We hope you’ll continue to enjoy Wellcome Film of the Month in its new home.

As a researcher back in the early 90s, I spent several months living and working in Berlin, Germany, doing a spot of ad-hoc science at the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics. I remember buses that ran like clockwork, the intense cold and Tacheles, a huge department store that had become a squat and home to some of the most amazing art and raves.

Back at Tegel Airport, memories began fighting their way through the treacle of time as I made my way to meet Katie Paterson, the artist-in-residence at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK (who, before you ask, lives in Germany ­– hence my being here and not back home!).

Arriving at Katie’s place, she and her partner immediately welcomed me into the space in which Katie thinks and creates; a cubic, entirely white room. Like a shrine to Apple, the entire contents of this room barely amounted to more than an iMac, a table and a couple of plants. This was the first clue as to how cerebral an artist Katie is.

Despite the studio being right beside a main road, we were a few storeys up – far enough away from the traffic to stop noise being too much of an issue. And, thanks to large windows all across this street facing wall, I was able to place Katie looking directly into a flood of natural light, making the most of a sunny day and her unusually bright, blue eyes.

The interview itself was an opportunity to gather material for the film but also to gain a deeper insight into how Katie sees the world. As it turns out, she is interested in nothingness, the absence of things: space and time. Within the context of her apartment, beyond the studio, this manifests itself in meteorite fragments and rocks of varying texture, a physical map of the moon, books about space. At the Sanger Institute, her discussions with scientists led her down a path of inquiry into the genetic heritage of humanity; where did the first humans emerge, how did they spread across the planet?

In Katie’s own words, “I believe work being undertaken in genome sequencing at the Sanger Institute can allow us to penetrate questions of existence: contemplate who we are, where we have come from and how we relate to one another, and enable us to be part of a complex decision-making process about the possible direction of our species.”

After the interview, with a deeper respect for Katie and her work, there followed a filming challenge – how do you show the internal creative process of a person whom, by their own admission, spends a significant amount of time just thinking? Shots of Katie simply staring into space seemed a little hackneyed so, fortunately, Katie shared that she keeps written notes, notes she was prepared to add to. Bingo.

There are so many nuances of human behavior, even within the simplest of actions, that I now knew we’d have enough coverage of Katie ‘thinking’. Wide and mid shots, macro shots, the pencil moving across the page, the eyes as they pause and consider. Finally, Katie introduced me to their two new kittens, fragile lumps of fluff with legs. These had nothing to do with DNA and human heritage but everything to do with fun and the promise of moments of levity between those deeper thoughts.

The next morning came all too quickly. Leaving for the airport at 4am, time suddenly felt very present. I was about to travel across countries and time zones, flying beneath stars that still filled the dark sky, bathing the planet in light from millions of years in the past. This sudden, profound awareness of space and time, I have called, the Paterson Effect.

Barry J Gibb

Barry J Gibb is a Science Multimedia Producer at the Wellcome Trust.

Read Barry’s previous diary entries.

Find out more about Art in Global Health on the Wellcome Collection website.

In the past 5 years or so, there has been a huge increase in lifestyle use of prescription drugs that can enhance cognitive function in various ways. These so-called “smart drugs” include the stimulants methylphenidate (better known by its trade name, Ritalin), which is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and modafinil (also known as Provigil), used as a treatment for narcolepsy.

Off-label use of smart drugs is particularly prevalent among students, who face increasing pressure to improve their academic performance. They therefore take these drugs in an effort to focus their attention for longer periods of time and boost their overall productivity.

According to a 2008 survey conducted by the journal Nature, the use of smart drugs is increasing among academics, too. One in five of the approximately 1,600 researchers who responded to the survey said that they had used smart drugs – with Ritalin being the most popular – to focus their attention, memory or concentration.

Is it okay to boost brain function in this way? The question has divided the scientific community. Some researchers say ‘no’ for safety reasons: we still don’t know the consequences of taking smart drugs for long periods of time, and youngsters are particularly at risk because their brains continue to develop well into early adulthood. And the ease with which anyone can buy smart drugs online also raises concern.

Some object to cognitive enhancement on ethical grounds: it may increase the inequalities already present in society, because not everyone could afford to buy the drugs. And what about those who object because they think it would give an unfair advantage? Would they feel pressured into popping brain-boosting pills just to keep up with the others?

Others say that enhancement is not a dirty word, that more research should be done, and that the public should work together with scientists and policy makers to regulate the use of smart drugs. They emphasize the potential benefits that cognitive enhancement could bring to society. Recent research shows, for example, that smart drugs can improve the performance of sleep-deprived surgeons and nightshift workers. The U.S., British, French and Chinese military forces now use Modafinil routinely to combat fatigue in troops, and the drug has also been shown to improve some aspects of cognitive function in psychiatric patients.

Last year, the Wellcome Trust commissioned the second wave of its Monitor Survey, which was designed to assess the UK general public’s level of awareness and attitude toward this controversial issue. This is the most representative such survey to date, and included responses from nearly 1,400 adults and 400 young people aged 14-18.

The results show that opinion is similarly divided: About one-third of adults and young people said that long-term use of smart drugs to improve focus, memory or attention, or occasional use to improve exam performance or something similar, was acceptable, while about one-third said that it was unacceptable.

The results also suggest that the use of smart drugs is less widespread among the general public than within universities, with only 29 adults (or 2% of the total sample) and 9 young people (or 1%) saying that they had ever taken prescription medications for that purpose.

What’s your opinion? Join the debate using the Wellcome Trust’s Big Picture app.

Mo Costandi

Mo Costandi trained as a developmental neurobiologist and now works as a freelance science writer. He writes the Neurophilosophy blog, which is hosted by the Guardian, and his first book, 50 Human Brain Ideas You Really Need to Know, will be published in July. You can read more of his posts on our sister blog ThInk.

This week (13 – 19 May 2013) is mental health awareness week which aims to raise awareness of and challenge people’s views surrounding mental health issues. Mental health is unfortunately still often treated as a social stigma or taboo subject and this can leave people feeling even more isolated and vulnerable.

The Mental Health Foundation’s theme this year focuses on physical activity and exercise, which in addition to improving our physical wellbeing can also significantly affect mood, anxiety, stress levels and depression. Research also suggests that physical exercise may reduce the risk of developing dementia. In the UK, one quarter of the population will experience mental health issues of one form or another each year. In 2001, the World Health Organization estimated that 450 million people were affected worldwide.

Our image of the month is this hand drawn illustration from artist Bobby Baker. It depicts herself and journalist Jon Snow talking about mental health and human rights, on stage at The Barbican in London in September 2006. This drawing is one of over 600 personal diary sketchbook drawings that Bobby created over an 11 year period, through her own experience of mental health illness and navigation through the mental health system.

