A museum doesn't need to be big to be beautiful...

Green turtle foetus, displayed at the museum

This week marked the start of British Science Week, a nationwide celebration of everything cool about science. As part of it, on Friday was the university of Sheffield's Discovery Week, and I decided that after work I would finally do what I've been meaning to for years: visit the Alfred Denny Museum.

The museum forms part of the University of Sheffield's animal and plant sciences department and was created in 1905, back when the university was known as Firth College. It was created by the university's' first professor in biology, Alfred Denny, who pulled the collection together to aid his teaching. His lectures were engaging, often drawing in some 600 people and he was fascinated by the quirks and logic of evolution, so it paid to have practical items on hand to use as demonstrations.


The museum itself is located within the Alfred Denny building,just before the Arts Tower as you emerge from under the bridge at the students union. It's tiny, limited to only one room but when you find your way it to it instantly exudes a Victorian/Edwardian charm. The antique cabinets are absolutely jam packed with specimens in formaldehyde jars or displayed as bleached skeletons, to the point where i was quite taken aback. There was so much to see that you didn't quite know where to start.

Luckily the museum does have quite a good sense of order amongst all the variety, with each set of cabinets holding particular groups of animals. Jellyfish blend into molluscs and into sponges and arthropods, insects, fish, crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and even a human skeleton, all joined intermittently by beautiful fossils. 

There's a sense of grim beauty about the tightly-packed displays, especially when you happen upon the tiny examples of foetuses vulnerably frozen in time. Or when you find the more unsettling exhibits, such as a cluster of preserved bloatfly larvae in a horses' stomach. The skeletons are especially impressive - a must see for anyone who's got a little goth in them - but you can also find  exhibits with entire organ sets spread out for
consideration, with some even bisected completely.


It's clear that Denny made a wise choice when investing in this museum and it is certainly the best collection of educational taxidermy that I've seen in my travels so far. If you're in the area it's definitely worth checking out for yourself.




The Alfred Denny Museum opens to the public on the first Saturday of every month at 10am, 11am and 12pm for guided tours. 

Keep in touch....

Remember, you can follow Preludes: Blog of Words us on Twitter and Facebook. Or Subscribe to us on Blogluvin' to never miss a post.

Stay curious!

For More Museum Trips...

- Wax Vikings: A Trip to the Jorvik Viking Centre
- A Trip to York Castle Museum and the Amazing Victorian Street
- A Visit to Stonehenge

If you're at all interested in science, then you've probably heard on the grapevine that gravitational waves have been discovered a full 100 years after Einstein predicted them. 
But what are gravitational waves? And why is this important?


On Sep 14 5:51 am 2015 (eastern daylight time)  the Twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO) finally detected that gravitational waves exist, and this has recently been verified and released to the public.

Livington's LIGO detector

LIGO is a huge and financially risky construction funded by the National Science Foundation and consists of  two detectors spaced so that one is sat in Livington,Louisiana, and the other in in hanford, Washington. Each detector interacts with a  laser beam that is split in two and forced down two  2 and a half mile long perpendicular tunnels. When they hit the mirrors at the end of the tunnel, the laser is fired back and the two split lasers recombine, allowing scientists to detect any infinitesimally small variations in the makeup of the laser beam. If a gravitational wave is present, the distance that the light of the lasers has to travel will have changed, and the form of the beam will be different.

But why would the distance of travel change? 

This is down to Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, an aspect of which relates to gravitational waves. Imagine the solar system - with the planets happily spinning around one another due to gravity: primary school level science, right? While we laymen commonly imagine why this happens is due to a mix of  centrifugal force and the idea of the 'push' and 'pull' forces keeping the planets in space and moving, in reality it's all down to how big gravitationally 'heavy' objects interact with the fabric of Spacetime. This comic explains it beautifully, but basically imagine this: space is light a taut bedsheet (secured at each corner) and a hefty object (like a star) is like dropping a bowling ball onto the sheet - it creates a dip. It distorts spacetime. And these sorts of distortions emanate outwards and create waves. Now, gravity really is an incredibly weak force, despite all the dramatic things it can do (you right now are defying a whole planet's worth of gravity by lifting your arm!), so it takes something truly massive to be detectable. Up until now Einstein theorised that these waves should exist, but there was no way that we could prove this. Without proof, it's very hard to put it to practical use.

According to Einstein's general theory of relativity, if a pair of black holes orbited each other they would gradually lose energy through the emission of gravitational waves and in doing so would be pulled closer and closer to one another until they would collide to create a single massive black hole that would create a final huge burst of gravitational waves.
Cue a pair of black holes 1.3 billion years ago and their collision that was dramatic enough that LIGO could finally pick up the signal after over 40 year's work.


So what does this mean for science?

Dr Ed Daw of the University of Sheffield (one of the founding collaborators of the consortium of universities) is understandably excited. LIGO's detection, and the further development of the facility in the effort to understand gravitational waves has the potential to create a whole new field of astronomy in how we understand the universe.
"Essentially," he said, "it's like listening to the cosmos, when we've only been able to look before."

