Welcome to the Spring Issue of News Bites from the College of Science where you can find out some of the latest news and events. For more information about the College of Science visit www.swan.ac.uk/science

STUDENT ACTIVITIES / STUDENTS IN THE NEWS

Cutting edge dissertation project on Toxoplasmosis

‘Computer Science Maker Competition’

Fiona Newberry (BSc Biology student) has completed a piece of applied and cutting-edge work for her dissertation project with the Toxoplasma Reference Unit, Public Health Wales.  Toxoplasma gondii is a prevalent zoonotic pathogen, which infects 30-40% of the human population. The main route of infection is by ingestion of the parasite from environmental sources or as a foodborne infection.

The Department of Computer Science held the Maker Competition Exhibition on 12 December 2013.   Participants formed teams of at least two people and were given a kit to make something inspiring.  They then uploaded their two minute video on YouTube to showcase their concepts and creations. Teams were asked to come along and demonstrate their creations in front of a judging panel.  First place went to ‘NoteCube’ which was created by Callum Dicker, Cameron Steer and Lewis Edwards.    Details of the creations can be found here:

University Birdwatch Challenge

Geology fieldwork for Physical Earth Science

Swansea graduate continues her research on medicinal leeches

Emma Cole (BSc Zoology student) is the University’s BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) undergraduate representative, and is aiming to encourage as many students as possible to start counting and recording any birds they see. As part of this, Emma has entered Swansea University into ‘A Focus on Nature’s’ University Birdwatch Challenge: any student enrolled at the university records any and all bird species seen around our campus boundaries as often as possible and submits their data onto BirdTrack. With 178 bird species classified as either globally or nationally threatened in the UK (Eaton et al. 2009) the work of the BTO is more crucial than ever. The BTO and Emma work closely in association with the Swansea Ecology Research Team (SERT) in the Department of Biosciences and the University’s Conservation and Ecology Society (SUCES).

Students studying the Physical Earth Science degree scheme within Geography, which combines geology and physical geography, have been busy recently with geological fieldwork.  They dodged the February storms to spend a weekend studying the spectacular geology of the North Pembrokeshire coast, with Newport as a base.  Highlights included the pillow lavas of Strumble Head, sunset over the layered gabbro of St David’s Head, and the sedimentary structures of the Aberystwyth Grits turbidites.

They have also spent several afternoons in the field studying the geology of the resources obtained from the South Wales Coalfield, visiting the site of the Clyne Valley brick-pit and brickworks, and several sites in the Swansea Valley linked to copper smelting, tinplate works, limestone quarrying, coal mining and silica sandstone quarrying to make silica bricks at Penwyllt.  Their third and final field class will take them to a working opencast coal site.

Rachel Taylor (BSc Zoology and MSc Environmental Biology: Conservation & Resource Management) is currently employed as an ecologist with BSG Ecology.  “Since joining BSG Ecology I have been involved in planning and undertaking bat surveys and monitoring exercises, interpreting bat data and compiling reports, particularly with regard to heritage projects and wind farm proposals. I have also completed survey work for water quality monitoring, reptiles, great crested newt, water vole and badger. I have also recently completed a research review on the potential ecological impacts of ground-mounted photovoltaic solar panels in the UK. I consider myself very lucky to be hired by BSG Ecology, in such a competitive job market, and believe that the experience and skills gained during my time at Swansea University and SERT directly contributed to my employment. I am still a member of SERT and intend to aid the continuance of medicinal leech research with them this year, during my spare time.”

A Day in the Life of a Mathematics Student

Watch James Cresswell  (BSc Mathematics student) on a typical day as a student.

Zoology student presents project on bees to primary schools

Outstanding thesis for Geography PhD student

Environmental winner encourages 2014 competitors

At the end of February, the International Bee Research Association (IBRA) launched an International Bee education pack aimed at primary level children and Elinor Meloy (BSc Zoology student) gave a 10 minute presentation to around 100 guests who ranged from primary school children, teachers, MPs and academics.   Elinor was invited to speak about her dissertation project where she studied the social bumblebee species of Newport Wetlands.

Dr Christine Dow has passed her viva without corrections, an achievement that reflects well the outstanding quality of her thesis entitled ‘Modelling and field data analysis of subglacial hydrological conditions in South-West Greenland’. This was as expected, following two successive outstanding student paper awards at the AGU Fall Meetings in 2011 and 2012!  Christine has been based in the Department of Geography and was supervised by Bernd Kulessa and Ian Rutt. Many congratulations to Christine and all the very best for her future research work as a NASA postdoctoral fellow!

