Features

Today's Times carries a letter from scientists working on the Cassini mission.

Cassini, you may remember, is one of the projects that STFC has chosen to withdraw from as part of a cost-cutting exercise. It's also a project that Oxford scientists have made a major contribution to.

Simon Calcutt, from Oxford University's Department of Physics, is one of the letter's signatories who write: 'the UK Cassini teams that discovered the ice volcanoes on the Saturnian moon Enceladus, the rich chemistry of the prebiotic atmosphere of Titan, and the mechanism of Saturn’s auroras now face imminent disbandment, abandoning still-functioning UK-led instruments in orbit around the planet.'

Unless other funding sources can be found the decision signals a sad end to what has been a major UK science success story. Both Mark Henderson in The Times and Jonathan Amos on BBC Online mull over the consequences and how it might impact on UK involvement in future missions and the next generation of British space scientists.

Whatever you think about how spending on space science should be prioritised it's worth noting just what a phenomenal success Cassini has been so far, even just from the Oxford perspective:

Back in January 2004 Oxford University scientists working on data from Cassini identified a jet stream in Jupiter's atmosphere that resembles similar weather features found on Earth.

They were part of the team behind the Infrared Spectrometer that, in July 2004, was sent to scrutinise Saturn, its rings and moons, as the spacecraft hurtled by the giant planet.

Years of data crunching and modelling saw them make a series of major discoveries, highlights include:

Finding a hexagon-shaped 'hot spot' in the middle of Saturn's chilly north pole: the result of air moving towards the pole, being compressed and heated up as it descends over the poles into the depths of Saturn. Reported in Science, this gave clues to the atmospheric formations found on Jupiter, Neptune and Mars.

New observations of Saturn showed that its southern polar vortex is similar to hurricanes found on Earth. Both have cyclonic circulation, a warm central 'eye' region surrounded by a ring of high clouds - the eye wall - and convective clouds outside the eye. These 'saturnicanes' also resembled polar vortices on Venus, giving further weight to the idea that understanding the weather on one planet call tell us a lot about weather on others (including our own).

Only last year, Oxford scientists using Cassini reported in Nature that they had come up with a new way of detecting how fast large gaseous planets are rotating: a method which suggests Saturn’s day lasts 10 hours, 34 minutes and 13 seconds – over five minutes shorter than previous estimates based on the planet’s magnetic fields.

These are just a few examples and, according to NASA, in Cassini's new extended mission there should be many more exciting discoveries to come:

'The extension presents a unique opportunity to follow seasonal changes of an outer planet system all the way from its winter to its summer... The mission extension also will allow scientists to continue observations of Saturn's rings and the magnetic bubble around the planet known as the magnetosphere. The spacecraft will make repeated dives between Saturn and its rings to obtain in depth knowledge of the gas giant. During these dives, the spacecraft will study the internal structure of Saturn, its magnetic fluctuations and ring mass.'

It's a shame that it looks like researchers from Oxford and around the UK will only be able to cheer the plucky old probe on from the sidelines instead of being at the heart of a truly unique space odyssey.

They built telescopes and transparent beehives, observed the microscopic world of cells and the motions of the planets, developed new methods of calculation and invented everything from watches to talking statues.

They were a small group of mid-17th Century natural philosophers based at Oxford University who would play a key role in both the scientific revolution and the founding of the Royal Society - which this year celebrates its 350th birthday.

This group emerged at one of the most turbulent times in English history, when the horrors of civil war were swiftly followed by the turmoil of first the Commonwealth, then the Restoration.

At Oxford, academics were regularly ejected from their posts for their political views and replacements were sent to reform the University to match the current government’s agenda. But these political purges were incomplete and incompetent affairs that, by accident, turned Oxford into a melting pot of different opinions, ideas and personalities.

Wilkins, Wren, & Wadham
One of the most influential of these personalities was John Wilkins, Warden of Wadham College from 1648-1659. Wilkins was sent to Oxford by parliament to help eliminate its royalist leanings but he turned out to be a tolerant, charming man less interested in politics than in new scientific ideas and inventions.

Wilkins turned Wadham into a haven for ‘experimental philosophy’, setting up a club there that would attract some of the great minds of the age: members from Oxford University included Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren, Seth Ward, Robert Wood, and John Wallis. He created Wadham’s formal gardens where members tested out clockwork flying machines, seed drills and beehives (Wren's design was particularly innovative), and installed both scientific instruments and amusements, such as a statue that ‘talked’ via a tube that threw his voice.

