May 27, 2015

Before a fascinated audience gathered in The Rees Hotel conference room, Professor Craig Millar of the Allan Wilson Centre delivered the public lecture Ancient DNA: Secrets from the Past.

Professor Millar offered a sweeping overview of how the advancement of the science of the very small (DNA) has the power to answer questions of the very large:

• From compelling evidence at CSI-style crime scenes solving the largest of crimes;
• to the history of humanity across thousands of years, from today back to ancient Egypt and beyond;
• and offering insight into the development and evolution of the entire natural world around us, with particular reference to Professor Millar’s own research into some of the biggest birds known, the New Zealand Moa(s).

With an entertaining and engaging style (was I the only one threatened with being clipped over the ear with a Moa thigh bone if I continued to misbehave?), Professor Millar brought the audience to the world of DNA, and offered us all a ‘beginner’s guide’ to its incredible power to explore and explain the world of us.

More about:

1. The Allan Wilson Centre
2. Professor Millar
3. Ancient DNA: Secrets from the Past (slides)

May 7th, 2015

More than 20 poetry aficionados ranging from primary school students to retirees gathered in Queenstown Library to hear the favourite poems of Hannah Mettner and Jo Morris, both graduates of the Bill Manhire Creative Writing Masters, and use these as springboards for their own creative writing. Participants created four “starter poems” then tried out the editing process before some then shared their creations with the group. Two and a half hours whizzed by.

 

 

 

 

 

April 29th, 2015

Queenstown locals Holly and Josh Wallace’s personal perspective on life in an Islamic  state through the lens of journalistic filmmakers was given to a full house covering the age spectrum. They showed their film ‘Milk and Honey’, about the Australian aerobics teacher who became the fully veiled fourth wife of a Qatari Imam and superb photos of their two years based in Qatar.

Among their observations;

• only 300,000 of Qatar’s 2 million people are Qataris, so there is a massive migrant population, who have fewer rights, less security and less income than Qataris.
• The Emir, a benevolent dictator, is concentrating on building a knowledge economy – massive medical, science, technology and tertiary institutes, bringing in brain power and top Western Universities to educate young Qataris. But for Qatari women, most then can’t use their education in the work force.
• The country’s wealth has been built on gas (world’s third-largest reserves) and oil. They are the richest country in the world. They have gone from a country based on pearl divers, date plantations, and nomads breeding camels and horses to this in just 40 years, since the British occupation ended.
• There is a real tension between the traditional and backward looking Islamic culture and the money drive of their growth economy. While in the traditional Bedouin culture, showing wealth to prove your status relied on how well you fed your wedding guests, now it is driven by how many wives and Lamborghinis you have. Four is the max number of wives.
• But much of the towering glitz of Qatari cities is a facade. Skyscraping office buildings often empty but lights on full time to look impressive.
• Qatari women, and also all Muslim women in Qatar, endure similar rules and lifestyle as Victorian England.
• Employers have total control over the exit permits the mainly male migrants working on Qatari roads and construction require to get out of the country. These are often refused, meaning the poorly paid migrant workers become modern day slaves. Every two days, one worker building the World Cup Stadia dies through an accident…Inshallah.
• Other memories of expatriate life in Qatar – four wheel driving in the desert, camping on the border of Saudi Arabia, lots of fancy dress parties, no lack of liquor, and lots of soccer where Holly was their secret weapon as Qatari men didn’t know what to do when a woman in shorts and singlet started running towards them!

March 18, 2015

Enriched environments – including social interaction, music, movement, keeping the mind active, visual stimulation and good food – offer people who have suffered stroke or brain trauma the chance to forge new neural connections and brain cells, dramatically improving recovery.

Dr Andrew Clarkson and Prof Michael Nilsson told the audience of over 80, from high school students to senior citizens, that research with mice, rats and people all pointed to significant plasticity of the brain and opportunity to recover function. But hospitals and institutions were ‘de-enriched’ environments, with minimal stimulation and social interaction “and then we wonder why people don’t get better.”

Using the analogy of the Christchurch earthquake, they said scientists did not yet know exactly how the “recovery crew” worked after brain damage. And many did not yet acknowledge that men and women required different treatment because of the impact of the different sex hormones on the brain and drug interactions with it.

Physical, social and cognitive stimulation are known to be the pillars of enriched environment stimulation. The first three months’ rehabilitation are the most vital.

Culture – art, music and dance – also acted in a hugely positive way on our central nervous system and brain, they said. “Music and rhythm – nothing activates the brain quite like it. It liberates so many good substances.”

A research programme Prof Nilsson has been involved with in Spain for the past nine years has shown through its work with more than 300 patients the importance of an enriched environment and outdoors activity on brain recovery.

Medical institutions and governments were decades behind the research on this – and the huge cost of implementing such programmes on a large scale would mean some resistance. Much could still be done at the community and individual level, however.
In the future, rehabilitation for stroke, dementia and brain trauma sufferers should be highly individualised, in response to their particular brain, cultural and body make up – rather than the generic and minimalist approach now undertaken.

