THE

TCHI
AN INSIGHT INTO THE WORLD WE LIVE IN THE WORLD OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

In This Issue

Is modern technology changing the way our brain works? ...................................................................

DriveLAB An Intelligent Car To Keep Old People Driving ..........................................................

New found gene may help bacteria survive in extreme environment ..................................................

TECHI TIDBITS: Did You Know This? ..............................

Mind Bending Material Properties ....................................

The Universe Weighs Less Than We Thought ...................

The Placebo Effect .............................................................

How Many Times Can You Connect A Lego Brick Before It Starts Connecting? .............................................

Ancient Antarctic Life 60 Feet Below The Surface ........

The Smell Of White ..............................................................

Massive Planet 13 Times The Size Of Jupiter ...................

THE TCHI IS MODERN TECHNOLOGY CHANGING THE WAY OUR BRAIN WORKS?
Human identity, the idea that defines each and every one of us, could be facing an unprecedented crisis. It is a crisis that would threaten long-held notions of who we are, what we do and how we behave. It goes right to the heart - or the head - of us all. This crisis could reshape how we interact with each other, alter what makes us happy, and modify our capacity for reaching our full potential as individuals. And it's caused by one simple fact: the human brain, which is the most sensitive of organs, is under threat from the modern world. Unless we wake up to the damage that the gadget-filled, pharmaceuticallyenhanced 21st century is doing to our brains, we could be sleepwalking towards a future in which neuro-chip technology blurs the line between living and non-living machines, and between our bodies and the outside world. It would be a world where such devices could enhance our muscle power, or our senses, beyond the norm, and where we all take a daily cocktail of drugs to control our moods and performance. Already, an electronic chip is being developed that could allow a paralysed patient to move 0 a robotic limb just by thinking about it. As for drug manipulated moods, they're already with us - although so far only to a medically prescribed extent. Increasing numbers of people already take Prozac for depression, Paxil as an antidote for shyness, and give Ritalin to children to improve their concentration. But what if there were still more pills to enhance or "correct" a range of other specific mental functions? What would such aspirations to be "perfect" or "better" do to our notions of identity, and what would it do to those who could not get their hands on the pills? Would some finally have become more equal than others, as George Orwell always feared? Of course, there are benefits from technical progress - but there are great dangers as well, and I believe that we are seeing some of those today. A neuroscientist and day-to-day research strives for an ever greater understanding - and therefore maybe, one day, a cure - for Alzheimer's disease. But one vital fact is learnt is that the brain is not the unchanging organ that we might imagine. It not only goes on developing, changing and, in some tragic cases, eventually deteriorating with age, it is also substantially shaped by what we do to it and by the experience of daily life. When I say "shaped", I'm not talking figuratively or metaphorically; I'm talking literally. At a microcellular level, the infinitely complex network of nerve cells that make up the constituent parts of the brain actually change in response to certain experiences and stimuli. The brain, in other words, is malleable not just in early childhood but right up to early adulthood, and, in certain instances, beyond. The surrounding

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environment has a huge impact both on the way our brains develop and how that brain is transformed into a unique human mind. Three hundred years ago, our notions of human identity were vastly simpler: we were defined by the family we were born into and our position within that family. Social advancement was nigh on impossible and the concept of "individuality" took a back seat.

Of course, there's nothing new about that: human brains have been changing, adapting and developing in response to outside stimuli for centuries. That only arrived with the Industrial Revolution, which for the first time The pace of offered rewards for initiative, ingenuity change in the and ambition. Suddenly, people had outside their own life stories - ones which could environment be shaped by their own thoughts and and in the actions. For the first time, individuals development had a real sense of self. of new technologies But with our brains now under such has increased widespread attack from the modern dramatically. world, there's a danger that that This will affect cherished sense of self could be our brains over diminished or even lost. the next 100 Anyone who doubts the malleability of years in ways we might never the adult brain should consider a have imagined. startling piece of research conducted at Harvard Medical School. There, a Our brains are group of adult volunteers, none of under the whom could previously play the piano, influence of an ever- expanding world were split into three groups. of new technology: multichannel The first group were taken into a room television, video games, MP3 players, with a piano and given intensive piano the internet, wireless networks, Bluetooth links - the list goes on and on. practise for five days. The second group were taken into an identical room with But our modern brains are also having an identical piano - but had nothing to to adapt to other 21st century do with the instrument at all. intrusions, some of which, such as prescribed drugs like Ritalin and Prozac, are supposed to be of benefit, and some of which, such as widely available illegal drugs like cannabis and heroin, are not. Electronic devices and pharmaceutical drugs all have an impact on the microcellular structure and complex biochemistry of our brains. And that, in turn, affects our personality, our behaviour and our characteristics. In short, the modern world could well be altering our human identity. 1 And the third group were taken into an identical room with an identical piano and were then told that for the next five days they had to just imagine they were practising piano exercises. The resultant brain scans were extraordinary. Not surprisingly, the brains of those who simply sat in the same room as the piano hadn't changed at all. Equally unsurprising was the fact that those who had performed the piano

