STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) is needed and, more importantly, STEM is wanted. The former is obvious, because many countries like the United Kingdom or the United States have been taking action in promoting these subjects and improving the teaching quality in need of more people studying STEM since 2015. The latter has been…
Blog 2: The Taxonomist’s Work When people imagine science, they imagine how it is in the movies. Men in white lab coats, peering into the fabric of reality, one breakthrough coming after another as if they were results on election night. The truth of science is much more pedestrian—whether it is physicists who pore over…
Blog 1: The Taxonomist’s Office To an outsider, the most shocking thing about a scientist’s office is its poverty. In nearly every other field that is highly respected in modern bourgeois society, whether it is law, finance, medicine, or even accounting, the upper echelons of the profession promise a comfortable office, with modern designed furniture,…
Let’s play a little game. Look around you and take note of how much plastic you can see. Is there a water bottle on the side? Perhaps there’s some food packaging littering your floor. Maybe even a polypocket with some dubious notes from a hungover tutorial. Now guess how much of that stuff there is…
Blog 2: Engaging with Parliament During my 3-month internship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST), I was responsible for researching and producing a Parliamentary briefing document, called a “POSTnote” about a Biology and Health topic (see Blog Post 1). POST select science topics to research that currently are, or soon will be,…
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but their concrete can withstand the ages: around 2 millennia to be precise. There are many intriguing stories of ancient materials with fascinating properties but long-forgotten methods of production, like Damascus steel, the supposed chromium plated blades of the terracotta army, and Roman concrete. However, more light has been shed…
Latte art-Instagrammars and stressed-out students alike will no doubt be delighted to hear that two recent studies, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, reveal a link between coffee consumption and reduced mortality from diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. In the largest study to date to assess the link between coffee consumption and mortality,…
A new pesticide which halts gene expression in one of North America’s most damaging pests is the first of its kind to be approved by the EPA. Final regulatory approval has been granted to a genetically modified corn known as SmartStaxPro in North America. SmartStaxPro has been engineered to produce DvSnf7, a pesticide that kills…
It has long been known that plants grow directionally, curving and following sunlight to maximise rates of photosynthesis: twelve year olds across the country have demonstrated this in classroom experiments. Now, however, it seems that some plants might not just follow sunlight individually, but whole groups seem to organise into patterns of bending. Scientists in…
Blog 1: Science and Parliament As scientists, many of us aim to make significant changes, both nationally and globally, through our research and discoveries. But many young scientists, like myself, may not have spent much time thinking about how scientific discoveries are actually implemented in society. I recently spent 3 months working as an intern…