Owen Bidder (PhD student in the Department of Biosciences) is on a trip to Slovenia’s Triglav National Park to learn more about the area.  He says it took him less than a minute to apply for the Urdd Gobaith Cymru’s Geraint George Scholarship, which saw him beat off stiff competition and win the overseas trip.   Owen won the 2013 Welsh language environmental scholarship and hopes a number of youngsters will participate in the competition this year.  “My reaction when I saw the competition details on email at Swansea University last year was: ‘Wow, what an opportunity – communication, something I do with a lot of people already, meeting influential environmentalists and an opportunity to go on a fantastic adventure. I went for it and succeeded!”  Owen undertook his BSc Zoology degree here at Swansea.

BSc Geography dissertation received Honorable mention

The British Sedimentological Research Group (BSRG) awarded Hannah Lee (BSc Geography student) an Honorable mention for her final year undergraduate project “Variability and facies controls of soft sediment deformation in torridonian applecross formation”.   

This is the second commendation for a Swansea student in this national award, following Matt Whitney’s commendation in 2012.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT & OUTREACH ACTIVITIES

Swansea Science Summer School

When?  Science Summer Schools & Science Taster Days throughout 2014

Where?  College of Science, Swansea University

Who?  Year 10 and Year 12 pupils from Swansea and surrounding areas

The College of Science will be running a series of taster days and week-long schools in Biosciences, Computer Science, Geography, Mathematics and Physics between now and March 2015. This is following on from a smaller summer school scheme in 2013. We hope to host up to 200 pupils in Years 10 and 12 (aged between 14 and 17), and give them valuable, hands-on experience of carrying out real scientific experiments with academic staff in a research laboratory. We want to ‘bring science to life’, with workshops such as ‘Mathematics for jugglers’ and ‘Hunting for exoplanets’.

Something fishy is going on at Swansea University….

Further two years’ funding announced for Further Mathematics Support Programme (FMSP) Wales

Wallace Poster Competition

Will Townsend (BSc Zoology student), President of the Swansea Undergraduate Conservation Ecology Society is running the Yellow Fish Project along with the University Biodiversity and Sustainability Team.   The Yellow Fish Project is a nationwide campaign to remind everyone that there is a good chance that whatever goes down the drain will end up in rivers, streams or the sea. Issues with drainage in Swansea have led to especially poor water quality. This makes our local water environments unpleasant for both people and wildlife.

In December 2013 the Welsh Government announced funding would be provided over two years for the continuation of the FMSP Wales.    The significant annual funding of £225,000 would be made available in 2014-2015 and 2015-2016.  The programme is led by Wales Institute of Mathematical and Computation Sciences (WIMCS) based at Swansea University.  Welsh Government Education Minister Huw Lewis said “We’ve made a commitment improving levels of numeracy and enhancing the STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and mathematics”.” High level maths skills open doors to so many careers for our learners and we must support them to get the skills they need to succeed”.

In October 2013, as part of a series of events to commemorate the centenary of the death of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) the College of Science launched a poster competition. The competition was open to schools, sixth forms and College of Science undergraduates.  A particularly impressive set of entries was received from Ysgol Brogwaun in Fishguard. On February  14th, Dr Suzanne Bevan (Geography), Dr Ruth Callaway (Biosciences) and Dr Sofya Lyakhova (Maths) attended the school’s morning assembly and presented eight pupils with cash prizes. The school was also given £250 to be spent on science activities or equipment.

The Pembrokeshire Herald reported on the prizes received by Ysgol Bro Gwaun.

Technoteach: Teachers are going back to the classroom

Gower Walking Festival

As recently reported in The South Wales Evening Post, a programme called Technoteach, funded by the Welsh Government through the National Science Academy, is being run by the Technocamps programme based in the Department of Computer Science. Technoteach is giving teachers in primary and secondary schools continuous professional development (CPD) in Computer Science.  The free programme which gives them the chance to learn the key computer science concepts to help them deliver GCSE Computing effectively, run for six weeks.

Swansea Geography staff are offering walks during the Gower Walking Festival in June. 

11 June at 2pm:  Dr Geraint Owen - Geology and scenery around Penclawdd

12 June at 2pm:  Dr Geraint Owen - Geology in Cwm Clydach

13 June at 6pm:  Dr Geraint Owen and Dr Hazel Trenbirth - a geological stroll around Bracelet Bay and Mumbles

18 June at 10am:  Dr Kate Evans: a Tawe Tale and river trip on the Black Prince (an interactive story telling walk along the Tawe followed by a trip on the Tawe on the community barge)

Come and join us!

