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First-ever study on sex hormone-hunger link

Articles, Biology, England, Health, London, Medical research, Neuroscience, News articles, UK No Responses »

May 162010

By Grace Howe

Imperial College in London is conducting the first clinical trials in the U.K on the correlation between sex hormone function and appetite.

The Medical Research Council, which has a large presence at London’s Hammersmith Hospital has funded what will be a three-year project involving nearly 100 volunteers. Participants have agreed to receive hormone injections and undergo MRI scans that will allow neurologists to track the progress of hormone transmission in the brain and with these specified results, examine the changes in the hunger/satiety gate of the brain.

Peptide YY hormone

Increases in the sex-hormones Leptin and Peptide YY are expected to decrease the appetite in normal functioning adults. Conversely, female patients suffering from anorexia, loss of sex drive or loss of a menstrual cycle are expected to regain appetite following the injections. The tests acknowledge the neurological connection between loss of appetite and loss of sexuality. It goes some way to determine if one depletion naturally comes first or whether one leads to the other.

This chicken-and-egg question and the importance of hormone balance in controlling normal adult body function has been recognized in German and Swiss medical research for over two decades. Imperial researcher Bridget Knight confirms that these questions are long overdue in being brought into the public eye in Britain. British research has been slow to acknowledge that behavioral changes in adolescence can be physiological as well as psychological.

Researchers hope that this will provide an explanation for sufferers of chronic anorexia, as well as medical treatment solutions for those with obesity.

A humorous look at homeopathy

Alternative therapies, Health, Homeopathy, London, Opinion/analysis, Video 4 Responses »

Mar 072010

By Smitha Mundasad, Paul Rodgers and Nan King

A spoon full of humour to help the homeopathy go down… a comic report from the 10:23 event, brought to you by Smitha Mundasad, Nan King and Paul Rodgers.

Also read Paul’s thoughts on homeopathy, and a news report by Smitha.

Events round up - early March

Events, London 1 Response »

Feb 232010

March is looking tasty as far as events are concerned, and there’s all kinds of geeky entertainment on offer. Here are just a couple of picks:

Show your support of the campaign for improved libel laws by lapping up the high-brow comedy fare at The Big Libel Gig on Sunday 14 March.

The second in this year’s series of Science Fair events will be rocking out the very next day at The Book Club in Shoreditch.

I’ve been trickling events into the event calendar each week - so keep coming back, more and more will apear. If you have any suggestions for our pick of events then please get in touch by posting a comment or using the contact form.

Birds play freestyle guitar in new art display

Conservation, Events, London, News articles 2 Responses »

Feb 222010

By Louis Jagger

An exhibition in London’s Barbican centre will give zebra finches a different way to show off their musical talents.

French sound artist, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot has set up electric guitars and other musical instruments in a glass walled aviary for a flock of finches. The instruments make a noise whenever the birds land on them or pluck at their strings.

A zebra finch. Picture credit: Daniel D. Baleckaitis

The art exhibition runs from 27 February to 23 May at the Barbican Centre. It is part of a series of contemporary installations in The Curve. This is a free gallery that brings some of the more adventurous styles of art to the public’s attention.

Originally from Australasia, zebra finches have been chosen to play the instruments because they enjoy socialising and have an expansive vocal range. They have even been known to use a twig for no other purpose than to play the guitar.

Finches, being songbirds, are fairly intelligent, and some species are able to use tools to get their food. Darwin’s Galapagos finches did so and under laboratory conditions, crows have been shown to do the same.

It will be interesting to see how the birds respond to the noise and whether they will work out that it is their movement that causes it.

Even if the finches are unaware of their musical exploits, it is worth going along and trying to decide precisely how the strange metallic paraphernalia will affect their everyday lives.

Perhaps when they start shaping plectrums out of bark, we ought to start worrying. Or at least, certain complacent pop-stars should.

Jubilee Jennie - from banker to environmentalist

Articles, Biology, Conservation, England, Environment, Habitat, Interview, Location, London, Science, UK No Responses »

Feb 162010

By Ian Randall

Ed. - Ian Randall interviews his ecologically minded relative on her work with the local wildlife movements.

She was a bored ex-banker who went from having almost no knowledge of wildlife to being acknowledged as one of the leading environmental figures in her borough. Awarded recognition for an ‘outstanding individual contribution to beautiful Bromley’ at the end of last year, Jennie Randall tells us how she got involved in the local environmental movement and her aspirations for the future.

