Features
How will coronavirus impact the environment?
The COVID-19 pandemic is devastating. By the time it is over, millions of people will have lost loved ones and the economic repercussions are inevitably going to be huge. But recently, the state of the environment has also been brought up in discussion. How has the climate been affected by the coronavirus outbreak, and what…
The lasting benefits of the travel ban
On the 23rd March, the UK was put into lockdown due to the ever-growing threat of Covid-19. The lockdown has now been eased, with schools reopening, workers returning to their jobs and members of the public being allowed to meet within the two-meter guidelines. However, when imposed, the travel ban greatly impacted our daily lives,…
Public trust in science: sink or swim?
At the time of writing, a search for Covid-19 in the medical publications database PubMed returns over 16,000 papers. There has been an exponential increase in scientific study of the novel coronavirus, and its associated disease Covid-19, since the start of the outbreak. And with it, a surge in appearance of scientists on our television…
The Rise of Epidemiology—How coronavirus shook up medical research
Pandemics have shaken civilizations throughout history. Although these bouts of infections have had devastating effects on society, our survival has also allowed humanity to evolve and reshape its socio-economic and technological focuses. Medical research has most often managed to overcome the pandemics through significant progress. It might seem incredible but substantial medical achievements have been…
The Rise of the Robots—Technology in epidemiology and pharmaceutical research
The Covid-19 pandemic has been one of the most quantified health crises in history. The wealth of available information is a powerful tool for the response, but this is deeply dependent on making sense of mountains of data, and quickly. Artificial intelligence (AI) is potentially invaluable for this: it can sift through and interpret vast…
Telemedicine—The future of healthcare?
With each passing day in this new, unexpected world that we find ourselves in, it seems increasingly clear that healthcare technologies will never be the same as they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Cutting-edge tools are already enabling clinicians to streamline and expedite care delivery in a range of settings to help doctors more quickly…
Who is taking care of our healthcare workers? An international perspective.
On the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers are facing not only a greater risk of infection, but also heightened risk for developing mental health problems. Studies from around the world show that interventions are needed to assist our doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers as they treat an overwhelming number of highly infectious…
Post-COVID NHS: in need of some stitches
It was once said that the NHS is the closest thing we have to a religion in Britain, and coronavirus has only strengthened this notion further. While public support has grown like never before, our health service will inevitably face problems as we navigate ourselves out of this crisis. As we move past the peak,…
Fighting global health challenges with yeast – a talk by Professor Tom Ellis
Yeast: what is it good for? Well, quite a lot of things. In a talk recently given to the Oxford Synthetic Biology Society, Tom Ellis, professor of synthetic genome engineering at Imperial College London, explained how simple baker’s yeast can be utilised in the fight against global health challenges. Baker’s yeast, or Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is…
Trapped in a glass home – A shrimp’s life in lockdown
Below fathom five, at depths you cannot fathom, both of them have found their forever home. Now their kids are leaving to find their own houses of glass, but they have to be careful—because they, just like their parents, will then become trapped for the rest of their lives. They will look out at the…