It’s striking just how modern Wilkins’s approach seems today, as he brought together those studying different disciplines and encouraged them to work collaboratively: forging friendships, intellectual connections, and a spirit of enquiry that would animate the newly-formed Royal Society in 1660 and endure for decades to come.

The most famous experimentalists to join Wilkins’s circle were undoubtedly Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke.

Wren’s later career as an architect has come to overshadow his achievements as a scientist and engineer: perhaps it doesn’t fit posterity’s image of the bewigged 17th Century gent that Wren was as at home inventing new musical instruments, dissecting fish, or creating machines for recording microscope images as he was designing Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre.

Joining Wadham as an undergraduate in 1650, Wren would become friends with Wilkins and, later, Hooke. Wren’s main interest, to begin with, was mathematics but he was soon caught up in Wilkins’s enthusiasm for astronomy, building an 80-foot telescope with him so that they could observe the Moon.

After a fellowship at All Souls College, Wren would hold the position of Savilian professor of astronomy (1661-1673) during this time contributing to the early Royal Society meetings on topics as varied as optical lenses, friction brakes and insect physiology. In due course he would serve as Vice-President, and then the fourth President of the Royal Society.

‘England’s Leonardo’
Robert Hooke, dubbed ‘England's Leonardo’ by Oxford’s Allan Chapman, had an unparalleled gift for creating and perfecting mechanical devices.

He demonstrated this aptitude as a chorister at Christ Church, assisting first Thomas Willis and then Robert Boyle with their chemistry apparatus and experiments - he was responsible for Boyle’s first working vacuum pump.

Hooke fed off the problems and ideas of other members of the Wadham club: creating a clockwork machine to help Seth Ward record astronomical observations, also measuring the weight of air, and inventing a spring-regulated watch. He would go on to be curator of experiments at, and a secretary of, the Royal Society, performing numerous scientific investigations, coining the biological term ‘cell’, and, in publishing his masterwork Micrographia - on the natural world seen through a microscope - founding a new scientific discipline.

So what was it about 1600s Oxford that attracted so many early scientists?

Part of the attraction, according to Cambridge historian Simon Schaffer, was the infrastructure: Oxford offered a profusion of printers and stationers who could help budding scientists publicise their work - at a time when publications were becoming an essential part of both disseminating and learning the new knowledge about the natural world.

Oxford was also a good place to acquire machines no self-respecting natural philosopher could be without - such as measuring instruments, sundials and telescopes - due to both the work of local artisans and its proximity to London’s workshops.

The city also boasted some of the oldest coffee shops in Britain: places where those interested in science would meet, indulge in caffeine-fuelled debates, and even sometimes perform ad hoc experiments.

Planets & ciphers
Wren and Hooke may be the most famous members of the Oxford circle but it included other extremely influential figures: notably John Wallis and Seth Ward.

Wallis was appointed Savillian professor of geometry in 1649, and incorporated MA from Exeter College, whilst Ward arrived as Savillian professor of astronomy in 1650 and was a fellow-commoner at Wadham.

In over 50 years at Oxford Wallis established a reputation as one of the world’s leading mathematicians. In a series of seminal publications he introduced the sign for infinity and developed methods for dealing with indivisible or infinitesimal quantities - work that would have a profound influence on Newton’s contribution to calculus. He also wrote a history of algebra in which he stressed the achievements of Newton and English mathematicians over their continental rivals.

Wallis was a renowned cryptographer and was also intimately involved with the founding and early meetings of the Royal Society: contributing over 60 papers to Philosophical Transactions.

Ward’s career was almost as stellar - he produced a study on comets and influential works on the paths of the planets as well as a simplified version of Kepler’s second law of planetary motion. He then collaborated with Wilkins to defend the merits of a scientific education for clergymen, and investigated the development of a ‘universal language’ to communicate philosophical ideas.

Ward’s flair for organisation cut short his scientific career - he became President of Trinity College in 1659, and later an ecclesiastical administrator as Bishop of Exeter, then Salisbury - actively participating in early meetings of the Royal Society but then gradually leaving his scientific studies behind.

Influence & legacy
Alongside Wallis and Ward we could have highlighted the mathematician, economic thinker and advocate of decimalisation Robert Wood, as well as non-University members such as the chemist Robert Boyle.

But what does this whistle-stop tour really tell us about Oxford’s contribution to 17th Century science and the Royal Society?

