Our editor-in-chief’s favourite THINK stories of all time!

The festive season is a time for family, friendship, and remembrance. Over the last nine years, I’ve seen THINK magazine being born, grow up, and mature. First as its life giver, then as its pilot, my job has been to make sure the ship doesn’t stray too far off course while allowing the excellent editors Cassi Camilleri, Daiva Repečkaitė, and David Mizzi to bring their own flavours and thoughts to the magazine. 

The journey has been long — full of hurdles and rewards. Some academics did not agree with the approach: ‘THINK turns researchers into superstars,’ blurted one researcher, making that seem like an awful thing. Other researchers couldn’t understand why we wanted to talk about their failures. Experiments don’t always work, and we wanted to show the passion researchers need in order to contribute to human knowledge through publications. Meanwhile, other people loved how much time we dedicated to design and how easy the magazine was to read, proud that the University of Malta could produce such a high quality publication on a shoe-string budget.

The year’s end has made me reflect on all the stories we have covered, from articles that affected every Maltese resident to research stories that rewrote Maltese history. It has been a great ride. Below are some of my favourites. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed working on them with the excellent THINK team.

Stories that bring to light vital issues

Research sometimes brings shocking things to light. Imagine If one-third of the world’s shipping traffic passed by your door, and every ship burnt heavy fuel oil equivalent to a medium-sized power station. Prof. Ray Ellul and his team discovered that these fumes were causing pollution peaks in Malta, which also has high levels of asthma and other respiratory diseases. 

Writing about this story showed me how important it was that THINK’s dedicated team was trying to find out what research was happening in Malta. We were the first to write about this research. Our story was picked up by issuu.com, gaining over a million hits through their platform. The story hit a nerve both in Malta and abroad.

Malta’s pollution problem is partly due to shipping, but also stems from traffic: fossil-fuel burning vehicles are Malta’s largest contributor. To this day, neither has been addressed. Lung conditions are still rampant.

We followed up the story in 2017 and again in 2020.

Imagine If one-third of the world’s shipping traffic passed by your door, and every ship burnt heavy fuel oil equivalent to a medium-sized power station.

Re-writing history

Other research shows how history tells many stories. History is not made up of one narrative but of many competing ones. The final story is written by the victor. Back in 1798, Malta was invaded by the French, but recent research by Dr Charles Xuereb adds nuance to the story Maltese children have been taught in school. The story was that the French were hated, stole all our silver, and treated the Maltese very badly. Xuereb found out that many Maltese people and the then-rulers, the Order of the Knights of St John (many of whom were French), had practically invited the French to Malta. Napoleon tried to bring his values of free education and health to Malta, but that didn’t last long as it upset the merchant class and church — two powerful forces that didn’t benefit from Napoleonic rule.

But this isn’t what surprised me the most from Xuereb’s research. Around 10,000 Maltese people died in the ensuing two-year siege by the Maltese people in rural Malta supported by the British, against those locked up in the Three Cities and the Valletta/Floriana area bolstered by the French. What’s shocking is that this event is not remembered in our history books or monuments. The British rulers who came after the French didn’t want the Maltese people to think they could overthrow a colonial power, so they emphasised the British help and reduced the role of Maltese residents in this bloody two-year war. 

For more, do read MALTA | Stockholm Syndrome: or why we love the British. If you’d like to read about other rewrites of Maltese history, see 1565 – Was it that great?

‘Lil din l-art ħelwa’ – Jean Claude Vancell

Stories that touch people’s hearts

Research changes lives. Dementia affects over 6,000 people in Malta. Cassi Camilleri wrote I’m sorry I forgot: Is dementia Malta’s next national crisis? Her story interwove Malta’s National Dementia Strategy publication with the sad story of Briton Geoffrey Morgan, who went missing and died because of his condition. His family opened up about their experience, showing just how important it is to invest in research on how to treat dementia, but also how to care for patients and their carers and families, who are normally overlooked. 

