The Mercury Wilson’s School’s sixth-form newspaper
Volume 4, Issue 2, October 2014
THE NATURAL GPS IN EACH OF OUR BRAINS LUKE PEACOCK Have you ever wondered how commuters wake up from a deep sleep just as the train arrives at their stop? Or how animals exhibit phenomenal spatial awareness?
oped from their initial finding of so called ‘grid cells’ in 2004 within the brain, to understanding how a spatial awareness grid is actually formed by these cells.
The 2014 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded in early October for finding the answer to this.
Using a similar principle to O’Keefe, they also used invasive EEG. One of their most exciting papers detailed how a faulty HCN1 gene (which is a channel protein found largely in the heart and brain) can increase the grid scale so spatial awareness decreases. They concluded that grid cells were responsible for creating a subconscious grid of an environment in most organisms, which can be referred back to in order to remember a given place. And they showed in a later paper that this allows some organisms to even navigate in the dark when placed in familiar surroundings.
Scientists from Norway and London received it jointly, having independently identified parts of the brain responsible for a local positioning system (similar to GPS, on a smaller scale) which maps your spatial awareness of the environment you are in, or frequented places. The first discovery of this feature of the brain came in the 1970s, from research by Professor John O’Keefe, a British-American researcher at University College London. O’Keefe’s part in the research involved discovering ‘place cells’ located in the cerebra (the scientific name for the brain) of most organisms which enables them to create a mental map of their surroundings. He conducted an experiment using rats which were allowed to move around an area and he monitored their brain activity. Whether or not this was a morally acceptable experiment is debatable, as the rats were monitored using invasive electroencephalography (EEG). This is a device connected to electrodes which are inserted deep into the brain tissue in order to meas-
ure the activity of specific cerebral areas. The rats were allowed to move around a 150cm2 area and O’Keefe saw that activity in a certain region of the rats’ brains was involved in mapping the area. When the rat passed through each area, activity rose in a specific part of the CA1 in the hippocampus (an area of the brain) and fell in other parts. The location of this activity altered slightly depending on the rats’ position in the space - and this led O’Keefe to identify pyramidal neurons in this region of the brain, later named ‘place cells’, responsible for spatial memory and the navigation of organisms. More than 30 years later, between 2004 and 2014, Norwegian scientists and couple May-Britt and Edvard Moser published a series of papers detailing their findings concerning the brain’s ability to create a ‘GPS grid’ of its surroundings. Their study devel-
This is quite an amazing discovery, but how is it so important that its discoverers earned a Nobel Prize for the work? Well, this actually closely links to one of society’s most feared age-related illnesses. It explains why patients with dementia – particularly Alzheimer’s disease – lose their ability to identify their surroundings, and this could be a major step forward in finding a cure for dementia-related illnesses.
Want to write for the Mercury? Budding journalists, or those just passionate about a subject, are always needed. Anyone interested in writing, be it a front page spread, or a back page sports column, should contact the editors at:
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Sixth Form Mercury, October 2014
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Contents
EDITORS’ LETTER
Article
There is huge variety in this month’s Mercury. On the one hand, we have cutting-edge, forward-thinking pieces on local positioning systems in our brains and the exponential rise of UKIP. While on the other hand, we have nostalgic pieces on ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ and the style of Jean Michel Basquiat. Plus, on the back page we have a cracking new cartoon from Charlie Stewart and a heartfelt love-letter to a different planet - Pluto - from Matthew Jeffrey.
Page
The Natural GPS in Each of Our Brains
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UKIP’s Clacton Win
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A Certain Romance
3
Style Icon: Jean-Michel Basquiat
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Pluto and the Comic
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Kyle MacNeill and Max Cobain
UKIP’S CLACTON WIN - IS IT REALLY A ‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’?
ANDREW MACDONALD challenge the Conservatives or Labour for single-party government, but could it be seen to hold the balance of power, in that the party that is going to win the election (or come closest to it) must accept that they have to win back a significant proportion of prospective UKIP voters, as now they are too large a discontented minority to ignore?
UKIP has just gained their first elected MP: Douglas Carswell, a man who had previously been a Conservative MP for the seat which he now represents as a member of UKIP. Nigel Farage, the party’s fervent leader, immediately claimed that Carswell’s win “had shaken up British politics”, from which we can assume that he believes UKIP will now win many more seats in the general election in May. Farage obviously wants to persuade the British electorate that a vote for
UKIP is no longer a wasted vote; his assessment of Carswell’s victory is clearly biased. UKIP in its current form is too rightwing to appeal to a large minority of the electorate, and so provided that it still has policies like scrapping the minimum wage, it will not gain a huge number of seats next year. However, in recent polls, 25% of those surveyed said they would vote UKIP, which, when applied to the whole electorate, renders UKIP a real political force. It has not become a party which can
Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband know this, with the Tories’ clear pandering to UKIP sympathisers and Ed Miliband’s recent speech to his party reassuring them that it was not about to be destroyed by UKIP. Thus in the run-up to this general election there is all to play for. UKIP is not going to overcome the political establishment and rule by the will of Farage, but what their localised recent success demonstrates is that the mainstream parties will have to work particularly hard to ensure the threat which they currently pose is diminished May.
