Music Planet - exploring research through music

Music Planet explores the broadest concepts of Environment and Music. The series will draw on academic research across all disciplines from arts to social science and science to present new concepts that have an impact on all society. The series will present the research messages with reflections made through the performing arts from classical through to new contemporary music. From the comfort of the well-known to explorations in improvisation with both traditional and new composition Music Planet will challenge you to think deeper about life and your planet.

Throughout the centuries, artists have used their chosen media to reflect on nature and human reaction to it. From personal experiences to depictions of catastrophic events works have been created to try and bring sense to natural environments and our place within them. Music Planet takes its theme from these reflections. It will present a series of performance events to reflect on environment in its broadest sense. Some events will focus on Environment in terms of natural elements such as climate and societies response to changes in climate others will explore societal attempts to control environments.


Each event is co-presented by artists together with groups of academics from the arts, social sciences and sciences in order to allow relevant aspects of academic research to be explored. The events are designed to be co-participatory with public audience becoming engaged with the delivery of the event. Before, during and after each event there will be on-line information for exploring further the academic research story behind the events.

Music Planet grew out of an idea that Dr Richard Bates had to perform some of the late Sir Peter Maxwell Davis’ works and link into climate research being conducted by the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Sir Peter was an active campaigner on climate issues and cared passionately about the environment of his adopted homeland, Orkney. His music often explores sounds from natural environments and provides an inspiration to us all. From early discussions with the Music Centre at St Andrews and, in particular with the enthusiasm of Michael Downes, Jill Craig and Bede Williams, Music Planet was born.

The ever growing list of individuals involved in Music Planet include staff at the Music Centre, several Schools at the University of St Andrews, as well as some external organisations.

For a full listing of events, click here.

Footprints through our past

The investigation, appraisal, monitoring and management of cultural heritage requires quantifiable data not only of features that are extant but also of those features that cannot be seen today above ground or above the sea. Modern analytical methods provided by geophysics and geochemistry are providing the crucial data required by the archaeological and heritage community to unravel the traces left by our ancestors. The land and marine work conducted by Dr Bates, of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, while in the hydrocarbon and mining industry has provided a platform for the cross-pollination and development of new methods for ultra-high resolution investigation. For example, research on the submerged Neolithic remains around World Heritage sites in Orkney revealed a lost world (Drowned Landscapes, part of The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in 2012) and hitherto unknown new sites at Stonehenge (Stonehenge Underground, part of The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2015).

 

The Royal Society video revealing a facsinating
landscape of monuments beneath Stonhenge

In Jersey, wide-area survey of the flooded English Channel is used to reconstruct the pathways of ancestors as they hunted the now long-gone game (Ice Age Island museum exhibit).

Happisburgh footprints

At Happisburgh (Norfolk) discoveries of nearly 1 million yr old footprints stimulated world-wide interest (Hominin Footprints from Early Pleistocene Deposits at Happisburgh, UK, PLoS ONE) in this evidence of early human expansion in Northern Europe and has led to the latest DNA technologies being applied to reconstructing pathways over unexpected time periods (Sedimentary DNA from a submerged site reveals wheat in the British Isles 8000 years ago, Science). By using the whole of the southern North Sea as a reconstructed landscape, this on-going work hopes to establish ground-breaking methodologies with DNA for unlocking the secrets of many long-lost worlds. In 2014, a special exhibit, Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story, was featured at the Natural History Museum in London, which showcased two sites that have been the focus of Dr Bates’ research, La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey and Happisburgh in Norfolk. [Research blog post]

Happisburgh site

At sea the new marine methods are revealing hitherto unknown sites left by our ancestors and causing a re-thinking of human response to climate change. While developments continue, many have now become standard practice and adopted by agencies such as Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland, as best practice following guidance (Marine Geophysics Data Acquisition, Processing and Interpretation: Guidance Notes).

Tackling the global tobacco epidemic with geochemistry

One in two smokers will succumb to a smoking-related disease and one billion deaths in the 21st century will be attributable to smoking. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is responding to this global epidemic with a variety of strategies within the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to which 176 countries are signatories. Geochemical research at the University of St Andrews has contributed to FCTC policies and supports their implementation by chemically characterising and monitoring potentially toxic environmental metals such as arsenic and cadmium in tobacco. The group’s research has been helping to combat the global trade in illicit tobacco and its major consequences for health and for government revenues through taxation and criminal activity.

The science 

Approximately 5% of tobacco (dry weight) is inorganic with its origins in soils, atmospheric particles (natural and anthropogenic pollutants) and agrochemicals. Some of this is taken up through the plant roots while particles tend to adhere to the sticky and hairy surface of the leaf. Among this diversity of material are several “heavy metals”. Fundamental to determining whether these metals or metalloids might be toxic to humans is their chemical form (valence and molecular speciation). The contribution each metal makes to the harmful effects of tobacco smoke is determined by a combination of concentration and speciation. As a result of research conducted in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (e.g. Analysis of non-organic elements in plant foliage using polarised X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2004.08.015 and Source and health implications of high toxic metal concentrations in illicit tobacco products, DOI: 10.1021/es049038s), it became clear that toxic metal concentrations, determined primarily by geographical location and legal status, varied by an order of magnitude. The speciation of arsenic in tobacco has now been determined and combustion (i.e. smoking) has been shown to generate the most toxic form (inorganic trivalent arsenic) in respirable smoke (e.g. Controls on the Valence Species of Arsenic in Tobacco Smoke: XANES Investigation with Implications for Health and Regulation, DOI: 10.1021/es4039243).

