News Snippets:  ITC Snippets(1-2001) is a draft being prepared for publishing here. Please advise me of any corrections or suggestions on design, spelling (European English) or syntax:  mailto:Sean.Cawley@itcarlow.ie

 

 

Waldron’s Monkey

Not seen since the 1970s, Waldron's Red Colubus Monkey is regarded as extinct. So also are the Dodo bird, the Tasmanian Wolf, the Oahu tree snail, the dusky seaside sparrow and 98% of the species known to have onetime lived on earth.

In Earth's history, according to Allison Cerreño (Science, Dec.  2000), there have been five known mass extinctions of life. The largest, about 240 million years ago, is said to have resulted in 80%-96% of all species being extinguished. The most advertised, 65 million years ago, killed all the remaining dinosaurs. The World Conservation Union says that during the last 100 years 40 fish species have disappeared from North America and 18 mammal species from Australia.

Past extinctions happened quickly, some hundreds of thousands of years per event. It is feared that the current, 6th great extinction, is happening at a far greater speed than any of the others and is caused by human activity rather than the environmental or ecological upheavals earlier.

Although mightily destructive, we should not discount humankind's capacity to change behaviour.

Fitsense FS-1

Recommended by your newsletter editor: Strap this device on your foot: read pace, distance and calories burned, from the wrist display. A modern pedometer, $200, see http://www.fitsense.com 

Best Conductor (Science Dec 2000)

Carbon nanotubes, the only elemental substance which can act both as a metal and as a semiconductor, has been shown to be the best conductor of heat known. Plastics with embedded carbon nanotubes could in principle withstand high temperatures without melting.

Experts in the US Sandia National Laboratories at Albuquerque, have successfully hacked into all thirty three Government and industry super computer systems, which they set as a task to test the security systems. They conclude that no computer is safe from competent outsiders. One of the team designed a simulation system that rebuffed the other members of the team.

 

Xianggong (1998)

This Chinese physical exercise belongs to the Qigong breathing-improvement regime. Shaojin Duan et. al. showed that 35, older (~58) diabetic patients, following one year of xianggong, reported a significant improvement in depression index, body weight, satisfying sleep, ‘spirit’, appetite and vision. The article, p504, in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, volume 854, 1998, Towards Prolongation of the Healthy Life Span (Practical Approaches to Intervention), is one of the research frontiers works in a 524 page review. Cell biology, mutation, nitric oxide, mitochondrial decay and antioxidants are among the many subject well worth a read. The layman will benefit but a smattering of biochemistry will enhance enjoyment.

Editor: A copy of these Annals may be borrowed from the editor.

 

Prejudice (2001)

“We are blinded by our own prejudices as much as by the difficulty of deciphering the true meaning of dolphin vocalisations”, says Jim Mastro, Carlsbad, California. It is clear from current research that dolphins can decide what to do, convey that information to another dolphin, including the timing of a physical performance and then perform that exercise in unison. We have yet to decipher their vocalisations.

Mastro once worked in a research laboratory where he had to herd sea lions into their pens in the evening away from a dolphin which remained in the main pool. One day the sea lions refused to go. Heretofore always disinterested, the dolphin came up to Jim and began to vocalise agitatedly. Jim waved his hand at the dolphin and said “White, why don’t you do me a favour and chase those guys out of there?” Since this was the first time Mastro had any interaction with the dolphin he was stunned to see her swim straight for the sea lions who fled out of the tank, crazy-eyed. White returned to Mastro and began vocalising. When Jim came out of shock, he threw her a fish. She refused the fish with a jerk of her head as though she were insulted. “We locked eyes, and in that instant I saw a keen mind at work”, Jim said.

The Dolphin has the largest brain per unit of body mass other than humans. It is likely that it is our limited ability to decipher their language that denies us the unbelievably valuable knowledge that we could gain by conversing with and learning from them. Tiochaidh an lá.

 

Pity the Nearly Blind (2001)

Imagine if you could only see 5% of the matter in your field of view but you had to teach about your surroundings to someone similarly afflicted.

Astronomers can account for about 100 billion galaxies (some 1022 stars), yet a lot of evidence (e.g. the bending of light from distant sources because of gravity) points to this ordinary matter, making up only 5% of the universe. The 95% is thought to consist of a bath of subatomic particles that provides the infrastructure and a mysterious kind of energy which determines its shape and the fate of the universe. Fritz Zwicky in 1930 discovered that galaxies were whizzing around too fast for the gravity of identified matter within them.

This “dark matter” is illusive, thought be composed of an as yet unseen Nutralinos and Axions. Neither has an electric charge, are very small and therefore encounters with visible matter would be rare. For example an axion is predicted to have only one million-nillionth the mass of an electron and in a strong magnetic field would have a small propensity towards decay to pure energy. Laboratories in Japan, Italy and the USA are none-the-less trying to find them. Then there is “dark energy”; while dark matter will causes the mutual attraction of matter, “dark energy”  is said to be the explanation of the fact that the universe is expanding faster than the force of gravity suggests it can. All this according to Michael S. Turner, Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, The Sciences, Nov 2000, page 32.

Some calculations: 95% of the universe is made of stuff we have not identified, 4% is made up of clouds of extremely hot hydrogen and helium gas-ordinary matter but generally invisible-. Nearly half of 1% is made up of invisible neutrinos left over from the “big bang”, leaving 0.5% for the material in all the stars and galaxies. All the elements manufactured since the big bang i.e. carbon, oxygen, iron and all of the periodic table, except hydrogen and helium constitute 2 in 10,000 parts (0.02%) of the universe. Consider that except for a minuscule part of our local sun’s system, the rest of the universe is so far away as to take eons for its light to reach us. If so, what assurance do we have that much of that universe has not long since been annihilated, is collapsing on top of us, swallowed up by black holes or is otherwise in the throws of transformation. It is humbling to consider our insignificance.