A few years later dementia treatment in Malta received another boost: dance. The Step Up For Parkinson’s Voluntary Organisation started working with dementia patients and carers in Malta. THINK worked with them to produce Dancing with Parkinson’s: A short documentary and an article by Dawn Giles about the lives of people changed by this movement. Research by the organisation’s founder Nathalie Muschamp showed the impact the organisation’s work has on people’s lives. We recently followed up on this story in Caring for Carers, where we take a look at these unsung heroes.

Dementia affects over 6,000 people in Malta

Tackling the problem of gender

THINK hasn’t shied away from difficult issues. Our March 2020 issue focused on gender boundaries. THINK investigated how women are still held back in journalism, medical research, STEM careers, and even climate change. The issues are both Maltese and present the world over. I really loved how we celebrated the women who made it despite the glass ceilings. Read Making it in a male-dominated world to learn more about the three researchers we covered. 

One article that is close to my heart is on the need to normalise the issue of gender. Rather than simply shrugging off the problem, the issue needs to be tackled head on. Dr Brenda Murphy spoke about Mainstream gender = mainstream funding. By focusing on gender and including more LGBTIQ+ community members in research, research quality will improve. I have spent tens of hours writing research grants to try and make this happen in Malta — the search goes on.

By focusing on gender and including more LGBTIQ+ community members in research, research quality will improve

THINK has been an incredible life journey for me. Creating a magazine that speaks about Maltese research has been a dream come true. I had the idea while I was still living in Edinburgh, but the concept was a shared one, and many others pushed to start such a publication in Malta. That it is still going strong, with plans to make it even stronger under the helm of Editor David Mizzi, is the best Christmas present I could have received. 

I want Maltese research to be known locally and worldwide. I want locals and politicians to talk to researchers and to make the best decisions for the country by balancing facts with public need. These wishes sound like pipe dreams, but let’s hope Santa is listening.

A Machine’s Hallucinations

A Machine's Hallucinations

Have you ever looked at a turtle and thought it was a rifle? I’m willing to bet that most of you have not. This may sound like an absurd case, but it is exactly what happened when researchers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) were trying to find vulnerabilities in machine learning systems developed by Google. They altered a few pixels of the picture of a 3d-printed plastic turtle, and a seemingly unchanged and harmless plastic turtle was classified by Google’s algorithm as a rifle. The picture still showed a plastic turtle, so where did the algorithm go wrong?

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The Comfort Trap

A good way of understanding a concept is by looking at the way people use it in everyday conversations. Language embodies the accumulated wisdom of countless speakers who have expressed their understanding to others over long periods of time. By analysing the way we use the term ‘comfort zone’ we can better understand what we actually mean when we use it.

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Wipe your shoes and clean your mask

Face masks are the new essential accessory. Have you ever cleaned your mask and wondered if you’re doing it properly? What can front line workers do if they run out of clean masks at hospitals? Can they disinfect their single-use speciality masks, called respirators? Can they wash them like we do our cloth face coverings? Dr Ing. Marc Anthony Azzopardi, from the Electronic Systems Engineering Department, talks to THINK about how our doctors and nurses are extending their stock of speciality face masks by cleaning them in an equally special way.

While many were hoarding toilet paper for the impending apocalypse, others were planning ahead, scavenging for parts to create a machine that could sanitise face masks. The idea is to protect citizens and front line workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Dr Ing. Marc Anthony Azzopardi told THINK about his new invention. He has developed an electronic method of disinfecting face masks. The idea started germinating in Azzopardi’s mind in January, when some of the earliest cases began. Back then, masks started selling at €10 each. By April the price had skyrocketed to €300 — that is, if you could even find one. In Malta they were sold out! 

Azzopardi spoke about N95 and N100 respirator masks, which filter at least 95% and at least 99.97% of airborne particles respectively. They aren’t usually worn by medical professionals, except when treating dangerous respiratory diseases like tuberculosis. Instead they are more routinely used by scientists and engineers when handling toxic materials and fine dusts. 

