News
How the search on your window monitors global biodiversity outside the window
Sitting in your room, typing wikipedia.org/wiki/…/, you are actually helping scientists to monitor species outside the window. Recently in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, the University of Oxford, the University of Birmingham and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev collectively published their investigation on how Wikipedia pageview records correlates to seasonal patterns in nature. We had…
The Big Freeze: scientists obstructed by the US government shutdown
Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images By Abigail Pavey Temperatures plummet across North America but the United States federal government has been suffering from a more chilling type of freeze – federal paralysis. In pursuit of his wall, President Donald Trump started the longest government shutdown in modern US history and as a result, science across…
Divers get up close and personal with largest great white shark
Photograph: @Juansharks/Juan Oliphant/AFP/Getty Images By Laura Perry Images of Deep Blue – the largest great white shark in the world – took the internet by storm in January. But is touching a 6-metre apex predator ever a good idea? And what is being done to help protect these real-life sea monsters? The film ‘Deep Blue…
Tetris in the Lab: The surprising link between PTSD and the classic computer game
Image created by Cezary Tomczak, Maxime Lorant [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)] (Source: Wikipedia Creative Commons Licence) Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) impacts people who have experienced extreme traumatic events such as war or torture. Sufferers are vulnerable to involuntary memories of traumatic events, colloquially called “flashbacks”, which are a distressing symptom of the condition. A recent…
Pore over this: Advances in DNA sequencing
Ten years ago, the completion of the Human Genome Project was a milestone in the history of science. The race to be the first team to decode an entire human genome ultimately ended with the two largest groups collaborating and announcing the success of the project in 2001. This was not only a scientific achievement,…
Nancy Roman, ‘Mother of Hubble’ NASA astronomer, has died aged 93
By Amity Roberts Photograph: Nasa Archive/Alamy Nancy Roman, a boundary-breaking astronomer known as the ‘Mother of the Hubble’, died aged 93 on December 25th, 2018. Roman was NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy and supervised the planning and development of the Hubble Space Telescope that would change the way we see the universe. Roman was born…
Yeast on the brain: could fungi be linked to Alzheimer’s Disease?
A fungus that can infect the brain may be the key to understanding Alzheimer’s disease. The blood brain barrier (BBB) is a highly selective barrier that allows very few unwanted substances pass through it. However, there are some bacteria and fungi that have found a way to cross the BBB and cause infections; Candida albicans…
CRISPR’s Consequences: An Ethical Tongue Twister
By Abigail Pavey The power to create, destroy or modify life has always been a source of great debate between scientists and among society as a whole. But what happens when scientists decide to go undercover and do what they please? In November 2018, Chinese researcher He Jiankui announced to the world that he had…
![Image from: Jonathan Bailey / NHGRI [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/oxsci.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Circulating-tumor-dna_image.jpg?resize=600%2C400&ssl=1 "A 10-minute, universal blood test for cancer")
A 10-minute, universal blood test for cancer
Researchers at the University of Queensland, Australia have developed a blood test that can detect whether a patient has any type of cancer within as little as 10 minutes. Although still in the initial stages of testing, this cheap and simple method could help clinicians to diagnose cancer before symptoms appear, when the widest range…
‘Future of the home’ an interactive web graphic from Carlisle Clifton
Carlisle is a designer and web developer who likes to create innovative and thought provoking content, particularly around science and tech. He lives and works in Leeds, UK, with his wife and son and spends most of his spare time either playing cricket or being chief story teller to his young son. Below is an…