These advances were also reflected in the decor. The interiors of the Festival of Science and the South Bank’s Regatta restaurant and Dome of Discovery saw a unique collaboration between crystallographers and designers. 28 of Britain’s leading manufacturers came together to form the Festival Pattern Group.

This story is told for the first time at the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition From Atoms to patterns, which runs till 10 August.

Crystallographers’ diagrams and designers’ creations are reunited from the archive. These are placed in context with the Festival of Britain, Britain of the 1950s, and the then-modern science, and provide a unique insight into the creative process—comparing the inspiration with the finished product.

Left: Dorothy Hodgkin’s diagram of the crystal structure of insulin. Right: Wallpaper designed by Robert Sevant for John Line and Sons, used in the Cinema Foyer at the Exhibition of Science. Credit: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The inspiration is the X-ray crystallography of Dorothy Hodgkin, Max Perutz and others, who pioneered X-ray determination of the crystal patterns to deduce atomic structure. The finished products based on these patterns include table surfaces, lace, plates, carpets, wallpaper, glass, fabrics, and even ashtrays. Context to the works, and to the hope placed in science as a post-War healer, is provided by publications, photographs and a jolly government film commending the “essence of Britain” being “of Newton, of atomic research, of Captain Cook, of nuclear physics, and great works of humanity”. This embracing of the new is evident in the products too—in their novel materials and their bold, bright patterns and colours.

Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

Helen Megaw of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory was key to the success of the Group. Both its originator and scientific coordinator, she used crystal patterns in her own craft, embroidering an aluminium hydroxide cushion for Dorothy Hodgkin in 1937. Perhaps unusually for the time, she saw the value of this academic/industrial collaboration.

All the other crystallographers took part anonymously and are unmasked here for the first time. “It does seem to have been perceived as a risk to venture outside academia—and to associate with trade and commerce,” comments co-curator Emily Jo Sargent. “I think Megaw wanted to ensure that there was a separation between serious research work and the use of them for the designs.” It is evident that they were happy to participate and to use (or wear) the objects they inspired. The exhibition offers tantalising glimpses into their involvement, for example a letter between Hodgkin and Megaw, in which the latter refuses to sign a copyright waiver as she doubted she had the right to sell “a pattern perpetrated by nature”.

From Atoms to Patterns succeeds in provoking questions about designers’ inspirations, the beauty of science, and the attitudes of the science and design communities to each other, then and now. It contains a fascinating insight into British science, British design, and British optimism for a modern future, at a key moment in history for all three.

This is the first of three major exhibitions to open in London this year on an aspect of post-war modernism and design—Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain opened 30 April at the Science Museum, and Cold War Modern: Design 1945-70 opens at the V&A in the autumn.

Scott Keir is Administrative Secretary of the R&D Society and a trustee of the Dennis Rosen Memorial Trust.

Next year marks the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Of the many celebratory initiatives, the HMS Beagle Project is surely the most ambitious.

The aim is to build a sailing replica of the good ship that carried Darwin around the world in 1831–1836. The new Beagle will itself circumnavigate the globe, as a living testament to the importance of Darwin’s contributions to science and society, and a floating educational resource.

Karen James, Director of Science for the project, explains more.

What stage is the project at?
Raising £3.5million GBP to build the new Beagle is our top priority. We have a renowned German shipwright, Detlev Loell, lined up and ready to go, dry dock space for the build provided in kind by the Milford Haven Port Authority (in Pembrokeshire, Wales), articles of incorporation as ‘The HMS Beagle Trust’, and have also just established an ‘American Friends’ organisation (details soon at our blog) to enable us to fundraise with tax exempt status in the United States.

Of course, successful fundraising depends heavily on the development of compelling plans for the voyages and activities of the new Beagle. That is my main area of activity right now: assembling a portfolio of developing science programmes, building collaborations with both individual researchers as well as research institutes and universities, and also developing plans for links to formal education and public engagement with science.

Who’s going to journey on the replica Beagle?
We will have a core professional sailing crew, a core of professional scientists (including myself—they would need lethal weapons to keep me off of the new Beagle) and science communicators, and a film crew. The remainder of berths will be filled by rotations of practicing scientists doing three- to six-week research projects, teachers on continuing professional development (CPD) and young science students and sail training cadets.

What scientific messages are you trying to communicate?
Eell, there are scientific messages, but there are also messages about science. For example, our scientific messages will likely include the impacts of climate change (and land use change) on biodiversity, the threat of invasive species, marine biodiversity, patterns of diversity and the evolutionary processes that underpin them. Messages about science are slightly different. These will include the enormity of what has yet to be discovered about our living world (especially in the oceans), that science is a process rather than a body of knowledge, that science is an exciting, adventurous career choice and how basic scientific literacy is not only important but can enrich all aspects of life, even for the non-scientist.

Are you going to follow Darwin’s route, or boldly go where no Beagle has gone before?
We are planning to follow the route of the Beagle’s second voyage, that is, the one on which Darwin sailed from 1831–1836 (minus the backtracking that was imperative for her original survey work). However, for certain scientific or political reasons, we are entertaining the possibility of adding a few extra ports of call. For example, I would be keen to visit the Pacific island of Moorea, where a major DNA barcoding project is underway.

You’re exploring a collaboration with Nasa—not, on the face of it, the most obvious of partners. What’s that all about?
We have a lot in common with NASA in terms of our scientific, educational and public programmes. For example, we have very similar list of basic core commitments:
• to the value of human exploration
• to the search for new life
• to science education and outreach
• to understanding Earth’s past, present and future

When you’re not on Beagle duty, you’re a postdoctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum. Tell us a little about your research interests.
I’m a geneticist by training, not a taxonomist or systematist, and as such most of my projects revolve around bringing the tools of the genomics revolution to bear on biodiversity. For example, I am working on developing a system for the molecular diagnosis of plant specimens to the species level (called DNA barcoding), and I’ve also just published a project that successfully trialled a DNA micro-array protocol for genome-wide detection of DNA polymorphisms in non-model organisms.

Also, during 2007–2009 I am serving as the museum’s coordinator for Darwin bicentenary related science projects. One of the main projects we are working on in this area is the complete conservation, digitisation and web-access of all of our specimens collected by Charles Darwin, which number in the thousands.

How does doing research at a major museum differ from working in, say, a university setting?
That is actually a difficult question for me to answer. You see, I not only moved from a university setting to a museum, but I also moved from the USA to the UK. So it’s hard for me to tell if the differences I notice are transatlantic or occupational in nature. I suppose the main difference is that where universities offer/require their researchers to teach undergraduates or graduate students, a museum offers the opportunity to interact with the public (and in more formal educational settings); for example, I regularly participate in the museum’s Nature Live programme; these sessions take place with an intimate group of museum visitors and are also webcast live. This kind of interaction will increase when we open the new Darwin Centre in 2009.

Tell us one fact about Darwin that most people don’t know.
Just one? Oh dear, oh dear. Well, how about this: the finches Darwin encountered in the Galapagos islands weren’t nearly as important as an inspiration of his theory of natural selection as the mockingbirds he encountered on those same islands (one of which is amongst the rarest birds in the world).

Oh, and let me squeeze in one more: Charles Darwin is a blogger.

For a recent series of articles, we asked the leading candidates for their opinions on the proposed new research facility at St Pancras, perhaps the hottest potato in London’s science scene. We also examined their policies on other key areas of professional relevance to scientists—energy and the environment. (Note, the London Mayor has no direct control over healthcare.)

This article summarises their responses in one place, to help you make a decision on May 1.

UKCMRI
The proposed UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation will bring major new laboratory facilities to the centre of London. Backed by the prime minister, biobusiness and many scientists, the centre has nevertheless drawn criticism from local communities and lobby groups who fear a disease outbreak in this densely populated area.

Boris Johnson: “London must lead the way in research and development to advance medical science, and it is fantastic news that the capital will now be the home of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI). It’s quite clear that linking research to delivery in the NHS will significantly advance our fight against major diseases and improve health care.”

Brian Paddick: “[The centre] is an important example of London being seen as a 21st century capital with an eye on future development.”

Siân Berry: Berry is against the proposed UKCMRI, saying that the sale of public land should be used for local housing and employment.

Ken Livingstone: No comment given.

Energy

Boris Johnson
• Council tax rebates to those who insulate their homes.
• Supports wind farm in the Thames Estuary.
• Mayoral Prize to reward low-carbon technology innovation from graduate students.
• Not ruling out nuclear power.

Brian Paddick
• Permanent exhibition, perhaps at Battersea Power • Station, to educate about sustainable energy.
• Powering the Tube with renewable energy.
• Encourage on-site energy generation in public buildings.
• Hydrogen fuel for buses, hybrid power for taxis.

Ken Livingstone
• 60% CO2 emissions cut by 2025—ahead of national targets.
• Retrofitting public buildings to be energy efficient.
• New buildings must meet 20% of energy needs from renewables.
• Supports wind farm in the Thames Estuary.
London’s energy to be generated in London by 2025.
• Against nuclear power.

Siân Berry
• All new buildings to get 25% of their energy from local, renewable sources by 2010, with further 25% increases every five years until 2025.
• 100,000 roofs in London to be fitted with either photovoltaics or solar water heating by 2015.
• Against nuclear power.

