Our Changing World

How do you get in the zone to achieve your very best in an activity? And does a cheering crowd help? This week, two stories about the psychology of performance - the advantages of being at home, and how to find your flow.

They say that sport at the very highest level is won and lost in the "top two inches"; it's as much about getting your mind in shape as it is your body. The pressure to perform at an event like the Olympics or an All Blacks' test is immense - the expectant crowd, internal pressures, and intensity of the moment can undermine years of hard work.

If you want to deliver, how can you get your mind in the right place? This week, two stories about sporting psychology.

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Home Game Advantage

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been strange in many ways, not just the excess of hand sanitiser. Empty stadiums, empty stands, empty swimming pools. How does the lack of people impact athletes who are accustomed to regular cheering, who might in fact thrive on it? Especially the Japanese athletes who would have expected to have had the sort of boost you only get competing in front of a home crowd.

Research form the University of Canterbury is probing the impact of crowds and match officials on 'the home game advantage'.

While most teams rise to the occasion when the crowd roars its support, there can be other outcomes too.

Katy Gosset hits the sports field to find out more. 

Finding flow

As rock climbing makes its Olympic debut, a Dunedin-based researcher is looking into the importance of being "in the zone" when doing these types of adventure sports.

Patrick Boudreau is studying "Flow and Clutch" - they're the technical terms for optimal mental states. While flow state is about 'letting it happen', so that the activity enjoyable and motivating, clutch can be thought of as 'making it happen', something that is vital when you're doing an activity where a wrong move could be disastrous.

But both of these psychological states have wider applications too, in the office as well as on the sports fields. Claire Concannon catches up with Boudreau at a bouldering gym to talk about his research work.

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Researchers from the University of Waikato talk about Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) - a condition in which athletes don't take in the right amount of calories to do the exercise they are doing. Katie Schofield & Holly Thorpe explain why the problem is much more complex than just calorie intake, and why it is important to research this condition in a multidisciplinary way.

Watching the Olympics from the safety of the couch with snacks in hand, it's hard to imagine what athletes go through to reach the pinnacle of their sport. We can find ourselves watching and wondering, "What does it take to be so fit? What's the price of that sort of success?"

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For some athletes it's meant almost starving themselves to achieve their desired body weight and goals. In the 'no excuses', 'no pain, no gain' world of elite sport, hunger for success sometimes means actual hunger, but this can have devastating consequences to the athlete's performance and health.

Now, athletes are starting to speak out and researchers, like Dr. Katie Schofield at Waikato University, are turning their attention to RED-S, or Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport.

Schofield, a professional track cyclist for four years, was diagnosed with the condition herself, and was forced to take a year out of the sport to recover. What she learned on her personal journey inspired her to return to research RED-S for her PhD.

All of us need a baseline amount of energy to keep our bodies ticking over. But when elite athletes - or even over-enthusiastic amateurs - are expending so much energy in their training and not putting enough in, the deficit can do serious damage. It impacts not just the athlete's performance, but also their mood, immune system, hormone levels and bone health, among others.

For example, RED-S can lead to lower oestrogen, causing disruption in the menstrual cycle and loss of bone strength. If left unchecked this makes the athlete vulnerable to future fertility issues and stress factors. The warning signs can be missed amidst a tough training schedule and the stigma against not wanting to look weak; it's often not until bones are broken or other more serious injuries occur that people realise something more is going on…

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Scientific research can be thought as on a spectrum from blue sky to applied - this week, two stories that span this. Claire Concannon learns about a blue-sky research project on bacterial evolution while Katy Gosset watches testing of a new system of base isolation designed to help homes during earthquakes.

Using science to solve an urgent problem - like, say, developing a vaccine in the midst of a global pandemic - is pretty satisfying. But knowledge only moves forward because researchers build on what is already known, the idea of 'standing on the shoulders of giants' to see further. If no-one has done the basic research into how cells and immune systems work, you have nowhere to start.

So at one end of the science spectrum you have blue sky research, which asks basic questions about the world, without knowing what the application of the knowledge gained might be. At the other, is applied science, specific research aimed at fixing an immediate problem.

This week, two stories that span this spectrum.

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Blue sky thinking

Professor Craig Cary from the University of Waikato has been to the most extreme environments around the world - from deep sea, super hot and toxic hydrothermal vents, to the ultimate in dry and cold on Mount Erebus in Antarctica. His quest? To discover new bacteria that live there. He is fascinated by the microbial life that calls these extreme places home and how have they adapted to survive and thrive in these hostile conditions.

But for his next project, to find the bacteria he needs, he won't be boarding a plane or boat, but instead, asking a supercomputer to find it for him from a vast array of genome databases.

Craig is part of an international group of researchers who have been awarded a Human Frontier Science Program grant to investigate the evolution of the flagellum of a group of bacteria. The flagellum is the tiny protein motor that allows bacteria to move and find the nutrients they need to multiply. It's a critical job. Craig and his colleagues will be investigating whether flagella evolution always involves small step-wise changes, or, whether sometimes large protein components are incorporated that allow leaps forward in flagellum evolution.

