SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Convenor Valerie Conniff email valerie@vconniff.plus.com
The meetings are a presentation on a scientific or technical topic from a speaker or audiovisual presentation, followed by a question and answer session. Visits to places of scientific interest are arranged, usually during the spring or summer.
The group meets on the 2nd Tuesday afternoon of every month, except August, at Mitchel Troy Village Hall from 2.30 to 4.00pm. There is no restriction on membership and the subscription of £10 per year covers hire costs and speaker expenses. Meetings are open to the general membership but a charge of £2 per meeting is requested to cover set up costs.
The group meets on the 2nd Tuesday afternoon of every month, except August, at Mitchel Troy Village Hall from 2.30 to 4.00pm. There is no restriction on membership and the subscription of £10 per year covers hire costs and speaker expenses. Meetings are open to the general membership but a charge of £2 per meeting is requested to cover set up costs.
Date of next meeting: Tuesday February 11th, 2.30pm Mitchel Troy Village Hall
Recycling in Monmouth Carl Touhig, Monmouthshire County Council
Recycling in Monmouth Carl Touhig, Monmouthshire County Council
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A message from Val We are a friendly group and an important part of our meetings is the informal discussion over a cup of tea after we have finished questioning our invited Speaker. There is no limit on membership and I welcome new members to our Science and Technology Group. No personal technical qualification is required to join the group, just a keen interest in science and technology in its broadest sense. Best wishes Val Previous Meetings and Trips |
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January 14th 2020 A Layman’s Guide to Defence against Disease
In spite (or because! ) of inclement weather our first meeting of the New Year was well attended. Alan Francis, one of our group members guided us through the causes and treatment of diseases from man’s earliest misconceptions to our present understanding based on scientific evidence.
There are many causes of disease e.g. inherited, auto-immune, environmental, nutritional, behavioural and idiopathic, in addition to those caused by pathogens. Pathogens are the living organisms that cause disease and include viruses, bacteria, protozoa, fungi and multicellular organisms like tapeworms. Viruses are different from the other pathogens in that they are microscopic parasites and can only reproduce inside another organism.
The occurrence of disease can be classified into four categories depending on its severity: sporadic, endemic, epidemic and pandemic. A classic example of the latter is the influenza outbreak in 1918-20 which is believed to have originated in the USA and travelled to Europe with US troops. Contagion was exacerbated by the movement of large groups of people post WW1 and resulted in a very high mortality with an estimated 50 million deaths, mostly young to middle-aged. Influenza is a viral infection and because viruses were unknown at that time scientists were treating it as a bacterial infection, with no success.
Bacteria are only harmful when they are in the wrong place. The human body contains ten times more bacterial cells than body cells, with an estimated 2 to 3 kilogrammes per person. However, some can be deadly and the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) is a bacterial infection which spread through Europe in 1347 to 1350 resulting in an estimated 50% mortality rate. The Great Plague of London in 1665 -1666 which killed 70,000 people is another example of bubonic plague.
Alan described, with the help of informative diagrams and animations, the ways in which diseases are spread, the body’s natural defence systems and particularly the function of white blood cells in combating infection ---- our passive defence mechanism. He then went on to discuss adaptive immunity which is the specific response to a particular pathogen and can provide long lasting protection. Vaccination, first introduced by Jenner against smallpox in 1796, produces acquired immunity without infection. The vaccine can be a weakened form of the live pathogen (as in the MMR vaccine) or a dead pathogen. The vaccine stimulates the body to produce antibodies and provides long term protection against the disease. Vaccination has virtually eliminated the infectious diseases that were fatal in the past. It is regrettable that the latest figures show a small decline in the uptake of MMR vaccinations.
Progress in hygiene and the discovery of the powerful antibacterial drug penicillin have made their contribution to our defence against disease also. The fight against bacteria will go on as they develop resistance to antibiotics over time. Valerie Conniff
Science and Technology group meeting -- 10th December
For our end of year meeting we welcomed two of our own members talking about their careers.