 

Editor: Of course the jury is still out on this one and there is another factor that (nearly) every known particle has been shown to have an antiparticle, with opposite charge or opposite spin. When matter encounters anti matter they mutually annihilate one another. Some Swiss workers have produced a whole antimatter atom. There are those who conjecture that if both kinds of matter existed in the universe then the universe would quickly disappear. There are two views, the one that after the “big bang” the production of  matter and anti matter was unequal and after annihilation, we are left with one form (matter to you). Then there is my theory that both forms exist out there but for some reason they avoid one another most of the time. There is also the tiny (literally) matter of the black holes. Recent work shows that they are much more numerous than had been thought. There is a black hole, according to current evidence, in the Milky Way just on our door step. And you thought there was no solution to the waste management problem!

“What is the stars”, Joxer says. The wonder of these things, the discovery of two new questions when one has just been answered, is reason enough to spur us to improve science education.

 

Sexy Stuff (2000)

A recent article in nature has shown that life begins when the sperm releases a cache of nitric oxide gas, produced by the nitric oxide synthase enzyme. The oxide initiates a rapid cascade of chemical reactions, catapulting the cell into cell division. Cloning and infertility research, and more will follow an understanding of this nitric-oxide pathway.

 

Smallpox (2000)

One of the most famous successes of science has been the elimination of the smallpox virus from the human population. Supplies of the virus are still held in two (US and Russian) laboratories. It is suspected that supplies may also be held elsewhere. The WHO will discuss again, in 2002, if supplies should be destroyed. Clearly the destruction would rid the world of this vicious scourge. The reason why President Clinton did not destroy US supplies as scheduled in June 2000, is said to include (i) a need to study its DNA, to learn how it succeeds in fooling our immune system and (ii) to develop treatment against bioterrorist attacks by smallpox or similar poxes.

 

Diamond Scam (20000

Materials Today v.3, no. 3, notes the turmoil caused by General Electric (USA) announcement that they had developed an ‘undetectable’ method of converting low-value brown diamonds into colourless gem quality stones. Enhancing and removing colour in diamonds is possible using high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) techniques. A range of experimental conditions gives rise to a diverse range of outcomes. Current research on weak photoluminescence, Raman and IR spectroscopy however, in the hands of an experienced and well remunerated!, operator can identify absorption profiles that detect HPHT annealing treatments.

 

Polymer Stuff (2000)

SME concerns will be helped by the European network of researchers into polymerisation, which is soliciting membership from interested institutions; see www.aimplas.es.

Also, Russian Mikhail N Bochkarev, mboch@imoc.sinn.ru would like contact in relation his apparent breakthrough in lanthanide complexes as catalysts for polymerisation. Lanthanide hydrides, complexed with tetrahydrofuran have been studied, in which Eu, Sm and Yb are the lanthanide in question. The average polymer mass varies from 150,000 to 1,000,000, depending on the metal.

 

 Silcon Nanowires (2000)

A few atoms thick, these wires are composed of silicon, aluminium and hydrogen and posses unique properties. Because of their size, quantum mechanical effects will alter the operation of future generations of electronic devices over and above a simpler matter of the scaling involved. The schottky barrier height, doping, semiconducting properties and handling the wave nature of the electron are all concerns of current researchers.

 

Dr. Zbig Sobiesierski (Jan 2001)

Pioneered and being offered by Carlow physics staff now for nie on a quarter of a century, the Tyndall School’s Lecture got off to a fine start in the Institute on 31/1/01, with a Light and its Perception theme. The Institute’s own students, staff and some 60 school children had to be excluded from the standing-room-only, lecture-demonstration, held in the new lecture hall. Zbig interactively demonstrated that vision was a construction of a brain, trying its best to make sense of what is presented to it. Vision, as we know it, developed in response to our sun. In other words, the colours we see are those energy (electromagnetic) waves which our sun emits in greatest profusion. On another planet we would have developed otherwise (perhaps sensitive in the ultra-violet range only, in particular, animals in deep caves have developed without the use of ‘eyes’ (perhaps sensing by infra red waves?) and, as we all know, Superman’s sensitivity for x-rays provided him with a form of vision conditioned on the planet Krypton!

Sobiesierski, a physicist, who holds a Masters’ degree in communicating science, demonstrated a laser beam carrying pop music across an open room, artfully demonstrated polarisation and the physics of light generally, in an intuitive and exciting way. The high standard set by the Tyndall lecturers attracted to the college has been maintained and for this we owe a debt of gratitude to Dr Vallely, who managed the Carlow end of the lecture. Its 2001 tour continued at the RDS, UCC, UCG and QUB.

Perhaps in future we could fix the sound and clanging louvres in the gymnasium and accommodate a larger audience, or even hold two sessions of the lecture/demonstration. We dare not minimise that value that these lectures by the best performers, is to our young scientifically starved youngsters and the subsequent affect this can have on recruitment to all disciplines. Of course, that is if we have already treated them hospitably and excitingly in these halls.

Editor: As has happened on other public occasions there was a technology glitch. It is desirable for such events that a caretaker, security or/and a technology literate person would be on immediate standby.

 

Feynman (1999)

If diogenes were marooned on a desert island, he would like to have a copy of The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, by Nobel Laureate, Richard P Feynman, Perseus Books 1999. Feynman realised very early the difference between knowing what something is called and knowing something. Feynman, the father of nanotechnology, was a world-stature scientist, a talented enthralling lecturer, safecracker extraodinaire and wiseacre.

The book is based on a series of interviews and articles in a narrative short-story style. If you have something of the child, scientist, educator or humanist in you or would like a glimpse into that world, the book is compulsive reading.

