Have a break – have dark chocolate
by Christina Nelson
With exams looming we need that excuse to eat chocolate and cry into our pillow about how much work there is to do, right?
Well, no more excuses needed. Recent research indicates that eating dark chocolate might increase cognition and other brain functions.
Week 1
Aidan Matthews 5. April 2018 @aidanjrmatthews
Life as a Student is incredible, challenging, enriching, stressful and so much more. Each year of your studies bringing an increase in pressure and challenge, the constant development of skills, methods and ideas allows for the continual development and achievement of goals. This series of articles produced in conjunction with the Scapegoat Science Newsletter aim to provide you with tools to develop skills in Student Life Management. With the ever-present threat of mid-semester exams, essays, reports, group presentations and quizzes, this series will offer quick snapshots to challenge your ideas, habits, and methods with the objective of developing your Student Life Management.
Final year feels
by Christina Nelson
It is completely normal to feel a host of emotions whilst going through your final year. You might find yourself in a self-induced deadline crisis, whilst trying to maintain a semblance of normality so that your lab partner thinks ‘how on earth are they managing’ (even though a few minutes before class you were having a mini-meltdown in the bathroom). The thought of leaving university, and what comes next, starts to dawn on you.
I mean who wouldn’t miss those student discounts, longer summer breaks, skipping those early morning lectures to grab brunch with your mates (or just sleep-in), or having a good excuse for being unemployed?
And let’s be honest ….
This is what you feel like when someone asks you what you are doing next year:
So, enjoy your final year with your friends, and remember that final year is not forever. The study will end!
A real Jurassic Park? Amber in Myanmar.
by Christina Nelson
The trilogy, Jurassic Park, and now the fourth instalment, Jurassic World, is a stroke of cinematic genius. It is probably safe to say that many share this view given the films have grossed in excess of US$1 billion dollars. Simply, it is a type of movie that you can watch over and over again and never get bored. It is a type of movie that you can rug up to on a Friday night, whilst your friends are drinking their twenties away, and you remain at home with your Ben and Jerry’s cookie and cream ice-cream. The films make you challenge what seemingly is the impossible. Even when watching Jurassic Park today, I still catch myself thinking ‘yep this could totally happen’ (even though as a scientist you should always question). The films capture the balance between an absolute lack of foresight with occasional pearls of wisdom (i.e. Ian Malcolm) and theatrical (albeit theoretically incorrect) movie science. The question that I really want to ask: can Jurassic Park really happen?
Photography by E. Penalver via Nature Communications.
Well, several recent archaeological finds, have all originated from one remarkable site: the amber mines of northern Myanmar’s Hukawng Valley. The recent discoveries include a new species of insect, that looks more like E.T., an intact feathered tail of a small carnivorous dinosaur, and a nearly complete 99 million-year-old baby bird. Another remarkable amber discovery was a tick fossilized from the Dominican Republic that may have fed on dinosaurs. This discovery seems to have been written for a plot straight out of one of Spielberg’s movies. Like the movie, could the tick make for the cloning of dinosaurs possible?
Since amber specimens are fossils, this means that DNA will not be preserved well. In our case, we want dinosaur (‘dino’) DNA. In fact, scientists calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. This means that after 521 years, half of the bonds which link DNA would have decayed, and then in another 521 years another half, and so on. This is also increased by other factors, like the actual conditions of fossilization, such as, excessive dehydration and the dynamic changes in temperature over time. Now, this (sadly) means that after approximately 1.5 million years the sequence of DNA would be virtually unreadable and after 6.8 million years, all bonds would no longer exist, meaning that our dino DNA would not be viable to use in a cloning experiment. Of course, even if there was some dino DNA left, we would then need to replace the ‘missing’ DNA with that of an acceptable donor cell of an animal that scientists select to clone.
This means (unfortunately?) I do not think that we should be expecting a real life Jurassic Park-type reanimation any time soon. Personally, I do not fancy a Tyrannosaurus rex roaming around New York city. We, whether that be scientists or lawyers ectara, do not have some sort of ‘God-complex’ and Ian Malcolm is correct ‘life finds a way’. We simply cannot resolve nature’s resistance to control. So, for now, these amber finds are just simply fascinating. Let’s leave it at that.
