[BIOLOGY] Biology + Physics = an excuse to talk about cute spiders! 🕸️

With spider season approaching and many arachnid species starting to reach maturity you may notice a few more spiders scurrying around. For those of you who are scared of spiders this must sound like a nightmare - but perhaps learning a bit more about these misunderstood arthropods will help you see them for the marvellous creatures they are. As you may already know, some spider species spin webs providing many uses for them, one of these is in catching prey! But using webs also comes with some physical challenges that spiders must overcome. One of the ones I find most interesting is how they are not overstimulated by all the non-prey vibrations they might encounter (e.g wind blowing, leaves falling into their web. etc). There are far too many stimuli for their brains to compute all at once - so many spiders distinguish between important vibrations and unimportant ones using their legs instead!

💡 Things to Consider

• Morphological computation: This is known as morphological computation, and happens in many different organisms. It even happens in humans, and plays a big role in allowing us to hear (or not hear) certain frequencies. How do you think a spider’s physical characteristics (for spiders this is their legs) filter or amplify certain waves?

• Webs and behaviour: Vibrations can also travel through a spider's web, however different parts of the web will vibrate by different amounts (for example the centre will oscillate far more than the edges). How might spider behaviour determine how it experiences an incoming wave? Behaviour here refers to the different decisions a spider would make.

• Survival of the fittest: The theory of evolution by means of natural selection helps to explain the diversity of all life on earth. In biology we often talk about evolution in terms of fitness. Something that contributes to increasing chances of producing offspring is said to be an increase in fitness or a fitness benefit. Alternatively, something that would decrease your chances is known as a fitness cost. For the phenomena of morphological computation in spider legs, spiders spinning webs to filter certain waves, and spiders behaving in certain ways to experience waves incident on their webs, how might this increase their overall fitness (and thus be selected for by natural selection)?

[INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS] Clash of civilisations: are geopolitical actors rational? 🌎

The field of International Relations has traditionally agreed upon one core principle. Realists and liberals (the two main schools of thought in IR scholarship) may disagree on the likelihood of inter-state cooperation or inter-state conflict, but they do typically agree on one thing: all states are rational actors driven firmly by self-interest and the need for survival. Such a worldview would suggest that, when push comes to shove, little separates strategists in Beijing or Washington. They may have different resources and challenges, yet each views geopolitics through the same fundamental lens. In other words, the world of geopolitics resembles a chess game in which the players are cold-blooded poker players unblinded by sentimentality or cultural perspectives.

Is this really the case? Recent decades have seen a rise in the constructivist school of thought, which argues that state actors are shaped fundamentally by behavioural factors, both internally and externally. In other words, states are not entirely rational – rather, they can be influenced by all manner of cultural factors and behave in seemingly irrational ways. Take the growing rivalry between China and the US. A constructivist would argue that each state’s foreign policy is shaped not just by material resources and strategic realities, but also by fundamental cultural differences. For example, scholars have suggested that each nation has a cultural ‘superiority complex’ stemming from their national histories, be that American exceptionalism or the ‘Mandate of Heaven’. By extension, Chinese expansion into the South China Sea is just as much a product of cultural perspectives as strategic realities. Whichever side is correct, the debate over the rationality of geopolitical actors is not going away any time soon…

💡 Things to Consider

• Clash of civilisations: One of the more famous expressions of the impact of cultural factors on world politics was expressed by Samuel Huntingdon in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntingdon argues that cultural and religious differences will be the primary cause of future international conflict, an argument which would suggest that states are not as rational as one might think. Consider reading this most controversial of books.

• Global Britain: Consider British foreign policy since the Brexit referendum of 2016. To what extent have policies towards Europe been influenced by cultural factors?

• Realism and liberalism: Constructivism is a relatively new school of thought directly inspired by social sciences such as anthropology and sociology. Realism and liberalism, however, are as old as the discipline of International Relations itself. Research the main points of disagreement between realists and liberals and consider which you find more convincing in explaining international politics.

🔎 Find out more

• How England’s competing world views may shape the UK’s foreign policy

• Huntingdon, E. (1996). The Clash Of Civilizations: And The Remaking Of World Order.

[MEDICINE] Vaccines – will mRNA render other forms of vaccine obsolete? 💉

Over the past 3 years, vaccination has been at the forefront of public knowledge due to the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown flashbacks. Vaccination exploits the body’s memory system to safely induce an immune response, conferring protection against a specific infection/disease. It is an incredibly effective method of preventing disease but is it now possible that ‘older’ forms of vaccine will become obsolete?

Modern vaccination has grown from Edward Jenner’s 1798 smallpox vaccine, but all use the same general principle: weakened antigenic material from the pathogen is injected to evoke a memory B and T cell response. The most recent advancement in this area is the use of mRNA vaccines (Pfizer ringing a bell for anyone?). Instead of live or killed pathogenic material (as commonly used in the past), mRNA vaccines introduce the body to the genetic instructions which trick it into making the viral material itself. This results in an immune response. The Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine specifically encodes for an area of the spike protein on the surface of the Covid-19 virus. It is delivered (injected) inside a lipid nanoparticle which prevents breakdown of the unstable mRNA.