 

Virtual Reality (2000)

A member of staff recently received a real serious e-mail to the effect: “University Diplomas for Bachelors, Masters, MBA, PhD in the field of your choice, no one is turned down, no tests, classes, books or interviews. Apply to:” Certificates@CarlowIT.ie:” [we have disguised the e-mail address which was given]

 

Tableau (1995)

Secret agent has unearthed a book entitled Tableau No 1 in Science Culture, Edited by Helen Brown and Jane O’Reilly, published by Tableau Networks, Cork RTC 1995. The publication consists of six papers on a variety of mainly-science subjects, from astronomy to ‘the thinking radish’ and the harmonic oscillator. Beautifully illustrated by their Crawford arts division, the book acknowledges as facilitators, the Director, Registrar, Financial Controller, Assistant Principal and Head of the Social Studies Department. The paper by John Murphy, Science Appeal is most illuminating. It alludes to the unwisdom of leaving science to the scientists, drawing on philosophy and education theory to make a number of his points. He asks if students should be allowed to avoid a subject because they claim it is difficult. He suggests the development of science and art interdisciplines. It is a pity however that perhaps only scientists will read this article. Methinks the subject matter is more relevant to others.

 

Optical Switch  (Jan 2001)

Lene Hua of Harvard University Physics Department and her team have produced light with a velocity of 28 metres per second. A laser pulsed through sodium gas held at 0.9 micro Kelvin degrees, was reduced to 28ms-1, thereafter resuming its normal velocity. By using a coupling laser, the pulse beam is absorbed by the Na atoms and released coherently after the coupling laser is turned off. This technique for ‘storing’ a coherent pulse, could herald a brave new future for optical electronics light switching (photonics actually) and contribute massively to quantum computing. Those into science may need to brush up on their velocity versus group velocity stuff and their spectroscopic energy-levels transitions. See Nature, vol.409, p 490. 2001-18  0157:H7  (Jan 2001)

E.coli 0157:H7 causes symptoms in 75,000 people in the USA, annually. There is no effective treatment. It is quite frequently fatal. A few outbreaks have been found in Ireland. There is a genome map in Nature vol.409, page 530. Educated citizens should be harrowing their politicians until this bug is defined as a notifiable disease. Since this, usually food-borne microbe can spread and multiply so quickly, it is important to investigate the source and stop it quickly. Notification would then be a legal obligation and more likely to encourage action earlier rather than after deaths or epidemics have occurred.

 

The Jurist (2000)

Diogenes has again been abroad and tripped over a copy of the annual legal journal, The Irish Jurist, 2000. This is no lightweight publication and those who know the legal profession will know that they spend very little time in mutual admiration. It is all the more refreshing then, that Professor W.N. Osborough of UCD, in reviewing our Dr Michael Farry’s book Education and the Constitution, Round Hall Sweet and Maxwell, 1996, says that it “ achieves a high standard of critical comment” and goes on to illustrate at length, the strength of the various chapters.  Osborough, noting there have been developments since the book’s publication, says “remains valid and of very considerable utility”. The review advises that the book should present ‘no insuperable intellectual challenge to patient teachers of any level’ and is… ‘undeniably of crucial political significance’.    

Nice to see one of our own so highly regarded on the national stage.

 

Entreprenurialship (1999)

A programme to help young entrepreneurs to set up there own businesses was pioneered in DIT, which provides instruction material and advice on how to set up your own business. This programme was extended to all the ITs a few years ago. WIT expended £118,920 on this activity in 1999 according to the Operational Programme for Industrial Development, South-East Region, Annual report 1999.

Also the South East Regional Authority’s Annual Report 1999, is a useful guide to employment, budget utilisation, waste management, EU Community Support Framework, teleworking, cultural and information strategies.

Editor: Our Bob Stacey serves on that Authority. Former Carlow Engineering staff member, Dave Kennedy, now in DIT is highly skilled in business development activity and had contributed to Carlow’s student enterprise programme.

 

Hypertension (Feb 2001)

A CNN health-watch report has it that babies who were breast-fed have a lower propensity to high blood pressure later in life. This writer, while predisposed to agree with practices that are millions of years old, would be happier with sight of the full epidemiological evidence so as to rule out life-style, ethnicity and other factors. Nonetheless, CNN tends to attempt to be objective (the US presidential election results aside).

 

Doubtful (1964)

Nobel laureate Richard Feynman considers the determining feature of a scientist and his consequential implication that of the mentally secure human person, is her freedom to doubt. He also assumes that not knowing, is the preferred and by implication happier state, than that of knowing. For, he concludes, that there is no point in seeking (happy scientist) to know, if you already do know. This interesting viewpoint contrasts with the stereotypical scientist who cannot accept anything unless they can prove it to be true.

The one view often refutes the existence of God because he cannot prove the proposition to be true. Feynman on the other hand refutes that proposition because it is a doubtful proposition!

Whether scientists, churchmen, trade union negotiators or otherwise professed, it is amazing how we can all write the conclusion first and fill in the report later. Or write the minute of a meeting before it is held.

 

Free Service to Staff (2000)

www.vts.rdn.ac.uk will give you free access to “Teach yourself Internet skills tutorials”. Some 36 tutorials are in the pipeline, each tailored to a different discipline, for example “Internet for Lawyers”. Students, teachers and researchers will find them of value.

 

Salary Increase (Feb. 2001)

Sixty one year old David Komansjky, CEO of Merrill Lynch, drew down a salary of $32.5million over the last year, an 88% rise on the previous year. Rumour has it that his comment that he would name his successor this year, might be subject to review.

 

We are in it Together (Feb. 2001)

In response to the Government’s Task Force on the physical sciences, the Association of Heads of School of Science have submitted a paper recommending:

1.    A welcome for the establishment of the task force and endorsement of the recommendations of the        Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Science’s Report on Science and Technology and the ICSTI    reports on science in primary and second level schools.

2.        That the Institutes should play a major role in the Science Education Technical Support Centres proposed by the joint committee.

3.        That one member of staff from each institute should be seconded for a three-year period to the activities of these support centres.

4.        Collectively, the ITs should co-operate with the Education Centres, Unions, Universities, Industry and other interested parties in pursuance of the joint committee’s recommendations on primary and secondary education.

5.         

