< Back to Issue 10 When Fiction Feels Real: How the Brain Builds Reality by Terra Gi 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Sophie Lei Edited by Han Chong Most of us assume the brain can clearly separate what is real from what is imagined. Fact seems stable and objective, while fiction seems invented, distant, and unreal. But the brain does not work with reality in such a simple way. Whether we are seeing the world, imagining an image, or becoming absorbed in a story, the brain is still creating an experience from the information it receives. This makes the boundary between fact and fiction less obvious than we often think. The reason imagination can feel so real is that the brain may not process it as something completely separate from perception. Studies led by Joel Pearson at the University of New South Wales suggest that the same brain pathways code for both imagination and perception, with imagination acting like a weaker form of perception (1, 2, 3). This makes sense when we consider vision. Around 70% of the information we receive comes through sight: visual information enters through the retina, travels to the occipital lobe at the back of our head, and is decoded by the brain into a complete image. But imagined images are also formed inside the brain, even though they have no external input. One begins in the outside world; the other begins internally. Yet both are reconstructed by the brain, and both exist as images within it. The question becomes less about whether imagination is ‘fake’, and more about whether the brain can always recognise that difference. This is why a dream can feel real right until we wake up, or why imagining a situation can make us nervous before anything has actually happened (1, 4). The brain may only realise the difference once reality interrupts it. Until then, imagination is still an experience the brain has to respond to. The placebo effect shows that the brain does not simply dismiss something because it is not physically real. The word placebo comes from the Latin meaning “I please”, and in medicine, it refers to a ‘fake’ treatment given without an active drug ingredient. At first, this seems like a purely psychological trick: the patient believes they are receiving treatment, so they feel better. However, research by Jon-Kar Zubieta, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, challenged this assumption. His study found that when patients were given a painkiller placebo, their brains released natural pain-relieving chemicals, known as endorphins. Studies on placebo analgesia have shown that this belief in treatment can itself activate endogenous opioid systems in the brain (5, 6). This overturned the idea that the placebo effect was only a matter of belief or imagination; the placebo did not work because the medicine was real, but because the brain responded as if it was. If the brain struggles to separate fact from fiction unless it is clearly corrected, then imagination becomes something we can use, not just something we experience. We can use this to mentally simulate nerve-wracking situations before facing them, or even to picture ourselves achieving future goals so they feel more possible and familiar (1, 4). Bleasdale C. “The Dress”. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress#/media/File:The_dress_blueblackwhitegold.jpg The same idea also applies to perception. The famous blue-and-black or white-and-gold dress showed that even vision is not just a direct copy of reality. The dress was physically blue and black, and the same light from the dress entered people’s retinas. But the brain does not stop at the retina. It has to interpret the visual information it receives, including assumptions about light and shadow (7). On one hand, people who saw blue and black interpreted the dress as being lit from the front, so their brains kept the darker colours. On the other hand, people who saw white and gold interpreted the dress as being in shadow, with light coming from behind it, so their brains ‘corrected’ the image differently. This means they were not seeing a different object; their brains were making different predictions about the same object. The same problem appears beyond visual perception. People often believe they are seeing issues objectively, when their brains are already filtering information through unconscious bias. Psychologist Emily Pronin describes this as a “bias blind spot”: people can recognise bias in others more easily than in themselves (8). This helps explain why people can look at the same evidence but walk away with completely different conclusions. Their brains are not just receiving facts; they are selecting and interpreting them in ways that fit existing beliefs. This has serious consequences beyond optical illusions. If perception is already filtered through assumptions, then memory and judgement are also less objective than we like to believe. Eyewitness accounts, for example, can feel completely sincere while still being inaccurate, because the brain does not record events like a camera. It reconstructs them, filling in gaps with expectation, emotion, and later information (9). The same pattern helps explain why misinformation spreads so easily (10). When people encounter complex or uncertain information, the brain often shortcuts the process by relying on what feels familiar, emotionally convincing, or consistent with what they already believe. In this way, false information does not always persuade us because it is carefully reasoned; it often works because it fits neatly into a mental story the brain has already begun building. Neuropsychologist and neurobiologist Roger Sperry once said, “Before brains, there was no colour or sound in the universe, nor was there any flavour or aroma and probably little sense and no feeling or emotion” (11). Reality may exist outside us, but experience is made inside the brain. So if our brains are constantly interpreting, imagining, and filling in gaps, then fiction is not meaningless at all. It is one of the ways the brain practises, believes, and builds reality. References Dijkstra N, Fleming SM. Subjective signal strength distinguishes reality from imagination. Nat Commun. 