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< Back to Issue 2 Mastering Chaos with Pen and Paper The mathematical laws which govern our chaotic and complex universe have found special use in describing the rapidly changing global climate. The work of three research scientists, with backgrounds in physics and meteorology, offered crucial insight into models describing the chaotic processes of climate change, granting them the 2021 Physics Nobel Prize. by Xen Papailiadis 10 December 2021 Edited by Mia Horsfall & Katherine Tweedie Illustrated by Jess Nguyen The world in which we live is densely packed with randomness and disorder. From the stampede of pedestrians navigating a major intersection and meshing together at the zebra crossing, to a flock of blackbirds hovering above like a shapeless dark cloud. All seems random and without any sense of pattern. However, at a very fundamental level, all of these processes can be described by logic and equations; as once remarked by Galileo, “the order of the natural world is written in the language of mathematics”. Through the tireless efforts of natural scientists from across the world, over millennia we have developed a remarkable understanding of the nature of the physical world. At the atomic scale of quantum physics right up to the largest astronomical objects in our universe, physics can both describe the present and decisively predict the future and past of a system. This is all with a pinch of salt, of course, as we run into some serious issues where probability and uncertainty takes over at the quantum level (best saved for another feature article), however, by and large we are capable of determining how a rocket will launch into space and where it will land on dry land, thanks to this deterministic tool. This may seem like the end of the story, however, Mother Nature will not dispel all her secrets at once. In the past century, scientists studying random behaviour, such as how clouds move and disperse or how the small fluctuations in the stock market can be tracked, have been at a loss applying deterministic methods (i.e. methods where we can determine or predict the outcome from a few fixed starting conditions) to these systems. There seemed to be no way to accurately predict the evolution of the system through time. This began with the likes of Poincare fruitlessly predicting the future movement of the planets in our solar system at the request of a monarch, and later Lorenz with his breakthrough and accidental discovery of the mathematical field of chaos itself. “Chaos Theory” is the study of complex nonlinear dynamic systems. In other words, a reckoning with systems that display persistent randomness and a perceived lack of total predictability. There is a nuance to this, however, as a system can simultaneously appear ordered, yet harbour chaotic behaviour within (as Lorenz discovered). Alternatively the systems may seem entirely chaotic however it obeys certain patterns when looked at closely (such as the aforementioned flocking birds). Among all the far reaching applications of Chaos Theory in describing the natural and human-made world, the most recent development has also been deemed worthy of the Nobel Prize. On Tuesday 5th October of this year, three leading scientists in their respective fields were awarded the title of the Nobel Prize, including a share in a $1.53 AUD million reward, by the Royal Swedish Academy of the Sciences. The Nobel recipients are Syukuro Manabe of Princeton University, Klaus Hasselmann of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and Giorgio Parisi of Sapienza University of Rome. The prize itself was awarded “for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems”, including “the physical modelling of Earth’s climate… and reliably predicting global warming”. This is the first occasion a Nobel Prize in Physics has been attributed to the field of environmental science and studying the future of the world’s changing climate, and initiates an interesting chapter in the interplay between research in physics, mathematics, and the global climate in decades to come. Receiving one half of the total prize money, Professor Parisi was awarded for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales. Having been at the cutting edge of complex systems research since the 1980’s, Parisi observed hidden patterns in disordered complex materials. His discoveries in understanding and describing the behaviour of these seemingly random materials and phenomena has far reaching contributions into biology, neuroscience and machine learning. Parisi’s work provides a mathematical framework for studying the evolution of the global climate as an example of a complex system. The Earth’s climate is a complex system of vital importance to humankind. Professors Manabe and Hasselmann, two senior climate scientists, shared in the other half of the prize for their contributions in modelling the Earth’s climate system to reliably predict global warming and climate change. In the 1960’s, Professor Manabe led the development of physical modelling of the Earth’s climate, uniting previously separate models of the ocean and atmosphere to demonstrate how increased levels of carbon dioxide impact on temperature on the Earth’s surface. This has effectively laid the foundations of modern climate models used today. Professor Hasselmann followed this up with research of his own a decade later, finding a link between local weather and climate. Hasselmann and his colleagues produced a model which described why climate models can be reliable despite weather being changeable and chaotic, and his work has been used to prove that the increased temperature in the atmosphere is due to human emissions of carbon dioxide. The decades-long work of all three Nobel Laureates fundamentally shaped our understanding and ability to predict how the chaotic and interwoven behavior of the atmosphere, oceans and land will change over time, and strengthen our understanding of the changing climate on our planet. As put by the Nobel Committee for Physics, their discoveries demonstrate that our knowledge about the climate rests on a “solid scientific foundation”, one which can only grow with future generations of climate scientists, physicists and inquirers of the world under a scientific lens. The world in which we live is a random and chaotic one. Despite this sea of unpredictability, a deeper understanding of its mathematical nature can reveal patterns which have far reaching ramifications to our society and even our existence on planet Earth. The Nobel Prize in Physics is one significant step toward greater understanding of real-world complex systems which impact us, and a deeper recognition of the impact we have upon the Earth’s climate. Our ability to understand complex systems is one of a myriad of stepping stones into the great unknowns of science. To those turning away from studies in mathematics and physics for their seemingly abstract and complex nature, the future of our society is written in these laws and it is up to us to master them with pen and paper. References: Bradley, Larry. “Strange Attractors.” Chaos & Fractals, 2010. https://www.stsci.edu/~lbradley/seminar/attractors.html Gardini, L., Grebogi, C. & Lenci, S. “Chaos theory and applications: a retrospective on lessons learned and missed or new opportunities.” Nonlinear Dyn 102, 643–644 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-020-05903-0 Irfan, Umair. “Earth’s climate is chaotic. The winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize in physics found patterns in the noise.” Vox, October 5, 2021. https://www.vox.com/22710418/2021-physics-nobel-prize-climate-change-chaos-model Oestreicher, Christian. “A history of chaos theory.” Dialogues in clinical neuroscience vol. 9,3 (2007): 279-89. doi:10.31887/DCNS.2007.9.3/coestreicher Plus Magazine. “Maths in a minute: Poincaré and the beginnings of chaos.” Universtiy of Cambridge, February 28, 2017. https://plus.maths.org/content/maths-minute-beginnings-chaos Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2021. Thu. 25 Nov 2021. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2021/press-release/ Randall, David. “Winners of 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics built mathematics of climate modeling, making predictions of global warming and modern weather forecasting possible.” The Conversation, October 6, 2021. https://theconversation.com/winners-of-2021-nobel-prize-in-physics-built-mathematics-of-climate-modeling-making-predictions-of-global-warming-and-modern-weather-forecasting-possible-169329 Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

By Clarisse Sawyer < Back to Issue 3 Death of the Scientific Hero By Clarisse Sawyer 10 September 2022 Edited by Ruby Dempsey Illustrated by Quynh Anh Nguyen Next Trigger warning: This article mentions racism, sexism and misogyny and death. As a kid I was obsessed, like most kids, with animals of any kind. I would spend hours at a time scouring the beach for shells, getting sunburnt watching lizards, and tentatively feeding the praying mantises I caught, watching with morbid fascination as they hunted and dismembered the unfortunate crickets. It was only natural that I soon became interested in science. The long days of summer holidays were spent pouring over children’s encyclopaedias and watching David Attenborough documentaries. Through David Attenborough, I discovered two incredibly influential scientists - the co-discoverers of evolution, Charles Darwin, and Alfred Wallace. I idolised them, in particular, Wallace. As a shy child, who avoided the limelight like the plague, I had a natural inclination to root for the underdog, and Wallace was presented as such. Wallace was, in contrast to Darwin, much poorer, much more humble, and received much less credit for the theory of evolution than his co-discoverer Darwin. In my developing brain, Wallace took on the status of hero. I would chatter incessantly about him. I developed an interest in insects and butterfly collecting because he was a lepidopterist. I am sure my parents found me insufferable, but they hid their frustrations well, through subtle eye rolls and conversation changes, because they were happy to see me interested in science. So for my 11th birthday, my Dad bought me a book of Wallace’s letters from his time spent as a butterfly collector in the Malay Archipelago. The book was a lot drier than an 11 year old would have hoped for. Most of it was just taxonomy, peppered with the odd personalised comment complaining about the heat. But there was one passage which stood out to me in particular. A passage in which he describes shooting a “wild woman”, upon mistaking her for an orangutan in the forest canopy. In this section he details taking the baby she carefully carried on her back, and raising it as his own “n-word baby”. He promptly taxidermied the mother, with the intention of selling her remains to a wealthy private collector in England7. It was at this point I stopped reading. At 11, there was no way I could tell this was just an incredibly bad taste joke, and that in reality Wallace had actually shot a peculiar subspecies of orangutan, and not a Malaysian woman carrying her child. At 11, I believed my hero would kill me, if I wasn’t half white, if I wasn’t so light skinned, if I didn’t wear clothes, if I didn’t speak English. I would wonder for years afterwards: how brown would I have to be? To be plastinised, taxidermied, sold to some rich collector to sit in a sterile glass cabinet, at the back of some ex nobleman’s mansion. The passage ruined Wallace for me, but not science. Sometimes I wonder, if my passion for science was only marginally less, would I still be in science? I don’t know. For every child who is only mildly deterred by the racism or sexism of their former heroes, surely there is one child whose passion slowly fades, until the only time it is mentioned is by anxious mothers pushing their children to study medicine. I lost my hero, a precedent for who a scientist should be, in addition to developing a paranoia. A paranoia that if I were to start idolising another white, male, historical, scientific figure, I would be met with the same realisation that he would’ve despised me. And I haven’t been able to find a new hero since. Despite there being numerous people of colour, and women in science for a millennia before me, they weren’t the ones promoted to me, or if they were, I found them unrelatable save for their gender or the colour of their skin. They were people who were, 99% of the time, hard working to a fault, such as Marie Curie. Often this diligence was presented as being a detriment to their happiness. So my decision to study science, like many other women and people of colour, was also a decision to be my own precedent for what a scientist should be. While this is empowering, it is difficult not to envy those, like the privileged archetype of a white man, who might be able to draw confidence and inspiration from the figures in the preliminary pages of scientific textbooks. Whilst the majority of them may prove unrelatable, the sheer quantity would ensure that at least one would be a sympathetic character, in stark contrast to the singular, tokenistic entries on historical non-white or female scientists in such text books. But does it really have to be this way? Why should anyone have to feel alienated by scientific history? Why are there not more diverse heroes for us to fall back on? At the crux of my alienation from Wallace, and scientific history more generally, was deceit, more specifically what I perceived as lying by omission. The initial presentation of scientific figures such as Wallace by media, institutions and the like is so sympathetic and devoid of grisly details, that upon discovering the multifaceted nature of these individuals, I experienced a kind of historical whiplash. A scientific education is often presented as being objective. What you are taught in a classroom, at least at a primary or secondary level, is not meant to be subject to much nuance or interpretation. Now, when this concerns science itself, it is a non-issue, because it is true, for instance, that chromosomes are made of DNA, or that the first electron shell of an atom contains 2 electrons. The issue is that the perception of objectivity carries over into the way science history is taught. Unfortunately, this teaching is unavoidably subjective. Teachers and institutions often present positive anecdotes about scientists' hobbies and personal lives. A teacher may share for instance, an endearing fact about the influential French palaeontologist, Georges Cuvier, that he became as knowledgeable in biology as university trained naturalists by the age of 126. However, said teacher may neglect to mention the fact that after her death, Georges Cuvier dissected and taxidermied Sarah Baartman , a South African woman of the Khoisan tribe, and paraded her as a freak for the English public5. Her plastinated body remained on display at the Museum of Manin Paris until 19744. In this example, it would be impossible to say that the teacher’s presentation of Cuvier was objective. Choosing to share the nicest facts about a scientist, to make them appealing to your audience, while neglecting the ugly truths,is at best, irresponsible, and at worst, lying by omission. .Abhorrent actions, such as Cuvier’s treatment of Baartman’s corpse, a woman with whom he had danced and conversed with before her death, are