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…
Find out how scientists in the UK Atomic Energy Authority are striving towards a cleaner, more sustainable future by creating a Sun on Earth.
Every autumn, billions of birds disappear from our fields, trees, and shorelines to make awe-inspiring migratory journeys, reliably returning again the next spring. The bar-tailed godwit, a long-legged wading bird, flies from Alaska to New Zealand over nine straight days without stopping. Short-tailed shearwaters migrate all the way round the Pacific with pinpoint accuracy, returning…
Why should we care about the stratosphere? Such is the question Simon Clark presented us with at the latest of the Physics society’s weekly talks. Former undergraduate at St Peter’s College Oxford and prominent Youtuber, Clark has made a name for himself as a powerful and effective science communicator and it becomes clear why as…
Sara Middleton Sara Middleton (PhD candidate in ecology) is injecting the drama into grassland communities by creating a drought. This is all in the name of research to try and find out how certain plants respond to extreme conditions because, as Middleton points out, they can’t just move somewhere nicer. The star of this “plant…
Where would the modern world be without efficient, rechargeable sources of power? The 2019 Nobel Prizes recognised transformative work to tackle this problem carried out in the Oxford Department of Chemistry. John Goodenough’s work in Oxford built upon the ideas of his co-recipient Whittingham, who had been amongst the first to use a material that…
Maria Violaris Why can’t you plug your computer into your bathtub? It seems like an obviously bad idea but, as Maria Violaris (4th year physicist) points out, when you zoom right in you’re surrounded by fast moving particles buzzing with energy. If we could find a way to harness this energy it begins to seem…
by Jake Pugsley, Year 13, The Cotswold School, Gloucestershire When I hear the term “unsung hero of science,” the first thought that comes to mind is of an underrated, belittled researcher, his theses discredited by the wider world of erudition. I imagine a man, slumped at his desk, disparaged by his fellows’ baseless accusations that…
