Research – Corpus

The female “KISS” for desire

9 November 2020 1 Comment

Shalini Kumar Palathinkal

Did you know that among animals, especially rodents like mice and rats, the females decide when they are ready for some action? You know what I mean … wink, wink. That’s right, the female rodents decide when, and with which male, they want to mate to produce offspring. And this decision is made with the help of a particular type of neuron in the brain that is essential for maintaining fertility, called kisspeptin.

Thus, unlike in humans, the need for mating is prompted in most mammals only around the time of ovulation. This ensures the highest chance of fertilisation. Particularly in rodents, the female controls the initiation and timing of copulatory contacts with the male, triggering the mate preference and sexual motivation circuit in their brains. However, what controls the neural circuitry to drive the female rodents to be suddenly sexually receptive to the males, in comparison to when they are not, remains elusive. An international team of researchers led by Dr Julie Bakker from GIGA Neurosciences, University of Liege, Belgium in 2018 may have some answers to this intriguing question.

Bletchley Park 2020: Breaking the viral code

20 April 2020 1 Comment

Alex McLellan

What is the COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 virus? Compared to most threats we encounter, the virus is small and simple. It doesn’t have sex, possess limbs or gills, or fill its lungs with air on a hill top and shout “It’s great to be alive!”. So is the virus alive, or just an organic robot? We talk of ‘killing’ the virus by washing our hands or using disinfectants, which means most of us think of it as a living creature of some sort. Whether we classify it as the ‘living’ or the ‘undead’, it is still a parasite that steals into our cells and helps itself to our enzymes and cell materials to make thousands of near-perfect copies of itself that go on to infect other cells in our bodies.

For the last few months I have been obsessively reading each major scientific discovery about the new SARS-CoV-2 virus, and delving into its close relatives that caused earlier epidemics of ‘severe acute respiratory syndrome’ (SARS). During the COVID-19 pandemic it has been difficult to stay asleep, and I wake wondering how the virus does this and that … then grab my iPad to search for the answer. Surprisingly, this research provides me with a lot of comfort. The more I get to know the inner workings of this terrible machine, the better I’m able to break it down to its basic parts. The more I research, the more clearly I can see the virus in my mind’s eye, and the more clearly I can see possible targets for treatment interventions and routes to vaccines.

Dreaming with my body

2 December 2019 Leave a Comment

Rata Gordon

“Dreaming with my body” follows on from a previous article by Rata Gordon, “Expressive Arts Therapy: Arts-based research and new motherhood”, which you can read here.

Motherhood is undervalued. And I feel like my culture’s view of what a mother should be is limited. I have a sense of somehow trying to claw back a self that is individuated from my child and active in the public sphere, because the question looms: is being just a mother enough? And what constitutes a good enough mother in the face of climate change, mass extinctions and a global mental health crisis? My child must live in this world.

I am trying to be intimate with the world around me, feeling the sharp edges with my toe and tasting the salt water with my tongue.

I wonder whether Attachment Theory’s usual version of a good enough mother, in terms of wiping your child’s nose, having ordinary devotion, cuts it. How can I nurture not only my own child, but the world that I am bringing her into, and all that I love?

I have found that there is no greater opportunity for being told how to think, act, breathe and scratch my nose than becoming a mother. A whole flurry of social and cultural institutions, norms and practices would like to dictate how I mother, and who I am now that I’m a mother. They land like fine silt, becoming denser and heavier with time if I don’t move beneath them.

I want to feel that the stories I tell are true, but I also want to show that there are other possible untold stories lingering underneath and in between.

Expressive Arts Therapy: Arts-based research and new motherhood

4 November 2019 6 Comments

Rata Gordon

Baby Ursula eating a page of careful research.

It’s dark. I can hear the whirr of the heater and an eager bird outside. The others are still asleep and I have sneaked down here to write. I recently described my tiredness as desperate. There are very few things I would give up sleep for at the moment, but one of them is writing. When I do it right, it gives me energy, rather than taking it away.

Writing that feels good to do is full-bodied. It comes from my slippered ankles, my warm insides, the space between my fingers, my chilly nape. It plants words that are alive on the page. Writing that feels bad to do – the kind that gives me a neck ache – feels like forming boring biscuits from just my brain.

Write yourself. Your body must be heard.” Hélène Cixous.

Ursula is nearly one now and my body has been ballooning out, birthing, spouting milk, withering, coming back to life. All I have is the time before she wakes up to do this, so I’m going to have to just let it slip out somehow. Speak, body!

Food emulsion

6 May 2019 Leave a Comment

Marcus Loi

vinagrette — Vinagrette: an oil-in-water emulsion.

‘Emulsion’ is one of the many terms that I learned from a food chemistry paper in my undergraduate study. Back then I was not aware that emulsion is the basis of many food products which influence our daily life. Food emulsions are used to deliver nutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. In daily life we don’t often use the word ’emulsion’ but we do often consume emulsifiers, in food like milk, vinaigrettes, mayonnaise, whipped cream, ice cream, butter and margarine. Emulsion technology development is all about enhancing nutritional value, as well as improving taste and flavour in foods and beverages.

My interest in emulsion started when I worked as a product developer on edible oil products. I was astonished by the physics and chemistry on the formation of an emulsion. For examples, the mixing procedure can have almost no impact in some emulsions while in another instance, the emulsion can separate into oil and water within minutes. Emulsifiers, a minor component in the emulsion, can significantly influence the formation of emulsion and its appearance. However, the role and function of emulsifiers are often vague and dependent on the type of emulsifier. Even after spending a few years creating emulsifiers and using them to make emulsions, I still didn’t understand how emulsifiers work. About three years ago, I felt that I needed to take a break from work and do a PhD to obtain a deeper and more fundamental understanding about what happens during the formation of emulsions.

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Unlonely centenarians: the secret power of Super Agers

10 December 2018 6 Comments

Sharon Leitch

Not many people make their 100^th birthday. It’s a big deal, and rightly so: the family celebration and obligatory photos, the card from HRH (not so far off the Big Day herself), perhaps a write-up in the local paper. “Tell us!” the journalist asks, “what is the secret of your longevity?” We collectively lean forward to catch their snippets of wisdom. What is their secret? A Philosopher’s Stone? The Elixir of Life? After all, living for a Very Long Time is as close to immortality as we can achieve in the here-and-now.