Jennie Randall

“I had this hideous fear that it would involve digging …I don’t do digging.” - Jennie Randall is a small, unimposing woman, with an energetic glint in her eye and a sharp sense of humour. Long running chairman of ‘The Friends of Jubilee Country Park’, former casual countryside officer for Bromley Council and the recipient of three environmental awards, Mrs Randall has had a profound impact on conservation within Bromley; showing us the impact that one enthusiastic person can have armed with nothing more than enthusiasm and willingness to learn.

One Sunday in September 2002, bored and with “nothing better to do”, Mrs Randall grudgingly attended a nature walk in Jubilee Country Park. “It sounded very unappealing,” she admitted. “I had no interest in nature or the environment; I thought I would go and see what it was all about.” That one walk piqued a fascination and devotion to wildlife which has spanned seven years. The countryside ranger leading the lecture, Nick Hopkins, said that he thought there would be a lot of history to be uncovered within the park; he was always hopeful that one day, someone would take the time to investigate it. Mrs Randall was to become that person.

A year later and Jennie had begun to investigate numerous ‘odd little pieces’ of history around the park. The most notable concerned the time around the Second World War, when Jubilee Country Park hosted a heavy anti-aircraft gun emplacement. As a result of a display of her research in an exhibit in Bromley Museum, Mrs Randall was contacted by channel four, who visited Jubilee Country Park to record a piece for a documentary on life in the Home Guard.

Jennie also told us of a Parish boundary they had discovered to run through the park: “We’re aware of this from a document in the British Museum that goes back to the year 862; this boundary was regularly walked - in the Bromley area, they had a different system, they used to do bumping, where they bumped someone’s head against the boundary marker to remind them where the marker was.” Sadly, this custom is not continued through to this day.

Joining the Friends of Jubilee Country Park filled a void in Jennie’s life. “I realised what great fun it was; there was a terrific sense of camaraderie with all the people I was working with.” Mrs Randall, who previously worked as a foreign cashier in a banking hall, told us of how she enjoyed the challenge of something completely different from her past activities: “I had absolutely no experience whatsoever,” she said. Despite having a fear of public talking, Jennie now leads regular events within the park, including her ‘that’s what friends are for’ walk, in which she explains the activities of the group.

On becoming publicity officer of the Friends group, a role taken mostly because there was no-one else to fill it, Jennie discovered an unexpected aptitude for landing grants for the park. To this day, she has succeeded in raising in excess of £20,000 for the group; with the funds available to purchase tools, materials and construct other items for the park, such as historical and wildlife interpretation boards, the Friends group was able to really get started in earnest.

Chair of the group for four years now, Mrs Randall, who has become known to some by the nickname ‘Jubilee Jennie’, acts as a mentor for other up and coming environmental groups within the Bromley area. Her ‘Join the Friends’ flyers are used by a number of other groups, one even in the neighbouring borough of Greenwich. Jennie dreams of creating a handbook of appropriate material, advice, constitutions and letters that might be used to encourage and assist other environmental groups.

“My favourite thing about the park is the fun that we have,” Mrs Randall said.

Freaking out over the flu

Articles, Audio/podcast, Health, Location, London, National, Opinion/analysis, Policy, Public health, Swine flu, UK 1 Response »

Feb 162010

By Nan King

Panic, anxiety, scaremongering, conspiracies… but just a few months on, and swine flu seems to have been all but forgotten. Whilst we are much more likely to die of cancer or heart disease than we are of swine flu or terrorism, the latter two seem much more chilling. In this short podcast, I talk to experts on both sides of the pond, and ask if our emotional reaction to disease influences its spread.

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Is the truth out there?

Articles, Astronomy, Biology, England, Location, London, News articles, Science, UK 1 Response »

Feb 152010

By Jenn Green

The chance of detecting extra terrestrial life is now greater than ever before, Lord Martin Rees told scientists two weeks ago at a Royal Society conference in London. The meeting discussed current developments in the search for alien life and its consequences for science and society.

Lord Rees, President of the society, claims that with new technology it will now be possible to detect earth-like planets orbiting other stars, focusing the search for extra terrestrials.

“Were we to find life, even the simplest life, elsewhere that would clearly be one of the great discoveries of the 21st Century”, he said.

