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< Back to Issue 5 A Message from the Editors in Chief Rachel Ko & Ingrid Sefton 24 October 2023 Edited by Committee Illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.” - Donald Rumsfeld Science should never be considered as pursuing absolute truth. In fact, more often than not, the deeper we dive into its exploration, the more questions that arise. The world of science affords us choices in how we appropriate the understandings and knowledge gained in its study. Every day, science pushes us to tiptoe this fine line between pushing boundaries and crossing them altogether. It is perhaps this unknown that makes the pursuit of science so wicked in itself, taunting us with the promise of making the next big discovery, or finally finding the cure to cancer. But it is also what drives us, entrances us, and keeps our desire for knowledge burning — it’s edge-of-your-seat exciting. At its onset, we envisioned this issue as a chance to probe the mysterious nuances of science — a peek into the ‘Wicked’ness of the world. Seeking to ask questions of the ethical, the malicious and the unknown, contributors were inspired to delve into the darker sides of science. Each article ventures into the limits of what we do, and, just as importantly, don’t know in this ever-evolving field. The word Wicked in itself is a complex character, begging for ambiguous interpretation. Is there such a thing as pure evil? Are we all, just a bit, inherently wicked? What makes something wickedly cool? (Was Kristin Chenoweth’s Glinda the best portrayal that Broadway could ask for?) And so, in the hands of our creators, something wicked this way comes … As with every edition of our magazine, each piece has been created, edited and illustrated entirely by students. This issue continues to stand true to our aim of providing a platform within, and beyond, the university community for students of all backgrounds to craft their science communication skills in a supportive, creative environment. Countless hours have been poured into the curation of each edition with the hope of making innovative science content easily accessible — so please, enjoy! To all our passionate, dedicated contributors - thank you for the time you have invested in crafting the wonderful, wicked world of Issue 5 of OmniSci. It has been a privilege to watch the collaboration of inquisitive minds, from diverse scientific and artistic worlds, produce this collection of work. We also wish to extend our gratitude to you, our wonderful readers, in your ongoing support of OmniSci. The time you give to reading and engaging with our student-driven magazine does not go unnoticed, motivating and inspiring us for our future endeavours. Now, take a moment, and come venture into the Wicked world of Issue 5 with us… Wicked back to

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

OmniSci Magazine is the University of Melbourne's science magazine, written by students. Read our recent issues and view the magnificent illustrations! Cover Art: Anabelle Dewi Saraswati READ NOW Welcome to OmniSci Magazine OmniSci Magazine is a student-led science magazine and social club at UniMelb. We are a group of students passionate about science communication and a platform for students to share their creativity. Read More More from OmniSci Magazine Previous Issues Illustration by Louise Cen READ ISSUE 6 National Science Week 'SCIENCE IS EVERYWHERE' PHOTO/ART COMPETITION VIEW SUBMISSIONS

< Back to Issue 2 How to use a time machine Whilst time travel is thought to be nothing more than science fiction, the very laws of physics point to its possibility. Physicists have long sought the answer to such a phenomenon using knowledge from rockets to generating wormholes. by Sabine Elias 10 December 2021 Edited by Niesha Baker Illustrated by Quynh Anh Nguyen So you have just entered the TARDIS machine and are trying to work out how to use it to travel to the past to re-write the present and save the future? Well, look no further because you have come to right place. In this article, I will be describing how to jumpstart your time traveling vehicle and by the end, you will be proficient in navigating your way through the universe and evading time. Do be warned however, that batteries are not included and the simulation may crash at times. Now, you are probably wishing that you could travel back in time to have not clicked this article and saved yourself these two minutes of life that you will never get back. But is time travel really a possibility? We often think about the world as a state of order. Social and political constructs generally keep society running in a systematic manner. But what if I told you the entire universe came to exist from disorder? Before we get to logistics, let me introduce you to a little something known as ‘entropy’. Entropy describes the state of disorder (1). Take a closed bottle containing gas. Once you open this bottle, the gas will diffuse out into the open space with no way to retrieve it in the exact same state back inside the bottle. In essence, this gas has become ‘disordered’ and thus its entropy has increased. For years, scientists have understood that the entropy of the universe is always increasing, which means that stars, planets and galaxies are in constant motion away from each other (1). If we wanted to travel back in time, we would essentially have to reverse every single chemical reaction that has occurred from the point in time we currently stand in, to the point in time that we wish to travel to (2). This is theoretically impossible as we would be violating the laws of physics and decreasing the entropy of the universe but we still do not know if it is physically impossible. Let Brain Cox explain: Another problem with time travel would be altering events of the past. Take the Grandfather Paradox: if someone travelled back in time to kill their ancestor, then the possibility of their existence in the future would be zero (3). Thus, they would have been unable to time travel to begin with to have killed their ancestor. This issue of causality is expanded upon through the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle (4). This states that if an event causes a paradox or changes the past, the possibility of this event occurring would be impossible. However, this principle is not widely accepted by time travel enthusiasts. Now, whilst your TARDIS machine may be nothing but a prop at this point in time, it could still help provide evidence on the possibility of time travel. Take this example: you set up two duplicates of the same clock that read the same time and placed one into a rocket that blasts off into space. The rocket orbits around the Earth and then returns and is compared to the clock that remained on Earth. You would find that less time has passed on the clock that was in the rocket. Why? Because moving clocks run slower than stationary clocks. That is, as you move faster through space, you move slower through time. This is known as Time Dilation (5). An example of time dilation is the comparison of time on the International Space Station (ISS) to the time on Earth. Astronauts who have spent 6 months in the ISS have aged 0.005 seconds less than people on Earth (6). This does not seem like much because the astronauts are not traveling close to the speed of light. To see the effects of time dilation multiply, one would need to be very close to the speed of light. If you were to travel in space at 90 per cent the speed of light, whilst everyone on earth would age by 22 years you would only have aged by 9! Speed is not the only thing that affects how fast we age, gravity also affects our experience of time. A stronger gravitational field means that time travels slower in that field. For instance, your feet age slower than your head considering the slightly smaller gravitational pull on your feet compared to your head. Now take a black hole; we know that black holes have immensely strong gravitational fields where one hour near a black hole would equal approximately 100,000,000 years for a person on earth (7). So what would happen if you travelled through a black hole? No one really knows what occurs inside a black hole but we know trying to enter will likely turn you into spaghetti (8). That being said, we can only observe things that go as far as the event horizon of the black hole, so once something has entered it, we do not know what has happened. Black holes have however, been especially useful in theoretically explaining the possibility of time travel. Placing someone in a strong gravitational field or having them experience motions close to the speed of light would have them experience time slower compared to someone on Earth. This brings us to wormholes. Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts the existence of wormholes which would theoretically permit time travel. To travel to a galaxy that is 2.5 million light years away with the fastest rocket on earth would be impossible as it would take longer than a human lifetime. This is where wormholes come to the rescue. A wormhole would provide us with a shortcut to our location of interest. Imagine folding a paper in half and poking a pen through it to represent your route of travel. You are essentially skipping the length of the paper and traveling from one end to the other. Source: The Independent. (2008). The Big Question: Is time travel possible, and is there any chance (9). You then situate one mouth of the wormhole in a spacecraft traveling close to the speed of light and the other mouth on Earth. If you then went through the mouth on Earth and travelled through to the space craft, you would be traveling back in time. This is because time would be passing much slower at the other end of the wormhole than where you entered from. However, physicists have not yet developed such advanced technology capable of this, but theoretically speaking, this is a possibility if such technology was developed in the future. Whilst you may have thought that time travel was merely based on science fiction, the laws of physics do not forbid its existence. However, here is some food for thought: “If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?” Stephen Hawking Perhaps with time, we may transform this theory into reality. So for the time being, just sit back and enjoy the presence of your TARDIS machine. Perhaps you might even get lost in time from the very thought of time travel. References: 1. Wehrl, Alfred. “General Properties of Entropy.” Reviews of Modern Physics 50, no. 2 (April 1, 1978): 221–60. https://doi.org/10.1103/revmodphys.50.221. 2. BBC. “Brian Cox Explains Why Time Travels in One Direction - Wonders of the Universe - BBC Two.” YouTube, March 10, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQSoaiubuA0. 3. Smith, Nicholas J.J. “Time Travel (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, November 14, 2013. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-travel/#GraPar. 4. Carlini, A., V.P. Frolov, M.B. Mensky, I.D. Novikov, and H.H. Soleng. “Time machines: The principle of self-consistency as a consequence of the principle of minimal action.” International Journal of Modern Physics, no. 05 (October 1995): 557–80. https://doi.org/10.1142/s0218271895000399. 5. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Time Dilation | Explanation, Examples, & Twin Paradox.” In Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/science/time-dilation. 6. Dickerson, Kelly. “Here’s Why Astronauts Age Slower than the Rest of Us Here on Earth.” Business Insider Australia, August 20, 2015. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/do-astronauts-age-slower-than-people-on-earth-2015-8. 7. Gharat, Sarvesh Vikas. “Relativity and Time Dilation.” International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology 7, no. 11 (November 30, 2019): 650–51. https://doi.org/10.22214/ijraset.2019.11103. 8. "Death by spaghettification: Scientists record last moments of star devoured by black hole." NewsRx Health & Science, November 1, 2020, 236. Gale Academic OneFile. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A639405517/AONE?u=unimelb&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=6812ee05. 9. “The Big Question: Is Time Travel Possible, and Is There Any Chance.” The Independent, February 8, 2008. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/big-question-time-travel-possible-and-there-any-chance-it-will-ever-take-place-779761.html. Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

< Back to Issue 2 Making sense of the senses: The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine What do spicy food, menthol lozenges and walking around blindfolded have in common? They all activate protein receptors discovered by Professors David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, the winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. by Dominika Pasztetnik 10 December 2021 Edited by Breana Galea & Juulke Castelijn Illustrated by Casey Boswell Stimuli are changes to our environment, such as heat, cold and touch, that we recognise through our senses. We are all constantly bombarded with thousands of these stimuli from our surroundings. Despite this disorder, we are somehow able to perceive and make sense of the world. The protein receptors discovered by Professors Julius and Patapoutian make this possible. Located at the surface of the nerve cell, these receptors convert an external stimulus to an electrical signal. This signal then travels along nerve cells to the brain, allowing us to sense the stimulus. Based in California, Julius and Patapoutian are scientists in the fields of neuroscience and molecular biology. The main interest of their work has been identifying and understanding the protein receptors involved in detecting stimuli. For Julius, his major focus has been to identify the receptors involved in the sensation of pain (1). For Patapoutian, it has been to identify the protein receptors involved in detecting mechanical stimuli, such as touch (2). For their past 25 years of research, Julius and Patapoutian were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in October 2021. The Nobel Prize was founded by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish scientist also famous for inventing dynamite. Prior to his death in 1896, Nobel allocated most of his money to the first Nobel Prizes. Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been annually bestowed on those who, in Nobel’s words, have “conferred the greatest benefit to mankind” in different fields (3). Notable past laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine include Sir Alexander Fleming, Sir Ernst Chain and the Australian Howard Florey. They were awarded in 1945 for their discovery of the antibiotic penicillin (4). Sir Hans Krebs received the Nobel Prize in 1953 for his discovery of the citric acid cycle (5). Also known as the Krebs cycle, it is a series of reactions used to produce energy in our cells. TRPV1: spice it up It’s a rather chilly morning. You eye the packet of Shin Ramyun that’s been sitting in your pantry for weeks. Without a second thought, you prepare the noodles, adding all the soup powder. After a few mouthfuls, your eyes start streaming and your face matches the scarlet red of the now-empty packaging. The culprit is capsaicin, a substance in the chilli flakes added to the soup powder. It binds to a protein receptor embedded at the surface of the nerve cells in your mouth. Julius discovered this receptor in 1997, and called it TRPV1, which stands for transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (6). TRPV1 is a channel with a gate at either end that is usually closed (Figure 1, blue) (7). Capsaicin opens these