treated as unnecessary details in objective scientific history, as they do not pertain to Cuvier’s scientific discoveries. However, equally unnecessary details, such as Cuvier’s early aptitude for biology, are peppered into school curricula liberally. However, it would be unfair to say that the primary reason why natural history is taught in this way is because of conscious racism and sexism. There are a multitude of explanations for why educators teach like this. Educators may choose to include only the nicer traits of scientific figures, in part perhaps because they do not want to risk disengaging students with affronting subject matter. Further, the morbidity and the racism of scientific history is not exactly appropriate content to teach to younger children. Precedent also plays a role in the way in which natural history is taught. Teaching natural history in an unbiased and inclusive fashion would require rewriting a lot of material. Educators would also have to reevaluate their own personal perceptions of historical figures, which is a difficult task. For instance in Australia, the textbooks A Short History of Australia2 and The Story of Australia3, which were staples of Australian high school history classes for decades, are white-centric stories of Australian exploration, which gloss over perturbing historic details such as massacres of Indigenous peoples. While teaching scientific history in a fair, unbiased and age appropriate manner might seem like an impossible task, there are a variety of small steps educators can take towards this end goal. A strong start would be the following; if teachers decide to include personal details about famous scientific figures, they should seek to include both positive and negative anecdotes, which frame negative actions in a disapproving light. The negative anecdotes serve to ensure that students don’t get ‘whiplash’ as they pursue their education, and also serve to show that modern science does not condone or approve of these actions. In the case of younger students, it is best for teachers to avoid talking about triggering topics, so teachers should teach scientific history from an objective standpoint sans personal details. Teachers also should, as part of their responsibilities as an educator, seek out alternative historical perspectives which challenge their own preconceived notions. And educational institutions should offer professional development courses which provide educators with a more balanced view on scientific history. These actions would help eliminate any subliminal biases teachers might have whilst teaching scientific history. And why are there not more diverse heroes for us to fall back upon? Lack of equal opportunity for marginalised groups in Western society for most of history and the systemic erasure of their contributions is an obvious reason, however through relying on secondary, colonial sources for information, instead of delving deeper into primary sources, educators and institutions inadvertently gloss over scientific contributions by marginalised groups. For example, the contributions of Indigenous Australian scientists and explorers are often ignored by museums. Many famous white explorers of Australia, such as Thomas Mitchell, Charles Sturt and Alexander Forrest worked closely alongside Indigenous guides, who helped navigate territory, and point out items of scientific interest, and their names are actually often acknowledged in primary sources1. For instance, one of explorer Thomas Mitchell’s chief guides, Yuranigh, is mentioned extensively in Mitchell’s personal accounts of his expeditions, and was acknowledged posthumously by Mitchell with a grave and monument1. These people, who were explorers in their own right, have largely been relegated to the footnotes of history and museums, in particular after the publications such as the aforementioned textbooks A Short History of Australia, and The Story of Australia in the 1950’s, which deliberately omitted Indigenous contributions to white Australian exploration in order to sell the false narrative of terra nullius. Luckily, through researching primary sources further, historians, educators and curators will be able to change the narrative, and shed light on these marginalised scientists. But what of scientific heroes? How is it possible to keep students engaged without the more personal aspects of science, given that many scientific figures will have to be cut from curriculums, at least for younger students?My answer to that would be to find new heroes. History is littered with people who made significant contributions without committing atrocities. And who knows, maybe in the void left by problematic figures, space could be cleared for more diverse heroes, the kind removed from history textbooks, such as Yuranigh; an exciting prospect. And yet, there is an unavoidable anguish in throwing out the old in favour of the new. Coming to terms with the fact that the people we idolised were terrible people is no easy feat. But all we can endeavour to do is to portray scientific figures as they were. To portray all aspects of these figures, good and bad, or none at all, and hopefully develop a new history, a new tradition, one that is inclusive, one for which everyone can be proud of and take solace in. References 1. Watson T. Recognising Australia's Indigenous explorers [Internet]. researchgate.net. 2022 [cited 19 May 2022]. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321579451_Recognising_Australia's_indigenous_explorers 2. Scott E. Short History of Australia. Forgotten Books; 2019. 3. SHAW A. The story of Australia. London: Faber; 1975. 4. Parkinson J. The significance of Sarah Baartman [Internet]. BBC News. 2022 [cited 19 May 2022]. Available from: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35240987 5. Kelsey-Sugg A, Fennell M. Sarah Baartman was taken from her home in South Africa and sold as a 'freak show'. This is how she returned [Internet]. Abc.net.au. 2022 [cited 19 May 2022]. Available from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-17/stuff-the-british-stole-sarah-baartman-south-africa-london/100568276 6. Georges Cuvier [Internet]. Britannica Kids. 2022 [cited 19 May 2022]. Available from: https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Georges-Cuvier/273885 7. Wallace A, Van Wyhe J, Rookmaaker K. Letters from the Malay Archipelago. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press; 2013. Previous article Next article alien back to

2022: A YEAR IN SCIENCE 23 March 2023 Message from the Editors in Chief By Caitlin Kane, Rachel Ko, Patrick Grave, Yvette Marris A short message from the Editors in Chief Svante Pääbo: Talking to the Past By Lily McCann The world of today might seem completely alien to an archaic human, but 2022 Nobel Prize winner Svante Pääbo is pioneering work using archaeological DNA to decode genetic links to help us understand humans of the past. Meet the New Kid By Julia Lockerd Imagine a machine joins your art class, creating new art from an AI algorithm fed by original human creation. No need to imagine — AI has already refined art in 2022. From Fusion to Submarines: A Nuclear Year By Andrew Lim In 2022, nuclear science stood between old fears and new possibilities. What’s next for politicians, scientists and the public? Behind the Mask By Yvette Marris 2022 brought new stories of healthcare workers struggling in our post-pandemic world, but the big picture goes beyond the COVID wards.

< Back to Issue 10 Contingent Realities - the (Ph)ailure of a (Ph)act by Edmond Sim 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Eric Wang Edited by Rita Fortune "What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me" – Protagoras sneered (1). “I cannot but agree” – Plato replied, terse and tight-lipped. They were bitter ideological enemies. Whilst Protagoras sold a world built entirely on human perception, Plato demanded absolute, unchanging facts: forms and realities that existed independently of human viewing (2). For millennia, the discipline of physics sided vehemently with him. The entire enterprise of the physical sciences was a crusade to banish the ‘will’ of anthropomorphic gods and heroes, to uncover the definitive and rational "facts" behind the universe. The pursuit of logos, rather than mythos. Eight years following Plato’s death, a student of his, Zeno of Citium, established the Stoic school, spreading the belief that the universe operated due to reason (logos), was monistic (i.e. one interconnected physical system governed by consistent laws), and operated on cause and effect (3). This belief in determinism (the idea that events in the future had been determined by a chain of past occurrences) reached its zenith in the Scientific Revolution of the 17/18th centuries. Fact: repeatable, reversible and reliable We will start with an easy question: what is a fact? I would argue that a statement is a fact if it: (i) stems from a pre-existing state of affairs in the world; and (ii) is singular, i.e. is restricted to reality, of which there is one. This is described in perhaps the most incomprehensible quotation of mankind by Aristotle (4). “To say that that which is, is not, and that which is not, is, is a falsehood; therefore, to say that which is, is, and that which is not, is not, is true” (4). ‘Pre-existing’ requires a past. For something to already be there, waiting for us to see it, it can't have just spawned from the void. Every 'is' requires a 'why'. This relentless search for the chain of cause and effect reached its extreme in the 18th century with the French polymath, Pierre-Simon Laplace. His proposal of a hypothetical entity, now famously known as Laplace’s Demon, served as the ultimate thought experiment for the deterministic worldview that dominated the Scientific Revolution. Imagine a massive, omnipresent intellect – a demon. If this intelligence knew the exact location and force of each single atom in the universe right now, it would know everything. Uncertainty would vanish. The past and the future would be simultaneously now (5). A rock does not "choose" to roll; rather it rolls because gravity acts upon its mass. Similarly, in a deterministic universe, you do not "choose" to act. Your current physical state was caused by the state of the universe one second ago. That state was caused by the state one year ago, which was caused by the state of the universe before you were born, stretching all the way back to the initial conditions of the Big Bang. We conclude: there only exists one unique solution that maps space to time. Two different pasts never merge into the exact same future. Two identical presents never split into different futures. ‘c’ is a constant (crisis): Classical mechanics, in all its beautiful and symmetrical mathematics, provides us this shocking revelation that reality may be deterministic, and that free will is an illusion, a fiction within the slow march of time (7). Occam’s razor (that is, that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one) is seemingly disproven through two fundamental flaws within the classical framework. Firstly, the speed of light (denoted as c) is unique because it stays the same regardless of how fast you are moving. James Clerk Maxwell discovered that electric and magnetic fields are perfectly synced; a ripple in an electric field creates a magnetic one, and that magnetic ripple in turn regenerates the electric field. This continuous loop creates an electromagnetic wave, which we see as light. The speed of this wave is determined by two fundamental properties of empty space: how easily it allows electric and magnetic fields to form and spread. As these properties of the vacuum itself never change, light always travels at the exact same speed, whether you are racing toward the light source or standing perfectly still. The immediate consequences of forcing light to travel at a constant value are rather disturbing. Consider the unfortunate events of a German salary worker in the early 20th century: It was another miserable, grey day in Germany. Albert was staring out the window of a Deutsche Bahn train that was currently four hours late, thinking that his day couldn’t get any worse. CRACK. Lightning strikes the metal frame of the train car, right at the front. Albert jumps, spilling his lukewarm coffee. But before he can even dry off his trousers, a second lightning bolt strikes the very back of the train. He spills his coffee over his shirt. Albert has to get off the train at the next stop, Bern, to get to his job working at the Swiss Patent office. As he dries off his clothes on the platform, he observes an express train that runs straight through the station. Lightning, particularly vicious today, strikes both the front and end of the train carriage at the exact same time. When he was sitting inside the moving carriage, the light from the front strike had reached his eyes first because he was moving toward it. Remember, the speed of light remains constant even in his moving carriage. But now, standing completely still on the damp Bern platform, the light from both strikes on this new express train reached him exactly simultaneously (9). The man on the platform and the passengers on the train would fundamentally argue on the chronological order of events in the universe. Yet the frightening fact was neither of them was wrong (10). (This assumes that the Deutsche-Bahn moves at speeds close to the speed of light, however due to strikes from the train worker union, it would be a challenge for the train to move at a non-zero speed at all.) Recall our first condition for the definition of fact – the existence of a pre-existing past. Yet, if two observers cannot even agree on "when” an event took place, this condition fails. Fact, it seems, depends entirely on how fast you go. Bohr-ing reality is fundamentally uncertain. The second deviation from naive Laplace was the discovery of the hollow atom. Rutherford used the analogy of planets (the electrons) orbiting a star (the nucleus) seemingly never straying from their tidy, well-defined and circular orbits. Electromagnetism prevented this model from being taken seriously. Any particle that possesses charge must release energy when accelerated. Now, imagine a satellite that constantly releases energy each orbit around Earth. Naturally, the satellite will fall into the Earth. The same would occur to the electron. It would spiral into the nucleus in less than a fraction of a picosecond. Every atom in the universe would instantly implode. Two independent theories then arose almost simultaneously following this discovery. In 1925-26, the landmark papers of Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics (which uses matrices to calculate important quantum properties) and Schrödinger’s wave mechanics (an equation that relates a quantum state to its energy) attempted to provide reasons as to why energy did not disappear from the electron’s orbit (11). Breaking with the tradition of presenting the quantum ‘ghost’ of randomness, quantum mechanics actually provides a more deterministic theory than one may realise. Akin to Laplace’s demon, Schrödinger’s equation describes the time evolution of a quantum system: given an initial quantum state, we can make a definite and certain prediction of what that quantum state will be at any later time (12). This is a very intangible concept and would likely be poorly understood, so let me demonstrate this by way of an example of a coin toss. Imagine a coin