Cell & Gene Therapy: Ethical Debates Unpacked The Role of UCL’s Cell and Gene Therapy Experts in Shaping the Field’s Future. By Nhi Pham and Nidhi Rege
Fighting Viral Evolution in Real Time The difficulty in fighting viral pandemics lies in the ability of these entities to evolve solutions to everything we throw at them. But what if we had a tool to predict what they were going to evolve before they did? By Tom Dubois.
The Power of Toxin-Antitoxin Systems The same way that bacteria protect their genetic material and cope with stress is now used in a broad range of emerging applications in synthetic biology. By Oscar Blackwell
The Babies Born with Cobalt in their Veins: How The Cobalt Mining Crisis is Impacting Congolese Children Cobalt mining on the African Copperbelt is a well known human rights crisis for many reasons. A new study on foetal blood shows its health effects may now materialise in Congolese infants before they are even born. By Charlotte Leeds.
Smokeless Lives Will banning future generations from smoking prevent future hospitalisations? By Altay Shaw
Antibiotic resistance: The Gordian knot of the 21st Century Since the 20th century, the issue of antimicrobial resistance has developed into a gordian knot of gargantuan proportions. This has inspired research into treatments from other medical fields in hopes of minimising the consequences of antibiotic resistance. By James Lau Yi Wei
Joule in the Crown The intricacies of Formula 1’s fuel flow systems and how exceptional design has to break some regulations. By Matthew Hoult.
When Words Become Weapons Brainwashing may seem like an alien, almost unbelievable concept to many of us. Alexandra Stein has dedicated her life to unravelling this phenomenon which robbed so many years of her life, to raise awareness of the vulnerabilities we all share that can be targeted. By Diya Asawa
The Nano Toolbox Used to Combat Cervical Cancer (3/3) Women in developing countries are disproportionately affected by cervical cancer due to a lack of access to preventative medicine – innovations in nano-based cancer therapies are paving the way for a cancer-free future. By Mia Shepherd.
Novel Image-guided Nanoparticles Poised for Cancer Clinical Trials (2/3) A research team at Kings College London have developed a novel image-guided nanoparticle-based cancer treatment for targeted drug delivery, in hopes of reducing patient suffering. By Mia Shepherd.
The UK Startups Developing Novel Cancer Treatments (1/3) Trojan horse bacteria and biomarker transistors may solve some cancer questions – so say UK-based startups ChronosDx, Cansor, and Neobe Therapeutics. By Mia Shepherd.
Branded: The Ethics of Livestock Ownership Branding has been used to establish ownership over livestock for centuries, despite its numerous harmful side-effects. Animal activists insist that more humane methods can only be implemented with government support. By Joseph Olaniyan.
‘We Are Electric’ by Sally Adee — A Holistic Inquiry into Bioelectrical Revolution ‘We are Electric’ explores the unlimited potential of biological communication between cells to help our body heal—be it tissue regeneration or cancer treatment. Those seeking to understand this potential would benefit from Adee’s technical and engaging narrative. Book review by Julia Wojciechowska.
Going with your Gut - An Alternative Approach to Alzheimer’s What do the bacteria in our gut have to do with Alzheimer’s Disease in the brain? A recent paper has revealed a potential link between gut bacteria and the deterioration of brain cells in mice. By Mollie Huggins.
The Potential and Protection of Carbon-Capturing Ecosystems Blue Carbon Ecosystems are natural carbon sinks that have the potential to store huge amounts of CO2 - recent conservation efforts have developed methods to monitor their health and measure their carbon storage potentials. By Ewan Yeo.
Understanding Water: A Deep Dive Using Machine Learning Having struggled to create an accurate functional to describe molecules such as water for years, physicists have now turned their attention to how tools like ML can help with the task. In the process, DM21 is born. By Faraaz Akhtar
Hitting the Mark: How Nanoparticles are Revolutionising Cancer Treatments Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally - nanoparticles could help combat this epidemic through targeted drug action. By Rakshith H and Nidhi V.
Narrative Medicine: Putting the ‘Care’ in Healthcare Healthcare services are facing a major paradigm shift with the collapse of key clinician-patient relationships. Narrative medicine, however, may just be the harbinger to bringing the ‘care’ back into healthcare. By Obomate Briggs.
A Code Within the Codons? How studying patterns in the genetic code is beginning to uncover the origins of biological information and of life itself. By Tom Dubois.
Buzz Off! Italian researchers have synthesised a safe and sweet-smelling solution to keep those pesky mosquitoes at bay this summer! By Joseph Olaniyan.
How A “Twisted DNA” Sensor Can Revolutionise Cancer Treatment Sensing of Z-nucleic acid by ZBP-1 constitutes an important line of innate immune defence, but could drugs targeting ZBP-1 signalling serve as a new and improved strategy for treating cancer? By Ziyue Kong.
Nominate yourself to Lead SciMag next year! Nominations have commenced at the UCL Students' Union. This is your opportunity to lead UCL SciMag, give back to the UCL community and develop yourself. To nominate yourself please use the link below and search Science Magazine Society. The Leadership RaceEach year in March, every student at UCL votes
Has ChatGPT Bid Farewell to Traditional Assessment Methods? ChatGPT has studied the entire internet and is now capable of forming complete and logically structured answers to many types of assessments. Will this technology change how students are tested in the future? By Saleh Bubshait.
The Unknown Genome: A Message Lost in Translation Learning about your genome has been crucial now, more than ever. From population studies to precision diagnostics and experimental therapies, genomics is paving the way for modern medicine. Ground-breaking? Absolutely. Beneficial to us all? Perhaps not as much as we think so. By Nitish Aswani.
