All around Oxford, in laboratories, in offices, in ivory towers, the University’s
academics and students are busy investigating and innovating. Wherever there are unanswered questions, where there is doubt, where there are problems to be overcome, the dedicated and talented minds of this city will be hard at it, experimenting, travelling, writing, chewing their pencils, tapping their clipboards, meeting, greeting and working. Always working. This week, Cherwell has done research of its own, into a selection of the potentially world-changing research going on in Oxford at the moment.

Flight Mechanics
Oxford’s Innovations Dr Graham Taylor’s research team in the Department of Zoology works to uncover the secrets that underpin the exceptional flight performance of birds and insects. Funded by a €1.95M grant from the European Research Council, the team studies questions ranging from how the sensory physiology of a hawkmoth is tuned to its flight dynamics, to how the flexible feathers of an eagle’s wings allow it to tolerate gusty conditions. The experiments push hard at the frontiers of technological possibility and almost all of the team’s apparatus is custom-designed and built, including an immersive virtual reality flight simulator for hawkmoths and an inertial sensor unit and video camera carried by the group’s trained Steppe Eagle Cossack (pictured). The team comprises Engineers and Biologists, and the work has obvious applications to the design of miniature air vehicles. Nevertheless, it is the deeper biological questions that Dr Taylor says drive his research: most fundamentally, how natural selection tunes the dynamics of a system as complex as a bird or insect in flight. Answering this question will have implications not only for our understanding of animal flight, but for our understanding of the evolutionary process itself. For funded DPhil opportunities in 2010 contact [email protected].

                                                                                 Photo: Simon Walker

Ultrasound
The Biomedical Ultrasonics and Biotherapy Laboratory (BUBL) has been working
to develop drug delivery systems that combine therapeutic ultrasound with microbubble technologies, for applications such as thrombolysis, reversible
opening of the blood brain barrier, and gene therapy for cardiovascular disorders. BUBL’s research focuses on whether ultrasound-induced cavitation can be used to remove the physiological barriers presented by tumour vasculature in order to enhance the therapeutic effect of otherwise potent anticancer agents throughout the tumour. The use of focussed ultrasound allows the tumour microenvironment to be disturbed in a controlled manner in order to promote the delivery of anticancer agents whilst leaving surrounding healthy tissues unaffected. To benefit from the full therapeutic potential of the proposed drug delivery system, cavitation activity must be controlled, enhanced and optimized at the site of interest. This can be accomplished by monitoring the broadband noise, harmonic and subharmonic emissions from various types of volumetric and shape oscillations that arise as a result of different cavitational behaviours. Non-invasive, passive and active monitoring of these emissions is viewed as a way of correlating particular types of cavitational activity with particular enhancements in drug activity and uptake. Ultrasound itself can also be used as a trigger for localized drug release.

Rice Growth
The problem: by 2050, global population is expected to reach 10 billion, while resources, climate change and water availability will all become increasingly unpredictable. 700 million people in Asia currently rely on rice for the majority of their calorific intake, and this is expected to increase by 50% in the next 40 years. To address this, a global group of scientists are spearheading the ‘C4 Rice’ project, coordinated by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Professor Jane Langdale is leading a research group at Oxford that investigates certain genes which are thought to play a key role in the photosynthesis of plants. The project aims to adapt the anatomy of rice leaves to change the photosynthesis pathway that is used. Rice currently uses what is known as a ‘C3′ pathway, which under warm conditions is very inefficient. The project aims to adapt the pathways to make use of the ‘C4′ form of photosynthesis, which is found in plants like maize. It is thought that the genes (GLK) Professor Langdale is investigating regulate whether a plant employs C3 or C4 methods of photosynthesis, and by transferring genes from a plant such as maize, which uses the C4 method, this more efficient form of photosynthesis could be utilised by rice, greatly reducing the amount of water and fertiliser needed to grow this staple. Currently the research is in the middle of the ‘proof of concept’ stage which tests the feasibility of the project as a whole, but has potential to be taken further.

                                                                                   Photo: Or Hiltch

World Healthcare
The Global Health Governance Project (GHGP), a part of the Global Economic Governance Programme based at University College, has been working since 2006, investigating the global health system, and specifically trying to establish what can be done to improve the provision of healthcare to developing nations. The GHGP tackles a range of related issues, from the accountability of global health institutions to the divergence between the healthcare priorities of the developing world and the actual provisions of donors. The interdisciplinary nature of the research allows for wide collaboration; the project draws on the skills of academics from the Department of Politics and International Relations, the Department of Public Health and Primary Care and the Oxford Centre for Tropical Medicine. The research methods include semistructured interviews with government officials and NGOs, participation in global health conferences and detailed anthropological fieldwork. Dr Devi Sridhar, founding Director of the GHGP, explained, ‘We hope that the project will lead to better accountability and transparency in relations between developing countries and donors.’ The project is currently embarking on research into the increasing usage of tobacco in many poor countries, with particular emphasis on identifying barriers to the implementation of tobacco control policies. Sridhar added that in addition to the tobacco project and recently publishing a report on the global response to HIV/AIDs, the GHGP will be ‘looking closely at the emerging economies and the role they play in shaping global health’.