spinning rapidly on a table. If you try and guess whether it’s showing heads or tails at that specific microsecond, you probably can’t. It’d be too blurry. However, the blur itself is not random. The way the coin spins, its momentum, its wobble, the friction against the table is governed by strict, unbreakable rules. If you know exactly how the coin was flicked (the initial quantum state), Schrödinger’s formula can predict with 100% certainty exactly what that "blur" will look like five seconds from now, ten days from now, or one hundred years from now. The deterministic nature of quantum mechanics is that the blur itself evolves predictably. The infamous and rather misrepresented "quantum randomness" only applies at the very end, when you finally get fed up and slap your hand down on the coin, forcing it to be either heads or tails (the measurement) (13). The issue, therefore, with this notion of fact under a quantum lens is the lack of a singular outcome. Time evolution is a well-defined function, yet outcome can only be predicted probabilistically. Therefore, we fail yet again the second condition of fact. Fact is – the friends we made along the way? An ongoing unresolved issue in quantum theory is how to explain the two conflicting ways in which systems evolve. Unobserved states evolve smoothly, yet exhibit discontinuous jumps into an outcome when measured. The infamous “Wigner’s Friend” paradox provides an example (14). Suppose your friend is inside a sealed lab watching a spinning coin. In their perspective, when they stop the coin and read its face, its state collapses into a singular outcome. In the shivering cold, you curse that you had to be the one to stand outside. According to the rules of quantum mechanics, because you haven’t seen the coin face, the smooth, unbroken evolution is still happening. You get sick of suffering in the name of science, so you rush into the laboratory and ask your friend what the coin landed on. At that moment, the superposition abruptly collapses for you. Facts no longer appear grounded in an objective, observer-independent past. Instead, they become relational, contingent upon who is observing the system. Worse still, facts seem capable of multiplying: different observers may legitimately describe different realities. This forms the basis for Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics (15). In RQM, an object (like an electron, a coin, or a cat) does not inherently "possess" properties like position or momentum in isolation. Instead, those properties only exist when two physical systems interact. Asking "Where is the particle right now?" when nothing is looking at it is a grammatically incorrect question, equivalent to asking “What is the sound of one hand clapping?" The property of "position" only truly comes into meaning if there exists a detector for which the electron interacts with (16). Any interaction is essentially an exchange of information between two systems. Rovelli formalises this by proposing two foundational postulates. First, there is a finite limit to the relevant information one system can extract from another. Second, it is always possible to extract new information (17). At first glance, these seem at odds: how can you continually extract new data if the total capacity is capped? The consequence of this tension is what we traditionally call "collapse", but RQM reframes it simply as an update of relative information. If you have maxed out the information capacity of a system — for instance, by pinning down the spinning coin’s exact momentum — then asking a new question about its position forces the system to "forget" old information to make room for the new. This directly yields Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. If we wish to keep using the word "fact" in our theory of modern physics, we must redefine it. Facts are no longer global, pre-existing truths built into a singular reality. Instead, they are by nature local, inherently plural, and entirely dependent on the relationship between the watcher and the watched. Protagoras peers down, then looks up at Plato with a bright-eyed grin. "As I was saying,” References Plato. Theaetetus. Waterfield R, translator. London: Penguin Classics; 1987. Plato. The Republic. Lee D, translator. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Books; 2003. Sellars J. Stoicism. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2006. Aristotle. Metaphysics. Ross WD, translator. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1924. Laplace PS. A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities. Truscott FW, Emory FL, translators. New York: John Wiley & Sons; 1902. University of Oxford. The Eddington Number. Oxford: University of Oxford. 2020. https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/about-us/life-oxford-mathematics/oxford-mathematics-alphabet/e-eddington-number Mastin L. Determinism. The Basics of Philosophy. 2008. https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_determinism.html Einstein A. Relativity: The Special and the General Theory. Lawson RW, translator. New York: Henry Holt and Company; 1920. Norton JD. The Relativity of Simultaneity. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh. 2022. https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/Special_relativity_rel_sim/ Norton JD. Einstein for Everyone. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh. 2022. https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/Special_relativity_clocks_rods/ Heisenberg W. Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen. Z Phys. 1925;33(1):879-93. Nave R. Schrödinger Equation [Internet]. Atlanta: Georgia State University. 2017. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/schr.html Ismael J. Quantum Mechanics. Stanford: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm/ Wigner EP. Remarks on the mind-body question. In: Good IJ, editor. The Scientist Speculates. London: Heinemann; 1961. p. 284-302. Rovelli C. Relational quantum mechanics. Int J Theor Phys. 1996;35(8):1637-78. Laudisa F, Rovelli C. Relational Quantum Mechanics. Stanford: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/ Rovelli C. Helgoland. Segre E, Carnell S, translators. New York: Riverhead Books; 2021. Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

< Back to Issue 2 What’s the forecast for smallholder farmers of Arabica coffee? For millions of smallholder farmers residing in the rural highlands of East Timor and Ethiopia, Arabica coffee is a major source of income. Yet, weather patterns are threatening their future livelihoods. With global coffee yields predicted to dramatically reduce in coming decades, how will this touch Melbourne’s privileged cafe culture? by Hannah Savage 10 December 2021 Edited by Ashleigh Hallinan & Irene Yonsuh Lee Illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin The world loves its coffee. After crude oil, coffee is the most exported commodity in the world and global demands are projected to skyrocket alongside demographic growth (2). With a strong inclination by Australian citizens to participate in our bourgeois cafe culture, Australian demand can be expected to mimic this trend. However, as climate change continues to throw curveballs, pressures to satisfy these demands will be felt by all in the supply chain. There are many species of coffee beans, yet global consumption relies only on a narrow genetic selection. Coffea Arabica is the dominant coffee bean species in commercial production (approximately 70 percent), followed by Coffea Robusta (2). Agricultural research and breeding of these crops are not extensive, considering their high sensitivity to climate. If Arabica was a child, it would be the no-mash-touching-the-peas type. Though a laborious crop to farm, this fussy plant has low yield when too much shade deprives it of sunlight or too little shade shrinks soil moisture levels. It insists on altitudes 1000-2000m above sea level and 2000mm of rainfall per annum (2). Moreover, the optimal air temperature for Arabica is 18-21 degrees Celsius (3). With these environmental specifications, it is expected that half of the world’s optimal areas for growth of Arabica and Robusta are expected to be lost by 2050 due to climate change (13). After Hurricane Maria hurtled across Puerto Rico in 2017, 80 percent of coffee trees were destroyed and rural livelihoods were flattened overnight (4). Climate change does not pay sympathy towards poor and marginalized rural communities. Frequency and intensity of extreme weather is increasing in many developing nations. Changes in temperature, weather events and rainfall patterns are already challenging the ability of farmers to adapt. Rainfall distribution is becoming more erratic and unpredictable. This is a key concern to farmers as rain patterns correlate with timing of flowering and fruit production (2). Flowering is usually triggered by the first rains of the wet season, yet unpredictable rains during the year may cause flowering at undesirable times. Unsynchronized ripening requires additional harvesting cycles, costing farmers more money and labour. In addition, water scarcity and warmer air temperature also have profound impacts on harvests. Prolonged drought leads to misshapen or small beans with marks and imperfections (3). Low moisture and heat stress causes wilting, death of crops or acceleration of bean growth (3). At temperatures above 23 degrees, fruit ripens too fast for a rich, sweet coffee flavour to develop (2). What will thrive from these changing climatic conditions are pests, diseases and coffee rust fungus, which are becoming more prevalent in areas previously unfavourable for their survival (5). The insect Coffee berry borer has been a particular challenge to coffee producers globally, as it feeds on coffee beans and damages plantations. One to four generations of these critters are born each fruiting season (5). Climate change brings uncertainty to the future livelihoods of millions of smallholder coffee farmers around the world, who produce 70 percent of the world’s coffee (6). While world leaders dance around pretty statistical graphs of their carbon-cutting “achievements”, there is the underlying issue that global efforts to lower emissions will not have equal consequences across geographical locations. Poorer economies abundant in fossil fuel resources are pressured to implement policies that further increase their vulnerability and are left grappling to find quick coping strategies. Although it accounts for only a small percentage of global coffee production, East Timor is one of the most economically dependent on coffee. East Timor, the small-island nation 700km north-west of Darwin, has relied on its oil sector for economic development in recent decades, but now interest from foreign traders is depleting with global trends towards renewable energy. The coffee industry has been identified by the East Timor government as being a key opportunity for sustained economic growth and reduction of rural poverty. More than 18 percent of Timorese households rely on coffee production as their primary source of income (7). Coffee producers have a poverty rate of 47.9 percent, which is higher than the national rate of poverty, 40.3 percent (7). Many coffee-producing households are without electricity or access to clean water and regular meals. Figure 1: Distribution of coffee-selling households in Timor-Leste (7). Timorese Arabica coffee farmers today celebrate achieving yields their grandparents would have considered inadequate in the early 20th century during Portuguese occupation. This reflects how much the climate has changed across generations. Rain, once predictable to begin at the end of every November, is now inconsistent and reduced (1). Unfortunately, adaptive solutions often demand high investment and low reward in the initial implementation stages. Farmers may be reluctant to remove their aging, unproductive coffee trees and replant new ones for fear of losing a major source of income while waiting for financial output from the new growth (9). There is the temptation to instead plant new crops between existing ones, which exploits soil nutrients and harms coffee yields. Small short-term rewards also discourage poorer farmers from participating in collective reforestation projects (9). There is much work to be done to restore ecosystems devastated from rainforest clearances during Indonesian colonisation in 1975, which occurred mere months after independence from Portugal. Shade trees that characterise these tropical rainforests play important roles in supporting coffee growth. If farmers grow coffee crops amongst the rainforest, crops will benefit from wind shelter and rich soil nutrients (8). Shade reduces daytime air temperature and increases humidity. In the region of Baguia, the collaboration project WithOneSeed, (co-founded by Melbourne’s own ‘The Corner Store Cafe’ owners), actively alleviates poverty by restoring rainforests and granting farmers profits from carbon credit trades. Farmers plant an indigenous shade tree, carbon credits are purchased by foreign customers to offset fossil fuel emissions and a remuneration of 50cents per tree is given to farmers each year so long as the tree survives (10). WithOneSeed therefore provides rural coffee producers with income before trees mature and re-establishes tara bandu, customary resource management that sustained Timor Leste’s environment for centuries pre-colonisation. Organic beans are purchased from smallholder farms at a fair price by The Corner Store and roasted in Oakleigh. The supply chain is transparent and traceable and profits go towards funding WithOneSeed planting. Plus the coffee is good quality and grown without nasty chemicals! (11) Simple adaptive responses are also being made by coffee producers in the world’s fifth largest Arabica producer, Ethiopia (3). As Arabica has been said to originate here, it is perhaps unsurprising that 16 percent of the population rely on coffee for their livelihood. Figure 2: The main coffee growing areas of Ethiopia (3). In the case of a global temperature rise of 2.4 degrees Celsius, land areas suitable for coffee production in Ethiopia would be expected to decline by 21 percent (12). Resilience for smallholder Arabica producers now depends on creative solutions using limited technology and resources available to rural communities. Relocating farms to higher altitudes of Ethiopian highlands is one solution. But this transition comes at a cost for coffee producers in the form of social network losses. While climate conditions of higher land might be more suitable, other factors such as land tenureship rights and soil quality may pose new obstacles (13). As rain seasons shorten and dry seasons lengthen, Ethiopian coffee producers aim to boost irrigation by diverting nearby streams. This is an ancient and cost-effective solution that enables coffee to successfully be grown in areas classified unsuitable (3). Similarly, coffee producers are carrying out traditional techniques of mulching, where laying compost over soil conserves soil moisture (3). However, more government investment in supporting these adaptations is needed to keep ahead of global warming (3). Sustainable agriculture also needs to be met with fair prices. Many Ethiopian farmers do not have access to foreign traders who will pay premium prices that outweigh production costs. Coffee prices are determined by the international market, or “C price”, which is based on