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This week I attended a talk at London’s Nikon School – just off Oxford Street – given by Margot Raggett, a wildlife photographer and creator of the Remembering Wildlife book series. Remembering Wildlife brings together the work of dozens of photographers to help raise money for wildlife charities. Every photograph used in the books has […]
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Yes, Facebook is back in our news feeds. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has published its long awaited 111-page Final Report on disinformation and ‘fake news’, and it’s fair to say that Facebook would give it an angry react. The work of over 18 months of a committee that has worked with 8 […]
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On February 13, NASA officially declared the end of Mars rover Opportunity’s mission on the red planet. After a long 14 years, the robot geologist joined its twin rover Spirit in retirement. Initially scheduled for a 90-day mission with Spirit in 2004, Opportunity, affectionately nicknames Oppy, worked longer than any other rover on Mars. It […]
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Tisotumab vedotin (TV), an innovative new drug, has shown promise in treating six different types of cancers. A team at the The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, led a Phase I/II clinical trial comprising of nearly 150 people from the UK, US, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden. TV was […]
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Alexander Fleming, in his Nobel Lecture of 1945, warned his audience of the emergence of antibiotic resistance following the discovery of penicillin: “there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, antibiotic resistance is now an […]
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Through the first half of the seventeenth century, Britain was heading towards a scientific revolution. Francis Bacon, educated in Cambridge and rejecting Aristotelian philosophy, is credited with developing the scientific method, and in Oxford, advances too were being made. The flourishing of members of a forward-thinking network shaped the future of scientific study in the […]
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Your body is not your own. From the minute you are born, microorganisms, from fungi to bacteria, coat every crevice and surface. These little creatures are crucial for a healthy existence, they have evolved with us over millennia and carry out various beneficial functions, including aiding digestion and protecting against dangerous pathogens. An adult’s intestinal […]
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Researchers from the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute have genetically modified chickens to produce medical drugs in their egg whites, and hope this method could one day revolutionise the way in which pharmaceuticals are manufactured. Protein based therapies can be lifesaving treatments for a range of diseases, and are currently the fastest growing segment of […]
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In January, BBC Icons ran a vote for the 20th century’s most important and influential figures in different fields of human endeavour. Together with three high-profile figures – Alan Turing, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein, Youyou Tu, a Chinese pharmaceutical chemist, was selected into one of seven programs for scientists. She was well-known as one […]
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The development of 3D printing has created a revolution over the last few decades, gifting our world with millions of new objects from the incredibly useful such as hip replacement implants, to countless novelty whistles and keyrings. Conventional 3D printing (technically known as “Additive Manufacturing”) involves the layering of liquid or powder grains to materialise […]
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Climate change. Two little words that we all hear ever so often. To many, climate change has lost its meaning, a hidden spectre we all know is lurking in the shadows. However, not many of us have witnessed any tangible events brought about by the process. Indeed, in case you haven’t noticed, it has been […]
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A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has made it very clear that drastic, immediate cuts to greenhouse gas emissions are needed to limit global warming to 1.5° C. With the absence of a technological silver bullet, this requires rapid changes at unprecedented scale across all sectors of the global economy. Just as […]
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“I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary.” – Dmitri Mendeleev On 6th March 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev stood before the Russian Chemical Society and presented ‘The Dependence […]
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Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) affects around half a million people in the UK, though its impacts spread much wider, devastating the lives of families and friends of sufferers. It is a type of dementia, a group of diseases associated with memory loss, confusion, mood variations and difficulties in communicating. Knowledge about the causes of AD remains […]
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Sir Michael Atiyah OM FRS FRSE FMedSci FAA FREng died on 11th January, aged 89. The British-Lebanese mathematician was born on 22nd April 1929 to a Scottish mother and Lebanese father and, after spending both his undergraduate and postgraduate time at Trinity College, Cambridge, went on to win many awards including the Fields medal (arguably […]
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For such tiny insects, mosquitoes pack a large punch. Responsible for over 800,000 deaths per year worldwide, they are the hitmen of some of the deadliest diseases, including Zika virus, Yellow fever, Dengue fever, and Malaria. The females use the protein in human blood to produce eggs, and although biting causes little direct harm, the […]
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Whales. Maybe they’re just a group of animals you remember from a nature documentary. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to see them in person. Or maybe, if you want to be technical, you’ll know them as a paraphyletic group of organisms within the Cetaceans, excluding the Dolphins. As someone who loves whales, and satisfies the […]
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The origin of life remains one of the greatest and most contentious problems of science and society as a whole. Religions and scientists can’t agree with themselves, let alone each other. For some, life was created with the will of an omnipotent being. For others, life was brought from another planet, perhaps on a meteorite, […]
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Running from 8th to 11th January, CES 2019 played host to almost 200,000 attendants, all browsing the latest tech produced by the world’s leading companies. Billed as the ‘global stage for innovation’, this year exhibitors presented new products and technologies across the entire consumer electronics industry, from immersive entertainment to smart devices. Evolutions in television […]
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