Contents

Nuclear Decay and Popcorn -

Mr Chuter

There could be planets and

stars made from dark matter -

Jack S

Sleep Analysis Apps - Isobel L.

Why the flu vaccine was ineffec-

tive this year - Elizabeth T

Blood test for Alzheimer’s dis-

ease -Ima S.

Parkinson's disease - Georgina

H

Thorium Rocks- How I Learned

to Stop Worrying and Love The

Atom. (Nearly) - Jeremy B

Science Week

SEX and GENDER – do we need

both of these labels? - Rebecca

B

Useful Links and Resources

Editors Note The Emanuel Science Journal is a student run paper, written and edited by the

students, all about science. This includes articles on subjects studied in school such as

Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and Psychology as well as further subjects

such as Engineering, Medicine and Environmental Science. The writers of this journal

are some of the best scientists Emanuel School has to offer and we hope you

thoroughly enjoy the out of this world entertainment we have prepared for you.

Nuclear Decay and Popcorn

What do popcorn and nuclear decay have

in common? Well, if you stare at corn

kernels being heated in butter you

wouldn’t be able predict exactly when one

individual will pop, but you can be sure

that after less than five minutes you’ll

have a steaming bucket of popcorn for

your evening Netflix. Similarly, if you focus

on one unstable nuclei, let’s say 206Hg, no

-one can predict when it will decay but

you can be sure that after 8.32 mins you’ll

have lost half the 206Hg which will have

decayed by beta decay into 206Ti. In fact,

this is the definition of “Half-life”: the time

it takes for half the unstable nuclei in a

sample to decay. So the time taken to go

from 100% 206Hg to 50% is 8.32 mins,

which is the same as the time taken to go

from 50% to 25%, 25% to 12.5% and so on.

To flip this round for a minute, let’s think

about the chance of one un-decayed,

unstable nucleus decaying in one second.

Can we be sure of this? Yes we can, and

some clever maths (don’t worry it’s

coming later!) tells us that for any 206Hg

nucleus, the chance of decay in one

second is 1 in 720 or so, or 0.139%.

Extending this to a large sample tells us

that in 1 second, 0.139% of the nuclei in

the sample will decay. This now allows us

to work out the decay curve by predicting

the number of nuclei decaying each

second, let’s start with 1,000,000. In 1

second, 1,389 decay leaving 998,611, of

which 0.0.139%, or 1,387 decay in the next

second, then 1,385 then 1,383 and so on.

This gives us the decay curve seen in figure

1.

Now in physics, we call this the brute force

solution, with every step requiring a

tedious calculation (easily handled by a

computer perhaps, but nevertheless

unsatisfying). Far more satisfying (to a

physicist!) is to have an equation that

describes the pattern that develops.

achieved through some slightly tricky but

still A-level maths:

Where N is

the number

of

undecayed

nuclei and λ is the chance of each nuclei

decaying in one second. This differential

equation simply states “the rate of change

of nuclei (the number decaying each

second) is equal to the number of

undecayed nuclei multiplied by the chance

of each one decaying in a second”.

Integration by separation of variables

gives:

Page 1

This can be plotted in a classic decay curve as shown.

Of course in the real world nature can be less accommodating;

206Hg is decaying into 206Tl but this is, at the same time,

decaying into 206Pb, hence the question “How will the

amount of the second nuclei, 206Tl, change with time?” Again

we could build the brute force solution as above except that in

this case, the amount of 206Ti increases as 206Hg decays into

it but also decreases as 206Tl decays into 206Pb. But why

build a spreadsheet when we can build a differential equation

and solve it.

But of course from above, the number of Hg nuclei is

constantly decreasing as they decay so

And therefore:

This is much harder to solve but can be done using the

integrating factor method, usually taught in the first of

second year of university. This give us our final equation:

Which is much more easily understood when we plot it as a

graph. We now see that the number of Tl nuclei increases at

first as they are being formed by decaying Hg but eventually

decreases as all the nuclei finally decay to stable Pb (lead).

By Mr Chuter

There Could Be Planets and

Stars Made From Dark

Matter

Dark matter may mirror ordinary matter. A new study has

suggested that dark matter may consist of particles like

electrons and protons, allowing them to form together to

make star-like and planet-like structures. The

electromagnetism of the dark matter protons and

electrons would be a separate force to the protons of

electrons of ordinary matter. This means that if you tried

to touch an object made of dark matter, your hand would

go straight through as there is no attraction or repulsion

between your atoms and the dark matter.

