Features
Valentine’s Day(ta)
In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s Valentine’s day. And what better way to celebrate love than to reduce it down to data and statistics. There aren’t many things sexier than a colour coded bar chart after all. Days like today can be tricky for those in long-distance relationships. And in our increasingly connected world, more…
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…
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…
Einstein at the Patent Office
The Bern town clock chimes: once, twice, three times. Yet another patent on clocks sits at the desk, this one claiming originality for sending time through telephone lines. It was the age when electromechanical devices were starting to be used to synchronise distant clocks. From the comfort of the patent office, a young Albert Einstein…
To GM or not to GM?
It’s not about the science. In 1983, a gene from Agrobacterium (a plant-infecting bacterium) was successfully inserted into a plant cell, marking a ‘coming-of-age’ moment for plant genetic engineering. The resulting possibilities seemed endless; pest-resistant, self-fertilising and nutritionally-fortified crop varieties. But relatively little of this technology has been implemented on a global scale. Casual viewers…
A Global Threat to Humanity: Anti-Microbial Resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is spreading at an alarming rate, yet the antibiotic industry is only shrinking—could a pre-antibiotic era return as our future? Antimicrobials revolutionised medicine. Before antibiotics, the average life expectancy was 47 years. Infections such as pneumonia could easily be fatal, and to put it bluntly, a scratch could kill. There is no…
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…
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…
From Nietzsche to Nissan
Rapid technological development has made self-driving cars a reality. This advancement raises questions about how these cars should make ethical decisions in place of human drivers. While technology can replace, and will undoubtedly supersede humans in actual driving ability, driving a car involves moral decisions. These choices would have to be programmed—for instance whether to…
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…