gates, allowing ions, such as calcium, to move through TRPV1 and into the nerve cell (Figure 1, red). The nerve cell then signals to the brain, causing you to feel the searing heat in your mouth. TRPV1 is also found in your skin and can be activated by temperatures above 40°C, such as when you accidentally touch the kettle full of boiling water for your noodles (8). Figure 1. TRPV1 at the surface of a nerve cell. In the absence of capsaicin or at cool temperatures, TRPV1 is closed (blue). In the presence of capsaicin or at higher temperatures, TRPV1 opens, allowing ions to flow into the nerve cell (red). TRPM8: too cool for school On your way to uni, you notice your throat’s a bit sore from going overboard with karaoke the night before, so you pop a lozenge into your mouth. The soothing, cool sensation is thanks to menthol. It is a compound that binds to TRPM8, which stands for transient receptor potential melastatin 8. It is another receptor found on the nerve cells in your tongue, as well as on your skin (9). TRPM8 was separately discovered in 2002 by both Julius and Patapoutian (10). Like TRPV1, TRPM8 is a protein channel that is usually closed. In response to menthol or cool temperatures from 26 down to 8°C, TRPM8 opens and allows ions to enter the nerve cell, which then signals the cold sensation to your brain (11). PIEZO: peer pressure During your lunch break at uni, you and your mates decide to play blindfolded tag. Because, as we all know, that's what uni students do in their free time. In the first round, you have the misfortune of being chosen as ‘it’. Blindfolded, you walk around with your hands in front of you, trying to find your mates. Despite not being able to see anything, you can still walk and wave your arms and roughly know where your arms and legs are in space. This is due to a sense called proprioception. You lunge forward and nearly grab someone, only to feel their jacket brush your fingers. Both proprioception and the detection of light touch, such as of the jacket brushing your fingers, are made possible by another class of protein receptors called PIEZO2. Discovered by Patapoutian in 2010, its name comes from piesi, the Greek word for pressure (12). Like TRPV1 and TRPM8, PIEZO2 is an ion channel at the nerve cell surface. However, the structure of PIEZO2 is nothing like that of TRPV1 and TRPM8. PIEZO2 has three protruding blades, which form a dent, called a nano-bowl, in the outer surface of the cell (13). When the outside of the cell is prodded, the blades straighten and the nano-bowl flattens. This allows the channel in the centre of the PIEZO2 to open, so ions can flow into the nerve cell (Figure 2). The nerve cell then sends an electrical impulse to the brain, letting you know you’re failing at blindfolded tag. Figure 2. PIEZO at the surface of a nerve cell. When force is applied to the surface of the nerve cell, the PIEZO channel opens, allowing ions to move into the cell. Apart from being essential for playing blindfolded tag, PIEZO2 is also important in various other aspects of the human body’s functioning we often take for granted. For example, PIEZO2 prevents you from breathing in too much air (14). It is also present on the cells lining your digestive tract. PIEZO2 detects pressure exerted onto these cells by food, causing the cells to release hormones that help with digestion (15). Furthermore, PIEZO2 helps monitor the fullness of your bladder, saving you from embarrassment (16). If there is a PIEZO2, what about PIEZO1? Although it has a similar structure to PIEZO2, PIEZO1’s role is quite different. PIEZO1 handles the background maintenance required to keep your body healthy. This includes bone formation (17) and preventing your red blood cells from bursting (18). People with a particular mutated form of PIEZO1 have a reduced risk of getting malaria (19). Patapoutian found that this mutation causes red blood cells to shrivel, preventing the malaria parasite from infecting them. Many people living in malaria-affected areas, such as Africa, have this mutation. Therefore, knowledge regarding these receptors is improving our understanding of related diseases. Drug development Researchers are currently using information about the receptors discovered by Julius and Patapoutian to develop new drugs to treat various conditions. Knowing the identities and structures of these receptors is helping researchers design compounds that bind to them, either blocking or activating them. In this way, Julius and Patapoutian’s work is helping provide a “benefit to mankind”. For example, during a migraine, the TRPV1 channel opens more frequently in the nerve cells of the meninges, the envelope surrounding the brain (20). These nerve cells contain more TRPV1 at their surfaces. This causes the nerve cells to send more electrical signals to the brain and so increases the sensation of pain. Using a drug to block the TRPV1 receptor could reduce the number of these electrical impulses and lessen the pain associated with migraines. It’s been a busy day activating all these receptors, which, as it turns out, are part of your daily life as a uni student. So next time you eat chilli flakes, have a menthol lozenge or play blindfolded tag, you will know which tiny sensors to hold responsible for your pleasant — or unpleasant — experiences. Further reading Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021 The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021 - Advanced Information References: University of California San Francisco. “Biography of David Julius.” UCSF. Accessed November 10, 2021. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/09/421486/biography-david-julius. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2021. “Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021.” The Nobel Prize. Accessed November 10, 2021. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2021/press-release/. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2021. "Alfred Nobel’s will." The Nobel Prize. Accessed November 10, 2021. https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-will/. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2021. “The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1945.” The Nobel Prize. Accessed November 10, 2021. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1945/summary/ Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2021. “The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1953.” The Nobel Prize. Accessed November 10, 2021. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1953/summary/ Ernfors, Patrik, Abdel El Manira, and Per Svenningsson. "Advanced information." The Nobel Prize. Accessed November 10, 2021. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2021/advanced-information/. Liao, M., E. Cao, D. Julius, and Y. Cheng. "Structure of the Trpv1 Ion Channel Determined by Electron Cryo-Microscopy." Nature 504, no. 7478 (Dec 5 2013): 107-12. doi: 10.1038/nature12822. Ernfors et al., “Advanced information.” McKemy, D. D. "Trpm8: The Cold and Menthol Receptor." In Trp Ion Channel Function in Sensory Transduction and Cellular Signaling Cascades, edited by W. B. Liedtke and S. Heller. Frontiers in Neuroscience. Boca Raton (FL), 2007. Ernfors et al., “Advanced information.” McKemy, Trp Ion Channel Function in Sensory Transduction and Cellular Signaling Cascades. Coste, B., J. Mathur, M. Schmidt, T. J. Earley, S. Ranade, M. J. Petrus, A. E. Dubin, and A. Patapoutian. "Piezo1 and Piezo2 Are Essential Components of Distinct Mechanically Activated Cation Channels." Science 330, no. 6000 (Oct 1 2010): 55-60. doi: 10.1126/science.1193270. Jiang, Y., X. Yang, J. Jiang, and B. Xiao. "Structural Designs and Mechanogating Mechanisms of the Mechanosensitive Piezo Channels." Trends in Biochemical Sciences 46, no. 6 (Jun 2021): 472-88. doi: 10.1016/j.tibs.2021.01.008. Nonomura, K., S. H. Woo, R. B. Chang, A. Gillich, Z. Qiu, A. G. Francisco, S. S. Ranade, S. D. Liberles, and A. Patapoutian. "Piezo2 Senses Airway Stretch and Mediates Lung Inflation-Induced Apnoea." Nature 541, no. 7636 (Jan 12 2017): 176-81. doi: 10.1038/nature20793. Alcaino, C., K. R. Knutson, A. J. Treichel, G. Yildiz, P. R. Strege, D. R. Linden, J. H. Li, et al. "A Population of Gut Epithelial Enterochromaffin Cells Is Mechanosensitive and Requires Piezo2 to Convert Force into Serotonin Release." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115, no. 32 (Aug 7 2018): E7632-E41. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1804938115. Marshall, K. L., D. Saade, N. Ghitani, A. M. Coombs, M. Szczot, J. Keller, T. Ogata, et al. "Piezo2 in Sensory Neurons and Urothelial Cells Coordinates Urination." Nature 588, no. 7837 (Dec 2020): 290-95. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2830-7. Li, X., L. Han, I. Nookaew, E. Mannen, M. J. Silva, M. Almeida, and J. Xiong. "Stimulation of Piezo1 by Mechanical Signals Promotes Bone Anabolism." Elife 8 (Oct 7 2019). doi: 10.7554/eLife.49631. Cahalan, S. M., V. Lukacs, S. S. Ranade, S. Chien, M. Bandell, and A. Patapoutian. "Piezo1 Links Mechanical Forces to Red Blood Cell Volume." Elife 4 (May 22 2015). doi: 10.7554/eLife.07370. Ma, S., S. Cahalan, G. LaMonte, N. D. Grubaugh, W. Zeng, S. E. Murthy, E. Paytas, et al. "Common Piezo1 Allele in African Populations Causes Rbc Dehydration and Attenuates Plasmodium Infection." Cell 173, no. 2 (Apr 5 2018): 443-55 e12. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.047. Dux, M., J. Rosta, and K. Messlinger. "Trp Channels in the Focus of Trigeminal Nociceptor Sensitization Contributing to Primary Headaches." International Journal of Molecular Sciences 21, no. 1 (Jan 4 2020). doi: 10.3390/ijms21010342. Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

< Back to Issue 7 Pointing the Way: A Triangular View of the World by Ingrid Sefton 22 October 2024 edited by Hendrick Lin illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin You, my friend, are living in a world created by triangles. Since the dawn of time, this humble three-sided polygon has quietly shaped the evolution of human civilisation. As you gaze around, you can likely spot a triangle or two tucked within your surroundings. This may be of no surprise to you. Externally, the triangle governs the material construction of our world, underpinning the foundations of countless engineering and architectural designs. Yet these more obvious physical constructions are just one contribution of this pointy, three-sided shape to modern society. Indeed, it is where the role of the triangle remains invisible that it harnesses the most power. Triangles have played an integral role in sailing and modern navigation systems, having enabled us to explore all corners of the Earth. Beyond this, let us not forget the massive contributions this shape has made to the development of 3D modelling, used everywhere from graphic design and animation to CGI. All thanks to the simple, unassuming triangle. The physical, the navigational and the digital. Three key sides of the triangle’s influence in shaping the modern world. The Physical The triangle's importance in the physical world stems from its inner strength. Unbeknownst to many, it is the strongest two-dimensional shape that exists, with its power amplified in three-dimensional polyhedrons derived from triangles. How can this unique strength be explained? Consider applying force to one corner, or apex, of a triangle. This force is distributed down either side of the triangle and as these sides are compressed, the base is stretched outwards. Weight can therefore be evenly dispersed across the shape, preventing it from bending and breaking (Saint Louis Science Center, 2020). It is for good reason that the triangular shape underpins many fundamental principles of architecture and design. Perhaps the most iconic of the structures that utilise this shape are the Pyramids of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Constructed in the early 25th Century BCE, they housed the tombs of ancient Egyptian pharaohs and are the last remaining Wonder that exists today. The tallest of the Pyramids, known as the Great Pyramid, originally soared as high as 147 metres above the ground, though today erosion has reduced it to 138 metres (Encylopedia Britannica, 2024a). This architectural feat was monumental for its time, and to this day, how exactly the Pyramids were constructed remains a hotly contested debate amongst archeologists and engineers. One proposition is that large ramps were used in conjunction with a complex system of ropes, sledges and levers to haul stone blocks up (Handwerk, 2023). Whatever the method of construction may have been, these ancient wonders have stood the test of time for over 4500 years - a remnant of one of humanity's first advanced civilisations that exemplifies the scale, strength and resilience of construction made possible by triangles. Triangles also play a crucial role in the construction of seemingly dissimilar shapes. This is highlighted in the case of geodesic structures - spheres constructed from a network of triangles approximating a rounded shape, like a soccer ball. First developed in the 20th Century by architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, these domes are lightweight and able to distribute stress across large, arching structures (Encylopedia Britannica, 2024b). Since Fuller’s earliest constructions, these domes have been widely utilised in the construction of stadiums, planetariums and even "glamping" accommodations. One notable example is the Eden Project - the world's largest biodome botanical garden in the United Kingdom, housing thousands of plant species over 5.5 acres of land (Eden Project, 2024). The interconnectedness of the triangles allows for maximum sunlight exposure across wide spaces, creating an ideal environment for plant photosynthesis and cultivation. Intriguingly, Fuller's use of triangles in this innovative manner led to a breakthrough in the far-away field of synthetic chemistry. Scientists Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley discovered the nanomaterial Buckminsterfullerene, or “the Buckyball”, after the scientists realised the structure's similarity to Fuller's geodesic spheres (The Stanford Libraries, 2024). This led to the discovery of a new class of materials known as fullerenes. The scientists were subsequently awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for elucidating this molecule’s structure (The Stanford Libraries, 2024). Balancing power with versatility, triangles form the crux of our built environments at both an atomic and architectural level. The Navigational Remember those sine and cosine formulas your maths teacher insisted had important real world applications? Turns out they weren’t kidding. Triangulation is the process of finding an unknown location of an object by forming a triangle between this object and two other reference points. Sine, cosine and tangent, the main trigonometric ratios, are used to relate the sides and angles formed within a right triangle and hence, determine the position of an unknown point. For centuries, humans have turned to triangles as a means to find their ways. Sailors, in particular, have long used landmarks and celestial objects like the stars to orient themselves at sea. By observing the angle between known locations (or stars) and using basic trigonometry, navigators could calculate distances and determine their precise location. Moving to a more global scale of navigation becomes a bit more complicated, as the Earth is a sphere and not a flat surface (although some may beg to differ…). A more advanced form of triangulation known as trilateration underpins the Global Positioning System (GPS) in order to determine three-dimensional coordinates of a receiver. Instead of