's well-being. Immanuel Kant believed lying was always wrong, in every situation (a stance I’m sure made him suuuuuuuuper fun to be around) (8). If this is true, the structure of scientific collaboration must surely crumble in the absence of moral trust (9). Interestingly, Scanlon discusses the place of ‘impersonal values’ in the development of moral code. This relates to reasons for adherence to a moral code that does not pertain to the well-being or status of any one individual. He uses the preservation of the Grand Canyon as an example. We do not deface the Grand Canyon because it would harm any particular group of people, and we cannot argue that this principle is 'what we owe to others', as the canyon doesn't have any personal feelings (that we know of). Instead, only the value we have tied to the land itself stops us from turning it into the biggest lazy river in the world (7). In the context of research, not only do we owe it to each other to adhere to truthfulness, but we also owe it to science as a concept. Essentially, if you’re not doing science with a pure and truthful heart, you’re not doing science at all. Someone needs to tell Dr. Evil about this. As scientific communities have relied more and more on each other to produce collaborative results, science as a whole has become somewhat of a team sport. I argue that while epistemic and moral are two different forms of trust – or even the same form of trust applied to different issues – they both contribute to the social basis of scientific collaboration. Trust in itself is a purely social concept; just as knowledge cannot exist without a 'knower', trust cannot exist without two people, between whom that trust can exist. Therefore, whether you subscribe to the idea that moral trust has any place in scientific collaboration, it is indisputable that there is a social level to any interaction between researchers. This is to say nothing about the more 'frivolous' aspects of collaboration in which personal opinions, egos, and attitudes have been anecdotally proven to affect the quality of collaborative work. Science, at its core, is about understanding. It makes sense that we can’t even get off the ground if we don't start by understanding each other. References 1. J. Locke. An Essay concerning Human Understanding. www.gutenberg.org , 1689. Available: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10615/10615-h/10615-h.htm 2. J. Hardwig. The Role of Trust in Knowledge. The Journal of Philosophy . 1991;88(12):693. doi: 10.2307/2027007 3. R. W. Grant. John Locke on Custom’s Power and Reason’s Authority. The Review of Politics. 2012;74(4) 607–629.doi: 10.2307/23355688. Available: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23355688 4. S. Epstein. Making Interdisciplinary Collaboration Work. Available: https://www.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/~epstein/papers/collaboration.pdf . [Accessed: Mar. 29, 2024] 5. S. Wagenknecht. Facing the Incompleteness of Epistemic Trust: Managing Dependence in Scientific Practice. Social Epistemology . 2014;29(2):160–184. doi: 10.1080/02691728.2013.794872 6. E. Fricker. Testimony and Epistemic Autonomy. The Epistemology of Testimony . 2006:225–245. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276011.003.0011 7. T. M. Scanlon. What We Owe to Each Other. 1998. Available: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/file/feeds/PDF/9780674248953_sample.pdf 8. T. L. Carson. Kant and the Absolute Prohibition against Lying. Lying and Deception . 2010:67–87. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577415.003.0004 9. Immanuel Kant. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? by Immanuel Kant 1784. Marxists.org , 1798. Available: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/kant/enlightenment.htm Previous article Next article Entwined back to

< Back to Issue 9 Rewilding Our Cities with Dr Kylie Soanes by Ciara Dahl 28 October 2025 Illustrated by Jess Walton Edited by Arwen Nguyen-Ngo When you think of nature, I bet the last things that come to mind are skyscrapers, freeways and footpaths. Welcome to the hidden world of urban ecology! I recently spoke to urban ecologist and prolific science communicator Dr Kylie Soanes about the challenges of conserving wildlife in urban environments, and what drives her to protect nature in our cities. Dr Kylie Soanes is determined to protect wildlife in our urban environments. (1) A research fellow at the University of Melbourne, Soanes describes herself as “your friendly neighbourhood wildlife scientist” on a mission to “save nature in cities and towns.” Her projects range from designing rope bridges to help endangered possums cross busy roads, to installing floating wetlands that bring biodiversity back to our urban waterways. Cities are a bustling weave of people and places, but where does nature belong in all of that chaos? That’s the question Soanes has dedicated much of her career to exploring. Like many of us, she grew up in a classic urban environment, longing to get into the wild. Her passion for learning about the natural world eventually grew into a career studying ecology and conservation at university. There