The vertebrate inner ear is a complex structure that incorporates the organs of balance and hearing. Both senses are essential to the normal functioning of an organism: unsurprisingly, the inner ears of living vertebrates have been studied intensively in terms of their soft anatomy and their physiological/neurological mechanisms, and the behavioural and general biological implications of ear function have been investigated thoroughly. The soft tissues are housed in bony structures that form part of the side walls of the braincase at the back of the skull. Few studies have attempted to seek correlations between the properties of the bony structures (e.g. volume, maximum length/width, shape), hearing ability or sense of balance, and the resulting behavioural repertoire of an animal. From a palaeontologist's perspective, this is an unfortunate omission as, in most cases, fossils only yield information on the hard anatomy of an organism. Partly as a result of this situation, the inner ears of many extinct vertebrates have received little attention hitherto and detailed studies have only become possible recently with the advent of non-destructive imaging technology. We propose a proof-of-concept study to investigate the utility of inner ear morphology in assessing the behaviour and auditory performance of extinct reptiles and birds. We will test whether differences in reptile/bird inner ear anatomy can be explained by differences in behaviour, vocalisation, acoustic function and social organisation. This test will be based upon an analysis of the inner ear anatomy of 40 living reptiles and birds, which will be chosen to represent a wide range of vocal and auditory behaviours. Data on inner ear anatomy will be collected using X-ray Computerised Tomography (CT), which will allow us to build detailed 3-D virtual models of the ear's bony structures. Correlations will be sought between the dimensions of the lagena (that part of the inner ear housing the organ of hearing / the basilar papilla), the known auditory abilities of an animal (e.g. range of sound frequencies detectable, sensitivity), and the range of behaviours that the animal exhibits (e.g. those that use vocal communication versus those that do not). Combination of these different data sources (inner ear bony anatomy, ear function and animal behaviour) is a novel approach and will provide a rigorous basis for inferring behaviour in extinct animals. If no correlations exist between ear anatomy, hearing ability and behaviour this will allow us to falsify existing hypotheses of hearing function in extinct reptiles and birds. However, if correlations are identified this project will act as a pilot study for future investigations on hearing and behaviour in a variety of extinct species (including non-avian dinosaurs and early amniotes, for example). In addition, the project will provide a large amount of new anatomical information on the inner ears of living reptiles and birds, which will be of great value to auditory biologists, zoologists and systematists.

Spectroscopy can detect and characterise the properties of individual molecules through probing quantised states. It is a ubiquitous tool which has been instrumental in many new discoveries over the last 100 years. The applications of spectroscopy are numerous and wide ranging: it allows astronomers to detect water in the atmospheres of planets light years away; and enables art historians to determine the pigments used by old masters in their paintings. Given the unmitigated successes of the spectroscopic method, characterisation of the mesoscale is still one area which remains unconquered. The mesoscale is the intermediate length scale (10-1000 nm) between the molecular (quantum) and the macroscopic (classical) worlds. The length scale is important because it occupies the range over which collective properties begin to dominate those of individual molecules. For instance, it marks the transition from chemistry to biology, when individual molecular building blocks self-assemble into complex biological architectures. Since mesoscale molecular assemblies are effectively classical bodies, there is no quantised state which is representative of the overall structure of the object that can be probed spectroscopically. This limitation of the optical spectroscopic paradigm does have practical implications. For instance, while atomic and molecular pollutants in water and the atmosphere can be readily detected (even monitored in real time) with spectroscopy, detecting and characterising a mesoscale molecular assembly such as an unknown virus can take a significant amounts of time and resource; thus extending time to diagnosis and effective treatment. In this proposal we wish to unlock the shackles of the established optical spectroscopic paradigm by using chiral evanescent electromagnetic fields, rather than light, to rapidly detect and characterise mesoscale molecular structure. When light scatters from chiral plasmonic nanostructures, evanescent EM fields are created in the near field which have a chiral asymmetry (i.e. handedness). In essence the near fields are sculpted by the geometry of the nanostructure, and are imbued with a sense of chirality. The Glasgow Group were the first to demonstrate the existence of these chiral fields, and that they could possess enhanced chiral asymmetry (referred to as superchirality) (Nature Nano 2010). The purpose of this proposal is to show that these superchiral fields can uniquely characterise mesoscale molecular structure, through the use of wild type and synthetic viruses as model systems. To illustrate the potential of the spectroscopy, label free detection of viruses spiked into a biofluid will be demonstrated.

