Sophie Berdugo discusses how, much like the self-isolation we have become accustomed to during the COVID-19 pandemic, ants also adopt self-isolation techniques to stop the spread of fungal infections.
By Molly Hammond This article was originally published in The Oxford Scientist Michaelmas Term 2021 edition, Change. Nuclear fusion is supposedly ‘always 30 years away’. It was however first theorised about a hundred years ago. What has changed in a century of research—and are we now, really, only 30 years away? In 1920, Arthur Eddington…
By Karen Heathcote We’ve seen and heard plenty about vaccines over the last couple of years, with news outlets all over the world proudly showing images of people receiving their COVID-19 vaccination jabs. However, a new vaccine that is about to enter its next phase of trials in Oxford won’t be administered as an injection…
Gene therapy has been used to safely reverse the biological clock in middle-aged mice. Ines Momodu-Herrero investigates this new finding and its implications for aging control in people.
By Matthew Sutton This article was originally published in The Oxford Scientist Michaelmas Term 2021 edition, Change. Earth’s oceans are an immense and foreboding place. They occupy 71% of the surface area of the planet and have a total volume exceeding 1.3 billion cubic kilometres. Occupying every corner of every part of this gargantuan biome…
A new review finds that women are more likely to experience long COVID than men. Helen Collins explores why and how we can further study the condition.
Grace Kirman explores how her choices and the environment alter her epigenetics to make her different from her twin sister.
A new study headed by palaeontological artist Gregory Paul proposes that the legendary Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) may not be just one species—rather, it may be three different ones altogether. Isabelle Goddard investigates the finding and describes its impact on her field.
By Rhian Gruar This article was originally published in The Oxford Scientist Michaelmas Term 2021 edition, Change. On the 26 June 2000, President Bill Clinton announced the completion of the first draft of the Human Genome Project (HGP) to the world, ushering in a new age of scientific understanding. The HGP was a decade-long endeavour…
Does the technology behind predictive texts, facial recognition, and our social media feeds offer the solution to struggling global wildlife conservation efforts? Katie Jones investigates.