Environment

Boris Johnson
• In favour of the Low Emission Zone, which charges drivers of more-polluting vehicles
• Would introduce a free bike-hire scheme.
• Major tree-planting initiative (10,000 trees).
• Introduce schemes that reward people for recycling.

Brian Paddick
• New builds should focus on brownfield sites.
• Major tree-planting initiative (10,000 trees).
• Composting and recycling facilities for all housing estates.
• Recycling containers for free newspapers at major transport interchanges.
• £50 million for new cycle routes, and free bike-hire scheme.
• Believes Low Emission Zone would be ineffective.

Ken Livingstone
• Increase green spaces and green roofs to help cope with climate change.
• Major tree-planting initiative (1 million trees).
• A ‘green oyster card’ rewards people who act green with free entry to nature and conservation sites.
• Will invest in renewable energy from waste.

Siân Berry
• Increase green spaces and green roofs, especially on new buildings.
• Cycling budget tripled to £150 million.
• Supports the Low Emissions Zone.

Read more about the candidates’ positions in these areas in the original articles.

Boris Johnson, Conservative
Sian Berry, Green Party
Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrats
Ken Livingstone, Labour Party

The current mayor needs no introduction to Londoners. He champions the cause of climate change, but will Red Ken’s policies be green enough if he’s elected again?

A highly skilled London
“Encouraging more young people to take up science in school and university will build the highly skilled workforce that is so crucial to strengthening London’s economy and regenerating areas,” said Livingstone while touring the future Centre of the Cell at Queen Mary College in 2006.

He added that the mayor’s responsibility as chair of the London Skills and Employment Board, now devolved from government, “will mean London will be well placed to meet the challenge of building a highly skilled workforce. I will use these new devolved powers to champion new projects.”

Yet Livingstone declined to comment on the proposed UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation, unlike the other candidates.

On the move
Livingstone touts high-tech to clean up public transport. He’s will introduce 500 hybrid fuel buses, whose diesel engine–battery combo should cut carbon emissions by up to 40%. Hybrid black cabs are also on the agenda.

Livingstone will continue to fight road pollution, with a £25 ‘gas guzzler’ charge for high-carbon-emitting cars and an exemption for ‘green’ cars in central London from October.

The Low Emission Zone will continue. From July, vehicles over 3.5 tonnes, buses and coaches will be included, with further vehicles being introduced up to 2012. Car clubs and an improved infrastructure for ‘plug-in’ electric cars are also on the table.

Livingstone will also implement a £500 million, 10-year plan for cyclists and walkers, including a hire scheme with bikes every 300 metres, the introduction of ten ‘cycling corridors’ and safer biking zones in urban areas. Legible London, a walking scheme in its pilot stage, will be expanded.

Ken is against the expansion of Heathrow airport, and indeed any airport in the South East. “The massive expansion in Heathrow’s capacity would have an adverse impact on efforts to tackle climate change, it would increase aircraft noise, worsen road congestion and further reduce air quality in one of the most polluted parts of London,” he says.

Energy for London, from London
London’s Climate Change Plan targets a 60% CO2 emissions cut by 2025—25 years ahead of national targets. This is central to Livingstone’s policies, as “the most important long term issue confronting the world”.

A new service will advise Londoners on household improvements to cut emissions and save energy, with other schemes promoting discount home insulation and energy saving light bulbs.

Retrofitting public buildings, starting with those of the Greater London Authority, will cut emissions and save energy, and commercial landlords will be encouraged to adopt energy-efficient technology.

New buildings will be required to install energy generation equipment and meet 20% of their energy needs with renewable energy, while all of Transport for London’s traffic lights will be replaced with low-energy LED lights.

Livingstone wants London’s energy supply to be generated in London by 2025, largely by using combined heat and power plants. He also supports the London Array, a proposed wind farm in the Thames Estuary.

Greener still
Livingstone is the only candidate who’s talked about how London will adapt to the effects of climate change such as higher temperatures, extreme rainfall and possible flooding. He’ll publish an adaptation strategy in summer 2008.

Green spaces, including green roofs, he says, will need to be maximised to soak up excess water and help prevent the urban heat island effect, in which buildings and pavements absorb and radiate heat.

He’ll protect green spaces and gardens from being ‘grabbed’ and plant over 1 million trees to provide natural shade. New buildings will be required to catch rainwater and use water-saving devices. With good water management, he says, London will not need to resort to desalination for drinking water.

Plans for a green grid of open spaces in East London will benefit both people and wildlife. Livingstone will also publish a new strategy for protecting London’s biodiversity—his first since 2000.

To get us making the most of London’s green spaces, a ‘Wild London, Open London’ programme will reward ‘Green Oyster Card’ points with free entry to nature and conservation sites. School children will benefit too from a further three years of funding for a scheme that gives them free entry to London Zoo and the London Wetland Centre.

Livingstone will oppose the establishment of new waste incineration plants and spend £24 million developing clean gasification and other technology to create renewable energy from waste, heating up to a million London homes and cutting emissions.

Previously
Boris Johnson, Conservative
Sian Berry, Green Party
Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrats

Image from Flickr.

Boris Johnson, the Conservative candidate for mayor, is MP for Henley, former editor of the Spectator and has been the Shadow Minister for Higher Education. He is outspoken about the mayor’s duty to protect public health and is the only candidate in favour of nuclear power.

A scientific future
“London must lead the way in research and development to advance medical science, and it is fantastic news that the capital will now be the home of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI),” says Johnson. “It’s quite clear that linking research to delivery in the NHS will significantly advance our fight against major diseases and improve health care.”

He’s concerned about the numbers of young people being turned off science, an issue he is outspoken on “It is crucial for London, and the rest of the country, that we reverse the trend of the last 20 years that has seen dwindling numbers of students in key scientific disciplines like physics and engineering.”

Though education is not in the mayor’s remit, he will make use of the new powers for the mayor as the chair of the London Skills and Employment Board to support more scientific education for adults.

Dousing the big smoke
Thousands of Londoners die every year from illnesses relating to poor air quality, says Johnson. Part of reducing this problem is campaigning against the current expansion plans for Heathrow on the basis of increased noise and atmospheric pollution.

But this hasn’t stopped him from announcing plans for a Heathrow-on-Sea on artificial islands in the Thames Estuary, where he says planes wouldn’t disrupt residents. This has drawn criticism from green campaigners, who prefer flight cuts.

On the roads, Johnson favours the Low Emission Zone, with charges for large vehicles that don’t meet emissions standards. “The ‘polluter pays’ principle that lies behind the Low Emission Zone is fair. We believe the LEZ is a step in the right direction,” says his environment manifesto.

On transport technology he says, “Hydrogen buses could be the answer, but at the moment they cost £1 million per bus. In the short term, I will ensure all bus companies include more hybrid vehicles in their fleet, and use more biofuels.”

And like all the other main candidates, Johnson wants to make London a safer and easier place to cycle. He’ll introduce a free bike scheme like that in Paris.

Energetics
Johnson will lead by example in reducing energy consumption. “I want City Hall and the bodies of the GLA to have a clean carbon conscience under my Mayoralty,” says his environment manifesto.

Homes also have a role to play. “We can improve energy efficiency by improving home insulation, and this is one area the Mayor has failed on,” he says. “Just 3,098 Londoners have signed up to the Mayor’s scheme to insulate their homes.” Johnson will ask London boroughs to offer council tax rebates to those who insulate their homes.

He’s keen on the use of combined heat and power generators and says that wherever possible, renewable energy should be used. Geothermal heat pumps in the foundations of the Crossrail project are a possibility, for example. He’ll also commission a study into hydroelectric power on the Thames and support the London Array windfarm in the outer Thames Estuary.

To help stimulate innovative research into renewable energy, he’ll introduce a Mayoral Prize in the field of urban low-carbon technology for graduate students in London with a £20,000 prize.

As for nuclear energy, he believes, “We need a mix of provision, and it would be short sighted to rule anything out”.

Tree power
Johnson will launch a £6 million, 10,000-tree project to line the streets that need them most, and try to add street trees to protection under the London Plan—London’s planning rules. “Not only do trees improve the street environment, they absorb CO2 and traffic noise, provide habitats for wildlife and help cool streets when temperatures rise.”

For larger patches of green, Johnson will instigate The Priority Parks Programme. By scrapping the mayoral publication The Londoner and using its £2.5 million budget, he’ll work with local councils to improve green spaces.

Johnson will also introduce schemes to pay Londoners to recycle, based on the weight of recycled material. He will promote ‘freecycling’ schemes, where unwanted items are found new homes rather than ending up in landfill.

Health from Haringey to Richmond
At present, the mayor doesn’t have any control over healthcare in London, but Johnson says he’ll close the ‘health gap’ between the rich and poor boroughs of London.

He’ll ring-fence London’s spending on public health, funds that are “frequently raided in London when Primary Care Trusts are in deficit”, and reform the existing London Health Commission, to work with the Mayor’s office and individual boroughs to fight health inequality in the areas, such as transport and housing, that are in the mayor’s remit.