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exercises saw marked structural changes in the area of the brain associated with finger movement. But what was truly astonishing was that the group who had merely imagined doing the piano exercises saw changes in brain structure that were almost as pronounced as those that had actually had lessons. "The power of imagination" is not a metaphor, it seems; it's real, and has a physical basis in your brain. there's a marked reduction in the ability to think abstractly. This games-driven generation interpret the world through screen-shaped eyes. It's almost as if something hasn't really happened until it's been posted on Facebook, Bebo or YouTube.

Add that to the huge amount of personal information now stored on the internet - births, marriages, telephone numbers, credit ratings, holiday pictures Alas, no neuroscientist can explain how - and it's sometimes difficult to know the sort of changes that the Harvard where the boundaries of our experimenters reported at the microindividuality actually lie. Only one thing cellular level translate into changes in is certain: those boundaries are character, personality or behaviour. But weakening. we don't need to know that to realise that changes in brain structure and our And they could weaken further still if, and when, neurochip technology higher thoughts and feelings are becomes more widely available. These incontrovertibly linked. tiny devices will take advantage of the What worries me is that if something as discovery that nerve cells and silicon innocuous as imagining a piano lesson chips can happily co-exist, allowing an can bring about a visible physical interface between the electronic world change in brain structure, and and the human body. It has been therefore some presumably minor recently suggested that someone change in the way the aspiring player could be fitted with a cochlear implant performs, what changes might long (devices that convert sound waves into stints playing violent computer games electronic impulses and enable the bring about? That eternal teenage deaf to hear) and a skull-mounted protest of 'it's only a game, Mum' micro- chip that converts brain waves certainly begins to ring alarmingly into words (a prototype is under hollow. research). Already, it's pretty clear that the screen-based, two dimensional world that so many teenagers - and a growing number of adults - choose to inhabit is producing changes in behaviour. Attention spans are shorter, personal communication skills are reduced and 2 Then, if both devices were connected to a wireless network, we really would have arrived at the point which science fiction writers have been getting excited about for years. Mind reading! It was a joke, but for how long the gag remains funny is far from clear. Today's technology is already producing a marked shift in the way we think and behave, particularly among the young. We mustn't, however, be too censorious, because what we are

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talking about is pleasure. For some, pleasure means song; for others, more recently, drugs and rock 'n' roll; and for millions today, endless hours at the computer console. But whatever your particular variety of pleasure (and energetic sport needs to be added to the list), it's long been accepted that 'pure' pleasure - that is to say, activity during which you truly "let yourself go" - was part of the diverse portfolio of normal human life. Until now, that is. Now, coinciding with the moment when technology and pharmaceutical companies are finding ever more ways to have a direct influence on the human brain, pleasure is becoming the sole be-all and end-all of many lives, especially among the young. evidence that links a sharp rise in diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the associated three-fold increase in Ritalin prescriptions over the past ten years with the boom in computer games and you have an immensely worrying scenario. But we mustn't be too pessimistic about the future. It may sound frighteningly Orwellian, but there may be some potential advantages to be gained from our growing understanding of the human brain's tremendous plasticity. What if we could create an environment that would allow the brain to develop in a way that was seen to be of universal benefit?