2023;14(1):1627. doi:10.1038/s41467-023-37322-1 Dijkstra N, Bosch SE, van Gerven MAJ. Shared neural mechanisms of visual perception and imagery. Trends Cogn Sci. 2019;23(5):423-434. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2019.02.004 Ganis G, Thompson WL, Kosslyn SM. Brain areas underlying visual mental imagery and visual perception: an fMRI study. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2004;20(2):226-241. doi:10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2004.02.012 Saplakoglu Y. Is it real or imagined? Here’s how your brain tells the difference. WIRED. Aug 27 2023. https://www.wired.com/story/is-it-real-or-imagined-heres-how-your-brain-tells-the-difference/ Zubieta JK, Bueller JA, Jackson LR, Scott DJ, Xu Y, Koeppe RA, et al. Placebo effects mediated by endogenous opioid activity on μ-opioid receptors. J Neurosci. 2005;25(34):7754-7762. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0439-05.2005 Benedetti F, Mayberg HS, Wager TD, Stohler CS, Zubieta JK. Neurobiological mechanisms of the placebo effect. J Neurosci. 2005;25(45):10390-10402. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3458-05.2005 Wallisch P. Illumination assumptions account for individual differences in the perceptual interpretation of a profoundly ambiguous stimulus in the color domain: “the dress”. J Vis. 2017;17(4):5. doi:10.1167/17.4.5 Pronin E, Lin DY, Ross L. The bias blind spot: perceptions of bias in self versus others. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2002;28(3):369-381. doi:10.1177/0146167202286008 Loftus EF, Palmer JC. Reconstruction of automobile destruction: an example of the interaction between language and memory. J Verbal Learn Verbal Behav. 1974;13(5):585-589. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(74)80011-3 Lewandowsky S, Ecker UKH, Seifert CM, Schwarz N, Cook J. Misinformation and its correction: continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychol Sci Public Interest. 2012;13(3):106-131. doi:10.1177/1529100612451018 Sperry RW. Problems outstanding in the evolution of brain function. James Arthur Lecture on the Evolution of the Human Brain. 1964. https://people.uncw.edu/puente/sperry/sperrypapers/60s/107-1964.pdf Bleasdale C. “The Dress”. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress#/media/File:The_dress_blueblackwhitegold.jpg Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

< Back to Issue 10 The Predictions of Genomics: Fictions Once Called Fact by Scarlett Yang 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Anabelle Dewi Saraswati Edited by Aimee Fogarty-Bennett What is a prediction in science? We often think a prediction is just a guess about the outcome of an event – something we throw out into the blue and then try to test. I, for one, have definitely thrown out random guesses when I didn't do any pre-reading for my university practicals. However, predictions are more than random guesses. They require a set of precise beliefs about how the world works. In making a prediction, we essentially pull from a past set of beliefs, particularly scientific knowledge, to say we believe this will happen in the future. Scientific predictions must be precise so that they can be proven wrong. We like making statements that are likely to be true under all circumstances (after all, it does feel great to be right!). However, it's important to know that the point of a prediction is its provability. When our prediction is wrong, we are able to begin questioning the perceived ‘facts’ of science and revise them to more accurately predict the future. It is precisely this falsifiability, and what happens when our predictions are proven wrong or incomplete, that is sometimes more important than a correct prediction. Essentially, we can say that scientific predictions are 1) based on past knowledge, and 2) specific. Think of it this way: we are trying to run a printer, and we know that there is a red cartridge and a blue cartridge inside. A guess would be to say, "We will print colour”. This is not specific enough to be proven wrong, and not based on our past knowledge. Instead, a prediction would be that, based on colour theory, "if I have red and blue , I should get purple text." If we print and get green ink, I know there is something wrong with my past knowledge. What we thought was fact becomes fiction we had postulated. Each new fact we collect reshapes the prediction that follows, nudging our proposed knowledge closer to the truth. After all, what makes science ‘science’ is the fact that it is rarely certain, but rather a process of increasingly more accurate predictions. One of the most extraordinary fields for watching this process is genomics. Understanding our genome The birth of genome analysis arguably came with the Human Genome Project. The idea was, in itself, quite simple. If we could sequence all three billion base pairs of human DNA, every genetic instruction our body follows, we could surely understand all diseases. It would enable us to predict, and ultimately prevent, the things that kill us. It took thirteen years and roughly three billion dollars. It was completed in 2003 (1). It was an incredible achievement. Unfortunately, it did not solve all problems. However, it was incredible all the same because it revealed the scale of what we did not yet know about human function. The genome is not a simple instruction manual. It is a dense, layered system in which the same sequence can mean different things depending on context, timing, the presence of other genes, and environmental signals we are still cataloguing. Say, if our red cartridge and blue cartridge are the genetic code, whether or not we get purple ink depends on the instructions the computer sends, whether the printer is working, and the relative amounts of red and blue ink, including the possibility of no blue at all. A green page means something is releasing yellow somewhere we didn't expect. A red page means something is blocking the blue cartridge entirely. It's easy to