One of her performance pieces “How To Live” explored various therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy and centred around a frozen pea diagnosed with a personality disorder. During the show’s September 2006 run, Bobby was asked to run a master class but instead opted for a post-show “in conversation” with Jon Snow. Having seen first-hand how people’s human rights can be breached, Bobby said “when this invitation came I thought that I needed personally to calmly express this knowledge publicly, in the context of my show How To Live. The most satisfying words I spoke are in the speech bubbles in the drawing.”

Bobby Baker is a performance artist and was the Drama Creative Fellow at Queen Mary University of London until 2008.

Image credit: Bobby Baker, Wellcome Images (Diary Drawings: Day 610)

Wellcome Images is one of the world’s richest and most unusual collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science. All our images are available in digital form so please click the link above if you would like to use the picture that features in this post, or to quickly find related ones. Many are free to use non-commercially under the terms of a Creative Commons licence and full details of the specific licence for each image are provided.

One of the infographics from the Wellcome Trust Monitor. See more at http://wellc.me/19ASRrU

The Wellcome Trust Monitor explores public attitudes about biomedical science. Now in its second incarnation, the survey shows surprising trends in public thinking around biomedical subjects. We asked the project’s manager, Hannah Baker, to tell us more.

What is the Wellcome Monitor?

It’s a tracking survey that measures adults’ and young people’s awareness, knowledge and attitudes on general scientific themes and related societal and ethical issues. There are other relevant, complementary studies out there, such as the Public Attitudes to Science and British Social Attitudes surveys, however the Wellcome Trust’s is a benchmark, one of few that represents population samples robustly and has a particular focus on biomedical topics.

Its findings and datasets can be used, for example, to shape science communication practice, identify research and policy priorities and it also provides a rich academic resource. The latest insights from Wave 2 provide a fresh and significant picture of  the societal and educational context of biomedical research in the UK now.

Why do you want to know what people think? 

As one of the world’s largest funders of biomedical research it is really important for the Wellcome Trust to listen to views and concerns around areas it funds, to monitor our progress and shape our work. We really want to know what the public thinks about science. After all, many of the applications from scientific research directly benefit or touch people’s everyday lives.

How many people did you survey?

When we first did the survey in 2009, we interviewed 1,179 adults and 374 young people. This second survey was conducted in 2012 by Ipsos MORI who interviewed 1,396 adults and 460 young people.

You did the survey in 2009 – why did you need to do it again?

What we wanted to do is not simply take a snapshot of what people think, but to monitor how attitudes change over time. The first ‘Wave 1’ survey in 2009 was really a baseline study, allowing us to gauge attitudes and answers to our questions for the first time. The really interesting part comes from now on, where we do the survey again and again – the results will build up to reveal how the public’s interests, experiences and needs change and give us a better understanding of opinions in these areas. This second survey, gives us our first longitudinal comparisons, with many of the questions asked in the 2009 survey repeated in 2012.

We hope academics will further explore the data, examining, for instance, the impact of gender or level of science education on attitudes and behaviours, or identifying how different groups acquire information about medical science. Policymakers can learn how citizens would like to be involved in science decision-making, or what people feel about personal versus public responsibility for decisions about vaccinations or weight and nutrition.

What have you learnt from the wave 2 results?

The good news, for us, is that it presents a predominantly positive context for the Trust’s work, with the majority of respondents being interested in science, enjoying science education, and feeling optimistic about the potential of biomedical research to improve our lives in the future. However, lest we get complacent, it also clearly highlights areas in which understanding, engagement or aspiration could be strengthened.

What was the thing that surprised you most? 

It was really surprising that the public at large do not have a good understanding of some frequently used (at least around the Trust) terms like human genome and genetic modification. The Wellcome Trust was both a key strategic player and funder in the set-up of the Human Genome Project, and has since funded millions of pounds worth of related scientific research and public engagement work. Over 10 years on, with much media coverage of genetics (both good and bad press) and research activity, I suppose we thought that these terms might be commonplace. It serves as a reminder that you cannot assume that your audience, or even your co-workers, are familiar with the terminology or meaning of what you say. It’s a wake up call for us and anyone communicating any technical subject, and a good example about how the Wellcome Trust Monitor can inform the way we approach people, practice and policy.

Where can we find out more? 

The full programme of work and all the data is freely available to download, use and share from:

wellcome.ac.uk/monitor

ukdataservice.ac.uk

#WTMonitor

Professor Megan Holmes of the University of Edinburgh has been looking into the mechanisms involved. She identified that an enzyme in the mother and baby, called 11-β HSD2, works by mopping up stress hormones called glucocorticoids (GCCs) and converting them to their inactive form. Using pregnant mice genetically engineered to lack the enzyme, her team showed that the increased exposure to GCCs (like cortisol) resulted in smaller pups, which went on to exhibit the signs of mood disorders. The mothers also had smaller placentas which meant a reduced flow of nutrients to pups in the womb – which could directly contribute to their mental condition.

When the team blocked the enzyme in the brains of the developing pups, but left the enzyme barrier in the placenta, the baby mice still showed some signs of damage. This indicates that both sites, the placenta and the foetal brain, play a role. The team are looking to see if one of the two sites has an overriding effect, although it’s thought to be a combination of the two.

This enzyme barrier is crucial during pregnancy as it maintains the difference between the relatively high levels of stress hormones in the mother and the low levels in the foetus. If too much GCC reaches the foetus it can affect the development of growing tissues. For instance, if the developing brain is exposed to cortisol it can cause the young cells to stop dividing and to start maturing instead. Although this is a key step in the normal developmental process, if it happens too early things can go wrong and it can result in faulty wiring of the brain. “The neurons may not be in right place yet and may be differentiating too soon” says Holmes.

But Holmes’ work suggests that stress exposure doesn’t just impact the brain in the womb, it can have an effect in adolescence too. Puberty is another key point in the timeline of the brain’s development, as it’s when existing connections and networks are strengthened or weakened. It’s a time when the brain is particularly sensitive to environmental factors, including stress.

In experiments, adolescent rats were conditioned to associate a flashing light with an electric shock and then had their brains scanned using functional MRI (fMRI). When they were shown the cue of a flashing light their emotional fear pathways were activated. In rats that had been stressed, the amygdala – the part of the brain which deals with fear and emotion – was overactive compared with rats that hadn’t been stressed. This indicated that the way in which the brain processed emotional stimuli had been changed.

The results suggest that the early teenage years are another critical period in the brain’s development in which stress could have an impact on the network of connections. The rewiring of emotional response pathways in the brain could result in long-term problems with mood disorders and emotional behaviour.