Previously
Sian Berry, Green Party
Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrats

Image courtesy of Richard Davies of Richard Davies Photography

Imperial’s nascent centre for shock physics has won a five-year funding contract from the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), the company that designs and maintains Britain’s nuclear arsenal. When the institute opens next year, it will house a gas-gun and a ‘z-pinch generator’—a device used fancifully in the Hollywood movie Ocean’s Eleven to cause a blackout in Las Vegas.

Imperial’s present generator, nicknamed Magpie, is being upgraded to help produce plasma capable of squeezing materials slowly to pressures of one million atmospheres. Similar pressures are found inside planets. “Earth scientists are particularly interested in how complex materials such as iron undergo interesting phase changes at the high pressures encountered inside the earth,” says the institute’s interim director, Professor Steven Rose.

Unlike the gentler Magpie, the institute’s new ‘gas-gun’ will use compressed gas to propel a slug along a ten-metre barrel up to speeds of several kilometres a second, before slamming it into a target. “High-velocity impacts happen throughout the universe and diagnosing what happens as shock waves travel through materials will help us understand asteroid impacts better,” says Rose.

Soldiers in the laboratory?
But not everyone is cheering the new institute. Dr Chris Langley, a Hertfordshire-based neurobiologist and author of More Soldiers in the Laboratory, a report published last August by Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), is concerned that research at the institute will have military aims also. SGR is a lobby of 600 scientists, including Stephen Hawking and Royal Society presidents Sirs Martin Rees and Michael Attiyah. Langley’s report argues that Britain’s status as the world’s second biggest spender on military research after the US means we can afford to spend less on military science and more on the fight against climate change and ill-health.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the ministry “actively seeks to work with academia” and that “defence research covers a vast array of areas and much activity involves research into force protection, including individuals and infrastructure”.

According to Rose, “there was a clear understanding in the contract with AWE that no defence work would be carried out and that research would be published”. The connection to the defence world, he said, “is through the people who may be recruited later by AWE, which is a matter for them”.

“It may be cynical of me”, said Langley, “but I doubt this will lead to an open academic environment given the institute’s funding comes from a source which has major military corporations behind it, including Lockheed Martin which manages AWE”. He also voiced concern that British universities are increasingly funded through military research contracts he valued at more than £44 million a year.

Independence of research must be upheld
Phil Willis, chair of the Commons Innovation, Universities and Skills select committee, said the debate should be put into context: “In the last nine years, we’ve seen a doubling in investment into universities through the research councils to £6bn, so there is a strong sense that the independence of research is being upheld”. He added that it would be wrong for universities to turn their back on lucrative private research contracts, but cautioned that they should be “very wary” of collaborations that threatened their independence. “It raises enormous concerns that large American corporations run a large part of Britain’s nuclear science establishment, but also that they are directing the research. It should be a major concern for the nuclear science community,” he said.

Meanwhile, anyone looking to make an impact in their career should consider applying to the institute. They are recruiting physicists, earth and material scientists, and hope to attract 20 PhD students with scholarships. The director’s chair is empty, too.

The Liberal Democrat candidate for mayor, Brian Paddick, is a former deputy assistant commissioner and spent 30 years in the London Metropolitan Police. He plans to use new technology to reduce London’s energy usage and kickstart the transport system.

A scientific city
London’s development hinges on encouraging research and development, says Paddick. “If London is to maintain our position in the world economy, it needs to develop across a broad front—we’ve got to develop our high-end, technical and scientific pre-eminence if we are to compete and maintain our world position.”

“We have gone through a phase where people were surprised and amazed by technological advances to one where it’s taken for granted. We need to encourage far more people to become interested in science and technology, particularly young people.”

The establishment of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation is an example of the kind of initiative London needs to take, he believes. “[The centre] is an important example of London being seen as a 21st century capital with an eye on future development.”

Clever transport
Simple measures such as rephasing and cutting down on traffic lights, and planning road works more efficiently are key to Paddick’s aim to cut congestion—and therefore pollution and carbon emissions—with smoother and faster journeys. “It’s a lack of coordination that causes traffic to be snarled up and polluting more,” he says. He would also like a “much more intelligent congestion charge which differentiates between essential and non-essential users”.

Paddick will keep a flat rate of £8 per car in the Central congestion Charge Zone, and continue to develop ‘tag and beacon’ technology allowing deductions from a smartcard—possibly the ubiquitous Oyster card—via a sensor on the windscreen.

But he’ll scrap Ken Livingstone’s plans for a £25 charge for high-polluting cars, the Western Extension Zone and the Low Emissions Zone, which he claims will only bring a 0.3% improvement in air quality for considerable cost. Instead, a 24/7 £10 Greater London congestion zone for non-Londoners would be introduced, with exemptions for commercial vehicles.

“People have got to be encouraged to go down the environmentally friendly route and there should be incentives to doing that rather than penalising people for not doing it,” he says.

He intends to expand car clubs for those who want personal transport and will also support the installation of electric sockets in parking spaces so that electric cars can be recharged.

He also encourages walk and cycling, promising an additional £50 m for cycle lanes on all red routes, a ‘cycling representative’ on the Transport for London board, a free bike scheme called SmartHire, and better pedestrian signage. ‘Green’ purchases could also earn us cheaper travel, with a proposed green smartcard.

High-tech energy
Paddick is keen to use new technology to reduce London’s carbon emissions. He proposes powering the tube with renewables, developing hydrogen technology for buses, and converting taxis to run on hydrogen or hybrid power.

He proposes a permanent and rolling exhibition of the latest developments in sustainable energy and ‘green technology’, at an iconic site in London—possibly Battersea Power Station—where people can see the latest developments in reducing energy consumption, insulating homes and local power generation.

All major building developments would be self-sustaining in terms of energy, waste and water consumption and refurbishments would be required to be energy efficient. Blocks of flats and schools would be encouraged to use on-site combined heat and power generation to generate their own electricity.

Green means brown
Protecting London’s green spaces means redeveloping brownfield sites, even if it means increasing density, according to Paddick. “There are 7,000 hectares of brownfield sites owned by public sector organisations that can be used for building affordable housing without building on green spaces in the suburbs and building on back gardens.”

“In order to encourage biodiversity it’s not just a case of preserving a bit of green space here and there, it’s necessary to preserve large swathes of green space,” he says, also proposing the planting of 10,000 trees.

All housing estates would be given composting and recycling facilities under Paddick’s plans, and recycling bins will be encouraged at supermarket exits to recycle excess food packaging. Free newspapers will be recycled at major transport interchanges.

Previously
Sian Berry, Green candidate

Gosling worked closely with Franklin during her two years at King’s. They produced photographs of DNA that ‘screamed double helix’ and without which he is convinced Crick and Watson’s famous model would have been impossible. Gosling remembers what a ‘shattering’ development this was, calling it ‘the first time the dominant species has held the key to evolution’.

In a world in which the possibilities and challenges of genomic data are immense—not to mention the negative effects of Watson’s recent inflammatory statements is more vital than ever to keep in mind Franklin’s emphasis on careful adherence to the experimental data and on ‘playing devil’s advocate’ by considering all possibilities.

Search for a scientist
By 1950, John Randall’s team at King’s was pulling together after Maurice Wilkins and Gosling obtained an X-ray diffraction photograph of a sample of pure DNA. To complete the project, Gosling remembers, they needed a first-rate X-Ray crystallographer, ‘someone with a bit of imagination’.

Franklin was known for her work on coals and chars begun in 1938 during her PhD at Cambridge and applied at the Coal Utilisation Research Association (CURA) and, after 1947, at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l’État in Paris. Randall wrote offering her a Turner-Newall fellowship and in 1951 she took up the post at King’s with Gosling as her PhD student.

Search for a structure
Gosling laughs about the media fixation on ‘photo 51’, the image that became iconic after its 1953 publication in Nature along with the accompanying papers by Watson and Crick and Wilkins, Stokes, and Wilson. At the time, it was one picture among the many obtained from the hydrogen-filled micro-focus cameras as Franklin and Gosling carefully controlled humidity levels and took the sodium salt of their DNA specimens through various levels of water content.

The achievement of Franklin’s skilful control of water levels was to distinguish the ‘A’ and ‘B’ forms of DNA: a task essential to visualising the structure of either. Following Franklin’s constantly held dictum ‘let the results speak for themselves’, she initially focused on measuring the beautiful crystalline form of ‘A’ using the Patterson function (a version of the Fourier transform used to measure inter-atomic distances).

While the pair were scrutinising the images, Wilkins was inspired by the models pioneered by Watson and Crick in Cambridge. Gosling says the first of these models—a triple helix—was a perfectly logical guess but incorrect. ‘God didn’t want a rigid structure,’ he jokes.

But then a second model came along. Using data from the King’s lab, Watson and Crick proposed the double helical structure with the unique pairing of the heterocyclic bases that we know today. A trip up to Cambridge after an excited phone call about this model was when all the pieces fell into place for both sets of researchers.

Despite these fruitful collaborations, Wilkins’ enthusiasm for model-building sat ill with Franklin’s emphasis on rigorous experimentation and J. D. Bernal’s 1953 offer of work at Birkbeck was a welcome chance for her to take up the challenge of investigating RNA in the tobacco mosaic virus. Franklin elucidated the helical geometry of the RNA and demonstrated that it carried the infectivity or genetic information. This is the achievement of which Franklin was most proud at her early death in 1958 and which is celebrated on her tombstone in the Jewish cemetery in Willesden.