At the speed of light (Feb. 2001)

Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Rowland Institute for Science and Harvard University have succeeded in slowing down the speed on light in a cell by up to one millisecond. The feat, in two cases, depends on cooling a gas of alkali metals (rubidium and sodium) to very low temperatures and bombarding it first with a coupling laser and then a probe laser. The first laser is said to change the electron populations in two energy levels (presumably putting electrons in a high energy state). The second resonantly excites one of the affected energy levels (this writer presumes the lower, depleted population level) and a third energy level. The effect of the coupling laser, in addition to altering the populations so that absorption of the second laser cannot go ahead, is to increase the refractive index of the medium, at the frequency of the probe laser.

Thus the light pulse from the probe laser is slowed down. When the coupling laser is turned off, the pulse gets absorbed (or trapped inside the cell). When it is turned back on the pulse is regenerated, with all the information it carried before it hit the cell. In theory the light can be stopped and its speed reduced to zero.

In case you would run out to celebrate this achievement, note might be taken that the ‘immutable’ speed of light refers to the group velocity of light travelling in a vacuum and may still be immutable. There are those unbelievers however who doubt Einstein’s hypothesis that the speed of light is a universal invariant constant C.

Readers may also be interested in work at the University of Toronto, reported last year, which showed that a new chemical material has been produced that can trap light inside a manufactured ‘empty ‘ cell and hold it there indefinitely.

 

Foetusless (Feb. 2001)

The Irish Times reports that stem cells, so vital in repairing brain damage, have been isolated from placentas and umbilical cords. A welcome pressure off the ‘commercial’ demand for aborted foetuses.

 

Alive alive oh (Nov. 2000)

The Irish Scientist, Millennium edition is out. It is with excitement that I scanned the pages of this huge full-colour magazine report (each item short), covering much of the excellent work being done in Ireland. Date rape and the specific substances involved is covered, four articles concerning work at Carlow, “the most innovative courses in the country” offered by Dun Laoghaire Institute of Technology!, “the moon is receding from the earth at the rate of 3.8cm per year”, “mhionscrúdú patrúin tuin éagsúla” are included. The laymanese style is accessible to everyone. Do have a read. Much of the contents will impact on business, health and industry in the not too distant future.

Editor: It has not sunk in to the general public and many of us even in the business that the rate of change in society is continuing to accelerate. The amount of things still to be found out is actually increasing as new science opens escalating avenues of further study. It may be too late for you and I but be assured you cannot prepare your children or those in your care sufficiently in the sciences, to allow them to cope with their future. The explosion in biotechnology and optronics alone will leave the high speed computer and telecom developments in the snail mail lane.

 

Alzheimer’s (Dec. 2000)

Christopher Janus et of the University of Toronto Medical Faculty, have shown that an amyloid b-peptide ‘vaccine’ administered to mice, significantly reduced plaques in the brain and improved learning performances. Tests will now be carried out on humans.

Editor: On another health theme, an acquaintance bought one of those £5000 homeopathy machines. When an aunt was plugged in, it registered ‘foot and mouth disease’. Since the aunt’s hooves are not cloven, so far as is known, it was bemusing. On the other hand the machine operator did not know that hand foot and mouth disease does attack humans and is fatal for some babies and old folk. Some serious outbreaks have recently occurred in Singapore and thereabouts!

 

Whoosh… (Dec. 2000)

Astrophysicist Norm Murray, tier I chair holder at the University of Toronto, notes that huge (like Jupiter) planets circle around distant stars every three days. Since life exists on planet earth, it is interesting to note that 60 new planets have been discovered since 1995. Jupiter takes 12 years to go around the sun! His novel explanation proposes that the planet ejects material ‘out the back’ sufficient to increase its speed (remember action and opposite reaction when you went to school?). Sounds like clutching at straws to this respondent; enigmatic just the same.

 

Western (Jan. 2001)

Nice to see the University of Western Ontario publishing Information and its full income and expenditure accounts and future projections. Total expenditure was C$295m, operating on a 47% Government grant the Foundation fund stood at C$73m (largely donations) see http://www.uwo.ca/wetern/Budget2001/. A lovely idea they have there, that a graduating class or another, for $500, can plant a tree and a plaque to celebrate their graduation or to commemorate a dead colleague etc.

2001-43  A turbulent existence (Dec 2000)

An instrument in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has two arms, each of four kilometres long, at right angles, which meet at a vertex. A laser beam is split at the vertex and sent down each arm, being then reflected back. A gravitational wave is expected to shrink one arm and elongate the other. Interference in the returning beams can show down to a billionth of a wavelength of light, variations in the lengths of the arms. Another device in Hanford, Washington will carry out experiments in parallel. The mirrors will wobble due to the uncertainty in the photon impacts on them, among other effects. A side effect of the experiment will give some insight into the frothy uncertainty in time and space at very short distances and in particular what is likely to be happening close to the nucleus and when small particles get close together. It should not be assumed that space and time behave like our world appears to, down at these minute distances.

 

Bursaries (Mar 2001)

The London Youth Science Fortnight interviews, were conducted on 22/3/01, by Joe Feeley, Ita Mitchell and Frank Quinn, who interviewed three science and two engineering first year students. Science student Orla Dunne was adjudged the best candidate under the regulations. Thanks are due to the NCEA for funding the trip and Ita for coordinating. We know that Orla will enjoy it and be enriched by her interaction with students from some 70 nations and exposure to experts in several fields of science and visits to famous science, industry and medical facilities. Well done Orla, Ita, panel and all those who support the programme.

Intel awards: Four science and one networking first year student’s names were forwarded to (23/3/1 by e-mail attachment) for the Intel £2000 per annum (through to graduation) bursary and summer work offer. Rae Jordan and Ray Benson organised the not inconsiderable task of cajoling students into making application.