Currently it is thought that dark matter forms smooth

halos around galaxies. And because it doesn’t collapse

scientists assumed that it doesn’t feel the force of

electromagnetism. However, because it may feel a

separate ‘dark’ electromagnetism the halo or dark matter

may instead be composed of smaller substructures – just

like how the disk of the Milky Way is made up of small

clumps of dust and stars.

Though it is still a theory, the next generation of surveys

will allow scientist to probe dark matter on much smaller

scale. To prove the theory results must show that the

gravity of the dark structures will pull on structures made

of normal matter. This movement may be visible from

large telescopes orbiting the Earth to pinpoint the position.

Jack S

Y12 Page 2

A Simple Primordial Soup A classic biological recipe rich with ingredients. Often prepared using

hydrothermal vents.

Ingredients

Methane

Ammonia

Water

Hydrogen

Carbon Dioxide

Hydrogen Sulphide

Phosphate

Method

Now there are a few different suggested ways of making this primordial soup but I’m going to take you through my

personal favourite. First, add all your starting ingredients to some water surrounding a hydrothermal vent (not

everyone suggests using a vent like this, some say just any old shoreline will do but I think this yields the best results).

Next, you’re going to want to try and get the starting ingredients to fuse together into larger organic molecules. At first, I

tried using lightning to start the whole process off but the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics meant that getting larger

molecules to form from smaller ones with just these short bursts of energy was rather tricky. So, for this next step I

would try using the sustained energy from hydrothermal vents.

Hopefully you should start to see some larger molecules forming. They the key to this next stage is you should begin to see

some nucleotide bases forming in your soup such as adenine or cytosine. Some say you need to also be seeing some

pyrophosphites (H2P2P52-) so that later you can start to form simple precursors to ATP but again I personally don’t think

it is necessary.

Now the final stage is getting your soup to the perfect point where self-replication begins. Hopefully if you keep your soup

at under the right conditions, nice and hot and with a plentiful supply of starting chemicals then you may be able to

form RNA. This is the key step to producing a perfect self-replicating soup. The major difficulty with this step is getting

useful combinations organic chemicals to form. There are over 10130 different combinations of amino acids so a useful

protein occurring spontaneously is lucky to say the least!

By Sam B

Y13

Preparation time: Approximately one billion

years.

Serves: Every living organism.

Space and Life

This past winters flu vaccine was quite

unsuccessful, only being 36% effective. This

percentage is usually quite varied ranging from

40% to 60%, but in 2017 it was especially low.

The reason for this is due to how the flu vaccine

is made. The vaccine is chosen months before

the actual flu season from researchers choosing

samples of people who are infected with

influenza in the southern hemisphere to

prepare the vaccine for those in the northern

hemisphere later that year. The researchers

identify three or four strains but sometimes the

strain that they predict is going to infect people

doesn’t, because the virus mutates very quickly.

Also, it has been discovered that the way the

vaccine is grown can cause further mutations of

the virus. It is grown in chicken eggs as they

provide the right conditions and nutrients.

However, the most severe strain, called H3N2 is

known to mutate whilst in the chicken egg

because it has to change to replicate more

efficiently in its new environment. This disrupts

the protein, called hemagglutinin glycoprotein

which is what our immune system recognizes.

For this reason, further research needs to be

conducted to find new ways to create the

vaccine in order to replace the egg based

system and use cell based methods instead.

By Elizabeth T

Y12

Sleep Analysis It’s a well-known fact that the average human spends around a third of

their life sleeping, so no wonder we are curious about this strange state

of semi-consciousness that takes up such a huge proportion of our lives.

The idea of ‘sleep cycles’ was first properly explored in the mid 20th

century, and allows us to split sleep in to 90-minute cycles of different

phases, including Rapid Eye Movement which is strongly associated

with dreaming.

In the past few years, the invention of Sleep Analysis Apps has allowed

anyone with a smart phone to find out more about the eight or so

hours that they spend every night in a state of near-unconsciousness.

Their invention has allowed people to be woken up at the end of their

90-min ‘sleep cycles’ improving the ease with which they wake. The

natural waking system, controlled by evolution’s circadian clock, was

severely disrupted with the invention of the alarm clock. Therefore, the

ability for these apps to monitor our movement in our sleep and

consequently predict the best time to wake us up is probably their most

worthwhile function, and thousands of people swear by their efficacy.