RESEARCH IN THE NEWS

Prestigious five-year Wolfson Research Merit Award

Professor Matt Jones, Head  of the Department of Computer Science, is among the 21 recipients in the latest round of prestigious Wolfson Research Merit Awards recently announced by the Royal Society, the UK’s national academic of science.  Professor Jones has been given the award as a platform for work motivated by his desire to understand and solve a series of complex human-technology problems of great interest to the international research community and with the aim of improving life for many hundreds of millions of people in the developing world.

Death by fungus provides solution

The Amazon and climate change: Swansea Geography’s research with NASA

Volcanic Ash research to unlock the secrets of climate change

Research undertaken by Professor Tariq Butt (Department of Biosciences) and his team could have far-reaching implications for the control of mosquito larvae across the world. As reported in “Advances Wales”, their study into the mechanisms by which the insect pathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae kills mosquito larvae, demonstrates that the fungus infection processes that occur for terrestrial insects do not apply for the mosquito larvae.    The research as shown that the fungus is able to kill the larvae without germinating which results in a stress-related and fast ‘accidental death’

Advances Wales, page 21:

Scientists have been puzzled by the apparent ‘greening up’ of the Amazon forest during its annual dry season. However, Professor Peter North and Dr Jacqueline Rosette, in research carried out with NASA, have found that the Amazon is not as green in the dry season as researchers previously thought, because a trick of the light skews the satellite images.  The finding will help scientists develop a more accurate picture of changes in the Amazon, which is more important now than ever, given the enormous role the Amazon plays in regulating carbon dioxide, and influencing climate change.

The research is published in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature and has received global media coverage.

Professor Siwan Davies (Department of Geography) recently featured her work on S4C’s science series Dibendraw.  Professor Davies currently leads an ambitious £1.2 million five-year research project entitled "Tephra constraints on rapid climate events (TRACE)", funded through one of the European Research Council’s Starting Grants, which are designed to support promising researchers in Europe who have the proven potential of becoming research leaders.  The research aims to unlock the secrets of past climate change, by examining microscopic layers of volcanic ash deposited in ancient ice and marine sediments.

Professor Davies’s team employ a pioneering approach, using the microscopic traces of ash left from volcanic eruptions to precisely match Greenland ice-cores, which provide a record of atmospheric variability, with North Atlantic marine records, depicting changes in the ocean circulation system.

Swansea Physicist talks about ALPHA experiment at CERN

Physics Research Officer, Dr Aled Isaac, part of a team of scientists from the ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus) collaboration at CERN who are working towards the understanding of the behaviour of antimatter, also appeared on S4C’s Dibendraw.  The work of CERN and the Higgs boson, which the LHC was built to find was also featured.  Professor Peter Higgs, the scientist who gave his name to the Higgs boson particle, has strong ties to Swansea University and in July 2008, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship.  Professor Higgs returned to Swansea University in July 2012, to give a talk to more than 100 scientists from around the globe at the 10th International Conference on Strong and ElectroWeak Matter, in the wake of the exciting announcements from CERN about the discovery of the Higgs boson.

New research project will help save UK forests, woods and trees

Swansea University has won a share of a £7m funding pot which will develop research into improving the understanding of tree pests and pathogens, and associated plant biosecurity and help address threats to UK forests, woods and trees.

Swansea University’s research is one of seven new research projects to receive funding under the multi-disciplinary Tree Health and Plant Biosecurity Initiative (THAPBI) which will generate knowledge to tackle pests and diseases and to support the future health of the UK's woodlands, commercial forests and urban trees. The societal benefits of the UK’s trees are estimated at around £1.8 billion per year.

Swansea’s project, led by Professor Tariq Butt, receives £900K for its research into the Biological Pest Control of Insect Pests that Threaten Tree Health (BIPESCO). Professor Butt said “ We are delighted with the award of funding for our interdisciplinary project that will use botanicals and biocontrol with entomopathogenic fungi (EPF) to kill and control insect pests that pose a threat to UK trees. BIPESCO will develop these natural alternatives to conventional chemical pesticides, of which usage is being severely restricted.”

This research has attracted global media coverage.

Computer Science research helping to fight the rise of the app attackers

Research funding to determine the vulnerability of Antarctic ice shelves

Swansea Salmon Research Group develops programme to identify hatchery fish

Associate Professor Markus Roggenbach, from the Department of Computer Science, has received a share of £3 million funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to undertake research to counter cyber-criminals who are using malicious apps which can collude with each other to infect people’s smartphones.  Malware attacks are rising year on year and over one million new Android malware attacks were identified in 2013 by McAfee, a division of Intel Security.  Malicious apps can gain access to address books, GPS coordinates, passwords or pin numbers. They can redirect your data across the net, send you to phishing sites and also bypass the two-step authentication process used to access an ever-increasing number of online services such as banking or email.