angles, GPS utilises the time taken for radio signals sent from satellites to reach a receiving device on Earth. A connected system of navigation satellites circles the Earth, each sending out signals with the location and time it was sent by that satellite. By measuring the delay between the time of signal reception and the broadcast time, the distance from the receiver to each satellite can be computed (Federal Aviation Administration, 2024). Once distances to at least three satellites are known, the receiving device can determine its own three-dimensional position, employing similar techniques to triangulation. GPS data is not only used to guide your Google Map directions. Analysing the positions of satellite stations and their movements is a crucial tool for monitoring volcanic and seismic activity (Murray & Svarc, 2017). Recent breakthroughs have even suggested that there may be a future for utilising the GPS to detect earthquakes before they happen (Rao, 2023). From the seas to the skies, triangles allow us to push the boundaries of exploration while always guiding us home to safety. The Digital What does connect-the-dots have to do with triangles or 3D modelling? A connect-the-dots drawing begins with nothing but some labelled dots. Yet as each dot is joined by a straight line, a complex and curved picture emerges. The more dots you use, the smoother the picture looks. Consider now trying to design a three-dimensional surface. Just as you might use dots to approximate a curve, triangles serve as building blocks for constructing complex surfaces. By taking enough triangles and joining them at their edges, we too can approximate intricate and multidimensional structures. In 3D modelling, objects are represented as meshes - models consisting of vertices (points in 3D space) connected by edges to form polygons and thus, the surface of an object (Stanton, 2023). To define a flat surface oriented in a plane, a minimum of three distinct points are needed. Triangles are the simplest shape for constructing these planes as they are coplanar, meaning any three points in space will always form a flat surface (Licata & Licata, 2015). This makes them perfect for modelling complex 3D shapes out of interconnected triangles. Animation, gaming, graphic design and computer generated imagery (CGI) in movies are just some of the many varied applications that utilise these mesh modelling techniques to create intricate 3D models, with curved and highly detailed surfaces. Additionally, there exist efficient computer algorithms that are optimised to dissect objects into hundreds of thousands of flat triangles. A complex, digital representation of any object can therefore be easily portrayed as a simple collection of points and triangles. Combined with their simple geometric properties, triangles can then be processed quickly by modern Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), optimising their performance in real-time applications. Add in lighting, shading and smooth deformation, and you will find yourself with an intricate, three-dimensional model. Pointing the Way Forward For too long, the triangle has been overshadowed by its more popular cousin, the square. Yet, what is a square? Two triangles put together. The simplicity of this three-sided shape allows it to integrate within our society, with its contributions often invisible to the naked eye. From the physical, to the navigational and the digital, modern human society is built on the triangle. Maybe that trigonometry class wasn’t so pointless after all. References Eden Project (2024). Eden Project's Mission . https://www.edenproject.com/mission/origins Encylopedia Britannica (2024a). Great Pyramid of Giza . https://www.britannica.com/place/Great-Pyramid-of-Giza Encylopedia Britannica (2024b). Geodesic Dome. https://www.britannica.com/technology/geodesic-dome Federal Aviation Administration (2024). Satellite Navigation - GPS - How It Works . United States Department of Transportation. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/techops/navservices/gnss/gps/howitworks Handwerk, B. (2023). The Pyramids at Giza were built to endure an eternity—but how? National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/giza-pyramids Licata, J., & Licata, A. (2015). From triangles to computer graphics . ABC Science. https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/06/10/4251713.htm Murray, J. R., & Svarc, J. (2017). Global Positioning System Data Collection, Processing, and Analysis Conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program. Seismological Research Letters , 88 (3), 916-925. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220160204 Rao, R. (2023). GPS satellites may be able to detect earthquakes before they happen . Space. https://www.space.com/earthquake-prediction-gps-satellite-data Saint Louis Science Center (2020). The Secret Strength of Triangles . https://www.slsc.org/the-secret-strength-of-triangles/ Stanton, A. (2023). Exploring the World of 3D Modeling: Solid vs. Mesh Modeling . Cadmore. https://cadmore.com/blog/solid-vs-mesh-modeling-differences The Stanford Libraries (2024). What is a geodesic dome? Stanford University. https://exhibits.stanford.edu/bucky/feature/what-is-a-geodesic-dome Previous article Next article apex back to

Issue 7: Apex 22 October 2024 This issue surveys our world from above. So come along, and revel in the expansive view - have a read below! Editorial Peaks and Perspectives: A Word from the Editors-in-Chief by the Editors-in-Chief A word from our Editors-in-Chief. Corals A Coral’s Story: From thriving reef to desolation by Nicola Zuzek-Mayer Nicola sheds light on the devastating future faced by our coral reefs, with the effects of anthropogenic climate change far from having reached its peak. Humans vs Pathogens Staying at the Top of Our Game: the Evolutionary Arms Race by Aizere Malibek As nations vie for military supremacy, Aizere covers a microscopic competition between humans and the microbes evolving strategies against our defences. Seeing Space Interstellar Overdrive: Secrets of our Distant Universe by Sarah Ibrahimi Embark on an epic journey as Sarah explores the cosmic mysterious being revealed by NASA's James Webb Space Teloscope. Fossil Markets Fossil Markets: Under the Gavel, Under Scrutiny by Jesse Allen Diving into the wild world of fossil auctions, Jesse prompts us to ask: who is the real apex predator, the T-rex or hedge-fund billionaires? Cancer Treatments Tip of the Iceberg: An Overview of Cancer Treatment Breakthroughs by Arwen Nguyen-Ngo Icebreakers. Follow Arwen as she recounts the countless stories of the giants before us, who carved a path for our cancer research today. Triangles Pointing the Way: A Triangular View of the World by Ingrid Sefton Guiding us through land, seas and screens, Ingrid explores this humble 3-sided shape as a vital tool of modern society and its many fascinating uses. Anti-ageing Science Timeless Titans: Billionaires defying death by Holly McNaughton From billionaire-backed pills to young blood transfusion, Holly traverses the futuristic world of anti-ageing and asks: what happens when death is no longer inevitable? Brain-computer Implants Neuralink: Mind Over Matter? by Kara Miwa-Dale Would the ability to control a computer with your mind bolster possibilities or bring harm? Kara visualises a possible future under the Neuralink implant. Fish Morphology Designing the perfect fish by Andy Shin With a splash of creativity, Andy concocts the ultimate 'Frankenfish' by investigating the traits that allow fish to flourish in their aquatic environments. Commercial Aviation Soaring Heights: An Ode to the Airliner by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin Settle in and take a round trip with Aisyah through the evolution of commercial aviation, from the secrets of aircraft cuisine to the mechanics of staying afloat.