They also show the ‘quality’ of rest, often showing sciencey-looking

graphs to show the peaks and low-points of your sleep.

But how much of it is actual science? Sleep experts point out the way in

that these apps monitor our complex sleep cycles is insultingly basic,

and couldn’t possibly accurately determine the quality of our sleep.

Peoples conviction of such apps may be based heavily on placebo, and

these apps provide the opportunity for over analysis and

misinterpretation on our part. We may wake up thinking we had a great

night’s sleep, only to look at our phones to find we only had ‘1 hour of

deep sleep’, which may stress us out and perhaps even making us act

more tired. People can become obsessed by this hit-and-miss data

collected by our phones.

So maybe Sleep Analysis Apps aren’t as good as we thought. But as an

alternative to alarm clocks, they do show great advantages, and as

handheld technology improves we can only expect these apps to get

better and better

By Isobel L

Y12

Why the flu vaccine was

ineffective this year

Page 3

Blood test for Alzheimer’s A non-invasive blood test for Alzheimer’s disease has been

developed by a group of Australian and Japanese scientists to

identify the presence of beta amyloid, a protein which builds

up in large quantities producing beta amyloid plaque which is

toxic. This would allow doctors to diagnose Alzheimer’s

disease earlier making treatment more effective. It is a very

accurate test which can predict the presence of Alzheimer’s

disease with 90% accuracy.

This is a very important discovery as it enables doctors to

detect signs of Alzheimer’s disease before many of the normal

symptoms can be detected allowing the disease to be treated

decades earlier than they otherwise would, at which point the

neurodegenerative disease has caused significant damage to

the brain. This would replace the invasive brain scans

currently in place to detect Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers used mass spectrometry, a very accurate and

precise measuring technique, which can detect compounds

even in very small quantities. This allows doctors to test for

Alzheimer’s disease and help to treat it at an earlier stage.

There have been many challenges with creating this test

because very little beta-amyloid protein passes into the

bloodstream so very little can be detected. However, just

because not much of it enters the blood, it does not mean

that there is little accumulation inside the brain.

Even though the blood test is still in its early stages, hopefully

it will have the potential to be used widely to diagnose

Alzheimer’s disease.

By Ima S

Y12

Parkinson's disease occurs when brain cells in the substantia

nigra region of the brain begin to die. It is a progressive

condition, meaning that the patient's condition slowly

deteriorates over time due to the increase in dying cells. The

nerve cells which die produce dopamine when they are

working. Dopamine is a brain chemical which is used for

regulating movement. This means that when the nerve cells

die, less dopamine is produced which causes involuntary

movement of muscles. The main symptoms of Parkinson's

disease are a decrease in the ability to walk and talk. It may

also possibly cause a change in behaviour, sleep problems,

difficulty with memory and depression. The sleeping problems

can be caused by the continuous shaking experienced by the

patient due to the loss of control concerning their muscles.

Due to these physical and mental strains, 40% of patients with

the disease have depression.

There are no found cures for the degenerative disorder,

however in a paper published by the journal Neuron scientists

found that increasing a lipid named glucoslyceramide results in

a build-up of toxic clusters of alpha-synuclein protein, inside

the nerve cells which produce dopamine. This research can

link to the causes of the progressive disease as these nerve

cells dying are the cause of the disorder. It was also discovered

that a drug with a glucoslyceramide synthase inhibitor reduces

the production of the fatty substance which therefore reduces

the toxic protein clusters. More research needs to be done

into the causes and cures of Parkinson's disease, but it is a step

in the right direction.

By Georgina H

Y12

Parkinson's disease

Health and medicine

Thorium Rocks- How I Learned to Stop Worrying

and Love The Atom… Nearly Nuclear: the word seemingly resting on the tongues of all as

we jump headlong into 2018, the very thought hanging over us

like a cloud of Cold War nostalgia. Not only has nuclear earned

itself a poor reputation from its very debut onto the world

stage, even as a clean energy source, repeated tragedies such

as Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima only sully its

name further. It so often seems that nuclear’s potential to

provide clean, bountiful energy is overshadowed by the

dangers it poses through weapons proliferation and

meltdowns.

Nuclear power, contrary to public perceptions, is not a

monolith. The field possesses a wide array of technologies,

each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Currently,

the ubiquitous reactor used for most of our nuclear energy

production worldwide is the “Light Water Reactor”, which

utilises water as both its neutron moderator and coolant,

heated by a fission reaction to power a turbine, this design

varying between iterations of the reactor. It is towards this

reactor design the concerns about nuclear power are directed.