 

Right-side Brain (18-22 April 2001)

Carlow Choral Society performed in the Irish Ambassador’s residence in Rome and at the Basilicas of San Clemente and San Sabena. The choir also rendered Deus Meus adiuva me, in an underground mass service, adjacent to the original (San Callistus, 35 acres of burials on four levels, to a depth of over 80 feet) catacombs interment site, of the bones of martyred St Cecelia, patron saint of music. A visit to the Eternal City is an unforgettable, mind-expanding seminal experience. Overuse of descriptive superlatives leaves this writer short of ways to express the overload of visual and auditory stimulation raining in from even any, small, randomly chosen area of this modern city. Surely no city on earth can present such awe-inspiring, incongruous to some, experiences.

A young Irish priest, from Belfast, is studying theology in the ancient basilica of San Anselma, it being adjacent to the oldest continuously used church in Rome, San Sabena, founded in 432AD, it being the world headquarters of the Benedictine order, whose Secretary General is an Irishman, McCarthy. The young priest receives the issues of the Applied Mathematics Journal, because of his love affair with astrophysics. Art, archives, architecture, science, literature and history abound; the ancient infuses every square metre, modern progress lying accommodatingly comfortable between. Cicero’s De Senectute,  Augustus Ceasar’s De Belli Gallico and stories of tribunes’ triumphal entries along the Appian Way are no longer divorced, distant or dead.

Mille grazie Roma, arrivederci. This writer will return.

 

Management Interference (2001)

Michelangelo Buonarroti was pretty fed up and had to be coaxed to finish the work on the Sistine and Pauline Chapels. The Pope of the day had his own ideas of what should be done, how it should be done and where particular pieces should be sequenced. Little of this tension strikes the visitor to the Vatican Museums. Any but the completely brain dead must be awe-inspired at the grandeur and extent of the works of science, art, history and archaeology surrounding, rather than displayed to, the visitor. You must exit through a window along a catwalk some 5 stories above street level and renter through another window to continue your logistically structured tour of this world famous museum. Evenso, your feet will wear out long before you finish if you are determined to enter each exhibition room.

One room, and you could easily miss it is air-conditioned and light controlled. It houses Raphael Sanzio’s Transfiguration of Christ. The radiance and detail of the master’s work amazes, could it be back-lighted, one wonders?  Said never to have been publicly released, it was first seen at the foot of Raphael’s bier. The transfiguration is flanked, and every other wall of the room covered, by the famous tapestries, some extending to 30 feet in linear dimensions, cartooned by Raphael and executed in Belgium from 1516 to 1524. The most celebrated works of Rubens, Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio and so on, in wall-to-wall profusion, envelope the visitor as he returns to the main tour route. A day might easily have been passed on that detour alone, and still there is perhaps a mile or more to go.

Prepare to want to return to the Vatican Museums and another 18,000Lira. Throughput traffic is carefully controlled by streaming the initial entry and by the tangible psychological urge to move forward uni-directionally to the Sistine Chapel. All in all an indigestion of right brain nourishment.

 

Another Protein (2001)

Michael Julius, a University of Toronto professor has discovered a protein in breast milk that ‘jump-starts’ the newborn’s immune system. While other babies will eventually develop full immune systems, breastfed babies will be healthier and more robust, he says. The protein will be studied as a possible additive to ‘formulas’.

 

E-males (2001)

Studies show that dating by e-mail is growing in Canada (over one million have visited dating sites). Males outnumber females by 2 to 1 on the net and tend to be well educated, employed and sociable. They also tend be less than accurate 25% of the time, about such matters as age, appearance and marital status. That being said, its an alternative for the busy female who may not get out to clubs, bars or cafés frequently enough.

 

Fat (2001)

Canadian scientists have found impaired memory and learning, in rats who were fed on a high fat diet. Glucose given to these high-fat rats significantly improved their memories.

 

Nenagh (1901)

John Desmond Bernal, world famous crystallographer and founder of the modern discipline of molecular biology was born in Nenagh and received his early schooling locally, according to Charles Mollen. One of his students won a nobel prize in chemistry, she, Dorothy Hodgkin, protested that it should have been a joint award with Bernal. JD’s prolific activities, included such writings as The Social Function of Science, Science in History are said to have been responsible for his not winning Nobel Prizes several times over, had he just stuck with a limited range of pursuits. Colourful and intellectually remarkable Bernal died of stroke complications in 1971.

 

Electronic Winners (May 2001)

Well done to staff who helped with the application process and the students who won the Intel Scholarships: A £2000 per annum scholarship, till graduation, plus summer work has been won by Thomas Foley (1st year electronics). Runner up prizes were also awarded to - Orla Dunne (Science) and Stephen Syder (Electronics)

 

Tooth Fairy (May 2001)

A recent newspaper report advises that a number of County Councils are considering their policy of adding fluoride to drinking water. The article is devoid, as are many newspaper items, of factual information. This is not surprising due to the avoidance of the study of science at school. The paper quotes dentists as afraid that the public may be alarmed by 'unsubstantiated' adverse evidence. The paper does offer that Ireland’s dental health is sixth in Europe (behind five who do not add fluoride to their water) It is alarming that ill informed dental technicians can pontificate to the great unwashed, ill-informed public, about matters which they clearly do not themselves understand. Statistically valid results establishing tooth of gum disease to dietary fluoride deficiency appear to be grossly deficient. The issue is "what quantity of fluoride, and in what form is the optimum intake of fluoride for the average human" and then "how does this vary according to the ethnicity, physiology and state of health of the individual". It is definite that excess fluoride, often increased by food, tooth paste and fluids, can cause gum lesions and other damage. The argument could be settled by adequate study. For example what is the average intake of fluoride in those countries that have a lower disease rate? What percentage of this comes from what source. How does this intake compare with the intake in Ireland? Given the current state of knowledge the wisest course of action would be to immediately half the level of fluoride added to Irish drinking water.

