Year: 2012

Teary-eyed naturalists may soon be making space on Darwin’s sentimental shelf of evolutionary dysfunction for the giant panda, ironically the immortal symbol of world conservation.

The epitome of dire survival ineptitude, the panda is built like a carnivore but sustains itself solely on low energy bamboo, and with such a pathetically comical appetite for lust, many leading conservationists believe this bear of the orient will never be able to survive in the wild successfully. Sympathetic athropomorphists may fear that the world has simply become fed-up with the giant panda’s forlorn efforts to survive in the wild.

Conservationists are now deliberating whether to accept the inevitable demise of such an endangered species, nervously discussing this paradigm shift of triage to focus efforts and funding on more hopeful endangered prospects. This may be the most pragmatic approach to take as some species, such as the giant panda and tiger, may simply be too expensive to save.

A survey of 583 scientists, conducted by Dr Rudd of the University of York, found an unsettling, albeit unsurprising, unanimity in the conservation community’s expectation of a major loss in biodiversity, as well as the crushing present reality reluctantly squeezing concepts such as triage out of their taboos. The study revealed that 99.5 percent of the community surveyed viewed that a serious loss of biological diversity is either ‘likely’, ‘very likely’ or ‘virtually certain’; with the tropical bounty of diversity that is the coral ecosystem expected as the unfortunate vulnerable habitat to be most seriously affected.

A remarkable 60 percent of respondents were proponents of decision criteria for the unashamed pragmatism of conservation triage to be established, in which resources are prioritised to not intervene to save some highly threatened species and focus on more buoyant conservation prospects.

Rudd identified the critical need for such a study: “As with climate change, the large level of investment needed if loss of biodiversity is to be stopped will result in an increase of public and political scrutiny of conservation science…That makes it important to show how much scientific consensus there is for both the problems and possible solutions.

“The survey posed the key questions facing conservation science: why people care, how priorities should be set, where our efforts should be concentrated and what action we can take,” commented Rudd. “Scientists were also asked about a range of potentially controversial statements about conservation strategies to gauge shifting opinions.”

Away from the public discord of the climate change community, naturalists were much more harmonious in their views of toxic human influence. In this survey, 79.1 percent of respondents stated that the acceleration of the loss of biological diversity due to human activities is virtually certain. In contrast, the survey of the bedlam over in the climate change camp inconclusively concluded that 61.9 percent thought climate change was underway, whereas only 55.1 percent  believed it to be accelerated by humans.

“Understanding the degree of consensus within the scientific community will help policy makers to interpret scientific advice, improving the likelihood of successful conservation initiatives,” concluded Rudd. “The extremely high level of consensus demonstrated by these results underlines the urgency of preventing further damage to the natural world.”

The debate is controversial, with wildlife experts and organisations disagreeing over the best course of action to take.

Paul Goldstein, a wildlife guide, acknowledged the controversy intrinsic within triage but maintained such action was necessary. He was unequivocally vocal in his assessment of certain endangered species which “cost too much to keep up and have little chance of ever living a natural life”, such as the giant panda. Goldstein was adamant that emotional provocations should be dispelled and the panda allowed to slide off the existential bamboo stalk into the abyss.

Diane Walkington, Head of Species at WWF-UK (World Wide Fund for Nature), argued against the application of triage, identifying the uncomfortably potent question of “Who will be charged with deciding which species should be saved above another?”

Proponents of triage have accused certain preservation efforts, such as for tigers and the giant panda, of not being pragmatic but merely buoyed by public adoration. However, Walkington identified that current conservation toiling largely equates to working to preserve a species’ habitat, and thus all the endangered species which share their habitat too. So she concluded that “wildlife, the environment and human activity are interlinked and it is clear that any effort to safeguard the natural world must be a package deal”.

Conservation scientists are not so arrogant or set upon a utopian ideal to believe the whole world will wait upon the findings of their collective conscience. It is fully understood that economic incentive has proven to be the only unfailing method to save species. The rewards for locals provided through conservation activities must be greater than the rewards for poaching or using the land for building and agriculture. With such an impending collapse of biodiversity on the horizon, clarifying academic opinion is a vital precondition to successful political lobbying, even if such discorded opinion over whether to bolster or desert the panda’s cause illustrates that the employment of triage is not black and white.

A tribunal has ruled that universities must reveal their animal research after a three year battle with the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV). This means universities may no longer be exempt from Freedom of Information requests.

Newcastle University, which has spent £230,000 on the legal battle, claims that the ruling could put their scientists in danger but the tribunal disagreed, stating that the lack of recent violence against researchers who carry out animal testing means this is not the case. The university now has to reveal Home Office licences which allow it to test on primates.