Written by Jenny
Despite some misconceptions out there, R U OK? day is not about asking anyone ‘Are you okay?’ insincerely with the expectation that they will say ‘Yes, I’m good. Thank you. How about you?’.
In these modern times and more than ever in history, we are seemingly more connected to everyone – through the boom of mobile phones and social media.
This blog is a collation of responses from prominent lecturers and staff from around
the Monash Science Faculty. To begin we would like to thank Ulrik Egede, Martin
Burd, Scott Findlay, Daniel Mathews, Nicholas Price and 2 other staff members for
making this article possible.
How their typical work day changed since the pandemic?
Majority of the respondents have moved to working from home and their face to face
interactions have now been replaced by zoom calls. Also laboratory activities have
stopped.
How has teaching remotely been different from ‘usual’ teaching?
There are both advantages and disadvantages to remote teaching. Teaching
remotely requires a lot more preparation and is a lot more time consuming than
regular face to face classes. One of the biggest challenges is trying to find a virtual
substitute for hands on learning. Learning science through virtual means is a lot less
interactive, which in most cases limits students’ learning ability. However, some
students are finding it easier to ask questions via the zoom chat function than they
would in a large lecture theatre.
Modifications that have been made to research and their impacts.
For most academics conducting laboratory-based research, the pandemic meant a
complete halt of on-campus research. Some have changed to a different part of their
research that is more theory-based. A major drawback to research has been the lack
of discussions with fellow researchers and collaborators, or at least their decreased
frequency.
Overall, the impacts to the research and respective fields of academics has not been
positive. It did, however, demonstrate that although lab-based research will always
need to be done on campus, some aspects of theoretical research can be done at
home with the same efficiency. Additionally, they are able to ‘attend’ international
seminars that were not previously accessible.
Will changes made to science during this time continue into the future?
Overall, the pandemic has proved that a large number of scientific tasks can be
conducted online – including teaching videos and even conferences. These may be
seen more frequently in the future. Additionally, flexibility in working hours was also
shown to be possible. However, face to face collaboration – whether in research or
applied classes – is overall more preferred in person.
In lab-based research however, being on campus is crucial and cannot be replaced.
It may take many years and considerable resources before such research can be
done remotely.
Advice for science students currently undertaking laboratories and general studies
Composed by Stacey Barbagallo, Israa Hameed and Matthew Wanford in
collaboration with Monash University’s Science Future Leaders Program 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented landmark in world history, placing global strain on health services, economies and communities. From its inception, COVID-19 has highlighted the need for the delivery of accurate information at all levels of society. The pandemic has revealed possible flaws in our approaches towards scientific communications, with pitfalls being seen in a variety of spaces. Key examples are those between scientists and officials, to those between scientists and the general public, and perhaps surprisingly, within the scientific community itself. 1
Image Credit: Kelsey GrahamThe role of scientific communication is vast and influences the decisions made by individuals, communities and governments worldwide. So, how effective has scientific communication really been since the coronavirus was first seen and what lessons should be taken while efforts are being made to prevent further waves and create a vaccine?
