Issue 61

28 April - 11 May 1998

Media mentions

A hard day’s night

One of the biggest barriers to the development of a 24-hour society is the fact that people are neither physiologically nor psychologically suited to it. This is essential to understand, says Dr Russell Foster, Department of Biology. Speaking to the Times (13.3.98) about his belief that drug companies have missed valuable treatments because they weren’t tailored to body clocks, he commented: “If we stop thinking about physiology as a constant and treat it as a continually changing cycle, we can begin to treat killers such as heart disease and cancer much more effectively.”

Virtually through the keyhole

A visit by researchers from St Mary’s to Segaworld at the London Trocadero interested both the Times (30.3.98) and the Daily Telegraph (16.4.98). Computer game players from Segaworld were asked to test their skills against a virtual reality simulator being developed to train surgeons for keyhole surgery. The aim of the project is to discover whether virtual reality simulators are effective at distinguishing between computer games experts and fully trained, experienced surgeons. Nick Taffinder, who is conducting the trial, said: “Virtual reality would be a big boost for keyhole surgery training. The simulator is in its infancy, but we wanted to see how other people who use eye-hand control coped with our machine.”

A cracking detective

Dr Christina Young, who divides her time between the Department of Physics and the Tate Gallery, has been working on a method to spot cracks in paintings before they actually occur. Her research caught the attention of the Economist (28.3.98), after she spoke at the Institute of Physics annual congress in Brighton, which described how she used an electronic speckle-pattern interferometry (EPSI) to find the areas where paint is under stress and will later crack. Dr Young also spoke to Science Now, (BBC Radio 4, 21.3.98) about her investigations and how she is putting less valuable works, including some of her own, through ‘environmental assault courses’ to gain experience in prediction.

Prevention still better than cure

Professor Larry Hench, Department of Materials, appeared on BBC1 Breakfast News (31.3.98) describing his research into the prevention of the thinning and ageing of bones. His group is looking for new techniques using bioactive materials which work with the body to regenerate failing bones, he explained. The Financial Times (17.3.98) also ran a feature about bodily regeneration mentioning Professor Hench’s Bioglass® and his recent ideas about body self-repair. He told the paper that a growing understanding of the body’s own repair processes will lead to the development of drugs able to stop the thinning of bones. He said the future could lie in prevention, rather than cure.