know we have blue and red cartridges inside. Understanding how the cartridges are actually used by the printer has occupied genomics ever since. These letters have allowed us to do something genuinely strange and exciting: simulate a living organism from its own genetic data. NeuroMechFly is one such project, a digital fruit fly with sensors that receive signals and six legs that respond to virtual terrain (2). The aim of the project is to find where our predictions, shown by the simulation, about real flies fail, and what that tells us about the nervous system and how it controls movement. If the model holds up to real behaviour, our understanding is roughly correct. If not, there is more to know. So far, researchers are still working on it. But what simulations like this can do is expand our understanding of humans, since more than 60% of fruit fly genes have human counterparts, and roughly 75% of the genes known to cause human genetic diseases are also found in flies (3). Indeed, fruit flies have helped us understand human biology in the past, including giving us the first tumour suppressor gene (4). But even so, isn't it interesting to consider the effects of using flies as a model of disease for humans? And whether our predictions about being "similar enough" actually hold? It is important to keep in mind that we cannot always extend our understanding directly across species. If we do, we can meet a paradox . Paradoxes We know that as we get older, we get significantly higher cancer rates. The science behind this is simple. As our cells replicate more, there are higher chances of mutations building up, thus leading to higher chances of cancer. Similarly, larger humans have higher rates of cancer, simply because there are more cells, more divisions, and as a result, a higher chance of mutation. Essentially, printing a thousand pages should produce more errors than printing ten. If we extend this knowledge to a bowhead whale, which weighs over 80,000 kg and lives more than 200 years compared to humans – averaging around 70 kg and 80 years ourselves – we would predict whales must be riddled with cancer. This prediction was reasonable, evidence-based, and most importantly, wrong. Across mammals, there is no correlation between body size, lifespan, and cancer incidence. A mouse weighs around 20 grams. A blue whale weighs up to 150,000 kilograms. The cancer-rate difference between them is incredibly small. The observation that large, long-lived animals do not carry proportionally enormous cancer burdens was first formally noted by the statistician Richard Peto in 1977. It became known as Peto's Paradox, and it has been generating arguments ever since (5). I have two predictions about why it fails. First, cancer rates in large animals are simply difficult to measure. Our data is incomplete, our sample sizes are skewed, and our conclusions are premature. Second, for a whale-sized organism to exist at all, it must have evolved mechanisms of cancer suppression far beyond our own. Either or both could be true. Neither might be. So far in science, we have found extraordinary mechanisms that potentially explain parts of this paradox. TP53 is a tumour suppressor gene which codes for a protein that detects DNA damage and triggers cell death before a damaged cell can divide. Elephants have 20 copies of this gene compared to the single copy humans carry (6). When their cells are exposed to DNA damage, they undergo apoptosis more effectively, meaning problematic cells die before they can replicate. Bowhead whales express a gene called CIRBP at around 100 times the level of other mammals, which dramatically improves the repair of double-stranded DNA breaks (7). Rather than killing damaged cells, the whale's cells repair the DNA so that mutations rarely accumulate. When researchers applied these mechanisms by introducing higher CIRBP expression into fruit flies, the flies lived longer and became more resistant to radiation-induced DNA damage. In human cells, DNA repair efficiency roughly doubled (7). We are starting to take what evolution spent millions of years building and turn our predictions into intention. We are starting to explore the possibility of applying these mechanisms to humans through the exciting field of genetic engineering. Genetic Engineering If we understand genetic information from genomics well enough, can we rewrite it? As with all things in science, the answer is: only if we narrow the scope of the question, and provide specificity. If a genetic condition is caused by a single gene, the answer increasingly is yes. One such case is a baby called KJ Muldoon, who was born with a faulty gene for the protein that breaks down nitrogen. Without it, ammonia builds up in the blood, which is highly toxic. Using a CRISPR base editing therapy designed specifically for KJ's mutation, the wrong DNA letter was converted to the correct one (8). Instead of living in and out of hospital, KJ has been able to live a normal life. Genetic engineering is a field of extraordinarily rapid development. We have already moved from the early approach of extracting cells, editing them outside the body and returning them, to delivering the editing machinery directly into living tissue. Maybe one day we can answer the broader question of addressing diseases that are caused by far more complex factors than a single gene. But for now, being able to help KJ live a normal life despite being born with a condition that had no cure is an inspiring example of how predictions can be turned into intentions, fiction into fact, and how genomics is changing the world of biology. References National Human Genome Research Institute. International consortium completes Human Genome Project. National Institutes of Health. April 14, 2003. https://www.genome.gov/11006929/2003-release-international-consortium-completes-hgp Lobato-Rios V, Ramalingasetty ST, Özdil PG, Arreguit J, Ijspeert AJ, Ramdya P. NeuroMechFly, a neuromechanical model of adult Drosophila melanogaster . Nat Methods . 