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SCIENCE @DC The world's most detailed human cell image.
fauna
madman
We would really love it if more people wanted to
1 dad write pieces for the magazine, or are just interested
in finding out more about the process.
faraway
forum
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with either
DCSM
DEAN CLOSE
Charlotte Read or Luke Tomlinson at either of our
school emails listed below
SCIENCE
ReadCL@deanclose.org.uk
TomlinsonLD@deanclose.org.uk
MAGAZINE
Charlotte Read
WELCOME!
Luke Tomlinson
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DCSM
Charlotte Read
Fact Page
Luke Tomlinson
Does the internet cause
memory loss?
Jed Nelson
Quantum computing and
you. Why bother, and what
should you expect from it
Laurence Archard
Why simply cutting meat out
of our diets is not a
sustainable answer to the
climate crisis
Luke Davis
Running and brain disease:
The cure?
Jay Lee
Why and how do animals
hibernate?
Charlotte Read
Fact Page
10 FACTS ABOUT...
The Human Body
2
The human body's most powerful cell
1
The image on the magazine cover was
type is the stem cell. These cells are
obtained using several types of
specialised and are disassociated from
microscopes and imaging such as
other cells, meaning they do not have
process, x-ray, nuclear magnetic
one job, and can be turned into many
resonance and cryoelectron microscopy
different specialised cells, such as red
datasets by Evan Ingersoll & Gael
blood cells.
McGill.
3 4
A cell is the smallest structural and The human body comprises of about 100
functional. unit in an organism. trillion cells: more than 30 times the
µ stars in the known galaxy.
5 6
While every minute more than 200 The longest cell in the human body is a
million cells die in the human body, the motor neurone. It can measure up to 1.4
body created billions more every day. metres.
7 8
Babies have almost 100 more bones than
that of an adult. This is because as a
Our bodies have more bacterial cells
baby grows, some of these bones fuse
than any other cell type.
together.
9 10
The adult body is made up of: 100 There are more than 100,000 chemical
trillion cells, 206 bones, 600 muscles, reactions happening in the human brain
and 22 internal organs. every second.
Does the internet cause memory loss?
- LUKE TOMLINSON-
Have you ever been through that experience of not knowing the This experiment, whilst not providing an absolute on whether or
name of ‘that famous celebrity?’ Or not being able to remember the not the ease of access and use of the internet affects our memory
name of that really good restaurant on the high street? In the late power, does allude to the fact that the use of the internet for
1900s the ‘network of networks’, otherwise known as the internet, functions that we would normally use for memory power does
was established. Since then over half the world’s population is said hinder our memory potential. In other words if we ‘don’t use it
to have access to an almost unlimited amount of information on the we lose it’. So while the internet has many hugely bene cial
internet. This wealth of information has increased the ease of aspects to it, the wealth of knowledge it provides furthering our
general every day activities, and has provided much freedom to understanding on many topics, it also does have an affect on our
many. And yet whilst there are great advantages to this abundance memory power. We have become so reliant on the internet for
of information. The internet is affecting how our brain works. The our information we have neglected our own sources of
question that is being asked is: ‘Does the internet cause memory information and thus day by day we are losing our brains
loss?’ capabilities.
The nature of the brain means that when it is ‘exercised’ its
potential is furthered to a certain extent. Just as when you exercise
your muscles they grow and have greater potential, and this applies
to its memory function as well. When we have to constantly
remember and are exercising our memories, our memory potential is
furthered. Challenging your brain with mental exercise is believed to
activate processes that help maintain individual brain cells and
stimulate communication among them. However, in recent years it
is so much easier to just look up the answer on the internet and thus
not try and remember ourselves. People have been using the
internet to do what our brains are meant to do and thus we are not
‘exercising’ our brains as much as we should, thus reducing our
memory potential.
