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Day: 20 March 2017

Controversy: Animal testing

Written by Serena Holloway on . Posted in News, Opinion, Science & Tech.

The use of animals in science can be traced back as far as the Ancient Greeks. Since then, huge advancements in science and medicine have been made — something that many scientists argue wouldn’t have been possible without animal testing. As a neuroscientist, I agree.

Despite this, the morality of animal testing has been debated since the 17th century, and in more recent years, animal rights groups have placed the practice under severe criticism, with convincing arguments. But if so many people are unhappy about it, why does scientific research continue to use animal testing on such a large-scale?

A significant amount of the knowledge we have today on the human body’s anatomy and functions can be traced back to animal research. It is a vital part of understanding what happens in a whole, living body. A lot of research can be conducted on cells grown in a laboratory, or on organ and tissue donations, and for most experiments, this is the case. However, certain areas of research are only truly successful when studying a complete, living organism. A prime example of one such organism is the giant squid, from which the basics of the human nervous system were learnt.

But why should humans use animals in this way simply to advance their scientific knowledge?

Well, the knowledge gained from animal research forms a vital foundation in understanding human disease. Many animals experience diseases also found in humans; dogs suffer with cancer, diabetes ,and cataracts; rabbits experience atherosclerosis (hardened arteries) and birth defects such as spina bifida.

In using these animals as models of human disease, researchers can explore potential treatments for these conditions. Animal research has enabled us to invent treatments for cancer, eradicate smallpox, and polio, and to produce antibiotics for infections and insulin for diabetics.

There is no doubt that animal testing has improved human medicine. Yet because of this, animal rights activists argue that animals are tested upon selfishly for human benefit, but animal testing does not just benefit humans alone. Animal research has helped produced vaccines for rabies, tetanus, parvo virus, and a multitude of other illnesses in cats, dogs, and other domesticated animals. It can be argued that animal research has improved the health of all living species.

Within pharmaceutical companies, animal testing is viewed as the ‘gold standard’ when investigating the safety of potential new drugs in humans. Asthma, hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, depression, and angina are all currently treated by drugs that have successfully passed safety tests conducted in animals. Paracetamol, the ‘go-to’ painkiller, for example, was tested on cats, dogs, hamsters, mice, pigs, primates, rabbits, rats, and zebrafish during its development.

But is this form of extensive testing necessary?

Activists argue there are many alternatives that can replace animal testing all together. For example, computer models are now being used to replicate aspects of the human body by conducting virtual experiments based on scientific data. The alternative use of stem cells has also increased — albeit with its own ethical issues — and innovative devices using human cells called ‘organs-on-chips’ are now being used instead of animal organs.

Scientists are greatly encouraged to ‘replace’ animal testing with these alternatives wherever possible in their experiments, as part of a set of principles known as the Three R’s: Reduction (use the minimum number of animals), Refinement (reduce their suffering) and Replacement (use alternatives). In fact, British law dictates that animal testing should only be used if a suitable alternative does not exist.

In my opinion, total elimination of animal testing would halt both medical and scientific progress. The advancements made in these areas so far would not have been made without the use of animal research. As long as the Three R’s are continually and effectively employed by scientists worldwide, I believe that the morality of animal testing in science cannot be questioned, especially when producing so many benefits to all species.

Student elections and ongoing contradictions

Written by Elliott Mills on . Posted in Opinion.

I planned to write an article where you think it’s about one thing, but it turns out to be satirising something else. It was going to start off being about how it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find Haribo Super Mix in the shops these days, and then be about something else, because obviously I’m not that bothered about the first issue. I don’t even eat Haribo Super Mix. Unfortunately, I could not think about what the initial Haribo issue would end up satirising. So it would have just been about Haribo.

I am going to write instead about the student elections, but the problem of the unsolved Haribo article has not left my mind. On the contrary, I find that part of me is still fixating on it. The point is that I don’t care about Super Mix at all, yet, this has already become an origin from which proceeds my obsession on the unsolvable nature of an increasingly confusing issue.

The obsession heightened such that, although it is still true to say that I essentially do not care about Haribo, it must be said that I simultaneously care about it a great deal. These two positions are antagonistic and damaging, but nevertheless exist together. An unhappy state of play this contradictory double-bind has turned out to be.

Well anyway, you probably have noticed that the student executive elections have once again come and gone. Signs were hanging up everywhere you turned. Walk to a lecture and someone would stop you to talk about improving students’ experiences of education. Go to the toilet and, from a poster on the cubicle door, urgently benevolent eyes would stare into yours. Whilst you are attending to the most basic welfare concern, the half-smiling face of the potential student representative tells you how they understand your concerns and care about your welfare. If they really did, you think, then they wouldn’t be trying to score political points when you are at your most defenceless.

All of this seems superfluous, each year nothing seems to change. This is why I didn’t vote and why only 16 per cent of students did. So, are the student executives who were elected really representing the student body? At this stage I don’t much care, nothing ever changes so it doesn’t really matter.