Its blue sky research - high risk, possible high reward, but with no idea right now of what the application of any knowledge to come out of the project might be.

Base isolation for homes

When earthquakes strike, we're often just relieved to have survived. But Canterbury's deadly quake sequence has shown damaged homes can also cause years of disruption, stress and expense…

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On this week's Our Changing World - how songbirds learn their song, and how researchers in the Southern Hemisphere are trying to correct a long-standing male bias in the songbird world.

The traditional view in the songbird research world is that male birds sing elaborate songs to attract a mate, while females stay silent. That's just the done thing. Or so it was thought. Now Southern Hemisphere songbird researchers, such as those in Massey University, Auckland, are challenging this.

Songbirds, also known as the passerines (a massive group of 5000 or so species of bird including tūī, kōkako, stitchbird as well as wrens, tits and sparrows) must learn their song, just as a human baby learns language from those around them.

Professor Dianne Brunton is interested in the cultural evolution of songbird learning - how and why songbirds learn from each other, and how songs change with time and movement of birds. By studying the evolution of song changes in North Island tieke when they were translocated to different offshore islands, Dianne and her colleagues were able to investigate how saddleback song dialects change and how quickly they can innovate.

In tieke only the males birds sing, but Dianne is also determined to shine a light on female song, which is more common in the Southern Hemisphere. Her research, along with that of Dr. Michelle Roper and Dr. Wesley Webb, who work alongside her, has focused on female korimako or bellbird song. By recording individual bellbirds and breaking their song down into parts or 'syllables' the group has been able to show that male and female bellbirds are singing distinct songs - they have different language dialects.

Instead of a larynx, which allows humans to speak, birds have a syrinx. It is double barrelled, allowing them to make more complex sounds. They have identified differences in the physical structure and development of the syrinx in male and female birds that might allow them to sing these different song. Now Michelle is investigating the different syrinx structures in a family of passerines called the honeyeaters, which in New Zealand includes bellbirds and tūī.

Dianne, Michelle and Wesley explain how they study birdsong, what studying birdsong evolution can tells us and how their findings are disrupting the traditional view of female birdsong.

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To learn more:

Visit the Avian Acoustics Research page. Dianne, Wesley & Michelle also use Twitter to talk about their research work, you can follow them at @bellbirdsong_nz @wesleythewebb and @Musedmichelle,…

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Mathematical equations can help us get new perspectives, but sometimes can be difficult to understand. This week, one story about how maths has helped the understanding of a enigmatic quirk of heart rate control and another on how crafts can be used to better understand maths.

Mathematical rules and equations can help us get new perspectives on our world, but sometimes can be difficult to comprehend. This week, stories about how maths has helped the understanding of a enigmatic quirk of heart rate control and how crafts can be used to better understand maths.

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A new perspective

Alona Ben Tal was sure that her mathematics experiment would be a simple check to confirm an existing idea about heart rate control. When the modelling proved that the existing theory couldn't be true, it instead uncovered new insights into how heart rate is regulated during breathing.

An Associate Professor at the Mathematics Department at Massey University, and a member of the Manaaki Mānawa Centre for Heart Research at Auckland University, Alona uses mathematical modelling to get a new perspective on puzzles about how the heart and lungs work and interact.

Getting crafty about teaching maths

For some it's the scary subject at school but more New Zealanders are rediscovering maths, thanks to a crafty approach by local mathematicians.

Maths Craft uses creative skills such as knitting, crochet and origami to demonstrate the mathematical patterns and concepts that are all around us.

Katy Gosset visits one of the group's festivals in Christchurch.

Want to listen to more?

Our Changing World has a great back catalogue of mathematics related episodes, some are listed here.

For Maths, models & insights into the coronavirus pandemic Alison Ballance spoke with Associate Professor Alex James about creating mathematical models for complex systems.

What bird is that? is about collaboration between mathematicians and biologists to develop computer software that can recognise bird calls.

In The significance of statistics University of Otago science communication student Ellen Ozarka, explores the funnily named p-value or probability-value.

Maths professor Mark McGuinness is featured in a short episode about muesli and sea ice (2016) as well as one about lumpy volcanic eruptions (2013).

To find more, use the search tab on the home Our Changing World page and type in maths.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Researchers at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute are working on what they hope will be the first New Zealand designed Class 3 medical device - a pressure sensor for the brain, to help people with hydrocephalus. The team explain the sensor design, how it works and how they test it.

Feeling the pressure

Professor Simon Malpas and his lab group are dedicated to figuring out how to detect pressure in the brain; pressure caused by a build-up of fluid, a condition known as hydrocephalus. But it's pressure of another kind that gets Malpas and his team out of bed every morning and drives them on.

"We often meet patients and their families, and neurosurgeons as well, and a common thing they say is, if you can get this to work, its a game-changer for their lives"

Malpas has been interested in how you detect pressure inside the body for many years, but these days he and his colleagues at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute are trying to invent a new kind of implantable brain pressure sensor to help hydrocephalus patients. If they can, it will be the first New Zealand designed Class 3 medical device.