< Back to Issue 4 Talking to Yourself: The Biology of Hallucinations by Lily McCann 1 July 2023 Edited by Arwen Nguyen-Ngo and Yasmin Potts Illustrated by Zhuominna Ma What is consciousness? No small question. To this day it hasn’t been entirely satisfied. Consider a conversation: There are voices from the outside, stimuli that talk to all the sensory receptors that we have. They pass on messages to our fingertips that we are touching something cold; they tell our eyes that we are seeing certain wavelengths of light; and they tell the cochlea of our ears what sounds we are hearing. The sensory circuits of our bodies bring these words from outside and turn them inward, presenting them to the centre of our consciousness: Here - this is what we are experiencing. This is what we are taking from the world outside. But already, at the base of this consciousness, an idea of the world has been established. The central experience of our mind is built upon prediction: we are constantly conjuring up an estimate of how the outside world will be. The ‘Predictive Processing’ model of consciousness states that it is the conversation between this predictive perception of the world and the feedback from our sensory experience that defines what it is to feel consciousness (1). In 1971, Nature published the conclusions of a study titled, ‘Preliminary Observations on Tickling Oneself’ (2). In this experiment, a device was used to compare the experience of being tickled by an experimenter to the experience of tickling oneself, and both were compared to the intermediate of passively following the experimenter’s arm as they tickled the participant. The study concluded that the action of tickling oneself produced no effect as the planned action of tickling cancelled out the sensation of being tickled; the lack of an action in the case of the experimenter tickling the subject’s hand, allowed for a full ‘tickle’ sensation. Interestingly, the third process of passively following the tickling action was rated at a level in between these two responses. This showed that it was not the action of tickling alone that cancelled out the sensation of the stimulus as tickling, but that a knowledge of the tickle, a prediction of it, were enough to reduce the effect. This experiment reflects the idea that it is not just our planned actions and our sensory perception that drive consciousness, but that it is prediction that has a core place in driving experience. For centuries, hallucinations have been recognised as distortions of our sense of being conscious in the world. In 1838, Esquirol wrote in his ‘Mental Maladies: A Treatise On Insanity’ that the experience of a hallucination is “a thorough conviction of the perception of a sensation, when no external object, suited to excite this sensation, has impressed the senses.” (3) Anything that distorts our ‘perception’ or ‘sensation’ can therefore give rise to a hallucination. This can occur in the context of infection, psychosis, delirium, use of certain drugs - and the aptly named ‘exploding head syndrome’. Contrary to popular opinion, hallucinations are not a feature of psychotic disorders alone. In fact, analysis has shown that no single aspect of schizophrenia-related hallucinations is specific to this disease (4). In 2000, the idea of the ‘Tickling’ study was elaborated with respect to hallucinations in an investigation comparing the experience of self-produced and externally implemented stimuli for those who both did and did not suffer from hallucinations. It was shown in this study that for participants with hallucinatory disorders, there was a breakdown in the ability to differentiate between stimuli produced externally and internally (5). This study is in line with a certain theory of hallucination purported by Frith, who suggests in his discussion of positive symptoms of schizophrenia that the foundation of hallucination is a “fault in the system which internally monitors and compares intentions and actions” (6). There is another interesting theory that describes hallucinations as memories released from suppression. The authors suggest that the hallucination itself is a cacophony of memory signals set loose, where normally they are shut out of our conscious mind. One study described auditory hallucinations in those with hearing loss as an “uninhibition syndrome”. They argued that in the cases studied, a lack of sensory auditory input seemed to “uninhibit neuronal groups storing auditory memory” (7). The brain is an incredibly complex organ and theories regarding consciousness and hallucinations abound. The question of greatest practical importance is what part of the process of hallucinations can we understand and therefore, what can be targeted when we are called to treat this system in a medical setting. Recent investigations have linked various molecules, receptors and genes to hallucinatory disorders or states, whilst imaging studies demonstrate networks and regions of the brain activated during hallucinations. Investigation of certain receptor-modulating drugs has revealed the place of certain molecules in delusion and sensation; and the association of certain genes to hallucination-prone phenotypes has established a genetic cause for susceptibilities to hallucination. This research yields molecular and genetic targets for therapies that can help reduce the burden of hallucinations on an individual. It is a remarkable faculty of our minds, the ability to create a world - or aspects of the world - for ourselves and convince our own consciousness that it is real. Hallucinations reveal the capacity of the human brain for imagination; they show that all we experience is indeed creative, merely restricted by what we see as truth. But the grounding fact of knowing what is real is essential to functioning in society. Losing the ability to check our own creative experience of consciousness is exceedingly frightening and disempowering. Anything that helps us to maintain the right balance of conversation between the experiences we create and those we feel allow us to maintain a sense of self in the world. Elucidating the biology behind these conversations and the effects of hallucination itself can bring us closer to a definition of consciousness. References Hohwy J, Seth A. Predictive processing as a systematic basis for identifying the neural correlates of consciousness. Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. 2020;1(2). 3. https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2020.II.64 Weiskrantz L, Elliot J, Darlington C. Preliminary observations on tickling oneself. Nature. 1971 Apr 30. 230: 598–599 https://doi.org/10.1038/230598a0 Esquirol J. Mental maladies: A treatise on insanity. France: Wentworth Press; 2016 Waters F, Fernyhough C. Hallucinations: A systematic review of points of similarity and difference across diagnostic classes. National Library of Medicine. 2016 Nov 21. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbw132 Blakemore S.J, Smith J, Steel R, Johnstone E.C. The perception of self-produced sensory stimuli in patients with auditory hallucinations and passivity experiences: Evidence for a breakdown in self-monitoring. Psychological Medicine. 2000 Oct 17. 30(5): 1131-9. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291799002676 Frith C. The positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia reflect impairments in the perception and initiation of action. Psychological Medicine. 1987 Aug. 17(3): 631-648. Doi: 10.1017/s0033291700025873 Goycoolea, M., Mena, I. and Neubauer, S. (2006) ‘Spontaneous musical auditory perceptions in patients who develop abrupt bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. an uninhibition syndrome?’, Acta Oto-Laryngologica, 126(4), pp. 368–374. doi:10.1080/00016480500416942. Previous article Next article back to MIRAGE