Presenting these findings at the British Neuroscience Association’s Festival of Neuroscience conference in London last month, Professor Holmes said that she hopes to use the animal models to uncover more about the pathways involved and to find more accessible targets for treatment. “We think this a really good translational model, so we can do the same tests or comparative tests to what are done in patient populations.”

It’s not all just mice and rats either, the damaging effect of stress hormones on the developing brain has demonstrated in human studies. Trials showed that the children of women who suffered from anxiety or depression during the pregnancy were more likely to develop the mood disorders themselves. In a telephone interview, Professor Vivette Glover, of Imperial College London, explained to me that in pregnant mothers with anxiety, production of the enzyme 11-β HSD2 decreases and this could expose the unborn baby to more cortisol. “The first thing is to look after pregnant women better,” said Glover. Although whether or not it’s a case for drug treatment isn‘t clear at this stage, “it’s an interesting idea”, she added.

Although genetic predisposition and environmental factors play a strong role in influencing the risk of developing mood disorders, this research hints at the potential for early therapeutic intervention. Currently, targeting 11-β HSD2 directly for drug treatment is difficult, so clinical trials may not be on the horizon just yet. “At the moment our intention is to use our models to see exactly which pathways are changing through development,” said Holmes, “and to try and find an alternative target that’s more easily targetable therapeutically.”

References:

• Holmes M (2013). Perinatal programming of stress-related behaviour by glucocorticoids. Abstract presented at BNA 2013, London.
• O’Donnell, K., Bugge Jensen, A., Freeman, L., Khalife, N., O’Connor, T., & Glover, V. (2012). Maternal prenatal anxiety and downregulation of placental 11β-HSD2 Psychoneuroendocrinology, 37 (6), 818-826 DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.09.014
• Giedd, J., Blumenthal, J., Jeffries, N., Castellanos, F., Liu, H., Zijdenbos, A., Paus, T., Evans, A., & Rapoport, J. (1999). Brain development during childhood and adolescence: a longitudinal MRI study Nature Neuroscience, 2 (10), 861-863 DOI: 10.1038/13158

Ryan O’Hare

Ryan is an intern at the Wellcome Trust.

Read more coverage of the BNA Festival of Neuroscience on our sister blog ThInk.

The Trust spends around £50 million each year funding neuroscience research and many neuroscientists emphasise the potential of their work to affect education and use it to justify their work. However, translating findings into interventions that can be tested in educational settings is more challenging.  Nevertheless, we believe that the interface between neuroscience and education has real potential to improve education. We need to work harder to understand where the greatest potential is and explore what approaches might be most beneficial and also acceptable and realistic. Although this area is at an early stage of development, we cannot sit idly by waiting for it to flourish – activities and technologies are already being developed in this space and we need to understand them better and maximise their potential for improving education.

We are generally interested in establishing a stronger evidence base for educational practice and the Trust’s Education team are developing this approach specifically in relation to neuroscience and education. We’re working in partnership with the Education Endowment Foundation, who are experienced in funding and evaluating evidence-based education projects and sharing evidence of what works using their Teaching and Learning Toolkit.

The vision of this project is to build research expertise at the interface between neuroscience and education, helping educators to make informed choices about different approaches. Ultimately this may enhance educational outcomes. Neuroscience is a strength in UK science and its fast-moving pace means that this project is important in establishing current practice and identifying how things can move forward. This work will explore how understanding about the brain can or does affect education. It fits within our Education team’s focus of Understanding Learning, a key part of the Trust’s 2010-2020 Education Strategy and also responds to one of the Trust’s Challenge areas: Understanding the Brain.

In the first phase of the project, we’re asking:

• What do teachers, parents and students already do to improve learning, based upon their understanding of neuroscience?
• What types of evidence convince teachers of the effectiveness of new educational interventions and encourage them to implement them in their own classroom?
• How strong is the evidence for interventions based on neuroscience that are already in use?

As part of this, we are collecting the views of teachers, students and parents about activities or techniques based upon findings from neuroscience that they use to enhance learning. We’re interested in hearing from teachers in the UK and internationally about examples of activities or techniques they use with an aim of enhancing learning. To this end we have launched a survey for teachers and are also encouraging teachers and parents to help us include the views of students and examples of activities they do to improve the way their brain learns. In collaboration with Mumsnet, we are hosting a discussion thread on their website, to ask parents for their thoughts on how findings from neuroscience might help improve the way children learn. Parents also have the opportunity to share their views through our survey for parents.

Surveys are open until the end of May.

• teacher survey
• parent survey
• student survey

Even if you’re not a teacher, student or parent, we are still interested in your views and we will be involving different groups in different parts of the work in the future. You can stay up to date with through our Education newsletter, follow the Education team on Twitter and keep an eye on our webpage.

Anna Simmonds, Education, Wellcome Trust

Hookworm teeth
Credit: AJ Cann, flickr

It started about seven years ago. I thought it was just a fleeting fascination but the seeds had been sown for a lifelong affair – I was hooked. I would tell anyone who would listen. Always something of a chatterbox, I would wax lyrical about their variety, ingenuity and rapid ability to adapt. It was time to face the truth – I was in love with parasites.

My friends were very tolerant. At least, they were until I started to regale them with parasites’ lifecycles over breakfast. Dan stuck it out the longest but the hookworm was the final straw. I’m not sure if it was the burrowing through the bottom of the foot, the bursting out of the alveoli into the lungs or the sucking of blood from the intestinal wall that did it. I do know that the result was a slammed door and a half eaten bagel in the bin.

What is it about parasites that fascinate me so much? They are just so damn clever. By definition, parasites have an unequal relationship with their host, a bit like the ‘friend’ who always turns up just in time for dinner but never cooks in return. Parasites come up with equally cunning ways to scavenge resources such as nutrients or water, but to make the most of their host will also use their bodies as somewhere to live and breed. Over time, however, the hosts develop their own strategies to avoid or get rid of their sponging guests.

This leads to a continual battle of one-upmanship and it’s usually those brilliantly devious parasites who are one step ahead. For example, hairworms live and breed in fresh water but they grow inside grasshoppers, gorging on their innards. When they’re ready to leave – that is, just before they suck the grasshopper completely dry – they produce proteins that change the grasshopper’s behaviour, fooling it into entering the water where the now fully-grown hairworm can emerge, swim away from its drowning victim and start the cycle all over again.

Humans have hosted parasites for as long as we can remember. Tapeworm infections are mentioned in the records of Hippocrates and Galen. Today, the World Health Organization estimates that a quarter of the world’s population is infected with parasitic worms, be they tapeworms, flukes, roundworms or some combination of the three. The worms themselves are rarely lethal, but this means that infections can last for decades. The chronic burden of harbouring growing worms severely impacts on quality of life. Their constant siphoning of resources can lead to blindness, anaemia and stunted growth. Infection rates are highest in parts of the world where access to food and nutrition is already limited, which only exacerbates the problems.