2022;19(5):620-627. doi:10.1038/s41592-022-01466-7 Reiter LT, Potocki L, Chien S, Gribskov M, Bier E. A systematic analysis of human disease-associated gene sequences in Drosophila melanogaster . Genome Res . 2001;11(6):1114-1125. doi:10.1101/gr.169101 Gateff E. Malignant neoplasms of genetic origin in Drosophila melanogaster . Science . 1978;200(4349):1448-1459. doi:10.1126/science.96525 Callier V. Core Concept: Solving Peto's Paradox to better understand cancer. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A . 2019;116(6):1825-1828. doi:10.1073/pnas.1821517116 Sulak M, Fong R, Mika K, et al. TP53 copy number expansion is associated with the evolution of increased body size and an enhanced DNA damage response in elephants. eLife . 2016;5:e11994. doi:10.7554/eLife.11994 Firsanov D, Zacher M, Tian X, et al. Evidence for improved DNA repair in the long-lived bowhead whale. Nature . 2025;648(8094):717-725. doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09694-5 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. World's first patient treated with personalized CRISPR gene editing therapy at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. CHOP News. May 15, 2025. https://www.chop.edu/news/worlds-first-patient-treated-personalized-crispr-gene-editing-therapy-childrens-hospital Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

< Back to Issue 10 Fiction Disguised as Fact: The Cost of Scientific Misinformation by Kara Miwa-Dale 2 June 2026 Edited by Nushi Singh In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a paper in The Lancet claiming that the MMR vaccine was linked to autism. For such a serious claim, the evidence was astonishingly weak (1). The study included only 12 hand-picked participants, had no control group, and was riddled with inconsistencies. To make matters worse, Wakefield failed to disclose that he had received funding from a lawyer representing parents taking legal action against vaccine manufacturers. He further concealed that he had filed a patent for a rival vaccine that stood to benefit if confidence in the MMR vaccine fell. Despite these glaring flaws, the paper gained enormous influence. Media outlets across the world amplified its alarming claims, often with little scientific scrutiny (2). The Wakefield study became one of the clearest examples of fiction disguising itself as fact: a false narrative cloaked in the appearance of scientific credibility. Once released into the public sphere, emotionally charged claims quickly began to overshadow scientific evidence. Wakefield’s paper sparked widespread concern about the MMR vaccine. Few members of the public were likely to read the original study themselves, let alone critically evaluate its methods. Instead, many depended on journalists and news reports to interpret the findings. In doing so, they relied on a broader trust in scientific institutions and science communication, often assuming that published research had already been thoroughly vetted (3). This misplaced trust had far-reaching consequences. Before the paper was published, MMR vaccination rates in the UK sat at around 91-92%. Within five years, by 2003, this had fallen to approximately 80% (4). Although it is impossible to prove that Wakefield’s paper alone caused this drop, there is little doubt that it ignited widespread anxiety. By the time subsequent research had comprehensively refuted the claims (5, 6, 7), public trust had already been badly damaged. The media played an important role in amplifying parental fear. News coverage often prioritised emotional headlines and personal anecdotes over scientific evidence. Although evidence supporting vaccine safety was reported during this time, it accounted for only 37% of media stories during the controversy (2). Parents who were unsure about vaccinating their children were strongly influenced by mass media coverage (8). In one Welsh study, parents who chose not to vaccinate their children were 4.5 times more likely to rely on newspapers for information about the MMR vaccine (9). Twelve years later, Wakefield’s paper was finally retracted (10). By then, however, the damage had already been done. Despite overwhelming evidence disproving the claims, many people continued to believe them. Psychologists describe this as the ‘continued influence effect’, where misinformation can continue shaping attitudes and behaviour even after it has been debunked (11). Misinformation is not only persuasive — in some cases, it can also be deadly. It would be comforting to believe that society has become better at recognising misinformation. Unfortunately, the problem remains deeply entrenched. In some cases, misinformation does not originate from fraudulent researchers, but from governments themselves. This is perhaps even more insidious, because institutional authority can give misinformation an appearance of legitimacy that is extraordinarily difficult to undo. A striking example emerged in Japan in 2013, following the introduction of a national HPV vaccination program for teenage girls. The vaccine was supported by strong scientific evidence demonstrating its effectiveness in preventing cervical cancer (12). Yet only two months after launching the program, the Japanese government suspended its active recommendation of the vaccine due to growing public concern about safety (13). These concerns were largely driven by media reports of alleged side effects following vaccination. Television programs and newspaper stories featured emotional stories from young women reporting chronic pain and neurological symptoms, triggering widespread panic across the country (14). Crucially, many media outlets failed to emphasise that no scientific evidence had established a causal link between the vaccine and these symptoms. Although the government described the suspension as temporary while investigations continued, political caution and public pressure transformed it into a prolonged policy pause. Vaccination rates plummeted from 70% to barely 1% within a single year (15). The suspension ultimately lasted more than eight years, creating what researchers have described as a ‘lost generation’ of women who missed the opportunity to be