The Social Media Decade
In 2010, The Social Network was released, a film based on Mark Zuckerberg’s creation of “Facebook”. Originally branded ‘thefacebook’ it was intended as a platform through which Harvard students could connect. One of its main innovations was the so-called ‘Wall’ upon which you could share your opinions, thoughts and day-to-day...
Broken Trusts: Big Tech’s fight against regulation
In a political landscape that could only be further polarised by the addition of penguins and an iceberg, it’s not a controversial statement to say that there are very few genuinely bi-partisan issues. One of the few that does reach across the aisle is that tech giants are becoming a...
Loot Boxes: How video games are gambling with their future
In their relatively short life as an art form, video games have been the cause of nearly as many moral panics as television and rock and roll. Thanks to lynch mobs of concerned parents and crusading politicians, video games have been in the dock for everything from eroding attention spans...
Level Up: The Metaverse
The 30-year transformation from the original World Wide Web to the first commercial quantum computer or virtual reality headset represents a technological escalation with no signs of slowing down. Computer processing power has increased exponentially, an unbelievable one trillion times since its invention. Yet a dystopia may be right...
Asteroids
Asteroids are rocky worlds revolving around the Sun, also known as planetesimals; they are the remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago, that are too small to be called planets. Most of this ancient space rubble can be found orbiting between...
Earth’s Swansong
The Sun will go blackEarth sink in the sea,Heaven be stripped of itsbright stars;Smoke rage and fire, leapingthe flameLick heaven itself.-The Deluding of Gylf Strange times are upon us, we seem beset by continuing problems with our inability to respect and harness our planet’s limited resources. Climate change, carbon emissions,...
Why Study Geology
Geology: The branch of science concerned with the physical structure and substance of the Earth, the processes which act on these, and the Earth’s development since its formation. During their relatively...
Lithium: From Mining to Medicine
Though it’s not something one hears about that often, lithium – the planet’s lightest metal – has some pretty heavy implications for the environment, the economy and modern life as we know it. Despite being one of the first three chemical elements to form in the Big Bang, along with...
Earth’s Magnetic Field: Is North going South?
It is fairly common knowledge that, when placed upon a flat surface anywhere in the world, the arms of a magnetic compass will swing round, gently oscillating until they reveal one’s orientation in relation to the North and South Poles. This is possible because of the Earth’s magnetic field which,...
How Big is the Universe?
The Universe is a big, big place. Getting your head around mind-bendingly big and unimaginably small things is really hard, our brains just weren’t built to do it. To survive as a human, all evolution required of our ancestors was the ability to outrun and outwit predators long enough to...