Ingenious humans

Despite having lived with parasites for millennia, we humans have slipped behind in the battle of wits. Current treatments for parasitic infections are rather hit and miss. But now, scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have sequenced the DNA of four species of tapeworm, shedding light on exactly why some treatments do not work. For instance, mefloquine is a drug that successfully treats schistosomiasis but is ineffective against tapeworms. It targets specific enzymes in the nervous system but the DNA sequencing showed that tapeworms do not produce much of these enzymes themselves. As such, drugs like mefloquine that disrupt them have little effect.

As well as working out what isn’t working, the researchers have been trying to identify new targets, and the very adaptations that have enabled worms to successfully parasitise humans may turn out to be their weakness.

One approach is to stop the tapeworms from breeding in humans. In biological terms, humans and worms are fundamentally pretty similar, so to be effective, any such treatment needs to be able to halt the worms’ rapid proliferation while minimising damage to any surrounding human organs. Killing growing cells while minimising side-effects is the same challenge faced when treating cancer and when the team compared likely drug targets in worms, many of them overlapped with the targets of existing cancer therapies. Indeed, some drugs developed to kill parasitic worms have been shown to slow down the growth of cancerous tumours and it is hopeful, therefore, that the reverse will be true as well. Identifying potential treatments that are already approved for use in humans should make it much faster to get new drugs for treating parasite infections rather than developing them from scratch.

It might just also signal the end of my seven-year crush on parasites, I see an ingenious human scientist on the horizon…

Reference:

Tsai, I et al. (2013). The genomes of four tapeworm species reveal adaptations to parasitism Nature, 496 (7443), 57-63 DOI: 10.1038/nature12031

The distance between Vietnam and Thailand is more appropriately measured in time than kilometres. Arriving in Bangkok at night, it’s difficult to shake off images from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. The city appears to have come from the future, reminiscent of London but bigger, brighter, shinier. Gone were the bikes and mopeds of Vietnam; here, we have cars – luxurious cars (albeit with a lack of seatbelts). The scale of everything in Bangkok was so much bigger than what I’d experienced a few hours earlier in Vietnam, including the ‘hotel’. The place was like a small city; hundreds of rooms, several bars and restaurants.

The next day I had to hit the ground running. Not only would I be meeting several of B-Floor theatre company – the artists who were working closely with the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) at Mahidol University on the Art and Global Health Project – but we would immediately be leaving by plane for Ubon Ratchathani in the far east of Thailand, home to one of MORU’s research units. Experiencing something close to travel fatigue, I was desperate not to carry all my luggage yet again and crammed the minimum luggage necessary into the camera bag.

Nana Dakin, part of the core team of B-Floor, escorted me to the airport to meet the other members who were joining us on the trip, Teerawat Mulvilai, a.k.a. Kage (pronounced a bit like kang-ye) and Jarunun Phantachat, known as Jaa. This was a feisty trio. Curious, lively and dynamic, they wanted to know everything about what I was about and why I was here. In a reversal of roles, Kage filmed most of our conversations on his new pride and joy, a DSLR camera, while we chatted over tea.

On the flight to Ubon Ratchathani, Nana gave a potted history of Thailand in fluent English (one of her many languages), explaining the origins of the Yellow Shirts, the Red Shirts and all about the recent political crisis before seamlessly moving onto melioidosis, a disease widespread in Thailand and the current interest for herself and the B-Floor team. Melioidosis is a nasty disease. Largely infecting barefoot farmers through wounds in their feet, it is caused by a soil-based bacterium and can either manifest itself within days or lie dormant in its host for decades. When it presents, the disease hits every facet of the body, from bones to internal organs and external abscesses. Even with access to good medical care, the mortality rate is around 50 per cent.

At 4pm we checked-in to our small hotel in Ubon Ratchathani and the team suggested this may be the best opportunity to grab my main interview with them. I was hesitant. The sun was going to set in 2 hours and we had no idea where we could do the interview. But we all agreed outdoors, in natural light, would be best. The hotelier said there was a river nearby and that was enough encouragement for us to dive in a taxi to the location.

What the hotelier didn’t mention was the fact that this river, as beautiful as it was, was right next to a main road. And a slew of karaoke bars. Diminishing light not being enough to contend with, audio was also going to be an issue. Thank goodness I wasn’t also shooting into the sun. In order to get the right composition with Nana and Kage seated on the riverbank we needed seats, which the nearest karaoke bar was kind enough to provide. Next, having travelled light, I had no tripod, so a chair joined us too, affording me some serious stability over the course of the next hour. Things were looking up…

…until I took the camera out of my bag. The sudden change in temperature caused a flood of condensation on the lens – it was literally dripping with water. Doing my best to maintain professional composure, the moisture was removed, my interviewees mic’d up and then we were, at last, ready to go. It was less than an hour until sunset. Pausing only to silence an enthusiastically early karaoke bar’s music system, we managed to capture a great interview, ending just as the sun started to dip and no amount of boosting the camera’s signal would be useful.

At last, we were able to relax and start to get to know each other over beer and real, authentic Thai food. Before ordering, Nana asked how spicy I liked my food. In the UK, I told them, I love all manner of Thai, Mexican and Indian food. Addressing the others, she noted that they’d better get me mild food. She was not wrong; Thai food is remarkably hot to a western palette, a fusion of aromatics and spices that burn and excite, raging inside the mouth.

Over dinner, Kage revealed that he often appears in movies as an actor who, despite his wide smile and gentle character, is often favoured as the ‘bad guy’. I also discovered Jaa’s incredible curiosity about proteins, resulting in my explaining how DNA is converted into proteins with a range of hand movements and small drawings.

Early next day, with the temperature still in the low 20s (degrees C), we set off for the Ubon Ratchathani research centre. This was a key opportunity for B-Floor to meet and question, first-hand, doctors, scientists and possibly even a patient about the perils of living and working in an area with melioidosis. The purpose of the day was research and over the course of an entire day they grilled a procession of people about the many facets of the condition. Like Miriam Syowia Kyambi and James Muriuki in Kenya, an integral part of B-Floor’s process is extensive research, to really get to grips with a subject, to know it so well that an artistic idea can begin to emerge.

The best moment of the day was when B-Floor were brought into a laboratory. As someone who’s spent more than a decade working in various labs, it’s easy to forget how odd they can look to a non-scientist, how alien the equipment and procedures are. The team were mesmerised. A scientist prepared a specimen of melioidosis bacteria for the group to look at down a microscope, triggering a sense of awe and the idea of representing this sense of scale in a theatrical endeavour.

