Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Artificial intelligence voice assistants like Siri and Alexa are reflecting, reinforcing, and spreading gender bias, a recent United Nations report suggested. The UNESCO report, entitled “I’d Blush if I Could”, explores the consequences of the spread of smart speakers and voice assistants, particularly the presentation of many of these platforms as female. “With many AI […]
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Chocolate lovers can agree that the smell of fresh chocolate entices the senses with a mouthwatering sensation of euphoria. What most people don’t know, however, is that this complex taste, particularly in dark chocolate, is the result of a combination of 25 different molecules which all come together to create the scent we all know […]
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Image description: Bacteria While most of you probably cannot wait to go home over the summer, travel to foreign countries, or start summer vac schemes, 10 students on the Oxford iGEM team will be stationed in Oxford, on the front lines of bacterial warfare. Every year, undergrads from across various disciplines are given the opportunity […]
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In just 100 days in 1994, about 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda by ethnic Hutu extremists and millions more were displaced from their homes. While the extent of the country’s promising recovery is hotly debated, one victim’s story embodies the nation’s story of resilience and recovery. The lone survivor of his immediate family, Abdoul […]
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The UK government has set its most ambitious climate goal ever: a net zero emission by 2050. On 2nd May, the official adviser to the UK government, Committee on Climate Change (CCC), revealed this new target in a 277-page report. Its carbon budget even includes international aviation and shipping, typically not taken into account for […]
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Image Description: Drawing of a stomach. While almost 90% of people with autism suffer from gut problems, such as abdominal pain, constipation, and diarrhea, the cause of these issue has remained largely unknown. Now, a genetic mutation that affects both the gut and the brain is a likely culprit. The study, conducted by Elisa Hill-Yardin […]
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Image Description: Human brain made out of coding. We live in an era of rapidly evolving science and technology in which fairly new concepts are emerging, such as Big Data, Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), among other fancy terms. In this article, I am going to focus on one of these terms and discuss […]
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Image Description: Man running away behind the Facebook logo. Facebook is suing South Korean firm, Rankwave, accusing them of illegally using data to sell marketing and advertising. Facebook is taking the first step in attempting to investigate this query by asking a judge to force the company to allow it to audit the firm’s activities […]
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Image Description: The numbers of pi After 3 years, the world record for the number of digits of 𝝅 (pi) that have been calculated has been broken by computer scientist Emma Haruka Iwao, using Google’s cloud based ‘Compute Engine’, putting the record at roughly 31.4 trillion digits, and beating the previous record by nearly 9 […]
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Image Description: An OUGSG seminar. Global surgery is a newly emerging field of global health which aims to provide safe and affordable surgical, obstetric and anaesthesia care worldwide. It seeks to improve health outcomes and achieve health equity for all people who need surgical and anaesthesia care, with a special emphasis on underserved populations and […]
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Between 2002 and 2015, scuba divers dove around 53 islands and coral reefs throughout the U.S. Pacific around Hawaii and conducted a comprehensive survey of the sea turtle habitats in the area. They counted about 3,400 sea turtles over 90% of which were green sea turtles, with the remaining 10% being a mix of hawksbill […]
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A group of 22 scientific research groups from around the world have recently discovered a new underlying pathology for dementia that may be mimicking clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s. It has been said that millions of elderly patients may have been misdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the past due to the lack of knowledge of this disease. […]
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From enzymes to muscle tissue, the DNA held within the nucleus of cells contains instructions for the production of every protein in your body. Mutations in these genomic blueprints, whether inherited or induced by damaging environmental agents (e.g toxins, UV radiation), can result in proteins becoming malformed and dysfunctional and ultimately give rise to disease. […]
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One of the most prestigious awards in the field of mathematics, the Abel prize, has been awarded to the emeritus Professor Karen Uhlenbeck of the University of Texas, making her the first and only woman to have won the award, out of the twenty laureates since the Abel prize’s conception in 2002. The Abel prize […]
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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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