is a common assumption that nature doesn't belong in cities. However, Soanes emphasises that cities are a “perfect place for people to connect with nature; there’s heaps of amazing biodiversity here”, adding that “it doesn't always have to look like the pristine natural conditions for it to be valuable”. She emphasises that communicating this message is the "first real step" in shifting mindsets. Soanes notes that urban ecology is often more about working with people than with science, explaining that “there are still people in this space that need to use it." Urban ecologists must be skilled collaborators, working with communities and experts across disciplines – from architects and engineers, to social scientists and artists – to reach solutions that balance the needs of nature and people. But what happens when communities don't feel seen by urban plans? A recent effort to protect swamp wallaby habitat along the Merri Creek Trail by diverting pedestrian traffic was met with concern from the community about personal safety (2). Cases like these highlight the challenges urban ecologists face every day when trying to make space for nature in our cities. Soanes argues that it is critical for urban ecologists to discuss “social risks and social justice, to make sure that we're not changing cities in a way that makes it worse for people". Public outcries like these often stem from communities that are faced with “a decision that they think that they weren't involved in”. The biggest tool in an urban ecologist's belt is community consultation, "so that everybody is brought along on the journey and we can make the right call for everyone." Some of Soanes’ favourite work is not just about protecting nature in cities, but putting it back. She speaks about creating new habitats in urban spaces, such as floating wetlands that transform bleak industrial wastelands into thriving ecosystems, or even rooftop gardens that reclaim space for nature. One of the most exciting areas of urban ecology includes restoring locally extinct species. Soanes cites the example of the endangered Key’s Matchstick Grasshopper, which was reintroduced to Royal Park in 2022 to restore the local population and support a healthy ecosystem (3). Often, such projects are overlooked in urban areas. She explains how they are frequently “put in the too hard basket”; but there is now a shift in focus towards “physically reintroducing species once we know that all the things that they need are there". So, where can we find some of Melbourne’s most exciting urban ecology projects? You can spot the floating wetlands in various locations along the Yarra River (4), and native wildflower meadows planted on roadsides throughout the city (5). Ever spotted those wooden boxes on trees around Melbourne’s gardens? They’re not decorations – they’re artificial hollows providing safe places for wildlife to nest (6). Additionally, “lots of councils are really embracing water sensitive urban design" by installing "miniature wetlands that slow rainwater down and clean it up before it hits our stormwater system" (7). The City of Melbourne has installed floating wetlands in the Yarra River since 2022. (4) Soanes also emphasises how cultural values and knowledge can be woven into urban ecology projects. She points to the revitalised Moonee Ponds Creek as an example, noting “it has a calendar for the Wurundjeri seasons and a beautiful cultural trail.” Projects like these offer valuable opportunities for communities to connect not only with nature, but with culture. So, how can we make our own homes more wildlife-friendly? Soanes encourages asking, “What can I add to make living here easier for species other than me? ”. It could be as simple as planting a few more native plants in your garden. As the warmer months approach, placing birdbaths or shallow water trays outside can help wildlife keep cool, “especially as our cities become hotter and drier”. Outside of her work as a researcher, Soanes has a strong social media presence, using it as a platform to share her conservation messages with the wider public. She emphasises that science communication is "about making your messages and your science accessible not just to the broader public, but to the people making decisions". Dr Kylie Soanes platforms her conservation messages on social media. (8) Soanes argues that "showcasing and celebrating those stories of success" gives people "hope that they can make change in their area", while inspiring councils and urban land managers to apply similar solutions. She acknowledges that wildlife conservation can feel "very heavy” at times but stresses “it is important to show that there are all these options out there.” "There are so many other people that want the same things, or would like to see their neighbourhood become a little bit better for nature," she adds. "I think almost everybody cares about nature – it just doesn't always look like wearing khaki and carrying binoculars at all times." A big thank you to Dr Kylie Soanes for taking the time to speak with us and shed light on the fascinating world of urban ecology. To keep up with her work, follow her on Instagram @drkyliesoanes or explore her research and projects at kyliesoanes.com . References Soanes K. Dr Kylie Soanes [Internet]. Dr Kylie Soanes. [cited 2025 Oct 18]. Available from: https://kyliesoanes.com/ Paul M. A “balancing act” as council votes to fence dogs out of park, sparking safety concerns [Internet]. ABC News. 2025 Aug 21. Available from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-21/merri-creek-dog-fence-swamp-wallaby-coburg-victoria/105675854 City of Melbourne. Melbourne jumps at the chance to bring back the grasshopper [Internet]. City of Melbourne. 