With most of my ‘art’ filming achieved, it was time to get into ‘science’ mode. Arriving at Mahidol University, I immediately met MORU Director, Nick Day, and a group of his core team. The afternoon passed quickly in the company of enthusiastic scientists with fascinating stories; melioidosis and its impact on those affected, malaria and its frustrating capacity to adapt and resist… In one lab, yellow boxes sat neatly stacked from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, all full of slides coated with blood containing malaria; an uncomfortable visual reminder of the scale of the problem.

Leaving MORU, it was time to finally see B-Floor in action as they rehearsed for an upcoming show. It was exhausting just watching them – they’re a very physical theatre group, pushing their own bodies as much as artistic boundaries. After an evening of laughing, contorting and generally being taken through an emotional joy ride, it was time to switch the camera off and go home. Again, I was saying goodbye to thoroughly lovely people just as I was getting to know them. But any sense of being maudlin was rapidly ejected by the memory that I’d be going home in less than 24 hours. I had the luxury of an entire week at home to look forward to before heading off to the Berlin studio of Katie Paterson, the artist-in-residence of the UK based Sanger Institute. Prior to leaving for the airport next morning, I decided a treat was in order and did what any self-respecting tourist should do in Thailand – I had the best massage of my life.

Barry J Gibb

Barry J Gibb is a Science Multimedia Producer at the Wellcome Trust.

Read Barry’s previous diary entries.

Find out more about Art in Global Health on the Wellcome Collection website.

Venki Ramakrishnan (right) at the Diamond Light Source in 2010.

The US, Germany and China are increasing research spending. We would be foolish to do the opposite, writes Venki Ramakrishnan.

Fourteen years ago, my wife and I took a decision to move from USA to Britain. I took a 40 per cent pay cut, and we left children and close family behind. We were willing to give up so much not because of any personal ties here, but because my scientific work had reached a crucial stage and this was the best possible place to pursue it. The stability of UK research funding, especially at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, would allow me to work on an important but challenging problem. And I would be joining an outstanding intellectual environment, where a collegiate approach to sharing resources, including expensive facilities and equipment, is part of the culture.

It was a decision that paid off handsomely. I have done the best work of my life in Cambridge, and was honoured to share the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and to receive a knighthood.

My experience is not unique. Britain continues to punch well above its weight in science. The impact of British institutions like the LMB compares well with elite international rivals on any level, but when impact per pound is calculated, we are comfortably ahead. British science generates extraordinary returns on investment, whether measured in great advances such as DNA sequencing, monoclonal antibodies and MRI scanning that have won Nobel prizes, or in spinout companies and economic growth. The reason we succeed is a meritocratic scientific culture that encourages originality and initiative, and a funding system that provides stability while demanding efficient use of resources. British scientists know that sufficient funds will be spent on the best people over a sustained period of time, so they are free to focus on research.

I am grateful for what Britain’s support for science has allowed me to achieve. But I am also deeply concerned that the very factors that drew me here could now be threatened by cuts in next month’s spending round. It was reassuring when the Government ring-fenced the science budget in 2010, but no guarantee of similar protection has been offered this time. I have also heard worrying arguments that in light of that benign settlement, science must now take its turn to share the pain.

Were he to heed these arguments, the Chancellor would be making a grievous mistake. British scientists are already among the most efficient in the world. The normal ways of optimising efficiency, such as funding the most promising young scientists or senior ones with a proven track record, and avoiding waste by shared use of equipment, are already routine. If science funding is cut, there will be no alternative to eliminating productive jobs, closing important facilities, and reducing our research output.

The damage this would inflict would be irreversible. It takes over a decade to train a young scientist, who has often decided to forego a lucrative career in the corporate world. If such people are forced out of research, it is not possible simply to rehire them later – they will have new careers. A future government that wanted to invest more in science would have to invest in training a new workforce. It would be foolish to address a temporary fiscal crisis by impairing our long-term capacity for research. Also at risk is the excellent reputation of British science, which must compete internationally to thrive. An attack on the science budget would send a message that although our research is superb, our Government does not value it.

Rivals such as the USA, Germany, China and other Asian countries are increasing science spending even during austerity, because they recognize that a strong scientific culture is essential for economic growth and prosperity. We should do likewise. Doing the opposite would make it very difficult not only to recruit world-class researchers from overseas, but also to retain our best home-grown talent. It would also deliver insignificant savings: the science budget is about £5 billion, just 0.7 per cent of public spending. Any cut would barely dent the £120 billion deficit.

Since coming to Cambridge, I have discouraged many approaches to move back to the USA, where I would make a much higher salary. I have done this despite our continued separation from children and family because I enjoy working here, and because I feel a responsibility to help younger scientists to get as much out of Britain’s extraordinary research culture as I have. I am already established here, but if we’re to attract and keep the best young talent as well as researchers at their peak, we have to invest in support that will encourage them to make the same decision I made 14 years ago. The alternative is the inexorable decline of a great scientific culture — a culture without which we cannot hope to succeed in the increasingly competitive, knowledge-based global economy.

Professor Venki Ramakrishnan won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009, and is a Wellcome Trust Investigator at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.

A version of this article appeared in The Times on 7/5/2013.

Children in a secondary school science class.

“The best education is provided in schools and colleges that have an outstanding ethos, manifested by strong leadership and governance at both an organisational and subject level.”

So stated the report of the 2010 Science and Learning Expert Group, authored by Sir Mark Walport, then Director of the Wellcome Trust, and convened by the government as part of their Science and Society programme. But how can “outstanding” be achieved? And what currently stands in the way of schools that aren’t meeting such standards?

With these questions in mind, the Wellcome Trust’s Education and Learning team embarked on a programme of work to look more deeply at the accountability system within which schools operate and better understand the perverse incentives that drive it, especially considering how the quality of science education can be affected. This work has helped inform the  Trust’s full response to the government’s consultation on secondary school accountability which closed last week.

English schools operate in an environment where the accountability stakes are high; they are not the only jurisdiction where this is the case, but the weight of accountability (especially through external testing and Ofsted inspections) seems to bear particularly heavily here. Consequences for the quality of science education, such as distortion of teaching and narrowing of the curriculum, can be considerable.