We are not convinced completely that scientists will ever find a way of manipulating the brain to make us all We could be raising a hedonistic much cleverer (it would probably be generation who live only in the thrill of cheaper and far more effective to the computer-generated moment, and manipulate the education system). And are in distinct danger of detaching nor is it believed that we can somehow themselves from what the rest of us be made much happier - not, at least, would consider the real world. This is a without somehow anaesthetising trend that worries me profoundly. For as ourselves against the sadness and any alcoholic or drug addict will tell misery that is part and parcel of the you, nobody can be trapped in the human condition. When someone we moment of pleasure forever. Sooner or love dies, we still want to be able to cry. later, you have to come down. But we do, paradoxically, see potential in one particular direction. We think it is It cannot be said certainly that all video possible that we might one day be able games are addictive (as yet, there is to harness outside stimuli in such a way not enough research to back that up), that creativity - surely the ultimate and we can genuinely welcome the expression of individuality - is actually new generation of "brain-training" boosted rather than diminished. computer games aimed at keeping the little grey cells active for longer. As We are optimistic and excited by what Alzheimer's research has shown, when it future research will reveal into the comes to higher brain function, it's clear workings of the human brain, and the that there is some truth in the adage extraordinary process by which it is "use it or lose it". translated into a uniquely individual However, playing certain games can mimic addiction, and that the heaviest users of these games might soon begin to do a pretty good impersonation of an addict. Throw in circumstantial 3 mind. But we are also concerned that we seem to be so oblivious to the dangers that are already upon us.

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Well, that debate must start now. Identity, the very essence of what it is to be human, is open to change - both good and bad. Our children, and certainly our grandchildren, will not thank us if we put off discussion much longer. research shows that giving up driving is one of the key factors responsible for a fall in health and well-being among older people, leading to them becoming more isolated and inactive. Led by Professor Phil Blythe, the Newcastle team is investigating invehicle technologies for older drivers which they hope could help them to continue driving into later life. Phil Blythe, Professor of Intelligent Transport Systems at Newcastle University, explains: "For many older people, particularly those living alone or in rural areas, driving is essential for maintaining their independence, giving them the freedom to get out and about without having to rely on others." "But we all have to accept that as we get older our reactions slow down and this often results in people avoiding any potentially challenging driving conditions and losing confidence in their driving skills. The result is that people stop driving before they really need to."What we are doing is to look at ways of keeping people driving safely for longer, which in turn boosts independence and keeps us socially connected." Funded by Research Councils UK's Digital Economy programme the research is part of the Social inclusion through the Digital Economy (SiDE) project, a 12m research hub led by Newcastle University. Using the new DriveLAB as well as the University's driving simulator, the team have been working with older people from across the North East and Scotland to understand their driving habits and fears and look at ways of overcoming them. Dr Amy Guo, the leading researcher on the older driver study1, explains: "The DriveLAB is helping us to understand what the key stress triggers and difficulties are for older drivers and how we might use technology to address these problems.""For example, most of us

DRIVELAB AN INTELLIGENT CAR TO KEEP OLD PEOPLE DRIVING

Imagine driving a car with eye trackers and biomonitors! 'DriveLAB' is an electric car converted to a mobile laboratory by the scientists at Newcastle University, UK. They believe that including bespoke navigation tools, night vision systems and intelligent speed adaptations older drivers can continue driving. The research car which monitors driver's concentration, stress levels and driving habits while sat behind the steering wheel is being used by the Intelligent Transport team at Newcastle University to develop new technologies to support older drivers.

By incorporating the eye tracker and bio-monitor with the driving simulator the team monitors eye movement, speed, reaction, lane position, acceleration, braking and driving efficiency. According to the scientists, 4

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gushed, along with oil, from the damaged well. The sudden influx of microbes was a scientific curiosity: Prior to the oil spill, scientists had observed relatively few signs of methane-eating microbes in the area. Now researchers at MIT have discovered a bacterial gene that may explain this sudden influx of methaneeating bacteria. This gene enables bacteria to survive in extreme, oxygenwould expect older drivers always go depleted environments, lying dormant slower than everyone else but until food such as methane from an surprisingly, we found that in 30mph oil spill, and the oxygen needed to zones they struggled to keep at a metabolize it become available. The constant speed and so were more likely gene codes for a protein, named HpnR, to break the speed limit and be at risk that is responsible for producing of getting fined.""We're looking at the bacterial lipids known as 3benefits of systems which control your methylhopanoids. The researchers say speed as a way of preventing producing these lipids may better that."Another solution is a tailored prepare nutrient-starved microbes to SatNav which identifies the safest route make a sudden appearance in nature such as avoiding right turns and dual when conditions are favourable, such carriageways - and uses pictures as as after the Deepwater Horizon turning cues, such as a post box or accident. The lipid produced by the public house. Researcher Chris HpnR protein may also be used as a Emmerson, explains: "One thing that biomarker, or a signature in rock layers, came out of the focus groups was that to identify dramatic changes in oxygen while the older generation is often keen levels over the course of geologic to try new technologies it's their lack of history. experience with, and confidence in, digital technologies which puts them The thing that interests us is that this off. Also, they felt most were designed could be a window into the geologic with younger people in mind."The work past, says MIT Department of Earth, is being presented at the Aging, Mobility and Quality of Life conference in Michigan in June. The driving simulator is also being used to look at how distractions such as answering a mobile phone, sending a text or eating can affect our driving.