Though it greatly outweighs fossil fuel energy production in

terms of efficiency and reduced environmental damage, it is a

high-risk technology due to the necessity for high-pressure and

temperature regulation, the danger of a runaway fission

reaction and the permanence of waste products in the

environment. Although, when considering that this technology

is over 60 years old, such flaws are understandable. What is

unacceptable, however, is when nuclear energy is written off

entirely as a route for clean energy merely because innovation

in reactor design grinded to a halt in the 1980s. What if nuclear

was safer? What if it was cleaner? Look no further than the

LFTR.

The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Salt reactor (LFTR) is a generation

four molten salt reactor conceptualised in the early 1950s after

the Light Water reactor. It is often deemed the successor to

the light water reactor for countless reasons according to its

proponents, who make it out to be the silver bullet to our

energy problems. It uses the isotope 232Th, which unlike the

235U used in our current reactors is “fertile” rather than

“fissile”. This means that it alone is not fissionable, but is

converted into fissile material, in this case the artificial fuel

isotope 233U. This means it requires another fissile material to

initiate the cycle by bombarding it with neutrons, which may

sound like a drawback, but it means it is far easier to control

than the runaway reactions of the light water reactor. For

example, in many designs of the LFTR, the Thorium is

converted by most often a fissile plutonium helper in the main

chamber, held in place by an actively cooled freeze plug.

Should power fail and the fan cooling of the freeze plug stops,

the plug simply melts, draining the liquid/molten fuel into a

storage facility below. Herein lies the beauty of the design.

Now the fuel has been separated from the plutonium helper

held separately above, the reaction draws to a close, with the

energy dump tank adept at easily shedding excess heat. A

catastrophic meltdown has been mitigated by the self-

regulating fail-safe core.

This one of the many benefits of the molten salt reactor. It also

has a far greater inherent safety than the conventional solid

uranium fuelled light water reactors as the molten fluorides

used as coolants are chemically inert, and thus risks no

reaction with water or air as seen with sodium coolants, and

produce no combustible hydrogen and oxygen as seen with

water coolants at high temperatures. Furthermore, the coolant

salt is liquid at high temperatures, so the reactor can operate

at far lower temperatures than that of the light water reactors

which need to pump water round at extreme pressures to

keep it from turning to gas under extreme heat. In addition,

due to the liquid thorium fuel, there is no build-up of gaseous,

volatile fission products. The result? No explosions.

Furthermore, as fission products are chemically bonded to the

fluoride salt coolant, much of the radiation is captured while

limiting the spread of the products to the environment.

The LFTR is also capable of producing economic and efficient

results too. Not only is Thorium three to four times as

abundant in the earth’s crust as Uranium, but 100% of the

thorium can be used as fuel as it is pure enough to not require

expensive enrichment and fabrication like uranium to increase

its concentrations of the desired isotopes. Furthermore,

mining thorium is far less costly and hazardous as it does not

produce the harmful radon gas seen in underground uranium

mining, which requires constant ventilation. This is on top of

the fact that one tonne of Thorium produces as much energy

as 35 tonnes of enriched Uranium (itself requiring 250 tonnes

of natural uranium), which produces as much energy as 4.17

million tonnes of black coal. While conventional reactors

consume less than one percent of mined uranium, functional

reprocessing LFTRs consume up to 99% of its thorium fuel.

But what about the waste? The long lived radioactive waste of

our current reactors is greatly off putting to many and rightly

so. Though it is an improvement from breathing in the waste

products of our fuels every day, as is the case with fossil fuel

derived energy, that is a low bar to meet, with the risk of an

underground leakage of slowly decaying nuclear waste

needing no explanation. However, the LFTR poses a solution to

this issue, as the lighter thorium requires far more neutron

captures to form long-lived transuranic waste elements, such

as the 239Pu formed from light water reactors possessing a

half-life of 24,000 years, this difficulty to produce these

elements resulting in far less long-lived waste. In addition to

the absence of the long-lived actinide wastes of conventional

nuclear power, the radiotoxicity of the thorium fuel cycle

waste is roughly 10,000 times less than that of one through

uranium fuel. These factors combined should surely put one’s

mind at ease to the long-term impacts of their energy usage.