The Swansea Glaciology Group, in collaboration with Aberystwyth University and other partners, has been awarded a major new research grant to study Antarctic ice shelves. In February, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) awarded the team £750k, £500k of which will come to Swansea. The three-year project is led by Professor Adrian Luckman with Co-investigators Dr Bernd Kulessa and Dr Ian Rutt, while Dr Suzanne Bevan has recently been appointed as Research Officer. The project, entitled “Impact of surface melt and ponding on ice shelf dynamics and stability” will undertake a programme of field geophysics, satellite remote sensing and numerical modelling on Larsen C ice shelf to investigate the past and future response of ice shelves to atmospheric warming. This programme will include two 8-week field deployments to Antarctica in late 2014 and 2015 involving five researchers from Swansea and Aberystwyth. The goal of the project is to determine the vulnerability of Antarctic ice shelves to collapse over the next 200 years.

(Image by Alison Cook)

Over the last few years, the Swansea Salmon Research Group led by Dr Carlos Garcia de Leaniz and Dr Sofia Consuegra has worked closely with Natural Resources Wales and Welsh Water to develop a traceability programme for identifying hatchery fish in salmon stocking projects in Wales. Working closely with Llyn-y-Fan hatchery and supported by funding from Welsh Government through SEACAMS, broodstock were sampled, genetically tagged and released last year as the first step in this ongoing programme of research.

Tortoise dung reveal changes to the eco-system

Swansea University scientists are studying fossilized tortoise dung to shed more light on the changing eco-system of the Galapagos islands.  Discover Magazine features the work of the Department of Geography’s ecologist, Dr Cynthia Froyd and her colleagues, who are researching how the landscape of the Galapagos Islands has changed since tortoise numbers dropped in the 16th century.

BookMark app to help locate books in Swansea University’s Library

A research project in the Department of Computer Science has been looking at ways of repurposing everyday physical objects digitally. As part of this, they appropriated the hundreds of thousands of barcodes that are already on books in Swansea University's Library and Information Centre to support low-cost, scalable indoor navigation.

Any barcode in the library is now a "signpost" to any other – their app lets you scan any book's code to get a detailed map from where you are right to the bookshelf holding the item you are looking for.

The app is available on Google Play:

Research in Ethiopia to establish reasons for recent droughts

Dr Iain Robertson (Department of Geography, Swansea University), Dr Park Williams (Columbia University, USA), Dr Tommy Wils (Rotterdam University, Netherlands), Dr Marcin Koprowski (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland) and Dr Zewdu Eshetu (Addis Ababa University) recently conducted a National Geographic-funded palaeoclimatic project in Ethiopia. Cores were obtained from 65 juniper trees growing in the grounds of churches in the Ethiopian Highlands. The long-term aim of this research is to establish if the recent droughts are part of a natural climate cycle or exacerbated by anthropogenic influences. Stable isotopes will be measured on these samples to investigate the demise in the proportion of moisture transported out of the Congo Basin towards the Horn of Africa. As the Congo Basin acts as the primary source of moisture to much of the Ethiopian Highlands, the suggested shift in precipitation source may have significant impacts on the amount of rainfall received in the region. A joint lecture on the preliminary results of the research was given to the Climate Science Centre at Addis Ababa University.

OTHER NEWS AND EVENTS

Computer Science research project on extending the classical Curry-Howard correspondence to hypersequent calculus and parallel processes

Bridging the Gaps Travel to Grenoble

Dr Arnold Beckmann (Computer Science, Swansea University), in collaboration with Dr Norbert Preining (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), has been awarded a Royal Society Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation International Exchanges Award.

A celebrated result, bridging proof theory and theory of computation, is given by the Curry-Howard correspondence.  It enables us to see proofs of formulas expressing specifications as programs solving the specification.  The aim of this project is to go beyond the traditional Curry-Howard correspondence and extend it to a wider class of proof theoretic calculi, and a wider class of computational models.  In particular, they want to treat communication and parallelism in a similar way.

Dr Bernd Kulessa has been awarded a 'Bridging the Gaps Travel to Grenoble' grant. In June 2014 he will visit the Institut des Sciences de la Terre (ISTerre) (Université Joseph Fourier / CNRS) and the Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l’Environnement (LGGE) to consolidate existing and establish new collaborations in the seismic, radar and seismoelectric geophysical assessment of ice masses, to pave the way to future joint Horizon 2020 bids, and to deliver a seminar on recent advances in Polar ice sheet research.