2022 [cited 2025 Oct 18]. Available from: https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/media/melbourne-jumps-chance-bring-back-grasshopper Balance Enviro. Yarra River Floating Wetlands – Balance Enviro Solutions [Internet]. 2022. Available from: https://balanceenviro.com.au/project/yarra-river-floating-wetlands/ City of Melbourne. Wildflower meadows and rare blooms boost biodiversity in Melbourne [Internet]. Vic.gov.au . 2024 [cited 2025 Oct 18]. Available from: https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/news/wildflower-meadows-and-rare-blooms-boost-biodiversity-melbourne#meadows Arthur Rylah Institute. Use of nest boxes in Victoria [Internet]. 2020. Available from: https://www.ari.vic.gov.au/research/people-and-nature/use-of-nest-boxes-in-victoria Melbourne Water. Constructed wetlands | Melbourne Water [Internet]. 2022. Available from: https://www.melbournewater.com.au/building-and-works/stormwater-management/options-treating-stormwater/constructed-wetlands Soanes K. Dr Kylie Soanes [Instagram page]. Instagram. [cited 2025 Oct 18]. Available from: https://www.instagram.com/drkyliesoanes/?hl=en Previous article Next article Entwined back to

< Back to Issue 6 Proprioception: Our Invisible Sixth Sense by Ingrid Sefton 28 May 2024 Edited by Subham Priya Illustrated by Jessica Walton What might constitute a sixth sense? Perhaps, it involves possessing a second sight or superhuman abilities. A classic example of this would be Spider-Man and his ‘spidey-sense’ — an instinctual warning system that alerts him to imminent danger. Enhancing his reflexes and agility, his sixth sense enables him to evade threats with precision. Turns out Spider-Man is not the sole bearer of a ‘spidey sense’. While we may not be scaling walls anytime soon, we too possess a special sense that unconsciously guides our movements. It might sound peculiar, but knowing your arm is indeed your own arm involves a unique form of sensory processing. Considered by neuroscientists as our own ‘sixth sense’, proprioception is our own way of helping the brain to understand the position of our body and limbs in space (Sherrington, 1907). Consider a typical scenario: your first sip of coffee in the morning. Eyes shut, you savour your latte before the day begins. Such a simple act, yet impossible without proprioception. With closed eyes, how do you know where your mouth is? How do you gauge the position of your arm to ensure the coffee cup reaches your lips? Proprioception seamlessly transmits information about muscle tension, joint position, and force to the brain, making drinking your coffee an automatic and coordinated process. Proprioception operates on principles akin to those guiding our other senses. Specialised cells, known as receptors, are found in each sensory organ and receive information from the environment. Receptors in your eyes capture visual information, while those in your ears detect auditory stimuli. This sensory information is transduced through signals to the central nervous system – through the spinal cord and to the brain – where it’s integrated and processed to determine an appropriate response. Analogously, proprioceptive information is mediated by proprioceptors, a unique type of receptors located in your muscles and joints (Proske & Gandevia, 2012). Unlike our other senses, proprioception does not rely on input from the external environment. Rather, it provides feedback to the brain about what the body itself is doing. Changes in muscle tension and the position of our joints are relayed to the brain, ensuring awareness of the body’s whereabouts at any given moment. One implication of this ‘internal’ feedback loop is that proprioception never turns ‘off’. When you cover your ears, you experience silence. If you hold your nose, you can block out the smell. Yet even when still, in motion, or unconscious, your brain continuously receives proprioceptive input. Imagine this in the context of going to bed each night. What exactly prevents you from falling out of bed, once asleep? While most senses are subdued when sleeping, proprioception remains active, informing the brain about the slightest changes in the position of the body. This ensures a perpetual awareness of our body in space – and luckily for us, stops us from rolling out of bed (Proske & Gandevia, 2012). It can be hard to appreciate what our proprioceptive system allows us to do, given its unconscious nature and integration with our other senses. Rare neurological disorders affecting proprioception highlight just how critical this sense is in our daily lives. The case of Ian Waterman – now known