Our latest issue of Perspectives on Education looks at “Effects from accountabilities” and suggests that a system which is less reliant on a narrow set of examination performance measures could improve the quality of science education. The authors are: Andreas Schleicher of the OECD; former Chief Inspector of Schools Mike Tomlinson; headteacher Joan Sjovoll (Framwellgate School Durham); and Chris Williamson and Jo Field, governors of Howard of Effingham Secondary School. Among the points covered, the experts involved found that:

• Headteachers will always be strongly influenced by performance indicators (league tables and Ofsted inspections– to name the main drivers), but there should be a more nuanced range. Governors and parents need direct access to a wider range of information so they can monitor performance and discriminate between schools. As Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” A broader range of indicators could, for example, help assess qualities such as inspired teaching, pupils’ self-confidence and employability, and the professional development of staff. There should be high expectations for examination success, but also consideration of the ways in which education enriches learning and develops students’ independence, spirit of enquiry and practical skills. Science education should include science clubs, links with industry and universities and high quality careers advice. Some measures may not be as robust or objective as others, but they should be able to guide school leadership and highlight year-on-year change or differences between groups of pupils.

• Governing bodies need to be more assertive in working with the senior leadership to set the strategic direction for the school and then hold them to account for its delivery. As a leading supporter of open data, the Trust is particularly interested in the way that appropriate levels of information and data can help governors in their work We have been working with the National Governors’ Association and the Fischer Family Trust to develop a new ‘School Performance Governor Dashboard’ aimed at all schools in England. Using this, governors will have access to the high level information they need to hold schools to account and analyse how their results and pupil progress compare to other schools. The Dashboard will be released later in May at www.fft.org.uk)

• To see a step change in the overall quality of science education the weight of the accountability measures would need to be reduced and the examination requirements overhauled. Ofsted should rely less on performance data and more on overall observation of what they find. Excellent practical work, science teaching, and opportunities for wider learning  are harder to measure than test results, but inspectors quickly recognise them when they see them. The performance of different groups of students should be monitored to ensure that they have equal opportunities in science. Changes such as these would give teachers the space and confidence to innovate and develop pedagogy and thus improve science education in their schools.

The authors of Perspectiveshave pointed the way towards an accountability system that could deliver a vision for all pupils – “a range of valuable skills could be developed in a freer curriculum that is evaluated through sophisticated assessment of the range of skills and knowledge acquired.” Through the current reform of the National Curriculum we have an opportunity to identify what is right as a curriculum entitlement for today and tomorrow, but ensuring that we also have a reformed accountability system that encourages development and not just measurement is the key.

For more on this subject read the latest issue of Perspectives on Education – available to download free.

Hannah Baker, Education, Wellcome Trust

In March, Helen Weavers was awarded the 2013 Beddington Medal for the best developmental biology thesis, which she produced at the end of her Trust-funded PhD. I asked her about her research and plans for the future….

Congratulations, Helen! Can you tell us what your prize-winning PhD research was about?

I was studying the way tubes develop in organs. Most organs, including human organs, are essentially made of tubes that have to be very precisely arranged in three dimensions for that organ to work. And the organs themselves have to be properly arranged spatially in relation to each other. My PhD was about how a fly’s organs develop to be in the right place and with the right organisation of tubes.

We study these processes using the renal system of the fruit fly – the Malpighian tubules – which are considered to be simple kidney-like organs. They are a good model for research because they also have to have a precise architecture.

So what did you find out?

Many organs have special cells at their ends called tip cells, which are often thought to act as master regulators during organ development. They control many different events, including cell division, and also guide outgrowth of the organ. You find them in the lungs, salivary glands, blood vessels and so on.

I found that tip cells have a slightly different role in the renal system. Rather than leading outgrowth, they anchor themselves to other tissues. This seems to be because Malpighian tubules have to form loops – like the loops found in human kidneys – to work. So they are anchored at either end and growth in between generates the loop. Without the anchorage, tubules would lose their characteristic looped shape and form a simple linear tube. So the behaviour of the tip cells determines the resulting structure of the organ.

You did this work in Helen Skaer’s lab in Cambridge – how did you end up there?

I did a research project in Helen’s lab in the final year of my Natural Sciences degree at Cambridge. It was my first taste of independent research – not doing something that had been pre-planned for you, but devising my own experiments and looking at questions no one else had ever looked at before.

That project was so enjoyable that I stayed on as a Research Assistant in the lab for a year after I graduated. I gained so much experience from doing that – I learned skills and the confidence to develop my own ideas.

And you won a prize for your undergraduate project as well, didn’t you?

Yes, I won the Zoological Society of London’s 2007 Charles Darwin Award for best zoological undergraduate research project in Britain.

Where did this obvious affinity for research come from?

I liked all the sciences at school but particularly the more practical side of biology – I loved dissections! And one of my favourite things we studied at school was the kidney: I had no idea I would study the kidney in flies for my PhD.

Do you have any scientific heroes?

Maybe not quite what you’re thinking of, but I admire Helen Skaer a lot, as does everyone in the cell and developmental biology community. She was a fantastic supervisor, has a successful research career, is great at lecturing and teaching, and has a fabulous family life. She’s a great role model.

So what’s next for you? 

I’ve got a five-year postdoctoral research position in Bristol with Professor Paul Martin and [Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow] Professor Will Wood in Bath. I’m still using flies and the techniques I used in my PhD, but now I’m going to be looking at wound healing, with particular emphasis on how this is medically translatable, and the lab I’ve joined uses lots of different models – not just the fly – which will complement what I’m doing.

The processes in wound healing are similar to those in embryonic development, so my work is still based in developmental biology. The common theme is morphogenesis – the way cells are organised and change. In a wound, you essentially have a group of leading cells (not quite tip cells but similar) that have to migrate together to seal the wound. There are similar signals and interactions between the various parts of the cellular architecture.

I’m already thinking about where I’m going to be in five years’ time, though. I am in a position now to spend some time and think about my own project, and hopefully I will find something really exciting and new that I can establish as a system in my own lab in the future.

And finally, what do you like to do outside the lab?

From a young age, I’ve loved art, and I’ve taken up pottery since moving to Bristol. In my new lab, quite a few people are involved in setting up competitions to get people thinking about art in science, which I think is interesting and something I would like to get involved with in the future.

Art is a good way in to a complicated subject like developmental biology, which can be difficult to explain and difficult to understand. It was challenging to explain why I was studying flies’ kidneys, for example, although what I discovered is fundamental to many processes in the body and could be medically relevant. People often relate more easily to things they have experienced first-hand, like wounds and how they heal.

Reference:
Weavers, H., Prieto-Sánchez, S., Grawe, F., Garcia-López, A., Artero, R., Wilsch-Bräuninger, M., Ruiz-Gómez, M., Skaer, H., & Denholm, B. (2008). “The insect nephrocyte is a podocyte-like cell with a filtration slit diaphragm” Nature, 457 (7227), 322-326 DOI: 10.1038/nature07526

Note: The Beddington Medal is awarded by the British Society for Developmental Biology. It is awarded for the best PhD thesis in developmental biology submitted in the previous year.

Image credit: Helen Weavers

“Cat’s got the Measles and the Measles have got YOU!