What would Franklin have thought?
Reflecting on recent developments such as the sequencing of the human genome, Gosling says he ‘would give anything to know what Rosalind would have thought’. The ethical implications are immense: legislation against ‘genetic discrimination’ is already beginning, while debate rages over whether to allow the creation of clones and chimeras for medical research.

Gosling, who considers global coordination to prevent the misuse of genetic information to be ‘more important than global warming’, is convinced that Franklin—always passionately interested in the applications of her work—would have urged further international coordination and cooperation to ensure the knowledge of the great double helix she helped unravel is used to benefit humanity.

The Green Party’s contender, Siân Berry, is an engineering graduate, former medical writer and crusader against ‘Chelsea tractors’. She’ll use the mayor’s considerable planning clout to make London a cleaner, safer and greener place.

Air to breathe
Pollution on some London streets regularly exceeds air quality maximums. “One study that monitors air pollution by the second, found that a person can get 10–20% of all their air pollution crossing one road,” explains Berry. She will remove ‘cattle pen’ railings, preventing sheep-like herding across roads and reducing time spent where the pollution is highest.

Berry also cites air pollution and carbon emissions as reasons against the expansion of Heathrow Airport, along with the noise pollution in surrounding areas. “The climate change argument is completely clear—we can’t fight climate change and build more airports, full-stop,” she recently wrote in her New Statesman blog.

Berry supports Ken Livingstone’s proposed £25 central London charge for highly polluting cars and the Low Emissions Zone but is against an ‘ever-expanding’ zone and wants to look into more sophisticated options such as targeting the most polluting vehicles on congested streets at busy times.

Slower, smoother, greener?
Berry will impose a 20 mph speed limit on London’s roads to reduce congestion, pollution and accidents. “If 20mph is the maximum speed limit no one is trying to accelerate between traffic lights,” she says.

Walking and cycling will also be encouraged, with more pedestrianised areas, a tripling in the cycling budget to £150 million by 2012 and free bikes schemes.

“It’s more about reducing the need to travel,” she says. “When that comes to planning it’s ensuring that everything that people need is nearby and not centralising everything.”

Energy: less is more
High-tech solutions to decreasing energy usage are not for Berry. “There’s a lot you can do without spending a lot of money,” she says. “We’ve got the London Plan, the planning rules for London, and we can do a lot with it.”

Making buildings more energy efficient is a must. Using the London Plan, Berry wants all new buildings to get 25% of their energy from local, renewable sources by 2010, with further 25% increases every five years until 2025.

She also wants to incentivise homeowners to generate their own energy. Current methods for selling energy to the grid are too complex, she says. By simplifying the rules and providing low cost loans, she wants 100,000 roofs in London to be fitted with either photovoltaic electricity generation or solar water heating by 2015.

Berry is “disgusted with the decision to continue to use nuclear energy”. “It’s too expensive, it’s risky, it’s not renewable; it won’t last as long as we think it will. It’s a waste of money, give us that money and we’ll build a secure electricity supply with renewables.”

She will also continue to explore the use of hydrogen buses. The city’s ‘fleet’ of three, at £1 million each, are “expensive but worth a try”.

Diversify and strengthen
The mayor has a general responsibility to pursue economic development for London. Berry wants to build a stronger, more diverse and resilient economy—and that’s where scientists come in.

“I would love to see more people involved in technology and manufacturing—there’s virtually no manufacturing going on in London, which is a real shame and will cause more problems in the future.”

Innovation is going to be required, for example, to find attractive and efficient solutions to insulating the 66% of London’s homes that lack cavity-walls. Berry will require developers to set aside 50% of space for small businesses, to provide space for enquiring minds.

But innovation should not come at the cost of affordable housing for local communities. Berry is against the proposed UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation, saying that the sale of public land should be used for local housing and employment.

Green oases
Green roofs, those that are either wholly or partly covered with vegetation, would become part of the London Plan for new buildings. Not only will they provide insulation, says Berry, but also provide habitat for birds and insects—the ‘bedrocks of ecosystems’—and a little recreational respite for us Londoners, perhaps even an allotment.

Gardens, front and back, will be protected under planning laws to prevent ‘garden grabbing’ for housing, or simply parking your gas-guzzling car.

Larger animals will benefit from the recently approved grid of wildlife corridors in East London. The grid will provide much-needed habitats for animals with specially constructed green ‘walkways’ to make sure biodiversity can move between habitats and mix it up a bit in the gene department.

In the late 1990s, the number of Londoners with HIV doubled within about seven years. Using molecular forensics, researchers from London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and the University of Edinburgh now understand how the virus spread so quickly.

In a study published in PLoS Medicine, Fraser Lewis and Gareth Hughes found that the epidemic proceeded in a stop-start fashion rather than a gradual one. The virus spread quickly over just a few years within tightly knit clusters of sexual contacts and more slowly between these clusters. A significant number of people passed on the virus within just six months of becoming infected themselves.

This study breaks new ground in viral tracking. Previously, the spread of sexually transmitted disease was monitored using interviews to map networks of sexual contacts. This approach doesn’t work for HIV because people remain infected for a long time and the risk of transmission during any single sexual encounter is low.

To understand how the virus spreads, Lewis and Hughes combined the patterns gleaned from sexual contact networks with information about the genetic relatedness of viruses sampled from different individuals. They call this new approach ‘molecular phylodynamics’.

“This approach has been used at a larger-scale to estimate when HIV was originally transmitted to humans,” says Andrew Leigh Brown, who led the research. “We applied it to a much larger sample to bring the timescale down to a matter of a few years.”

HIV is well suited to this method because it goes through frequent genetic changes to outfox the immune system, and doctors routinely capture genetic data to choose the best medications for individual patients. Using this data, Lewis and Hughes compared two viral gene sequences in samples from over 2,000 patients who attended London’s largest HIV clinic, the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, between 1997 and 2003.

They found 402 sequences that closely matched at least one other in the group. These came from patients who grouped into six tightly knit clusters of ten or more people who carried genetically similar viruses, along with several smaller groups. Lewis and Hughes worked out dated family trees for these viral strains to show that the majority of transmissions within the clusters took place between 1995 and 2000, which matches the time period when the number of infected people doubled.

One in four cases of infection happened within six months of the original partner becoming infected themselves, which suggests that transmission during the earliest stages of infection is an important driver of the HIV epidemic.

While these patterns are specific to London, they are likely to apply elsewhere in the UK. “We have a much larger study underway, where we’re looking at ten times as many people from all over the UK,” says Brown. Already, his team has started to find several large clusters that, as in London, include about a quarter of patients.

Brown says, “This study shows that HIV epidemics are structured in a way which means that targeted safe-sex interventions would be very effective. Messages could be targeted to places where people are likely to meet for sex, which could include virtual locations as the Internet becomes increasingly popular.” Such interventions are sorely needed. The levels of HIV infection in the UK have increased further since the epidemic of the late 1990s and remain high, with over 7,000 new diagnoses reported in 2006.

The youthful Chair in Applied Mathematics at Imperial College, Professor Darren Crowdy, has found a formula that could transform the way engineers work. He explained to Nature Network London how it feels to suddenly become a mathematical celebrity.

What was the problem you solved?
If you’re an undergraduate engineer then you may have come across the fact that any polygon can be mapped to a simpler, circular shape using something called the Schwarz-Christoffel formula. This has helped engineers who need to calculate the resistance or heat conductivity across any shape of material, like a piece of metal. But until now if there was a hole in that polygon then there wasn’t a formula that could deal with it.

For years, engineers have been using ad hoc methods and approximations to help them deal with the problem. But my formula allows them to compute it much more accurately.

How long did it take you to figure it out?
I was inspired to get involved with the problem in 2003. Other mathematicians had worked on it but had only managed to come up with partial solutions. One of my mentors once said to me, ‘Darren, never solve a problem somebody else can solve.’

It wasn’t until a year later that I worked out how to do it and then I spent time checking it. Even though my paper was published more than a year ago, it only got a lot of interest after a major article in SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) magazine this year.

And how did you do it?
My formula uses the Schottky-Klein prime function, which is specially tailored to solving problems involving shapes with holes. It was discovered more than a hundred years ago, but hardly any mathematicians use it. I myself only learned about it from a small chapter in a book that was first published in 1896. I took the original definition of the function and used its properties to find a new formula.

A few mathematicians have claimed they came up with a solution first Who’s right?
I have never made a secret of the fact that I was listening to mathematician Alan Elcrat speak in 2003 on his solution to this same problem. He, along with Tom DeLillo and John Pfaltzgraff, did indeed find a formula but I knew that it wouldn’t work in all situations. I realised that if a different formula could be found in terms of the Schottky-Klein prime function, then it would always be valid, for any shape with holes.

I have been in email discussions with Tom DeLillo who, since my work, has become a collaborator of mine. My own view is that they were first in writing down a partial solution, and I was first in writing the complete solution. I think friendly differences of viewpoint of this kind are healthy, and can promote scientific endeavour.