protected against HPV (14). While the program has since been reinstated, public trust has not fully recovered. As of 2025, vaccination rates remain around 30% — a far reach from the World Health Organisation target of 90% (16). The long-term consequences may not become apparent for decades, as cervical cancer rates rise in under-vaccinated populations. This case highlights the powerful role of the media in shaping public perceptions of risk, and in turn, influencing policy decisions with enduring public health consequences. Addressing misinformation is not solely the responsibility of scientists or governments. Journalists and media organisations also play a critical role in shaping public understanding. The persistence of misinformation highlights an important reality: scientific evidence alone is not enough. Even the most robust research can be undermined if it is not communicated in a way that is accessible, transparent and trustworthy. This is where science communication becomes essential — helping to bridge the gap between evidence and public understanding so that scientific knowledge can inform real-world decisions. In the space between fact and fiction, communication determines which voice is heard. In an age where information moves faster than ever, the ability to communicate science clearly, honestly, and effectively may be just as important as the science itself. References 1. Flaherty DK. The Vaccine-Autism Connection: A Public Health Crisis Caused by Unethical Medical Practices and Fraudulent Science. Annals of Pharmacotherapy . 2011;45 (10):1302-1304. doi: 10.1345/aph.1Q318 2. Lewis J, Speers, T. Misleading media reporting? The MMR story. Nature Reviews Immunology . 2003; 3 (11):913-918. doi:10.1038/nri1228 3. Howell EL, Wirz CD, Scheufele DA, Brossard D, Xenos MA. Deference and decision-making in science and society: How deference to scientific authority goes beyond confidence in science and scientists to become authoritarianism. Public Understanding of Science . 2020; 29 (8):800-818. doi:10.1177/0963662520962741 4. Pearce A, Law C, Elliman D, Cole TJ, Bedford H. Factors associated with uptake of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) and use of single antigen vaccines in a contemporary UK cohort: prospective cohort study. BMJ . 2008; 336 (7647):754-757. doi:10.1136/bmj.39489.590671.25 5. Peltola H, Patja A, Leinikki P, Valle M, Davidkin I, Paunio M. No evidence for measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine-associated inflammatory bowel disease or autism in a 14-year prospective study. The Lancet . 1998; 351 (9112):1327-1328. 6. Madsen KM, Hviid A, Vestergaard M, et al. A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism. New England Journal of Medicine . 2002; 347 (19):1477-1482. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa021134 7. Taylor B, Miller E, Farrington C, et al. Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association. The Lancet . 1999; 353 (9169):2026-2029. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(99)01239-8 8. Evans M, Stoddart H, Condon L, Freeman E, Grizzell M, Mullen R. Parents' perspectives on the MMR immunisation: a focus group study. Br J Gen Pract . 2001; 51 (472):904-910. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1314147/ 9. Walsh S, Thomas DR, Mason BW, Evans MR. The impact of the media on the decision of parents in South Wales to accept measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) immunization. Epidemiol Infect . 2015; 43 (3):550-560. doi:10.1017/s0950268814000752 10. Rao TS, Andrade C. The MMR vaccine and autism: Sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraud. Indian J Psychiatry . 2011; 53 (2):95-96. doi:0.4103/0019-5545.82529 11. Johnson HM, Seifert CM. Sources of the continued influence effect: When misinformation in memory affects later inferences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition . 1994; 20 (6):1420. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.20.6.1420 12. Paavonen L, Naud P, Salmerón J, et al. Efficacy of human papillomavirus (HPV)-16/18 AS04-adjuvanted vaccine against cervical infection and precancer caused by oncogenic HPV types (PATRICIA): final analysis of a double-blind, randomised study in young women. The Lancet . 2009; 374 (9686):301-314. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61248-4 13. Iked S, Ueda Y, Yagi A, et al. HPV vaccination in Japan: what is happening in Japan? Expert Review of Vaccines . 2019; 18 (4):323-325. doi:10.1080/14760584.2019.1584040 14. Takahashi T, Ichimiya M, Tomono M, et al. Overcoming HPV Vaccine Hesitancy in Japan: A Narrative Review of Safety Evidence, Risk Communication, and Policy Approaches. Vaccines . 2015; 13 (6):590. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/13/6/590 15. Yagi A, Ueda Y, Oka E, Nakagawa S, Kimura T. Human papillomavirus vaccination by birth fiscal year in Japan. JAMA network open . 2024; 7 (7):e2422513. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.22513 16. Sazawa M, Ishiguro C, Mimura W, Maeda M, Murata F, Fukuda H. Impact of the resumption of proactive recommendation of HPV vaccination on HPV vaccination rates in Japan: an interrupted time series analysis based on the VENUS study. BMJ Public Health . 2025; 3 (2):e000982. doi:10.1136/bmjph-2024-000982 Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

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

Print Editions Explore some of our collected works from across the years and find out how to purchase your own copy of the magazine. Print Edition 2: Issue 4, 5 and 6 2023/2024 Print Edition 3: Issue 7, 8 and 9 2024/2025