However, studies have shown that having access to an increased
amount of information is bene cial for brain growth and
development. So the internet could potentially increase our brains
memory capabilities. While this may be true, something we need to
consider is that it hinders our long term memory. When we receive
information our brain remembers it in the short term, short term
memory. Yet in order to remember information for a long time, long
term memory, the information must be rehearsed and recalled more
than once. Our use of the internet does not often allow this. We
forget something and so use the internet to nd the information we
need and then we quickly forget what we have just learnt as we are
not rehearsing the information converting it from short term memory
into long term memory.
Do we then have to eradicate the use of the internet completely? Of
course not as a lot of our daily practices depend on it. And yet the use
of the internet should be monitored in a way that protects and retains
our brains memory capability. We need to make sure we are
exercising our brains enough to keep our brain’s memory capabilities
Now this may seem like a conspiracy theory to get people to use the up.
internet less but there is genuine research on this topic that has
been conducted by several valid sources. For instance, the University
of California, Santa Cruz conducted an experiment to test this
theory. They wanted to determine how likely it was for a group of
participants to reach for their smartphone when asked a series of
questions. First, participants were split into two groups. Each was
given a number of trivia questions. One group was able to use Google
while the other had to rely on memory alone. In the second phase,
simpler questions were posed, and both groups were allowed to use
their phones if they wished. Those who were allowed to Google
answers initially were more likely to rely on the search engine to
answer subsequent questions, even if they were easier. In contrast,
those who relied on their memory were more likely to think about
second phase questions before reaching for their smartphone.
Memory-reliant participants were also quicker at answering trivia
questions overall. Another nd, those who used the internet did not
attempt to answer one question from memory, even a simple one.
This shows that the students used the internet instead of trying to
retrieve it from the recesses of their brains, thus not exercising the
brain as much.
Quantum computing and you.
-JED NELSON-
If you’re looking to make something sound highbrow and inaccessible to us The solution, if you hadn’t guessed it, is quantum
mortals, putting “quantum” in front of it should be your rst stop. A staple computing. What makes this so inherently different from
of science ction, the word “quantum” is a classic way to designate normal contemporary computing is its use of “qubits” as
something as science mumbo jumbo. In the case of quantum computing, opposed to “bits”. In normal computing we think in terms
however, the word “quantum” doesn’t just mean “better” or “more of 1s and 0s, whereas with quantum computing a qubit can
advanced”, but instead denotes a drastic change in the way these computers have value anywhere between 1 and 0 due to a phenomenon
function. Drastic enough that it could signi cantly impact the way the called superposition. The physics is beyond the scope of
modern world works. this article and my knowledge but the long and short of it
is that a quantum computer is far more ef cient than a
normal computer. It is unlikely that our mobile phones and
laptops will be replaced by quantum computers, but for
servers and databases (which we use whenever we access
the internet) this increased ef ciency will be a game
changer.
Computers are pretty cool pieces of kit. They can add numbers together,
store numbers, and send emails on Sunday nights asking for deadline
extensions. When people try to explain how computers work, a common
starting place is binary and 1s and 0s, and it’s hard to see how this is
relevant to your experience of computers. I think the missing ingredient
to understanding the link between 1s and 0s and running applications and
browsing the web is an appreciation of scale. When you download an
application that takes up 1 gigabyte of space this means there are 8 billion So, we have established that current computing technology
1s and 0s involved. That’s (for the time being) more than the population of development is unsustainable and that quantum computing
the world. In current processing technology, the amount of things done offers an effective alternate way of doing things, but what
per second is in the billions. If you can appreciate the crazy scale that applications can we expect from this new technology?