The industrial mass production of machines and devices relies on the assembly of different components in a specific order in the most rapid and efficient way. However what is routine at everyday length scales is infinitely more difficult and time consuming when we consider linking components to create nano-devices. This is particularly the case when one wishes to create a specific molecule-nanostructure construct. The individual component molecules and complex nanostructure architectures can be mass produced using tools of synthetic chemistry and nanofabrication techniques (e.g. nano-imprint and injection moulding). However, established technologies for combining these individual elements in a specific way are slow (e.g. dip pen nanolithography takes tens of hours to functionalise cm2 samples) and hence low throughput (i.e. incompatible with mass production). Therfore, creating relative complex hybrid molecular-nanofabricated materials is comparable to handcrafting a Bentley rather than the assembly line mass production of Volkswagen Golfs. We propose an innovative approach for nanoscale spatial control of chemical functionalisation of (plasmonic) nanostructures which has both nanoscale resolution ca. 20 nm and is simple and rapid. The concept, which we call "Meta-chemistry", involves using a pulsed laser to locally heat the solvent in specific regions surrounding a nanostructure. These nanoscale thermal gradients can then be exploited to drive chemistry in a spatially selective manner. In the proposal we will develop a fundamental understanding of how heat is generated and transported in a liquid surrounding a nanostructure, thus providing the foundation for optimal spatial control. Also crucially, we will synthesise thermally responsive polymers which will be transformed in the locally heated solvent, creating nano-domains which can be subsequently chemically functionalised. Using the meta-chemistry concept cm2 of a nanostructured substrate can be both spatially and selectively chemically modified, in preparation for subsequent chemical functionalisation, in less than 60 seconds. The proposal is at the cusp of chemistry physics and engineering, it will discover novel fundamental science which in the longer term could be the foundation of a powerful flexible technology for the nanoscience toolbox.

Extreme weather events, from heatwaves to flooding, are becoming stronger and more frequent in a visible manifestation of climate change. In Antarctica, extreme weather depletes the ice sheet through enhanced melting, which can raise global sea level, or strengthens the ice sheet through enhanced snowfall, which can lower global sea level. Antarctic extreme weather events (AEWE) are poorly understood and complex phenomena driven by factors across a range of scales. At the regional scale, they are driven by high and low-pressure systems, such as those seen on weather maps, and by atmospheric rivers - currents of air thousands of kilometres long - which bring warm and moist air from lower latitudes. In turn, these weather systems are driven by larger-scale patterns of climate variability, such as the El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the strength of the westerly winds encircling the Antarctic, which may themselves be affected by human-induced climate change. The PICANTE project aims to transform our understanding of the characteristics and drivers of AEWE, to disentangle the roles of natural climate variability and human influence, and to use this knowledge to predict the impact of future AEWEs on Antarctic climate and ice shelves. Ice shelves are particularly vulnerable to AEWE because they melt from both the bottom up (from warm ocean water) and the top down (from warm air). Thinner ice shelves are less stable and prone to collapse; this is important because ice shelves dam the flow of Antarctica's grounded ice into the ocean. Losing the ice shelves causes the ice sheet to slide into the sea faster, causing global sea level to rise. To achieve our aim, we have identified five objectives fit to the scope of the call. 1) To compile a comprehensive dataset of AEWEs, their weather system drivers, and their local climate impacts using observations from Antarctica's weather station network, interpolated data from a wider network of observations (climate reanalysis) and simulations from climate models. 2) To use these data and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence techniques, to investigate the relative contribution of the chain of drivers of AEWE across different scales. We will then use high resolution climate simulations, novel satellite observations and simulations of the ice sheet surface to connect these to local impacts on ice shelf stability. 3) To understand the potential future distribution of AEWE and their impacts, we will use simulations of future climate under a range of possible scenarios together with new simulations of the ice sheet surface and ocean to investigate how changes to AEWE will affect future ice shelf stability. 4) This will naturally lead to identifying model improvements needed to improve projections of AEWEs and their impacts, specifically in terms of local climate, ice surface and ocean models. 5) Finally, we leave space to discover unprecedented extremes. Since the observed extremes from (1) can only represent a sample; more extreme events may be possible in the current climate, with potentially unprecedented impacts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that Antarctica will warm by up to 5oC by the end of the century, and that extreme weather events will become stronger and more frequent. Understanding the causes and impacts of AEWE is therefore now critical if we are to understand the implications of these changes for the fate of the Antarctic ice sheet and global sea level rise.