Issue 9: Entwined 28 October 2025 This issue takes a moment to revel in the science that surrounds us. Come walk the tangled paths less followed, who knows what you may come across! Editorial Unravelling the Threads: From the Editors-in-Chief & Cover Illustrator by Ingrid Sefton, Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin & Anabelle Dewi Saraswati A word from the Editors-in-Chief, and fascinating insights into this issue's cover. Knot theory Knot Theory and Its Applications. Why Knot? by Ryan Rud Untangle the knot theory with Ryan to reveal the role of this mathematical marvel in our everyday life. Hugging Entwined: A Hug Story by Elise Volpato Embrace the physiology, psychology and cultural complexities of hugs, as Elise opens us up to their undeniable benefits. Geological time periods Enter . . . the Anthropocene? by Rita Fortune Rita digs into questions of how and where we can draw a line in the sand, in attempts to disentangle a new geological time period. Cosmic matter The Cosmos in Our Palms: A Reflection of Our Cosmic Origins by Mishen De Silva Gain a new appreciation with Mishen of how the beauty and mystery of the cosmos is not just among us, but within us. Humans of UniMelb Rewilding Our Cities with Dr Kylie Soanes by Ciara Dahl Uncover life behind and between the concrete jungle, as Ciara talks all things urban ecology with Dr Kylie Soanes. Brain connectome Conferring with Consciousness by Ingrid Sefton Me, myself and my brain - Ingrid traverses the neural paths that comprise the conscious experience. Journey of food The Life of Matcha by Kara Miwa-Dale Delicately grown, globally consumed: Kara evaluates the intersection of matcha's deep-rooted social importance with physical health and current trends. Gunpowder Ancient Asian Alchemy: Big Booms by Isaac Tian Aiming for immortality, landing at gunpowder? Isaac explores how a quest for life is fundamentally entangled in the alchemy of gunpowder. Classical biology Eyeballs, a Knife, and No Fear of God by Jess Walton Travel back in time with Jess to meet the early anatomists who helped pioneer the arduous and neverending human quest to seek answers from deep within ourselves. Literally speaking, that is. Axolotls Axolotl: The Little God of the Lake by Danny He Dive into the history, habitat, and hardhsips of your favourite frilly friends. Axolotls are so much more than a cute face, and time may be running out to save them. Camouflage Living Pixels by KJ Srivastava Uncovering the science behind camouflaging creatures that have no eyes makes this trick no less magical, as KJ reveals. Pacific Island futures Human-Cetacean Relations by Andrew Irvin Taking us to Tonga, Andrew tells a tale of a musician swimming between the worlds of communication, marine science and a future for Pacific Islands. Philosophy of science It’s Dangerous to Go Alone by Julia Lockerd Join Julia to debate the importance of epistemic and social relationships in the development of modern science. Perceptions of time Time Perception – The Chaos Binding Your World Together by Furqan Mohsin Spend a moment with Furqan considering how our perception of time strings us together, yet fundamentally pulls us apart.

Issue 8: Enigma 3 June 2025 This issue unspools the long-hidden threads in science. Come make sense of the puzzles and mysteries with us! Or perhaps, leave just as addled. Editorial Cracking the Code: A Word from the Editors-in-Chief by Ingrid Sefton & Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin A word from our Editors-in-Chief. Facial recognition Friend or Foe?: The Mechanisms Behind Facial Recognition by Mishen De Silva What's in a face? Mishen walks us through the ingenious ways our brains make meaning of the faces we see everyday. Human evolution The Lost Link: A Mystery in Evolution by Eymi Gladys Carcamo Rodriguez The theory of human evolution conjures textbook timelines of ape to man, but as Eymi explores, biology has never been that simple. Celebrity culture Glowing Limelight, Fashioned Stars by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin Chronically online or not, society sure loves its stars. Aisyah investigates the messy sociology behind our relationships with celebrities in past decades. Astronomy Why Are We So Fascinated by Space? An Exploration of Human’s Fascination with Outer Space by Emily Cahill What make the night sky impossible to ignore? Emily uncovers how culture, commercialisation and science have fuelled our cosmic curiosity. Prehistoric predators Terror Birds: The Discovery of Prolific Hunters by Jason Chien Giant, flightless and carnivorous - Jason pieces together the rise of terror birds as fearsome apex predators Psychology A Psychological ‘Autopsy’ of Ludwig van Beethoven: Dissecting Genius and Madness by Kara Miwa-Dale Elusive and erudite, even beyond the grave. Dissect the inner world of Beethoven with Kara - when can we call genius, madness? Fungi Fungal Pac Man by Ksheerja Srivastava No matter how good of a gamer you are, Ksheerja proves why biosensensing fungi should be crowned as our worlds best Pac-Man player. Dreams In Your Dreams: Unpacking the Stories of Your Slumber by Ciara Dahl Where do our minds go every night? Ciara explores the mysterious science best theories behind dreaming Neurology Functional Neurological Disorder by Esme MacGillivray What if your nervous system just stopped working? Esme explains FND, and how it affects someone, beyond symptoms. Slime moulds Thinking Outside the Body: The Consciousness of Slime Moulds by Jessica Walton I think, therefore I am... a slime mould? Jess ponders whether this humble, single cell protist may exhibit conciousness without a brain. Psychadelics Life Story of a Drug by Elijah McEvoy From 'Bicycle Day' to brain receptors, Elijah takes us on a trip through the enigmatic origins, uses and psychadelic effects of LSD. Gut microbiome Microbic Mirror of The Self by Sarah Ibrahimi Microbes: Humanities greatest enemy or our best friend? Sarah explores the relationship between the gut microbiome and our health. Infantile amnesia Mental Time Travel: How Far Can I Remember? by Sophie Potvin Step inside the hippocampus, as Sophie illustrates the mechanisms of memory formation and our power to make the past come alive again. Consciousness A Headspace of One’s Own by Andrew Irvin At what point does a computer become conscious? Andrew delves into technology that blurs the line between artificial intelligence and the human brain. Prejudice in Science What Do Women Want? by Madeleine Kelly The question we should be asking is not what we know, but what we don't know about women.

