Science & Technology – Page 8 of 9

Flat Earthers: Who are they and why do they exist?

16Nov

By Clara CohenNo Comments

Science & Technology

Flat Earthers: Who are they and why do they exist?

Over 2,000 years ago, the ancient civilisations believed the world to be flat. They never had satellite images, planes or even drones to view the world from above, and even the tallest pyramid, the Great Pyramid of Giza stood at a meagre 139m, not anywhere near enough to observe the curvature of the Earth, all they had was the flat lands that spread before them, so they could be forgiven for theorising the two-dimensional shape of our planet. However, even as early as 350 BC, Aristotle disputed the flat earth theory, and by studying the position of the sun in different Egyptian cities at midday, with a little basic trigonometry, he was able to calculate that the Earth, in fact, had a more spherical shape. Once the Church gained power, though, anyone who spoke out against the idea that ...

7Nov

By Camilla ImarisioNo Comments

Science & Technology

Cassini: The Grand Finale

Discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610, Saturn and its rings have been fascinating the humankind since ancient times. The Cassini and smaller Huygens probes, launched on October 15th 1997, provided us with unprecedented details of one of the most photogenic planets in our solar system, revealing its beauty and inspiring our sense of wonder. On September 15th 2017, just weeks shy of its 20th birthday, the Cassini dove into Saturn’s atmosphere, burning up and disintegrating like a meteor, after its successful mission to provide us with observations of Saturn, as well as its rings and moons, from a closer viewpoint than ever before. To celebrate Cassini and its journey here are some key findings and discoveries. Extraterrestrial Life could be possible on Saturn’s Moons In a stable env...

The Bubonic Apocalypse: a possible resurgence of the Black Death

30Oct

By Clara CohenNo Comments

Science & Technology

The Bubonic Apocalypse: a possible resurgence of the Black Death

The Black Death, or bubonic plague, is one of the most infamous epidemics of the western world. The disease spread across most of Europe, killing between 75 and 250 million people in the space of 7 years. The plague was caused by Yersinia Pestis, a bacterium of the enterobacteriaceae family which could kill an infected human in 3 to 7 days. This particular strain of bacterium has reappeared multiple times since the 14th century, but could we expect to see a full resurgence of the bubonic plague in our modern times? The bubonic plague was an illness that ravaged most of Eurasia. It first presented with buboes, blackened and swollen lymph nodes around the armpits and groin which often leaked pus and would bleed when pierced. After that came a high fever and hematemesis, or the vomiting of...

2Oct

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Science & Technology

Vaccination Fears Go Viral

People are divided on the role of vaccinations. Most see them as a godsend, the product of the miracles of modern science, and the only way to prevent their children from getting diseases like Diphtheria, Polio, Smallpox, Measles and Whooping Cough. There are, however, a growing faction of people that are against inoculating children with vaccines as they believe that there are doubts over the antigens contained within vaccines and the effects they may have on their children and families. In addition, there are those who are in favour of vaccines but want them to be given in smaller doses over a longer period of time. Vaccination is, simply put, the process of injecting a sample of a weakened or killed virus into a person in order to provoke an immune system response into producing anti...

22Sep

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Science & Technology

AI on the Radar

Ever since its inception, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has not only been at the forefront of technological advancement but also a major theme within many action films. What many films of the last decade have told us is that AI will either stage a hostile takeover of the world, or send us into obsolescence by one day replacing us, thus taking over the world regardless. For any journalist, current or aspiring, that day may be today, as it was announced earlier this year that Google is funding an AI program that will create news stories for publications. Google manages a fund, the Digital News Initiative (DNI), that awards grants to digital journalism projects around Europe. They awarded a grant of over £600,000 to Ireland’s Press Association and Urbs Media for their collaboration on the R...

20Sep

By Simon WilliamsNo Comments

Science & Technology

Orbital Explains: The Line At Infinity

You’ve probably never stood on a train track, and looked as it disappeared off into the distance. But let’s imagine you have. The two mutually parallel tracks seem to meet just as they venture over the crest of the horizon - a strange illusion. You know that the two tracks can never meet, because a train has to be able to move over them, with a fixed distance between its wheels. Perhaps it is just an illusion, created by the optical receptors in your eye - or perhaps it isn’t. In Euclidean mathematics, two parallel lines will exist along side each other at a fixed length and never meet. Euclid also explained that two lines will meet at exactly one point, unless they are parallel. This idea upsets modern day mathematicians, who don’t like the word ‘unless’; they believe it’s not elegant....

3Apr

By No Comments

Science & Technology

Clannad: A story about family

*DISCLAIMER, HEAVY SPOILERS FOR CLANNAD VIDEO GAME AND ANIME FRANCHISE* The first thing you may notice about this video-game-turned-anime-franchise is that the word 'Clannad' has its origin in the Irish Gaelic word meaning “family”. This would initially surprise as most Japanese franchises are either written in one of the many Japanese alphabets or in English. But the idea of family is something that is vital to understanding Clannad, as it not just about biological family or even the inner circle of friends you keep, but the community that the show takes place in. In terms of the games and the anime, this means that your purpose as the character Tomoyo Sakagami is to help people in different situations and certain arcs, in what is known as a 'visual novel'. This type of game is not see...

Astronomy: More than just pretty desktop backgrounds

21Mar

By No Comments

Science & Technology

Astronomy: More than just pretty desktop backgrounds

The vast majority of us have looked up at the night sky before and admired the twinkling stars above or maybe noticed that the moon is looking particularly bright today. You may have taken a picture with a smart phone, a digital camera or been fortunate enough to have access to a telescope to have a closer look at what lies beyond our planet. But there is so much more to astronomy than pretty desktop backgrounds and astrological maps. I was kindly invited to the latest evening lecture hosted by the Department of Physics here at Royal Holloway where Professor Stewart Boogert demonstrated how much we can learn from the celestial bodies around us. To coincide with British Science Week and the return of BBC Stargazing Live, the talk explained how even a simple image of an object can tell yo...

24Feb

By No Comments

Science & Technology

Where Travel Meets Science

Far from the images of far off lands and exploration that the word ‘travel’ inspires, the word ‘science’ is often synonymous with dark laboratories and maybe a class you hated in school. However, the two can have far greater a connection than you might think. Whether it’s chemistry, physics or biology, getting on a plane and exploring really does bring the quirks of science to life. Chemistry: Bolivia Watching salt dissolve in a beaker probably wasn’t the most inspiring science lesson ever encountered. However, there is one particular place on earth that will leave even those of us who despised chemistry in awe of the white stuff: The Salt Flats, Bolivia. A short (by South American standards) 12 hour bus journey from the capital city, La Paz, is this white wonderland. The Salt Fl...

17Feb

By No Comments

Science & Technology

What’s the Deal With…Zealandia?

Continental drift has altered the surface of our planet for millions of years, giving rise to various conglomerations of crust like Laurasia and Gondwana, and the daddy of them all, Pangaea. Talk of alternative continents to the geological masses we recognise today has mostly been confined to looking backwards in time - until now. A paper by Mortimer et al. (2017) has offered the most evidence to date that another continent has been staring us in the face all these years. It is worth noting that whilst country borders are recognised internationally the categorisation of continents is less finite. If you have ever found yourself stumped by a pub quiz question on the subject or felt an injustice when your answer of 5 or 6 or 7 continents was marked incorrectly you are not alone, as ev...