Features
Spotlight: Dr Martine Abboud, Research Reflections
Dr Martine Abboud is a multi-award winning scientist, working in the Schofield group in the Department of Chemistry and as a Junior Research Fellow at Kellogg College. Martine writes to ‘The Oxford Scientist’ about what she does and her passion for research. During my time in Oxford, I have discovered a genuine interest for scientific…
Opportunities for collaboration between civil society organisations and researchers
Image created by Berdea [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] (Wikipedia Creative Commons licence) To students, collaboration is far from a foreign concept. On a personal scale, whether it is group work at school or taking part in team sports, we instinctively recognise how strengths of different individuals can complement one another. Similarly, large scale multi-sectorial collaborations…
Women in Science—Mary Anning
100 years ago, the Representation of the People Act 1918 allowed some women over 30 to vote in the UK. To celebrate this, Oxford University Museum of Natural History’s current exhibition, Women In Science, explores the life and work of 14 female scientists. From Marie Curie to Barbara McClintock, these women are among the most…
Soapbox Science—Promoting Women in STEM
by Jacqueline Gill Soapbox Science is a novel public outreach platform for promoting female scientists, and the science they do. The general format of a Soapbox Science event follows that of Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, London, which has been an area for open-air public speaking since the mid-1800s. Traditionally, the speaker stands on…
But what about Methane?
Feature Image Credit Tom Toles at the Washington Post by Louis Claxton Originally published on ‘the Oxford Student’ website. Since the target to limit global temperature rise to 2°C was set in the 2015 Paris Climate agreement, those in politics have focused their attention on the notorious and vilified CO2. But what about Methane?…
The Contingency of Brain Health on Exercise
Using the power of choice and flexibility of neural connections to achieve well-being, lesson from Dr. Korb By Irene Trung The tuning of neural circuits depends on the genetics of the individual, childhood, and current experiences. Although we cannot select our genes and may have little control over our early experiences, we still have…
iGEM: Using synthetic biology to cure autoimmune diseases
iGEM is an international competition where teams of university students compete in designing a genetically engineered product to tackle a world problem. Oxford’s iGEM team for 2018 is made up of 10 undergraduate students who study a range of subjects including biochemistry, biology, chemistry, engineering and medicine. After a long process of designing and planning…
Blame it on the Bacteria
Figuring out the composition of the bacteria in the gut, mouth, and on the skin is very fashionable at the moment, with papers regularly linking the microbiome to an unexpected disease. However, I can’t help but wonder if microbiotics isn’t the magic wand we were hoping for. Will it stand the test of time? Studying…
The Paris Agreement, is it all Empty Promises and False Hope?
For most, March 2015 and September 2016 may have faded from memory. However as someone who studies the climate, these months stand out. March 2015 was the first month for at least 800,000 years that global average CO2 concentration remained above 400ppm. Moreover, in September 2016, the usual minimum for monthly CO2 levels, the concentration…
Valentine’s Day Special—Bizarre Courtship Rituals of the Animal Kingdom
It’s Valentine’s day this week, and if you’ve had enough of flowers, cards and chocolates, you might want to take a peek into the romantic machinations of the animal kingdom – just to see how they’re getting on. We know that birds show a huge amount of sexual selection, with males producing some of the…