💡 Things to Consider

• Safety: Many currently used vaccines are of the killed/inactivated type (e.g. influenza, rabies). This means that the pathogenic material is first inactivated before being injected. Therefore, it is unable to replicate and spread inside the body. However, issues have arisen in the past involving incomplete inactivation of the pathogen (see the 1955 Cutter incident, involving the Salk polio vaccine). mRNA vaccines would avoid this potential problem as they do not contain whole pathogen. Does this make mRNA vaccines much safer than other commonly used types or are there other safety concerns to consider?

• Specificity: As mentioned above, the Pfizer vaccine contains the mRNA for a specific area of the Covid-19 virus. This means that the vaccine only triggers a response to the virus’ spike protein (an area which allows the virus to invade our cells). The immune system has been ‘pre-warned’ of the way that the Covid-19 virus infects and spreads. As a result, the specificity of the response is much greater than if a whole pathogen was injected. Consider whether this idea could be translated to and used in vaccines for other common infections which often evade an immune response (e.g. influenza, tuberculosis, malaria).

• Production time: Most vaccines are grown via repeated passages in a foreign host (e.g. chicken eggs). This means that the process of generating a ‘traditional’ vaccine is long and complex, sometimes taking more than 10 years. However, mRNA vaccines are made from DNA templates via a biochemical process in the lab. This is a much more rapid process, taking as little as a week to generate an experimental batch of mRNA vaccines. Emerging pathogens require a vaccine as quick as possible, so this is an important factor to consider. Scientists are even beginning mRNA vaccine development for Disease X...

🔎 Find out more

• A brief history of vaccination (WHO)

• mRNA technology (Pfizer)

• The Cutter Incident (Wikipedia)

• Why don’t we have vaccines against everything? (NY Times)

[LANGUAGES] Should anglicisms be banned? 🚨

Nearly every language in the world has words that originally come from another language. English has become the language of technology, trade, and communication. Many young people these days use English words deriving from internet slang in their everyday speech even if English isn’t their first language. In the field of work, many languages have adopted terms like ‘brainstorming’ and ‘to-do list’. Most anglicisms (a word or phrase borrowed from English into a foreign language) are present in the world of technology because of constant new inventions and the speed with which technology changes – it can be easier to just keep the English word!

However, some countries are worried anglicisms are threatening their native languages and believe that anglicisms should be banned.

💡 Things to Consider

• Loan words: Loan words are part of a completely normal linguistic process called borrowing, in which a language adopts a word from another language. This can happen for many reasons such as geographical proximity, colonisation and invasion, or the word describes a concept that does not exist in the native language. Anglicisms are a part of the borrowing process. The process is just occurring faster nowadays than in the past because of globalisation – the constant access to other languages and fast technological development means it may only take a couple of years for native speakers to adopt a loan word instead of decades.

• Language Protection: One of the main arguments for the banning of these words is to protect the native language. It can appear nationalistic to try and ban other words and portray your language as ‘pure’ and with no loan words when that is rarely the case. However, this is the banning of loan words. The rate at which anglicisms are appearing in other languages is rapidly increasing and is causing alarm for some linguistic institutes. This excessive use of anglicisms is seen as threatening the preservation of a country’s native language. Is it right for a country to protect its language, especially if it doesn’t protect its native minority languages?

• Law and Enforcement: One of the main issues with the ban on anglicisms is that it is difficult to enforce. Italy is trying to introduce a law which would see people fined up to €100,000 for using foreign words. The Académie française has a list of ‘banned’ loanwords which can be found on their website and in 1998 the French passed the Toubon Law which states French is the only language which can be used in government publications. The issue is reinforcing these bans. How is it possible to regulate an entire country’s use of a language? How can you stop someone from saying a particular word? How can you prevent a natural linguistic process?

🔎 Find out more

• The Franglais Controversy

• Pseudo-Anglicisms

🗳️ Poll

👀 Keep your eyes peeled for…

• Boletín - a great newsletter/website for A-Level Spanish students (and teachers) to help you read authentic texts, develop a deeper understanding of the Spanish speaking world, and practise exam questions. Highly recommended by the UniScoops team!

• Cambridge University - Pembroke College Interview Webinars (this week: Archaeology, Biology, Classics, English, Maths)

• UEA - Webinar: Languages taster lecture (French media)

• UEA - Webinar: why do people go to University?

• UEA - Webinar: Film Studies taster lecture ('Moon' and 'Ex Machina')

• UEA - Webinar: A step-by-step guide to writing a standout personal statement

• University of Oxford - English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT) Livestreams: Session 1

• University of Oxford - Webinar: MAT past test papers: 2017 & 2018

• University of York - In-person lecture: The politics of playing with history