He told the audience that if life was discovered in outer space he suspected it would be in intelligent forms that we would not be able to conceive.

“There could be forms of intelligence beyond human capacity, beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee”, he said.

However Dr Lewis Dartnell, astrobiologist and author of the book ‘Life in the Universe’, thought that the difference between humans and aliens could be starker than this, as intelligent life would have evolved somewhere in the galaxy over the last four or five billion years.

“It would not even be the comparison between chimpanzees and humans, it would be between humans and something we possibly could not even conceive, and maybe will not even be able to recognise.”

“If we come across an intelligent species they would appear like Gods to us,” explains Dartnell. “They would have such advanced technology we would not be able to distinguish it from magic.”

Placebocide

Alternative therapies, Articles, England, Health, Homeopathy, Location, London, News articles, Public health, Science, UK 1 Response »

Feb 152010

By Smitha Mundasad

A mass overdose of homeopathic pills, involving thousands of people across the globe, took place on 30 January 2010 at 10.23am in an attempt to prove that homeopathy is ineffective.

“What we are really trying to do is just to make that key point to the public that homeopathy – there is nothing in it,” said Martin Robbins, press officer of the so-called 10:23 campaign. “10:23 comes from Avogadro’s number which is 6 times 10 to the 23. It is a number you can use to calculate how many molecules of something are in a certain amount of it.”

This name is in reference to the method of dilution used in homeopathic practices. Remedies are prepared by a serial dilution of a certain active substance. According to widely held homeopathic beliefs the more diluted a mixture becomes, the more powerful it is deemed to be. Skeptics argue, however, that due to serial dilution, there can be no active ingredients left.

The 10:23 event was prompted by an on-going evidence check by the Science and Technology parliamentary sub-committee into the use of homeopathy. “I have no evidence to suggest before me that they [homeopathic remedies] are efficacious,” said Paul Bennett, professional standards director of Boots, at the committee’s meeting in November 2009.

While this comment shocked protesters such as Robbins, Evan Harris, the science spokesman of the Liberal Democrats, questions the use of homeopathy in the NHS. “Why it is that the NHS is spending millions of pounds on that particular therapy when it cannot afford to provide treatments for very serious conditions which have proven efficacy in serious trials,” he asked the protestors gathered in central London.

“Homeopathy is still in the NHS and we are fighting to keep it in the NHS as this is about choice,” said one of the few homeopaths present at the event. “We have over two hundred years of homeopathy working. It is used in India in major hospitals for example. …People get better with homeopathy; people still want to use it.”

Asked how he was feeling after the overdose, Evan Harris said: “The serious point is you cannot overdose on homeopathy because there is no active ingredient… clearly if you dilute something so much that there is nothing left and then say this is effective then I think you are relying on people’s gullibility or desperation.”

Dave Gorman, the British comedian, who also took part in the proceedings, commented: “I’m taking arnica, I should never bruise again.”

Twitter activity around the world, suggests that weeks on, the so-called placebocide has caused the overdosers no harm. According to Evan Harris, the select committee will announce the conclusions of its evidence check in the near future.

Turbine trauma for Islington bats

Articles, Biodiversity, Biology, Climate change, Conservation, Environment, Habitat, Location, London, News articles, Science, UK No Responses »

Feb 082010

By Julius Goldthorpe

Bat colonies may be at risk from wind turbines according to scientific research, which could spell trouble for bats in Islington.

Islington council is determined to reach its 2010 target to reduce carbon emissions by 15 per cent, and is likely to add to the four existing wind turbines in the area.

But reports from across North America and mainland Europe suggest that wind turbines are to blame for a number of bat fatalities. Erin Baerwald of the University of Calgary, Canada, reports that bats suffer “barotraumas”, when a change in atmospheric pressure around the turbine causes hemorrhaging in their lungs. Baerwald’s research, published in Current Biology, suggested this had occurred in 90 per cent of bat fatalities associated with wind turbines.

According to the London Bat Group, bats are found in all London boroughs. The construction of wind turbines could be a problem for migrating populations, especially the common pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) which is prevalent in Islington.

Climate change has already caused bat populations to decline across Britain, primarily because of loss of habitat and feeding sites. The addition of further wind turbines may cause bat populations to decline further.

But Professor John Altringham, a bat expert at the University of Leeds, said: “I can’t see wind turbines having a significant effect on bats, assuming appropriate assessments are done at sites.”