Science Communication History: Pre-COVID-19
Anti-lockdown, anti-mask, and government suppression during pandemics is nothing new, and has now resurfaced all the way back from the 1918 influenza pandemic. Anti-lockdown and anti-mask protest in San Francisco with the ‘Anti-mask League’ in 1918-1919 drawing parallels of today’s COVID-19 response. 2,3 And the USA 1918 sedition act suppression and down play of influenza having comparable effects to USA’s downplay of the impact of COVID-19 by withholding data, stalling/halting publication of research and asking officials and scientists to lie to push their agendas. 4-6 Parallels are drawn, the COVID-19 pandemic has more complexity with the spread of information via social media, the trust in science and increasingly unstable social and political climates, to just to name a few. These factors and influences have been around long before patient-zero contracted COVID-19, and have influenced science and science communication over the past two decades. Labelled as one of the most influential yet destructive influences in this pandemic has been the spread of misinformation via social media, leading to increased support for radical groups such as anti-vaxxers, pandemic denialists and conspiracy theorists. Pre-COVID-19 and all the way back in the late 1990s, the support for anti-vaccination groups grew at alarming rates after publication of Andrew Wakefield’s study in The Lancet, claiming that there was a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. 7,8 After other researchers could not reproduce the results, the study was investigated with overwhelming conclusions of severe ethics violations, misconduct, conflicts of interest, fraud and the mistreatment of children. 8,9 Despite these damning conclusions, the redactions of his studies, and even being barred as a physician. Andrew Wakefield caused extensive decline in MMR vaccination rates in the UK, Europe and America.8 The repercussions of this fraud are felt today, with Andrew Wakefield continuing, often as a leader or guest speaker, to support anti-vaccination groups and further pushing for resistance against efforts to contain COVID-19 through social media. 10,11 Social media being the frontier of these types of campaigns and groups, forms echo chambers with ease and provides continuous reinforcement and spread of misinformation. 12 An MIT study in 2018 showed that “falsehood[s] diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information” which poses a dangerous hazard to science as an outlet of finding and communicating truth. 13 These high levels of misconduct overshadow and cripple the trust in science with scepticism becoming denial, suspicion and doubt in sciences integrity. These cases of fraud and misconduct seek to undermine public trust in science with few cases of misconduct weighing more on the institution in comparison to the number of scientists that act ethically and perform best practices that instil public trust. This fractured trust is now under a stress test with COVID19, with the public and officials pressing and questioning the integrity of the science. Hence, the conduct and communication of the science has now an added layer of importance. It further bears the question of how can science effectively and honestly communicate when it can’t reach audiences efficiently? Let’s look at science education, specifically in Australia. Over the last two decades, science education in Australia has been rocky at best with significant decline in science literacy amongst secondary school students with some of the lowest year 12 science enrolments and only one in ten year 12 students completing advanced mathematics.14,15 This drop in science literacy is concerning as science literacy has been highlighted as an area that may contribute to the reduction of falsehood spread.16,17 The idea that we can give people the ability to use scientific thinking, ideas, philosophy and intellectual virtues to make better informed judgements of information; becoming ‘competent outsiders’.16,17 Come to the present during COVID-19, having competent outsiders is critical during this stress test of science with rapid developments and findings on a new entity. This is not a full solution, but a step in the right direction in entrusting content consumers to take precautions in both consuming social media content and scientific publications.
Science communication with officials
It’s been more than seven months since WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic and scientific knowledge of the virus remains incomplete. The inherent uncertainties surrounding the scientific information means that the scientific community must take a holistic approach to drawing evidence to inform policy, with particular attention to lessons taken from past pandemics.18 One or few experts typically advise officials and at the end of the day, scientists can never deliver anything with 100% certainty and policy makers retain the right to make decisions.19 The nature of this kind of decision-making highlights the need for advisory scientists to be guided by predefined principles and have access to a widespread data-sharing network, such that they can obtain the most up-to-date and accurate information from a diverse range of academics.18 The OECD’s framework for effective scientific advisement in responding to COVID-19:
1. Define roles of advisors and officials.
2. Include all relevant parties and stakeholders with transparency.
3. Construct apolitical, unbiased and accurate advice.
Embedded within the above principles is the need to take a multidisciplinary approach, further highlighting the benefit of widespread information sharing networks.18
Headed by the Australian Academy of Science, the COVID-19 Expert Database has been established to address this need and has at least 1800 experts involved (and counting).20 This platform allows experts from a range of fields, such as humanities, health, engineering and technology, to contribute to the database, allowing local, state and federal governments, industry and other decision-makers to have relevant information.21
Science communication with the public
News consumption has increased by ~14% since the Australian bushfires this year, and interestingly, trust in the news has increased by ~15% since this time.22 Although trust in the media has increased by a significant amount, fear of receiving misinformation is high among Australians at approximately 64%, with particular concern drawn to internet and social media sites, particularly Facebook.22 A key issue in 21st century society has been the ease of access to conspiracies by susceptible individuals. This fear has been exemplified by the pandemic we are currently living in, with a whole slew of online theories derived from the virus that have caught believers in their webs. From 5G towers, anti-mask wearing propaganda to even myths of the source of the coronavirus itself, each of these theories flies in the face of the unprecedented level of scientific knowledge published each day relating to the virus as well as the wealth of existing scientific knowledge. Recent studies have found that there is a particular personality type that is more likely to believe these conspiracies. It is now known that people are more likely to believe conspiracy theories that affirm their political views.23 This may explain why Republican party supporters are more likely to believe conspiracies that are purported by President Donald Trump such as the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine. The strongest predictor of conspiratorial beliefs from a study of over 1200 people were personality traits of “schizotypy”, the likelihood of inferring meaning from objects when there is none. The implications from this study suggest that individuals who see the world as a place of suffering and injustice are more likely to seek answers and find comfort in the notion that there is someone, or a group of people, responsible for it. This plays a key role in the time of COVID-19, with conspiracy theorists blaming governments and other countries for deliberately creating the virus, as thus, creating the suffering that we are seeing today.
