Category: Feature
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How old is HIV? The United Kingdom and HIV/AIDS research
The discovery of a viral cause for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in 1983 by Françoise Barré-Sinoussi at the Pasteur Institute in Paris marked a major achievement in scientific and LGBTQ+ history. In May 1986, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses gave it its current name: human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV/AIDS ravaged the gay community…
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Little trouble makers
Welcome to 2019: the time of sophisticated technology like never before. Your handheld computer resting in your pocket, your light-weighted laptop, your magical Bluetooth device, your orchestral MP3 player and your seemingly limitless option of movies on your smart TV are all a product of technological innovations for pleasure. Technological advances have also carried over…
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International Day of Women in Science: Eunice Foote
International Day of Women and Girls in Science, a global effort to promote gender parity across STEM education, research and professions, was established by UNESCO in 2015. This year, taking place on 11th February and supported by roughly 70 countries, the theme was ‘Investment in Women and Girls in Science for Inclusive Green Growth’. They…
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International Day of Women in Science: women belong in science
When I was in high school, my physics teacher ascribed me of cheating because I got the highest exams scores in my class In the small Austrian village where I grew up, the image of a woman is still largely dominated by birthing children and spending her days in the kitchen. It seemed unthinkable that…
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Privacy in the age of AI: who’s following our digital footsteps?
Two weeks ago, EdIntelligence, the University of Edinburgh Machine Learning society, launched the “We Need to Talk About AI” seminar series in collaboration with the School of Informatics, with a sold-out event centring around big data and privacy in an increasingly digital world. The event was hosted by postgraduate Artificial Intelligence students Mari Liis Pedak…
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The science of snowflakes
The season of festive cheer is descending upon us, with our thoughts already wandering to those things that are iconically entangled with Christmas time. One such quintessential facet of any dreams of Christmas are scenes of snow falling all around us, which for almost all of the country (bar Edinburgh!) is currently less of a…
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Bringing Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism to light
James Clerk Maxwell was an incredible British physicist who developed one of the first unified theories of physics, by integrating electricity and magnetism. Between 1861 and 1862 he published a series of papers titled ‘On Physical Lines of Force’, which advanced the revolutionary idea that a change in electric flux through a surface can create…