Another defining features of the LFTR is its proliferation

resistance. The 232U produced from the fuel cycle of 232Th

has the decay product 208Tl which emits dangerous gamma

radiation. Though this is no cause for concern in a reactor,

they greatly complicate a bomb’s manufacturing, harming

electronics and revealing the bomb’s location. Furthermore,

LFTRs produce very little plutonium and that which is

produced is 238Pu which is unsuitable for use in a fission

bomb due to the high heat and the spontaneous neutrons it

emits. Even the plutonium helper mentioned above is too

small and manageable to create a dangerous warhead. Though

proliferation risk is not entirely eliminated, it is

reduced significantly by the LFTR. The potential of this is still

great, as it can be more freely entrusted to nation states such

as Iran without the risk of providing an open path to attaining

nuclear weapons.

However, as of now, this remains as merely potential.

Proliferation is still possible, albeit via highly complicated and

low yield means, and the very economic viability of the LFTR

remains questionable.

Despite the claims made above, the journey of the LFTR has

been a bumpy one. It was a technology cast aside in the cold

war due to the difficulty it posed to weapons proliferation, a

desirable trait at the time. For the longest time, this was the

major barrier to the implementation of the technology, with

the only successful runs being short or small scale at best. The

design still requires the large-scale testing necessary for

widespread uptake and reliability, with many issues

surrounding construction and maintenance costs still needing

to be addressed. Compared to the reliable, though inferior,

light water reactor, the LFTR appears to be an expensive and

risky venture for any company.

Though it may not be a silver bullet to all our energy problems,

the LFTR is a vital part of the transition towards a zero-carbon,

fully sustainable energy system. It is disingenuous to write off

nuclear while only criticising a single iteration of the

technology. At the very least, the LFTR and other highly

attractive generation four reactors should be considered for a

mid-term solution to clean energy, while renewable

technologies are being perfected and developed. The Chinese

Thorium MSR project, for example, offers reasons to be

hopeful for the future of the technology, as large-scale

adoptions of the technology are finally occurring, and

hopefully greater research and testing will follow. It is fully

plausible the design will crumble under greater scrutiny, but to

not even attempt to get it off the ground would be a missed

opportunity at best, and the nail in our collective coffin at

worst.

By Jeremy B

Nuclear

British Science Week started on the 12th of March and many pupils had the opportunity to take

part in a variety of different competitions and activities throughout the week. Here are some of

the accounts from the pupils of the exciting and engaging activities that they took part in. We would

also like to say a really big thank you to Mrs Brown for her effort into making sure that the week was

enjoyable and informative for everyone involved.

The ‘What if... had never been discovered’ presentation competition took

place after school on Tuesday 13th March. For this event, approximately

15 students took part by choosing a scientific discovery and explaining

about how this discovery has changed our world. This was a brilliant

opportunity for me to practice speaking in front of an audience and it also

game me a chance to learn about scientific discoveries that I never knew

about, such as He – La cells and the Phlogiston theory.

Atitiya V

Y7

The Periodic Table Teachers challenge was one of the

all day activities that took place on the first day of

Science Week. The teachers wore neon stickers with

an elements of the periodic table, and the task was to

fill in a blank copy of the periodic table, but rather

than putting the usual elements where they were

supposed to go, we had to put that teacher’s initial

where his/ her element should be. This fun activity

gave my friends and I a chance to learn the placement

of the elements and to learn the symbols for each

chemical element.

Atitiya V

Y7

SCIENCE WEEK

I took part in the poster/model competition. In this competition,

we had to design a model or a poster about a scientific discovery

or invention that we thought was most impressive/important.

Then we took them to get judged. There were some amazing ones

there. It was so much fun and I can't wait for next year.

Poppy H

Y6

I took part in the periodic table competition

where we had to go around the school and find

all the different periodic table letters. We had to

collect the letters and the teachers' initials. then we

had to fill out the periodic table putting the letters in

the right place. They would then be counted and verified

and the winners would each get a prize.

Poppy H

Y6

Li-Po batteries are in nearly

every electrical device we

use from mobile phones to

certain cars, but what

makes them so special? Li-

Po batteries have the ability

of providing a higher

voltage than traditional lead

acid batteries, this means the batteries provide

more power. This is shown by the equation

Q=VxI or power is equal to voltage times

current. Why don’t we increase the current,

because the more current we draw the more

heat we generate, this can led to the batteries

chemicals degrading or even catastrophic

failure. Lithium batteries have also partially

overcome the battery memory problem

which is where a batteries chemicals

become depleted over time as they are

charged and discharged meaning they

eventually charge to very little of

their original capacity.