Chilli Molecules
How do you know how hot a chilli is without biting into it? In the world of chilli sauce production it’s a pretty important problem, and scientists in Oxford’s Theoretical and Physical Chemistry Labs have developed a product that solves it. It seems an odd thing for Oxford researchers to be working on. However, the chilli molecule happened to be the perfect shape for the chemists to demonstrate a new nano-technology. This is part of “bottom-up science”, where University researchers focus on breakthroughs in the fundamental science and occasionally stumble upon something with a possible
real-world application. Supermarkets buy tons of chillies and pulp them to make sauce. They usually employ a panel of expert tasters to judge their hotness on the ‘Scoville scale’, from Tabasco Pepper Sauce strength (about 2,500 units) to incredibly strong sauces like Mad Dog’s Revenge (1m units – about twice the strength of pepper spray). However, this is unreliable and time-consuming. Over the last 2 years, the Oxford scientists have built and patented a handheld device using carbon nanotubes which gives an instant Scoville measurement. “You just dunk the sensor in and get a reading,” explained Prof. Compton, one of the researchers. Their next project is a garlic sensor.

                                                                                     Photo: Neil Rees

Him: Matthew Evans-Young, St John’s, History

St. John’s third year lad, past his best, looking for someone to make him feel young again, and maybe provide some form of stress relief during Finals.

After finding that the Grande Cafe was closed and Scarlett admitting that she was actually a late replacement for one of her friends, we both made the decision to start drinking as soon as possible. Thankfully, she turned out to be very good company, and the date managed to pass without any awkward moments. Despite her questionable love of metal music and one too many stories involving bodily fluids, she was a laugh. We both ended up suitably drunk, and although Scarlett almost pushed the table over at one point, neither of us embarrassed ourselves too much.

Banter: Good
Looks: Fit
Personality: Fun
2nd date? Potentially…

Her: Scarlett Benson, Magdalen, Human Sciences

Self-proclaimed head WAG of Magdalen, looking for a fellow vegetarian who also doesn’t like vegetables.

It so happened that Matt and I had already met; on a particularly dismal crew date last term. This wasn’t a good start, and I expected a repeat in which I would be rather anxious to escape within half an hour. This was not the case, and while this was almost certainly aided by the constant flow of cocktails, matt’s amusing stories of naked runs down the high street, and other unmentionables made for an enjoyable date. After our fifth cocktails we were both in desperate need of the toilet and we decided that, to avoid going together, we would rock-paper-scissor it. Matt soon went on to abuse my terrible taste in music, and indeed my undying love for Charlie from Busted, which is, I suppose, understandable. So whilst I was initially was turned off by the fact he played rugby, and thus must inevitably have terrible chat, I laughed throughout, largely at him, and stumbled home hours later smiling.

Banter: For a rugby player, not bad
Looks: Chiselled (he thinks so too)
Personality: Down to earth.
2nd date? Probably not… 

Going Up:

Chris Evans

The British Chambers of Commerce has been quoted as saying that the UK economy is on the “brink of leaving recession”. It’s about time. Celebratory bonus anyone?

The Economy

The British Chambers of Commerce has been quoted as saying that the UK economy is on the “brink of leaving recession”. It’s about time. Celebratory bonus anyone?

Zizzi

Throughout January Zizzi is offering a pasta, pizza or risotto for £1 when you order another main meal. Just don’t use it as an excuse for two dinners…

Going Down:

World Cup Song

The FA has confirmed that for the first time since 1966 there is
not going to be an official song to mark England’s World Cup campaign in South Africa. A good omen perhaps?

Spotify

The University has banned the use of the the popular music sharing website Spotify due to the excessive bandwidth that the program requires. God forbid we have to start buying music…

RAG

Oxford Raise and Giving raised only £24,314 in comparison to the £974,048 raised by Loughborough. According to Charles Bailey, the organiser of the RAG Ball, the collegiate system leads to Oxford students going to college events rather than university ones.

Hangover Cures

According to James Garbutt of the University of North Carolina, none of the hundreds of proposed hangover cures have been scientifically proven to work. Not that 9am lectures hadn’t told us that already…

I wasn’t very good with girls when I was at school. Attracting them wasn’t the problem; most schoolgirls, in my experience, would happily lock lips with any boy in possession of a driving license and a fake ID. The problem was, once I had them, I never really knew what to do with them.

When you spend your days almost exclusively with other boys, playing sports, Playstation, and sports on the Playstation, interspersed with the odd bit of illicit drinking in Regent’s Park, the prospect of being expected single-handedly to entertain an attractive female, possibly for whole hours at a time, is a faintly terrifying one.

Most of the time, I failed miserably. My first ever date was lunch at Pizza Hut (‘all you can eat lunchtime buffet, only £5.99!’) followed by ninety minutes in the back row of an otherwise entirely empty cinema, watching people being killed by a giant tidal wave.

The relationship didn’t last. Nor had I improved much a couple of years later, when I took a very pretty girl to a very expensive lunch at a very sophisticated Japanese restaurant, only to discover that we were the only patrons.

