Author: EUSci
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Supermassive black hole: Andromeda’s and the Milky Way’s black holes will collide
Our nearest galaxy, Andromeda or M31, lies 2.537 million light years (or 2.4 x 1019 km) away. However, scientists have agreed that it is on a collision course for our own Galaxy, the Milky Way, with an estimated speed of 116 km/s. Most studies agree that this will happen between 4 to 5 billion years…
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Concern for the Climate Endures Through the COVID-19 Pandemic
COVD-19 may be cutting coverage on the climate crisis, but that doesn’t mean people have stopped caring about the climate. 2020 began with wildfires raging across Australia in an unusually intense bushfire season. Driven by drought, high temperatures and lightning, this was a stark reminder of how climate change contributes to the threat of natural…
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Music was my first love…
New research illustrates the potential for music therapy for people with Alzheimer’s. We’re all aware of the power of music – be that its ability to make you move your feet, shed a few tears, or take you back to the first time you ever heard a song. This power is being harnessed by music…
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Robotic Touch: Artificial skin brings robots closer to ‘touching’ human lives
When we anticipate the different future innovative technologies we imagine that the manufacturing industry will be completely automated, routine medical procedures will be robot-assisted and the world’s most puzzling crimes will be unraveled by robotic-detectives. It’s fair to say that robots have made significant developmental strides since their inception into our society. Although robotic process…
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Venus Flytraps Generate Measurable Magnetic Fields
Magnetic fields produced by the venus fly trap have been measured by an interdisciplinary team of scientists. Lily Sharratt-Davidson explores the impact these findings could have on plant diagnostics. The venus flytrap (or Dionaea Muscipula) is a well-recognised carnivorous plant – infamous for its ability to capture small insects inside its cage-like leaves. This unusual…
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Should Scotland reintroduce the Eurasian lynx to its highlands?
Samantha Dougary explores whether the Eurasian lynx should be reintroduced back into the Scottish Highlands, to once again be free to roam and thrive in their natural habitat for the first time in 500 years. The Eurasian lynx was once native to Scotland before habitat loss and overhunting drove the species to extinction over 500…
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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…