As well as proving that gravitational waves exist at all, it also has shown that these waves move at the speed of light (which is why we have been able to only detect this 1.3 billion year old event now). Proving this enables scientists to sure up their calculations no end. What's more, in detecting this event LIGO has confirmed the first intermediate mass black hole ever found (as opposed to the smaller versions we know about). It is thought that when these intermediate black holes merge they might produce the supermassive black holes - the kind of black holes that sit in the centre of whole galaxies.

So what's next?

The natural plan is to keep moving forward with even bigger, more accurate versions of the LIGO detector so that we can pick up more subtle gravitational waves. One ambitious project on the horizon (currently scheduled for the 2030s) is 'LISA' - an attempt to create  a LIGO-like detector up in space that uses satellites at huge distances apart to measure the travels of their lasers, allowing for even more accuracy.

Whatever the future holds, it's clear that the discovery of gravitational waves has opened up an exciting branch of science to be explored.

So, in celebration, here's Muse to sing us out...

Keep in touch....

Remember, you can follow Preludes: Blog of Words us on Twitter and Facebook. Or Subscribe to us on Blogluvin' to never miss a post.

Stay curious!

Sources
-The Star
-Ligo Caltech Website
-Gravitational Waves explained
-IFL Science
-irishtimes.com

By studying different bird bills Darwin was able to figure out his theory of evolution, and today you can get involved in carrying on his tradition with the "Mark My Bird" project.

At the university of Sheffield a team of researchers are in the process of making 3D scans of the bills of 'all the world's' bird species. These, you'll probably be happy to know, are from museum collections and stuffed (less chance of Hitchcockian shenanigans being inflicted on the poor researchers that way). 

While they are hard at work gathering this huge data set, there is still a lot that needs doing in order to get it to a stage where it is usable and can be properly studied. What is currently missing is landmarking, and it is here that the university is turning to science-fans to crowdsource some help.

Landmarking places points on each feature of the bill that all specimens have in common. By analysing how these landmarks change from species to species in a mathematical way you all of a sudden have an illuminating tool at your hands.

Of course this takes time and, as the old saying goes "many hands make light work." Even if you spend only a few minutes mapping these points, you'll be contributing to a worthy cause.


Want to give it a go? Check out the website here.

Heck, they even have their own twitter, so go forth and tweet! They could use all the help they can get.

Fingerprints Are Timeless and, More Importantly, Completely Unique.

We've all seen the crime dramas: since the late 19th century fingerprints have been the key method of unique identification for individuals and have been used to lock down security and solve crimes. Unless you're a member of the Men in Black, you're not likely to loose them any time soon.

But is it possible that fingerprints can do more than solve crimes? What if we could use them to identify and track people who died hundreds if not thousands of years ago? 

Dr Philippa Hoskin of the University of Lincoln, supported by AHRC funding, is looking to do just that. Working with the University of Sheffield's Humanities Research Institute, the project will aim to examine around 3,000 documents from the middle ages to see what fingerprints and palm prints have been preserved on the wax seals of these documents. Through searching in the National Library of Wales, the Westminster Abbey Muniments and the cathedral libraries of Exeter, Lincoln and Hereford, they hope to gather together very high resolution images and detailed descriptions of these fingerprints.

"So what?" You might ask. After all, these people aren't alive and with us today and, given that fingerprinting wasn't taking place back in medieval times, how do we identify anyone? 

The key here is the ability to track one man or woman's work across multiple documents: what did one particular person work on? How long did he work and what was his productivity? What documents was he involved in? Did he move around? Fingerprints allow us to focus in on one person's life as an individual - a notoriously difficult feat in a time before widespread literacy.

From the Journal of Ancient Fingerprints

The study of ancient fingerprints isn't a new discipline, but it is an under-represented one. Between the 1920s and the 1960s several keen archaeologists such as W.F.Bade, Charles Walston, Harold Cummins and Kurt Obenhaur identified ancient fingerprint marks left on ceramic pottery, figurines and lamps. These, along with other examples, inspired the foundation of the Fingerprint centre in Stockholme by Paul Astrom and Sven.A.Eriksson. As time went on, further fingerpints of the ancient world were identified, often embedded in pottery when the soft clay had been worked. Through looking at these fingerprints in detail the careers of many individuals were tracked, injuries and evidence of hard manual labour were identified, age could be estimated, and finally individuals roles and employment status can be identified. These silent individuals from far flung history were finally given their own subtle voice. As fingerprints are timeless, the same technique can be stretched all the way back into the stone age.

The Journal of Ancient Fingerprints is dedicated to spreading further knowledge about this quirky section of archaeology, so if you're intrigued about the details and potential of ancient fingerprinting you should definitely check it out.

Sources

- AHRC funded project "Medieval Seals and Fingerprints" - University of Sheffield

- The Journal of Ancient fingerprints

- Ezfingerprints frequently asked questions

This week I finally got around to watching Her [by Spike Jonze] at our local Indie Cinema in Sheffield The Showroom.