Some people have already called your formula a breakthrough—how often does something like this happen in mathematics?
It’s quite rare for mathematicians to solve problems of this magnitude. The last really big one was the Poincaré Conjecture, which earned Grigori Perelman a Fields Medal in 2006, which is like the Nobel Prize of Mathematics.

Although my result perhaps isn’t in the same league, it has a lot of practical use—a lot of mathematicians spend their time doing good work that appeals only to a small number of people. I don’t know yet, but I’m quietly confident that history will judge this to be a breakthrough.

How has it changed your life?
I feel happier because I feel like I’ve made a difference.

A lot more people come to my seminars now. It is a sad fact that mathematicians by their nature don’t publicise their work, like maybe medical researchers and engineers do. So for people to use my formula I have to talk about it, which means I have a very heavy travel schedule. Last year I went to Salt Lake City, Argentina and Canada—just some of the places I’ve had speaking engagements.

You’ve just turned 37. Given a lot of the greatest mathematicians did their best work while they were young, do you think you’ve reached your peak?
No, I think I can achieve more. This has spurred me on.

Image courtesy of Danielle Reeves

Baroness Susan Greenfield, who is a trustee of the initiative, proposed the idea in her visionary book Tomorrow’s People, published in 2003. She suggested that Western scientists might use cutting-edge technologies to help the poor.

“One can get blinkered by one’s own specific area of research,” she explains, “but if they have the opportunity scientists love to think around problems and see their technologies having as much impact as possible.”

Five years on, the idea finally coalesced when she discussed it with other scientists and NGOs. With help from the management consulting firm McKinsey and 18 months of funding from NESTA, Science for Humanity became a reality.

Her hope is that the charity will create a dialogue between researchers and NGOs. The kind of inventive research the charity wants to encourage includes a strain of genetically engineered cress that changes colour when planted close to landmines. Or a type of algae that generates hydrogen in anaerobic conditions—perfect for clean, low-cost fuel cells.

Will it work?
“The difference between a delusion and a vision is whether people are behind you or not,” says Greenfield. And she has plenty of people on board, including trustee Julia Goodfellow, former head of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

But will Science for Humanity work? Philip Rowley, chief executive of the charity, anticipates enough support from the scientific community to turn ideals into results. “The truth is that a lot of people go into science to do good. Our ideal model is to always work from the problem backwards so that those in the developing world are involved in the process from the start,” he says.

The concept builds upon work done by an existing UK charity, called Practical Action, which has been applying small-scale technologies in the developing world for decades—things like solar-powered cooking stoves and earthquake-resistant housing.

Susan Greenfield and solar-powered cooking stove in kenya (credit: Practical Action).

David Grimshaw, now a consultant to Science for Humanity, has no doubt that there is much more scope for researchers to get involved: “The way science has worked in the past hasn’t delivered all the promised benefits to society,” he says.

Grimshaw cites water sanitation and access to cleaner energy as issues with potentially rapid solutions by scientists. “One particular problem we’ve looked at is mercury poisoning in the water in Peru, caused by gold mining. One possible solution to this is nano-filters, and that’s something we’re looking at right now.”

Hearts and brains
Developing a product from a concept can take many years. The charity’s solution is to exploit existing patent ideas while developing new ones—a plan that relies on scientists willingly giving up their ideas and sharing research. “The scientists I’ve spoken to about this project have got room in their hearts and their brains for this,” David Grimshaw says optimistically.

Although the charity will begin by working with British researchers, university departments from all over the world, especially in developing countries, will be included later. It also promises to help scientists get funding once they’ve identified areas for them to work on.

Cuddly and idealistic though it may all seem, Philip Rowley insists that there is more to gain from the charity than a warm, fuzzy feeling inside: “This is not just about altruism. These are challenging and interesting problems for scientists.”

“Science,” says Alan Sokal, “is a worldview giving primacy to reason and the critical spirit”.

Lively and outspoken, the UCL and New York University physicist delivered the annual Sense about Science lecture on 27 February.

Homeopathy and religion came under humorous but scathing attack. Sokal expressed wry amusement at the UK government’s decision to assess the ‘competence’ of practitioners of a scientifically unfounded treatment.

Chairman Matt Ridley supported Sokal by swallowing a whole bottle of homeopathic sleeping tablets on stage. Needless to say, Ridley was still standing by the vote of thanks, given by Lord Taverne, trustee of Sense about Science.

“The epistemological bottom line of religion,” quipped Sokal, moving on to religious scriptures, “is, ‘because it says so’. Faith is not a rejection of reason but a lazy acceptance of bad reason.”

Sokal’s opposition to the ‘fog of verbiage’ that is unscientific reasoning was demonstrated in his 1996 parody of the postmodern, deconstructionalist, ultra-relativist view of science, in which he spun gravity as a ‘social construct’.

Scientific reasoning cannot be equated with myth, nor fact with assertion of fact, continued Sokal. We must be prepared to “modestly insist that empirical claims are substantiated with empirical evidence,” in Sokal’s words.

Sense about Science aims to inform the public of that evidence, in the face of often poor reporting, and to debunk an abundance of myth and pseudoscience.

However, science is not restricted to “a bag of tricks applied to arcane problems,” but is part of the “application of a rationalist worldview,” according to Sokal.

The principles of scientific thought are “not internal to science”, concluded Sokal, but can be adopted in all spheres of life. Science may be practiced by “historians, detectives and plumbers”.

“Scientific scepticism acts like intellectual acid, dissolving dogma and superstition. But this process is far from complete.”

Sid Rodrigues is a molecular geneticist at LGC in Teddington. He also co-organises London’s regular Skeptics in the pub event. On the third Tuesday of every month, the group gathers in the Penderel’s Oak pub in Holborn to critically examine some of the more off-beat ideas of the day.

Each meet-up has an invited speaker with a controversial viewpoint, who is then interrogated by the audience. Topics are varied, often weighty and provoke heated debate – for example, ‘How not to investigate the paranormal’ and the forthcoming ‘Why don’t creationists just shut up?’.

Nature Network London talks to Sid about the concept.

How would you define a ‘skeptic’?
A skeptic is someone who asks for good evidence, usually with regard to strange and controversial claims.

Are there any famous examples of skeptics?
The most notable skeptics are James Randi, who has his $1 million paranormal challenge in the US and Michael Shermer, who has his ‘Skeptic’ column in Scientific American.

How did you get involved with the skeptical community?
I started life out as a magician at Hamley’s toy shop in Regent Street and noticed magician James Randi had a TV programme called “James Randi – Psychic Investigator” in the UK. I was taken aback on how easy it was to test the claims of psychics on the show in a proper scientific manner; that this would be the most credible way forward for people making these types of claims. On the show, all but one of the psychics and other paranormal claimants failed the basic tests taken. I bought the book accompanying the series and then wrote to James Randi congratulating him on a fantastic show. Surprisingly he wrote back to me a few weeks later. We’ve been in contact ever since and things then spiralled from there.

Can you point readers to any good resources about skepticism?
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast is one of my favourites. Rebecca Watson has always been my favourite skepchick, she has a great blog to boot – I think she’s also planning a Skeptics in the Pub in Boston (hint, hint).

But There are loads of things out there. Most will be aware of Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science website and column in the Guardian, but there are also flavours for whatever your taste is. For podcast and net radio, check out Point of Inquiry and Little Atoms and for or a good reference site, the Skeptics Dictionary – by Bob T. Carroll – covers most topics of interest.

Give us a flavour of the sort of characters who talk at your events.
Most of the guest speakers are researchers and experts in their fields. We’ve had a number of parapsychologists, a few medics, a dash of historians, the odd physicist and a soupcon of philosophers in our time. We’ve been around for almost ten years and will be having our 100th Skeptics in the Pub in April, so the list just keeps growing.

What’s happening at tonight’s event?
We’re having a psychologist/parapsychologist from Liverpool Hope University give a talk on his search for enlightenment. Matthew Smith is a researcher in luck and destiny and was a PhD student of Prof. Richard Wiseman. A proportion of Matt’s post-grad research made it in to Richard’s pop-science best seller The Luck Factor. I think his talk will revolve around his mid-life crisis and possibly luck and destiny research, of course.

Do you ever get hostile audience reactions? Skepticism can attract a few cranks.
It depends on the speaker. If we have a proponent of a controversial theory/philosophy, they tend to bring a few of their supporters along and they can get a bit lairy…sometimes. If we have a sceptical speaker, they usually get a much harder time from the audience. For instance, Victor Stenger mentioned that he got asked some of the most difficult questions of his career when he gave a presentation last year. A mean feat for a pub meeting, don’t you think? Obviously, having one too many alcoholic beverages can exacerbate the over excitement of some attendees.

Join Sid and 100 other skeptics for said alcoholic beverages tonight, 7pm, Penderel’s Oak, Holborn. Entry is £2.

Image courtesy of Bronwen Dekker

The idea for Nature Network first began as a local networking website. Nature Network Boston launched in June 2006. It looked very different and had far fewer features. But it was a start.

Throughout 2006, people from outside of Boston clamored for a website that included them too. We started drafting plans for a global networking website, Nature Network.

2007

February
• Nature Network launches with a new logo and look. Nature Network Boston relaunches as a local hub within Nature Network.