the theory that cost is proportional to global demand, with no consideration of quality or organic farming practices (14). This supports and encourages cheap, unsustainable agricultural practice because sustainable or not, farmers will receive the same revenue for their produce. To combat this, Ethiopian business CoQua, based in Addis Ababa city, facilitates opportunities for private producers to link with international clients and initiate direct lines of trade (14). Through CoQua, Melbourne’s Seven Seeds cafe were able to establish a trade relationship with private smallholder Ethiopian Arabica producers. Seven Seeds claim to pay 3.56 times the “C price” (14). Continue as we may to remain disconnected from the challenges of an environmentally fragile coffee industry, it is only a matter of time before global reduction makes noticeable impacts on Melbourne’s shielded society. What will happen when coffee stocks fail to meet Melbourne demand? Seven Seeds co-owner Mark Dundon told The Sydney Morning Herald that he predicts coffee prices will rise, despite general reluctance of consumers to spill more than one bank note from their wallets for a flat white (14). And why shouldn't we pay more for our hot beverages if producers vulnerable to food insecurity are paying more from the brunt of climate change? The following decades have a bitter outlook, but the recent pandemic outbreak enhanced our ability to envision rapid global disruptions where no corner of the world is excluded. Certainly a disruption to Melbourne coffee culture is a trivial issue in the grand scheme of things, but as consumers it is one worth considering now. The future for Melbourians to satisfy their cultural addiction balances dangerously on a series of environmental conditions being met in foreign highlands. While it’s true that being a “smart consumer” can feel like a matter of blind faith (how fair is fair trade?), favouring businesses that have ethical, direct lines of trade with smallholder producers is one small, immediate solution towards building a sustainable future for our treasured beans and those in the firing line of climate change. References: 1. Jack Board, “From crop to kopitiam, Asia's coffee is facing its biggest threat - climate change,” CNA, published 29 February 2020, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/climate-change-coffee-prices-timor-leste-crops-1338741 2. Abaynesh Asegid, “Impact of Climate Change on production and Diversity of Coffee (Coffea Arabica L) in Ethiopia,” International Journal of Research Studies in Science, Engineering and Technology 7, 8 (2020): 31-38. 3. Kew Royal Botanic Garden, Coffee farming and climate change in Ethiopia, (London: The Strategic Climate Institutions Programme), 37, https://www.kew.org/sites/default/files/2019-01/Coffee%20Farming%20and%20Climate%20Change%20in%20Ethiopia.pdf 4. “How is Climate Change Impacting the Future of Coffee?,” TechnoServe Business Solutions to Poverty, published 16 September 2021, https://www.technoserve.org/blog/climate-change-impacting-future-coffee/ 5. Getachew Weldemichael and Demelash Teferi, “The Impact of Climate Change on Coffee (Coffea arabica L.) Production and Genetic Resources,” International Journal of Research Studies in Agricultural Sciences (IJRSAS) 5, 11, (2019): 26-34, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20431/2454-6224.0511004. 6. Michon Scott, “Climate and Coffee,” Science Information for a climate-smart nation, published 19 June 2015, https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-and/climate-coffee 7. Brett Inder and Nan Qu, Coffee in Timor-Leste : What do we know ? What can we do ?, (Australia: Monash University), 17. 8. Simon P.J Batterbury, Lisa R. Palmer, Thomas R. Reuter, Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho, Balthasar Kehi and Alex Cullen, “Land access and livelihoods in post-conflict Timor-Leste: no magic bullets,” International Journal of the commons, 9, 2, (2015): 619-647. 9. Lisa Walker, Understanding Timor Leste, (Dili: Swinburne Press, 2013), 22-158. 10. Andrew Mahar, “Meet the farmers helping to reforest Timor-Leste,” World Economic Forum, published 26 January 2021, Meet the farmers helping to reforest Timor-Leste | World Economic Forum (weforum.org) 11. “The Roastery,” The Corner Store, accessed November 2021, https://cornerstorenetwork.org.au/the-roastery 12. Cheikh Mbow et al., Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems, (2019), https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/4/2021/02/08_Chapter-5_3.pdf 13. Yen Pham, Kathryn Reardon-Smith, Shahbaz Mushtaq and Geoff Cockfield, “The impact of climate change and variability on coffee production: a systematic review”, Climatic Change, 156, (2019): 609-630, The impact of climate change and variability on coffee production: a systematic review | SpringerLink 14. Dani Valent, “ 'The industry's at risk': the high price of cheap coffees,” published 31 May 2019, national/the-industry-s-at-risk-the-high-price-of-cheap-coffees-20190528-p51rti.html Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

By Ashleigh Hallinan < Back to Issue 3 Space exploration in Antartica By Ashleigh Hallinan 10 September 2022 Edited by Tanya Kovacevic and Breana Galea Illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin Next The isolated southern expanse of the Earth is an alien realm, with vast expanses of white ice and blue sky that appear to stretch on infinitely. Despite its barren landscape, the Antarctic continent holds secrets to the origins of our Earth and the solar system in the form of meteorites. Meteorites are solid pieces of debris that originate in outer space, survive the journey through our atmosphere, and fall to the Earth’s surface.(1) Their unique components and pungent smells contain fascinating stories of cosmic clouds, condensing stardust and the fiery collisions of entire planets. These ‘space rocks’ can land anywhere on Earth, but the vast majority of meteorites are found in the cold deserts of Antarctica.(2) So, why Antarctica? Across the globe, meteorite abundance is dependent on two factors: the meteorites must be easy to spot, and their preservation must be guaranteed over long time periods.(3) It is the conditions of the Antarctic landscape that make all the difference when it comes to meteorite discovery. The cold, dry nature of Antarctica helps to preserve these extraterrestrial rocks, allowing for more pristine samples to be collected. In this way, we may think of Antarctica as a ‘natural freezer’. In fact, meteorites can be buried and preserved in the Antarctic ice for up to millions of years, allowing for a deep dive into the origins of the solar system upon analysis. Furthermore, meteorites are easier to find in Antarctica due to the stark contrast between the dark colours of meteorites and the white ice. And since so few rocks naturally form on ice sheets, you can be fairly certain the majority of rocks found in Antarctica are extraterrestrial. However, an expedition to Antarctica for meteorite hunting is no small feat. Thankfully, landscape processes occurring on the Antarctic continent create concentrated pockets of meteorites, making the hunt for meteorites less like trying to find a needle in a haystack. These meteorite hotspots are largely a result of the local geology and movement of ice across the Antarctic landscape.(4) As meteorites strike glaciers, they are buried and encased in the ice. These glaciers move across the landscape, acting as ‘conveyor belts’ that carry the meteorites until they reach a large barrier, such as the Transantarctic Mountains. The ice flow is blocked and builds up at the base of the mountain. Here, dry Antarctic winds slowly erode the ice, revealing a bounty of imprisoned meteorites. Traditionally, meteorites have been divided into three broad categories: stony, stony-iron, and iron.(5) While stony meteorites are made up of silicate minerals, iron meteorites are almost completely made of metal. Unsurprisingly, stony-iron meteorites are composed of nearly equal amounts of metal and silicate crystals. Alarmingly, warmer temperatures and melting ice associated with global warming may hinder our search for meteorites. This is particularly the case for iron meteorites, which conduct heat more efficiently than other meteorite types due to their higher metal content.(6) Consequently, meteorites can sink into the ice and out of sight. Despite Antarctica’s otherworldliness, it is not free of the impacts brought about by human activity occurring on landmasses separated by vast seas. However, with the help of artificial intelligence and machine-learning, the quest for meteorite discovery continues. Scientists recently estimated there are as many as 300,000 more meteorites to be discovered in Antarctica, their stories waiting to be uncovered in a never-ending game of hide-and-seek.(7) Using machine learning to combine satellite measurements of temperature, surface slope, speed of ice flow, and reflection of radar signals by ice, scientists have developed a ‘treasure map’ containing the predicted locations of concentrated meteorite zones.(7) The ’treasure map’ is accessible online,(8) so anyone can search the Antarctic continent for rocky remnants left over from the formation of the solar system. When we think of space exploration, we conjure up images of astronauts and spaceships. But Antarctica provides us with the opportunity to peer into the cosmos without ever leaving Earth, given we are brave enough to face the inhospitable conditions and pervasive alienness of the Earth’s southernmost continent. References 1. Sephton M, Bland P, Pillinger C, Gilmour I. The preservation state of organic matter in meteorites from Antarctica. Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 2004;39(5):747-54. 2. Corrigan C. Antarctica: The Best Place on Earth to Collect Meteorites. CosmoELEMENTS; 2011. p. 296. 3. Schlüter J, Schultz L, Thiedig F, Al‐Mahdi B, Aghreb AA. The Dar al Gani meteorite field (Libyan Sahara): Geological setting, pairing of meteorites, and recovery density. Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 2002;37(8):1079-93. 4. Steigerwald B. NASA Scientist Collects Bits of the Solar System from an Antarctic Glacier Greenbelt: NASA; 2018 [Available from: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/antarctic-meteorites. 5. Lotzof K. Types of meteorites [Internet]. Natural History Museum; [Available from: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/types-of-meteorites.html. 6. Evatt G, Coughlan M, Joy K, Smedley A, Connolly P, Abrahams I. A potential hidden layer of meteorites below the ice surface of Antarctica. Nature communications. 2016;7(1):1-8. 7. Tollenaar V, Zekollari H, Lhermitte S, Tax DM, Debaille V, Goderis S, et al. Unexplored Antarctic meteorite collection sites revealed through machine learning. Science Advances. 2022;8(4). 8. Tollenaar V, Zekollari H, Lhermitte S, Tax DM, Debaille V, S G. Antarctic Meteorite Stranding Zones [Internet]. [Available from: https://wheretocatchafallingstar.science/. Previous article Next article alien back to

< Back to Issue 10 Shining Light on the Grey by Ingrid Sefton, Kara Miwa-Dale and Anabelle Dewi Saraswati 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Anabelle Dewi Saraswati Edited by the Editor-in-Chiefs Truth: from that with a little t, to the just out of reach capital T “Truth”. We seek it, we declare it, we believe in it. An innate drive towards answers, embedded in the human process of scientific exploration. Our notions of fact and fiction often feel like black and white binaries with clear boundaries; easily distinguishable, one or the other. Consider an alternative. That science, as in life, is a chiaroscuro of fact and fiction. Shades of light and shadow, which contrast truths and contradictions in order to point us to a clearer, but never fully transparent view of reality. Our scientific methods help us whittle away outright lies, and approach a closer approximation to that of fact than one of fiction. Yet, undeniably, there remains frustratingly little we can say with utmost certainty. History is littered with reminders of how fragile “truth” can be. There was a time when illness was understood as a delicate imbalance of blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. At one point, continents were assumed to be fixed and unmoving, until tectonic plates revealed a restless Earth in constant motion. It is precisely by interrogating these once-settled “facts” that science advanced — not in straight lines, but through disruption, revision, and occasional collapse. And still, there are questions we orbit but have not yet landed on. What exactly is dark matter, which seems to hold galaxies together while refusing to reveal itself? How does consciousness emerge from the quiet electrical choreography of neurons? In these spaces, science is not a catalogue of answers, but a map of known unknowns. A lack of absolutes does not negate the power of science – far from it. Indeed, this is a large part of what drives us to become ever more inquisitive, innovative and critically questioning of the scientific landscape. Ideas once accepted as unquestionable truths can be later overturned through science, just as concepts once dismissed as fantasy may eventually become reality. May this issue urge you to pause, to consider the myriad of grey space that exists in between as you traverse the boundaries of truth, certainty and fabrication. Where does one end, and another begin? A word from the Cover Illustrator Anabelle For this issue’s cover illustration, I was inspired by the history and strange patterns of crop circles. These vast, intricate formations pressed into fields that sit somewhere between scientific curiosity, mass hysteria, art, and folklore; the perfect visual encapsulation for this issue’s theme, Fact and Fiction. Cropping up throughout the late 70s to 80s, they became a cultural phenomenon tied to UFO sightings, conspiracy theories, extraterrestrial speculation, and pseudoscientific fascination. Conceptually, crop circles simultaneously exist as a hoax, artwork, scientific anomaly, and collective myth, depending on the observer. I approached the illustration through a lens of nostalgia, imagining it as the cover of a forgotten children’s mystery book you could stumble upon in an op-shop dating all the way back to the 80s or 90s; sun-faded, slightly eerie, but playful in its wonder. The Midwest-inspired rural scene allowed me to lean into that atmosphere of a quiet blue hour mystery that surrounded alien encounters and paranormal media in the late twentieth century, when crop circles occupied such a strange and persistent place in the pop culture zeitgeist. The beauty in crop formations lies in their underlying precision. Many are built off fractal geometry and repeating mathematical systems, and naturally occurring patterns found throughout science and nature. Even as objects associated with fiction and conspiracy, they are deeply rooted in structure, mathematics, and design. Crop circles are carefully designed spectacles intended to provoke interpretation. Whether read as evidence, artwork, prank, or myth, they reveal how deeply humans want to believe in stories larger than themselves. The cover became less about proving whether something is real or fabricated, and more about exploring the fragile, fascinating space in between. Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

