Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Six in ten UK adults have raised cholesterol levels with 8 million having to take statins – an anti-cholesterol drug. Many people assume this is solely down to a diet containing too much fat however, genetics can also be to blame. Familial high cholesterol is a congenital condition where the gene responsible for the production […]
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In the latest ERC funding announcement, on 10th December 2019, the University of Oxford received €56 million in European Research Council funding. Nine Oxford researchers received ERC Consolidator Grants, the most awarded to any institution in the UK and second in Europe only to the French National Centre for Scientific Research. 301 researchers across 24 […]
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Image Description: Brussels sprouts Brussels sprouts are the same species as cabbage, cauliflower, kale, broccoli and kohlrabi (among others). They are all different parts of the wild cabbage (Brassica oleracea) plant, which have been selectively bred for different exaggerated traits. Brussels sprouts are the bud. Cabbage and kale are both leaves, but cabbage leaves […]
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Image Description: T.rex at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History The Museum of Natural History is one of Oxford’s finest landmarks, housing over seven million specimens in its expansive collection. Last week the museum opened its doors at night to allow visitors to see the ongoing First Animals exhibition with museum director Professor […]
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Image Description: green aliens. The moon landing was a hoax. There are no stars in the photographs of moon landing, as they were removed by NASA to prevent astronomers from identifying that the photos were in fact taken on Earth. Astronauts couldn’t have survived the radiation, heat and solar flares they encountered, and the […]
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Image Description: cast of the skeleton of Lucy, an Australopithecus afarensis fossil Researchers have discovered a new species of ancient ape that provides hints as to how bipedal walking evolved in modern humans. The species, given the scientific name Danuvius guggenmosi, was found in clay pits in south-eastern Germany, in the state of Bavaria. […]
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Image Description: Fireworks. The sparks from a sparkler are 1000-1600°C. Yet, they are still safe to use because there is a difference between temperature and energy. The thermal energy of the spark is related to its mass, as well as its temperature. As sparks have little mass, they do not have enough thermal energy to […]
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Image Description: Harbour Seal pup Seagulls are attracted to urban areas. This is because temperatures are generally 4-6°C warmer, meaning their breeding season can last for longer. There are also fewer predators in urban locations, and street-lighting allows them to forage in bins for food after dark, as well as stealing it straight out of […]
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Image description: hurricane. Researchers from Florida State University have discovered “stormquakes” – a new geophysical phenomenon formed when large storms interact with the ocean to cause a release of seismic waves that can travel for thousands of miles. These previously unknown seismic events can have the equivalent effect of earthquakes with magnitudes of over 3.5. […]
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Image Description: an optical circuit. As time goes on, our computer are becoming more and more powerful. This is primarily due to the ongoing development of the CPU (or GPU): the ‘brain’ of the computer. A pressing question facing the electronics industry is whether computers will one day become more powerful than a human beings. […]
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Image Description: YouTube In August 2019, the Indian rapper Badshah was widely accused of using a network of servers for the promotion of his latest music video ‘Paagal’. One day after release, this video had reached as many as 75 million views on YouTube, a record. The rapper maintains that he merely employed Google advertising […]
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Image Description: Prof. Sir John Gurdon. On Friday evening, Prof. Sir John Gurdon was invited to give a talk by the Oxford University Biological Society. His talk, titled ‘Over 60 years at the bench, and still there’ was a modest and candid account of his science career, from anecdotes about his school days, through to […]
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Image Description: roasted coffee beans. 600 billion cups of coffee are drunk globally each year. Coffee is one of your five-a-day, as it is a fruit. It’s also a seed, and not a bean. There are two types of coffee, Arabica and Robusta. Arabica coffee tends to be sweeter, but more acidic. Originally from the […]
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Image Description: a goat eating grass. Goats have rectangular pupils. This allows a wider range of vision of 340°, so pretty much everything, except what is directly behind them, which is essential for spotting predators and not getting eaten. However, with a rectangular pupil, goats cannot look up or down without moving their heads. […]
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Image Description: iPhone. On October 9, 2019, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, and Akira Yoshino for “the development of lithium-ion batteries”. Look around and you will find lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries everywhere in your life – phones, computers and electrical vehicles. However, can you imagine that a […]
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Image Description: two people at the Biological Society stall at the Freshers’ Fair. All I remember of my Freshers’ Fair two years ago was how hot Exams Schools was, and how so many people kept trying to make small talk with me, neither of which agreed with (what is still) the worst hangover of […]
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Image Description: a bumblebee on an orange flower. 1. Bees have hairy tongues for drinking nectar. Bumblebees are able to drink both runny nectars and gloopy nectars. How they are able to do this has baffled scientists – until now. Bees have long, rod-like tongues covered in hair-like protrusions, best described as a tiny mop. This […]
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Professor Sir Peter J Ratcliffe, Director for the Target Discovery Institute within the Nuffield Department of Medicine at Oxford University and Director of Clinical Research at Francis Crick Institute, London, has today been announced as a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Sir Ratcliffe was announced as a winner of the Prize […]
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Image Description: a tiger. Zoos are no modern issue. The origin of zoos can be traced to animals captured by the ancient Mesopotamian Sumerians, or perhaps the animals caged for entertaining guests of Roman senators. While zoos have changed drastically since then – more space, fewer bars – the harm done to animal welfare remains. […]
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