As Simon Schaffer points out, the Oxford circle was one of many informal science clubs that emerged around this time in Britain, France and Italy: the power of print meant that, from its very inception, science was an international business that respected neither city walls nor national boundaries.

However, with a core membership that never exceeded 10 or 12 people, the Oxford group exerted a disproportionate influence on the course of scientific history: nurturing or inspiring some of the nation’s most talented scientists and engineers, and paving the way for Britain to become a scientific super power.

Special thanks to: Oxford DNB, In Our Time, Moralist, MHS

Insects aren't necessarily renowned for their maternal instincts but new research suggests that we may be unfairly maligning many of our six-legged friends.

Sofia Gripenberg from Oxford University's Department of Zoology, and colleagues from the Universities of York and Helsinki, have reviewed the evidence for 'bad' insect mothers and report their findings in the March issue of Ecology Letters.

I asked Sofia about genes, evolution and the fine line between selfish and selfless behaviour:

OxSciBlog: Why has it been suggested that insects are 'bad mothers'?
Sofia Gripenberg: In plant-feeding insects, 'good' and 'bad' mothers differ largely in terms of what food they pick for their offspring. Since those larvae will typically have to make do with the particular plants on which they were laid as eggs, their mother’s judgement may literally mean the difference between life and death. In some cases, that judgement has actually been found to be anything but sound, with larvae found on lousy plants.

OSB: How have people tried to explain this 'bad' behaviour?
SG: A 'bad' mother may still be doing the best she can. Sometimes the plants of highest quality may simply not be around when needed, and the female will then have to lay her eggs on what she can find. According to another idea, insects may simply be faced with 'information overload': if two plants differ in terms of too many traits, the insect may not know which trait to go for.

Also, even an insect mother may also have to think of herself. In some cases, mothers have been shown to put their own needs above those of their offspring. For example, by laying her eggs where she can get some food for her own, an insect mother may be prepared to knock off a bit of quality for her offspring.

Paradoxically, a female may sometimes increase the chances of passing on her genes to future generations by ignoring the well-being of individual offspring.

OSB: What does your study tell us about the choices of insect mothers?
SG: We basically revive the myth of the good insect mother. Where previous research has often focused on explaining the cases where mothers tend to err, our study shows good choices to be the rule, not the exception for insect mothers.

Importantly, what we have done is not to add one more study of one specific insect species, but to summarise work published to date. In this context, our results also reveal a little bit about why some mothers may be better than others. In particular, our study seems to support the idea about 'information overload', since insects choosing between a few different plant species actually seem to make more accurate choices than insects choosing between a wide assortment of plants.

OSB: How do these results contribute to our understanding of evolution?
SG: Our results suggests that 'good motherhood' is a result of fine-tuned natural selection. Where many previous studies have focused on factors preventing evolution towards good motherhood, our study shows that when you look at the combined evidence, these are still just blemishes on the bigger picture; that one still shows the picture of a beautiful insect mother!

OSB: What new avenues of research does your study suggest?
SG: When we started this study, we hoped to be able to say more about why insect mothers differ in terms of their judgement - about the factors causing some females to make worse choices than others. After now having read everything we have found on the topic, we have actually discovered that only a small fraction of articles are written in a way which allow straightforward comparisons of key results. This is something that we want to improve upon.

What we hope is that the database that we put together for our paper will continue to grow, and later allow for deeper synthesis of factors affecting optimal motherhood. By establishing this joint depository for all ecologists working in this field, we hope to get everybody to think more about how their own work can contribute as efficiently as possible towards the broader picture.

Dr Sofia Gripenberg is based at Oxford University's Department of Zoology

It's that time of the year again when we look forward to the shrieks, bangs and 'aaaahhs' generated by the Oxfordshire Science Festival.

Oxford University staff and students are involved in many of the events taking place 6-21 March, with the regular Wow! How? science fair at the OU Museum of Natural History & Pitt Rivers (13 March) and the Oxford University Science Roadshow (15-19 March) amongst the sciencey enticements on offer.

As always Wow! How? (10am-4pm on the 13th) is all about hands-on science with fun experiments and demonstrations: expect custard, rockets, slime, explosions, and creepy-crawlies.

Although aimed at a family audience, the festival is free and open to everyone. The Wow! How? team are still looking for volunteers so if you are (or know) an Oxford scientist who would like to get involved email [email protected] or call 01865 282456.