It seems as though young, predominantly middle class people with a good liberal education, many of whom are from London and the South East of England, are feeling politically disenfranchised. The representatives don’t seem to care about us, or, rather, it seems there is a cycle of mutually informing lack of care between the two parties.

The politically disenfranchised have more important things to contend with, like working out why on earth everyone voted wrong, leading to Brexit and Trump. The matter of student elections therefore takes a back seat. Yet I feel the need to go on, for something about it rankles, something unknown or undecidable.

It has been a long time coming and, having arrived at this point of rupture, we should be able to understand that all of the signs were there. The repetitious nature of identical campaigns failing to engage potential voters could only lead to a separation between the students and those who represent them.

Given this rupture between those who influence decisions and the people that these decisions may affect, you have to think about why it is that these executives are allowed control. Yes, sure, I initially made the point that nothing ever changes, but, on the other hand, what about all those obtrusive changes?

I don’t even read the Daily Star, but I am angry that the Student Union Senate banned the paper from the campus. Could the representatives not have done better to direct this decision in the Union and represent my opinion? Yes, sure, I initially made the point that they don’t represent me because I didn’t vote, but I still think they ought to.

So, to recap: there are some elections that are not going to change anything. So no one ever votes. The student representatives then don’t seem to represent the students. This creates a rupture between the political body and the disengaged majority. We then end up not caring and imagine that they too must not care because of the gulf between us. We then wonder how it is that university life is run without the will of the people.

From this, we begin to care a little. As I said, we begin to think about the unfairness of the operation. More than just think about it, though, we think about it angrily. We fixate, even. The increasingly difficult, unsolved issues surrounding this unfair process proliferates. Some might contend that, with violent and severe change, the whole system needs a shake-up.

Does this mean that we should lash out against the system in all situations like this? I cannot confirm nor deny. Does one’s indignation at the state of play validate bursting the ball so that there is no more play of which there might even be a state? Possibly, possibly not. Perhaps submitting this complex interplay to a yes or no framework does not do the matter justice.

But what a damaging, unhappy and confusing state it is that we now find ourselves ineluctably within.

Album: Ed Sheeran – ÷

Written by William Bain on . Posted in Music.

Released 3 March – via Atlantic

5/10

From the moment Ed Sheeran issued two new singles, ‘Castle on the Hill’ and ‘Shape of You’, on the 6th of January, the countdown was officially on for what is highly likely to be commercially the biggest British album of the year. As Sheeran’s third effort ÷ has been unveiled, the records have been tumbling.

÷ is the fastest-selling album ever by a male solo artist. At the time of writing, the Yorkshire-born singer-songwriter holds 16 of the top 20 spots in the UK Single Charts. The entire top 5 is made up of songs from ÷ — the first time any artist has achieved this. So, is ÷ the innovative, earth-shattering album that the album sales and overall hype suggest?

Not so much. Album opener ‘Eraser’ sounds awkwardly similar to late 90s pop as the 26-year-old inserts the topics of his childhood, youth, and later fame within his lyrics. The origins of the man are again a central theme to ÷’s next track ‘Castle on the Hill’, as Sheeran reminisces about his days “getting drunk with friends”, “smoking hand rolled cigarettes” and growing up in the Suffolk town of Framlingham.

Clearly Sheeran attempts to present himself as an everyday, typical bloke. “I’m just a boy with a one-man show, no university”, he sings on ‘What Do I Know?’, that starts to make the ‘Nice Guy’ image tiresome. Furthermore, he almost undoes his own self-made image. On ‘New Man’, Sheeran makes snide comments regarding his ex’s new boyfriend’s purse and bleached behind. It’s hardly a victory for you, Ed.

Yet, ÷ does present an artist aiming to fulfil his creative potential. While admirable, this ambition suitably divides the album into a mixture of successes and failures. Throughout the album, Sheeran demonstrates elements of rap, hip-hop, acoustic and, perhaps most notably, folk. ‘Galway Girl’ holds a particularly strong Irish-folk influence and is a song Sheeran claims in an interview with The Guardian that he had to push his label to include on ÷. He has boundless confidence, undoubtedly. However, sometimes this is the source of ÷’s mixed results.

Not that Sheeran will care what any critic has to say. Ed Sheeran is your average guy living the dream, selling out multiple nights at Wembley Stadium and his albums and topping charts around the globe. Singles such as ‘Shape of You’ has become the adopted Radio 1 anthem of recent times, and ‘Perfect’ and album closer ‘Supermarket Flowers’ have the dramatic and touching Ed Sheeran-ballad touch that ensure they will be the soundtrack to thousands of new romances this year.

÷ is vintage Sheeran; ambitious and occasionally adventurous but also lacking in sentiment and an aggressively mixed bag. The singles will continue to break records, the album tracks will be simultaneously adopted and loved by the many fans of Sheeran and ÷ itself will go on to sell millions. As he mentions in his Guardian interview, Ed Sheeran claims he ins’t bothered about critical success: “I’m at a point where, even if I get a one-star review for every album I release for the rest of my life, I’ll still be able to play music.”

All in all, job done.