Biochemical Society, Education & careers, Events, Science communication & public engagement, Uncategorized

Approaching the Singularity; have we crossed the event horizon of Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

By Peter Wotherspoon, Biochemical Society

Okay, so we all know how this song and dance goes; it’s been in enough movies by this point. Here we have (under slightly more violent circumstances than would be ideal) what is generally thought of as the technological singularity. The idea that the creation of artificial super-intelligence will lead to an unstoppable cascade of technological advancements because no doubt a computer intelligence smarter than us can in turn make another computer intelligence smarter than it and so on. So, with all the hype around AI recently, have we reached the tipping point?

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Biochemical SocietyAugust 17, 2018August 17, 20182 Comments

Blog Posts, Journal content, Research, Uncategorized

Why is clean meat so important?

Shaked Regev, Stanford University, California

Imagine a world where people can continue going about their lives exactly as they are, while making animal friendly and environmentally conscious choices. Clean meat, also known as cultured meat, could very well make this a reality within the next few years. The idea is essentially to create meat without necessitating the slaughter animals, by growing their cells in a bioreactor under suitable conditions, such as a medium with all the nutrients the cells need, as well as the ideal temperature and pressure for their growth. But why bother changing our food system? What’s wrong with it as things stand?

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Biochemical SocietyAugust 7, 2018August 8, 2018Leave a comment

Blog Posts, Research, Uncategorized

Yellow fever: Brazil’s current outbreak

Louise Corscadden, University of Leicester, UK

Most people are first introduced to yellow fever at the travel clinic; upon imminent jet-setting to a tropical destination far away, we are told we need a yellow fever vaccine. To us, yellow fever is a disease of places far away: out of sight, out of mind. However, to those in the 47 at-risk countries in South America and Africa (WHO, 2018), it is a highly lethal disease. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2013 between 84,000 and 170,000 people suffered from the severe form of the disease, with 29,000 to 60,000 dying as a result (WHO, 2018). Last year, the disease once again reared its head in Brazil in a precedence recently unseen in years.

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Biochemical SocietyJuly 17, 2018July 5, 2018Leave a comment

Blog Posts, Events, Partner organizations, Policy, Uncategorized

No weak evidence, it’s Evidence Week!

Leah Fitzsimmons, University of Birmingham

Monday, 25 June, saw the opening of the first ever ‘Evidence Week’ in the Houses of Parliament. Organised by Sense About Science in association with House of Commons Library, House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, POST – Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, and SAGE Publishing, the idea was to hold a week full of events, masterclasses and other sessions to help bring the public and parliamentarians into discussion about the use of evidence in public life.

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Biochemical SocietyJuly 5, 2018July 12, 2018Leave a comment