This playground rhyme features in our film of the month,Protect your child against measles 1980, a Health Education Authority film aimed at mothers. We should also bear in mind that World Immunization Week is in April (19-26) and there is currently a measles outbreak in the UK with one known death.

This film is one of a series that formed part of a government-sponsored campaign to promote take-up of immunisation against polio, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough in the UK. A companion film, Immunisation, a Lifetime of Protection, 1980, is also in the collection. There’s no escaping the fact that young children are the ones who are the most vulnerable to measles; a fact capitalised in this film with ample illustrations of poorly children who have measles with differing levels of severity. We see a little boy and the narrator says that by this age (2 years old) children should have been vaccinated against measles. Both films reveal the difficulty of persuading parents to get their children immunised; in one there are vox pops of spokespeople (mostly mothers) communicating their confusion about whether to take their children to be immunised or not. With this level of uncertainty, it’s not surprising that within Europe, measles is still endemic. In the film, it is the young schoolchildren themselves who talk most vividly about their experiences of measles whilst painting pictures of measles-effected children – in their own words it is a horrible illness.

Immunisation is a great success story for medicine in the 20th century. However, public health officers have historically struggled with take-up to create the necessary herd immunity. Looking at a range of films on this topic (see examples in the filmography below), public health experts appear to believe that this is down to communication. An example made by the Medical Health departments of Bermondsey and Camberwell in London, The empty bed from 1937, illustrates the devastating effect of contracting diphtheria – a child dies and the audience is invited to compare non-immunisation with having a loaded gun pointed at you. The war years saw the British Government ramp up its efforts to get the population vaccinated against smallpox and diphtheria (so as not to deflect medical resources away from the war effort). Post-war, the march of scientific discovery especially in virology in the US meant that two important vaccines for polio (developed by first Jonas Salk, then Albert Sabin) effectively eradicated polio from the post-war baby boom generation. John Franklin Enders, a key scientist in the development of the poliovirus became a Nobel Laureate for this work (which was used by Salk); he then worked on identifying the measles virus. Another prolific American scientist, Maurice Hilleman, is attributed with developing 36 vaccines including a measles vaccine. By the early 1980s, the immunised children of the post-war era have become parents; they are the ones targeted in the films mentioned above.

Up to date information about Measles immunisation as part of the MMR or combined vaccine is available from NHS Choices.

Filmography of Immunisation:

• MMR: What parents want to know. UK: NHS, 2001. A government sponsored film aimed at parents addressing concerns about the MMR vaccine scare generated by the media in 2001 (with sign language and subtitles). Material courtesy of the BFI National Archive.
• Meningitis health authority education. UK, 1999. A government sponsored film about a new immunisation programme to vaccinate everyone under 18 years old against meningitis C. Material courtesy of the BFI National Archive.
• Whooping cough: health visitor. UK: Health Education Council, 1986. A public service advertisement by the government telling parents to ‘talk to your doctor or health visitor about immunisation’ against whooping cough. Material courtesy of the BFI National Archive.
• Immunity and immunopathology. London: University of London Audio-Visual Centre, 1974. A videoed lecture by Dr A C Allison suitable for post-graduates on the subject of how the immune system works to fight against infectious disease. He differentiates between innate immunity and acquired immunity.
• Exit polio. England, 1961. A film produced by Pfizer Ltd. The film looks at the production and testing of oral polio vaccine and how it differs from the injectable form – includes valuable footage of laboratory work on vaccines and children taking the oral form on a sugar lump.
• Sugar lump vaccine. England: Peter Dearden Ltd. and Star Sound, 1961. This film shows the events of the first mass vaccination campaign in Western Europe using oral poliomyelitis vaccine.
• Fundamental principles of immunization. England: Wellcome Foundation Film Unit, 1961. This film presents the basic principles underlying active, passive and transferred immunity in man and animals, and explains the production of various types of vaccines and antisera.
• The story of the Wellcome Foundation Ltd. London: Wellcome Foundation Film Unit, 1955. A short sequence about Wellcome’s commitment to research (00:11:54:18) relating to research into acquired immunity/vaccination.
• Surprise attack. UK: Ministry of Health, 1951. A small girl (unvaccinated) is infected with smallpox; recovers, but is marked for life. Material courtesy of the BFI National Archive.
• The preparation of diphtheria antitoxin and prophylactics. London: G.B. Instructional Ltd., 1945. This film shows the stages in the process and testing of diphtheria antitoxin as it happened in 1945.
• Defeat diphtheria. UK: Ministry of Health, 1941. This film explains the nature of diphtheria, tells how the anti-toxin was discovered and shows parents the part they must play in protecting their children. Material courtesy of the BFI National Archive.
• Diphtheria. United States: Eastman Classroom Films, 1941. A film from the US showing the outstanding features of the campaign against diphtheria.
• Diphtheria: Immunisation shorts. UK: Central Office of Information, 194? Public information film about diphtheria immunisation.; boy dies because he was not immunised. Material courtesy of the BFI National Archive.
• The empty bed. London: Bermondsey & Camberwell Borough Councils, 1937 This film is about the consequences of not immunising your children against diphtheria.

You can learn about the Wellcome Film project here. If you would like to make use of this archive footage in your own projects, please visit the Wellcome Library catalogue to download the original files, which are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales licence.

For Brailey having this information opened up a “myriad of little lies” her parents had told. Years later with the help of DNA testing she would discover she had at least 15 half siblings, some of whom only discovered their biological identity mid-way into adult life. This experience has meant that she believes that it should be mandatory that parents tell children they are donor conceived.

This is a view Brailey presented at the recent launch event for the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report Donor conception: the ethical aspects of information sharing. However, the report by the Council’s working group, heralded as being an extremely comprehensive document on the topic, drew a different conclusion.

After hearing evidence from 198 people and consulting the literature, the Council recommended that the state should not intervene to tell donor-conceived people of the circumstances of their conception.

Dr Rhona Knight, a GP and the Chair of the working group, said: “In recent years there has been a culture shift – advice from professionals has gone from the extreme of never telling, to always telling. We think it is usually better for children to be told, by their parents, about their donor conception, and if parents do decide to tell them then earlier is better.”

Around 1,500 children are born each year in the UK following donor-assisted conception treatment in clinics. In 2005, the law regulating donation was changed and donors currently donating can no longer remain anonymous. At age 16, donor-conceived people can seek non-identifying information about their donor, and at 18 they receive identifying information about the donor.

The Nuffield Council inquiry agreed that telling a child early is usually better, but not in all circumstances, for example in certain minority groups or religions. They instead advised that parents are provided the best evidence relating to disclosure. They should be given follow up counseling once the child is a few years old and they may be more ready to face the topic of disclosure. However, representatives from various donor related groups were critical of this approach.

