How To Teach Quantum Physics To Your Dog

Book review by Andrea Marie Cini

The term quantum physics has struck fear into many hearts. Such a complex subject has, for many years, dumbfounded students, and, it seems, their dogs alike. Chad Orzel (a professor at Union College,New York) in his book, How To Teach Quantum Physics To Your Dog, tries to accomplish just that; how do you explain sub-atomic physics in a fun and easy way? Using his dog Emmy as a fellow narrator, Orzel explains quantum physics from a different, more canine-oriented perspective, and actually manages to make it work!

Making use of situations that dogs encounter on a nearly daily basis, such as rabbit chasings, evil squirrels and squeaky toys, the author explains some of the most complex theories and experiments in science. Sound bites as particle-wave duality, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and quantum tunnelling are just a few of the many topics covered and are colourfully explained within this book. Making use of simple diagrams and modern references, these previously baffling topics are simplified in a way even a dog could understand (if dogs were capable of learning science—debatable). Orzel’s ideology is pretty simple: if a dog could understand his explanations then a human surely would.

Apart from being a sturdy foundation for the topic of quantum physics, the fun-loving and comical conversations between Orzel and Emmy the dog are a captivating read. Emmy’s curious questions and Orzel’s exceptionally patient answers make it almost impossible for readers to forget. Within this novel it feels as if the reader is really strolling in a park with the duo. Apart from this professor’s incredible explanations and handy diagrams, another distinguishable feature of his book is the fascinating footnotes—a source of unforgettable fun facts. For example, did you know that the great scientist, Schrödinger, was a notorious womaniser?

While I would not recommend How To Teach Quantum Physics To Your Dog to pass the next quantum mechanics exam, it is great foundation material. Studying quantum physics has never been more fun and the book is a great read—highly recommended.

Curiosity saved the cat

Since childhood Ian Zammit has always been curious about why things are the way they are. His curiosity has led him to work on a water recycling project from which Malta could potentially stand to gain. He speaks to Veronica Stivala.

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Galactic rotation dynamics in modified gravity

In the last 100 years, Einstein’s theory of general relativity has proven invaluable to explain the nature of the universe. That being said, Einstein’s model of gravity does at times fail to comply with what we actually observe when looking up at the night sky.

Galaxies offer one of the most impressive laboratories where general relativity just does not work. Stellar objects in galaxies tend to orbit the galactic centre of mass. General relativity predicts that as one goes further from the centre of the galaxy, these orbital speeds drop off. Observational data shows that these velocities tend to stay constant along the radius of a galaxy. However, dark matter can be artificially introduced to account for this. The other argument is that such failures indicate the inability of general relativity to fully explain how the universe works. If this is so, it seems necessary to construct what are called alternative or modified theories of gravity. Such theories would have to be capable of correctly explaining all observed phenomena including those that general relativity fails to produce.

Andrew Finch (supervised by Dr Jackson Levi Said) is looking into the new concept of treating gravity as a torsional dominated system instead of a curvature dominated one, which is the concept explained by general relativity. The new models are being developed with the intention of agreeing with galactic rotation curves while managing to explain everything that general relativity already does. It is only possible to vigorously test such models because of the large amount of freely available data which has been gathered on galaxies. As models are obtained, the cluster in the ISSA (Institute of Space Science and Astronomy) laboratory is being used in order to determine model parameters. Using this data, Finch aims to compare Einstein’s theory with the new model being developed. Will it improve on Einstein’s ideas? Only Finch will tell…

This research is being performed as part of a Masters Degree in Astrophysics being read at the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy, University of Malta.

Andrew Finch

Would you dare?

Would you dare going on a ghost hunt? Victoria Cutajar did, and talks to DARE magazine about her intense trip into the unknown. The third year communication students of the ‘Magazine and Digital Publishing’ study unit (Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences), collected people’s personal stories and crafted them into a well rounded, highly visual publication.

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Special Feature – The Maltese Genome

DNA is what life is made of. Found in every cell of the human body, it has sent criminals to jail and been the focus of controversial court cases. Dr Jean Buttigieg discusses these legal and ethical issues. DNA has also transformed the meaning of being human, with traits from disease to intelligence all linked to it. DNA is changing the world.

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Octopus around Malta: Safe to eat?

Heavy metals can be toxic to humans. They need to be monitored to ensure environmental levels do not go above dangerous levels. The European Commission has set acceptable maximum levels of metals allowed in food since most metals end up in humans through their diet.