Principal components analysis of inorganic elements in tobacco
from global sources demonstrating provincial variability.

Using an archive of tobaccos collected over more than a decade from most parts of the world, it proved possible for the first time to identify provinciality among tobaccos products. The figure illustrates that significant differences exist at the continental scale at least. This feature can be used to constrain the geographical origins of illicit products. The same dataset helps to identify regions on a global scale where tobacco smoking represents a major source of exposure to toxic metals.

Health and economic benefits 
Since 2004 FCTC has been the main driver of national and global policy on tobacco control. It is predicted that full implementation of FCTC will prevent over seven million premature deaths by 2050. The unexpected discovery by the University of St Andrews group of high toxic metal concentrations, including carcinogens such as cadmium and arsenic, in most counterfeit tobacco products prompted HMCE (now HMRC) to run a nationwide information campaign in 2004 ("Counterfeit Cigarettes") sponsored by HM Treasury. The illicit share of the UK cigarette market at that time was 18% but was halved to 9% by 2012-13. Evidence presented in Treasury revenue reports indicates that revenues recovered due to the range of UK policies for reducing the supply and demand for illicit tobacco since 2006 may exceed £1 billion. Evidence of the harmful nature of illicit products from the St Andrews laboratories was used to support this effort. Globally over $31 billion is lost in tax revenue. It has been suggested that 164,000 premature deaths might be avoided annually if illicit tobacco was eliminated.

The University of St Andrews research into toxic metals in commercial cigarettes also highlighted legal Chinese tobacco products as among the most heavily contaminated so far analysed (Cigarettes sold in China: design, emissions and metals, DOI: 10.1136/tc.2009.030163). China is the world’s largest tobacco-growing nation with the largest number of smokers. The adverse impact on health of habitual use of contaminated products by the Chinese population is not yet quantifiable but could be considerable. Currently, it accounts for one million deaths annually from tobacco use.

Protecting our Ocean’s future

Public need for better methods to monitor, manage and protect international marine assets has motivated sonar methodologies research by Dr Richard Bates, of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, and colleagues that has led to the establishment of over 107 internationally important sites of Marine Special Areas of Conservation and Marine Special Protection Areas. In 2009, all principal UK Conservation Organisations (e.g. Natural England, Joint Nature Conservancy Council, Scottish Natural Heritage) adopted, as mandatory, procedures on sonar methodologies for benthic habitat survey, developed by Bates et al. within their conservation guidelines. The sonar methods used are part of internationally adopted practice, for example on fisheries protection sites, while at the same time providing stunning visualisation widely used for public understanding of the sites.


Since the early successes of the multibeam programme for habitat evaluation, a parallel research stream was developed for its use in studies of environmental change resulting from climate fluctuations.In particular a programme of research was stimulated by ground-breaking work on marine terminating glaciers in the Arctic highlighted by a series of films made for Greenpeace and the UN Climate Change Conference. The study of rapidly retreating glaciers and areas of sea-ice melt in Greenland, habitats to some of our most threatened species, such as the polar bear has since been the focus of documentaries for the BBC including Frozen Planet and the award-winning 2012 BBC programme, Operation Iceberg. As the marine environment continues to be the focus of every intensifying exploitation, new methods of analysing habitats and their inhabitants are being developed. The latest sonar technology, 3D real-time methods is the focus for recent work on cetaceans such as Orca and is now being explored by other research centres around the world, for example in Woods Hole, USA.

GeoBus: Driving Earth science education in schools

Over 27,000 pupils have been involved in hands-on, experiential learning activities in 150 schools across Scotland since January 2012!

GeoBus is an educational outreach project developed by the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences. It visits schools every week of term time from Tuesday to Friday (roughly 35 weeks per year). The project:

• supports the teaching of Earth science in secondary schools 
• provides teaching resources that are not readily available to educators 
• introduces Earth science research outcomes and young researchers to pupils and teachers
• provides a bridge between industry, HEIs, Research Councils, and schools 
• highlights career opportunities in geology specifically, and Earth sciences and STEM areas more broadly 

GeoBus teaching packages are developed by the GeoBus team, academics in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences and the School of Physics and Astronomy. Many workshops are based on the research outcomes of young academics or are developed with our industry sponsors.

Who runs GeoBus and where does it go?
GeoBus is coordinated by Kathryn Roper, a BSc Geoscience graduate from St Andrews and a trained secondary school teacher, and Charlotte Pike, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. The project is directed by Dr Ruth Robinson. Undergraduates, postgraduates and academics also accompany GeoBus on some school visits, and industry professionals are encouraged to directly participate in order to improve school pupils' understanding of career opportunities. GeoBus brings educational resources to schools across Scotland and northern England, and visits rural and urban areas in all council regions.

What does GeoBus do? 
GeoBus is a mobile outreach resource that is dedicated to providing a range of interactive learning experiences for school pupils. The workshops are designed to include research outcomes and fit with the curricula. Key aspects include the use of equipment not normally available in schools, the opportunity to conduct experiments, and experience outdoor field work. Teacher support is a key component of GeoBus for teachers, with or without geological backgrounds. Workshops to support the chemistry, physics, and biology curricula are currently being developed.

The GeoBus team also coordinate the Higher Geology Conference (with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society), introduced in 2013 to support those pupils and teachers involved in Higher Geology.

GeoBus is supported by Natural Environmental Research Council, Centrica Upstream Energy, Dana Petroleum, Maersk Oil Ltd, Shell and Premier Oil. For more information on the project, please contact Dr Ruth Robinson (rajr@st-andrews.ac.uk).