Alberto A and Niccolo D

Y10

SCIENCE WEEK

Before glass had been invented the only way

people had seen their reflection was in water or

polished metals, there was a completely

different concept of personal identity. Also no

glass would mean no lenses and therefore no

microscopes and as a result it would be

impossible to study diseases (deadly bacteria)

and find medicine to treat them. On top of this

with telescopes there would be no space studies

and the universe would seem a whole lot

smaller.

Alex G and Ollie R

Science Week

On Thursday 15th March, Nicky Dean the chief editor of the nature energy journal came to Emanuel School to talk about his field of work and how he got there. The nature journal is a multidisciplinary scientific journal that was ranked the world’s most cited scientific journal by the Science Edition in 2010. Nicky Dean started his talk of by talking about his studies and his time at Oxford University including the differences of how physics is taught in schools and at university. After finishing his Undergraduate degree in Physics, he decided to do a PhD in Ultrafast condensed matter where he travelled to many different labs, across the world to conduct his research.

Throughout the talk Dr Dean addressed several topics such as his take on how AI will affect the energy sector, in what area he thought the next biggest scientific breakthrough was.

This was a very eye-opening talk as it showed us that all science

degrees do not necessarily lead to becoming a research scientist

and there are other professions where a science degree can also

be used.

Zoe C

Y12

What if… had never been

discovered? This was a very thought-provoking competition in which students in the upper years gave two-

minute presentations exploring what the world would be like if different aspects of science had not

been discovered. Here are some examples:

Early historical records from Chinese manuscripts provide us with evidence of the first use of sugarcane

coming from India in the 8th Century BC. Sugar came to Europe as medicine but only became popular to use as

food when Indians discovered a way to turn sugarcane into granulated crystals which could be transported. In

1942, Christopher Columbus discovered this sugar and brought back the revelation to Europe. Portuguese took

sugar cane to Brazil and then popularity grew and by the 19th Century sugar became a necessity in people’s diet.

Sugar is a wonderful treat but it is addictive. Like many drugs, it releases dopamine and makes us feel good for a

short period of time but the brain always wants more. If people continue to provide the brain with this pleasure, by

eating more, the brain will adapt. This means that next time it will then take even more sugar to feel the pleasure as

intensely. This is why so many people gain a lot of weight by eating excess amounts of sugar.

In addition to the obvious high risk of obesity and tooth decay, recent studies have looked at associations with high

glucose levels and brain function. Scientists had already discovered that having diabetes may increase the risk of

developing Alzheimer’s disease but in more recent news scientists have also done research into individuals who just

have high blood glucose and worry that this may also have an effect. They found that an increase in blood sugar levels

causes glycation, which is when glucose binds unwantedly to a protein. This then reduces the work of the enzyme MIF,

which is involved in the inflammatory response. This inflammatory response occurs in the brains on patients with

Alzheimer’s disease. Sugar has had a great impact on our world. It is highly likely that our brain and body structure would

be very different without it. We can still enjoy sugar but we do need to be aware of its wider impacts on our health and

possibly think more carefully about the quantity of sugar we eat.

Elizabeth C

Y12

The

Periodic Table

has a great many uses

- apart from making

Chemistry exams difficult, of

course. The person to blame (or

thank, depending on the context) is

Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist.

Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic

table in 1869, by arranging the elements

known at the time in order of relative atomic

mass. He realised that the physical and

chemical properties of elements were related in

a 'periodic' way. Due to the way that he arranged

the elements, the ones with similar properties fell

into vertical properties in his table. The groups that

the elements were put in show their physical

properties. For example, all the elements in group 0

are called noble gases, and they exist as single atoms.

The elements in group 0 all have low boiling points. The

elements in group 2, on the other hand, are all soft silver

metals that have low boiling points and have low densities

for metals. In this way, we can work out the atomic mass

of the missing elements and predict their properties. So

actually, the periodic table makes learning the elements

much easier and it also gives a home for newly discovered

elements such as Moscovium (element 115) and

Oganesson (element 118).