In New Zealand medical devices are rated by their potential risk from Class 1 (low risk) upwards. A Class 3 device is something that is long term implanted in the body, and is, therefore, high risk (for example, a cardiac stent).

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In hydrocephalus, a build-up of fluid around the brain increases the pressure, which can impact brain function, cause brain damage, and can even cause death. Normally, about half a litre of cerebrospinal fluid is produced in the body each day. The fluid flows through cavities in the brain called ventricles, and bathes the brain and spinal cord, before being reabsorbed into the bloodstream. An imbalance of this - either by overproduction of fluid, or blockage of the absorption back into the bloodstream - can result in a build up. While it can affect anyone at any age, hydrocephalus is most common in infants and other adults.

Before the invention of an implantable shunt to drain this fluid, hydrocephalus was almost universally fatal. But unfortunately, the shunts commonly used today are still failure-prone - in children the failure rate is 30 - 40% at one year and about 50% at two years. This can be due to a variety of reasons, including infection, blockage and mechanical failure. Some of the most common early symptoms of a shunt failing are nausea and headache, which can create a lot of uncertainty and anxiety amongst patients and their families. Is the headache they are experiencing due to shunt failure, or something more innocuous?…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Two stories of Aotearoa New Zealand conservation communities who are caring for the flora and fauna in their backyards. Claire learns about the Catlins Bats on the Map project while Katy learns about saving scurvy grass.

Bats on the Map

One wall of the Owaka museum is covered with a giant map of the Catlins area, with stickers marking where bat detectors have been used to successfully detect pekapeka. The Catlins' Bats on the Map project has delivered on its aim. Literally.

It's opening night of a new exhibition telling the story of the project, and the crowd gathered is abuzz about bats, eager to share what they've learned. They've been investigating bat distribution in different areas at different times of year, as well as gathering data on the insects that they eat.

The Catlins is a large hilly forested coastal area straddling South Otago and Southland. It is home to one of Aotearoa's two native land mammals - the long tailed bat. Classed as nationally critical, any data that can be collected on the distribution of these bats can help with their conservation.

The Catlins community have been doing this work as a massive group effort. Volunteer groups run summer evening transect surveys each year with hand-held detectors. School children, their parents and their teachers have gone on overnight bat camps and have studiously hung out bat detectors in different areas around their homes, farms and schools, hoping to record the echolocation calls of bats as they hunt their prey at night.

The project has been supported by the South Otago Branch of Forest and Bird and by Curious Minds Otago Participatory Science Platform. Project leader, and South Otago Forest and Bird volunteer, Catriona Gower, says all the data collected will be analysed and fed in to the Department of Conservation work on pekapeka.

To find out more, the students in Catlins Area School have made a video about the project, or you can visit the project's Facebook page.

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Scurvy saviour fights for survival

It helped Captain Cook's sailors stay afloat in the 18th century but these days Cook's Scurvy Grass is fighting for its own life.

The sub-species of coastal cress was used by the English explorer to ward off the vitamin C deficiency, scurvy, but it's now considered a threatened species.

However the plant is being monitored and nurtured at the Charlesworth Reserve in Christchurch, alongside another conservation trial of a rare native butterfly…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Claire Concannon meets a group of researchers who are determined to do the best science they can, to try to help the people they love.

Emeritus Professor Warren Tate hadn't heard of the disease that would become such a big part of his life until his 14 year-old daughter, got glandular fever. Instead of recovering normally from this viral infection, her fatigue, pain and noise sensitivity symptoms worsened, and, months later, after ruling out everything else, she was given the diagnosis - Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS).

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Looking for answers

Other scientists in Warren's lab also have a deeply personal connection to the research topic. Anna Blair, who is interning at lab, has ME/CFS herself. Jemma Ellie, who is investigating cellular changes during the post exertional malaise response (a term for a type of exhaustion ME/CFS sufferers feel after doing strenuous exercise or thought), has first-hand experience of what the disease can mean for families.

The medical history and background to ME/CFS is convoluted, and includes a fair share of controversy and scientific dispute. ME/CFS is a chronic, multi-system disorder that has proven difficult for scientists to unravel.

Warren and his biochemistry research lab group in the University of Otago have been trying to help solve this puzzle by looking for changes at the DNA and cellular level. This could help them figure out what causes the disease or help them identify a specific biological marker that could be used for diagnosis.

Recently, they looked for changes in DNA and proteins of immune cells taken from the blood of ME/CFS patients. In 2020 they reported significant differences between with regards DNA methylation and some protein levels between the patients and the healthy controls (samples taken from people who don't suffer from ME/CFS). Because DNA methylation (the adding of a little molecule called a methyl group to DNA) is known to change the expression of genes (that is, which genes get read, and the instructions in them are used to make a protein) it is likely that this difference is impacting gene expression in these patients. When they looked closely at the changes in protein levels in ME/CFS patients (some proteins were there in increased amounts, some in decreased amounts) they found that the careful balance of proteins related to the mitochondria was disrupted…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details