BUAV believe that trials carried out at Newcastle University which included invasive testing on monkeys by limiting their water supply and restraining them, did not benefit humans and were controversial and invasive. They cited the decision of the authorities in Germany who refused permission for the same research on primates.

After the ruling, Newcastle University revealed they will appeal against the ruling at the Court of Appeal. It plans to claim they do not need to share the licences because of the Animal Scientific Procedures Act.

The university released a statement about their research: “The university carries out a small amount of scientific work on primates where no alternative for the research exists and this is fully regulated by the Home Office.”

The President of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse, has called for the Freedom of Information Act to be reviewed. In an interview with The Independent, he said he believed the Act was being used as a “tool of intimidation” against scientists involved in what could be seen as controversial research.

Scientists have found that boys with autism have larger than average brains with 67% more neurons in their prefrontal cortex than boys without autism. The prefrontal cortex is thought to play a role in complicated behaviour such as the expression of personality and emotion, decision-making, and governing appropriate social behaviour.

The increased number of neurons in autistic brains is significant because neurons in almost all brain regions are generated before birth. Thus this suggests that either there is an overproduction of these cells while the children are in the womb, or that there is a less-than-average programmed death of these cells after birth to regulate cell numbers.

The results of this study will now need to be followed up to see if the effects are seen in further studies. If confirmed, then this will make it less likely that environmental factors after birth such as vaccination could be implicated in autism.

Adjust your headsets and step away from reality- the Russians are invading Europe and the USA. Only you and your global army of ‘brave soldiers’ can halt their advance. That is the slightly skewed view of the world that the millions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (MW3) gamers have been immersed in for the past brutal, insomniac-inducing weeks since the game’s release at midnight on the 8th November.

The title has ‘pwned’ the record for global sales for a videogame, grossing £490m in its first five days on sale, with more than 12 million units coveted by reclusive gamers in dark rooms  after the first week of sales. The Call of Duty series is one of the most successful in history, breaking sales records for the third year in a row following Black Ops last year and MW2 in 2009.

Despite alluring an entire generation into a fictitious oblivion of precision airstrikes and unbeaten kill streaks; this gun-toting, grenade-equipped Pied Piper has positively reinvigorated a nervous UK games market by tapping into such a strong demand from the public to become chair-slouching heroes, with this lazy approach to valour making their noble feats no less admirable.

Nancy Rothwell became the University’s first female president and vice-chancellor after Alan Gilbert retired from the position in 2010. If heading the university wasn’t enough to handle, Nancy is also president of the Society of Biology and a non-executive director of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.

In 2005, she received her DBE, to become Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell. Her first academic achievement was a first class degree in Physiology from the University of London, moving on to a PhD and DSc in the subject. Nancy eventually moved to Manchester in 1987, where she began her career at the University.

Taking charge of the country’s biggest university has not hindered Nancy’s passion for research, as she is still very active in her field of study within the Faculty of Life Sciences, and at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. She heads a team of 20 researchers in the study of the inflammation in stroke and brain haemorrhaging, producing finds which have attracted a considerable amount of financial input from outside of the university.

One aspect of Nancy’s research focuses on the involvement of a molecule produced by the brain, which seems to play a significant role in the inflammation and subsequent brain damage experienced after a stroke: interleukin-1 (IL-1). The research team has also been investigating the role of a substance that opposes the action of this IL-1, called the IL-1 receptor antagonist.

Kinert is a drug used in arthritis patients to counteract the inflammatory effects of IL-1. Nancy and her team are in the process of clinically trialling, and optimising the use of the drug in the treatment of stroke and other such inflammatory diseases of the brain. Their research could make headway into further understanding stroke, and potential treatments for the third biggest killer in the western world.

It is clear that Nancy, despite her commitments to the University as a whole, has not forgotten the reason why she entered into academia.

Further advancements in the fight against malaria have led to the development of an experimental vaccine, which has shown partial success in early clinical trials. Funded by GlaxoSmithKline, a global pharmaceutical company with headquarters in London, the new vaccine could control or even reverse the spread of malaria. This advancement has only been made possible due to the discovery of the specific component of human red blood cells that the malaria parasite Plasmodium needs in order to complete its life cycle.

As a hot topic in world health, advancements in the field of malaria have the potential to be over-sold; critics have dismissed the idea that this vaccine could one day prevent malaria.

As one of the most prevalent infectious diseases in the world, malaria kills around a million people every year. As a primary cause of both death and poverty in Africa, the fight against malaria has been ongoing for years. The malaria parasite is carried in a vector, the mosquito, and as a living animal it is almost impossible to control the many mosquito populations that are spread across Africa.