Stephen McMenemy spoke about his ‘Career in Naval Shipbuilding 1975 – 2018’. Most of his career was based at Vickers Shipping and Engineering at Barrow in Furness. His apprenticeship and early training focused on becoming a ship’s draughtsman. Early projects involved working on HMS Invincible and then Trafalgar Class submarines where he specialised on structural design.
He then moved onto work on HMS Vanguard a nuclear powered submarine armed with US Trident missiles. From 2006 he was involved in development work on the HMS Dreadnought submarine.
From 2012 to 2016 he was based in Connecticut in a liaison role with the US builders working on the missile compartments common to both countries submarines. Finally returning to Barrow he was the UK Anglicization Manager ensuring that everyone worked from the same imperial measurement hymn sheet.
…………………………
Alan Manson introduced his talk by referring to how tea bags in the UK were first produced by Tetley in 1953 at Bletchley. Leaving school he responded to an advert to become an apprentice tea taster.
He told us about the characteristics of different teas and hence the importance of the blenders in achieving the right finished blend. He worked his way up becoming both the chief tea blender and manager of the Bletchley site. He too spent time in the US in Pennsylvania, having effectively been told he had to go there by the delightfully named UK head, Mr Tetley Ironsides Tetley–Jones.
In a world where 97% of our tea now comes in tea bags, Tetley [now part of the Tata Global Beverages brand] is the third largest supplier after Taylors and PG tips. And so to tea bags or mulled punch and nibbles. Jim Handley
Tuesday 12th November 2019 – Living with a Leaf: Bob Handley
The talk this month, with an enigmatic title, was given by Bob Handley who is a member of Monmouth U3A. Any expectations that this was going to be something botanical was soon overturned when Bob started to talk about his decision to purchase a Leaf, a Nissan Leaf.
The Leaf is a fully electric car which has been in production for some time. Bob purchased his car about eighteen months ago and has been monitoring his use of the vehicle. For him this was a second car in the household. Throughout the talk he stressed that the choices he made were based on his circumstances and everyone who considered changing away from a diesel or petrol engine model would need to make the decision based on their personal circumstances.
His choice of vehicle was a three year old Leaf with a 24KWh battery, for which he paid approximately £10,000. This battery size was one of the smaller batteries in production at the time and many cars now have much larger batteries.
He has elected to charge the battery from a 13Amp domestic socket rather than a dedicated 7KW charger which can be fitted at home, typically for less than £500. Using the domestic socket allows the car to be charged to full capacity in eight hours. This gave a range of approximately 80 miles. The car was purchased from a dealer in Glastonbury and charged to 80% of its maximum giving a range of 65 miles. This was the first introduction to “range anxiety” which is a reason many people do not switch to pure electric vehicles (EV). However, Bob prefers the expression “Range Awareness”. Plan your journeys and include stops for re-charging if necessary. Regular return trips to the Llandovery area (134 miles) include a planned stop at a Peterstone Hotel which provides a 13 Amp charge point free of charge, although you have to pay for lunch while you wait!
Payment arrangements for charging at public charge-points typically involve the use of a mobile phone but with time payment systems are making this easier. There are, confusingly, several different types of public chargers.
In hilly areas most electric cars benefit from regenerative braking where the battery can receive small amounts of charge from an energy recovery mechanism. Temperature affects range which is typically quoted at 23°C.
Bob uses his domestic solar panels to charge the Leaf as much as possible contributing anything from a third to two thirds of the power, depending on the time of year.
Nissan guarantee their batteries for 60,000 miles/5 years but if used carefully (maintaining charge in the range 20-80%) will last nearer ten years. They can then be refurbished for about £2500 or replaced for £5000.
Based on his usage, mainly shorter journeys, Bob estimated that the cost of ownership was less than half compared with, for example, a Toyota Auris. Again it was stressed that this was a calculation based on personal circumstances.
Overall, Bob was clearly very pleased with the Leaf and he and his wife enjoyed driving it. However, there are obvious concerns over longer journeys and in the bigger environmental debate concerns over electricity being generated by polluting power plants.