Science communication within the scientific community
The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced significant changes in the scientific community from closures to research centres and laboratories to a more rapid publishing process.24 With universities and research centres as the epicentre of idea development and research, the ongoing pandemic is hindering scientific communication and innovation. For almost one hundred years, peer review has been the cornerstone of academic publishing as an evaluation process that intends on enhancing the quality of scholarly literature.25 However, the pandemic has required the dissemination of scientific findings at a faster rate.26 Consequently, alternative methods of peer review have been sort out by members of the scientific community. There has been a surge in preprints and use of open-access platforms for reviewing preprints.27 MedRxiv, a preprint server, is described as becoming a ‘go-to source’ for new medical information on COVID-19 where papers that are not peer reviewed are posted and used widely on social media and in news reports.28 However, the reliability of information on preprint servers is questionable and even reliable data can be distorted or misunderstood in the comments on social media. MedRxiv cautions readers that papers have not received peer review and data should not be reported as established information. In light of the current crisis, critical papers regarding COVID-19 are being granted an expedited peer review process with a review and decision determined in days rather than months.28 The question arises, as to whether the dissemination of medical information may evolve to be more appropriate for future crisis? Prior to the pandemic, there was increasing mobilisation of sharing early scientific findings, and the current climate has added fire to this motion.28 The critical evaluation of scientific findings and scientific communication will be increasingly important with greater opportunity for circulating medical information on open-access platforms and social media. COVID-19 has highlighted the need to strengthen scientific communication and increase future pandemic preparedness across the scientific community.24 Furthermore, the pandemic has influenced major enhancements in global health with increased efforts by the scientific community to increase clinical trials and the availability of medical treatments.29
Composed by Kelsey Graham, Aaron Mclean, Gianni Visentin, and Rebecca Walters in collaboration with Monash University’s Science Future Leaders Program 2020.
References
1. Saitz, R. and Schwitzer, G. Communicating Science in the Time of a Pandemic. JAMA 2020, 5, 443-444
2. San Francisco, California and the 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic | The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918: A Digital Encyclopedia. https://www.influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-sanfrancisco.html (Accessed October 2020)
3. Dolan, B. Unmasking History: Who Was Behind the Anti-Mask League Protests During The 1918 Influenza Epidemic In San Francisco? Perspectives in Medical Humanities 2020, 5, DOI: 10.34947/M7QP4M
4. Barry J. How the horrific 1918 influenza spread across America. Smithsonian. Nov, 2017. (Accessed October 2020)
5. Tollefson, J. How Trump Damaged Science — And Why It Could Take Decades to Recover. Nature 2020, 586, 190-194.
6. Maxmen, A.; Tollefson, J. Two Decades of Pandemic War Games Failed to Account for Donald Trump. Nature 2020, 584, 26-29.