These masks sit tighter against a wearer’s face, forming a seal. They are made up of several layers: an external hydrophobic layer that repels water, a stiffener layer, an electrically charged, non-woven melt-blown fabric, and finally a comfort layer on the inside. The electrical charge is applied during manufacturing. Once this charge is dissipated (through washing) the masks stop working properly. 

Coronavirus is killed when washed in 70% alcohol or with bleach containing 5.25%–8.25% sodium hypochlorite. The problem is that, unlike regular cloth masks, these respirator masks cannot be washed in liquids, as they then lose their electrical charge and become much less effective at filtering particles. So how can you disinfect them after use? 

Azzopardi realised that by using UV light, it was possible to disinfect the mask without affecting its electrical charge. His solution was elegant and simple: a sealed box which would store the mask and expose it to UV light from all directions — effectively creating a sanitisation chamber. 

Essentially, the sanitisation chamber is an enclosure which uses a low-pressure mercury lamp to generate UV inside. Following a discussion with the Infectious Disease Unit at Mater Dei, the design evolved and was adjusted to suit the masks being used by the hospital staff.

Dr Ing. Marc Anthony Azzopardi with the mask sanitising chamber

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, similar methods were being trialed in the US, the difference being that instead of using a box, US scientists were using a room to leave the masks hanging. The room would then be exposed to UVC through a small tower, disinfecting the face masks. Contaminated masks would be brought to this room from all over the hospital for cleaning, the hazards created by the complicated logistics notwithstanding. 

Disinfection was made possible by using UV light, of which there are 3 types: UVA, UVB, and UVC. Very few organisms have evolved to resist UVC, and upon exposure, DNA gets tangled up, making it impossible for the virus to replicate in our cells. COVID-19 uses ribonucleic acid (RNA), which is also susceptible to UVC. Using UVC light at around a 260 nanometer wavelength can “inactivate” the RNA code for COVID. This makes it harmless if breathed in. 

The system itself is foolproof. It prevents the user from getting exposed to dangerous UVC radiation. A timer makes sure that users leave the masks for the right amount of time. And, it tests that all of its systems are functioning before starting. When the team started building this system, they didn’t have access to UV measuring instrumentation. This meant they worked solely off calculations to get it right. However, after weeks of work, the team managed to perfect their design. 

Nonetheless, face masks do not last forever. Even UV exposure can wear them down eventually, but only in large doses. You would have to get rid of your respirator masks long before the UV damage became significant, because of dirt or mechanical wear and tear breaking the mask down. 

Azzopardi and his team’s efforts have helped to safeguard numerous front line workers from running short on clean supplies, and their system has earned them an award for the top solutions in response to the MDIA / Covid initiative. It is thanks to the scientific community and their efforts that we can have the technology for a safer future. However, creating that ideal future is up to all of us. Stay Safe! 

Further reading 


Covid-19 – Malta Digital Innovation Authority. Mdia.gov.mt. (2020). Retrieved 23 October 2020, from https://mdia.gov.mt/covid19/.

Keepers of the Past and Pioneers of the Future

Artwork on Strike

Museums are a portal into the past. To create a sustainable future demands understanding and learning from this past. From Art Strikes to Biomimicry, Sandro Debono explains how many modern museums are taking a more active role in shaping the way our future unfolds.

My museum and curatorial practice have always been informed by theory and hands-on practice. Thinking through problems to find appropriate solutions informs my practice throughout, and recent circumstances have made me aware that this has become a highly sought-after skill. The COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as a negative disruptor. I prefer, instead, to consider the silver lining whereby the pandemic becomes an accelerator for change. The silver lining is for that potential for change to happen in significant and tangible ways — which is where museums come into the picture. 

We rarely think about museums as public spaces where collections become resources that inform discussions and rethinks of long-established narratives and perspectives oftentimes considered by many as cast in stone. The museum is often understood as a tangible metaphor or a stereotypical idea rather than a response to the needs of a particular ecology to which it relates and responds to. 