Novel anatomical adaptations and mechanisms for feeding are often postulated as 'key innovations' that spark the diversification of major clades. However, the mechanics of these adaptations are rarely quantitatively or rigorously tested, seriously undermining the validity of these hypotheses. Moreover, the majority of biomechanical analyses are carried out on single exemplar organisms, whereas a comparative phylogenetic context is critical to understanding the impact of feeding on evolutionary history and testing macroevolutionary hypotheses. Dinosaurs dominated terrestrial ecosystems for >130 million years, exhibiting a tremendous range of body sizes, shapes and ecologies. The earliest dinosaurs and their ancestors were generalists and minor faunal components. Dramatic increases in body size, diversity and abundance occurred during the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic (230-180 million years ago), and various factors have been implicated in dinosaur success. It is thought that the appearance of novel feeding adaptations permitted ecological diversification. However, this engaging 'functional story' has not been tested in a quantitative, hypothesis-driven comparative framework and previous work has focused on derived dinosaur taxa with extreme morphologies (e.g., Tyrannosaurus, Diplodocus), ignoring forms close to the base of Dinosauria. For these reasons, dinosaurs are an ideal model system for integrating data on feeding biomechanics with phylogeny, allowing more rigorous investigation of the relationship between functional diversity and clade dynamics. In this project we aim to comprehensively understand the consequences of functional changes in dinosaur skull biomechanics during the origin and early evolution of dinosaurs, a key moment in life's history. The proposed project is particularly timely given the availability and integration of cutting-edge computational methods for biomechanical analyses and new discoveries of early dinosaurs and their ancestors. We will integrate principles and methods from palaeontology, biology and engineering to reconstruct skull anatomy and function in 15 early dinosaur and dinosauriform taxa. CT scans and visualization software will be used to create 3D computer models. Information from the original fossils and living crocodilians, birds and lizards will be used to reconstruct head musculature. Using these reconstructions and multi-body dynamics analysis, we will model jaw motions during feeding, estimate bite forces along the tooth row and calculate maximum jaw closing speed. We will integrate results from dynamic models with finite element analysis and geometric morphometrics to test how the skulls respond to feeding-induced loads. In addition, we will run simulations on three living species to ensure model predictions are accurate. Results from these analyses will provide evidence for the jaw function and potential diet of early dinosaurs, and whether they became more specialized in terms of feeding performance during their evolution. Finally, we will compare the appearance of feeding characters to dinosaur diversity patterns to determine what role feeding had in their early evolution and success. Palaeontologists, anatomists, biomechanists, evolutionary biologists and engineers will benefit from this work, which will set new benchmarks for performing evolutionary biomechanics in living and fossil animals and will establish new UK, European and overseas collaborations. This project will also generate new methodological advances that can be applied to other clades and other functional questions. Finally, the technological and visual aspects of this work and its focus on early dinosaurs will appeal to the general public, offering numerous engagement opportunities and media interest that will contribute to increased public understanding of scientific principles and methods, and will ensure wide dissemination of this work.