 

Filthy habit (May 2001)

Cleaning yourself to death, by Pat Thomas, New Leaf [2001, Gill and Mcmillan Ltd] (jmarms@irish-times.ie) reports that several thousand chemicals, mostly obtained from petrochemicals are used in 'fragrance' manufacture. Only some 20% have been tested for safety, most of these have been found toxic to humans, (some of which are said to produce cancer, birth defects, central nervous system disorders, allergic reactions, and skin irritation). Potential chronic problems can include (we need to separate this 'scare' sentence from its true statistically relevant meaning) asthma, headaches, migraines, inability to concentrate, mood changes, nausea, short-term memory lapse, restlessness, depression, lethargy and sinus pain, says the author. her is some truth in here but  there clearly is  need to (i) study the safety of the remaining thousands of chemical s and (ii) we need to have legislation which is as binding as food additives are when it comes to deliberate injection of chemicals into the air we breath. Second hand fragrance will shortly be as serious a threat as second hand smoke and in the US many buildings have been declared 'fragrance free'

 

ICI Congress (25 May 2001)

The Institute of Chemistry of Ireland came to Carlow for its Annual Congress adopting as its theme Chemistry and the Environment.

 

 

 

 

Papers were delivered by Padraic Larkin EPA on The role of the Chemist in Protecting the Environment, Imelda Shanahan, TMS Environmental Ltd. On Effectiveness Strategies for Reducing National Emission of Greenhouse Gases and SO2, Sean Marshall, AGB Scientific on Environmental Measurement in the Regulated Laboratory, Ian McAuliffe, Glaxo Smith Kline on Environmental control in a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, Ken Macken, EPA Thermal treatment of waste, Teri Hayes, KTCullen Water and Ground Water Quality, and Gerald Fleming, Met Éireann on Climate Change –what we know and what we don’t know. A most entertaining ÉANNA Ní Lamhna, on a pet subject gave The fauna of Ireland an evening dinner address, in the Kilkea Castle Golf Club, The fauna of Ireland.

President, Professor Pratt opened proceedings and later asked the Head of the School of Science to convey the Institutes thanks and appreciation to the Board of Governors and the Director.

Dr Larkin pointed to the unknown affects of mixtures on humans and the environment. Of the millions of substances in use he said that only ten had been fully tested for ill factors. He said that it costs some €5 million to fully test one chemical. Green chemistry, he said is a concept that should now be adopted by chemists, that is choosing chemicals and chemical pathways likely to minimise the adverse environmental effects.

Sean Marshall embarked, for the purists, on a tour de force in respect of laboratories’ need to guarantee that instruments are maintained in a state of adequate-for-purpose.

Dr Imelda Shanahan presented the meeting with the current state of readiness under the Kyoto protocol. While huge reductions in CO2 levels could be achieved by limiting major energy producers reliance on solid fuels, she expressed disappointment with the lack of personal individual engagement in reducing greenhouse gases and waste generally. Her view is that it looks increasingly difficult to guarantee that Ireland will meet its obligations, especially in view of the lack of scientific awareness and essential commitment to action among the public.

Dr Ken Macken pointed out that the reason why incineration is objected to is because of the production of dioxins (chlorobiphenyls and furans). These are collectively known to produce cancer in humans at very low levels of exposure. He noted that the production of dioxins DOES require the presence of chlorine atoms (frequently included as an element in plastics and some pesticides). He went on to say that the EU minimum ingestion level for dioxins was 7picogrammes per Kg of body weight. Current technology however allows burning material down to a level of 0.01pg per cubic metre of down stream air. This level is considerably less than the amount found normally in one glass of milk.

Ian McAuliffe gave a most thorough expose of the methodologies in use in SKB in Cork, to deal with all gas, liquid and solid effluent (waste) from their plant. A clear economic advantage accrued by using waste as a feedstock or for other productive purposes. Considerable care is also shown in the softening of otherwise visible harshness on the site.

Teri Hayes presented a most informative analysis of the hydrogeological cycle for rain and its percolation underground. In particular she showed how polluting materials in the soil could travel at from some metres per year to some kilometres per day depending on the soil or ground characteristics. Accordingly the residence time underground, the ground temperature, the distance from the source and the nature of the pollutant will all have a bearing on the quality of water extracted from the ground, whether the polluting agent be biological or other material.

Gerald Fleming, well known for his presenting the weather forecast, gave the current model of global warming showing a rise of some 1.5 to 2 degrees centigrade per century. Few realise the dramatic effect this will cause. The issue is that climate depends on extremely small differences in several gigantic air mass movements which in turn depends on the difference between the huge amounts of energy arriving here from the sun and the huge amount reradiated back out into the atmosphere. Currently we have injected colossal amounts of CO2 and other gases into our air. The CO2 absorbs a particular wavelength of the reradiated energy thus retaining it in the atmosphere.

From Ireland’s perspective most energy arrives at the equator which heats the air which carries more water aloft. These clouds travel north over the top of the Azores (high-pressure area) and it drops down in mid Atlantic to move then into Ireland. The consequence is that we should experience warmer winters AND colder summers. Gerald notes that the large rises in sea-level predicted by the model will be caused by the physical expansion of the warmer water, not so much, as has been incorrectly assumed, by the melting of the polar icecaps.

Local organisers Una Ní Ghogain and her team, Brigid O’Regan, Ray Benson, Ita Mitchell, John McGillicuddy, Brian O’Rourke and Nuala Eades mounted a thoroughly professional Congress and are commended for the smooth organisation of same. Dr Joe Eades Institute Registrar was a most helpful as was the Institute of Technology Development Office staff. A number of other staff lent physical and moral support. Such events are not only and economic and tourist asset to the community but serve to admit a breath of thought provoking fuel for the College intellect. Well done all.

Editor: The Kyoto Protocol sets down a reduction of greenhouse gases, by 2012, of 7% for the US, 8% for Europe and 6% for Japan, based on a 1990 base year. Ireland has exceeded its 2012 quota already. The US has announced that it does not intend to abide by the protocol. This writer does not know which nations have currently ratified the protocol. The NY Academy of Science writes that the US is concerned (i) that the rate of warming may depend on the higher emissions from the sun (you could read this as they don’t know if its emissions are LOWER either) and (ii) that the proposed system where one nation buys an emission quota from another is unenforceable. There are so many health and economic advantages to be gained by a reduction in pollution that bureaucratic wrangling should not be used to prevent a start being made.