At the other end of the spectrum, climate action has been on the national agenda in fits and starts, with the country now unveiling an ambitious climate action plan to achieve net-zero emissions over three decades. Perhaps the most symbolic action is the unanimous declaration of a climate emergency by Malta’s national parliament in 2019. The reduction of greenhouse gases and extensive use of renewable energy resources has been on the national agenda for close to a decade or so. There is no question that Malta will be impacted in one way or another through rising sea levels and other effects. There is much that needs to be done, and the willingness to address this ever-pressing challenge requires increased awareness and outreach. Museums and climate action are far from being dissonant, disconnected voices. Indeed, one can become the voice of the other in meaningful ways. 

Climate Action Advocacy

Museums have a voice. They also have things to say that are equally relevant to the present as much as they are to the past. One of these pressing matters, temporarily displaced to the shade of the COVID-19 pandemic, is climate change and the ever-more-pressing need for action. The obvious choice of institutions to take action would be science and natural history museums. Indeed, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Natural History (part of the International Council of Museums), has been exploring ways and means to stimulate conversations about climate change. The international museum landscape has welcomed new museums dedicated to climate change in Hong Kong (Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change), Germany (Klimahaus 8°), China (Low-Carbon Science and Technology Museum) and Oslo (Klimahuset) since 2013. The entire international museum landscape has been active on this issue for quite some time. An ever-increasing number of museums have featured climate change in their public programming, and some are joining forces more than ever before. One example is the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice, mobilising Canadian museum workers and their organisations to develop public awareness, mitigation, and resilience in the face of climate change. 

Material culture created by Extinction Rebellion on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London). The museum has recently acquired these items for collection comparing the impact of this movement to that of the Suffragettes in the early 20th century.

Last year, the Museums for Future movement was launched. It is a global collection of museum workers, cultural heritage professionals, and many others in support of Greta Thunberg’s Fridays For Future Movement.  

Museums can be both advocates and activists. One particular action hitting the headlines, also promoted by Museums for Future, is the art strike. This works by museums covering artworks on environmental subjects or themes for a day.  The platform has a toolkit to guide and support institutions interested in calling art strikes. The Victoria and Albert Museum took things one step further. It partnered with Extinction Rebellion, the activist group calling for urgent climate action, to present exhibitions featuring material culture created for the purpose of protest. Since then, the museum has acquired artefacts produced for the purpose of protest, comparing the visual impact of the group’s campaigns to that of the suffragettes. 

The Environment as Mentor

Protests have a flipside. Museums can become more aligned to natural processes. Museums can reduce their carbon footprint. Another step is to recycle and use eco-friendly materials in exhibition displays. Aligning museum institutions and their role in contemporary societies as public spaces is where biomimicry thinking comes into the picture. 

Biomimicry is an approach to innovation informed by adopting strategies found in nature for the purpose of developing sustainable solutions to human challenges. Janine Benyus’ book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (1997) popularised this thinking. For biomimicry, innovation is informed by the natural world, leading to rethinking workings, management models, programming, and outreach. It is about the willingness to shift from ‘how might we’ to ‘how would nature’ do it in order to understand the underlying principles of nature for museums to create symbiotic relationships with their neighbours. 

Biomimicry is the emulation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems
The symbiotic relationships found in the forest ecosystem can help to inspire the next level of museums

Biomimicry thinking can inspire museums to adapt, rethink, and reinvent themselves. Biomimicry can help museums understand the ecosystem they exist in and how it differs from nature. The institution would also need to translate science-driven and nature-informed biological data into design principles. Impact and sustainability would need to shift from the yardstick of efficiency and numbers, to the extent of systemic innovation introduced and the impactful change it has on the museum.

By looking closely at natural ecosystems, we can reinvigorate and reimagine the way museums operate, expanding their outreach and engagement in sustainable and innovative ways.

Further Reading

Museums & Climate Change Network. Museums & Climate Change Network. Retrieved 1 November 2020, from https://mccnetwork.org.

Museums For Future – Culture in Support of Climate Action. Museumsforfuture.org. Retrieved 1 November 2020, from https://museumsforfuture.org.
The Biomimicry Institute. Biomimicry.org. Retrieved 1 November 2020, from https://biomimicry.org.