THURSDAY, 1 OCTOBER 2009
This issue marks the retirement of Dr Hypothesis who has been answering your scientific queries for the last five years. We are delighted to welcome his replacement Dr I.M. Derisive who is here to answer all your science related questions, whatever they may be.
Whether you are interested in novel materials that could be used to make the invisibility cloak a reality, have always wondered what it would be like to travel in space or want to find out about robots who can conduct your experiments, analyse the data and even provide the conclusions, BlueSci has it for you. So take five minutes out, sit back and have a read. Katherine Thomas
Chris Adriaanse, President
Each term we bring you science stories written by students ranging from local research to ground breaking discoveries.
This term marks the 5th anniversary of BlueSci magazine. To mark the occasion and gear up for another five successful years, we’ve given the magazine a fresh look. We hope you like it.
BlueSci started with the aim of providing a forum for scientists to share their work and the training to make it possible. This still remains the focus of the society through our magazine, website and events.
There are ample opportunities for new and current students, undergrads and postgrads: writing and editing for the website or magazine, filming and audio for videos and podcasts as well as graphics and design. Join our projects or start you own. We offer advice and training to get you started and throughout the term we organise a series of talks and workshops on various aspects of science communication. So get involved. Submit an article about your research. Join our news team for some regular writing experience. Or make a film about the science that fascinates you. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up joining some of our alumni at the BBC, Nature or New Scientist. We look forward to hearing from you. Chris Adriaanse
Issue 16: Michaelmas 2009
Editor: Katherine Thomas Managing
Editor: Amy Chesterton
Business Manager: Michael Derringer
Sub-Editors: Matthew Levin, Thomas Kluyver, Cat Davies, Jon Heras
Second Editors: Daniel Shanahan, Shaenandhoa García-Rangel, Raliza Stoyanova, Harriet Dickinson, Sonia Aguera, Rose Spear
News Editor: Swetha Suresh
News Team: Rachel Swain, Lindsey Nield, Thomas Kluyver
Book Reviews: Swetha Suresh, Djuke Veldhuis, Amy Zhang
Focus Team: Cheng Chong, Tristan Farrow, Jennifer Moore
Dr Derisive: Mike Kenning
Pictures Editor: Ian Fyfe
Cartoonist: Adam Hahn
Cover Image: Pola Goldberg-Oppenheimer
Distribution Manager: Samuel Wright
Publicity: Matt Child
ISSN 1748-6920 As the days get shorter and the nights colder, we will all be wrapping up warm and trying our hardest not to get sick. As well as the continually evolving seasonal bugs, this year we also have swine flu to contend with. But fear not, this issue of BlueSci explores the daily evolution going on within our immune system to halt the invading pathogens and keep us healthy. We also look at the development of a new type of flu vaccine which will not only protect us from the current circulating flu strains, but also against all future mutations of the virus which may come our way.