A few members of the audience also owned an EV and they were very positive about their choices. As Bob reiterated, it comes down to personal circumstances. Michael Bone
October 8th 2019 Life in the Freezer
This month we were privileged to have Dr Elizabeth Bagshaw, Senior Lecturer in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Cardiff University, as our speaker. There could be no-one better qualified to address this topic as Dr Bagshaw has spent most of her professional life working in the field of Polar Science. She first visited the Antarctic during the first year of her doctorate research and has made three further trips since then as well as eleven visits to Greenland, where she now concentrates her research.
The Antarctic is the coldest, windiest, driest place on earth, Scott called it “an awful place” with temperatures reaching minus 90 degrees Celsius and winds of 200 miles per hour. No humans live permanently there, but scientists work on the science stations and it supports animals adapted to the cold such as penguins, seals, nematodes and tardigrades. Dr Bagshaw listed the survival strategies for creatures in these extreme conditions as furry, fatty, fluffy, fly or float and she illustrated this with examples.
It was not until 1999 that evidence of microbial life below the ice was discovered. As all living organisms need liquid water and an energy source to survive, it was difficult to imagine this being achieved under layers of ice where no sunlight could penetrate. The explanation lies in the existence of cryoconite holes. Cryoconite is a windblown dust, made up of small rock particles and microbes, which is deposited and builds up on glaciers and ice caps. This darkening of the surface absorbs solar radiation leading to the melting of the snow or ice below forming long cylindrical holes. The cryoconite sinks forming a deposit at the bottom which is known as a cryoconite hole. In winter an ice lid can form over the hole enclosing a small amount of water to sustain the microbes. These resulting ecosystems can survive for thousands of years without contact with the outside world.
Many different types of microbes, some heavily pigmented, have been identified and have found ways of adapting to their environment.
Dr Bagshaw’s research team have developed a “cryoegg” , a device the size of a grapefruit, which contains a circuit board and measures the temperature, pressure and conductivity of the surrounding meltwater. In Greenland this summer, a one and a half kilometer hole was drilled into the ice and the cryoegg lowered into the hole to collect data for analysis. These measurements will help us to understand how life can exist in these extreme conditions.
This research has wider applications: it can act as a model for life in Mars, it can predict what will happen when climate changes. On the biological side, microbes generate nutrients, what happens to them? What is in the melt water? These are but a few of the questions to be answered. It is remarkable that so much work has been done in twenty years , especially considering the experimental difficulties that have to be overcome. Valerie Conniff
10th September 2019 Solar Flight, Past, Present and Future Speaker: Phil Charlesworth
Phil Charlesworth is no stranger to the Science and Technology Group having previously talked about what he describes as his hobby, ‘amateur rocketry’. At this meeting Phil was talking about what used to be his day job at Airbus, until he retired and was poached by Liverpool Hope University.
Phil first talked about the generalities of solar flight which at the simplest means using solar energy to power a heavier than air machine which can stay in the air for a very long time, several days in fact. This is achieved by storing excess energy generated from solar cells to maintain flight during the hours of darkness. Although Phil admitted solar planes are in effect flying batteries, the planes do carry a small payload which is the reason for their development.
To do this you need a very light fuselage with a large surface area of wings which are covered in solar panels, a couple of electric motors, some batteries and an energy management system (EMS). The EMS controls all aspects of the flight by directing excess energy to the battery during the daytime and managing the flow of energy to the motors during the day and night, as well as providing energy to the payload which might be some sort of video-surveillance system. Using such a system it is possible to put a plane at heights of 17-18 km and keep it flying there for several days.
The reason for flying so high is that at that height the wind speeds are much lower than ground level so there is much less energy loss to resistance. However, the temperatures at that height place some very real pressures on the materials used, particularly for the batteries. The latitude the plane flies at is also important since at higher latitudes the ability to recharge the battery during winter months reduces the amount of flying time possible.
Phil made clear that the current state of solar powered flight is very much due to some modern technological advances including carbon fibre for weight reduction, ‘outrunner’ electric motors which being brushless greatly reduce friction losses, low temperature systems, computation fluid dynamics which has allowed improved low speed aerofoil design and 3D printing which has resulted in producing components more efficiently using less material. Other emerging technologies which have facilitated the developments in solar flight include very high specific energy batteries and very thin and flexible solar cells with efficiencies approaching 20% or more.