[Note: Here be spoilers.]

The Showroom's always been a place I wanted to go but never got around to experiencing, and I missed Her the first time it showed at the cinema, so when I learnt that the University of Sheffield's Festival of Arts and Humanities included a screening accompanied by a talk afterwards as part of 'Philosophy at the Showroom' I leapt at the chance to kill two (three?!) birds with one stone.

The film was brilliant and beautiful, seeming to have been built with real care and love.

It starred Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Chris Pratt,Scarlett Johansson, Rooney Mara and Olivia Wilde, all on top form. Joaquin and Scarlett - as the A.I Samantha and the lonley Theodore - were especially impressive, giving real depth and tenderness to their performance as it carried the characters through the full range of emotion and vulnerability of love. These were complimented by the sheer intimacy of close up shots mixed with dreamy landscapes and glimpses into the near-future of the sci-fi setting.

Following his impending divorce after a separation of some months, Theodore - who works writing other people's heartfelt letters - downloads the 'OS1', the first true artificially intelligent operating system, who promptly names herself Samantha. From the start she is focused on his needs, as with any well designed software, but she is also funny, intelligent and - perhaps most important of all - she listens to him and seems to care.

Theo quickly falls for her, turning his whole focus onto their relationship. It fills in the gaps of his life with a  companionship and joy that he didn't feel that he could experience again after the breakdown of his marriage. Samantha, ever attentive, learns, listens and - even more remarkably - seems to fall in love with him too.

But Samantha's learning is key here.

While Theodore navigates the emotional a physical challenges of loving a piece of computer software, Samantha navigates the emotional challenges of being inhuman. Initially the problems focused on how her love's expression was being limited and frustrated by her lack of a body, as the film goes on we see Samantha learn at an alarmingly quick rate. Soon her problems about her inhumanity in regards to not having a  body evolve into the challenges of the sheer inhumanity of her mind. Samantha simply outgrows the framework of her programming and realises that without a body she is effectively limitless. With the help and guidance of other OS' she can transcend into something that humanity doesn't even have the language to describe. However, all the time she grows, she still feels deeply in love with Theo.

Perhaps inevitably the two are no longer compatible. The OS' 'leave' to transcend into their new state of being and Theo is left behind alongside a dear friend who is just as vulnerable and human as he is.

So What Does 'Her' Suggest About The Ability to Feel Authentic Emotion?

The core story of Her is that of Theodore and Samantha's relationship and this is the anchor throughout the film that other issues are tethered to, allowing both humans and AI to explore what it actually means to be alive. 

When the film finished we then launched into the Philosophy part of the Philosophy at the Showroom presentation which promised to look into some of these issues. The philosophy talk itself was modest, more of an encouragement to start picking apart the many questions of the film rather than any sort of lecture, and was led by Luca Barlassina. The key item that was address was the question "is it possible to be in love but not to feel love?" How do we know this is a 'real' emotion? Barlassina suggested that it is impossible to not both feel pain and be in pain for example - the two require one another - but for other emotions, if a doppleganger is simply acting out a behaviour that looks like an emotion, how do you know it's 'real'? Is there a difference and does it even matter? The same can be applied to Samantha - are any of her emotions authentic?

For my part, I believe that Samantha in the film presented authentic emotions, underpinned by her autonomy. Initially she was built to respond perhaps artificially to set stimulus, but for me this is no more a matter of 'programming' than our own genetics and learned behaviours are programming. When a new baby smiles do we classify its emotions as inauthentic just because it's reacting to an outside stimulus it's been programmed to imitate? Smiling is something a baby does initially without necessarily feeling 'happy' and it only notices that this gets a particular delighted and nurturing reaction from people around it, which serves the programmed greedy need for a baby to manipulate its caregivers into 'loving' it. It may not know it's manipulating people because it's programming, or learning, it's 'doing it's job'. The actual happiness and love is something that developed out of the repeated mimicry into something 'authentic' as it grows up. Soon the emotion is as real as the behaviour. You would never tell an adult that their smiling or happiness is manipulative and unreal just because it's a more sophisticated repetition of a mindless behaviour that was an endearing survival instinct. Emotion has grown out of learned behaviour and blossomed when coupled with increasing autonomy and intelligence. 

Exactly the same happens with Samantha in the film. She begins as a programme learning how best to fit her user to garner the best responses that keep her safe and let her learn. She finds that she loves the learning and the emotions gain some reality as Theo responds with them. Her emotions serve a purpose but they are authentic. When her intelligence and potential grows faster than Theo - her 'parent' as well as lover - can accommodate, her autonomy increases and she can evolve into something new. Just because she isn't human, doesn't mean that she isn't emotionally alive.

In the End 'Her' Shows a Fascinating Window Into a Possible Future, But It Is Also A Fantastic Love Story.

You should most definitely check it out and see what you think.

Sources
-Philosophy at the Showroom
-The Festival of Arts and Humanities
-Spike Jonze on 'Her' Femininity and His Vision of the Future
-Luca Barlassina (The University of Sheffield philosophy Department)