By Gaurika Loomba < Back to Issue 3 Mighty Microscopic Warriors! By Gaurika Loomba 10 September 2022 Edited by Niesha Baker and Khoa-Anh Tran Illustrated by Rachel Ko Next It’s a fine Saturday afternoon. You’re sitting in your backyard sipping on coffee and losing your mind over the daily Wordle. While you’re so engrossed, an unusual, blue-colored creature pulls another chair and solves the Wordle for you. Just as you look up and try to process the condescending smirk of this creature, your daily news notification pops up. It's true! The whole world has been invaded by aliens! Thankfully this is a figment of our imagination, but would you believe me if I told you that alien invasions are constantly happening unnoticed in the microscopic world of our bodies? Every day, our cells face new ‘alien invasions’, thanks to unhygienic eating, or even just from breathing! In the external world, such an invasion would unsettle the entire human population and adversely impact the lives of everyone. It’s amazing how such invasions inside our bodies are usually defeated daily. So who are these tiny ‘soldiers’ that fight them off, silently and efficiently? It’s time to introduce the two brothers of our story– the innate immune cells system and the adaptive immune cells system, the former being the more enthusiastic and energetic one, while the latter is calmer and wiser. Although different in nature, the two systems coordinate efficiently to eliminate our enemies and help us go on about our lives. The innate immune system acts first when a pathogen (a disease-causing microorganism) manages to enter our bodies by getting around our physical barriers like the skin, and the mucus in the respiratory, gastric, urinary, and sexual tracts, etc. The innate immune system consists of cells like macrophages and dendritic cells (DCs), which are constantly looking out for incoming invaders. These cells recognise pathogens through common foreign attributes that our native cells don’t possess. In order to defend us from the harmful effects of the pathogen, our innate cells engulf them. In fact, the word ‘macrophages’ literally means ‘big eaters.’ Inside our cells, the pathogens’ end is inevitable, smashed and broken into pieces, which are mounted on our soldier cells’ surfaces, informing other soldier cells that an invasion has occurred. Exposing broken parts of the pathogen on our innate cells’ surfaces also produces chemicals called cytokines that help recruit more of our soldier cells to the site of invasion. So, when we get flu, the secreted cytokines is why we run a fever, cough, sneeze, and influx of our soldier cells to the throat area is why we may have swelling around there. Similarly, if we bruise, our blood vessels dilate to allow entry of our soldier cells to the wounded area, which is then manifested as redness and swelling around it. Fortunately, this means of communication of our soldier cells is much faster than our internet connection and so the whole process occurs in a matter of hours. On most days, the keen innate immune system is enough to control an invasion. However, it needs big brotherly advice from the adaptive immune system in case things get out of hand. The main players of this part of the immune system are the calm B- and T-cells. These can be found resting in the lymph nodes, unaware of the invasion in the body. The B- and T-cells are wise soldiers, which is evident in the way they respond to an invasion. Each of these cells has molecules called ‘receptors’, which uniquely recognise pathogen parts presented to them. These receptors, on an adaptive cell, can be thought of as padlocks and the broken pathogen parts, mounted on an innate cell, as a key. In the lymph nodes, each resting B- and T-cell has a different type of padlock, unique for a different key. It is the job of a DC, with a broken pathogen part mounted on its surface, to enter the lymph nodes and search for the most accurate match for its key, from the variety of B- and T-cell padlocks. The key varies based on the different types of pathogens that invade our bodies. Once the perfect match is found, that specific B- and T-cell is activated and rapidly multiplied. This lock-and-key method of activation of adaptive cells confers the specificity of their action. These activated cells move from the lymph nodes to the site of infection and perform different functions that halt the pathogen from spreading the disease, by either killing the pathogen or stopping its reproduction. At the site of infection, innate cells, with the key (broken pathogen part) mounted on their surface wait for the brotherly advice, the incoming adaptive cells with the perfect match to the key. The activated T-cells uniquely interact with macrophages and signal them to start killing the pathogens that they have engulfed. This helps with clearance of the pathogen. Although B-cells are part of the adaptive immune system, they can also recognise the foreign pathogen products, break them down, and present these parts on their surface, just like the innate immune cells. So now B-cells also have a key to the activated T-cell padlocks. Their lock-and-key interaction facilitates the B-cells to release antibodies. Finally, the antibodies, together with the macrophages and DCs, as well as the B- and T-cells of the adaptive immune system, successfully win the war and die peacefully, having completed their purpose. But a small portion of B- and T-cells go on and develop into long-lived memory cells. Over the span of our lives, we are infected and reinfected with pathogens all the time, however not every encounter results in us falling sick. The credit goes to the B- and T-memory cells and their ability to remember the foreign attributes of the pathogen and kill it as soon as it re-invades. Adaptive cells’ memory is the principle of vaccination. An inactive pathogen or a part of the pathogen is introduced into the body. This trains our soldier cells for a real pathogen invasion by triggering the B-cells to form memory and specialised antibodies against the pseudo-pathogen. If the real pathogen infects us again, these pre-formed antibodies make fighting the war much easier and quicker. Correct training of immune cells is essential since a pathogen invasion is a life-or-death situation for us. Any mistakes by our soldier cells can have devastating effects. For example, an important part of the training process is to ensure the immune cells aptly distinguish between civilian cells and foreign cells. This education occurs in the bone marrow. Here, any B- or T-cells that attack civilian cells or cell parts are evicted from the training process so only the most eligible soldier cells continue to become eligible soldiers. (1) But even after a rigorous selection process, things can go wrong with our immune system. Instead of being our defending heroes, they turn their back against us and start identifying civilian cells as aliens and attacking them. Sadly, this is the reality for 5% of the Australian population, with a majority being women. This condition, when the immune cells stop distinguishing internal cells from alien cells, is called an auto-immune disorder. The cause for this disorder is mostly unknown, with some speculations of it being genetic or environmental. The repercussions can be mild, such as causing dry mouth and dry eyes - symptoms for Sjogren’s syndrome, or more severe such as joint pain and immobilisation, known as Rheumatoid Arthritis. These diseases are currently life-long and incurable because they involve our own cells fighting the healthy cells in our body. (2) Nevertheless, the immune system plays a very important role in helping us lead normal lives. It fights the battle against the invaders daily, without us realizing it. Thanks to the soldiers of the immune system, our daily activities, like solving a Wordle on a relaxing Saturday, are not hindered by an alien cell invasion in our bodies! References Kenneth Murphy, Casey Weaver. Basic concepts in Immunology. Janeway’s Immunobiology. 9th ed. United States: Garland Science Taylor and Francis; 2017. p. 4-11 Overview of autoimmune diseases [Internet]. Healthdirect. Available from: Overview of autoimmune diseases | healthdirect Previous article Next article alien back to

< Back to Issue 2 Maxing the Vax: why some countries are losing the COVID vaccination race As Australia’s COVID vaccination rate reaches 90% for the adult population, are you aware of countries struggling with their vaccination program? This piece discusses three countries, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, and India, and the key challenges they face in increasing their vaccination rate. by Grace Law 10 December 2021 Edited by Neisha Baker Illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin Most Australians are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but are you aware of how other countries are handling their vaccination programs? Each country has its own set of challenges and setbacks it must overcome in getting its citizens vaccinated. The success and failure of vaccination programs depend on how well these are addressed, and how the people respond. Political, economic, geographical, and educational factors can have a huge impact on vaccination success. Below, I will discuss the key challenges affecting COVID-19 vaccination in three countries, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, and India, as well as its impact on the country’s vaccination rate. Brazil – the nation that changed their fate Brazil has suffered the highest overall death toll in Latin America which is also the second-highest in the world after the United States. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro was strongly opposed to lockdowns, restrictions, and public-health measures such as masks, which some local areas sought to impose (1). He has also spread disinformation regarding the coronavirus and vaccines, such as posting a video falsely associating the coronavirus vaccines with the onset of AIDS, resulting in Facebook removing it after public outcry (2). As a leader, his words and actions have major roles in influencing opinion and informing the public. While the number of preventable deaths is shocking, the predicted wave of destruction by the Delta variant has not materialised. Over 60% of the population is fully vaccinated despite the mixed messages and deterrence from the central government (3). The city of Serrana became the testing site of the Chinese vaccine Sinovac with most adults being willing towards receiving the vaccine (4). Consequently, the symptomatic cases, hospitalisation and deaths in the area all fell dramatically, becoming a place of envy for the neighbouring communities (5). This initial success also offers hope for low and middle-income countries, which may rely on this cheaper vaccine (6). Despite governmental resistance throughout the pandemic, Brazilians have defied the odds and faced the virus as a united community. Local leaders have challenged the national government to ensure suitable public health orders are enforced, and citizens have actively sought vaccination, preventing further COVID-19 devastation. Papua New Guinea – our struggling neighbour One of Australia’s closest neighbours, Papua New Guinea (PNG), is among the countries with the lowest vaccination rate in the world. According to Our World in Data, only 2% of the population is fully vaccinated (7). One of the most difficult issues to address is mistrust in the vaccine, due to low health education, inadequate health and general resources, and a political and historical distrust in the government. PNG relies on Australia and New Zealand’s AstraZeneca donations to acquire COVID vaccines, as well as Australian embassy staff to help run pop-up clinics in shopping centres. A Chinese medical team has also been working outside the government to unofficially administer the Sinopharm vaccine at a hospital clinic, leading to speculations of politically-motivated manipulation and interference (8). PNG is caught between two great powers, and the already sceptical PNG people are neglected and uninformed about vaccine efficacy, safety, and choices (9). Low science literacy and mistrust in political institutions have made it extremely difficult to convince people to get vaccinated (10). This has furthered the development of conspiracy theories, which interplay with cultural beliefs around witchcraft and superstitions (11). Despite the recent introduction of the “no jab, no job” policy, people are turning to mass resignations or the acquisition of fraudulent certificates instead of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine (12). Australia recently offered aviation lift services to high priority provinces, delivering much-needed emergency supplies to geographically isolated areas in PNG (13). A lot of work is still needed in order to increase the vaccination uptake rate in PNG. Stronger and more impactful campaign messaging will be required to increase public demand for vaccines (14). Foreign aid and assistance should prioritise effective vaccination and long-term health improvement over political agenda (15). The priority must be to stop the pandemic devastation by getting people vaccinated, and addressing long-term infrastructure, funding, and governance issues. India – great challenges and great ambitions India has the second-largest population in the world and it has struggled to source an adequate number of vaccines for its people. The government was ambitious that local manufacturing of the Indian vaccine Covaxin would be sufficient for domestic consumption. Instead, Bharat Biotech’s newest facility in Bengaluru reports quality issues in its initial batches, leading to a delay and vaccine shortage (16). During the country’s destructive second wave from April to June of 2021, the vaccine shortage was exacerbated by the government hesitating to approve vaccines developed and manufactured overseas. Local supply was also hindered by raw material shortages at the beginning of 2021 (17). While the government has sought higher vaccine administrations, setbacks including delays in manufacture, lack of doses received from overseas, and difficulties in obtaining regulatory approval, have contributed to the delayed and restricted nature of the vaccination program. Initially, the people met the vaccination program with great enthusiasm, and the government aimed to vaccinate all adults against COVID-19 by 31 December 2021. But vaccine uptake has plateaued and declined since October, and there are fears this target will not be met. Many factors have contributed to the decreased vaccine uptake, including vaccine shortage, barriers to vaccination such as lockdowns, high infection rates causing fear of visiting vaccination centres, and misinformation particularly in under-resourced rural areas (18). Although an improved COVID-19 vaccination program could have reduced the severity of the second wave, attention now is on maintaining the vaccination uptake rate. As the Indian government started to offer free vaccinations to all adults, citizens living in poverty have had the chance to be vaccinated as well. While many countries wish to manufacture their own vaccines at a fraction of the cost of the pharmaceutical giants, quality control and quality assurance remain incredibly complex issues to tackle (19). Lower-income countries require sufficient guidance and support, and Shahid Jameel, a virologist from Ashoka University in New Delhi says, ‘We can’t fix vaccine inequalities until vaccine manufacturing is distributed.’ (20) Conclusion Numerous factors impact vaccine uptake, with each country facing its own set of challenges. Mismanagement, limited infrastructure, and rampant misinformation were highlighted here, but there are many problems impacting vaccination programs around the world. Urgently addressing these problems will be needed to reduce vaccination inequality around the world, and hopefully, reach the end of the pandemic very soon. For more information on COVID-19 and the vaccine, please visit the VaxFACTS website created by the University of Melbourne: https://www.vaxfacts.org.au/ References Jake Horton, “Covid Brazil: Why could Bolsonaro face charges?” BBC News, published 27 October, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56663217. “Facebook removes video in which Brazil’s Bolsonaro links coronavirus vaccines with AIDS,” Washington Post, published 25 October, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/25/facebook-papers-live-updates/#link-UA7IQVP5E5D2VGUQX7OJQBCFIE. “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations,” Our World in Data, published 26 November, 2021, https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL. Mauricio Savarese, “Sinovac vaccine restores a Brazilian city to near normal,” Associated Press News, published 2 June, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-brazil-coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-20bd94d28ac7b373d7a8f3f9c557e5b6. “Sinovac vaccine restores a Brazilian city to near normal.” “Sinovac vaccine restores a Brazilian city to near normal.” “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations.” Natalie Whiting, “PNG caught in China-Australia power play as COVID-19 Delta variant infiltrates Pacific nation,” ABC News, published 2 August, 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-02/png-caught-between-australia-and-china-as-it-fights-delta/100329206. “PNG caught in China-Australia power play as COVID-19 Delta variant infiltrates Pacific nation.” Mihai Sora, “Overcoming community resistance to vaccination in Papua New Guinea,” The Interpreter, published 26 October, 2021, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/overcoming-community-resistance-vaccination-papua-new-guinea. Liam Fox and Marian Faa, “Health workers face death threats as COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy takes hold in PNG,” ABC News, published 10 September, 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-10/png-vaccine-hesitancy-papua-new-guinea-covid-19/100444380. Fraser Macdonald, “Just 1.7 per cent of PNG residents are vaccinated against COVID. Why are they so resistant?” SBS News, published 8 November, 2021, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/just-1-7-per-cent-of-png-residents-are-vaccinated-against-covid-why-are-they-so-resistant/72c40029-dec8-4202-b436-31562d983fbc. “COVID-19 partnership with Papua New Guinea strengthened” Minister for Foreign Affairs, published 27 October, 2021, https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/marise-payne/media-release/covid-19-partnership-papua-new-guinea-strengthened. “Overcoming community resistance to vaccination in Papua New Guinea.” “Overcoming community resistance to vaccination in Papua New Guinea.” Sreenivasan Jain, “Quality Issues Behind Covaxin Shortage: Government vaccine panel chief,” New Delhi Television, published 2 August, 2021, https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/quality-issues-behind-covaxin-shortage-government-vaccine-panel-chief-2500998. Shruti Menon, “India vaccination: Does it have enough doses for all adults?” BBC News, published 3 August, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55571793. Liji Thomas, “Factors predicrting vaccine hesitancy in India,” News Medical, published 26 September, 2021, https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210926/Factors-predicting-vaccine-hesitancy-in-India.aspx. Amy Maxmen, “The fight to manufacture COVID vaccine in lower-income countries,” Nature, published 16 September, 2021, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02383-z. “The fight to manufacture COVID vaccine in lower-income countries.” Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

< Back to Issue 4 Real Life Replicants by Elijah McEvoy 1 July 2023 Edited by Yasmin Potts and Megane Boucherat Illustrated by Jolin See Hal, Ultron and (of course) the Terminator. Comparisons between these fictional, world-destroying, artificial intelligence systems and those in our current age of AI are seemingly never-ending. As a child born with a lightsaber in hand, I find these sensationalist remarks endlessly entertaining. Not only because it baffles me to see concepts once relegated to the realm of science fiction be discussed as serious news topics, but also because they’ve got their references all mixed up. The current challenge posed by the new wave of generative artificial intelligence doesn’t come in the form of a ruthless, gun-toting Arnie. It comes in the form of replicants. Just like these uncannily human androids from Ridley Scott’s cult classic Blade Runner, the rapidly increasing capacity of AI to talk, look and create like humans is beginning to blur the line between what is authentically human and what is the product of an algorithm. From the posh C3P0 to the snarky Cortana, having a friendly AI sidekick has always been a childhood dream of mine. This dream has now become a reality with the rise in AI chat-bots. At the forefront of these is Replika, an app that enables users to talk to their own personalized AI via the use of text-like messages. For its two million users (1), Replika provides a variety of functions. For some, Replika acts as a friend in times of loneliness; a feature that contributed to its spike in users during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (2). For others, as founder Eugenia Kuyda suggests, it provides a space for users to “open up” about personal or mental health issues and “feel accepted” by a human-like figure (1). For many though, Replika is a digital romantic partner. While it is easy to snicker at the concept of an AI girlfriend, those with past relationship trauma or those living in environments that may be hostile towards their sexuality have used Replika as an outlet to explore genuine feelings of love in a safe setting (3). However, with such attachment comes the chance for exploitation. As stated by Nir Eisikovits, Director of the Applied Ethics Centre at the University of Massachusetts, his concern is “not whether machines are sentient” but rather our own tendency “to imagine that they are” (4). Like the holographic billboards for the AI “JOI” in Blade Runner 2049, suggestive advertisements and aggressive flirting by the AI itself have all been employed by Replika to encourage users to stay on the app and pay a premium subscription for explicit content (5). While Replika has since removed sexual material, the large backlash from users at this decision (6) highlights the unethically coercive power such mimicry of human personality could have on consumers. For years, we’ve been warned of the danger of manipulative TV advertisements encouraging excessive junk food consumption and gambling. Imagine what could be done when that ad is no longer a 30 second video but instead an anthropomorphized AI tailored exactly to you, your interests and your vulnerabilities. Not only is AI replicating the way we talk, but also how we look. From videos of an animated Tom Cruise to convincing photos of a Balenciaga-wearing Pope (7), advanced deepfake videos and prompt-generated images from AI systems like DALL-E are becoming easier to create by the day (8). While the most prominent use of this technology is currently in the form of harmless memes, it can and has been used for more sinister means. Women across the world have had their faces used in non-consensual deepfake pornography, often as a form of revenge or blackmail (9). Furthermore, a fabricated video of Volodymyr Zelensky surrendering to Vladimir Putin that spread on social media last year proves AI’s unsettling potential in political disinformation (8). While fakes like that of Zelensky may have been taken down quickly due to easily identifiable tells, in many cases the damage has already been done the moment people see these videos or images. Mistrust in the news is heightened and real evidence can be accused of being AI generated, a strategy already implemented by Donald Trump to dismiss evidence of his misogyny (8). Although the current usage of this technology is concerning enough, the degradation of truth within society will only worsen as these replicants become increasingly accurate and faster to produce (8). Still, it is the ability for AI to complete jobs once thought to be uniquely human that will result in the largest change to the current status quo. Latest estimates from Goldman Sachs state that close to 300 million jobs globally could be automated by the current AI wave (10). The threat of job losses due to automation is far from new, stretching all the way back to 1811 with the infamous Luddites protesting factory machines (11). However, generative AI is placing a greater variety of jobs in jeopardy due to its ability to exude human creativity, giving rise to what Stanford Professor Victor R. Lee entitles an “authenticity crisis” (12). One of those jobs is that of writers. A common phrase amongst movie reviewers today is “this could have been written by an AI”. While usually used as a jab against the latest Marvel movie, large language models like Chat GPT that are capable of identifying and mimicking patterns in writing make it more than just a joke. Amongst calls for better conditions for screenwriters, a key demand from the Writers Guild of America in this year's Los Angeles writers’ strike was that AI will not be used to write or rewrite scripts (13). When you combine the growing authenticity of these AI with the greedy desires of major studios, it is not a far cry to suggest that producers may use AI to quickly generate scripts for generic soap operas and cash grab Netflix movies, leaving the human creatives to simply ‘clean-up’ these stories at a cut pay rate. Despite all these concerns, generative AI does have the ability to immeasurably improve society. The capacity of this technology to increase workplace efficiency (10), accelerate scientific progress (14) and constantly amuse us with clips of a rapping Joe Biden is undeniable. With the cat out of the bag, innovation in these areas cannot nor should not be halted completely. However, if sci-fi movies have taught me anything useful, it’s that we should not be blinded by the potential of scientific progress. Whether it be through governmental action to regulate the use of AI in industry or the scientific development of better deepfake-spotting technology to help stifle disinformation, implementing safeguards around AI is crucial in avoiding its “ethical debt” (15). Whilst looking to the world of science fiction as an indication of our future may be a bit far-fetched, it may also be a needed reminder of the world scientists should try not to replicate. References Tong A. AI company restores erotic role play after backlash from users ‘married’ to their bots [Internet]. The Sydney Morning Herald. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/ai-company-restores-erotic-roleplay-after-backlash-from-users-married-to-their-bots-20230326-p5cvao.html Clarke L. ‘I learned to love the bot’: meet the chatbots that want to be your best friend. The Observer [Internet]. 2023 Mar 19 [cited 2023 May 14]; Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/19/i-learned-to-love-the-bot-meet-the-chatbots-that-want-to-be-your-best-friend The rise and fall of replika [Internet]. [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSKKolgL2U Eisikovits N. AI isn’t close to becoming sentient – the real danger lies in how easily we’re prone to anthropomorphize it [Internet]. The Conversation. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: http://theconversation.com/ai-isnt-close-to-becoming-sentient-the-real-danger-lies-in-how-easily-were-prone-to-anthropomorphize-it-200525 Cole S. ‘My ai is sexually harassing me’: replika users say the chatbot has gotten way too horny [Internet]. Vice. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z34d43/my-ai-is-sexually-harassing-me-replika-chatbot-nudes ‘My wife is dead’: How a software update ‘lobotomised’ these online lovers. ABC News [Internet]. 2023 Feb 28 [cited 2023 May 14]; Available from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-03-01/replika-users-fell-in-love-with-their-ai-chatbot-companion/102028196 How to spot an ai-generated image like the ‘balenciaga pope’ [Internet]. Time. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://time.com/6266606/how-to-spot-deepfake-pope/ Wong M. We haven’t seen the worst of fake news [Internet]. The Atlantic. 2022 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/deepfake-synthetic-media-technology-rise-disinformation/672519/ Atillah IE. AI could make deepfake porn an even bigger threat for women [Internet]. euronews. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/04/22/a-lifelong-sentence-the-women-trapped-in-a-deepfake-porn-hell Toh M. 300 million jobs could be affected by latest wave of AI, says Goldman Sachs | CNN Business [Internet]. CNN. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/tech/chatgpt-ai-automation-jobs-impact-intl-hnk/index.html McClelland C. The impact of artificial intelligence - widespread job losses [Internet]. IoT For All. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.iotforall.com/impact-of-artificial-intelligence-job-losses Hollywood writers are on strike over an AI threat that some are warning is coming for you next. ABC News [Internet]. 2023 May 5 [cited 2023 May 14]; Available from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-06/hollywood-writer-s-strike-over-pay-and-artificial-intelligence/102296704 Lee VR. Generative AI is forcing people to rethink what it means to be authentic [Internet]. The Conversation. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: http://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-forcing-people-to-rethink-what-it-means-to-be-authentic-204347 The AI revolution in science [Internet]. [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.science.org/content/article/ai-revolution-science Fiesler C. AI has social consequences, but who pays the price? Tech companies’ problem with ‘ethical debt’ [Internet]. The Conversation. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: http://theconversation.com/ai-has-social-consequences-but-who-pays-the-price-tech-companies-problem-with-ethical-debt-203375 Previous article Next article back to MIRAGE