< Back to Issue 4 Echidnas: Gentle Courters In The Competitive Animal Kingdom by Emily Siwing Xia 1 July 2023 Edited by Maddison Moore and Arwen Nguyen-Ngo Illustrated by Christy Yung When we think of animals or nature in competition, we picture aggression and savagery over resources such as food, territory and mates. Beyond aggression, however, the variety of animal behaviour associated with competition for resources is immense. A gentle form of competition is the bizarre mating ritual of our own unique Australian fauna: the echidna. Known as Tachyglossus Aculeatus and spiny anteaters, echidnas are quill-covered animals living in Australia and New Guinea. Since Australia is so isolated from other continents, our fauna has often been regarded by outsiders with an air of mystery and awe. To start with, echidnas are in the same family as the famed platypus, called monotremes (egg-laying mammals). Surviving monotreme species can only be found in Australia and New Guinea. The four species of echidnas, along with their duck-billed cousin, are the very few surviving members in this classification. Despite the similarities in their name and appearance in both being covered with hollow, spiny quills, these spiny anteaters are not actually closely related to the more well-known anteaters in the Americas on a genetic and evolutionary basis. Echidnas feed on a diet of ants and termites, using their electroreceptive beaks to find burrowing prey digging them out with their hind claws. These powerful claws are long and curved backwards, specially designed for digging. Funnily, when the British Museum received an echidna specimen, they switched the backward claws frontwards thinking that it was a mistake. As mentioned before, mating rituals can be a violent (even bloody) ordeal in nature. From barbed penises in cats and deadly fights for females in elephant seals, straight to sexual cannibalism in praying mantises, there seems to be endless examples of brutality in the animal world. However, behind these brutal images is another side of nature that seems gentle and even humorous at times: for example, the ritual of our spiny suitors. Echidna mating rituals begin with the formation of a mating train. From June to September in Australia, male echidnas mate by lining up — from their beak tips to their spiny bottoms — to follow behind one single female. These trains can have more than 10 males in line and last for days, even weeks, at a time. During the mating season, male echidnas may leave a train to join or form a different train behind another eligible female. Their mating efforts often lead males to travel for long distances, even beyond their own home ranges. If the males get interrupted and lose track of the female, they reform their train by picking up her scent with their snouts in the air. They are such determined suitors that it is extremely difficult for a female echidna to evade them. Usually, there is one male that remains through the long-winded process, and they get to mate with the female. The reason behind forming echidna trains is unknown, but scientists generally agree that it is correlated with some type of selection process. One theory is that it aids the female in weeding out all the weaker males by tiring them out until the last one remains. Another is that the female is waiting for the right male that she is interested in to get behind her. Either way, it is a process of determination and perseverance. In exceedingly rare occasions where there are still multiple suitors left at the end, the males dig a trench surrounding the female and compete through head bumping. Although there is still much not understood about head bumping due to its scarce occurrence, it is generally considered an echidna social behaviour that serves to maintain dominance. Head bumps are generally only given by dominant echidnas to subordinate echidnas who haven’t recognised their dominance status and moved away. This rarely happens and is a relatively peaceful affair compared to conflicts in other animals. The winner of the mating head bumping ritual then digs until the previously mentioned trench is deep enough for him to be below the female so they can mate through their cloacas. 23 days after copulation, the female lays a soft-shelled leathery egg into a temporary pouch where it continues to incubate for 10 more days when a tiny puggle (a baby echidna or platypus) hatches. The puggle drinks milk from the female’s special mammary hairs until it is capable of feeding itself and has fully covered spines and fur. At last, the matured echidna leaves their mother’s burrow to live independently. The mating rules and practices amongst echidnas are a demonstration of patience and courtesy. This contrasts with the general public misconception of nature being merciless, which is characterised by the brutal competition for food, social status and mating opportunities. Although they are in the same competition for a mate, the lines of waddling echidnas are polite, organised and humorous. Behind the mask of brutality, nature continues to have its pleasant secrets. References Morrow G, Nicol SC. Cool Sex? Hibernation and Reproduction Overlap in the Echidna. PLoS One. 2009 Jun 29;4(6):e6070. Echidna [Internet]. AZ Animals. [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://a-z-animals.com/animals/echidna/ Anne Marie Musser. Echidna | Britannica [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://www.britannica.com/animal/echidna-monotreme Echidna trains: explained [Internet]. Australian Geographic. August 6, 2021 [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2021/08/echidna-trains-explained/ Lindenfors P, Tullberg BS. Evolutionary aspects of aggression the importance of sexual selection. Adv Genet. 2011;75:7–22. Warm Your Heart With Videos of ‘Echidna Love Trains’ [Internet]. Atlas Obscura. September 1, 2017. [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/echidna-love-trains Previous article Next article back to MIRAGE