these 1s and 0s are used in, it makes understanding how binary and simple Firstly, quantum computing is far better at simulations of
addition can be used to do just about anything if there is enough of it. our world. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, said that “The real
excitement of quantum is that the universe fundamentally
So what’s the issue? Why do we need to invent a drastically different type works in a quantum way, so you will be able to understand
of computing if we can already do billions of calculations a second? To nature better.” This means that molecular simulations can
fully answer this question we need to go back to the rst computers . The be done to a much higher quality, and early versions of this
famous “Colossus” in Bletchley Park ( nished in 1944) lled an entire technology are currently being used to develop medicine and
room and used pulleys and punch cards. Later, in 1969, the computer car batteries, two very signi cant elds. Volkswagen is also
program that took man to the moon was hand written in 145,000 lines, using quantum computing, not for car batteries but for route
whereas nowadays Facebook is estimated to run on 62 million lines of nding. Famously, the travelling salesman problem has
code. As you can see programs have become more and more demanding eluded normal computers but with quantum computing
and computers have become smaller and smaller, so what’s changing? The route optimisation can be done much more ef ciently. One
processing power of a processor is roughly proportional to the number of nal example of an application is in database searching.
transistors on it, and as transistors were able to get smaller and smaller, There are many different algorithms for normal computers
more and more were able to t on a CPU chip. In 1940 the size of but fundamentally they boil down to trial and error - “Does
transistors were measured in millimetres, in the 1980s it was in microns this entry match this search value?” “No” “Test the next
(millionths of a metre) and nowadays it's nanometres (billionths of a one” etc. With quantum computing, Google and IBM are
metre). In 1965 Intel cofounder Gordon Moore observed that every 18-24 developing algorithms that are signi cantly more ef cient.
months the number of transistors on a computer chip would double, an
observation that is famously known as “Moore’s Law” because it has been The elimination of trial and error is not only a good thing.
fastidiously followed for the last 55 years. However, in 2019 Nvidia CEO However, modern encryption relies on complex equations
Jensen Huang declared it dead. This is because current silicon transistors that would take an unfathomable amount of trial and error
are about 70 silicon atoms wide and at this molecular level there is little (and subsequently time) to decrypt, so many experts fear
room to maneuver. We need to turn to something completely different. that widely available quantum computing will invalidate our
current encryption algorithms and infrastructure.
For good or for bad quantum computers are coming. In
1- See https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/gaming/resources/cpu-clock- 2019 Google published a report on having achieved
speed.html for a less oversimpli ed explanation of this.
“Quantum Supremacy” where they described how they were
2-https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/computers/ able to do something a normal computer would take 10000
#169ebbe2ad45559efbc6eb35720b2658 years to do with a quantum computer in a trivial amount of
is a good visual demonstration of how much computers have shrunk.
time. This landmark achievement shows how there is not
3-And is now on Github! https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11 (go to the comanche055 much time left until we are forced to come face to face with
folder then click on any of the .agc les and scroll down to see some of the code - I have no this brilliant technology.
idea what it does but it’s crazy to think this go us to the moon.)
4-But it’s super well explained in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhHMJCUmq28
5- For the uninitiated: https://blog.routi c.com/travelling-salesman-problem
6-https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1666-5
Why cutting meat out of our diets isn’t sustainable
In this scenario, the cow is the more
sustainable choice as it is more regenerative
The popularity of vegetarianism and for the environment. However this is a best
case cow versus a typical avocado, and the
veganism has risen rapidly in recent years,
evidenced in the fact that 560,000 people
- LAURENCE ARCHARD- majority of meat both from the UK and
signed up for Veganuary in 2021, with an worldwide is not farmed in this way so must
average rate of 62% of those participants surely be as detrimental to the
continuing a vegan diet after Veganuary. Whilst cow production requires a lot of water, the environment? Although animal production is
