The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7402 p638
27 May 2006

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Chemistry teaching crisis more
A new word for an age-old phenomenon more
Bureaucracy gone mad more
Strength and beauty / Patriotic duty more

Chemistry teaching crisis

A news item in the 4 May issue of Nature describes the desperation of chemists who are anxiously seeking to avert the closure of many university departments in the light of government economies. Chemists around the world have condemned the proposed closures. Researchers at the University of Sussex in Brighton are trying to persuade pharmaceutical companies to produce cash to save the crisis developing further. Such moves are relatively common in the US but unusual in Britain.

The crisis began when an investment strategy proposed by the university’s vice-chancellor was made public in March. The proposal was to end teaching and research in physical and inorganic chemistry and create a new department of chemical biology. However, the chemistry department in Sussex has lost staff to other universities in the past three years, with the need to reduce teaching coverage of other areas of chemistry. The original plan for a department of chemical biology has been dropped, but the future remains uncertain. A professor of economics has even doubted whether a serious science university must have a chemistry department. Students at the university have been staging protests and collecting many petition signatures and messages of support.

A Royal Society of Chemistry spokesman has stated that every chemistry department is at present operating at a deficit, since government funding ignores how expensive a faculty chemistry is compared with others. Necessary demands are made for laboratory space and special equipment and yet the subject underpins many other industries, not least the research into pharmaceuticals. Much more cash is allocated to medical schools.

Closing chemistry departments is held to be suicidal so far as the country is concerned. Universities in the US consider chemistry departments as indispensable, since their science impinges on so many other scientific disciplines. Indeed, it is one of the absolute core sciences and fundamental. In Germany, a similar crisis in the 1990s has been overcome, with university chemistry departments now being full of students.

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A new word for an age-old phenomenon

In New Scientist for 13 May, I have come across a word I had never met before. It is “gelatology”, and we are told that it signifies the study of laughter.

Laughter has been defined as “an emotional response, expressive normally of joy, in the child and the unsophisticated adult”. Irregular and often involuntary expirations are associated with vibratory movements of the vocal cords. Although laughter usually expresses amusement it may sometimes denote hysteria.

The evolutionary origins of laughter have been traced to an early period before humans evolved from apes. Our distant ancestors indulged in it between four and two million years ago, but we are told they could not produce the traditional “ha, ha, ha” but had to be content with staccato panting. Apes still make these responses today. In the course of evolution facial expressions played their part, and laughter became a voluntary as well as an involuntary activity.

It is thought that amusement and humour were originally not connected with the notion of laughter. Social control and group communication were formerly the objective. Laughing during normal conversation is commoner than laughing at deliberate jokes. The ability to provoke a laugh or to do so at someone else is a way of achieving a social dominance and women laugh more than do men.

Laughter, as we all know, is contagious, but apparently no one knows why. It may be due to a feedback in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Extreme episodes have been reported of contagious laughter, notably in Tanzania in 1962, where a group of schoolgirls started giggling. It spread to other groups in the adjacent areas and altogether persisted for several months.

It seems evident that laughter is a potent influence in some social situations and cannot be dismissed as socially insignificant. Indeed, in certain environments it may prove exceedingly embarrassing for the people involved.

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Bureaucracy gone mad

Bureaucracy is a word we hear on all sides in our over-civilised times and we might do well to ponder some of its significance.

In dictionary terms, a bureau is “a writing table or similar piece of furniture covered by a dark cloth” and bureaucracy is “government by officials appointed by its sponsors as opposed to self-government or government by elected people”. That makes it suspect from the start.

In my local newspaper for 15 May I have come across an astonishing example of bureaucracy at its daftest. Hospital workers find that nurses, doctors and others working at the front of the health services in the face of rising costs are being expected by their administrators to make detailed returns of any little gift, such as a box of chocolates presented to them by a patient as thanks for the help received.

These gestures have always been prevalent in the health services and provided they are on a small scale are not regarded as bribes. However, administrators are now accused of calculating that those in higher authority assess them as evidence of efficiency of administration and proof that improvements in methods and procedures are occurring, when in fact they may show no such tendency. What they do show is that the ministrations of front-line staff are appreciated by their recipients.

Meanwhile, miles of red tape involved in keeping detailed records of gifts make life even more complex for those who must find time to carry out the additional work. To judge the efficiency of a health service by the precise total of chocolates presented to carers is sheer lunacy on the part of those in grey suits who walk the wards with clip boards, say the critics, and is quite unfair to the front-liners who already have more than they ought to be expected to do in meeting ever increasing pressure in hospital.

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And I quote …

Strength and beauty
“Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away. And few destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor can planting avail much toward restoring our grand aboriginal giants. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra.”
— John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838–1914)

Patriotic duty
“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government.”
— Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927–89)

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