March
• The next local hub, Nature Network London, goes live. To celebrate, the NNL team hosts the first of many successful monthly pub nights for London scientists.

April
• The Nature Protocols Discussion Forum, one of the first groups to be formed on NN, begins to take off. It remains one of the biggest and most popular groups. Bench scientists use the group and its forum to ask each other questions about experimental procedures.

May
• The Nature Network Newcomers Forum is born, a place where newbies can introduce themselves and meet the editors and each other.

June
• Nature Network Boston hosts its first pub night for Boston scientists. It was a scorching day and the bar wasn’t very well air conditioned, so kudos to the 25 or so scientists who showed up and sweated it out.
• NNL cohosts, with the Royal Institution, its first talk, about science in virtual worlds. (The next one is later this month.)

July
• The Guardian, a major UK newspaper, highlights Nature Network in an article that features a rather sinister-looking photo of our very own NNL editor Matt Brown
• An improved events calendar goes live on the Boston and London sites.

August
• The homepage of nature.com gets a complete makeover and Nature Network finds itself featured right in the center of the page. The number of new signups ramps up.
• We launch a feature allowing NN members to send each other private messages.

September
• The Ask the Nature Editor forum is created and several editors of Nature and its sister journals pitch in to answer people’s questions about open access, peer review, careers in scientific editing, and other topics.

October
• We begin a series of page redesigns. The Blogs, Groups and Forums homepages are spruced up so that they show off more of the popular content on the site.

November
• We reach 500 groups formed.

December
• The Nature news team launches a group and kicks off a discussion about the ethics of cognition-enhancing drugs, based on a commentary published in Nature. It becomes one of the hottest topics of discussion on Nature Network.

2008

January
• Four of our bloggers are chosen to be included in Open Laboratory 2007, an anthology of the best science blog posts.

February
• Nature Network turns one year old. Cake overdoses ensue.

Thanks to everyone on Nature Network for a wonderful first year. And here’s to the next one!

Click image for a larger Google Map. Key places in the text are marked with a blue pin. Additional places of interest are indicated with a house icon.

Charles Darwin, born 199 years ago today, was in and out of London throughout his life, but his presence was particularly strong between 1836 (after his return from the Beagle voyage) and 1842 (when he and his wife Emma moved to Downe in Kent).

In September 1831, Darwin walked into the Admiralty Building on Whitehall to hook up with Captain Robert Fitzroy. Darwin’s brother Erasmus (Ras), with whom he often stayed when in London, was not in town so he took lodgings at 17 Spring Gardens. This kept him close to FitzRoy and the Admiralty as he prepared for the forthcoming Beagle voyage, splashing out on a telescope, compass, a rifle and a pair of pistols “to keep the natives pretty quiet”.

Passing through Admiralty Arch, it’s a quick walk along The Mall to Waterloo Steps and up to the Athenaeum Club on Pall Mall. With some assistance from geologist Charles Lyell, Darwin became a member on 21 June 1838. “I go & dine at the Athenæum like a gentleman, or rather like a Lord, for I am sure the first evening I sat in that great drawing room, all on a sofa by myself, I felt just like a duke,” he wrote to Lyell. “I am full of admiration at the Athenæum; one meets so many people there, that one likes to see.”

Looking back to the south is The Royal Society at 6–9 Carlton House Terrace. Darwin was elected as a fellow on 24 January 1839. A quarter of a century later, after the publication of On the Origin of Species, he was awarded the Society’s presitgous Copley Medal, though he stayed away from the ceremony. Darwin’s friend, the surgeon and zoologist George Busk, collected the medal on his behalf and sauntered up Regent’s Street to drop it off with Ras, who found it “rather ugly to look at, & too light to turn into candlesticks.”

Walking up Lower Regent Street you might want to take a detour into Leicester Square. In Darwin’s day, No. 28—on the eastern side of the square—was the headquarters of the Zoological Society of London and the site of a zoological museum. On 4 January 1837, Darwin handed over 80 mammals and 450 birds collected during his Beagle trip. These included the now-famous Galapagos finches, specimens that ornithologist, artist and taxonomist John Gould was quick to describe as “an entirely new group, containing 12 species.”

Next head to Piccadilly Circus and along Piccadilly to Burlington House, where you can tick off two institutions with strong Darwinian ties. Standing beneath the entrance archway, the Geological Society of London is to your right. It’s here, after delivering his zoological specimens to Leicester Square, that Darwin read out his paper on Chile’s coastline. His debut went so well that he felt “like a peacock admiring his tail.” Darwin was elected to the Council of the Society on 17 February, a meeting at which Lyell showed off some of the Beagle fossils.

Opposite the entrance to the Geological Society is the Linnean Society of London, where the secretary read out a joint paper by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on 1 July 1858. It comprised extracts from a sketch of the Origin Darwin penned in 1844, part of his 1857 letter to American botanist Asa Gray and a letter from Wallace that had reached Darwin just a couple of weeks earlier. On the right-hand wall of the Meeting Room, you can see John Collier’s brooding 1882 painting of Darwin alongside Roger Remmington’s bright 1998 portrait of Wallace. Neither man was present for the delivery of their joint paper 150 years ago.

At 50 Albemarle Street, you’ll find the home and office of Darwin’s principle publisher John Murray. Further on at No. 33 there’s Brown’s Hotel (formerly St George’s Hotel), where the influential ‘X-Club’ convened their first meeting on 3 November 1864. The elite dining club eventually contained nine key supporters of Darwin’s Origin, including Thomas Huxley, Joseph Hooker, John Tyndall, George Busk and Herbert Spencer. On the other side of the road, you’ll pass The Royal Institution, where Huxley delivered a sensational lecture in March 1858. He drew attention to the anatomical similarities between the baboon, gorilla and man, concluding that “to the very root & foundation of his nature man is one with the rest of the organic world.”

Weave your way to Great Marlborough Street, where Darwin often stayed with his brother Ras (No. 43). In March 1837, he took lodgings at No. 36, remarking how “very pleasant” it was to be neighbours with his brother.

In 1839, Charles and Emma moved into No. 12 Upper Gower Street, “a small common-place London house, with a drawing-room in the front, and a small room behind, in which they lived for the sake of quietness,” as their son Francis described it in the edited version of Darwin’s Life and Letters. “In later years my father used to laugh over the surpassing ugliness of the furniture, carpets &c., of the Gower Street house. The only redeeming feature was a better garden than most London houses have, a strip as wide as the house, and thirty yards long. Even this small space of dingy grass made their London house more tolerable to its two country-bred inhabitants,” he wrote. It is now occupied by the Biological Sciences building of University College London and home to the Grant Museum of Zoology containing the teaching collection of Darwin’s Edinburgh mentor Robert Grant.

Head down to the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Darwin handed over his fossil specimens from the Beagle voyage—“the most important part of my collections”—in 1836. The recently redesigned Hunterian Museum is well worth a visit.

Finally, it’s a short walk to the Freemason’s Tavern (now the Freemason’s Arms) at 81 Long Acre. It’s here that Darwin attended the annual meeting of the Philoperisteron Society of pigeon fanciers on 8 January 1856 and became a member later that year. By this time, he’d wound up his barnacle work and was juggling dozens of lines of investigation in an effort to drum up concrete evidence for his revolutionary evolutionary ideas. Reward yourself with a pint.

Images on Google map by Matt Brown

Patrick Maxwell becomes the Director of University College London’s Division of Medicine on March 1, moving from Imperial College.

As a proponent of translational research, a direction endorsed by current government policy, Maxwell expects to advise on the recently announced UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation at St Pancras.

UKCMRI: the priorities for research and collaboration
The proposed research centre would house teams from the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, and UCL, and Maxwell says he expects immunology and cancer research to be high priorities for the new centre. He will also forge connections with other medical centres in the region.

“UCL is going to have a special relationship with the UKCMRI project because of its substantial financial investment and its geographic proximity, which will give us special opportunities to share resources,” he says. “But my view is that broad collaborations driven by science should be established not only with key universities in South East England but throughout the UK. I want them all on board and to feel that this is the right thing to happen for the UK and the right thing to happen for London.”

He notes that UCL has developed a global medical excellence cluster with the biomedical research centres of Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and King’s College, London, and that these five universities have been named comprehensive biomedical research centres by the National Institute for Health Research.

“Hopefully, we can use those existing arrangements to maximize the collaborative basis of the St Pancras set-up,” he adds.

Straddling business and academia
Maxwell made his name with ground-breaking research into the proteins that contribute to kidney disease, and is co-founder of ReOx, an Oxford spin-out attempting to turn his research results into treatments.

He plans to remain involved in ReOx, and will use the experience to play a guiding role in building collaborations.

“We are fortunate in the UK to have some of the major players in the pharmaceutical industry on our front doorstep,” says Maxwell. “My own experience of a spin-out is that it was an important enabling step to develop the right interface with industry. UCL has a wonderful academic ethos. I would certainly see a really good ambassadorial role in helping development of spin-outs and building relationships with industry.”

Maxwell will also continue as Registrar of the Academy of Medical Sciences, which advises on national policy concerning biomedical science.

Getting the hospitals humming
He will also exploit the full potential of UCL and its partner hospitals. Bringing together the strong medical school and teaching hospital traditions from the Royal Free, the Middlesex and UCH, a process that started in earnest about a decade ago, will deliver rich rewards for the institution, he adds.