as ‘the man who lost his body – offers profound insights into the significance of proprioception (McNeill et al., 2009). Following a fever in 1971 at age 19, a subsequent auto-immune reaction destroyed all his sensory neurons from the neck down–a condition termed ‘neuronopathy’. Despite retaining his intact motor functions, Waterman lost all proprioceptive abilities, rendering him unaware of his body's position in space. Although the viral infection’s initial effect was that of immobility, this loss was not due to paralysis. Rather, it was Waterman’s lack of control over his body that inhibited his ability to move. Sitting, walking, and manipulating objects became impossible tasks as a result of the absence of any proprioceptive feedback from the body. Remarkably, Waterman has been able to teach himself precise strategies to walk and function with a degree of normality (Swain, 2017). Yet, all movement requires concerted planning and relies entirely on vision to compensate for the unconscious proprioceptive processing. In the absence of any light, Waterman is unable to see his limbs, thus restricting his ability to move. An understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying proprioception remains somewhat of a mystery compared to that of our other senses. However, recent genetic advancements are paving the way for the development of novel therapies aimed at neurological and musculoskeletal disorders (Woo et al., 2015). A study involving two young patients with unique neurological disorders affecting their body awareness revealed a mutation in their PIEZO2 gene (Chesler et al., 2016). Both individuals experienced significant challenges with balance and movement, coupled with progressive scoliosis and deformities in the hips, fingers, and feet. The PIEZO2 gene typically encodes a type of mechanosensitive protein in cells, r esponsible for generating electrical signals in response to alterations in cell shape (Coste et al., 2010). Mutations to this gene prevent signal generation and render the neurons incapable of detecting limb or body movement. These findings firmly establish PIEZO2 as a critical gene for facilitating proprioception in humans, a sense that is crucial for bodily awareness. PIEZO2 mutations have also been implicated in genetic musculoskeletal disorders (Coste et al., 2010). Joint problems and scoliosis experienced by the patients in a study suggest that proprioception may also indirectly guide skeletal development. These insights into the role of the PIEZO2 gene in proprioception and musculoskeletal development open up promising avenues for understanding and treating neurological and musculoskeletal disorders. It’s more than fitting to regard proprioception as our sixth sense. The capacity of our nervous system to seamlessly process vast amounts of information from our joints and muscles, all without any conscious effort on our part, is truly remarkable. So, the next time you have that eyes-shut first sip of coffee, give yourself a pat on the back. With your sixth sense at play, you’re clearly a superhero! References Chesler, A. T., Szczot, M., Bharucha-Goebel, D., Čeko, M., Donkervoort, S., Laubacher, C., Hayes, L. H., Alter, K., Zampieri, C., Stanley, C., Innes, A. M., Mah, J. K., Grosmann, C. M., Bradley, N., Nguyen, D., Foley, A. R., Le Pichon, C. E., & Bönnemann, C. G. (2016). The Role of PIEZO2 in Human Mechanosensation. N Engl J Med , 375 (14), 1355-1364. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1602812 Coste, B., Mathur, J., Schmidt, M., Earley, T. J., Ranade, S., Petrus, M. J., Dubin, A. E., & Patapoutian, A. (2010). Piezo1 and Piezo2 are essential components of distinct mechanically activated cation channels. Science , 330 (6000), 55-60. McNeill, D., Quaeghebeur, L., & Duncan, S. (2009). IW - “The Man Who Lost His Body”. In (pp. 519-543). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2646-0_27 Proske, U., & Gandevia, S. C. (2012). The Proprioceptive Senses: Their Roles in Signaling Body Shape, Body Position and Movement, and Muscle Force. Physiological Reviews , 92 (4), 1651-1697. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00048.2011 Sherrington, C. S. (1907). On the proprio-ceptive system, especially in its reflex aspect. Brain , 29 (4), 467-482. Swain, K. (2017). The phenomenology of touch. The Lancet Neurology , 16 (2), 114. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(16)30389-1 Woo, S. H., Lukacs, V., de Nooij, J. C., Zaytseva, D., Criddle, C. R., Francisco, A., Jessell, T. M., Wilkinson, K. A., & Patapoutian, A. (2015). Piezo2 is the principal mechanotransduction channel for proprioception. Nature Neuroscience , 18 (12), 1756-1762. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4162 Previous article Next article Elemental back to

