Ozone

Sophie Littlewood on what the ozone hole tells us about human responsibility, manufactured doubt and international collaboration. In May 1985, three scientists from the British Antarctic Survey published a shock discovery: the ozone layer had a hole in it. The hole – or, more accurately, the area over Antarctica where ozone concentration is abnormally low…

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When Science Fails

Sian Wilcox on failure: science’s greatest achievement. When most people think of science, they recall news articles detailing logical and coherent stories that reach a satisfying conclusion. Each neatly packaged piece of research is then further condensed into an eye-catching title that showcases the main finding. Nevertheless, this presentation of science does not recognise the…

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Undoing Scientific Wrongdoings: Is Journal Retraction Enough?

Following a spate of recent high-profile journal retractions, some scientists are questioning the integrity of the peer-review process and how flawed articles can be published in high-impact journals. But what happens when a journal article is retracted, and is it too late to truly disregard the details it contained? Let’s take a deeper look into…

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Citizen Scientists: Transforming the World of Data and Research

Jessie D’Urso, Year 12, Nonsuch High School for Girls, Surrey “In every moment of the day, in the middle of any day, I can become newly engaged with the world. Newly competent. There’s so much to discover!” This quote conjures to mind someone brilliant: Darwin, Hawking or Einstein, plotting their radical theories. Yet these are…

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Professor David Spiegelhalter: Telling the Truth With Statistics

Hannah Glendell, Year 12, Cults Academy, Aberdeen We live in a world of data. Every day numbers are thrown at us from all directions: teenagers have anxiety, people will get cancer, people have died of Coronavirus. But says who? Numbers swirl around us; wildly exaggerated, spreading like Chinese whispers. The pandemic has exacerbated this problem….

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