There are several arguments for becoming a UK receives lots of rain, and cattle herds are often responsible for green house gas emissions,
vegetarian or vegan, ranging from animal produced in areas with higher rainfall as a result of rice production is actually responsible for
cruelty and the humanity of slaughter to the this. Furthermore, we have a lot of the green water more methane release than cattle. Figures
added health bene ts such as lower from rainfall absorbed by plants and blue water from the Global Carbon Project show that
amounts of fat and more bre. Recently, (from lakes, rivers and groundwater used by crops every year 558 million tonnes of methane is
however, the most popular reason for this or animals in a trough) needed and it is not lost produced globally, with 188 million tones
change in diet is because of the vast amount from the country as the meat is not exported. If the coming from agriculture. However, methane
of resources meat production requires, farmer uses a local abattoir and butcher, there is only stays in the atmosphere for ten years,
which is having a devastating effect on the very little transportation required, and due to the after which it is degraded through hydroxyl
planet and contributing to climate change. cold ambient temperatures during this time of year, oxidation where it becomes carbon dioxide
But is opting for a fully-vegetable, meat- there is also little energy used in temperature that enters the carbon cycle and is absorbed
free diet a sustainable way to cut down on regulation for these processes. If a customer then by trees and then eaten by animals, before
energy use and greenhouse emissions? buys meat from their their local butcher rather than being locked into the ground if regenerative
a supermarket, food miles are kept low and the methods are used. Here’s the really good bit,
Not necessarily. This is due to the necessity packaging is more likely to be kept to a minimum every year this reaction breaks down 98%
of importing many of the foods that are and plastic free. Admittedly this is a best case of the methane in the atmosphere, which
required for a vegetarian or vegan diet to be scenario for a cow, and not everyone will be able to can then be absorbed by plants and trees.
healthy as, they are not grown in the UK afford meat from a butchers, however there are Furthermore, in the UK, healthy soils
throughout the year, whilst we can also many farms in the UK that use this method of contain methanotrophs, which also absorb
change farming methods to make them farming. methane in the atmosphere. This rate is
more regenerative to signi cantly reduce around 13.7mg / square metre/ day, which
the agricultural industry’s effect on climate Now, for the avocado. However, I can’t do a over a hectare of land roughly equals the
change. For example, if undertaking the reasonable and fair comparison between a single amount of methane produced by around 100
Veganuary challenge, the following plants avocado and a single cow as you would need 6,250 herds of cattle.
are native and seasonal to the UK in avocados to get the same amount of calories as one
January: apples, beetroot, brussels sprouts, cow, which happens to be around the size of a But it isn’t only avocado that is much worse
carrots, celeriac, celery, chicory, jerusalem typical avocado crop. Although many places grow for the environment than you may have
artichokes, kale, leeks, mushrooms, avocados across the world, I will assume that for thought, Almonds, for example, require 1
onions, parsnips, pears, Red cabbage, this example they are being grown in Mexico as the gallon of water per almond in order to grow,
salsify, savoy cabbage, spring onions, peak season for the harvest is just starting in a statistic that doesn’t look anywhere near
squash, swedes, turnips and white cabbage. January. The average avocado uses 320 litres of as bad as how much water animals need,
A delicious and complex mix of avours but water, and as most avocados in Mexico are grown however like avocados, almonds are grown
de nitely not the complete nutrition for export, (5 out of 10 avocados produced globally) in extreme climates, such as the Californian
required by our bodies such as sources of the prioritisation has a negative impact on Mexico’s desert, which is responsible for 82% of the
protein or vitamin B12. Another food security. Every day, 9.5 billion litres of water world’s almond crop and is deemed to be
macronutrient not on that list is fat. are used for avocado production, putting huge responsible for the consecutive droughts
strain on the aquifers in Michoacán. Once the fruit California has suffered in the past four years
During January, a common substitute for has left the country, the water contained within it due to the need for constant irrigation.
fats found in animals, let’s say a cow, is is lost from the ecosystem and surrounding areas.