But how do metals find their way into our food in the first place? Heavy metals can enter the environment in a number of ways, including through volcanism, fossil fuel burning, and antifouling paint use. The heavy metals bind with biomolecules inside living tissue, and can build up to dangerous levels. One prime example of how such metals end up in the food we eat can be seen in the case of the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris). The octopus is susceptible to accumulating high levels of heavy metals due to its high ingestion rate of benthic fauna.

Joshua Gili (supervised by Prof. Victor Axiak) recorded the concentrations of cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc in the common octopus. Specimens were collected from around Malta during summer and winter. The analysis was performed on two of the species’ tissues—the tentacles and the digestive glands— which function in a similar way to the human liver. Each tissue was gathered into one pool by site, then homogenised, dried, and acid-treated. Afterwards a technique called polarography was used to determine the levels of each metal. This data helped Gili decide whether metal accumulation in the tissue of octopi is affected by biometry, season, or geography.

In Malta, metal levels depended on where the octopus was caught. In general, the concentrations were lower than other Mediterranean regions. The levels of cadmium and lead in the tentacles were below toxic levels as stated by the European Commission, indicating that local octopus is safe to eat.

This research was performed as part of Joshua Gili’s Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Biology and Chemistry, which he is reading at the Faculty of Science, University of Malta.

Blood, Genes, and You

Over the course of nine months, an entire human body is sculpted from a few cells into a baby. The blueprint is the information written into our DNA. But what happens if there is a mistake in these blueprints? Decades worth of research carried out in Malta and abroad have aimed to understand how these errors lead to a disease common in Malta and prevalent worldwide.
Scott Wilcockson talks to Dr Joseph Borg (Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta) to find out more.

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Time, Space, & the Ocean Wanders

As an archipelago, the Maltese Islands have been a hotspot for seabird nesting since time immemorial. Marie Claire Gatt talks about her research and a major EU project determining how to protect far travelling seabirds. Photography by Jean Claude Vancell.

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Who owns you?

One fifth of human genes have already been claimed as US Intellectual Property. But should anyone own our genes? And what happens when gene ownership can drastically prevent the advancement of life-saving cures?

The US Patent Office’s most controversial patents are on BRCA1 and BRCA2, both linked to the high risks of ovarian and breast cancer. They are now owned by Myriad Genetic Laboratories. In 1996, Myriad Genetics developed and began marketing a predictive test for the presence of possible cancer-causing mutations: the ‘BRCAnalysis’ test. The price of the test was US$3,000 but the company promised that it would eventually drop the price to US$300. This never happened because its patent holder had the right to stop any other party from duplicating the patented sequences. This single test accounted for over 80% of Myriad Genetics’ multibillion dollar business.

In 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) decided to challenge the patenting of human genes on legal grounds. The ACLU was the representative of 20 medial organisations, geneticists, women’s health groups, and patients unable to be screened due to the prohibitive patents. The ACLU’s position was that Myriad’s patents violated the patent law on the issue of patent-eligibility.

The case went before the Supreme Court. By 3 June, 2013 it was declared that the Myriad patents were invalid because they did not create or alter any of the genetic information encoded in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. The location and order of the nucleotides existed in nature before Myriad found them. The company simply discovered what was already there and did not create anything new.

There is no worldwide consensus on whether parts of the human genome should be granted intellectual property protection. The Myriad patents should alert us to the injustice of having a pharmaceutical company make money out of cancer predictive tests that could cost 10 times less than what is charged. The same patents stifled diagnostic testing and research that could have led to cures as well as limiting women’s options regarding their medical care in Malta as in all other parts of the world. There are various international and regional agreements that have described the human genome as being part of humanity’s ‘common heritage’, including the 1998 UN Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights. The Myriad patents controversy has shown that gene patenting does not work to stimulate more research—one of the prime arguments Big Pharma uses. It is time to explore other avenues that will both promote scientific progress and technological development but at the same time protect the special nature of human genes that make us who we are. No one should own our genes—they should be exploited in the interest of everyone.

Written by: Dr Jean Buttigieg

The Hidden History of the Maltese Genome

By reading someone’s DNA one can tell how likely they are to develop a disease or whether they are related to the person sitting next to them. By reading a nation’s DNA one can understand why a population is more likely to develop a disease or how a population came to exist. Scott Wilcockson talks to Prof. Alex Felice, Dr Joseph Borg, and Clint Mizzi (University of Malta) about their latest project that aims to sequence the Maltese genome and what it might reveal about the origins and health of the Maltese people.

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