We spent the next two hours listening to our awkward small talk (‘sunny, today, isn’t it?’) echoing around the enormous room while a bored-looking waitress hovered twelve inches away, interrupting every two minutes to ask whether we wanted the bill yet. I’m not sure I ever saw that girl again, either.

I struck gold in my first year of sixth form. After spending six hours wandering around Oxford on an open day, I invited an acquaintance who lived nearby to have dinner with me at Chiang Mai Kitchen on the High Street. It was possibly the most romantic evening of my life: a beautiful medieval building; a quiet corner of a small, wood-panelled room filled with beautiful couples gazing devotedly into each other’s eyes; light, witty conversation over an exquisite prawn curry and a bottle of Riesling, followed by a night of passionate fumbling atop New College Mound.

I was in love – not with the girl, who soon faded away into ‘let’s still be friends’- but with the restaurant.

I was so enraptured by the memory of that happy evening that for almost three years afterwards I never went back, because it could never be quite as good as I remembered.

But this week I did. Chiang Mai is a Thai place hidden down an alleyway off the High Street opposite Nero’s, and you could easily go through your entire time in Oxford not even realising it existed. It’s in a rickety wooden building that used to be a Private Hall, with a wonderful giant wooden door that looks like it hasn’t been changed in five hundred years.

We went on a Monday lunch. This is generally the quietest time of the week for restaurants, but there were three other tables occupied, one by a large and rowdy group of tutors discussing the merits of nuclear energy versus renewables. Not quite the same atmosphere as last time, then.

The food was still good though. Steamed pork dumplings came wrapped in a wrinkly batter that made them look like testicles afflicted by a particularly nasty venereal disease, but they tasted great, as did vegetable spring rolls dipped in some kind of sugary sauce. Minced chicken with basil, chilis and an oyster sauce was fiery enough to justify the two chillis warning symbol on the menu.

The only slightly duff note was a dish of stir-fried squid with garlic and pepper: a steaming mound of white tentacles which wobbled on the plate, and had a disconcertingly slimy texture. This, I feel, is the wrong way to serve it; squid is just one of those foods that should always be deep-fried in batter, like Scottish Mars Bars.

There’s a cheap lunch menu, but the best time to go is undoubtedly dinner, when you can gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes and dream happily of the night to come.

7.30 am. The army trucks rolled up into the square. Troops of fully-armoured riot police offloaded and took station. As I looked on, I could feel the uncomfortable dampness of my sweaty t-shirt against my back – but maybe that was more a result of the 30 degree heat that never relented.

I’d arrived in Honduras during the military coup of President Zelaya, so the country’s second city and financial capital, San Pedro Sula, was on high alert. The previous night had borne a 6pm curfew to stem potential gang violence. In any case, I was sure that I’d read that San Pedro had the second highest murder rate in the world. So, if anything, the presence of the riot police made me feel more secure.

Not that first impressions backed my preconceptions, mind you. Despite the armed guards outside every bank and the 8ft jail bars around every home, the overwhelming feel of the city was not of danger, simply ‘American’; but a laid-back, Caribbean kind of American. In fact, the whole country seemed to delight in megahighways and fast food joints, and every town and corner shop was ‘sponsored’ by both Coca Cola and Pepsi!

Yet that’s part of the reason I was there: to enjoy and explore the ‘differentness’ Honduras had to offer. To me, stretching outside your comfort zone to embrace and relish contrast makes for the real thrill of travel.

Indeed, taking an impulsive bus ride to a town I’d never heard of, missing the ‘stop’ and ending up in a Grand-Theft-Auto-esque run-down beachside city in the shadow of night is something I’d dread at home, but enjoy (with hindsight) when abroad!

Equally, local food is something to indulge in. I still miss balaeadas – the Honduran flour tortilla, refried bean and scrambled egg snack that made a cheap and tasty meal, and the crimson-coloured banana soft drinks that suggested Latin American food-colouring regulations are nowhere near as strict as ours.

Such variety of life was no more evident than in the Mesoamerican cloud forest in which I was on a biodiversity research expedition – the main focus of my trip. Here, stick insects the length of your arm, transparent frogs and finger-length crickets that made a finger-lickin’ treat were among the natural highlights. And I shall always remember the night hikes on which every step yielded a novel invertebrate or amphibian that looked stolen from a sci-fi movie! In contrast, collecting and measuring over 1200 leaves and rolling balls of horse excrement constituted the mundane, but necessary reality of biological research.

Accessing data in the remote field is a physical challenge in itself. We climbed up near vertical canyons, scrambled along river beds like kids in the Wacky Warehouse, and got drenched by tropical ‘power shower’ downpour. All on a diet of cabbage soup, rice and kidney beans that hungered us to the extent of naming the best-looking quartet of mangy feral chickens around camp the ‘edible four’. Perhaps local food isn’t something to indulge in after all!

But as I swung in my hammock in the remote forest camp, enjoying nature’s music accompanied by a babbling, thriving stream, I realised that the planet we all share is so valuable and so fascinating. Whether that be the contrasting anthropogenic infrastructure and culture that can add so much to our travels, or the natural splendour we too often take for granted, we should admire the variety of life rather than fight over it.