avocado which has hugely grown in There has even been a rise in small earthquakes in This highlights that if we do not start to
popularity amongst both omnivores and the region surrounding Uruapan, the most change our farming methods to become
herbivores recently. I must point out that important avocado-producing region in the world, more regenerative, especially as the
this is simply an illustrative swap with 3,247 seismic movements recorded between population of vegetarians and vegans
demonstrating how vegan swaps are not 5th January and 15th February 2020. Local increases, we will simply run out of
always best for the environment, and not authorities blame water extraction for the cause as nutrients in the soil to grow anything unless
that only vegans eat avocado and that we it has opened up subsoil caverns that are likely we continue to use damaging chemical
must make better informed choices for causing these movements. This is especially fertilisers, due to the lack of natural
these swaps. Let’s take a further look at the important when considering that avocado fertiliser from animals, as we currently only
swap I have used for this example. production in Mexico has lead to deforestation in have 60 years of topsoil left. Furthermore,
Michoacán. These forests provide biodiversity, in the UK 46% of the agricultural land is
A single cow provides around one million livelihoods and catchment basins that supply water what is known as marginal land, which is
usable calories for human consumption, and to local communities and Mexico City, but have land where agricultural farming would not
these are a combination of fats and been devastated as a result of increased European be pro table, usually due to factors such as
proteins. If that cow was kept in an and American demand for avocados. These ooding or infer- tile land. It is this land
agricultural system that was regenerative, avocados have to be handled gently once picked, that is used for grazing animals in, and
where a heavy premium is placed on soil and kept in conditions that will prevent spoilage cannot therefore just simply be used for
health and more attention is given to water before arrival. The optimum temperature for this is arable purposes when there is no longer
management and fertiliser use. This results 5.5C which is a long way below the natural demand for meat. This would leave us with
with resources used being improved and not temperature in Mexico, therefore using signi cant less land to grow more food on, as we would
destroyed or depleted, so the land the cow energy to achieve this and often uses dry ice. need 18% more calories, and from crops
was on would become signi cantly more Avocados arrive in the UK by boat after taking a 6 that have not traditionally been grown in
biodiverse, (according to the US week journey on container ships. During their the UK. I am not saying that being
Department of Agriculture’s Natural voyage, conditions in the container also have to be vegetarian or vegan is bad for the
Resources Conservation Service, there are kept at the optimum, using up further energy and environment because it isn’t, we all need to
more micro-organisms in a teaspoon of resources, as well as the diesel required for the ship eat less meat, however, we need to raise
healthy soil than people on this earth) to complete this journey, which is around 63,000 awareness of how to do this in a sustainable
whilst also becoming more able to sequester gallons of marine fuel per day at 20-25 knots. and regenerative way.
carbon into the ground which will help Whilst this boat is not only carrying avocados, it is
provide more nutrients for the plants and still part of the system. When they do arrive in the It is for this reason that we, as consumers
less carbon dioxide in the air, as more UK, they are packaged again to prevent further have to be much more careful about where
carbon is locked into the soil than is damage and gas ripened using ethylene before the food products we eat have come from,
produced by the cow. This also allows more being packaged again for the supermarkets, often what is inside them and how they are made
water to be drawn into the soil, helping to in more plastic. as well as whether they are regenerative or
combat extra rainfall as the effects of not, regardless of which food group that
climate change begin to be felt. item is in, so that the food you eat has less
impact on the planet.
Running and brain disease: the cure?
-LUKE DAVIS-
Brain diseases like Alzheimer’s have long
been a worry of many people as they get
older. There are more than 850 000 people
in UK living with Alzheimer’s, but the
incidence of dementia radically increases
with age with 1 in every 14 people over the
age of 65 living with Alzheimer’s and one in
every 6 over the age of 80. The saddest
thing about these brain function diseases is
that we have no cure for them. However,
there are ways to try and prevent it or at
least make it more bearable. One of these
ways is running.
We know running is good for reducing stress, improving
con dence and boosting self-esteem, but studies have also
showed that people who run have a signi cantly lower risk of
diseases like Alzheimer’s. When you run your body releases
chemicals that stimulate the hippocampus, the part your
brain that is responsible for memory and learning, causing it
to increase in size. This increase in size and health of the
hippocampus is then linked to a healthier brain which is less
likely to be affected by brain disease.
