Welcome to the latest Elements podcast. This time we’re focussing on how solar cells affect policy, as well as discussing the controversial issue of whether mental health should be treated medically. But it’s not all so serious, we also hear about the sexual behaviour of everything from bonobos to rabbits, and even what men look for in a woman. Join Louise Ogden and Richard Masters as they discover the latest and greatest on the Elements website.
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Louise Ogden: Hello and welcome to the Elements podcast giving the latest rundown of all the happenings on the science website Elements. I’m Louise Ogden…
Richard Masters: And I’m Richard Masters.
LO: This time we’ll be looking at efficiency of solar cells and how it affects policy…
Jason Clarke: The university is actually a really large energy user; in terms of Islington we are the third largest energy user. And the solar panels account for around one per cent of our energy footprint.
RM: And I’ll be speaking to Elements resident health experts, James Brooks and Lorna Powell who will be discussing the controversial question of whether mental health is a medical issue…
RM: But first up…
James Brooks: They’re not illnesses as we understand diseases and injures and things like that. They’re more problems that people might encounter in their lives that they may need help with, but they’re not amenable to treatment
LO: What do men really look for in a woman? A pretty face, a nice pair of …legs, or a good sense of humour? Well, it seems that men really do take personality into account when deciding on the attractiveness of their potential partners. Richard here, reports on the study, as well as getting a few opinions from some rather brave volunteers on what they look for in a woman, in a special video he produced with James Brooks and Jack Serle exclusively for Elements.
RM: Talking of sexual nature, we’ve all heard the term fornicating like rabbits, but have we ever actually thought about how rabbits reproduce? And not only rabbits, what about spiders, bonobos and even snails? Abi Millar has reviewed the Natural History Museum’s Sexual Nature exhibition to find out some of nature’s most intimate secrets. You can see the full article on the Elements website.
LO: Also look out for the special report the Elements team have done on the NHS reforms. There are a series of features, videos and audio pieces covering a range of issues surrounding the proposed changes. In the next podcast, we’ll be focusing on some of the highlights from the reports, so make sure you look out for that in a fortnight’s time.
RM: Next, it’s estimated that approximately 450 million people worldwide have a mental health problem, but there’s an alternative school of thought that mental health should not be considered primarily a medical concern.
I’m joined today by James Brooks and Lorna Powell to discuss this controversial topic. Hi to you both
James Brooks: Hello
Lorna Powell: Hi
RM: First, it seems that the number of cases of diagnosed mental illness is on the rise, with a 95 per cent jump in the number of drugs prescribed to treat depression in the last 10 years. Lorna, why do you think this is?
LP: Well it’s certainly true that depression diagnoses have increased an awful lot in the last decade in particular, and I think that this is definitely a result of overmedicalisation of low mood to some extent. People are much keener to deem themselves low mood, whereas maybe that would have been dealt with in a different way-now it’s a medical problem that we need to address. I think it’s also a reflection of an increase in pharmacological therapies available- just because of more research and development. I think the really interesting part to the debate is that there’s been a massive societal shift in how people view depression. It’s a lot more acceptable; people are more likely to recognise it amongst themselves and friends and family and to go to the doctor and complain of low mood.
RM: Do you think it’s a symptom of inadequate mental health care?
LP: I don’t think you could use the term inadequate – that’s a bit too generalised, but I think there are defiantly people who will be falsely diagnosed with depression which is obviously unhelpful to them. I think it’s more of a reflection of the shift in attitudes in our society towards depression rather than a problem of inadequate mental health care.
RM: James, it seems your argument centres on whether the mind is immaterial. Even if we take this to be true, surely the argument stands that by treating the physical brain we can still have a positive effect on the mind
JB: My argument doesn’t really centre round whether the mind is immaterial, that’s a point that I made, I think that it’s relevant. It’s more that mental illnesses aren’t illnesses or are only illnesses in a metaphorical sense, really. They’re not illnesses as we understand diseases and injures and things like that. They’re more problems that people might encounter in their lives that they may need help with, but they’re not amenable to treatment, and that’s important. The brain obviously has an impact on the mind and just by making somebody feel better- that isn’t treatment. So the two things need to be separated.
RM: As Lorna states in the article, studies have shown that SSRIs have a positive effect on depression. There has also been talk of deep brain stimulation as a possible cure. Is this not evidence mental illness can be effectively treated medically?
JB: No, it’s evidence that the brain has a strong effect on our mood. Just because you feel better after taking some Prozac-that doesn’t mean that you’re cured of depression, you’re just made to feel better- the two things are very much separate.
LP: Can I just cut in there and say that talk of when people are cured-and the distinction between being cured and feeling better- I would say that to a medical professional, if the patient feels better then to us that is a cure
JB: The problem is though that by the same token you could say that you could cure a broken leg by giving somebody a lot of alcohol. Just because they feel better, doesn’t mean they’re cured in any meaningful way
LP: I think that the counterargument to that would be that depression as far as medical professionals are concerned, is improved when the patient feels it has improved. Giving someone a load of alcohol for a broken leg- the effects would ware off pretty quickly
JB: Not if you kept taking the alcohol
LP: well that’s a bit unethical
RM: Obviously we could talk about this all day, but what do you see as an alternative to current methods used to diagnose and treat mental illness?