By Gavin Choong < Back to Issue 3 Love and Aliens By Gavin Choong 10 September 2022 Edited by Khoa-Anh Tran and Niesha Baker Illustrated by Ravon Chew Next Neither Daniel Love nor Brendan Thoms were Australian citizens, but they were both recognised as First Nations Australians by law. Under legislation, “aliens” who commit crimes with a sentence of over a year may be removed from the country. (1) Due to their non-citizenship, the then Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton classified these men as aliens and tried to deport them after they were convicted of serious crimes. This attempt failed. The High Court of Australia ruled, in the hotly contested landmark decision of Love v Commonwealth, that Indigenous Australians could not be considered aliens under Australian law because of the “spiritual connection” they hold with the lands and waters of the country we live in. (1) Effectively, this barred the deportation of Love and Thoms but also sent astronomical ripples through the fabric of our nation’s legal framework. This year, major challenges to the decision made in Love v Commonwealth have arisen. Of the arguments put forward, some protest the judicial activism of the judges – that is, them going above and beyond written law to produce a fairer ruling. For example, many contend the term spiritual connection bears no actual legal meaning. However, with a history dating back upwards of seventy-thousand years, two hundred and fifty languages and eight hundred dialects, complex systems of governance, deeply vested religious and spiritual beliefs, and a profound understanding of land, it would be ignorant to argue this rich culture should simply be disregarded in the face of the law. This article adopts a scientific lens and delves into an empirical basis for the spiritual connection Aboriginal Australians share with country, traversing from Dreamtime to spacetime and beyond. THE DREAMING: FROM NOTHING, EVERYTHING From nothing came everything. Nearly fourteen billion years ago, a zero-volume singularity held, tightly, all the energy, space, and time from our current universe. In the moment of creation, temperature and average energies were so extreme all four fundamental forces which shape the universe, as we know it, acted as one. Cosmological inflation followed, allowing for exponential expansion and rapid cooling. Within a picosecond, the four fundamental forces of nature – gravity, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions – emerged independently. These forces interacted with matter, resulting in the formation of elementary particles now coined quarks, hadrons, and leptons. For twenty more minutes, elementary particles coupled to form subatomic particles (protons, neutrons) which in turn underwent nuclear fusion to create simple early atoms such as hydrogen and helium. From nothing, came everything. In an eternal present, where there had once been flat and barren ground, Ancestral and Creator spirits emerged from land, sea, and sky to roam the Earth. As they moved, man and nature – mountains, animals, plants, and rivers – were birthed into existence. Once these spirits had finished, instead of disappearing, they transformed into the world they had created, existing in sacred sites such as the night sky, monolithic rocks, and ancient trees. The Dreaming is a First Nations peoples’ understanding of the world and its creation. Importantly, it is an event which cannot be fixed in time – “it was, and is, everywhen,” continuing even today. Countless retellings have caused Dreamtime tales to diverge slightly, leading communities of Aboriginal Australians to identify with different variations of similar stories. (2) These fables refer to natural worldly features and sacred sites, whilst also incorporating favourable values such as patience, humility, and compassion. An example is the tale of the Karatgurk, told by the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, about seven sisters representing what we now consider as the Pleiades star constellation. (3) The Karatgurk These seven sisters once lived by the Yarra River, where Melbourne now stands. They alone possessed the secret of fire, carrying live coals at the end of their digging sticks. (Crow ("trickster, cultural hero, and [another] ancestral being") called the sisters over claiming he had discovered tasty ant larvae. (3) The women began scouring, only to find viscious snakes underneath the dirt which they beat using their digging sticks. As they did so, the live coals flew off and were stolen by Crow who brought fire to mankind. The Karatgurk sisters were swept into the sky, with their glowing fire sticks forming the Pleiades star cluster. In theory, the extreme physical reactions occurring minutes after the Big Bang, paired with hyper-rapid cosmic inflation, should have resulted in a completely homogeneous universe with an even distribution of all existing matter and energy. Cosmological perturbation theory explains, however, that micro-fluctuations in material properties create gravitational wells resulting in the random grouping of matter. These aggregations formed the first stars, quasars, galaxies, and clusters throughout the next billion years. It took, however, another ten billion years for the solar system to form. Similar to Saturn’s planetary rings, the early Sun had its own rotating, circumstellar disc composed of dust, gas, and debris. According to the nebular hypothesis, over millions of years, enough particulates coagulated within the Sun’s spinning disc to form small, primordial planets. Early Earth was