< Back to Issue 2 Discovery, Blue Skies... and Partisan Bickering? Is the era of bipartisan science dead? Do we discover for discovery’s sake? And what happens when optimistic scientific vision meets cold political reality? Journeying from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Melbourne, Australia and tackling everything from deadlocked appropriations bills and economic mandates to the scientist-politician and the prospect of discovery, this feature tries to shine a light on all those questions, as it ponders what it really means to do science in the age of politics. by Andrew Lim 10 December 2021 Edited by Ethan Newnham & Sam Williams Illustrated by Friday Kennedy The chalk dust hangs in the air. Blackboards scrawled with inheritance trees, genetic disease rates and historical minutiae about a long-deceased Oxford don … they all stand still for a moment. As he walks out, the freshman class surrounds the professor (a man once unironically described as “the rock star of biology”), pestering him with incessant questions. Ambling into the sunny fall day, they are joined by more and more – he cracks a joke about being a “photos kind of guy” and lets them take the obligatory selfie. Image 1: Dr Eric Lander teaching freshman biology at MIT in 2012. Looking at the scene, it’s hard to believe that we find here a future member of the Cabinet of the United States. Surely such individuals come from the corridors of Congress or the halls of big business, not this leafy, academic and somewhat-secluded corner of Cambridge, Massachusetts, between an apple tree descended from Isaac Newton’s in the garden and a prototype solar car down the hall. And almost certainly this man, who once steeled himself for a “rather monastic” pure mathematics career and whose main claim to fame was in mapping out the human genome, cannot be the one who someday will be asked to bridge science and politics in what appears an ever more divided union. But he is. In 2021, this very professor, Dr Eric Lander, will be sworn in as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), charged by President Joe Biden with maintaining “the long-term health of science and technology” and “guarantee[ing] that [their] fruits … are fully shared”. The mandate belies a time where science increasingly seems to live in the world of partisan political bickering. And so, in an exciting new series of features beginning with this very article, we at OmniSci Magazine are sitting down with those shaping the colliding worlds of science and public service across Australia and around the globe to ask: In a time when Dr Lander’s appointment is heralded by the White House slogan “Science is Back” and Australia sees thirteen Science Ministers in ten years, can science still straddle the political divide, or is the era of bipartisan science dead? What does it mean to discuss national science in an era of international research? And how should scientists and policymakers alike navigate this brave new political world? If not very scientific, it perhaps befits the political side of this feature to begin with the apocryphal. It has been said that The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, the famed four-term 19th-century Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was once attending a demonstration by the physicist Michael Faraday, who had just made his first forays into electricity. After the show, Gladstone went to the back of the room to have a word with the inventor: “It’s all very curious, Mr Faraday,” he murmured, “but does it have any practical use?”. The scientist did not miss a beat: “Well, sir,” he responded, “I suspect one day you shall tax it!” Image 2: President John F Kennedy speaking at Rice University in Houston, Texas in September 1962 It’s an old joke that, to many, sums up the cold-hearted and transactional relationship between science and politics. But those of a more optimistic bent would disagree. They would point to the golden age of space exploration, when, over half a century ago, on a sunny September Houston morning, President John F Kennedy famously declared that the United States would “go to the Moon in this decade”. That day, he offered a vision for his country to “set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained”, promising an open mandate to learn more about the universe around us, with no reason beyond the sheer wonder of exploration. It was a promise to a nation – one that appeared to transcend party politics. Indeed, it was ironically under the presidency of Richard M Nixon, the man whose campaign had accused Kennedy in 1960 of mass electoral fraud, that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, with Nixon transformed into the man who promised to “not drift, nor lie at anchor…with man's epic voyage into space”. But if overflowing bipartisan support for research as a sheer quest for knowledge was once the case, it certainly seems at odds with political reality today. Both sides of the political aisle seem deeply concerned with the economics of science rather than the prospect of discovery. In Australia, upon the appointment of The Honourable Richard Marles MP as Shadow Minister for Science, Opposition Leader the Honourable Anthony Albanese MP described him as “shadow minister for jobs, jobs and more jobs”. The Shadow Minister himself then highlighted science and technology as key to “micro-economic reform” for Australia. Mere months later, upon The Honourable Melissa Price MP’s appointment as Minister for Science, Prime Minister the Honourable Scott Morrison MP spoke of her portfolio encompassing science and technology “right across the economy, both in civil and defence uses”. To many, this speaks to a wider concern – the neglect of esoteric “blue skies” research (pursuing discovery for discovery’s sake) in favour of scientific research with immediate short-term economic impact. you never quite know what a scientific discovery will lead to or when it’ll be useful (or indeed, vital!) for society. I don’t think our State or Federal Governments are doing enough to fund this kind of science and research, in everything from medical research to physics to studying our threatened species. It needs to be valued a lot more.” Representatives from the Victorian branches of the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia did not respond to our request for comment. It's a trend that Ellen Sandell MP, Deputy Leader of the Victorian Greens, has watched with growing concern. In an exclusive email interview with OmniSci Magazine, she expressed her dismay at the state of “blue skies” science: “Basic research - or the study of science to better understand our world, even if we don’t know where it will lead - is incredibly important. I think the pandemic has shown us just how valuable our scientists are, and Image 3: Ellen Sandell MP on the floor of Victorian Parliament. Image 4: Dr Amanda Caples, Lead Scientist of Victoria However, Lead Scientist of Victoria Dr Amanda Caples, one of the key figures in the Victorian Government’s engagement with research, rejects Sandell’s contention. In her discussion with us, Dr Caples spoke of “an ‘and’ conversation rather than choosing one form of research over another…[a discussion about] hav[ing] a good mix of pure and applied research”. She went on: “most pure research has a purpose or use-case in mind – it’s just not typically driven by commercial interests and the applications are not always evident at the outset. The policy outcome that the Victorian Government is seeking to achieve is to mobilise research knowledge to make it available for use in the economy and community more broadly… Applying the brains of the research community to the problems of industry – and I suggest also of government – is not a novel concept. It is the approach of successful innovation clusters from Cambridge UK to Boston and to Israel. It underpins future industries and high-value jobs, attracts talent and supports service industries. We can do it here in Melbourne too!”. Nonetheless, with all these swirling worries, it’s no surprise that the days of blue-skies research investment seem an enchanting vision – the best that humanity can be, boldly seeking out new frontiers of understanding and knowledge. Yet if exciting, perhaps it is but a mirage. A mere two months after the rhetorical highs of his Houston address, in a White House Cabinet Room meeting not declassified until some 40 years later, Kennedy confided in NASA Administrator James E Webb that if he couldn’t find a practical, political use for the research, “we shouldn't be spending this kind of money, because I'm not that interested in space”. A year after that, as poll numbers and public support for his scientific venture started to wane, Kennedy’s language became sharper. He bluntly told Webb that “we’ve got to wrap around in this country, a military use for what we’re doing and spending in space.” Even in this, space research’s golden age, amidst his lofty rhetoric of human adventure, Kennedy had his eye on the polls, the politicians and the price tags. Image 5: President Biden announcing his plans to form ARPA-H, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. President Biden and Dr Lander appear to be thinking similarly – at least in terms of searching for a large-scale, popular science mandate that the public will buy into. In the wake of a pandemic, their area of concern seems almost too obvious: health. In his April address to a Joint Session of Congress, President Biden announced his plan to develop an “Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health [ARPA-H]…to develop breakthroughs to prevent, detect, and treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer.” Invoking his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, he announced increased funding to “end cancer as we know it”, declaring that there was “no more worthy investment…nothing that is more bipartisan…[and] it’s within our power to do it”. A cure for cancer. A man on the moon. Striking, almost visceral promises designed to address the worries of their generation: from national defence in the Cold War to public health amidst a pandemic. It’s something that both Sandell and Caples seem focussed on too. Sandell believes that a continued and increasing emphasis on health research is the way forward for Victoria: “Melbourne is a centre for excellence when it comes to medical research, so the state government has a role in supporting and encouraging this to ensure we maintain that position.” Likewise, Caples thrusts mRNA research into focus, listing one of her key priorities as “driv[ing the] development of frontier technologies such as quantum computing and mRNA.” But to her, the story is not just about the lessons from the pandemic itself, but also about how we rebuild. As she told us, “Nations around the world are investing in science, technology and innovation as they rebuild economies impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. This is because global policymakers understand that a high performing science and research system benefits the broader economy.” This narrative of science as the springboard out of COVID echoes a letter President Biden wrote to Dr Lander upon his appointment, describing science’s power to forge “a new path in the years ahead – a path of dignity and respect, of prosperity and security, of progress and common purpose”. Yet, especially for our stateside counterparts, lofty rhetoric seems no guarantee of avoiding an ugly partisan fight. Just a few years after a Trump White House considered science agency cuts en masse, the issue of funding is back on the congressional table. And it’s not all going well. In the USA, almost all budget laws for federal government agencies, departments and programs begin life as appropriations bills – bills that determine how much money is to be allocated (or “appropriated”) to parts of the government. However, this year, an ongoing Senate deadlock has seen Congress unable to pass any appropriations bills whatsoever. To avert a government shutdown (where no agencies have any money and no federal programs can operate), a stopgap continuing resolution has been implemented, temporarily freezing spending at previous levels, allowing the government to keep operating. On October 18, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced nine appropriations bills to break the logjam and fund the government (including crucial research agencies) through the 2022 fiscal year. Given the political situation, the bills have been riddled with earmarks – unrelated “pork barrel” projects designed to win over wavering votes (the most famous example of this being a $400 million “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, funded inside a 2005 housing, transport and urban development bill). In just one case of this, $64 million has been carved out of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for additional “special projects”. Yet despite these concessions, the bills look to be dragged through a long political battle. In a statement released as Leahy announced his plans, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), Vice Chair of the Committee, lambasted them as “partisan spending bills…[and] a significant step in the wrong direction”, vowing to oppose them. On 3rd December 2021, a week before this article’s publication, Congress passed another stopgap continuing resolution following a night of political brinksmanship that brought the government within hours of being defunded and shut down. Regardless, at the time of writing, all appropriations bills remain unpassed and the battle rages on into 2022. It’s a confrontational attitude – and one that seems to not be going anywhere anytime soon. After all, closer to home, we’ve seen university education funding become a political football, with Shadow Education Minister the Honourable Tanya Plibersek MP promising a Labor Party election platform predicated on undoing what she characterises as Morrison government “economic vandalism”. But it’s not all bad news. In her responses, Sandell describes herself as “worried about the hyper-partisan nature of politics at the moment but…buoyed by how science and evidence has been at the heart of our response to the pandemic in Australia, at least here in Victoria.” She sees the issue of a partisan approach to scientific advice as stemming from a greater problem: the non-existence of the scientist-politician. In her words, “When I entered State politics, I was shocked to discover less than 10% of politicians had any form of post-high-school scientific training. I think that’s a real loss for our Parliament and our society…I hope that the pandemic has shown the population and Governments the value of listening to evidence, and that this rubs off into other areas of policy-making.” But she refuses to tie the power of “this scientific type of thinking” to her own values. In her experience, a scientific mode of thinking invites “politicians of all persuasions” to work to integrate their ideology with evidence. A fiscally conservative scientist-politician is just as possible as a social-justice-minded and progressive one – the policies produced might well be different, but the base evidence is constant. Caples is similarly optimistic: “Regardless of politics, the foundational principles of science remains [sic] the same - which is to expand our knowledge of the natural world, to progress society and develop innovations to meet its challenges. While debates – political or otherwise – might take place on the peripheries of scientific learning, these tenets remain the same to build the evidence base.” After all, the pitch Webb made in his 1963 meeting with Kennedy relied not on social justice, progressivism nor Cold War tactics. It was so much simpler: “man [is] looking at three times what he’s never looked at before… and he understands the Universe just looking at those three things…these are going to be finite things in terms of the development of the human intellect. And I predict you are not going to be sorry, no Sir, that you did this.” Image 6: Vice President Kamala Harris administering the oath of office to Dr Eric Lander, as his wife Lori watches on. That notion of the lasting good