The history of solar flight can be traced to the 1950s but most advances have been in the last 10 or 15 years. A surprising number of companies have tried to develop solar planes, possibly because of military applications but these have now largely receded in the face of more humanitarian possibilities like disaster monitoring, search and rescue and improving internet coverage in isolated communities and tsunami detection.
Although Phil says that his former company Airbus is probably 10 years ahead of other companies his work with Liverpool Hope University is progressing well to the extent that he is currently building a solar electric aircraft in his garage! I, for one, am envious that he has enough space in his garage to even consider such a project. Guy Moody
In spite (or because! ) of inclement weather our first meeting of the New Year was well attended. Alan Francis, one of our group members guided us through the causes and treatment of diseases from man’s earliest misconceptions to our present understanding based on scientific evidence.
There are many causes of disease e.g. inherited, auto-immune, environmental, nutritional, behavioural and idiopathic, in addition to those caused by pathogens. Pathogens are the living organisms that cause disease and include viruses, bacteria, protozoa, fungi and multicellular organisms like tapeworms. Viruses are different from the other pathogens in that they are microscopic parasites and can only reproduce inside another organism.
The occurrence of disease can be classified into four categories depending on its severity: sporadic, endemic, epidemic and pandemic. A classic example of the latter is the influenza outbreak in 1918-20 which is believed to have originated in the USA and travelled to Europe with US troops. Contagion was exacerbated by the movement of large groups of people post WW1 and resulted in a very high mortality with an estimated 50 million deaths, mostly young to middle-aged. Influenza is a viral infection and because viruses were unknown at that time scientists were treating it as a bacterial infection, with no success.
Bacteria are only harmful when they are in the wrong place. The human body contains ten times more bacterial cells than body cells, with an estimated 2 to 3 kilogrammes per person. However, some can be deadly and the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) is a bacterial infection which spread through Europe in 1347 to 1350 resulting in an estimated 50% mortality rate. The Great Plague of London in 1665 -1666 which killed 70,000 people is another example of bubonic plague.
Alan described, with the help of informative diagrams and animations, the ways in which diseases are spread, the body’s natural defence systems and particularly the function of white blood cells in combating infection ---- our passive defence mechanism. He then went on to discuss adaptive immunity which is the specific response to a particular pathogen and can provide long lasting protection. Vaccination, first introduced by Jenner against smallpox in 1796, produces acquired immunity without infection. The vaccine can be a weakened form of the live pathogen (as in the MMR vaccine) or a dead pathogen. The vaccine stimulates the body to produce antibodies and provides long term protection against the disease. Vaccination has virtually eliminated the infectious diseases that were fatal in the past. It is regrettable that the latest figures show a small decline in the uptake of MMR vaccinations.
Progress in hygiene and the discovery of the powerful antibacterial drug penicillin have made their contribution to our defence against disease also. The fight against bacteria will go on as they develop resistance to antibiotics over time. Valerie Conniff
Science and Technology group meeting -- 10th December
For our end of year meeting we welcomed two of our own members talking about their careers.
Stephen McMenemy spoke about his ‘Career in Naval Shipbuilding 1975 – 2018’. Most of his career was based at Vickers Shipping and Engineering at Barrow in Furness. His apprenticeship and early training focused on becoming a ship’s draughtsman. Early projects involved working on HMS Invincible and then Trafalgar Class submarines where he specialised on structural design.
He then moved onto work on HMS Vanguard a nuclear powered submarine armed with US Trident missiles. From 2006 he was involved in development work on the HMS Dreadnought submarine.
From 2012 to 2016 he was based in Connecticut in a liaison role with the US builders working on the missile compartments common to both countries submarines. Finally returning to Barrow he was the UK Anglicization Manager ensuring that everyone worked from the same imperial measurement hymn sheet.