Tackling the Synthetic Cannabinoid Epidemic Currently, there are limited clinical treatment options to deal with cases of synthetic cannabinoid abuse. A novel approach utilising nanoparticle vaccines offers an unconventional solution, but not without challenges to its clinical application. By James Lau Yi Wei.
Has He Got A Touch On It? How will the Al Rihla, with its tracking and data recording capabilities, change the modern game? By Ben Crawford.
“Hey Siri, can you speak Yorùbá?” How multilingual can a translation machine be? David Ifeoluwa Adelani from DeepMind shares new techniques to support low-resource languages, their heritage and prospects for promoting cultural diversity. By Teresa Su.
Plenty of Fish? The first study modelling the effects of different fishing scenarios on marine ecosystems in the Western Baltic Sea has raised a dire concern towards critically endangered species, identifying overfishing as the main threat to marine biodiversity. By Charlotte Miles.
Is Pain Really Painful? Let’s Ask Our Minds Understanding Pain Reprocessing Therapy and how our brain’s therapeutic capacity confronts conventional treatments. By Mimoun El Fantroussi.
Why We Need to Destigmatise Psychedelics to Reform Mental Health Systems With our current lack of understanding of psychopharmacological medications, ground-breaking therapies are long overdue. It is up to legislative frameworks to liberate psychedelics, amongst other classed substances, to reform mental health systems. By Anushka Barthwal.
The Nose Knows, But How? Our sense of smell is an important, yet underappreciated biological function. Understanding its evolutionary and psychological purpose could help us appreciate the wealth of information it provides. By Melike Temizturk.
The Secret to a Longer Life Lies in Your Morning Coffee Studies have found a simple practice to increase the longevity of our lives that many of us are already using – a daily cup of coffee or two. By Julia Teichman.
Pub quiz 2: Next Monday! Test your general knowledge! We're back again with another UCL Science Magazine pub quiz and mixer social. We sold out of tickets last time, so get your ticket soon to come along. Winning team receives a prize. Tickets are sold via the UCL Student's union website
Big Data, Small Scale: Will Nanotechnology Shift the Computing Paradigm? Information overload? In the age of Big Data, researchers look to the nanoscale to handle it all. By Miranda Hitchens.
Cancer Targeting CAR T-Cells: Can They Treat Autoimmune Diseases? For the first time, five patients diagnosed with the incurable autoimmune disease lupus have been sent into remission using a therapy previously designed for treating cancer. This has opened up the possibility of keeping other autoimmune diseases at bay. By Catherine Turnbull.
Infinitely Paradoxical: How Contradictions Influence Science Today Do we really think we know what we know? Two millennia after Achilles raced the tortoise and our exploration of how paradoxes challenge scientists continues to unravel new understandings of nature. By Daniel Bilsborrow.
‘Junk DNA’ Proves Valuable in Demystifying Ageing and Cancer Researchers have recently identified a DNA region, known as VNTR2-1, which drives the activity of the telomerase encoding gene and influences the ageing of certain cell types. By Sara Majernikova.
Estimation of White Dwarf Velocity Distribution Made For the First Time Scientists unlock the secrets of elusive, near-invisible white dwarfs using new mathematical data and models. By Mephy Liu.
Bipartite Elixir Found to Regenerate Animal Appendages A new study by researchers at Caltech has found that appendage regeneration in animals can be promoted by feeding them a mixture of amino acids and insulin or sucrose. This begs the question: is there a limit to our regenerative capabilities? By Kai Mason
DNA Mutations Through the Lens of Quantum Physics Researchers at the University of Surrey use quantum physics to unlock the secrets of spontaneous DNA mutations. By Shriraam Thiagarajan
Electrocatalysis: Making Batteries that Breathe UCL researchers collaborate with an international research team to improve the efficiency of low-cost, sustainable batteries which could power the future. By Melike Temizturk
COVID-19 Sparks Research Into Modelling Future Pandemics COVID-19 brought instability, shock and grief to all. To some, it provoked questions about its predictability. Can artificial intelligence really forecast pandemics? If so, what does this mean for the future of prevention methods? By Teresa Su.
Is it Time to Rethink Our Treatment of Depression? “No convincing evidence that depression is caused by low serotonin” - researchers at University College London challenge decades old theory about using antidepressants to treat depression, but should that completely change the way doctors prescribe them? By Nathan Adu-Poku.
Singin’ in the Brain: A Compelling Discovery About the Neurons That Respond to Singing Neuroscientists have discovered a subpopulation of neurons which respond specifically to sung music. By Miranda Porter.
‘Galactic Cannibal’ Regurgitates Black Hole at 4 million Miles per Hour Could the answer to galaxy formation be hidden in massive black hole mergers? By Alexander Gavin
Getting to the Root of the Problem: Prioritising Conservation Efforts in Global Forests Researchers have developed a mathematical model that aims to maximise the conservation of global forested biodiversity under budget and time constraints. By Amelia Macho.
Quantum Teleportation beyond Neighbouring Nodes: A Step Closer to a New Internet What is quantum teleportation, really? Non-neighbouring nodes, qubit channelling and complex quantum networks. True, but invariably non-Layman. Cue Alice, Bob and Charlie, who might just help us wrap our heads around it. By Teresa Su.
Heating and Cooling our Homes: As Simple as Black and White? Quan Zhang and his team at Nankai University have developed a seemingly obvious, yet elegant thermoregulator that unravels the path to a sustainable future. By Melike Temizturk.
The Friendly-Parasite Paradox; Gut Microbiome Found to Impact Mood Microorganisms in our bodies outnumber human cells by approximately 10:1, but do any impact our mood? By Amaani Nawaz.
Could the James Webb Space Telescope Help us Find Extraterrestrial Life? Read about the new James Webb Space Telescope, learn about its capabilities and limitations. By Alexander Gavin.
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