Major donation given to University’s History of Computing Collection

International EMMI workshop SIGN 2014 a great success

Grant awarded for collaborative work on the seismoelectric geogphysical method for glaciological applications

Swansea University’s History of Computing Collection has received a major donation of notes, papers and books that belonged to computational pioneer Leslie John Comrie FRS (1893-1950).  Professor Tucker said: “We are delighted to have this important collection at the HOCC. Comrie had a prolific and important career. He trained as a chemist and was especially interested in astronomic calculations – a lunar crater and an asteroid are named for him. However, his work on computation was universal and he made many important contributions in the course of the Second World War. In engineering and industry, Comrie helped lay the basis of our contemporary abilities in simulation.”

The EMMI workshop SIGN 2014 on the Sign Problem in QCD and beyond, which took place at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany in February, was deemed a great success. The meeting, organised by Professor Gert Aarts of the Physics Department of Swansea University's College of Science and co-organised by Professor Owe Philipsen of the Goethe Universitaet Frankfurt am Main, brought together 75 scientists from Europe, Japan, China and the USA to exchange results on the resolution of the so-called sign problem in Quantum Chromodynamics and related theories.

Dr Bernd Kulessa (Department of Geography) has been awarded an International Exchanges Grant from the Royal Society, which will foster collaboration with Professor Karl Butler, University of New Brunswick Fredericton, in the development of the seismoelectric geophysical method for glaciological applications. The collaboration was kick-started during Bernd's five-month sabbatical visit to New Brunswick in 2011, at the time supported by a Harrison McCain Foundation Visiting Professorship. Karl will now visit Swansea for two weeks in May / June 2014, and Bernd will visit New Brunswick for six weeks in the summer of 2014 - a great opportunity to prepare publications arising from their joint glacier seismoelectric and other geophysical research conducted in southern Iceland in the 2013 summer, in collaboration with Dr John Hiemstra (Department of Geography) and other UK colleagues!

Centre for NanoHealth welcomes new Co-Director

Swansea University’s Centre for NanoHealth (CNH) has welcomed a new addition to its Board of Directors.  Professor Huw Summers, current Chair of Nanotechnology for Health and Head of the Multidisciplinary Nanotechnology Centre at Swansea University joins the Centre’s existing Directors, Professor Steve Wilks and Professor Steve Conlan, to take CNH into its next phase of development.

The Centre, which was established five years ago, combines nanotechnology with medical science to provide opportunities to develop innovative solutions to the world’s challenge of detecting the onset of diseases at the earliest stage.

Two amigos’ South American CRYathlon challenge in aid of heart charity

Steven Jones will embark on the CRYathlon challenge with support on the cycling leg from fellow alumnus, Tim Butt (BSc Geography and MSc Environmental Dynamics and Climate Change). The CRYathlon is made up of a coast to coast 1,000 mile cycle from Buenos Aires to Santiago, across the Pampas lowlands; a three peak hiking challenge over the Andes Mountain range; and a canoeing challenge covering over 1,000 miles of the Amazon River, from Iguitos in Peru to Manaus, the capital of the Amazonas.  Tim Butt, aged 23, who suffered a near-fatal cardiac arrest last year said: “The South America Challenge marks the start of a series of challenge-based fundraising under the banner CRYathlon, through which we aim to raise a target of £15,000 to fund heart screening and medical research through CRY."

Physics Professor elected to Council of the Learned Society of Wales

Professor Mike Charlton of Swansea University has been elected to the Council of the Learned Society of Wales - the organisation which celebrates Welsh learning internationally and is a source of authoritative, scholarly and critical comment and advice on policy issues affecting Wales.

Professor Charlton who has been at the University for over 14 years is the head of Department of Physics, and also is Chair of Experimental Physics. He is part of a team of scientists from Swansea that are members of the ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus) collaboration at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research).

The ALPHA experiment aims to compare hydrogen and antihydrogen, in order to study fundamental symmetries between matter and antimatter and to shed light on how the universe came about. The ALPHA collaboration has been able to create antihydrogen atoms, hold onto them for long periods of time, and perform first experiments measuring their spectral properties.

Professor Charlton said: “It is a great privilege to be elected to the Council of the Learned Society of Wales and I look forward to working with colleagues to help promote the role of the Society, and in particular its activities connected to science and its applications, both in Wales and beyond.”

View Professor Charlton describing his work here:

To read previous editions of the College of Science Newsletter:

For further details on any item reported above, please contact the member of staff concerned, or email Mrs Sandra Kramcha