Author: EUSci
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Tunes from the Stone Age: Paleolithic horn comes back for an encore
Following a sojourn to Europe in the 1820s, the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called music the “universal language of mankind.” The recent discovery of an 18,000-year-old seashell horn by a group of French anthropologists may stand as a testament to the time-enduring quality of his statement. Writing in the journal Science Advances, the researchers…
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Mine, Mine, Mine: The Epidemic of Vaccine Nationalism and Hoarding
Linta Nasim explores emerging vaccine nationalism and its implications on public health strategy and ending the coronavirus pandemic. Ugly vaccine nationalism, as feared by the World Health Organisation (WHO), human rights and public health advocates worldwide, is here. As recently as September last year at the UN General Assembly, nations were united as the global…
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Hedy Lamarr: The actress that made (frequency hopping) waves
On the occasion of the Women and Girls in Science Day, Marie Poirot highlights the contributions of inventor and Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr to modern technology. “The unknown was always so attractive to me”. This quote is a good way to describe inventor and actress Hedy Lamarr. World-famous for her movie career and outstanding beauty,…
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Can our oceans save us? The role of seaweed in large scale carbon capture
With governments such as the UK’s looking to rapidly accelerate investment into large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies that will target excessive carbon dioxide emitted found in the air, should policy-makers and ministers set their sights on the sea instead to find an effective solution to the mounting carbon emissions? Sami Cheqrouni-Espinar investigates. A…
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Dating Apps go from Strength to Strength
A new study from the University of Geneva has determined that couples who meet via dating apps do not experience less relationship satisfaction, and actually have stronger intentions in their relationship goals. It was found that singletons brought together by the internet, through apps such as tinder or grindr, actually have stronger desires to have…
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Elephants from Space: How Artificial Intelligence can Protect Nature
Human advancement may be threatening nature, but it also offers a way to preserve it. It is no secret that human activity is harming the natural world. Poaching, habitat loss and pollution are only a few examples of the ways in which species and ecosystems are under threat. Yet protecting nature isn’t without hope, and…
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High Tech Fashion: Radiation-proof is the new black
Yury Gogotsi and his colleagues have just developed highly conductive and scalable Ti3C2Tx-coated fabrics capable of efficient electromagnetic interference (EMI) shield. Pretty exciting, no doubt. But exactly how efficient are the high-tech products? Is their effect long-lasting enough to prevent them from being dumped like fast fashion clothes? Are they just another expensive wearable-tech fad?…
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Scientists pinpoint how much time we have left before global warming reaches critical levels
Global warming is the most pressing environmental threat that humanity faces today. The harmful effects that it has brought about are visible, with glaciers melting, sea levels rising and wildfires ramping across the Earth. If global warming continues at its current rate, the Earth will soon be too hot to live on. Up until now,…
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Why we should be more concerned about maternal stress during pregnancy
Marie Poirot reports on a University of Edinburgh study which highlights the connection between stress during pregnancy and the development of the baby’s brain. Pregnancy is a time of immense change for the expecting mother. As we mostly see the positive aspects of this extraordinary event, many can be unaware that it can also bring…
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Body clocks and light levels: some plants just aren’t morning people
Just like your lie-in-loving body clock might differ from your early-riser friend’s, the plants you’ve acquired during lockdown may have similar variations in the way their body clocks work. Researchers at the Earlham Institute in Norwich have identified a gene that determines whether a plant can be classed as a night owl or an early…