Science – The Poor Print

Organic Chemistry: A Cartoon

‘Organic Chemistry’ by Fran Donnellan ***

Lab Talk… with Fran Moore and Jess Dark

By Francesca Donnellan This is, I hope, the first of many interviews with scientists from Oriel’s JCR, MCR and SCR. The aim is to both showcase the range of research conducted by fellows, graduates and undergraduates and to have a poke around what it is like to be a scientist within the university and our […]

Culture, Prose

The Beginnings of Religion

by Peter Gent I’ve sometimes wondered, if I were hit by lightning, would I too get superhuman powers? Every time it rains or thunders, I find safe cover—most would say wisely—not hiding under a tree or standing in the middle of an open field, so I am not likely to know. I did once get […]

Comment, Prose

Grave Thoughts – The Question of Respect in the Afterlife

by George Prew “I felt the thrill of a scientist and the shame of a desecrator” These were the words of Manolis Andronikos upon coming across the tomb of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, in the royal capital of Aigai. The tomb, unlike most of its ilk, was found completely undisturbed, […]

Prose

Awesome Stuff in Space – An Unharvested Crop of Carats?

by Sam Wilkinson You may have heard of the hyper-startup Planetary Resources, a company which aims to “expand Earth’s natural resource base” by developing (and eventually using) the technology to mine asteroids in the Solar System. They also have a lot of money, with investors such as Larry Page (Co-founder of Google) and James Cameron (Writer […]

Prose

Awesome Stuff in Space

By Sam Wilkinson There are a couple of man-made objects in space that almost everyone will know about: the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity and maybe Voyager I and/or II. However, there is so much other man-made stuff in space it’s crazy (and it’s actually starting to become a […]

Comment, Prose

Arts and Science: A False Dichotomy?

by Sophie Barnes In 1959, the British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow, in his book The Two Cultures and the Scientific Divide, famously bemoaned the division between art and science in western intellectual society. He expressed how he felt intellectuals in the arts would express their ‘incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists’ at social events (I […]

Culture, Prose, Reviews

‘Destroyer of worlds’: Oppenheimer at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

by Chloe Cheung Readers are advised that this review makes details of the plot explicit. The threat of nuclear war between the Cold War superpowers plunged the latter half of the 20th century into some of its darkest days. Tim Morton-Smith’s gripping new play Oppenheimer now brings the man behind the atomic bomb to the stage. […]

Prose

Important People You’ve Never Heard Of

As a computer scientist, Alan Turing is a man I personally have much and more to thank for. The recent release of ‘The Imitation Game’ – a film I can wholeheartedly recommend – has placed his life and work into the limelight. Yet the achievements of other computing heroes are not widely recognised. These remarkable […]