…………………………
Alan Manson introduced his talk by referring to how tea bags in the UK were first produced by Tetley in 1953 at Bletchley. Leaving school he responded to an advert to become an apprentice tea taster.
He told us about the characteristics of different teas and hence the importance of the blenders in achieving the right finished blend. He worked his way up becoming both the chief tea blender and manager of the Bletchley site. He too spent time in the US in Pennsylvania, having effectively been told he had to go there by the delightfully named UK head, Mr Tetley Ironsides Tetley–Jones.
In a world where 97% of our tea now comes in tea bags, Tetley [now part of the Tata Global Beverages brand] is the third largest supplier after Taylors and PG tips. And so to tea bags or mulled punch and nibbles. Jim Handley
Tuesday 12th November 2019 – Living with a Leaf: Bob Handley
The talk this month, with an enigmatic title, was given by Bob Handley who is a member of Monmouth U3A. Any expectations that this was going to be something botanical was soon overturned when Bob started to talk about his decision to purchase a Leaf, a Nissan Leaf.
The Leaf is a fully electric car which has been in production for some time. Bob purchased his car about eighteen months ago and has been monitoring his use of the vehicle. For him this was a second car in the household. Throughout the talk he stressed that the choices he made were based on his circumstances and everyone who considered changing away from a diesel or petrol engine model would need to make the decision based on their personal circumstances.
His choice of vehicle was a three year old Leaf with a 24KWh battery, for which he paid approximately £10,000. This battery size was one of the smaller batteries in production at the time and many cars now have much larger batteries.
He has elected to charge the battery from a 13Amp domestic socket rather than a dedicated 7KW charger which can be fitted at home, typically for less than £500. Using the domestic socket allows the car to be charged to full capacity in eight hours. This gave a range of approximately 80 miles. The car was purchased from a dealer in Glastonbury and charged to 80% of its maximum giving a range of 65 miles. This was the first introduction to “range anxiety” which is a reason many people do not switch to pure electric vehicles (EV). However, Bob prefers the expression “Range Awareness”. Plan your journeys and include stops for re-charging if necessary. Regular return trips to the Llandovery area (134 miles) include a planned stop at a Peterstone Hotel which provides a 13 Amp charge point free of charge, although you have to pay for lunch while you wait!
Payment arrangements for charging at public charge-points typically involve the use of a mobile phone but with time payment systems are making this easier. There are, confusingly, several different types of public chargers.
In hilly areas most electric cars benefit from regenerative braking where the battery can receive small amounts of charge from an energy recovery mechanism. Temperature affects range which is typically quoted at 23°C.
Bob uses his domestic solar panels to charge the Leaf as much as possible contributing anything from a third to two thirds of the power, depending on the time of year.
Nissan guarantee their batteries for 60,000 miles/5 years but if used carefully (maintaining charge in the range 20-80%) will last nearer ten years. They can then be refurbished for about £2500 or replaced for £5000.
Based on his usage, mainly shorter journeys, Bob estimated that the cost of ownership was less than half compared with, for example, a Toyota Auris. Again it was stressed that this was a calculation based on personal circumstances.
Overall, Bob was clearly very pleased with the Leaf and he and his wife enjoyed driving it. However, there are obvious concerns over longer journeys and in the bigger environmental debate concerns over electricity being generated by polluting power plants.
A few members of the audience also owned an EV and they were very positive about their choices. As Bob reiterated, it comes down to personal circumstances. Michael Bone
October 8th 2019 Life in the Freezer
This month we were privileged to have Dr Elizabeth Bagshaw, Senior Lecturer in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Cardiff University, as our speaker. There could be no-one better qualified to address this topic as Dr Bagshaw has spent most of her professional life working in the field of Polar Science. She first visited the Antarctic during the first year of her doctorate research and has made three further trips since then as well as eleven visits to Greenland, where she now concentrates her research.
The Antarctic is the coldest, windiest, driest place on earth, Scott called it “an awful place” with temperatures reaching minus 90 degrees Celsius and winds of 200 miles per hour. No humans live permanently there, but scientists work on the science stations and it supports animals adapted to the cold such as penguins, seals, nematodes and tardigrades. Dr Bagshaw listed the survival strategies for creatures in these extreme conditions as furry, fatty, fluffy, fly or float and she illustrated this with examples.