There is also evidence to suggest that frequent exercise could also
produce new brain cells in certain areas of the brain via a process
known as ‘neurogenesis’. It is thought that this leads to an overall
improvement in the performance of the brain and also,
importantly, prevents cognitive decline with age. A study
published by the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease backs up this
evidence. The study showed that people who ran more than 15
miles per week, over the duration of the study, had a 40% lower
risk of dying from Alzheimer’s related complications. The study
also showed that even people who ran less still received similar
bene ts. These bene ts are also more profound in those who
continue to run later in life although, running at any point will still
provide some sort of protection.
All in all, there is signi cant evidence to suggest that running, the
sport already associated with many, many health bene ts, can
have a signi cant impact on how likely one is to suffer from the
dreaded brain function disease like Alzheimer’s
Hibernation, how and why?
- JAY LEE-
For many organisms, especially in harsher
climates, it is often more dif cult to survive
during the colder winter months of the year.
During these months, the availability of the main
source of food for an animal is often scarce.
Nuts, fruits, plants or insects are either in-
accessible or not present at all, only becoming
available again when it is warmer. Furthermore,
although affecting some more than others, the
low temperatures mean that an animal will likely
have to expend much more energy to maintain a
constant, warm body temperature through
thermoregulation. This increased energy
consumption would also mean that an animal
would have a higher demand for food, which as
mentioned before, is already in short supply.
The combination of these factors means that for some
species, such as the European hedgehog, red/black
squirrels, the eastern chipmunk and several species
of bats, it would be more bene cial to hibernate. This
is a process in which an animal remains in a period of
near complete inactivity within a sheltered burrow or
den. The rate of metabolic reactions falls drastically,
which subsequently decreases the rate of energy
usage, the average body temperature falls from
38-39°C to as low as 15°C and the heart rate
decreases to only a few beats per minute. All of this
allows animal to survive the harsh winter months,
with a signi cantly shorter supply of food. In fact, it
is so effective that Hibernating animals use around
70 to 100 times less energy than those who are
active.
Interestingly, Bears, that are the animal most
frequently associated with hibernation, do not truly
hibernate. They are amongst a group of organisms that
go through frequent deep sleeps without a very high
decrease in their metabolism. Hibernation is a process
that mostly occurs in much smaller mammals. They
prepare for hibernation during autumn, consuming as
much food as possible which therefore stores energy in
the form of fat. For some such as the chipmunk, storing
food in their shelter is the preferred method. However,
the ultimate point of this is to maximise their energy
store as well as build up a layer of insulation for the
coming months. Overall, hibernation greatly displays
one of the many fascinating ways that animals adapt to
the wild and dif cult environments that exist in the
world around us.
10 FACTS ABOUT...
Viruses
1 2
'Virus' comes from the Latin word for
Viruses are NOT alive. They require a “poison” or “slimy liquid,” an apt name
host cell to surive and function fully.
q
for the bug that causes flu and the
common cold.
3 4
Viruses are the most abundant
biological entities on Earth:
amThere are
an estimated Viruses evolve quicker than any other
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, living biological organism.
000,000 (10 quintillion) viruses on
Earth.
5 6
Viruses are 20 to 250 nanometers in Walter Reed discovered the first human
size. 1 nanometre is one billionth of a virus, yellow fever virus, in 1901.
metre!
7 8
It has been estimated that there are over
380 trillion viruses housed in the human
They are covered with a protective coat
Viruses body, which do not cause diseases such
of protein called the Capsid. as a cold or something worse. This
community collectively is known as the
human virome.
9 10
Some of the worst viral disease Viruses can cause some cancers.
outbreaks in recent years (SARS, MERS, Burkitt's lymphoma, cervical cancer,
Ebola, COVID-19) have been linked to liver cancer, T-cell leukaemia, and
bats. Kaposi sarcoma are some examples of
this.You can also read