Sixth Form Mercury, October 2014
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A CERTAIN ROMANCE - KYLE MACNEILL It’s weird to think that Top of the Pops has been off our screens now for eight years. Perhaps it’s the brand’s resonance and iconic nature that makes it feel like its kitsch neon logo should still be slapbang in between Antiques Roadshow and Match of the Day 2, in its cosy Sunday teatime slot. Or maybe it’s the barren desert of music programmes at the moment that makes us mentally replay its classic moments - like a broken backing track, and having a little sob every time Reggie Yates is on Rastamouse and pretending to ourselves that he’s still nineteen. Little has been left behind but Later...with Jools Holland, a peeling Kooks poster and some quality TOTP memories. There are three memories that particularly stand out for me. First is the global domination of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’, with its seemingly endless position as top-spot-limpet. Next was the countercultural pre-adolescent thrill of seeing Crazy Frog perforating the eardrums of parents across the nation, like some sort of animated, amphibious Iggy Pop for the post-ringtone age. The best memory, however, will always be the first time ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ slinked onto the airwaves. It was the first guitar record that I fell in love with; and arguably, quite sadly, hasn’t been eclipsed in terms of six-string sizzlers since then. It’s not much of a stretch even to call it the most defining track of this generation. Music-wise, it was stupidly exciting at the time; the fact that it pretty much starts with a ridiculous guitar solo made ideal playground air-guitar fodder, and Matt Helder’s Sheffield-inflected backingvocals teeter on the comical - but instead turn out amazingly. Lyrically, it’s even better - and listening to it nine years on, it seems ridiculously ahead of its time. It’s also got a few absolute crackers latent in its punky fuzz: ‘there ain’t no love, no Montagues or Capulets/ just banging tunes and DJ sets’ is pretty genius. Even better was the fact that they refused to play on the show, with any live performance replaced by a 70s-style stylised video and a fantastically slurred epigram of ‘don’t believe the hype’. Contrary to Alex Turner’s quip, the hype was sure believed, leading to a record-breaking album, seven Brit Awards and a headline spot at Glastonbury. ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ doesn’t seem nine years old; it feels more like nine years young. Lyrically, it’s still totally relevant; musically, it’s still an absolute banger. Along with TOTP, it seems like it’s still buzzing around the airwaves today - back in a glorious time when Crazy Frog soundtracked digital punks and Reggie Yates actually was nineteen.
STYLE ICON: Jean-Michel Basquiat - Linden Hogarth Brooklyn-born artist Jean-Michel Basquiat began his career decorating the walls of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York as part of the graffiti group SAMO. However, by the 1980s he had gained global notoriety for his part in the neo-expressionist art movement, his collaborations with Andy Warhol and brief affair with Madonna. During his early years Basquiat embodied East Coast street style, scouring thrift shops and wearing everything from tattered African inspired shirts to third-hand military jump suits - naturally adding a splash of paint here and there. By the early 1980s, Basquiat’s work-wear had significantly changed as he made his fortune. With a taste for high fashion, he swapped his overalls for Armani, donning designer three-piece suits in the mornings and carelessly splattering them with paint by tea time. Even through such a drastic move in terms of clothing, Basquiat managed to retain his Brooklyn roots. Mismatching baroque and paisley prints with tartan and Aztec patterning, his eccentric look overflowed with warmth and charm. Although admittedly his shirt-tie combinations might have alarmed the Wilson’s Sixth Form team, it's hard to deny style icon status to someone that managed to resemble a runway model and a Bowery bum at the same time.
Sixth Form Mercury, October 2014
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BACK PAGE CHARLIE STEWART
MATTHEW JEFFREY
In August 2006, tragedy struck the solar system. Pluto was demoted from a fully fledged planet to a dwarf planet. During the 76 years it spent as a planet, it didn’t even complete a third of its 246-year orbit (it hit that mark earlier this year). But why was Pluto cast out from our society? According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the definition of a planet is “a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit”. Whilst (a) and (c) are self-explanatory, (b) can cause some confusion, but at the end of the day it boils down to “it has to be rounded by its own gravity”. However, this definition is little more than dogma used to pull - and keep - the wool over our eyes. The definition put forward by the IAU affects objects that are in our solar system and those objects alone. Other solar systems are subject to different sets of rules when determining how many planets they have. Furthermore, even though there are over 10,000 astronomers working for the IAU, only 237 of them voted on and accepted the definition. This unscientific and undemocratic definition was put in place with one aim in mind: to keep the number of “planets” in our solar system at a manageable eight. It does not take into account the geophysical features of Pluto whatsoever. Pluto is, in many ways, just as eligible for planetary status as the earth. It has an atmosphere, weather, polar caps and even five moons. Looking at this set of data, it almost looks more qualified than our own planet, as we only have one official moon. If it wasn’t for its relatively small size, nobody would think twice about Pluto’s planetary status. This size-based prejudice has to stop. After all, was it not one of the greatest people to have ever walked the planet that said we should focus on the content of someone’s character and not at unimportant features such as skin colour or, er, planetary mass? At the end of the day, whether or not Pluto receives the justice and recognition it deserves, it will always hold a place in our solar system … and our hearts.