< Back to Issue 8 Why Are We So Fascinated by Space? An Exploration of Human’s Fascination with Outer Space by Emily Cahill 3 June 2025 Edited by Weilena Liu Illustrated by Saraf Ishmam I have always been enamoured by the stars. Sitting on the beach after sunset, staring up at the sky, has always given me this hopeful, grateful feeling - for what I have, and for what’s to come. It has made me wonder, why do I feel this way? Why do I feel hope instead of fear, staring into the great darkness? Is it pure curiosity or is it curated by society? Culture encompasses the ideas, customs, and manifestations that we hold regarding space. Films have been the leading presentation of outer space for many entertainment industries around the world and make visuals of space accessible for many. Many commercials, whether for global or local companies, feature advertising set in or about outer space, filling magazines, billboards and television ad breaks. From astronomy to geology to botany, many scientific fields are involved in outer space research and centre around the universe to seek answers. Culture, the entertainment industry, commercialization, and science could all be contributing factors to this fascination, and may have just as great an impact as innate curiosity. Culture Throughout time, there has been a leap from admiration to exploration of outer space. Myths and folktales about outer space and the stars have existed for centuries. The constellations were defined by humans based on patterns associated with these myths and folktales (1). Perhaps space is something that has connected all humans regardless of where and when because it has always existed for us to admire. From folktales to automated rocket ships, the human desire to explore launched our voyages in space. From designing caravans to traverse the countryside, to building boats to cross the sea, to assembling submarines to travel to the bottom of the ocean, humans have always created whatever they need to explore the unknown. The ‘father of modern rocketry’ Konstantin Tsiolkovsky said, “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever” (2). These inspiring words align with many scientists and space exploration companies like NASA, emphasizing the importance of space travel to satisfy curiosity. There are also underlying cultural reasons that push space exploration. The 1961 Apollo space mission was presented as an opportunity to discover the unknown, but in fact was for another reason. Apollo Astronaut Frank Borman said, “Everyone forgets that the Apollo programme wasn’t a voyage of exploration or scientific discovery, it was a battle in the Cold War, and we were Cold War warriors. I joined to help fight a battle in the Cold War and we’d won” ( Hollingham , 2023). Pop culture also has a large influence on how we see outer space. Katy Perry and Gayle King went to space just a few months ago, heralding female astronauts, but at the same time, reinforcing the growing idea of space tourism. Entertainment Perhaps the most common and tangible depiction of outer space - other than gazing at the sky itself - is in films. Star Wars was and continues to be a cultural phenomenon, even garnering the distinction of a global holiday on the 4th of May. The films Gravity (2013), Interstellar (2014), and The Martian (2015) centre around heroes in unbelievably intense scenarios trying to solve problems to better the human race. The success of these films may be due to the strength of the actors and writing alone, but is more likely due to the dueling feelings of fear and hope that accompany the setting of outer space. The deep sea and outer space are both settings where films have thrived, potentially because of the human instinct for curiosity, and in turn, the impulse to root for and care about the characters. Given the influence of entertainment on culture, if these movies depicted space as a scary, dangerous, and outlandish environment, we might not feel as excited or positive about space. Both our conceptions of the unknown and the influence of the entertainment industry shape our perceptions of outer space. Interstellar is praised by critics for its ability to let us see ourselves as the protagonist - solving impossible puzzles and searching for the answers to life - while reflecting the emotionally beautiful and terrifying landscape of human existence in outer space (4). Commercialization For decades, advertisements have featured outer space as a setting or main theme for the storyline. Some ads are even filmed in space. In 2001, Pizza Hut sent an astronaut in a rocketship with a camera and a pizza, becoming the first commercial actually shot in space (5). Olay and Girls Who Code collaborated in a 2020 Super Bowl commercial with Katy Kouric, Taraji P. Henson, Busy Phillps, and Lilly Singh with the tagline “make space for women” (6). Madonna Badger - the COO of the advertising agency that ran the Olay commercial - said that space gives us somewhere to escape to in the midst of tough times: “W e’re living in pretty anxious times. When things on Earth become so stressful, there’s something about space that gives us permission to dream” (5). The CCO of Walmart, Jane Whiteside echoed Badger, saying, “It’s a really strange time to be an earthling right now. There’s this interesting confluence of extreme anxiety and a sense of optimism that somehow, we’re going to figure things out.” He said, “Space is the epitome of that. It’s unbridled optimism” (5). The 2020 Super Bowl Walmart commercial centered around a Walmart delivery person dropping off groceries to aliens on another planet. Outer space is on our televisions and devices as the setting for some of the biggest advertisements, for the biggest companies, suggesting a sense of importance and grandeur. Science The hunt to answer the questions “Where do we come from?”, “Are we alone in the universe?”, and “What is out there?” is another factor that may drive our fascination with space. Not only do we enjoy admiring it, but we also want to gain something from it. Scientists say that these questions can potentially be answered, and fields like paleontology, geology, botany, and chemistry work together to answer them. One of the current driving forces of this research is the search for another planet that can support human life if Earth becomes uninhabitable (7). Climatologists are able to learn more about Earth’s climate from the climate of other planets and gain natural resources that benefit our planet. Mars’ climate has undergone drastic changes, including the presence of water and the loss of atmospheric gases - changes we can learn from using paleontology and geology to discover how organisms on Mars may have adapted (7). Whether launching into space or stargazing, humans continue to look up into the sky - whether for a defined reason or not, it will continue to remain a mystery. References 1. National Sanitation Foundation. (2012). What are Constellations? National Radio Observatory. https://public.nrao.edu/ask/what-are-constellations/ 2. NASA. (2015). The Human Desire for Exploration Leads to Discovery. https://www.nasa.gov/history/the-human-desire-for-exploration-leads-to-discovery/ 3. Hollingham R. Apollo: How Moon missions changed the modern world. BBC. 2023 May. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230516-apollo-how-moon-missions-changed-the-modern-world 4. Scott A.O. Off to the Stars, With Grief, Dread and Regret. New York Times. 2014 Nov. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/movies/interstellar-christopher-nolans-search-for-a-new-planet.html 5. Zelaya I. Why Outer Space Is a Go-To Theme for Super Bowl 2020 Ads. Adweek (Super Bowl Commercials). 2020 Jan. https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/why-outer-space-is-a-go-to-theme-for-super-bowl-2020-ads/ 6. Spacevertising: The Super Bowl And The 15 Best Outer-Space Ads You Need To See Right Now Orbital Today (Features). 2024 Feb. https://orbitaltoday.com/2024/02/14/spacevertising-super-bowl-and-15-best-outer-space-commercials-you-need-to-see-right-now/ 7. Horneck, G. (2008). Astrobiological Aspects of Mars and Human Presence: Pros and Cons. Hippokratia Quarterly Medical Journal, 1, 49-52. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2577400/ Previous article Next article Enigma back to

< Back to Issue 8 Thinking Outside the Body: The Consciousness of Slime Moulds by Jessica Walton 3 June 2025 Edited by Han Chong Illustrated by Ashlee Yeo Imagine yourself as an urban planner for Tokyo’s public transport system in 1927. Imagine mapping out the most efficient paths through dense urban sprawl, around obstructing rivers and mountains. And imagine meticulously designing the most efficient possible model, after years of study and expertise… only to find your design prowess, 83 years later, matched by a slime mould: a creature with no eyes, no head nor limbs, nor nervous system. Of course, this is anachronistic. For one, the Tokyo railroad system developed over time, not all at once. But it was designed to meet the needs of the city and maximise efficiency. Yet in 2010, when researchers exposed the slime mould Physarum polycephalum to a plate mimicking Tokyo city (with population density represented by oat flakes) it almost exactly mimicked the Tokyo railroad system (1). This became one of the most iconic slime mould experiments, ushering in a flood of research about biological urban design asking the question: Could a slime mould, or other similar organisms, map out human cities for us? But a slime mould doesn’t know what cities are. They’re single-celled organisms; they don’t understand urban planning, or public transport, or humans. They are classified as protists, largely because we’re not sure how else to categorise them, not because they’re particularly ‘protist-y.’ They have no brain and are single-celled for most of their life; so they can’t plan routes, have preferences, or make memories. Right? Except, perhaps they can. Slime moulds are extremely well-studied organisms because they exhibit precisely these behaviours. But how do they think? And what does it mean— to think ? Slime moulds have evidenced memory and learning. The protoplasm network they form is really just one huge cell that eventually develops into a plasmodium, growing and releasing spores. While plasmodial slime moulds (like P. polycephalum ) do this during reproduction, cellular slime moulds (dictyostelids) are able to aggregate together into one cell like this when food is scarce or environments are difficult (meaning they must be able to detect and evaluate if these things are true). Most slime mould behaviour is understood through cell signalling and extracellular interaction mechanisms; responding to chemical gradients using receptors along their membrane, which signal to the cells to move up the concentration gradient of a chemoattractant molecule and away from a chemorepellent. This makes sense; bacteria (like almost every other living organism) do this all the time and it’s the chief way that they make decisions . But what about memory and preferences? What about stimuli beyond the immediate detected chemicals? Slime moulds can, for example, anticipate repeated events and avoid simple traps to reach food hidden behind a U-shaped barrier (2,3). These are beyond input-to-output; something more complex must be happening. Something conscious? Thinking ? The idea of consciousness requiring complex neuronal processes is becoming rapidly outdated as we observe patterns of thinking in organisms that, according to classical definitions, really should not be able to. Using the slime mould as an example, Sims and Kiverstein (2022) argue against the ‘neurocentric’ assumption that an organism must have a brain to be cognisant. Instead, P. polycephalum is suggested to exhibit spatial memory, with cognition being suggested to sometimes include external elements (3). They showed it may undergo simple, habitual learning and hypothesised it uses an oscillation-based mechanism within the cell (3). Similarly, oscillator units along the slime mould’s extending tendrils oscillate at a higher frequency at higher concentrations of food source molecules (like some tasty glucose), signalling to the slime mould to move in that direction (4). Sims and Kiverstein (2022) also posit that the slime trail left by slime mould could function as an external memory mechanism. They found that P. polycephalum avoids slime trails as they represent places it has already been; suggesting a method of spatial memory (4). This was further proved as not a pure input-output response by showing that the avoidance response could be overridden when food is placed on or near slime trails (5). They suggest that the slime mould was able to balance multiple inputs, including oscillation levels and slime trail signals, exhibiting simple decision-making. Should we count these processes as thinking ? This topic is debated by philosophers as much as biologists. Sims and Kiverstein (2022) use the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition, being that mind sometimes extends into the environment outside of the brain and body, to argue firmly that it does count. But at the end of the day, despite understanding the chemical and electrical processes between neurons signalling and the cellular makeup of the brain, we still don’t understand how electrical signals through a series of axons make the leap to complex consciousness. Rudimentary and external cognition pathways, as seen with the slime mould, may also be an evolutionary link in the building blocks to more complex, nerve-based consciousness and decision making (3). We don’t yet understand the phenomena inside our own skulls—how can we hope to define it across all other organisms? Slime moulds clearly have something beyond simple chemical reactions. This begs the question: Aren't our own minds also fundamentally just made of simple chemical reactions? And if a slime mould is able to evaluate multiple inputs, how wonderfully complex must such processes be inside (and outside) a sea anemone, a cockroach or a cat? There’s no way to know what such a consciousness would look like or feel like to our frame of reference. When a slime mould, moving as a network around an agar plate, ‘looks up’ (or an equivalent slime mould action) and perceives unfathomable entities, how does it process that? What does the slime mould think of us? Bibliography 1. Kay R, Mattacchione A, Katrycz C, Hatton BD. Stepwise slime mould growth as a template for urban design. Sci Rep. 2022 Jan 25;12(1):1322. 2. Saigusa T, Tero A, Nakagaki T, Kuramoto Y. Amoebae Anticipate Periodic Events. Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Jan 3;100(1):018101. 3. Sims M, Kiverstein J. Externalized memory in slime mould and the extended (non-neuronal) mind. Cognitive Systems Research. 2022 Jun 1;73:26–35. 4. Reid CR, Latty T, Dussutour A, Beekman M. Slime mold uses an externalized spatial “memory” to navigate in complex environments. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Oct 23;109(43):17490–4. 5. Reid CR, Beekman M, Latty T, Dussutour A. Amoeboid organism uses extracellular secretions to make smart foraging decisions. Behavioral Ecology. 2013 Jul;24(4):812–8. Previous article Next article Enigma back to

< Back to Issue 6 Cosmic Carbon Vs Artificial Intelligence by Gaurika Loomba 28 May 2024 Edited by Rita Fortune Illustrated by Semko van de Wolfshaar “There are many peculiar aspects of the laws of nature that, had they been slightly different, would have precluded the existence of life” - Paul Davies, 2003 Almost four billion years ago, there was nothing but an incredibly hot, dense speck of matter. This speck exploded, and the universe was born. Within the first hundredth of a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth second, the universe began expanding at an astronomical rate. For the next 400 million years, the universe was made of hydrogen, helium, and a dash of lithium – until I was born. And thus began all life as you know it. So how did I, the element of life, the fuel of industries, and the constituent of important materials, originate? Stars. Those shiny, mystical dots in the night sky are giant balls of hot hydrogen and helium gas. Only in their centres are temperatures high enough to facilitate the collision of three helium-4 nuclei within a tiny fraction of a second. I am carbon-12, the element born out of this extraordinary reaction. My astronomical powers come from my atomic structure; I have six electrons, six protons, and six neutrons. The electrons form teardrop shaped clouds, spread tetrahedrally around my core, my nucleus, where the protons and neutrons reside. My petite size and my outer electrons allow my nucleus to exert a balanced force on other atoms that I bond with. This ability to make stable bonds makes me a major component of proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and carbohydrates, the building blocks of life. The outer electrons also allow me to form chains, sheets, and blocks of matter, such as diamond, with other carbon-12 atoms. Over the years of evolution, organic matter buried in Earth formed fossil fuels, so I am also the fuel that runs the modern world. As if science wasn’t enough, my spiritual significance reiterates my importance for the existence of life. According to the Hindu philosophy, the divine symbol, ‘Aum’ is the primordial sound of the Cosmos and ‘Swastika’, its visual embodiment. ‘Alpha’ and ‘Omega’, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, represent the beginning and ending, that is the ‘Eternal’ according to Christian spirituality. When scientists photographed my atomic structure, spiritual leaders saw the ‘Aum’ in my three-dimensional view and the ‘Swastika’ in my two-dimensional view. Through other angles, the ‘Alpha’ and ‘Omega’ have also been visualised (Knowledge of Reality, 2001). I am the element of life, and within me is the divine consciousness. I am the beginning and I am the end. My greatness has been agreed upon by science and spirituality. In my absence, there would be no life, an idea humans call carbon chauvinism. This ideology and my greatness remained unquestioned for billions of years, until the birth of Artificial Intelligence. I shaped the course of evolution for humans to be self-conscious and intelligent life forms. With the awareness of self, I aspired for humans to connect back to the Cosmos. But now my intelligent toolmakers, aka humans, are building intelligent tools. Intelligence and self-consciousness, which took nature millions of years to generate, is losing its uniqueness. Unfortunately, if software can be intelligent, there is nothing to stop it becoming conscious in the future. Soon, the earth will be populated by silicon-based entities that can compete with my best creation. Does this possibility compromise my superiority? A lot of you may justifiably think so. The truth is that I am the beginning. Historically, visionaries foresaw asteroid attacks as the end to human life. These days, climate change, which is an imbalance of carbon in the environment, is another prospective end. Now, people believe that conscious AI will outlive humans. Suggesting that I will not be the end; that my powers and superiority will be snatched by AI. So the remaining question is, who will be the end? I could tell you the truth, but I want to see who is with me at the end. The choice is yours. References Davies, P. (2003). Is anyone out there? https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/jan/22/highereducation .uk Knowledge of Reality (2001). Spiritual Secrets in the Carbon Atom . https://www.sol.com.au/kor/11_02.htm Previous article Next article Elemental back to

< 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