“These places each had distinctive histories and were quite proud institutions, and they’ve gone a long way down the integration road, but I think it would be right to say that they still aren’t maximizing their potential,” he says. “My guess would be that over the next five years we can get that running really smoothly, the place will be humming and we will be able to capitalize on the incredible breadth and depth of basic science within UCL.

“Making that relationship between the hospitals and the University deliver its full potential is quite a big challenge.”

On 7 February UCL Professor Robin Clark will deliver the annual Bakerian lecture at the Royal Society, entitled ‘Raman Microscopy, Pigments and the Arts/Science Interface’.

The talk draws on his varied career, which has encompassed transition metal chemistry, electronic, infrared, Raman and resonance Raman spectroscopy, and Raman microscopy.

Clark will describe his work on spotting art forgeries using scientific techniques, and interdisciplinary collaborations. “I have been trying very hard to bridge the gap between the arts and the sciences over the past decade or so by endeavouring to obtain access to important artwork and artefacts for which questions of provenance, date, authenticity, etc., might be answerable by way of pigment identification,” he says. “We have been very successful at this. Indeed the field is now expanding rapidly all over the world.”

An experimental philosophy
The annual Bakerian lecture, established by the Royal Society in 1775 on any topic of ‘natural history or experimental philosophy’, has a tradition of choosing distinguished polymaths. Previous speakers include James Clerk Maxwell, John Tyndall, Michael Faraday and Clark’s former supervisor Lord Lewis of Newnham.

Born in New Zealand, Clark first undertook research at the University of Canterbury to study fluorescence quenching under Walter Metcalf. After a stint at the University of Otago researching high pressure chemistry, he completed a PhD in transition metal chemistry at UCL in 1961, where he has remained since.

Clark’s research group has made key advances both in the theory and practice of Raman and in resonance Raman spectroscopy, leading to applications across chemistry, biochemistry, solid state chemistry, and physics.
Applications of Raman spectroscopy continue to diversify. For example, it was recently claimed that a combination of confocal laser scanning microscopy and Raman spectroscopy might be applicable to analysing rocks on Mars for signs of life, and the technique has been championed for detecting fake medicines.
Clark predicts that further expansions will include applications in medicine including spectroscopic mapping of tissues and in forensic science for tracing drugs and for detecting explosives from a crime scene.

Scientific sleuthing
The forthcoming lecture will focus on the applications of Raman microscopy in artistic and archaeological studies. This draws on pioneering collaborations with libraries and museums to use Raman microscopy to identify pigments and dyes of micrometre dimensions on medieval manuscripts, paintings, papyri, icons, ceramics and archaeological artefacts.

By studying the probable sources and dates of pigments, Clark’s group provided evidence consistent with the attribution to Vermeer of the Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (1). In the controversial case of the ‘Vinland map’ — discovered in 1957 and claimed to depict the Americas pre-Columbus — Raman analysis confirmed the presence of a compound (anatase) which is in the form of a twentieth century industrial product. This indicates the map to be a forgery (2).

The group also investigated reports that the Lindisfarne Gospels, composed around 715 AD, made use of a blue pigment called lazurite, extracted from the mineral lapis lazuli found in remote valleys of northern Afghanistan (3). “This claim implied that lapis lazuli had been traded to Northumbria at this improbably early date,” says Clark. “Our Raman studies clearly showed that the pigment was not lazurite but indigo, available in England since at least Roman times.”

Two cultures still?
Clark is disappointed that initiatives to do with the scientific investigation of art appear largely to be science-driven. He believes that this is primarily because scientists are prepared to immerse themselves in books on art and archaeology, whereas few of their counterparts in the arts engage with scientific literature.

“Greater parity here would lead to many further and much more effective alliances and advances,” he says. “This will surely happen in the future.”

References
1) Burgio, L. et al. Pigment Identification by Spectroscopic Means: Evidence Consistent with the Attribution of the Painting Young Woman Seated at a Virginal to Vermeer. Anal. Chem., 77, 1261–1267 (2005). DOI: 10.1021/ac048481i
2) Clark, R. J. H. The Vinland Map – Still a 20th Century Forgery. Anal. Chem., 76, 2423–2423 (2004).
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Computers might be able to spew out facts and tally your accounts, but could they ever make great art? Simon Colton from Imperial’s Department of Computing thinks so. With colleagues Maja Pantic and Michel Valstar he’s created an award-winning system called The Painting Fool, which paints stylised portraits after analysing facial expressions.

If, for example, it sees an angry face, the portrait might incorporate strong brushstrokes in fiery colours, while a depressed person might be rendered in dismal hues.

The results are impressive and last month bagged the team a prestigious award for machine intelligence at a British Computer Society conference.

Encouraged, the group are looking at robotic systems to take the portrait off screen and directly onto canvas. They’re also pursuing business opportunities, believing there may be a market in bespoke paintings at cheaper prices than a human artist could offer.

Colton takes up the story in his own words:

I’m a keen digital photographer, and about 5 years ago, I decided that Photoshop wasn’t giving me exactly what I wanted, so I decided to write my own graphics software.

As the software got more sophisticated, I saw the potential for using the software in my research on computational creativity, and so I decided to write an automated painter. Things have snowballed since then.

We organised an exhibition of computer generated artworks in late 2006 here at Imperial. Pieces from The Painting Fool and five other artists were exhibited.

Ralph Rugoff, the director of the Hayward Gallery…pointed out that in the art world, the rules are constantly changing. He posed the question of whether computers would ever be able to be playful.

This actually had a profound effect on me, and has influenced the development of The Painting Fool since. In particular, I actually cherish the lack of rules in art – this makes it a far more interesting application domain for Artificial Intelligence research.

I’m going to use The Painting Fool as a platform for my core research, which is into computational creativity. I believe that software has the potential to be creative partners in art projects, rather than mere tools. However, there are a lot of people who seriously disagree with this, so we need to build and test lots of programs like The Painting Fool in order to convince them.

Development of this software has influenced my overall theory of creativity in software—that it has to exhibit skill, appreciation and imagination in order to be taken seriously as creative. I’m writing these ideas up for a paper right now.

I’m very interested in applying [the technology] to produce very artistic animations. A consortium of European researchers (myself included) submitted an EU project proposal a few years ago on computational creativity. Sadly, it wasn’t funded, but one of the main applications we came up with was automated storyboarding for short films and animations. This requires the computer to work with text, video and music, so it was a very challenging idea.

I would like to see software being used to develop characters, plot lines and dialogue (as well as producing beautifully rendered animations).

All images courtesy of The Painting Fool and Simon Colton.

The new centre, set for a brownfield site near St Pancras, would bring together expertise from the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, UCL and the Wellcome Trust.

The Committee, which scrutinises the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, heard evidence from the four partners in December and today published its first report on the project since its announcement.

Chair of the Committee Phil Willis called the UKCMRI “potentially one of the most exciting developments in UK research for some time.” However, the report raises a number of issues.

We remain concerned that the sponsors and proponents of this scheme have not seriously evaluated other options outside London, particularly as the proposed location has planning considerations which may prove fatal to the project.

While convenient for the British Library and the partners, who are all headquartered within walking distance, the site is confined, and could place high-security animal laboratories close to housing.

There are few hard figures available about the eventual cost of the project.

The estimated cost is £500 million, with £260 million coming from the publicly funded MRC. However, the committee is anxious that this contribution is ‘unacceptably vague’ and urge a more accurate breakdown soon. The committee was also scathing of a recent Treasury decision to appropriate £92 million of MRC savings, and demanded an explanation.

Other challenges to the timetable could arise from the competition for construction and project management skills posed by the 2012 Olympics and any delays in gaining planning approval.

As well as noting that the projected 2013 completion could be jeopardised by drawn-out funding approval processes, the Committee also pointed out risks from planning applications and skills shortages caused by the Olympics development.

The report concludes with a positive note on the ‘immense benefits’ the project would bring to UK research, and requests quarterly updates on progress.

Watch this space for a fact file on the UKCMRI next week.

Related article: London to host ambitious research hub

Beetles are arguably the most successful group of animals on the planet, outliving the dinosaurs and out-diversifying all other animal orders. Alfried Vogler, Professor of Molecular Systematics at Imperial College, recently published the most comprehensive ever evolutionary tree of Coleoptera in the journal Science. Nature Network London talks to him about the keys to the beetle’s success.

Why are you interested in the evolution of beetles?
Well I’m generally very interested in the evolution of biodiversity and the great richness of species on earth. Given that a quarter of them are beetles, that’s a very important portion of that biodiversity. The differences between the beetles show the enormous inventiveness of evolution—that’s what fascinates me about them. I’ve always been interested in bugs. As a teenager, I became interested in collecting insects from around the house, like many entomologists do.

How many species of beetle are alive today?
If we only knew. People usually say about 350,000 but even that’s contentious. One of my colleagues who keeps a tally on this says that it’s more like 410,000. Many of them are described multiple times, many names disappear and there are many species described every year. It’s very dynamic and there could be anywhere between one million and ten million species that we don’t know about yet.

