12th July 2020
Isobel Thomas-Horton Writer Isobel Thomas-Horton gives ethical consideration to the privatisation of space. In 2011 Nasa created perhaps the highest stakes game of capture the flag in the history of mankind. An American flag was placed over the capsule hatch on the International Space Station and American companies were challenged to retrieve it. On 1 ...
12th July 2020
Margaret Hartness Writer Services like 23andMe can be fun but do they put our privacy at risk? Everybody wants to know where they’re from, who they’re related to, and what they’re at risk of. From questions of paternity to screening for diseases, genetic testing has been a rigorous and serious endeavour. With big businesses like ...
11th July 2020
Graham Peacock Writer With lockdown now having lasted more than 100 days, Graham Peacock looks at the wider impacts of social distancing. Yesterday, in what was my first trip outside since March that didn’t involve a supermarket or a park, I drove to my friend’s flat to drop off some books. I had been there ...
22nd June 2020
Isobel Thomas-Horton Writer What to do to challenge fake news on social media. “Fake News” always seemed to me to be something distinctly American, like spray cheese or high school doping scandals. Their independence and constitutionally entrenched distrust of authority struck me as the perfect breeding ground for what Kellyanne Conway memorably coined “alternative facts”. ...
10th June 2020
Joseph Evans Writer A discussion of the issues and limitations of contact tracing apps and why they are so controversial. A contact tracing app to help limit the spread of coronavirus has been discussed for months. The original proposal was that it would help to limit the initial spread of the virus back in the ...
2nd June 2020
Graham Peacock Writer Graham Peacock discusses the harmful effects of paranoia and its recent political history. There’s a picture of the artist David Wojnarowicz taken in 1988 at the height of the HIV crisis that feels particularly poignant to me in the current climate. In it, Wojnarowicz, seen from behind, wears a customised denim jacket ...
26th April 2020
Adam Verson Writer When we are told to worry about so many things, should the Chinese government spying on us really be a concern? A new network system has been in the works since 2018. In the last six months, the four major UK network providers (Vodafone, EE, O2, and Three) have all launched 5G ...
26th April 2020
Megan Farrimond Writer Megan Farrimond examines the Netflix documentary on Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand. Since Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle e-commerce brand Goop was launched in 2008 it has come under much scrutiny from trained medical professionals and scientists. The criticism levelled at the “L.A. lifestyle” being pushed by the brand, is due to the false and ...
4th April 2020
Imogen Miller Culture Columnist – Music Should scientists study moral philosophy? In the middle of the wilderness, with no contact with the outside world, two groups of twelve year old boys are forced to compete for resources. They reach their limits, hysteria ensues and the two groups become violent. You may think I’m describing ...
23rd March 2020
Graeme Eddols Writer Graeme Eddols explores the significance of the University’s contribution to gravitational wave research. Gravitational waves are caused by some of the most energetic events in the universe. Their existence was predicted by Albert Einstein over 100 years ago in his famous General Theory of Relativity, and it has taken almost the same ...
