Science & Technology – Page 6 of 9

Fortnite: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

26Oct

By Anna IrwinNo Comments

Science & Technology

Fortnite: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

For those who don’t know, Fortnite is a video game in which around 100 players skydive from a plane onto an island. The goal is to be the ‘last man standing’. Players find weapons hidden throughout the island and are also able to collect materials and build structures – think Hunger Games meets Minecraft. There are many unique elements within the game, which is what makes it so popular. However, what those elements stand for changes as you go on. Sure, Fornite may be good to play but, it can also be bad and, sometimes, a little ugly. Fortnite has been a huge success across the world. Many players, including myself, find it a light and easy game, meaning it is easy to just pick up the controller and start playing. The determination to obtain that all-famous screen with “#1 Victory Royale” ...

9Oct

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Science & Technology

The Hunt for the Unseen

Throughout it’s history, the human race has delved far into the mysteries of the Universe: why are we here? Where did the Universe come from? What is the Universe made of? These questions have sparked interest and exploration for millennia, and we have come a very long way in that time. It has been approximately 2500 years since the Ancient Greeks started to formulate their ideas about the Universe we live in. Since then the human race has become to probe the true nature of the Universe itself to answer these questions, and it is the final question that has the whole physics community stumped: what is the Universe made from? An experiment named WMAP measured the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Radiation of the Universe, which is made from photons that have been travelling since the be...

7Aug

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Science & Technology

Learning to See in the Dark

Dark matter makes up 26.8% of our Universe’s energy and mass, yet we know practically nothing about it. In fact we only really know about luminous matter, such as that we are made from or see in our every day life and this only amounts to about 4% of the Universe’s energy and mass. So called, dark matter remains to this day an extremely illusive entity, only ever evidenced by cosmologists when looking at the discrepancy between the gravitational pull of a galaxy, and the mass within the galaxy. It seems that the galaxies must have much more matter within them than is visible. So what is this invisible, dark matter? Perhaps we’re about to find out. New results of the temperature of the early universe from the EDGES all-sky radio antenna experiment could change our view on dark matter enti...

4Aug

By Natasha LamNo Comments

Science & Technology

Spare Parts?

Lab-grown body parts aren’t just science fiction. Scientists all over the world are attempting to use stem cells to grow ears, livers, hearts, kidneys, blood vessels, skin and bladders in labs that are transplantable into real people. Though rare, some people are walking around with lab-grown bladders. Around 80% of the world’s transplants come from the deceased while the other 20% is mainly made up of living donors and a small percentage attributed to a lab. Many people question whether the future could see people receiving transplants from a lab, or even a ‘farm’ of lab-grown human body parts, mass produced for transplants all over the world. These organs are greatly needed. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), there are over 100,000 people waiting for a lifesaving...

28Jul

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Science & Technology

Running On Autopilot

Driverless cars are taking the world by storm. Self-driving or driverless cars take different forms, with the most famous likely being Uber previously trialling driverless vehicles in cities like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Tempe, Arizona. Self-driving cars are being developed by companies all over the world, including Tesla, Uber, GM, Google’s Waymo and more. But with more and more accidents involving driverless cars, and even a recent death, can these technologically advanced vehicles really be trusted on the roads? According to the World Health Organization, over 1.25 million people died from “road traffic crashes” while an estimated 20 - 50 million more people are injured non-fatally. A 2008 study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration in the US estimated that...

Is there a link between video games and violence?

7Jul

By Ryan GullifordNo Comments

Science & Technology

Is there a link between video games and violence?

Following the events of the tragic high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, issues surrounding school safety are widely discussed amongst the Trump administration. Amongst his many statements, President Trump has made several comments suggesting video games are linked to real-world gun violence and are “shaping young people’s thoughts”. Currently, despite the reports, there are no scheduled meetings between Trump and games industry executives, clarified by the Entertainment Software Association. The general consensus is that these statements are completely false and negatively portray an otherwise extremely lucrative global industry. “The current issue with school safety being discussed is not a global issue, it’s a USA issue. If video games were the problem, then every country would be...

7Mar

By Helena KeebleNo Comments

Science & Technology

Magic the Gathering Grand Prix London

On 26 January, the Magic the Gathering Grand Prix 2018 arrived in London, hosting artists, traders and tournaments throughout the weekend. Magic the Gathering was created by Richard Garfield as the first trading card game published in 1993 by ‘Wizards of the Coast’. The game can be played by two or more players in multiple formats within two categories: constructed and limited. In 2015 the MTG community consisted of over twenty million players from 13 years plus and continues to thrive through a multinational market. The London Excel arena hosted gamers from around the world turning up to play in tournaments, meet artists, and buy, trade or sell cards to a large range of vendors. Simon George, a magic player from Norwich who attended the event, stated, ‘I had a great time, sadly I was n...

1Mar

By Clara CohenNo Comments

Science & Technology

What’s Up in Space?

If you’re asked the question “What is orbiting the Earth?”, the first answer to come to your mind might be “The Moon”. Another answer could be “The International Space Station” or a number of other television or GPS satellites. If you stop for a moment and think about it, you will realise that for people to be able to have global network coverage, there must be a very large number of satellites surrounding the Earth, careful moving around each other. But these aren’t the only things bouncing around in our exosphere. The current count of trackable “space junk”, the term for assorted space debris, is over 500,000, and this is creating a massive negative impact on the future of space travel. Space junk is mainly artificial, caused by leftover bits of rockets and space stations that have f...

28Feb

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Science & Technology

How will it all end?

Everyone always asks the question: ‘Where did we come from?’. Well why not look from the other perspective, ‘How will it all end?’ The true fate of the Universe lies, as bizarre as it may seem, in its geometry. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity formulates a particular set of field equations that have within them an unknown parameter. This parameter is known as the curvature of space-time, literally the shape of space and time, the very fabric of reality itself. Einstein proposed three situations of this parameter, known as: the “open universe”, a negative curvature leading to a saddle-like shape; the “flat universe”, where curvature is zero and thus the universe is flat; and the “closed universe”, a ballooned shaped universe with a positive curvature. Each of these situations have...

27Feb

By Ryan GullifordNo Comments

Science & Technology

Women in Gaming

With 2018 now in full swing and the spring term well underway, the topic of women in video games and the gender diversity gap in the industry was brought to light in 2017, so let’s make sure that continues throughout the year. The video games industry has several factors influencing its negative perception and among them are key issues surrounding gender and the nature of these views. So, here we look at what’s causing the problem and how we can continue to solve it. Opportunities Through Education: A key, yet overlooked factor which has a large effect on the inclusion of women in the video games industry, surrounds the lack of support from the educational system. From a young age, women can be discouraged from pursuing a career in video games simply because they didn’t know it was ...