Research with 1.2 million Swedish military conscripts also showed that higher physical fitness levels at age 18 were highly correlated with higher IQ and lower dementia, stroke and depression incidents in later life. Physical activity levels at this age set up central nervous system resiliency for the rest of an individual’s life, they said.

March 9, 2015

Wakatipu High School, visit by Professor of Neurosurgery Otago University Professor Dirk de Ridder, New Zealand’s first professor of neurosurgery.  Catalyst Trust facilitated his visit and lecture on the Brain/Dream link, attended by some the 70 students and staff.  He explained his complex research findings, linking neuroscience, philosophy, religion, art and sport.

February 9, 2015

More than 90 people, from high school age up, attended Prof Harris’s presentation. Some of the nuggets follow:

• As long as Syrian President Bashar al-Asad remains in power in Damascus, ISIS or Islamic State will remain in existence. He was “the chief arsonist and the impresario” of the firestorm that has so far consumed almost a quarter of a million Syrian lives with no end in sight. Islamic State has grown out of the vicious behaviour of his repressive regime toward Syrian Sunni Arabs and his release of hard-line jihadists in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab spring.
• He faces, however, a manpower problem. His Alawite people comprise only one eighth of the Syrian population, so he requires allies to prop them up. Iran keeps the Syrian regime afloat.
• Islamic State does not rely solely on Jihadists – among its members are former officers of the Iraq Baathist party, whose motivation is anti-American rather than religious. Among these are probably some chemical weapons experts.
• We don’t know much about the Islamic State apparatus or structure, so we don’t know what will be the next “shock, horror” strategy that will follow beheadings and immolation, but the above bullet point might give a clue.
• Syria and Iraq were formed by the Allies post World War I, through the drawing up of the so-called Sykes-Picot arrangements. The two “countries” do not reflect the underlying ethnic or religious divides. Despite this, Prof Harris believes the boundary between them will still stand in a decade’s time. His qualifications are that the Kurds of what is now northern Iraq may be able to break away, and Syria will have different internal arrangements.
• There are, in fact, at least three wars going on at once – Syrian regime against its (fractious) opposition; the International Coalition against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq; and the contest for central Iraq involving the Iraqi government, Iraqi Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds, and Iran and the US. The outcome of any one of these will affect the other two.
• The Kurds in Syria and Iraq are a people looking to go their own way; the largest language group in the world without a state of their own (20 to 25 million).
  3 to 4 million refugees on the Syrian border will become more radicalised as the war drags on. The bulk of these have fled the Syrian regime.
• Islamic State pays better (thanks to, for example, emptying the banks in Mosul) and acquired better weaponry than the Syrian opposition. It has gratified the Syrian regime by targeting Syrian opposition factions, including other jihadists. It competes with them for territory, followers and resources.
• President Obama trying to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran may complicate the situation. It is likely to lead to removal of American sanctions on Iran, allowing them to more easily penetrate the Arab world. Not good for the Saudis, Jordan, or Israel.
  We should be very concerned, especially on the nuclear proliferation front. If Obama lets Iran become a threshold nuclear capable country, then Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt will do the same.
• And by signing up to become part of the Allied team in Iraq and Syria, we could end up supporting theocratic Shi’ite Iran if and when the US – our senior partner – does a deal with that Iran, meaning we may suddenly find ourselves on one side in an Iranian/Sunni Arab sectarian confrontation.

November 25, 2014

Australia and the south of France, Italy and Spain will be known for raisins rather than wine if climate warming trends continue over future decades, Otago University’s Dr Jim Salinger told a 30-strong Catalyst audience in Queenstown.
French champagne companies were already buying land in the UK as temperature graphs from 1950s to 2000s showed a definite upward trend in temperature in wine growing areas such as Champagne, Bordeaux, Hunter Valley and Northern California.
The internationally renowned Kiwi climate change scientist spent seven months in 2014 researching climate variability and wine quality at Italy’s leading food sustainability institution, IBIMET-CNR.

His research showed that contrasting climates and weather patterns throughout the growing season resulted in quite different rankings of vintage Bordeaux reds and Tuscany Chianti wines – and that European lessons are applicable to New Zealand, where widely diverse climatic patterns occur across our different wine growing districts.

Continuous weather measurements showed Queenstown had 20 fewer days of frost in 2008 than it did in 1931. Midrange predictions were that our average temperature would be 1% higher by 2040 and 2° by 2090, with stronger westerlies, bringing more rainfall.

This would mean a change in wine varieties that would best grow here, from the cooler range Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Riesling towards Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, he said. Some were saying our temperatures would more likely increase 4°, which would take us out of the range of Pinot Noir but let us grow Syrah, Malbec and Merlot wine grapes.

Dr Salinger is a leading international climate scientist on past and present climate trends, having studied climate change and variability in New Zealand and the South Pacific for over 35 years, linking climate trends with natural and anthropogenic causes.

Click here for a summary of Dr Jim Salinger’s presentation – Wine Lessons from Europe

Five of New Zealand’s leading genetic scientists

October 29, 2014.

