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…
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…
The voice of an Ancient Egyptian priest who fell silent over 3000 years ago has been brought back to life thanks to a team of scientists from Royal Holloway and the University of York. The group, part of the ‘Voices of the Past’ Project, created a 3-D printed model of the man’s vocal tract constructed…
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…
Since China first announced the emergence of a new virus, 2019-novel coronavirus or 2019-nCOV, the pathogen has spread and international cases have emerged. This virus is in the same family as both the common cold and the more deadly MERS and SARS viruses. Governments and health organisations are now mobilising to contain the spread of…
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…
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…
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…
Nathan Walemba The quantum computer was first theorised by Richard Feynman in 1982. Nathan Walemba, a 1st year undergraduate studying Materials Science, gave his Chalk Talk on what a quantum computer is and how far they have come since their original proposal. Feynman’s suggestion sparked a frantic race between companies such as Google, D-Wave and…
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…
