The science ramble

From the diffusion of particles to the foraging patterns of animals, random walks are a useful mathematical model to describe many statistical processes. But just as one might walk randomly across a new city to get a feel for the place, simulated walks can also be used to study the structure of cities. For this episode of the science ramble, let’s look at how the issue of urban segregation can be quantified in this way.

This will be the last regular episode of the science ramble for now, while I will focus on other projects. I hope to still release the occasional episode though, so stay tuned.

Further reading

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The study covered in this episode: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33344-3

A more accessible summary of the research: https://www.pnas.org/post/journal-club/virtual-city-walks-offer-more-precise-metric-urban-segregation

The richness and beauty of coral reefs stems from a juxtaposition between the smallness of animals that construct them and the huge features that emerge, of relationships between animals and algae, and the sessile nature of corals combined with miniscule movements that are essential for animal life. This intricate ecosystem can erect entire islands from the ocean floor but is also extremely vulnerable to changing environmental conditions. For this month’s science ramble, let’s look at how corals come to form reefs, and how their motions might change with global warming and higher sea levels.

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Further reading:

The paper covered in this episode: https://journals.aps.org/prapplied/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.18.024078

A more accessible news article covering the story: https://physicsworld.com/a/waving-coral-synchronizes-according-to-temperature-and-light-conditions/

Used for centuries in spiritual ceremonies, psychedelic drugs such as LSD have become known to Western society as fuel to the 1960s counterculture movement. But since they first sparked the interest of researchers in the late 19th century, there has also been a keen interest in their medical use. Initially, they were regarded as tools for psychiatrists to study the effects of a model psychosis they were thought to elicit, but focus has since shifted towards directly treating patients in psychedelic-assisted therapies. These have shown great promise for treatment of depression, addiction and anxiety, but why some patients respond better than others is still unclear. For this month’s science ramble, let’s look at the history of psychedelics in medicine, and a recent study that may explain differences between patients based on small variants of the underlying receptors in the brain.

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Further reading:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acschemneuro.1c00815 - The paper covered in this episode.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2018.00172/full - An accessible review about how psychedelics may elicit their effects, with useful background information.

DISCLAIMER: This episode features short snippets of “Tomorrow never knows” by the Beatles, “Eight miles high” by the Byrds and “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix. I do not have copyright for these tunes (do check them out on any listening platform, if you want to hear the full versions, I recommend!), but my use here falls under “fair dealing” under UK copyright law, which permits use for “research and private study, criticism or review, or news reporting”.

Style may change rapidly in our day and age, but the making of art predates written history. Thousands of paintings and engravings have been discovered world-wide, yet often the context of their creation and use has been lost. Experimental archaeology tries to fill in the gaps with experiences that can be produced today. For this month’s science ramble, let’s look at how technology helps to shape these efforts.

Further resources

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The paper covered in this episode, scroll down for videos of their lighting simulations: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0266146

A book with much detail and many example of prehistoric art: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/archaeology/prehistory/cambridge-illustrated-history-prehistoric-art

Many lines of evidence in modern physics indicate that 85% of all matter in the universe is invisible because it doesn't interact with light, and only weakly interacts with the matter we know. However, we have only hypotheses as to what this dark matter is composed of. This month for the science ramble, let’s look at how the study of fast galactic collisions, which separate dark matter from ordinary matter, can help physicists find the answer.

Further resources

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The paper covered in this episode: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04665-6

An accessible article about dark matter: https://www.space.com/20930-dark-matter.html

That humans can behave deceptively is well-known. Commonly, it is attributed to our mental capacity and ‘theory of mind’. This makes evidence of intentional deceptive behaviour in the realm of other animals particularly intriguing. For the science ramble this month, let’s look at birds performing the act of a broken wing to defend their nests against predators.

Further resources

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Paper covered in this episode: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.0058

A recent general review about distraction displays in birds: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ibi.12814

How do organisms adapt to low oxygen environments, and why are there no Mexican cave fish swimming at the bottom of your tequila bottle? Join me with Matthew Harris for the first ever episode of 'the science ramble' in conversation!

Further resources

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Mexican cave fish adaptations: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-07619-0

A history of blood: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/14/the-history-of-blood

Following the commercialisation of space flight, larger and larger numbers of satellites orbit the earth at low altitudes. The streaks they leave in images when passing through the field of view of a telescope can impact ground-based astronomical studies, and this is expected to become much more common in the near future. For this episode of the science ramble, let’s take a look at the night sky, now home to new mega-constellations of communications satellites.

Further resources

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The original paper featured in this episode: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ac470a

A brief history of space-flight: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/spaceflight

With ever-increasing computational power, simulations of biological systems have advanced exponentially over decades. For this month’s science ramble, let’s look at how close we are to simulating whole cells, and what our ability to simulate might teach us about the reality we inhabit.

Further reading

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https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(21)01488-4 – Research paper covered in this episode.

https://elifesciences.org/articles/45379 – An accessible review about minimal cells.

https://www.simulation-argument.com/matrix.html – A short essay by Nick Bostrom summarising his simulation argument.

One of the big challenges for increasing the contribution of solar power to the global energy mix is storage. Power from solar cells needs to be extracted just as it is produced, but we don't always blow-dry out hair when the sun is shining. This necessitates expensive infrastructure for stockpiling the energy until it is used. For this episode of the science ramble, we look at a recent paper which reports on a new type of solar device which can be charged in the light and discharged in the dark.

Further reading

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The original paper covered in this episode: https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.217401

A short, accessible summary on the research: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v14/163

A recent review into the economics of solar power: https://oxfordre.com/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-491