HKU Bulletin February 2004 (Vol. 5 No. 2)

9 8 RESEARCH AND TEACHING T wo University academics have teamed up to help solve one of the great mysteries of modern geology: when did India come crashing into the Asian continent and create the Himalayas. Professor Jonathan Aitchison and Dr Jason Ali, both from the Department of Earth Sciences, and members of the Tibetan Research Group have produced convincing evidence that this event happened 30 million years ago. This has produced seismic shift in the wor ld of geology where conventional wisdom had it that this happened 55 million years ago. Aitchison set his face against the orthodox view thanks to years of research in T ibet where he was study ing the geological development of the unique territory. He said: “As more and more information filtered in from my Tibet work, I was forced to develop a radical new scenario to explain how India had slammed in Asia about 30 million years ago, in the process eliminating an ocean and creating the wor ld’s most spectacular mountain belt. “A key issue, however, is where exact ly was Asia at t ime of the collision?” I t was only when Ai tchison expounded this theory to Ali a few years ago that the final pieces of the jigsaw began to fall into place for the New Zealander. Ali believed that he could do this through using the magnetic ‘fingerprint’ that rocks hold. He said: “Rocks tell you where they were on Earth when they formed. Their minute magnetic particles act as compasses telling us how much they have subsequently moved.” India Crashes into Asia What aided the academic with his continental-scale ‘jigsaw’ puzzle was two scientific papers which had emerged recently reporting magnetic data from the Faroe Islands and Krygyzstan. Ali, however, came up with the key which lay in the less than glamorous surrounds of the Isle of Sheppey in south-east England. He said: “About 15 years ago I was in Sheppey dealing with some rocks for my PhD and it occurred to me that they might be useful for this research.” After ‘crunching’ the numbers Al i and Aitchison came up with tectonic model and a ‘palaeo’ map that radically shifted the position of the Asian cont inent 50 mi l l ion years ago. Al i said: “The data tel ls you where to place the block (of continent) when Asia collided with India – there is no way they could have slammed into each other 55 million years ago. “There was a distance of about 2000 kms between them.” The model also told them that Aitchison’s hunch was right and that the col l ision would have happened around 30 mi l l ion years ago. Ali said: “We have just had our paper accepted for a prestigious Amer ican Geophysical Union Monograph which will come out this Spring (2004). “The wider scientific community is slowly coming on board in terms of Jonathan’s concept which is quite a radical theory. “Together we have come up with a much more convincing model whereas previous working models were based on unscientific guestimates rather than hard information.” T he Institute of Human Performance (IHP) has its eyes on the Olympics prize by developing a revolutionary form of training that teaches sportsmen and women to forget to learn. Dr Richard Masters and his team are determined to help Hong Kong gear up for Beijing in 2008 by taking our sportsmen and women back to basics in a bid to beat the best. Rather than clutter athletes’ minds wi th a barrage of informat ion and techniques, the IHP team is evol v ing a programme known as ‘implicit motor learning’. Associate Professor Masters said: “When athletes’ skills fail them for most of them it is because they are too aware of what they are doing. “When they make a mistake it is because they are too aware of how they are doing and there is too much knowledge of skills.” What the IHP aims to do is peel back the layers of coaches, trainers and technique in order to strip away the ‘anxiety factor’ of over-analysing performance. The question is how do you do this? Masters said: “We teach people their skills in such a way as they don’t know how they do it. We have found that, if anything, these peoples’ skills can get even better. “We do this by teaching somebody a new skill but giving them a secondary task such as counting backwards in sevens, which is pretty hard to do.” The intention is to build up a skill base that is more robust under pressure. Sportsmen and Women Try to Forget One routine tried at the IHP, which is based in Pokfulam, was to see how people’s rugby skills held up after a vigorous exercise session on a gym bicycle. Masters recalled: “Those who had explicit knowledge fell to pieces but those wi th impl ici t knowledge improved by comparison.” The wider implications of this work, however, go way beyond spor M t. asters bel ieves that motor neurone disorders such as Parkinson’s disease are a case in point. He said: “Sufferers trying to pick up a cup in a restaurant will become anxious and the anxiety will make matters worse. If the skill is implicit it will stand better scrutiny.” For now, however, the eyes are on getting Hong Kong’s sporting talent in amongst the medals when China hosts the world’s greatest games. One example of this is a project called Analogy Learning. This is a form of implicit learning by drawing analogies in order to convey sporting skills. Masters said: “For example on tennis coaching. We get the subjects to draw a right angle triangle with their arm holding the racket for a top spin drive. That one rule encompasses all the teaching that a coach will give but the subject does not realise they have these skills. “It is a fast and implicit way of learning and relevant to the Olympics in 2008. We might yet use them to train Hong Kong’s athletes.” Drilling into the ancient ocean floor at 4 km altitude in Southern Tibet.