Meanwhile, the Oxford University Science Roadshow continues to take the message that science can be fun out to schools around Oxfordshire.

This year's programme will see George McGavin introduce pupils at St Birinus School, Didcot to the world of insects (15th), David Pyle explore the hot stuff of volcanoes at Burford School and Community College, Burford (16th), Suzie Sheehy bring accelerated physics to Wood Green School, Witney (17th), Marcus du Sautoy present the number mysteries at St Gregory the Great, Oxford (18th), and pupils at Lord William's School, Thame find out about earthquakes from Tony Blakeborough (19th).

In all there are over 100 events happening as part of the festival that ties in with National Science and Engineering Week so, wherever you are, March should see great science events happening somewhere near you.

A team, including Oxford University scientists, recently used a quantum computer to calculate the precise energy of molecular hydrogen.

The breakthrough [more here], reported in Nature Chemistry, is the first step towards using one quantum system (in this case entangled photons) to model another (such as a chemical reaction).

I asked Jacob Biamonte from Oxford University's Computing Laboratory, an author of the paper, about the work and what harnessing such 'quantum simulations' might mean for science and even the conquest of space...

OxSciBlog: Why is calculating the precise energy of hydrogen so hard?
Jacob Biamonte: The equations that predict unknown properties of matter have been around for almost 100 years, if only we had a computer capable of solving them! Molecular hydrogen represents an excellent test case for a prototype dedicated quantum processor: a quantum chemistry simulator.

A future quantum simulator will help us understand the nature of matter - particularly chemical reactions - by finally providing solutions to long standing problems, that we simply have been unable to solve using even the world’s largest classical computers.

OSB: How can quantum computing help?
JB: The thought process of humans has evolved to reason in the world we live in. Although these effects are crucial to life itself, quantum effects are essentially unnoticeable in our day-to-day lives. Like the conscious thought process of our brain, machines that operate using 'classical sequences' face grave difficultly modelling systems, such as molecules, that operate by 'quantum sequences'.

Quantum sequences are not only difficult for our classical brains to understand, but at least very difficult and likely even impossible to accurately model using any device that operates by classical sequences. Quantum simulators overcome this problem as they naturally operate using quantum sequences - it is just up to our classical brains to ask them the right questions, and many of the most important ones are about quantum chemistry.

OSB: What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome?
JB: Let's consider a classical sequence as an ordering of say a dozen events on a time line. These events are ordered in an obvious (classical) manner: the twelfth event depends on the eleventh down the line to the first, and so on. To get any idea of how much of an obstacle quantum mechanics is for our classical brains to understand, let's consider the quantum version of the same sequence of a dozen events:as a quantum sequence, the  first event on the time line can be made to depend on the twelfth event, occurring in the future! This is not Star Trek!

A few generations of scientists thought it was a 'bug' in quantum theory - first pointed out by Erwin Schrödinger in a paper he wrote during his time in Oxford about 80 years ago. 60 years later it was Oxford Professor David Deutsch who decided to turn this 'bug' into a feature, and said we should use it as a new powerful computational resource.

OSB: What does your project tell us about how 'quantum systems can help model quantum systems'?
JB: A date in history that some of us should experience in our lifetimes will be the day a quantum computer out-performs the world’s fastest classical super computer. It is almost certain the problem solved will be an intractable chemical simulation, such as the currently unattainable task of finding the ground state of even a modest molecule, like caffeine.

This represents a step forward that is difficult to imagine. What if we did not know how to control electricity, but had blueprints for iPhones, electric motors, and dishwashers? Material Scientists and Quantum Chemists are in this situation! The impact a quantum simulator will have on this world is as difficult to imagine as an iPhone would have been in the Dark Ages.

OSB: How do you hope to take this research forward?
JB: This research is important for the human species! We need to know things about matter that it seems only quantum computers will be able to tell us. This will take our science forward, turn our world into a super civilisation almost overnight, lead to rapid and wild advances in medicine, and likely lead to materials needed to construct spacecraft.

We are gathering synergy in the quantum computing research community, and more interest on using these devices as a tool to explore physics and chemistry. We have plans to start a webpage with experimental benchmarks, providing chemistry benchmarks to the small quantum processors of today, and leading up to an exact resource count for the first classically impossible calculation that a quantum simulator will solve. It's exciting, it's the future, and it's being built now!

Jacob Biamonte is based at Oxford University's Computing Laboratory