NEW FOUND GENE MAY HELP BACTERIA

SURVIVE IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENT
In the days following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, methaneeating bacteria bloomed in the Gulf of Mexico, feasting on the methane that 5

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Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) postdoc Paula Welander, who led the research. In the geologic record, many millions of years ago, we see a number of mass extinction events where there is also evidence of oxygen depletion in the ocean. Its at these key events, and immediately afterward, where we also see increases in all these biomarkers as well as indicators of used them as signs of the presence of similar bacteria billions of years ago. But Welander says hopanoids may be used to identify more than early life forms: The molecular fossils may be biomarkers for environmental phenomena such as, for instance, periods of very low oxygen.

To test her theory, Welander examined a modern strain of bacteria called Methylococcus capsulatus, a widely studied organism first isolated from an ancient Roman bathhouse in Bath, England. The organism, which also lives in oxygen-poor environments such as deep-sea vents and mud volcanoes, has been of interest to scientists for its ability to efficiently consume large quantities of methane which could make it helpful in bioremediation and biofuel development. For Welander and Summons, M. capsulatus is especially interesting for its structure: The organism contains a type of hopanoid with a five-ring molecular structure that contains a C-3 methylation. Geologists have found that such methylations in the ring0 structure are particularly well-preserved climate disturbance. It seems to be part in ancient rocks, even when the rest of the organism has since disappeared. of a syndrome of warming, ocean deoxygenation and biotic extinction. Welander pored over the bacterias The ultimate causes are genome and identified hpnR, the gene unknown.Welander and EAPS Professor that codes for the protein HpnR, which Roger Summons have published their is specifically associated with C-3 results this week in the Proceedings of methylation. She devised a method to the National Academy of Sciences. delete the gene, creating a mutant strain. Welander and Summons then Earths rocky layers hold remnants of grew cultures of this mutant strain, as lifes evolution, from the very ancient traces of single-celled organisms to the well as cultures of wild, unaltered recent fossils of vertebrates. One of the bacteria. The team exposed both key biomarkers geologists have used to strains to low levels of oxygen and high identify the earliest forms of life is a class levels of methane over a two-week of lipids called hopanoids, whose sturdy period to simulate an oxygen-poor molecular structure has preserved them environment. During the first week, there was little difference between the in sediment for billions of years. Hopanoids have also been identified in two groups, both of which consumed methane and grew at about the same modern bacteria, and geologists studying the lipids in ancient rocks have rate. However, on day 14, the 6

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researchers observed the wild strain begin to outgrow the mutant bacteria. When Welander added the hpnR gene back into the mutant bacteria, she found they eventually bounced back to levels that matched the wild strain. they get a blast of oxygen or methane, they can pick up very quickly. Theyre really poised to take advantage of something like this.

The results, Welander says, are especially exciting from a geological What might explain the dramatic perspective. If 3-methylhopanoids do contrast in survival rates? To answer this, indeed allow bacteria to survive in the team used electron microscopy to times of low oxygen, then a spike of the examine the cellular structures in both related lipid in the rock record could mutant and wild bacteria. They indicate a dramatic decrease in discovered a stark difference: While the oxygen in Earths history, enabling wild type was filled with normal geologists to better understand periods membranes and vacuoles, the mutant of mass extinctions or large ocean diestrain had none. The missing offs.The original goal was [to] make membranes, Welander says, are a clue this a better biomarker for geologists, to the lipids function. She and Welander says. Its very meticulous Summons posit that the hpnR gene [work], but in the end we also want to may preserve bacterias cell make a broader impact, such as membranes, which may reinforce the learning how microorganisms deal with microbe in times of depleted hydrocarbons in the environment. nutrients.You have these communities kind of just getting by, surviving on what David Valentine, a professor of they can, Welander says. Then when microbial geochemistry at the University of California at Santa Barbara, says the groups target lipid is akin to cholesterol, which plays an important role in the membranes of human and animal cells. He says the gene identified by the group may play a similar role in bacteria. This work demonstrates an important unity in biology, Valentine says. Their results are a needed step in providing context for interpreting the distribution of these biomarkers in the geological record.