A capacity crowd of 120 – with many more turned away – spent two hours listening to and asking about the latest research being undertaken by five of the more than 260 genetics researchers who are part of Genetics Otago, based at the University of Otago.
Dr Julia Horsfield spoke about understanding human disease processes through researching zebrafish, which share many of the same genes as humans and whose transparent eggs allow her to observe the very beginnings of life and changes over time. Studying malfunctions and manipulating small changes in zebrafish RNA can lead to not only finding the causes of disease, but also possible therapies.

Associate Professor Lynette Sadleir said that 70% of epilepsy was now thought to have a likely genetic cause. Finding the genes that cause epilepsy allows the development of targeted treatments and may in future stop epilepsy developing altogether. Collaborating closely with the University of Melbourne’s Epilepsy Research Centre, Sadleir discovered many individuals of large families who had epilepsy had the sodium channel gene, SCN1A. Subsequent study of children with a severe type of epilepsy, known as Dravet Syndrome, found this gene was the cause in 80% of cases. In addition, research has shown that most children who develop severe epilepsy following vacination actually also have a mutation in this gene. This means that the claim that the whooping cough vaccine causes epilepsy is not correct – it is purely a trigger for the fever, which then induces the child’s first seizures.

Dr Elizabeth Duncan, despite not liking honey herself, is studying bees to see what lessons their genes might offer for understanding how what a mother eats while pregnant affects her offspring’s later health. The Queen bee puts out pheromones that suppress reproduction and alters the behaviour of worker bees. Removing her lets worker bees develop ovaries and lay virgin eggs. Dr Duncan used a drug developed to treat Alzheimers to clear the signalling pathway in a similar manner. She is also working with pea aphids to see if the same works in rats, mice and sheep – and if so, it could provide an important clue for human fertility also.

Dr Anita Dunbier revealed that a study of nuns showed that lots of reproductive activity was perhaps the best prevention technique for breast cancer, the most common cancer in women. Cancer cells are “like teenagers out of control,” doing things, going places and growing faster than they ought. Her research in personalised medicine helps identify therapeutic drugs and tests for cancer genomes. This can, for example, identify people who are more likely to suffer recurrence, and therefore need more aggressive treatment.

Dr Christine Jasoni told the audience that each brain has as many connections as 1 million Milky Ways worth of stars – which is why each of us is unique. So, while genetics provides us each with a blueprint, it is how we interact with our environment that helps determine how we develop. Our mother’s health during pregnancy help determine fetus’s brain and later health across the spectrum. Biopics of fetal mice brains show that axons are not created at nearly the same rate in foetuses of sick mums, because genetic changes mean they cannot produce the proteins. This suggests guidelines for at risk mums and early detection of at risk children to get them treatment early can help give them neurologically more normal lives. “Genetics loads the gun, the environment pulls the trigger.”

 

Click here to see the presentations from our Women in Genetics Speakers

October 22, 2014

Allan Wilson Centre’s Professor Mike Steel explained the sophisticated ways that biologists have developed to uncover and study the hidden shared ancestry of all life from genetic data since Darwin first developed his Origin of Species ideas 155 years ago.

Mathematics has become an essential tool that allows biologists to tease apart evolutionary signal from noise and bias in data, and to build reliable trees and networks of species.

Prof Steel told his 80 strong audience – half of whom were senior maths and science students at Wakatipu High School – that biologists use these trees widely, for example, to classify new species, trace human migrations, and to help predict next year’s influenza strain.

A main goal for biologists is to reconstruct and study what are called ‘phylogenetic trees’ (or more generally networks) which reveal how species today are related to each other and how they trace back to a common ancestor.

The picture of the `tree of life’ today looks very different from the first sketches by Darwin and his contemporaries in the 19th century, and this is mainly due to the huge amount of genetic data from which large trees can now be built. Biologists are starting to build trees on thousands of species – such as the tree of the (approximately) 10,000 known species of birds, published earlier this year.

The maths that is most useful for these tasks includes topics students will be familiar with like calculus and probability theory as well as areas of `discrete mathematics’, such as graph theory, combinatorics, and algorithms.

Mike concentrated mostly on probability theory, which is essential for building reliable trees, as well as for studying what the `shape’ of these trees tell us about biological processes like speciation and extinction. Using a simple random model that involves drawing coloured balls from a bowl, he showed how it’s easy to predict how balanced large trees should be under uniform speciation rates, and without having to use a calculator.

Click here for a PDF of Mike’s talk

Fifty entrepreneurs and aspirants, creatives, technical and business people took part in Queenstown’s first ever Startup Weekend, October 17 to 19, one of 32 Startup Weekends occurring throughout the world at that time.

Described as a 54 hour Boot Camp to kick-start business ideas, participants got to pitch their ideas, then gather teams to develop them for presentation to the Devils Den judges and the public on Sunday night.
Of the 30 or so business proposals, the 50 participants chose 7 to develop through research, validation, design, programming, costing and sales pitch with the help of top business mentors.
They ranged from a digital farm diary and wild food challenge through to “What’s on Queenstown” app and “Prompt Me” app to help actors rehearse their lines. Participants ranged from Wakatipu High School students through to middle-aged local business people. Huge thanks to organisers José Ganga, Nathan Donaldson and Darren Craig – all local IT entrepreneurs. They are already planning next year’s event…