If this vaccine really could control the spread of malaria then it would mean hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved each year, but how realistic is the promise that this vaccine could change the world? The parasite Plasmodium is notorious for becoming resistant to drugs that are used to treat malaria; the use of a single vaccine throughout Africa may prove fatal if the Plasmodium were to mutate resistance. Another controversial criticism is that millions of people in Africa are currently starving to death as their livestock are dying from malaria, how could the potential vast number of people saved from malaria survive in countries that do not have enough food?  Thus would more people be saved each year if they tackled the malaria parasite that infects cattle rather than humans?

The Sanger Institute in Cambridge devised the vaccine after discovering a protein, known as basigin, which is on the surface of the human red blood cell. The parasites use this protein to penetrate the cell, and without access to the red blood cell then the parasite could not survive. Researchers have conducted an experiment based on these findings; using antibodies to block the protein receptor, they successfully prevented parasite penetration. After great success in laboratory conditions – the solution was found to be 100% effective – the researchers have also had some success in clinical trials that are currently taking place in Africa. Presently, trials of the vaccine have only shown reduced severity of malaria, increasing the chances of survival. There is currently not enough evidence to show that the vaccine could ever fully prevent malaria.

Students from the University of Manchester are currently completing placements studying malaria in The Gambia in West Africa, with the Medical Research Council (MRC).  Participating students Jason Parr, studying Genetics, and Tom Chisnall, studying Biomedical Science, commented: “The new vaccine hasn’t really changed the work that’s going on here. If the trials go well then things might be different. There’s a lot of focus on optimal vaccination schedules, so if a vaccine was made available then the MRC could become a lot more involved”.

Although eradicating malaria with a single vaccine remains optimistic, the Sanger Institute’s research may have brought us a lot closer to making it possible.

It has emerged that internet providers may be misleading us about the speed of their broadband.

Over 50 percent of us hooked up to the internet, are on packages which include broadband speeds of 10 megabytes per second (Mbps) or higher, but the average speed we actually receive is 6.8Mbps.

It is a rare moment when we aren’t bombarded with advertisements from companies claiming their internet is faster than their competitors’ broadband but a recent survey by uSwitch has revealed surprising results. If you’re surfing the net during peak times (7pm-9pm), you could be subject to much slower internet speeds. This decrease in speed can be as drastic as 69 percent, with the average decrease still being 35 percent.

The speed of your peak-time internet is also influenced by geography. Users could expect more significant drops in speed in Worcestershire or Western-super-Mare (69 percent and 64 percent respectively). Anyone browsing in rural parts of the country could see a slightly better service with only a 50 percent drop.

The report recommends 2am-3am as the best time to be online to get the highest internet speeds. As students, we can probably expect to be online at this time more than most due to our latest assignment/YouTube session/Facebook chat (delete as necessary), but this isn’t practical for the less nocturnal in our society.

According to new rules, soon to be implemented by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), internet companies will no longer be able to advertise their broadband speeds in such a misleading way. A minimum 10 percent of users on a provider’s package must receive the internet speed that is advertised to accompany that package. If many users don’t get the advertised speed, that must also be clear.

Can we expect a sudden decrease in advertised internet speeds or will companies actually provide users with the speed it was claimed we would receive? Only time will tell.

A new application for the iPhone, which holds a great potential to save the lives of severe burn victims, has been developed by a current PhD University student who is also a former solider.

The app, which quickly assesses the level of burns through a touch-screen model, calculates the correct amount of fluids that should be administered to someone after burn injuries occur. This is a vital stage in influencing the chances of survival of a burn victim. Typically this calculation is carried out by a doctor by hand, but this app has already been shown to reduce errors made by this previous pen and paper method by a third.

This week heralded the University of Manchester’s bold strides into the province of nuclear research with the launch of a major University nuclear centre, Research Centre for Radwaste and Decommissioning, and the handover of a new prodigious nuclear research facility, the Dalton Cumbrian Facility (DCF), from the Principal Contractor, Morgan Sindall. Such avant-garde advances are the result of a joint £20 million investment from the University of Manchester and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The site in West Cumbria will serve as the research base for the UoM’s Dalton Nuclear Institute.

The DCF is intended to build on West Cumbria’s prolific skills infrastructure, transferring knowledge to the industry through expanding the nuclear research capabilities of the UK’s already enviable university sector. Through the DCF, the University has privileged access to the National Nuclear Laboratory’s extensive engineering facilities, situated on the Sellafield site.

Professor Andrew Sherry, Director of the DCF, said the site will “integrate with other facilities in the North of England to establish a truly unique and world-leading capability”, thus positioning it as an internationally renowned fertile source of discovery.