that discovery can do – its place as a rung on the ladder of human progress, in so many ways beyond the governance of a single place or a single point in time – is a sentiment that echoes on through the decades. In June 2020, while being sworn in, Lander took some time to ruminate about the text on which he was swearing his oath of office. He told Vice President Kamala Harris about the particular page of the Mishnah (a Jewish text compiled from oral tradition) he had used, which discusses “a very special concept in Jewish tradition called Tikkun Olam, the repairing of the world…it says we don’t have to finish the work, but we may not refrain from doing that work…[it] speaks in many ways to the work of this administration, of repairing the world, building back better.” Caples’ final comments to OmniSci Magazine touch a similar note – “as a lapsed pharmacologist, I look at my work through the lens of a receptor-ligand binding model. Where the receptor is the problem that needs to be solved (or the opportunity to be pursued) and my role is to build the ligand that holds together long enough to bind to the receptor and effect change. The ligand of course has to have the right composition and 3-dimensional structure to be effective, that is people and governance framework.” Sandell agrees: “With the big challenges our world is facing - from climate change to pandemics - scientists are needed now more than ever. And for those thinking about going into policy-making, make sure you keep an open mind, look at the evidence and collaborate with others. Our world needs policy-makers who have a genuine desire to solve some of the big problems of our time, not people who are just in it for themselves. Don’t get discouraged by what you might see in Question Time or the depressing nature of politics at times - we need good, curious people from all walks of life to join politics to improve the tenor of debate and ultimately improve our world.” The consensus from all three? Yes – every day of the week, politics seems dirtier, and the policy problems seem greater than ever before. They may not be issues we can finish in our lifetimes – the solutions we create may not work, the “ligands” may not “bind”, forever. Yet because we might well fail is no reason to “refrain from doing that work”; no reason for “good, curious people” not to try. But, to the man who we began with – that energised professor in Building 26 at MIT – such philosophical musings are all yet to come. There, Dr Lander cracks a caustic quip about his students, reminding them that only a few centuries before, people thought their brains were only there to vent heat. It’s almost ironic to consider that his job will eventually hinge on a handful of brains and egos on Capitol Hill. Tikkun Olam: repairing the world. It appears to be the gallant ambition of saints. Or maybe the quixotic endeavour of fools. So complicated it hardly seems worth the effort. Throughout this magazine, you have read stories of science’s remarkable ability to create patterns amidst chaos, find the quantitative inside the qualitative and build order amidst disorder. These pages provide the opposite – offering no data to extrapolate, no empirical test to conduct, no nice charts and graphs to view. Just a messy, complicated ball of disordered contradictions. It was Aristotle who suggested that democracy was inherently dangerous – that this bubbling cauldron of ideas and ideals, pragmatism and ideology, could not be entrusted to the ballot box. And, indeed, the notion that everything would be easier should we just “follow the science”, as though science was some monolithic entity with its own set of ideologies, seems tempting from time to time. But the questions raised here – of immediate benefits weighed against blue-sky thinking; of hard-to-sell science pondered alongside popular mandates; of political leanings measured next to scientific impartiality – don’t fit nicely into our boxes of conservative and liberal; left and right; moderate and progressive. They are far too complex, far too nuanced and far too important to be rendered into a three-word slogan, a thirty-word answer, or even a three-thousand-word feature article. And maybe – just maybe - that’s why they matter. Andrew Lim is an Editor and Feature Writer with OmniSci Magazine. Image Credits (in order): Michael C. ’16, from “Eric Lander, spring rolls, and the New York Times” in MIT Admissions Blog Sept 6, 2012; Robert Knudsen. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston; The Office of Ellen Sandell MP; The Office of the Lead Scientist of Victoria; Melina Mara/The Washington Post; Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith, accessed via the Library of Congress. Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

'Science is everywhere' Competition Submissions Scroll to view the submissions we received for National Science Week 2021! Lily Robinson, 20 Science is everywhere in our lives. As soon as you take a walk outside, you are immersed in it. This picture is of a dam at my family home at the end of a drought. The water was crystal clear and there were these amazing deep cracks in the mud. I decided to rotate the image upside down to symbolise the impact of the drought upending our lives and the bush around us. Rebecca André, 23 I captured this photograph on my Olympus OM-2 film camera while out on a lunchtime walk. At first I took no notice of this indistinct bunch of leaves but as I moved around them the sun caught my attention and I noticed the illuminated veins. This photgraph reminds me that the beauty of the natural world is all around us all the time, if only we are mindful to observe it. Through science and observation, the beauty of unseen worlds and intricate truths are revealed to us. Sajitha Biju, 36 Vivipary in papaya fruit: Viviparous germination is a type of seed germination seen in plants, where the seeds/embryo begin to develop before they detach from the parent plant. Viviparous germination is also seen in the mangrove Avicennia. Stephanie Tsang, 25 A photograph of a jellyfish pulsing through the cold waters of Port Philip Bay, Victoria. It has no brain nor heart. Science is spectacular and can be found submersed underwater. Cnidarians have been around for millions of years and later and are the common ancestors of many other creatures. The oldest fossils found date back to around 500 million years old. They are found all over the world following the ocean currents. Stephanie Tsang, 25 A photograph of a jellyfish pulsing through the cold waters of Port Philip Bay, Victoria. It has no brain nor heart. Science is spectacular and can be found submersed underwater. Cnidarians have been around for millions of years and later and are the common ancestors of many other creatures. The oldest fossils found date back to around 500 million years old. They are found all over the world following the ocean currents. Betty La, 24 I like to practise on this contraption of wood, metal and vibrating air almost every morning. My motor pattern for the music is set into motion, followed by eighty-eight felt-covered hammers acting as oddly-shaped springs, dancing along steel strings wound with copper. They are spurred on by levers of black and white. The sound is amplified from a wooden soundboard, which expands and contracts imperceptibly with the temperature of the room. Ella Banic, 19 I wish I could explain why I think science is everywhere, but it is too ubiquitous for me to comprehend. In my artwork I have been interested in the relationship between humans and nature, particularly in the liminality of experience. While I can’t really describe what science is or where to find it, in this piece I see science as a life force; which gives us direction and allows us to see above the surface. Sarah Wehbe, 18 This photo of a strawberry was taken with a magnifying glass to show the individual hairs and textured skin of the strawberry that you wouldn't normally notice. These fibrous hairs protect the fruit from insect damage and each of these yellow seeds contain the DNA to produce a whole new strawberry plant. Biological sciences are all around us in the foods that we eat. Junsheng He, 18 This photo of the Moon was taken on the 26th of May this year, the day when the total lunar eclipse took place. When we think of the Moon, it is always an image of a shining silverish sphere. Nevertheless, in this particular night, red light shines to the Moon when it is passing through the shadow of the Earth, turning it to the "Blood" Moon. It insinuates that even the seemingly ordered patterns, the forever rotating heavenly bodies, can change their property driven by the power of science. Minchi Gong, 20 Furry Buddy and Pumpkin: I’ve got a pumpkin from the market, and left it on my desk for a couple of weeks because I was too busy to cook it. One day I surprisingly found that there’re a bunch of furry moulds growing on its body, which successfully caught my eyes. Wow I never thought the mould can be so AESTHETIC! Seems like these little furry microorganisms are so keen to show their sense of presence and to express their interpretation of arts. Louie Minoza, 30 Here we witness the first moments of a new born calf. As it witnesses the warm glow of the setting sun for the first time, unconcerned on where the bright light is going. Taking in the textures and scents of the grass under its body. The feeling of fullness as it suckles on it’s mothers teat after instincts urges it to go against gravity. This new found freedom shall be utilized to embark and explore this world it was born in. Caitlin Kane, 20 Have you ever wondered how a clear sky becomes an electrically charged thunderstorm? Electric currents, like those that flow in our powerlines, are made by the movement of tiny charged particles called electrons. When operating safely within a house, electricity can light a bulb, keep a fridge chilly or charge a car. In the big woolly clouds above our heads, the movement of dust, ice and water can create a static electric charge, like when hair is rubbed with a balloon. Sachinthani Karunarathne, 28 years In the fall, you see trees having photogenic colours. Trees do this not for the beauty what we see but to conserve energy during winter. Because due to changes in the length of daylight and temperature, the leaves stop their food-making process (photosynthesis). So, chlorophyll pigment breaks down, the green colour disappears, and the yellow to orange colours become visible and give the leaves part of their fall splendour. Caelan Mitchell, 23 Copper is one of my favourite metals. It has a significant history, and it looks stunning. It looks even more stunning when you catch an everyday object stained by a rich patina — a complex of copper oxides formed by heat and air. I've never seen anything like this. Joanna Stubbs An Australian native Eucalypt growing for years next to an urban creek and bike path in inner city Melbourne. Scientific research is required in how anthropogenic climate change will affect specific tree species, and inform measures on how best to ensure their survival in a warming climate. Sachinthani Karunarathne, 28 Blood oranges may have a sinister-sounding name, but they’re just a natural mutation of standard oranges. This mutation led to the production of anthocyanins, which make not just blood oranges bright red but also blueberries blue. The flesh develops its characteristic maroon colour when the fruit develops with low temperatures during the night. The anthocyanin pigments continue accumulating in cold storage after harvest. Longer the fridge time redder they become! Sachini Pathirana, 28 A microscopic image of a cell? Nah it’s simple kitchen science. When you wash oily dishes, you will see oil droplets forming thin layers like this on water. This is because adhesive force between oil and water molecules is greater than cohesive force between oil molecules. So, the oil molecules do not mix with water molecules. As a result, oil spreads on the water surface forming a thin layer. Sachini Pathirana, 28 Kernel colour was used to unravel an odd phenomenon in non-Mendelian inheritance: transposons. Transposons are stretches of DNA that jump from place to place in the genome, and landing in the middle of a pigment gene would alter the colour of that cell. Barbara McClintock won a Nobel Prize for her discovery of these transposons. Even the regular white/yellow corn you find in supermarkets has made big genetic leaps. Yitao Gan, 21 The beauty of nature from the preys, harvesters and predators. Christian Theodosiou, 19 My entry shows a sapling in the foreground and a waterfall in the background, captured at midday in the Springbrook mountains of Queensland this year. I aimed to photograph the scene so that perspective gives the appearance that the young plant is being watered by the waterfall and I think that the forms of the leaf and the white foamy water are quite complementary. Even though this waterfall does not directly feed this plant, the fact of their shared environment draws a life-giving relationship between them anyway. Science is everywhere because we, like all complex or simple organisms, are situated within and sustained by infinite webs of interdependence. Whether biological or more molecular, all science everywhere is defined by both obvious relationships, and those that take more time, devotion and study to identify. Teck-Phui Chua, 22 A sapling is growing where an older tree once grew. However, upon closer inspection, the older tree never fully died; part of it was still alive which has allowed a sapling to sprout from its trunk. In a similar vein, science is everywhere and has always been, but what has changed is how much we understand as one generation passes their knowledge onto the next so new discoveries can be made. Additionally, the tree may have seemed dead, but there was still life in it. Whether we choose to act on strong scientific evidence or ignore it, the science will still be there. Sarah Wehbe, 18 Interactions between living organisms are everywhere and are the essence of life itself. This image illustrates the commensal relationship between algae and turtles. The turtle’s shell provides an ideal surface for the algae’s growth, and the turtle is completely unaffected by its presence. In fact, it may help turtles camouflage and hide from prey. This simple interaction between living organisms highlights the existence of science in every aspect of life. Grace Li, 22 Science is often overlooked as a form of art due to its ubiquity. However, a simple photograph can be the reminder needed that science is not only everywhere, but it is beautiful. For example, a photograph is the result of photons travelling from the sun, bouncing off objects, and landing on a camera's sensor. Similarly, these incredible macro-photographic patterns of a lamp is captured by photons travelling through optic fiber. Christina Evans, 43 The bee retrieves pollen from the prickly thistles & how it's all stored on its hind legs like saddlebags. Xuezhi Yang It is fascinating how science is present everywhere, oftentimes interacting with itself creating intricate and mesmerizing works of art. In my artwork, I attempted to capture the anatomy and essence of the Antelope Jackrabbit's ears as light rays penetrate through them. Without light, the delicate and daedal arteries and veins would have been otherwise invisible, tucked away in fur and cartilage. If we truly pay attention, art is found everywhere in science.