Carbon dioxide is said to last 100 years in the atmosphere, methane about a decade, nitrous oxide about 120 years while chlorofluorocarbons are given a lifetime of 50,000 years. It takes no expert to see that even with massive reductions in such gases immediately the damage will stay with us for over 100 years and continuing our profligacy will mean a hugely reduced living surface, huge UV radiation damage potential and filthy suffocating air, for those only a few generations hence.

 

Edtech (25 May 2001)

The second Educational Technology Users Conference was run by Sligo Institute of Technology. Addressed by Minister Mary O’Rourke, she announced a study to lay a fibre optic cable from Kerry to Donegal to serve the needs of the west. The conference heard that the Director at Tallaght had applied for £1.5 million in funding to run a pilot programme of internet courses starting with e-commerce, manufacturing technology and staff development. The conference heard that in Ireland 4% of third level students were over 23 while the OECD average was 40%. The Institutes would not survive said Brian Mulligan of Sligo unless we could compete with institutions like Columbia University who offer courses over the net.

Editor: Irish companies Riverdeep and Smartforce are already leaders in selling course material over the internet to the US. MIT has announced that it will put most of their courses up, for free, on the web within 10 years!

 

Time Management (Timeless)

The Research Student's Guide to Success by Pat Cryer, Open University Press 1996, is commended to

staff and students alike. Those who have not engaged in deep research over an extended period of time, to tight deadlines and under the watchful eye of critical and fastidious supervisors are frequently unlearned in the techniques necessary to  produce excellent work. Facts can be sloppily or inadequately verified, arguments contradictory, spelling and grammar at odds with linguistic practice, incommunicative or even inane. Some make no attempt to remedy their malady or worse still don’t even recognise it.

Conscientious and thorough study will hone other life skills as well as those inherent in the subject matter. The researcher should learn what to do when meetings are cancelled at short notice (p94), when to use the  'psychological' moment (p97) and to cope with criticism and unprofessional behaviour (pp66-67). The book contains much more and highly valuable, clearly expounded do’s and don’ts. Highly recommended. Similar skills can be developed under a similarly critical environment but there is nothing like the pressure imposed by an internationally respected supervisor whose reputation might be tarnished by her assent to sloppy work.

 

Musicality (May 2000)

Barbara Conable in her “The Structures and Movement of Breathing, GIA Publications 2000 speaks of a number of benefits of singing which carry over as assets to daily occupations. To those who are not attuned it may be difficult to appreciate that sitting, standing and body posture generally, which when suitably practised informs such disparate activities as hiking, tennis, and even sitting at a computer.

The ideal head, spine, diaphragm, pelvis and relative ankle positions, for producing good tonal quality also appear to be the most conducive to good metabolism and posture generally, she says.

Certainly the neck, leg and chest muscles will announce in no uncertain terms their stress during several hours of practice or performance especially if an unsuitable posture pertains. It is not so readily appreciated that laryngeal and throat muscles can so constrict the voice as to downgrade tonal quality dramatically even if imperceptible to the performer.

Also, music, but signing in particular, acts itself on the physiology and psychology to effect states of relaxation. Music like art and most emotional stimulating things is a right brain function but in so saying the effect on the left brain functions is certain but very little understood. Certainly the Greeks classified music as an integral part of mathematics.

Singing especially of the bel canto status, refines the skills of concentration, reading, diction and linguistics as well as providing a modicum of physical exercise. Certainly mental and physical stress can be relieved through the act of singing.

Music may in some circles be regarded as a matter of aesthetics or unproductively artistic. It is of course much more and even if t’were so, these values are universal and impinge on the rest of existence. Those who profess an ignorance of music are little removed from those who loudly proclaim an unfamiliarity with science; confined to walk the earth………..

Don’t deny your children their genius within.

Editor: Carlow town boasts a number of prize-winning musical groups, a school of music, noted musicians and a senior choir which can command international repeat performances. The Institute of Technology contains musicians of note who have attracted national accolades. A former staff member leads a well-respected brass ensemble in Waterford. There has always been an opening for artistic studies supportive of the community in Carlow and the opportunity to do so has not entirely gone.

 

Bullying. The Health and Safety Office www.has.ie/osh has a booklet on Bullying at Work”.

 

Materials (2000/2001) 

The annual TCD alumni and friends trinity today publication, announces the new Institute of Advanced Materials which has launched a new degree in the physics and chemistry of advanced materials. Semiconductors, lasers, optical fibres, magnetic materials and polymers form the core of the programme. The University also announces the Visa affinity-card, which grants £10 per year to a TCD trust fund without cost to the user. The Physics Department has launched a schools web page to improve children’s perspective on physics. The anti-Bullying unit of TCD says that it carries out independent investigations into alleged cases of bullying. Professor Michael Laver responsible for academic management at TCD, says that a broad curriculum aimed at producing talented individuals who are intellectually able, self-confident and adaptable is preferred to presenting students with facts that may soon become outdated.

 

Choral matters (June 2001)

The Éigse festival (15-24 June) hosted Carlow Youth Choir, Carlow Young Artists Choir, St Leo’s Chamber Choir and Graiguecullen Men’s and Ladies Choirs, Carlow Choral Society and other musical ensembles; The RTE Concert Orchestra, the Army No.1 Band, Róisín Dubh, Juliet Turner, the Saw Doctors and much more filled out the musical experience.

Carlow Choral Society, recently returned from performances in Rome (San Clemente, Santa Sabena and the Irish Embassy-a Choral Society Newsletter covering the event is available from the editor-, performed in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Carlow on 17th June, with the Orchestra of St Cecilia, conducted by Blánaid Murphy, accompanist Máire Mannion. The fare included the mysteriously commissioned Mozart’s Requiem (K626), finished by Sussmeyer, Laudate Dominum, Ave Verum Corpus, and choral favourites by Bach, Brahms and others, performed to a full house. The event provided a stage for developing talents; Collette Boushell (soprano), Marcella Robinson (mezzo), Eamon Mulhall (tenor), all students at DIT Conservatory of Music and John Dempsey (bass) a graduate of CIT School of Music, as soloists.