a hellish fire-scape as a result of constant meteoric bombardment and extreme volcanic activity. The occasional icy asteroids which collided with Earth deposited large amounts of water, vaporising upon contact – as our planet began to cool, these gaseous deposits condensed into oceans, and molten rock solidified into land mass. In the blink of an eye, early traces of modern humans fluttered into existence at the African Somali Peninsula. They were a nomadic people, travelling westwards and then north through modern day Egypt and into the Middle East. Ancestral Indigenous Australians were amongst the first humans to migrate out of Africa some 62,000 to 75,000 years ago. While other groups travelled in different directions filling up Asia, Europe and the Americas, ancestral Indigenous Australians took advantage of drastically lower sea levels during that time to travel south, as, back then, mainland Australia, Tasmania, and Papua New Guinea formed a single land mass (Sahul) while South-East Asia formed another (Sunda). In spite of this, the wanderers still had to possess the requisite sea-faring skills to traverse almost ninety kilometres of ocean. When the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago, rising waters from melting ice caps covered many of the terrestrial bridges early humans had once journeyed over. This severing allowed Indigenous Australians to foster culture and tradition in their very own passage of time, uninterrupted and independent until a British fleet of eleven ships approached Botany Bay thousands of years later. Significant parts of Australia’s coast were also submerged due to ice age flooding. As coastal Indigenous Australians observed this phenomenon, they recognised its significance through their tales. The Gimuy Walubara Yidinji, traditional custodians of Cairns and the surrounding district, are one of the many groups which reference coastal flooding in their geomythology. Gunya and the Sacred Fish Gunyah, who had lived on Fitzroy Island, went out to hunt for fish one day. Spotting a glimmer in the water, he plunged a spear towards it only to find he had attacked the sacred black stingray. The stingray beat its wing-like fins, causing a great, unending storm. Gunyah fled from the rapidly rising sea and managed to find refuge in a clan living on the cliffs of Cairns. Together, they heated huge rocks in a fire and threw them far into the sea. The pacific was once again pacified, and the Great Barrier Reef created. Isaac Newton proposed, in Principia Mathematica, that the strength of the force of gravity between two celestial bodies would be proportional to both of their masses. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein refined this concept with the theories of Special and General Relativity. His mathematical models suggested time and space were woven into a four-dimensional canvas of spacetime, and the presence of massive objects such as black holes and stars created gravitational wells which distorted spacetime. Within these distortions, bodies closer to large masses would conceive time and space differently than those further away. This unique phenomenon, for example, means astronauts living onboard the International Space Station age fractionally slower relative to us grounded on Earth. Einstein was also able to find that as the velocity of any given body increased to that near the speed of light, it would gain an almost-infinite mass and experience a drastically slowed perception of time relative to their surroundings. These once inconceivable findings had monumental implications in the sphere of theoretical physics, with two examples below. (4, 5) Dark Matter ‘Visible’, baryonic matter humanity is familiar with makes up less than a fifth of the known universe, with a hypothetical ‘dark’, non-baryonic matter comprising the rest. Dark matter lies between and within galaxies, driving baryonic matter to aggregate, forming stars and galaxies. As it cannot be detected using electromagnetic radiation, gravitational lensing provides the strongest proof of its existence. Gravitational lensing occurs when there is an interfering body between us, here on Earth, and a given target. As per Einstein’s relativity, the interfering body has mass which will bend space and therefore distort the image we receive of the target. There exists a mathematically proportional relationship between mass and distortion – the more massive an interfering body, the greater the distortion. Scientists performed calculations but found that the levels of distortion they observed correlated to masses much greater than that of the interfering body. Dark matter accounts for this invisible and undetectable missing mass. String Theory At its core, quantum physics deals with interactions at the atomic and subatomic level. This body of work has borne unusual findings – including that light can act both as a particle and wave, that we may never identify a particle’s position and momentum simultaneously with complete certainty, and that the physical properties of distant entangled particles can fundamentally be linked. On paper, however, there has been great difficulty reconciling quantum physics with