THE TCHI TECHI TIDBITS: DID YOU KNOW THIS?

Mind Bending Material Properties
discovered the phenomenon can't explain a good physical example of what it is, how it works, or what it means. One to keep on the back burner, then.

The Universe Weighs Less Than We Thought

In January, a team of physicists from Rutgers and MIT published a paper in Nature describing a new property of matter. While fiddling around with a super-cooled Uranium compound, URu2Si2, they found that it breaks something called double time-reversal symmetry. Normal time-reversal symmetry states that the motion of particles looks the same running back and forth in time: magnets break that, though, because if you reverse time, the magnetic field they produce reverses direction. You have to reverse time twice to get them back to their original state. This new material, though, breaks double time-reversal symmetry. That means you need to reverse time four times for the behavior to get back to its original state. It's something the scientists have dubbed hastatic order and if you're struggling to get your head round it, well, that's the appropriate reaction. The scientists who 8

When the world's best scientists decided to team up and measure the mass of the universe all the way back in the 1970s, they set themselves a pretty tall challenge. Applying their best understanding of gravity and the dynamics of galaxies, though, they came up with an answer an answer which sadly predicts our universe should be falling apart. We know that galaxies' matter orbits a single central point we've observed it! and that must mean their own motion generates enough centripetal force to make that happen. But calculations suggest that there's not actually enough mass in the galaxies to produce the forces required to keep themselves moving in the way we've observed. So physicists scratched their heads, worried a little, then proudly stated that there must be more stuff out there than we can see. That's the theory behind what everyone now

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refers to as Dark Matter. The only problem? In the past 40 years, nobody has confirmed whether it really exists or notso, effectively, the problem thrown up by those initial calculations remains.

The Placebo Effect

How Many Times Can You Connect A Lego Brick Before It Starts Connecting?
The moulds used to create plastic Lego pieces are engineered with extreme precision so that the bricks stay connected via friction alone. But over time your Lego pieces will wear out with use and eventually stop sticking, and Phillipe Cantin wanted to know exactly when that would happen.

So he built a small machine designed to stress test a pair of six-stud Lego bricks, repeatedly assembling and disassembling them until they no longer held together on their own. After ten full days of testing, it turns out the magic number was 37,112 attemptswhich is amazing. Of course that number will certainly vary from piece to piece, but Feed a sick man a dummy pill that he it's good to know your Lego collection thinks will cure him and, often, his health can endure more playtime than you will improve in a similar way to someone can probably throw at it in a lifetime. taking real drugs. In other words, a bunch of nothing can improve your health. In theory, it could be a powerful treatment technique. But experiments have shown that the kind of nothing you deliver matters: when placebos are laced with a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, for instance, the effect vanishes. While that proves that the placebo effect is somehow biochemicaland not just a psychological effectwe know practically nothing else about the power of placebo. It's real, sure. It can help people get better, agreed. But if we're ever to make anything of the much-studied but little-understood effect, we're going to have to unpick how the mind can affect the body's biochemistry and, right now, nobody knows. 9

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Ancient Antarctic Life 60 Feet Below The Surface
Lake Vida isn't like other lakes. For one thing, it's in Antarctica. For another, it's located deep beneath a 60-footthick slab of ice and has consequently been cut off from the surface world for 2,800 years, untouched by outside oxygen or light. Now after years of drilling, scientists have discovered samples of previously unknown species of bacteria swimming around in it, suggesting that life can exist in conditions previously deemed unfit.

Massive Planet 13 Times The Size Of Jupiter

Kappa Adromedaeb is a world so big it defies conventional classification. At 13 times the size of Jupiter, it circles a proportionally gigantic star 2.5 times larger than our own sun. This system's existence proves that super-sized stars are capable of producing super-sized planets.

The Smell Of White

We can see the colour white. We can hear white noise. But what about a white smell? For the first time, scientists have compiled what they've deemed a completely neutral scent, or "olfactory white," by combining a large assortment of widely diverse smells (meat, flowers, etc.) to give our noses a whiff of pure equilibrium.

Biggest Black Hole Ever

What's 250 million light-years away from Earth and possesses 17 billion times the mass of our own sun? This black hole at the heart of the galaxy NGC 1277, which weirdly doesn't gobble up nearby stars and planets as black holes tend to do.

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