Tag: history
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‘It is because of the brave women of the past that we can enjoy the freedoms that we have today’
Alice Drinkwater reflects on the story of Eunice Newton Foote, the unrecognised climate change pioneer who did not have the right to vote, let alone an equal voice to male scientists at the time of her discoveries in the 1850s.
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Reflections on the history of radiocarbon dating
Alice Spaccasassi explores what the history of radiocarbon dating can teach us about how we celebrate and remember scientific discoveries. Few recent discoveries in chemistry have affected as many scientific fields as radiocarbon dating. Archaeologists, geologists, oceanographers and many others use it to determine the age of objects up to 60,000 years old. For reference,…
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Growing evidence for climate change that sparked dawn of dinosaurs
During the Carnian Stage in the late Triassic Period, around 237 to 227 million years ago, three major events occurred: the Wrangellia eruptions, the Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE), and the emergence and diversification of dinosaurs. The Wrangellia eruptions, which formed the Wrangellia basalt floods in the eastern Panthalassic Ocean, were major tectonic events that caused…
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What can we learn from ye olde medicine?
Ellie Bennett explores how answers to the global problem of antimicrobial resistance, a decidedly modern phenomenon, may lie in the lotions and potions of our ancient predecessors. The Romans gargled urine for mouthwash, the Ancient Egyptians used dung as remedy for, well, everything and Hippocrates diagnosed his patients’ by nibbling on an amuse bouche of…
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Myth-busting the Golden Ratio
[latexpage] The Golden Ratio is widely praised for its aesthetic beauty: has its significance been blown out of proportion? Number enthusiasts are likely familiar with the idea of the golden ratio, and the artistically minded may have heard of its applications in design. The golden ratio is a simple relation between two quantities commonly occurring…
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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…