Atitiya V Y7

Forever humans have been wondering at the vast

unknown that is space, and now we have utilised it

for many of our everyday endeavours. The probes

we have sent into space have helped us establish an

idea of what our universe looks like through imaging

and satellites orbiting our own planet have done the

same. These satellites have also enabled our

creation many systems such as Global Position

Systems and Satellite Navigation. In addition to this,

NASA and others, in their preparation for space

exploration, are responsible for many new

technological developments such as scratch-

resistant glass lenses, wireless headphones and tiny

camera technology which is now present in modern

smartphones. Without all these things, it’s fair to say

that our lives would be drastically different. The film

we made for the British Science Week presentation

competition, titled ‘What If Space Had Never Been

Discovered?’, is available at this link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l332IxkvW7w

Siddiq I and Ollie O

Y11

HeLa cells are the first immortal human cell line taken from a

patient, Henrietta Lacks in 1951. Henrietta Lacks was a poor

tobacco farmer born in 1920 who was

diagnosed with aggressive cervical cancer in 1951 and died from it

later the same year, unaware that her cells had been taken to

carry out experiments on without her consent. Because they are

cancer cells, they are able to divide quickly and uncontrollably

leading to immortal cells. Jonas Salk was able to cure polio using

HeLa cells which are able to impersonate the virus allowing him to

test his vaccine. They have also been sent out to space to test the

effects of zero gravity on human cells. Scientists were able to find

out that human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes using HeLa cells.

Therefore, HeLa cells have helped scientists in many ways from

cancer treatment to space travel and medical sciences as we know it

would not be the same if they had not been discovered.

Ima S

Y12

As our modern society continues to develop, our views of the ‘Sexuality Spectrum’ grow and become more accepting. A clear example is the visibility of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) movement in the media and how much easier it has become to ‘come out of the closet’ in working and family environments. Underlying the whole Sexuality Spectrum issue, there is a large misconception; the difference between Sex and Gender. This “misunderstanding" exists because some people are still wired to consider SEX and GENDER as scientific concepts use them interchangeably. Yet this isn’t scientifically true.

SEX is a scientific label and refers to the biological differences between two beings (hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs) whilst GENDER describes the characteristics and perceptions that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine sexuality. So, while your sex is a biological fact that is the same in any culture, what that sex means in terms of your gender role as a 'man' or a 'woman' in society can be quite different.

The concepts of sex and gender have been aligned for hundreds of years as they helped societies establish cultural identities and appropriate behaviours within a society. This was initially a necessity as it helped create homogenous groups which had a clear social structure. It was, in other words, easier for all females to be women and males to be men. Consequently, to this day people still mix the two up and continue to casually place labels on others, assuming often that biological sexuality is the same as gender sexuality and use this to label people based on what they wear, how they act, or the way they say things. An example of this is with people who are transgender: a transgender male was born biologically as a female with female genitalia however considers himself as a male, as he believes, thinks, acts and sees the world as a male, but as he was assigned with the

female genitalia at birth, some people still see him as a female.

GENDER therefore really only exists as an ‘image’ or ‘perception’ that a (large) group of humans has made up of sexuality based on their history, their culture and their religion and has little to do with science. This is because there is no physical feature that determines whether you are a FEMALE or MALE in terms of your gender. It is something that society has decided to use to designate people on top of their biological status. So even today, in some societies, you are culturally thought to assume or presume that all women are human females and all men are human males. Is this still fair in 2018? Not really. Is this politically correct? Neither. In fact, from a purely scientific perspective the removal of the label of GENDER would significantly reduce many cultural problems in our society. GENDER labels should be irrelevant from a biological perspective – it doesn’t matter whether you are a man that feels like they are a woman, or vice versa - as in modern society, it doesn’t affect what you do or your role.

So, the real question is whether we still need both SEX and GENDER labels in our society? Can teaching in school the scientific basis of the difference between the two actually reduce the gender-related problems in our society? Who knows, but maybe if we started changing our way of thinking about it, it can help in some way.

By Rebecca B Y12

SEX and GENDER: do we need both labels?

Editors: Ima S and Joe G

Assistant Editor and Designer: Jessica L

Editorial Team: Anna M, Siddiq I, Zoe C,

Maddie W-N and Bonnie T

Special Mention: Anthony Murphy for his

contribution to publishing and Jessica L for her

work on the design.

USEFUL LINKS AND RESOURCES

Masterclasses:

https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/events/masterclasses

The Royal Institution:

http://www.rigb.org/

Royal Society of Chemistry

http://www.rsc.org/

Exploratorium:

https://www.exploratorium.edu/explore

Mr Rintoul’s A Level Chemistry Page

https://www.youtube.com/user/MrERintoul

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