relativity theory, as the former deals with interactions which occur in “jumps…with probabilistic rather than definite outcomes”. (4) String theory, however, seeks to settle this tension by proposing the universe is comprised of one-dimensional vibrating strings interacting with one another. This theoretical framework has already bore fascinating fruit – it has been hypothesised that the universe has ten dimensions (nine spatial, one temporal) and during the Big Bang, a “symmetry-breaking event” caused three spatial dimensions to break from the others resulting in an observable three-dimensional universe. (5) On 21 September 1922, astronomers in Goondiwindi, Queensland, used a total solar eclipse to successfully test and prove Einstein’s theory of relativity. Aboriginal Australians present believed they were “trying to catch the Sun in a net”. (6) Western academics were far from the only ones who sought to explain natural phenomena. From the ancient Egyptians to Japanese Shintoists and South American Incas, many civilisations of the past revered the Sun and Moon, having been enthralled by the two celestial bodies. Indigenous Australians were one such people, wanting to understand why the sun rose and set, how moon cycles and ocean tides were related, and what exactly were the rare solar and lunar eclipses. Such occurrences had a mystical property about them, reflected in a rich collection of traditional tales which looked to illuminate these astronomical observations. (7) Walu the Sun-woman Told by the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land, Walu lights a small fire every morning to mark that dawn has arrived. She paints herself with red and yellow pigment with some spilling onto the clouds to create sunrise. Walu lights a bark torch and carries it across the sky from East to West, creating daylight. Upon completing her journey, she extinguishes her torch and travels underground back to the morning camp in the East. While doing so, she provides warmth and fertility to the very Earth surrounding her. Ngalindi the Moon-man Told by the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land, “water fill[s] Ngalindi as he rises, becoming full at high tide”. (6) When full, he becomes gluttonous and decides to kill his sons because they refuse to share their food with him. His wives seek vengeance by chopping off his limbs, causing water to drain out. This is reflected by a waning moon and ebb in the tides. Eventually, Ngalindi dies for three days (New Moon) before rising once again (waxing Moon). Bahloo and Yhi Told often by the Kamilaroi people of northern New South Wales, Yhi (Sun-woman) falls in love with Bahloo (Moon-man) and tries to pursue him across the sky. However, he has no interest in Yhi and refuses her advances. Sometimes, Yhi eclipses Bahloo and tries to kill him in a fit of jealously, but the spirits holding up the sky intervene allowing Bahloo to escape. In 1788, British colonists prescribed the fictitious doctrine of terra nullius which treated land occupied by Indigenous peoples as “territory belonging to no-one,” susceptible to colonisation. (8) It is apparent, however, that Indigenous Australians did and still do belong, having a greater, more unique, and nuanced relationship to our lands and waters than we can ever hope to have. This article shows that as detailed and prescriptive our modern scientific understanding is, First Nations peoples will have an equally if not richer perspective, woven through their stories, languages, and practices. To argue that the spiritual connection Indigenous people share with country is not recognised by law would be wilfully making the same mistake our early settlers made two and a half centuries ago. It would be allowing the continuance of intergenerational trauma and suppression. For those reasons, despite the assertive legal challenges being brought against Love v Commonwealth, its judgement must be upheld. References 1. Love v Commonwealth; Thoms v Commonwealth [2020] HCA 3. 2. Stanner WE. The Dreaming & other essays. Melbourne (AU): Black Inc.; 2011. 3. Creation Stories [Internet]. Victoria: Taungurung Lands & Waters Council [cited 2022 Apr. Available from: https://taungurung.com.au/creation-stories/ 4. Powell CS. Relativity versus quantum mechanics: the battle of the universe [Internet]. The Guardian; 2015 Nov 4 [cited 2022 Apr 17]. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/nov/04/relativity-quantum-mechanics-universe-physicists 5. Wolchover N. String theorists simulate the Big Bang [Internet]. Live Science; 2011 Dec 14 [cited 2022 Apr 17]. Available from: https://www.livescience.com/17454-string-theory-big-bang.html 6. Hamacher DW. On the astronomical knowledge and traditions of Aboriginal Australians [thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy]. [Sydney]: Macquarie University; 2011. 139 p. 7. Mathematics, moon phases, and tides [Internet]. Melbourne: University of Melbourne [cited 2022 Apr 17]. Available from: https://indigenousknowledge.unimelb.edu.au/curriculum/resources/mathematics,-moon-phases,-and-tides 8. Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23. Previous article Next article alien back to