It was not until 1999 that evidence of microbial life below the ice was discovered. As all living organisms need liquid water and an energy source to survive, it was difficult to imagine this being achieved under layers of ice where no sunlight could penetrate. The explanation lies in the existence of cryoconite holes. Cryoconite is a windblown dust, made up of small rock particles and microbes, which is deposited and builds up on glaciers and ice caps. This darkening of the surface absorbs solar radiation leading to the melting of the snow or ice below forming long cylindrical holes. The cryoconite sinks forming a deposit at the bottom which is known as a cryoconite hole. In winter an ice lid can form over the hole enclosing a small amount of water to sustain the microbes. These resulting ecosystems can survive for thousands of years without contact with the outside world.
Many different types of microbes, some heavily pigmented, have been identified and have found ways of adapting to their environment.
Dr Bagshaw’s research team have developed a “cryoegg” , a device the size of a grapefruit, which contains a circuit board and measures the temperature, pressure and conductivity of the surrounding meltwater. In Greenland this summer, a one and a half kilometer hole was drilled into the ice and the cryoegg lowered into the hole to collect data for analysis. These measurements will help us to understand how life can exist in these extreme conditions.
This research has wider applications: it can act as a model for life in Mars, it can predict what will happen when climate changes. On the biological side, microbes generate nutrients, what happens to them? What is in the melt water? These are but a few of the questions to be answered. It is remarkable that so much work has been done in twenty years , especially considering the experimental difficulties that have to be overcome. Valerie Conniff
10th September 2019 Solar Flight, Past, Present and Future Speaker: Phil Charlesworth
Phil Charlesworth is no stranger to the Science and Technology Group having previously talked about what he describes as his hobby, ‘amateur rocketry’. At this meeting Phil was talking about what used to be his day job at Airbus, until he retired and was poached by Liverpool Hope University.
Phil first talked about the generalities of solar flight which at the simplest means using solar energy to power a heavier than air machine which can stay in the air for a very long time, several days in fact. This is achieved by storing excess energy generated from solar cells to maintain flight during the hours of darkness. Although Phil admitted solar planes are in effect flying batteries, the planes do carry a small payload which is the reason for their development.
To do this you need a very light fuselage with a large surface area of wings which are covered in solar panels, a couple of electric motors, some batteries and an energy management system (EMS). The EMS controls all aspects of the flight by directing excess energy to the battery during the daytime and managing the flow of energy to the motors during the day and night, as well as providing energy to the payload which might be some sort of video-surveillance system. Using such a system it is possible to put a plane at heights of 17-18 km and keep it flying there for several days.
The reason for flying so high is that at that height the wind speeds are much lower than ground level so there is much less energy loss to resistance. However, the temperatures at that height place some very real pressures on the materials used, particularly for the batteries. The latitude the plane flies at is also important since at higher latitudes the ability to recharge the battery during winter months reduces the amount of flying time possible.
Phil made clear that the current state of solar powered flight is very much due to some modern technological advances including carbon fibre for weight reduction, ‘outrunner’ electric motors which being brushless greatly reduce friction losses, low temperature systems, computation fluid dynamics which has allowed improved low speed aerofoil design and 3D printing which has resulted in producing components more efficiently using less material. Other emerging technologies which have facilitated the developments in solar flight include very high specific energy batteries and very thin and flexible solar cells with efficiencies approaching 20% or more.
The history of solar flight can be traced to the 1950s but most advances have been in the last 10 or 15 years. A surprising number of companies have tried to develop solar planes, possibly because of military applications but these have now largely receded in the face of more humanitarian possibilities like disaster monitoring, search and rescue and improving internet coverage in isolated communities and tsunami detection.
Although Phil says that his former company Airbus is probably 10 years ahead of other companies his work with Liverpool Hope University is progressing well to the extent that he is currently building a solar electric aircraft in his garage! I, for one, am envious that he has enough space in his garage to even consider such a project. Guy Moody
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