Walter Merricks, parent and co-founder of the Donor Conception Network said this advice would provide a “false comfort” to parents who believed they could fit into this “ill-defined slot for families in particular circumstances”.

“There are a lot of hard decisions in this area. I don’t think the panel has had the courage it needs to make those decisions,” said Tom Ellis, a representative from International Donor Offspring Alliance.

Dr Knight said that families were about groups and relationships not individuals, and different people’s rights needed to be balanced. “What we have tried to do is to balance out the views and interests of all those involved – donor-conceived people, their parents, and donors,” she said. “We don’t agree that the decision of what and when to tell should be taken completely out of parents’ hands.”

Although mandatory disclosure drew the most animated discussion, the report also included a variety of other recommendations.

It found that although parents are often anxious about not having a family history of the donor or more genetic information, this was not as helpful as parents assume. Donors undergo a strict screening process to catch serious genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis. But the working group did recommend that a clear mechanism be set up so that donors can share new information about their health should they fall ill.

They also recommended that counseling services be widely available for donor conceived people, donors and parents, particularly at the time where donor and donor conceived are considering meeting.

Download the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report on Donor conception: the ethical aspects of information sharing.

Theresa Taylor

Theresa Taylor is an intern at the Wellcome Trust.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is supported by the Wellcome Trust.

Professor Roger Kneebone

Our regular scamper through upcoming science and medicine themed events funded through the Wellcome Trust’s public engagement awards.

Imperial Festival, celebrating arts and science, takes place this week (3-4 May) in London. This includes a showcase from Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow Professor Roger Kneebone and Dr Zoltan Takats of a new surgical knife that gives instant feedback to surgeons about the tissue they are cutting into.

Surgery Meets Jazz is an innovative event at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival on 5 May 4-5pm. Through demonstrations and discussion, Professor Roger Kneebone and musician Liam Noble explore the parallels between surgery and music.

Arnos Vale Cemetary, Bristol, continues its Matters of Life & Death talks:

• From Madhouse to Asylum to ‘Care in the Community’: Three centuries of mental health care in Bristol – 2 May 7.30-8.30pm in the Anglican Chapel.
• The Innards and Outs of Medical Photography – 16 May 7.30-8.30pm in the Anglican Chapel.

‘Under My Skin’, a dance performance by Sadhana Dance Group explores how dance and surgery speak to each other. In this collaboration between choreographer Subathra Subramaniam and surgeon/educator Professor Roger Kneebone (Roger’s doing a lot this month!). The performance uses intricate detail, perfectly timed exchanges and analytical spatial patterns to explore the boundaries between clinical practice and dance. This takes place on 17 May at 7.30pm at the Pavilion Dance Theatre, Bournemouth.

Big Heritage’s Roman Medical Roadshow will feature at this year’s Light Night in Liverpool (Liverpool’s one-night arts & culture festival) on 17 May from 5-8pm at the Museum of Liverpool. This includes Gladiator fighting with fabulous ‘injuries’ courtesy of SoCocoRouge and archaeology workshops for adults with the University of Liverpool.

The Arts Catalyst is opening for a special day on 18 May 12-8pm, for visitors to see videos documenting past projects (such as Simon Faithfull’s Escape Vehicle No 6 and Tomas Saraceno’s Poetic Cosmos of the Breath). Patrick Stevenson-Keating will be demonstrating The Quantum Parallelograph, enabling visitors to explore their parallel identities in work that examines the scientific and philosophical ideas surrounding the theory of quantum physics and multiple universes.

The Southbank Centre is holding a series of events in association with Honeyscribe (an artistic investigation of the honeybee) as part of the London Literature Festival.

• Artist Amy Shelton has produced two works which will be displayed at the Saison Poetry Library from 21 May-14 July. Florilegium illuminates a collection of cultivated and wild plants which are essential to honeybee health and Melissographia is a collaboration with John Burnside, resulting in a limited edition artists’ book.
• A Future Without Bees is a panel discussion on the threat to bees’ survival and the implications for us – they are currently responsible for the pollination of one third of our shopping basket. Chaired by Bill Turnbull, presenter on BBC Breakfast and author of The Bad Beekeepers Club, the debate is at 7pm on 26 May in the Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall.
• Contemplating the Honey Bee is a workshop for children led by artist Amy Shelton and beekeeper Steve Benbow about the link between bees and human health. Children will have the opportunity to make a beeswax-coated artwork celebrating the honeybee – 11am, 27 May, Saison Poetry Library at Royal Festival Hall.

On 22 May 7-8.30pm, ‘Teaching your fingers to see’ will take place at the Royal Institution, London. How does a surgeon master his craft or a GP diagnose through palpation? Join a team from Imperial College London led by Professor Roger Kneebone and Fernando Bello to explore the fascinating world of haptics in surgery, medicine and beyond.

Jordan Baseman’s Deadness exhibition will be showing at Matt’s Gallery from 29 May-21 July (Wednesday-Sunday 12-6pm). Deadness is an exhibition of three parts; multiple 35mm slide projections with sound, the film The Last Walk (2011) and a series of new photographic works, exploring the historical, cultural and sociological relationship between photographic portraiture and embalming.

Still on

Melanie Jackson’s The Urpflanze (Part 2) is showing at Flat Time House until 12 May (Thursday-Sunday 12-6pm). In a series of moving images and ceramic sculptures, the installation explores mutability and transformation.

The tour of The Pigeon Theatre’s new performance ’The Smell of Envy‘, a collaboration with Cognitive Neuroscientist Dr Colin Lever, finishes on 17 May here at the Wellcome Trust buildings.

The next event of The False Memory Archive’s tour will be 24 May at the Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, showing artist Hopwood’s work in collaboration with psychologist Dr Kim Wade.

Advanced notice

Cheltenham Science Festival takes place from 4-9 June. Professor Roger Kneebone will be holding two events – Who Holds the Scalpel explores the ethics and challenges of training as a surgeon, and Ethics at the Cutting Edge looks at the decision of making new technology everyday practice. .

JULIUS, a multi-screen film produced by Elastic Theatre, will premiere at Spitalfields Music Festival from 7-14 June. The film explores the nature of obsessional thoughts and the superstitious beliefs associated with them. .

Jon Adams, an artist in residence at the Autism Research Centre, will be giving a performance and talk at the Arts Catalyst on 14 June.

The next presentation of Tales from Babel – Musical Adventures in the Science of Hearing from The Clerks music group will be at the Cheltenham Music Festival on 7 July.

If you are inspired to go along to any of the activities listed here, leave a comment below and let us know what you thought!

Thanks to our Engaging Science colleague Lois Browne for the info.