LP: Well I think the way that mental health treatment is going to move forward is that we’re going to keep in the same foundations of pharmacological interventions and drugs will become more and more developed, but I think one of the key changes that were going to see in the future will be a massive increase in the amount of talking therapies that are going to be implemented. So things like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy which already has a lot of evidence, and people are moving towards.
RM: James?
JB: Well personally I’d like to see a movement away from treatments for mental and behavioural problems that people can encounter during their lives. That’s really essential. And essentially a move away from this medicalisation where everything is treated with some form of therapy, and more towards one of care, where people will encounter problems in their lives and will be cared for.
RM: Well it’s certainly a controversial topic, but thank you to both of you for joining me in the studio today.
JB and LP: Thank you
LO: And now we have a little light relief with Mike Jones and Anka Lindemann, who have been on a solar cell adventure…
Anka Lindemann: Last week the weather took a turn for the better, so Mike and myself ventured up onto the roof of City University with Jason Clarke, energy and environment manager of the college.
Mike Jones: Our intentions were honest, we assure you. As an environment correspondent I was eager to see how solar panels were being used by the university, and as Anka’s German she’s keen to see the alternatives to nuclear energy following Angela Merkel’s defeat at the polls last week, so she can report back to the fatherland!
AL: Very funny, Mike.
MJ: Well I try to keep up with current affairs!
AL: So we managed to get on the roof at the second time of asking, as the heavens had opened on our scheduled date the week before, to ask Jason about the development and whether it’s a feasible option for the futureof energy management at the institution.
JC: We’ve had the solar panels since June 2009, so a couple of years.
MJ: And how expensive were they to install, and how expensive are they to run?
JC: The price is coming down quite rapidly, normal it comes down around 15 per cent in terms of cost per year. in terms of installation costs, we were quite fortunate because we got two grants to enable us to purchase them, so cost-wise it was pretty effective for us because we received grant under the Low Carbon Buildings Programme and also under the National Lottery campaign. This is is a 30 kW installation. The university is actually a really large energy user; in terms of Islington we are the third largest energy user. And the solar panels account for around one per cent of our energy footprint.
AL: So it’s only a small installation, but even so, every little helps. 30 kilo watts at maximum output isn’t a lot, and some of the biggest solar farms are now capable of producing upwards of 5 mega watts. When the sun is shining, of course.
MJ: That’s exactly the point. At the moment, most electricity from solar energy relies on either photovoltaic cells, while water can be heated from solar-thermal installations. But these only get close to their theoretical maximum output when the sun is shining, and often only when it’s actually warm as well.
AL:And recently, the government has also proposed a reduction in the amount of money available to solar panel projects, actually reducing the tariffs provided for solar electricity production. We asked Jason where City would stand in the future following these measures.
JC: In terms of future solar PV or solar thermal projects, with the changes to the feed-in tariffs, maybe larger term schemes, in terms of PV wont be something we’d immediately look at. in terms of solar thermal- to provide hot water or to preheat water for our air conditioning systems or boilers or anything like that- that is something we would look at, and they’re much more cost effective than say say a PV array now that such thing as a feed-in tariff or Low Carbon Building Programme aren’t available any more.
MJ: So City is currently well placed to make strides in harnessing the power of the sun. Which can only be a good thing going forward.
AL: Thanks again to Jason for allowing us to meet him on the roof last week.
LO: And thanks to Anka and Mike for coming in to talk to us today about the solar panels on the roof of City University London.
RM: And now to find out what’s coming soon – remember you can be the first to read all these stories as soon as they’re online by following us on Twitter, AT Elements science.
LO: Now I’m afraid I have some bad news. It seems that physical activity, having sex and going to the doctor all carry the risk of heart attack. James Brooks has looked at two separate studies, the first of which found that there is indeed a slightly elevated risk of blowing a gasket after sport or rumpy-pumpy, although whether that risk outweighs the benefits from these two activities is another matter. The second found that 30 per cent of patients thought to have drug resistant hypertension actually had “white coat hypertension”, i.e. the trip to the doctors was so nerve-racking that their blood pressure was elevated higher than the rest rate.
RM: Next, thousands of researchers around the world will have used her cells; millions of people have been saved because of those cells and yet she, nor her family, knew about these achievements until years later. This is the story of Henrietta Lacks, whose cells, known to scientists as He-La, were harvested from her cervical tumour without her knowledge. Rebecca Skloot has managed what many others couldn’t and got her notoriously private family to open up in a book that our very own Beki Hill said was the most impressive non-fiction work she has ever read. For Beki’s full review stay tuned to elements hyphen science.co.uk.
Now, Louise, you’ve got something futuristic in the pipeline, haven’t you?
LO: That’s right, Richard. I’ll be looking at the rather complicated world of quantum communications, to find out if and when these completely secure comm lines will be hitting the streets.
RM: Right, that’s about it for this time. If you’d like to catch up on any of the topics we covered in the podcast then make sure you head along to THE science website of the moment, www.elements-science.co.uk.
LO: We’d like to thank James Brooks, Lorna Powell, Anka Lindemann and Mike Jones for talking to us today. This podcast, Sexual Nature, Solar Cells and Mental health, was produced by Beki Hill, and presented by me, Louise Ogden…
RM: And me, Richard Masters. Thanks for listening ….
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