< 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 7 Fossil Markets: Under the Gavel, Under Scrutiny by Jesse Allen 22 October 2024 edited by Zeinab Jishi illustrated by Jessica Walton At the crossroads between science and commerce, the trade in fossils has "developed into an organised enterprise" over the course of the twentieth century. With greater investment and heated competition between museums and private collectors, fossils increasingly took their place alongside “art, furniture, and fine wine” (Kjærgaard, 2012, pp.340-344). Fast forward to the twenty-first century, and this trend shows no signs of abating. On the contrary: as of 10 July 2024, a near-complete stegosaurus skeleton - nicknamed ‘Apex’ - was discovered by a commercial palaeontologist in Colorado, and was later purchased by “hedge-fund billionaire” Ken Griffin for US$44.6 million (Paul, 2024). This makes it the single most expensive dinosaur skeleton ever sold, eclipsing the previous record set in 2020 for a T-Rex named ‘Stan’, who was snapped up for US$31.8 million (Paul, 2024). These sales came with their fair share of criticism and controversy, reigniting the long-standing debate about how fossils should be handled, and where these ancient remains rightfully belong. Fossils (from the Latin fossilus , meaning ‘unearthed’) are the “preserved remains of plants and animals” which have been buried in sediments or preserved underneath ancient bodies of water, and offer unique insights into the history and adaptive evolution of life on Earth (British Geological Survey, n.d.). Their value is by no means limited to biology, however: they are useful for geologists in correlating the age of different rock layers (British Geological Survey, n.d.), and reveal the nature and consequences of changes in Earth’s climate (National Park Service, n.d.). Though new discoveries are being made all the time, fossils are inherently a finite resource, which cannot be replaced. This is part of what makes the fossil trade so lucrative, but the forces of limited supply and high demand have also led to the emergence of a dark underbelly. Cases of fossil forgery go back “as far as the dawn of palaeontology itself” in the late 18th and 19th centuries (Benton, 2024). The latest “boom in interest" is massively inflating prices and “fuelling the illicit trade” in fossils (Timmins, 2019). Whereas the US has a ‘finders-keepers’ policy, according to which private traders have carte blanche to dig up and sell any fossils they find, countries such as Brazil, China, and Mongolia do not allow the export of specimens overseas (Timmins, 2019). Sadly, this does little to prevent illegal smuggling; the laws are sometimes vague, and enforcement can be difficult when no single government agency is responsible for monitoring palaeontological activities (Winters, 2024). According to David Hone, a reader in zoology at Queen Mary University of London, “not every fossil is scientifically valuable”; but they are all “objects…worthy of protection,” and too many “scientifically important fossils appear briefly on the auction house website” before “vanish[ing] into a collector’s house, never to be seen again” (Hone, 2024). Museums, universities, and other scientific organisations are finding it more and more difficult to “financially compete with wealthy, private purchasers” as they are simply being priced out of the market (Paul, 2024). As sales become less open to expert scrutiny, the risk of forgery and price distortions become greater. It also has negative implications for future research. Private collectors might give access to one scientist, but not allow others to corroborate their findings. If the fossils aren’t open to all, many institutions simply won’t examine the items in private collections as a matter of principle. (Timmins, 2019). The general public also loses out in a world where dinosaur fossils are reduced to expensive conversation pieces. As Hone writes, “we might never dig up another Stegosaurus, or never find one nearly as complete as [Apex].” Having waited 150 million years to be unearthed, this latest fossil is one of many that may not see the light of day for a very long time. Bibliography Benton, M. (2024, September 5). Modern palaeontology keeps unmasking fossil forgeries – and a new study has uncovered the latest fake . The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/modern-palaeontology-keeps-unmasking-fossil-forgeries-and-a-new-study-has-uncovered-the-latest-fake-223501 British Geological Survey. (n.d.). Why do we study fossils? British Geological Survey. https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/fossils-and-geological-time/fossils/ Hone, D. (2024, June 10). The super-rich are snapping up dinosaur fossils – that’s bad for science . The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/10/super-rich-dinosaur-fossils-stegosaurus-illegal-trade-science Kjærgaard, P. C. (2012). The Fossil Trade: Paying a Price for Human Origins. Isis , 103 (2), 340–355. https://doi.org/10.1086/666365 National Park Service. (n.d.). The significance of fossils . U.S. Department of the Interior. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fossils/significance.htm Paul, A. (2024, July 18). Stegosaurus 'Apex' sold for nearly $45 million to a billionaire . Popular Science. https://www.popsci.com/science/stegosaurus-skeleton-sale/ Timmins, B. (2019, August 8). What’s wrong with buying a dinosaur? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48472588 Winters, G.F. (2024). International Fossil Laws. The Journal of Paleontological Sciences , 19 . https://www.aaps-journal.org/Fossil-Laws.html Previous article Next article apex back to

< 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

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