Antarctic temperature record: A warning for the future?

Brazilian scientists have recorded the highest-ever Antarctic temperature. At midday on 9 February, air temperature at the Marambio research base hit 20.75ᵒC. This is the first time that a temperature exceeding 20ᵒC has been recorded anywhere within the Antarctic climate zone – the area further than 60 degrees south of the equator. Marambio is located…

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Wild Things – a review

‘Wild Things’ is the latest venture from The House of Improv. In this improvised comedy, the team address human interactions with an endangered animal which is conjured out of thin air by the audience. In the Tuesday performance, this animal was the creaky-tailed hippopotamus. Set in Creaky-Tailed Hippopotamus Town, the play followed the stories of…

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Ramakrishnan and his ribosome – a review

Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society and 2009 Nobel Prize winner, is already well known in the scientific community for his publications about the ribosome. What I wasn’t expecting however, was that his part-memoir, part-popular science book contained far more about the pace, people and progress of science than could ever be gleaned from…

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What would Brexit mean for the future of the scientific community?

After a three year long Brexit limbo, with two leaders, five rejected deals and an increasingly polarised population, Boris Johnson’s Brexit bill was passed on 20th December with a majority of 124, leaving the UK on course to leave the EU by the end of January. The United Kingdom prides itself on the breakthrough contributions…

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Dunn School of Pathology Art Competition – a review.

Since 2014, The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology and the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art have run a collaborative competition which aims to draw together the fields of the arts and the sciences. Mihaela Man and Olivia Williamson won the 2019 competition with a two-part piece which has been installed in the…

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Chalk Talks, 2nd December

Nathan Walemba The quantum computer was first theorised by Richard Feynman in 1982. Nathan Walemba, a 1st year undergraduate studying Materials Science, gave his Chalk Talk on what a quantum computer is and how far they have come since their original proposal. Feynman’s suggestion sparked a frantic race between companies such as Google, D-Wave and…

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Exclusive interview: Dr Rebecca Smethurst explains the evolution of space exploration and future avenues

Astrophysicist Dr Rebecca Smethurst is a research fellow at the University of Oxford, working on the co-evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes. She is also a science communicator through her YouTube channel Dr Becky and has recently released her book “Space: 10 Things You Should Know”. Here she talks about her work and space…

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Bird’s-Eye View of Navigation

Every autumn, billions of birds disappear from our fields, trees, and shorelines to make awe-inspiring migratory journeys, reliably returning again the next spring. The bar-tailed godwit, a long-legged wading bird, flies from Alaska to New Zealand over nine straight days without stopping. Short-tailed shearwaters migrate all the way round the Pacific with pinpoint accuracy, returning…

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