7. Eggertson L. Lancet retracts 12-year-old article linking autism to MMR vaccines. CMAJ 2010, 182, DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.109-3179
8. Hussain, A. el al. The Anti-vaccination Movement: A Regression in Modern Medicine. Cureus 2018, 10, DOI: 10.7759/cureus.2919
9. General Medical Council, Fitness to Practise Panel Hearing, 24 May 2010, Andrew Wakefield, Determination of Serious Professional Misconduct General Medical Council. (Retrieved on 14/10/2020)
10. Aitkenhead D, Disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield’s new life, 12 September 2020, The Weekend Australian Magazine (Retrieved 14/10/2020)
11. Jamison P, Anti-vaccination leaders seize on coronavirus to push resistance to inoculation, 5 May 2020, The Washington Post (Retrieved on 14/10/2020)
12. Del Vicario, Michela, et al. The Spreading of Misinformation Online. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2016 113, 554–559
13. Soroush Vosoughi1, Deb Roy1 and Sinan Aral, The spread of true and false news online. Science 2018, 359, 1146-1151
14. Science and maths in Australian secondary schools datasheet, Australian Government – Australia’s Chief Scientist https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/sites/default/files/2- Science-and-Maths-in-Australian-Secondary-Schools-datasheet-Web.pdf (assessed October 2020)
15. Murphy, S. The Impact of School Disadvantage on Senior Secondary Science: A Study of Patterns of Participation and Achievement in Government Secondary Schools in Victoria, Australia. Res Sci Educ 2020, 50, 1603–1618 DOI: 10.1007/s11165-018-9745-4
16. Sharon, AJ, Baram‐Tsabari, A. Can science literacy help individuals identify misinformation in everyday life? Science Education 2020, 104, 873– 894 DOI: 10.1002/sce.21581
17. Henning H et al. Fake science and the knowledge crisis: ignorance can be fatal. R. Soc. open sci. 6, 190161
18. Providing science advice to policy makers during COVID-19, OECD – Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19) http://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policyresponses/providing-science-advice-to-policy-makers-during-covid-19-4eec08c5/ (assessed October 2020)
19. Science can support effective policy-making by providing the best available knowledge, International Science Council https://council.science/current/news/science-cansupport-effective-policymaking-by-providing-the-best-available-knowledge/ (assessed October 2020)
20. Science Policy and Diplomacy newsletter—Covid-19 special edition August 2020, Australian Academy of Science https://www.science.org.au/news-andevents/newsletters/science-policy-and-diplomacy-newsletter/covid-19-special-edition-aug-2020 (assessed October 2020)
21. COVID-19 Expert Database, Australian Academy of Science https://www.science.org.au/covid19/experts (assessed October 2020)
22. Park S. et al. Digital News Report: Australia 2020. News Media Research Centre, University of Canberra 2020 DOI: 10.25916/5ec32f8502ef0
23. Hart, J. and Graether, M. Something’s Going on Here: Psychological Predictors of Belief in Conspiracy Theories. Journal of Individual Differences 2018 DOI: 10.1027/1614- 0001/a000268
24. Callaway, E., Will the pandemic permanently alter scientific publishing? Nature 2020, 7811, 167.
25. Johansson, M.; Saderi, D., Fast peer review for COVID-19 preprints. Nature 2020, 7797, 29-29.
26. Meyer, H. After A COVID-19 Vaccine: Collaboration or Competition? Health affairs (Project Hope) 2020, DOI: 101377hlthaff202001732.
27. Smith, J. A. Peer Review. The Journal of urology 2016, 6, 1639-1642.
28. Subramanya, S. H. Lama, B. and Acharya, K. P. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the scientific community. Qatar Med J 2020, 1, 21-21. 29. Sutherland, W. and Lythgoe, K. COVID-19: full peer review in hours. Nature 2020, 7820, 192-192.
Written by Jenny
Sometimes, studying can be overwhelming for me. I write down the things I want to achieve today and achieve this week and realised there was quite a bit to do since it’s week 12.
These are 12 things I tell myself when I feel a little demotivated and a little overwhelmed. These are my own things and they may not apply to you. I am sharing this in hope you can find some of it hopeful.
Restless nights, followed by tiring mornings and always feeling like you can never catch enough sleep?
Like how we have habits to keep our teeth clean and our studies done, we have habits that affect our sleep.
Sleep hygiene describes good sleep habits. Here are some advice to help you get a good night’s sleep from a student. Most of these are common sense but the hustle and bustle of the modern and uni life makes most of us neglect some of our common senses and self-care.