How did you look at the relationships between these species?
We took a selection of major beetle groups that covers about 80% of families. We compared DNA sequences from all the species, about 2,000 in all, and produced a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis for a very large proportion of the major groups.

What makes them so successful?
Beetles are ecologically diverse. The entire range of lifestyles, habitats and ecologies that you see throughout the insects, can also be seen in the beetles alone. They have a high propensity to acquire new habitats or niches and many of these lifestyles have arisen multiple times. So you have lots of lineages in different niches evolving independently, which adds up to a large number in total.

Take aquatic lifestyles—our phylogenetic tree shows 10 different transitions from land to aquatic habitats, which doesn’t happen in other insect groups. Predatory groups arise all over the place. Herbivorous groups arose multiple times and within those, you have great diversification to different parts of the plant. You have beetles living on the leaves, roots and flowers. You have pollen feeders, those that eat the dead wood, and those that eat the live wood. And all of these lifestyles have arisen multiple times.

Does your data refute any other theories?
One of the other major ideas linked their diversity to feeding on plants. Once angiosperms arrived, beetles co-diversified with them so that the more species of plants there were, the more beetle species there were. But now it turns out that most beetle lineages were already in place before the angiosperms arose. Some of them just jumped onto the plants and exploited them.

How old are beetle lineages?
We know from the fossil record and molecular clocks that many of the major lineages were around in the time of the dinosaurs. We know that from the fossil record and molecular clocks. We can work out when these lineages first arose and to our surprise, they were actually quite ancient.

Why are beetles so adaptable?
That’s something we’re struggling with but hopefully genome studies will answer that. The full genome sequence of the flour beetle Trilobium castaneum is coming out soon in Nature. With it, we could see what genes you find in beetles that you don’t in other groups. Or perhaps some genes are unique to particular groups of beetles. There’s a certain adaptability that may already be lain down in their genomes.

Ed Yong blogs at Not Exactly Rocket Science

Image credit.

Neurotopographics follows a year-long collaboration between a neuroscientist, an artist and an architect, helped by funding from the Wellcome Trust. The installation is inspired by a recent breakthrough in brain science, and interprets the patterns we create in our mind while moving.

“When someone traverses a space their brain produces an oscillating, rhythmic pattern. We tried to realise this abstract understanding into an everyday reality,” explains project leader Dr Hugo Spiers from the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at University College London.

Spiers usually spends his days studying the brain patterns of London cabbies and laboratory rats. His work builds upon a 2005 discovery by Norwegian researchers that identified so-called ‘grid cells’ in the human brain, which help us navigate.

“Grid cells provide the metric for a map,” says Spiers. Unlike the square grids of maps in the real world, this mental map consists of a grid of triangles. Each time a person physically passes a node on a triangle in this mental map, a grid cell fires. This topographical representation of the environment is so mathematically accurate that cell activity observations can be used to describe how fast and how far someone is travelling.

Spiers explained the theory to artist Antoni Malinowski and architect Bettina Vismann, who translated the science into an abstract installation, featuring two films playing concurrently. One shows an actor walking around an empty white room in the gallery from an observer’s point of view, while the other is from the actor’s own (real and imagined) perspective. Meanwhile a triangular grid illustrates his brain activity, projected onto the gallery floor. In the background is a popping noise, produced by converting the electrical signals from grid cells into sound.

Image of gallery by Lukas Gimpel

There are further scientific concepts hidden within the installation. “Downstream of the brain’s grid cells are ‘place cells’, which are excited by particular places,” says Spiers. “Every place in the world you’ve ever been to has its own population of place cells.” Place cells activated by a specific location depend on the architecture, so if the walls move, then the field of the cells will change to reflect it. Completing the trio of navigational devices in the brain are so-called ‘head direction cells’, acting like an internal compass.

“I found it absolutely fascinating. It is about the independence of perception and consciousness,” says the artist, Antoni Malinowski. He has attempted to communicate the complexity of this branch of neuroscience in a subtle, minimalist way that feels eerily like stepping inside someone else’s thoughts.

For Spiers, moving from the lab into a gallery was liberating: “I had to loosen up my mind from all the scientific tendencies because the language of art is completely different, but it made me rethink what space is. It was frustrating and amazing.”

Visitors can see ‘Brain Art’ at the Gimpel Fils Gallery (Davies Street, London W1K 4NB, nearest tube Bond Street), for one weekend only (18 to 12 January 2008). Entrance is free.

Related article: Neuroscience: Neurons and navigation

The award represents the first significant outside grant for the Institute, which opened in July 2007 and has technology transfer as its main mission.

The i-Snake employs a new form of sensing mechatronics, including articulated joints for greater navigation and flexibility, according to Professor Guang-Zhong Yang, director of medical imaging and robotics at the Institute. The device can be used for both imaging and for surgical procedures with the attachment of cutting and probing tools, he added.

“The adaptation of the robot will enable the expansion of robotic-assisted procedures such as intra-cardiac or intra-vascular diagnostic and therapeutic procedures,” Yang said. “The device itself is a completely new design, and allows full articulation of the instrument, enabling access to areas that were traditionally difficult to reach.”

The multidisciplinary team developing the i-Snake is headed by Yang and Health Minister Lord Ara Darzi, a professor of surgery, oncology, reproductive biology and anaesthetics at Imperial, and one of the country’s leading surgeons in the area of minimum invasive surgery.

Yang (left) and Darzi (right) discuss the i-Snake.

Although the device is currently only a design prototype, the Wellcome Trust’s grant will allow the team to test the device in the laboratory within four years.

“In terms of Wellcome funding, this is one of the first major engineering-focused instrument design projects to be a strategic translational award,” Yang added. “It’s unique because it has a very clear clinical drive.”

The grant allows the institute to develop the i-Snake technology to a level where it can attract venture capital or industrial investment necessary to take it to market, said Ted Bianco, the Wellcome Trust’s Director for Technology Transfer. The Institute wants to get the device to a marketable stage within a decade.

The Wellcome award recognizes the value of the interdisciplinary research the Institute is undertaking, Bianco said.

“We are a biomedical charity and it’s often quite frustrating when a concept has come out of a technologist’s mind without them having a clinical understanding of the problem they are trying to solve,” he said. “How Imperial organized themselves to bring their engineering and their clinical expertise together made this crucially important to their bid. What was really strong, was the integration.”

Technology transfer is the newest of the Wellcome Trust’s three divisions and was established in 2002. The division expects to award around £20 million of funding annually, Bianco said. The Trust as a whole spends approximately £600 million a year on research awards.

Image courtesy of Imperial College London.

Qazi Rahman puts people through virtual reality mazes, to investigate navigation and spatial memory skills. In a recent paper published in Hippocampus he describes how homosexual men are similar to women in some spatial behaviours.

Rahman, who has spent his career researching sexual orientation, is a lecturer in cognitive biology and director of psychology at Queen Mary, University of London.

What motivates you to do research into sexual orientation?
Sexual orientation is a fundamental human individual difference—second only to sex and race when you really think about what defines you. If we can understand sexual orientation variation we can understand some sex differences and where they come from.

What was this particular study exploring?
Differences in spatial memory between men and women are already established but their sexual orientation is never specified in studies. We wanted to explore the role of sexual orientation on spatial memory performance.

What kinds of tests did you use in this study and what do they evaluate?
We used two common tests of spatial learning and memory, the Morris Water Maze (MWM) and the Radial Arm Maze (RAM), which were designed for animals and made into human analogues using virtual reality by colleagues at Yale University.

The MWM tests the ability to find a hidden platform submerged under the virtual pool. Subjects start from a different place each time, so it tests the ability to form cognitive maps independent of your own body perspective using external cues.

The RAM test measures people’s ability to find rewards in the arms of a maze. RAM is more generous in allowing error in the use of external cues to locate the goal. The number of possible ‘routes’ in the MWM is much larger since there are no confined passageways like in the RAM.

Left: Screenshot from the Morris Water Maze. Right: Screenshot from the Radial Arm Maze

What did you find?
In the MWM we found that gay men and heterosexual and lesbian women took longer to find the hidden platform compared with heterosexual men. The differences are large, almost one standard deviation of a difference.

Heterosexual men were faster from the first trial and maintained this advantage across a block of trials. However, gay men and heterosexual men spent more time in the correct area of the virtual pool compared to the female groups, suggesting that gay men are female-like in their spatial learning and ability to update information depending on where they are, but they are similar to heterosexual men in their eventual spatial memory for that information.

In the RAM test we found that both gay and heterosexual males had a greater ability than females overall.

Why do gay and heterosexual men have differing spatial cognition?
I think these differences might be wired by prenatal factors, particularly early hormonal modulation of neural interactions that determine spatial memory outcomes. This is consistent with the idea of a cross-sex shift in prenatal sexual differentiation of the brain in homosexuals, accounting for cognitive and behavioural profiles that aren’t typical of their gender.

What impact do you think differences in spatial cognition have in the ‘real world’? Could straight men be better drivers than gay men for example?
Unlikely. I think that driving is pretty organised in our modern environments, which are rich in all sorts of distant and local cues that men and women, gay or straight, could use. The headlines splashed across the British press about driving were completely taken out of context. I would be interested to see how the groups performed in a driving task in novel environments, one where people had to start from different positions to reach a goal and one in whi