The Society also performed in Carlow (8 Dec), Dublin (NCH-19/20 Dec) and Halifax (England-21 Oct) and scheduled for the Bach festival in Dublin and Prague in 2002.

 

 

Communicate or Perish (1997)

“It is the province of knowledge to speak and the privilege of wisdom to listen” said O W Holmes. J H Lehr writes of boring speakers “They are not sophisticated and erudite, speaking above our intellectual capability; they are arrogant thoughtless individuals who insult our very presence by their lack of concern for our desire to benefit from a meeting which we chose to attend…and should be punished by stoning”

If you wish to be a good communicator you should read Martha Davis, Scientific Papers and Presentations, Academic Press 1997, a very sound and comprehensive review of all the dos and don’ts. Whether it is giving a talk or presenting slides, a paper, poster or dissertation, chairing a meeting or just listening, whether you are a teacher, administrator or student or even if only preparing a table, handbook or short presentation, you should, at the very minimum, read Lehr’s Editorial on page 263. [Paper reviewing, abstracts, titling, colour, relative typefaces and more are covered]

Many of us that fail to recognize our own limitations but its worse when we do not make the effort to learn from experienced hands.

There is a useful book by Clifford Matthews A Guide to Presenting Technical Information, Professional Engineering Publishing, 2000. Which might be consulted for its range of different methods of presenting data graphically, including a treatment of reporting statistics. [A useful pair, in our library]

 

Moling (Sept. 2001)

Sr Declan, Máire B. de Paor PBVM has published her long awaited Life of Moling, Saint Moling Luachra, The Columba Press, Dublin 2001. Following on her recent publication of the life of Saint Patrick, the launch of her book, by Most Reverend Laurence Ryan in the Carlow County Council Offices is a fitting tribute to Carlow and the life efforts and dedication of this respected teacher. Máire has earlier been in demand as a speaker by virtue of her work on Moling’s Leabhair Bui, including her enumeration of the use of a long lost technique of writing towards the centre of a story (the punch line) and receding then towards the end. A paper on this technique, demonstrated through the Leabhair Bui, is available, as are others of her publications.

You will find some fascinating connections between Kerry, Limerick, Wicklow and Carlow and dare I say illicit liaisons in the book, not to mention a long lost writing technique. We applaud this most scholarly work and her continuing ‘retirement’ studies. Our own Rev John Cummins has provided a review in the current edition of Furrow.

 

Stem Cell Research (Sept. 2001)

It appears that stem cells can be extracted and injected into diseased or otherwise damaged organs of any sort. The stem cells develop new cells of the particular type (even when they seem to be unrelated types) needed for that damaged organ. Thus NYAS Academy Updates Sept 2001 gives details of a damaged mouse heart (heart attack), regenerating the damaged cells after injection with stem cells taken from the marrow of an healthy animal. Knowledge to date, shows that stem cells may be recovered at least from embryos, placentas, umbilical cords or bone marrow. The meaning of stem cells, pluripotent and totipotent cells, will be found at: http://www.nih.gov/news/stemcell/primer.htm

 

 

Conry Again (Nov. 2001)

Respected archaeological historian Professor Michael Ryan gave a spirited launch to Michael Conry’s latest book, Dancing the Culm, Chapelstown Press, 2001, in the Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny on 21st Nov 2001. A huge attendance mopped up every copy, four at a time on occasion, of the, Kilkenny People printed, hard back edition at £30 apiece. An agricultural science colleague from Teagasc, Dr Michael Conry has produced his fifth book, drawing as it does on observations made while engaged in his former duties. Michael obtained his doctorate from TCD while still in professional employment, a graduate of the University of Ghent and UCD, hails from county Roscommon, is a respected soil scientist, accomplished publisher of numerous scientific papers, a bridge player of note and is a proliferate contributor to the heritage of the environs of Carlow.

As with his book on the Carlow stone wall, this contribution to economic history would have been irretrievably lost to posterity, had he not committed the technology to paper. Gleaning his material not only from his direct observations but by personal interviews of scores of local residents, Michael paid tribute to the many people who provided assistance, tinged with regret for the many who have by now gone to their eternal reward. Culm was burned in Ireland over a time span of some 400 years throughout areas extending for some 30-40 miles radius around the coalfields of Ireland, including of course Carlow town and county.

The book is lavishly infused with personal anecdotes, colour and black and white plates of the technology, people and places of immediate relevance, injecting a certain Irish resonance to the work. In good times, but especially the less good, local people retrieved economic value from otherwise rejected coal and in doing so kept the home and industries’ fires burning, in the Castlecomer, Killeshin, Ballingarry, Arigna and surrounding hinterlands. Michael pays particular tribute to the women of Ireland for their enormous contribution to the technology of culm bomb making.

Scientists, economic and other historians and populations local to the coalfields of Ireland will enjoy a great read in this well bound and presented, 333 page book. [I cannot let the opportunity slip by without noting that the Round Tower of Killeshin, a place featured in the book, is said to have been felled at 3pm, after 3 days work, on the 3rd day of the 3rd month and some say the 3rd year of the 17th century] It can truly be said, mar a duirt Tomás Ó Criomhthain, in respect of this window on our heritage, that it was written “chun go mbeinn beo is mé marbh”. Academicians in a disparate range of disciplines, world wide, will have much recourse to it, preserving the technical, sociological and historic life of Irish culm, into the distant future.

Michael has done us all a great service with passion, attention to detail and a love of place.

 

Ebola Virus (2001)

Ten fatalities have been reported recently in Africa. Host, environment, transmission and cure are very poorly understood if at all. A potential time bomb, this protein packet is among thousands of viruses which need urgent study. Details are available at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/ebola.htm 

 

Anthrax, BSE and F&M disease are pointed to information sources in www.scienceireland.ie