The DCF is expected to be fully functioning by 2012. The facility is anticipated to become a veritable polestar of nuclear advancements, with preeminent academics expected from across the UK and overseas, all striving to expand the intellectual repertoire and prestige of the site.

Nuclear technology is becoming increasingly important to the UK energy sector, concomitant with the drive for reduced carbon emissions. Such support for nuclear research in the UK is welcomed by the industry, which has been affected by reduced demand from Japan for nuclear waste recycling. Both Japan and Germany are now searching for an answer to global energy needs away from the alluring zero-carbon emissions of nuclear power, due to safety concerns wrought by the Fukushima disaster. However, the UK’s recent report into nuclear safety concluded otherwise.

The UK’s chief nuclear inspector, Dr. Mike Weightman affirmed, “I remain confident that our UK nuclear facilities have no fundamental safety weaknesses”. The UK government continues to promote and streamline the process for the private sector to invest in nuclear energy, and the University of Manchester’s future involvement in progress appears most pioneering, aspiring and is backed by a formidable ambition.

The Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) are currently in talks over a possible merger with the London Museum of Science and Industry. Last year MOSI was told that they would lose all their government funding by 2015; the merger with the London museum would mean that MOSI was part of a large group of museums funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Science (DCMS). The DCMS funds many other museums including the National Railway Museum in York and the National Media Museum in Bradford.

MOSI has been open since 1983 and depicts the story of how Manchester and the rest of the North West led the industrial revolution as well as subsequent science and technology innovations. It was originally part of the Liverpool Road railway station that opened in 1830, the museum was opened here as part of a campaign to save the site. As one of the most popular attractions in the North West, MOSI draws in 800,000 visitors a year, making it a great source of income for the city and surrounding businesses. The merger could secure the museum without the need to search for a local sponsor.

“Although a lot of detailed work needs to be done before a final decision is made, I hope to make an announcement shortly” said Peter Fell the interim chairman of MOSI on Friday. The museum has been trying to find alternative sources of funding since November 2010 when the government announced that local museums would have their funding withdrawn.

Mr Fell has assured the public and his 121 staff members that the MOSI trustees will ensure any decision made ensures the long-term sustainability of the museum.

Ever wondered what goes wrong in the glamorous world of Internet pornography? It’s not just the mud-wrestling competitions and desperate housewives being naughty which can cause trouble in this otherwise peaceful world of endless love… making.

It’s time for ICM Registry, a provider of Internet domain names, to get ‘dirrrty’ too.

From 2012, ICM will launch the suffix .xxx in order to promote “responsible and safe behaviour” whilst users engage in all manner of stimulating activities.

After 11 years of hard work and investing $22 million, Stewart Lawley, the owner of ICM, finally got the .xxx suffix awarded by ICANN, the net’s address regulator. This is expected to earn his company an estimated $200 million for every single pleasure-filled year.

The content will be run through an anti-virus program and child pornography will be banned from the sites. Lawley hopes that his policy of Safer-Cyber-Sex, will encourage consumers to use and trust the .xxx sites.

But it’s not only the traditional anti-porn lobby of conservative Americans who are trying to spoil ICM’s party. But also the porn industry is anything but happy as Larry (fact fans: Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler Magazine, was voted most powerful person in porn in 2003).

What’s the catch? Well, charging $60 for each address is going to cause trouble, since it is ten times more than what other branches have to pay for a top-level domain (TLD) address.

Manwin Licensing which represents Playboy is filing a lawsuit, arguing that costs are going to rise dramatically since they have to register all the many misspelled versions of their site too. Furthermore, they claim that there is chance of developing a virtual red light district, which would facilitate censorship.

Manwin is suing ICANN, which awarded ICN with the juicy suffix, accusing the regulatory body of failure to encourage genuine competition and instead establishing a “monopoly at the very heart of the Internet” according to Fabian Thylmann, managing partner of Manwin.

Is there going to be a happy ending for .xxx, as is so common in this industry? This lawsuit involves some of the largest players on the Internet: the porn industry and Internet registry, who may be accused of taking advantage of the fact the porn sites visitors are willing to pay any amount for a bit of virus-free fun, because even in the Internet you have to protect yourself from STDs (Suspiciously Transmitted Data).

A recently published paper has gone some way into explaining why some people are more optimistic in life than others. The participants were asked to rate certain situations, such as the likelihood of divorce or cancer, whilst having their brains scanned. They were then told the actual probability of these events, and asked to rate them again, and marked a ‘score’ of optimism. The results showed that for the majority of people, the brain actively processes good news, whilst seemingly ignoring negative things, resulting in a more optimistic outlook. The pessimists amongst us only account for 20 percent of people, whilst the more cheery-faced optimists make up the rest of us. The study showed that many people retain a positive view, even when being told evidence of the contrary.