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…

August 28, 2014

University of Otago politics specialist and election commentator Bryce Edwards informed an audience of around 80 people regarding scandal in the New Zealand election process, in Queenstown’s first University of Otago Winter Series lecture.

Bryce covered political campaigns over the last 30 years, giving multi media examples of scandals past and present.

He concluded that there appear to be more scandals broadcast in the media this election than previously. However, he said, this is not necessarily a bad thing as exposing scandals is a means of controlling poor behavior by politicians.

The audience asked numerous excellent questions, including a poser on whether corruption and dirty politics extends into local body politics.

A particularly interesting plot provided by Bryce showed that all our political parties are right of center … is that why it is so hard to pick between the parties in this election?