Scientists have found 38 regions of DNA which correlate with the age at which people first have sex.
As Biological Sciences applicants will be aware, the correlation between genetics and variation is strong in different attributes of humans. When considering height, for example, genes account for 80% of the variation with only 20% accounted for by environmental factors.
When studying virginity, scientists found that genes accounted for 25% of the variation, meaning that other factors have much more influence than genetics. The study is useful, however, in noting that genetics has as strong an influence as it does. One of the genes, CADM2, is a molecule involved in ‘nerve signalling’, and the so-called ‘early-sex variant’ of CADM2 is linked with riskier behaviour and poorer mental abilities such as attention.
HSPS applicants should consider how the age at which people first have sex can correlate to socio-economic class, cultural norms, and geographical factors such as living in urban areas versus rural areas. Law applicants should think similarly about how global variations in the age of consent correlate with the age at which people first have sex.
Finally, students applying for Natural Sciences (B) or Medicine should think about how improved nutrition and general health of populations over the past century has led to decreased ages of puberty, and how this may impact the age at which people become sexually active.
With the London Marathon just around the corner, there are runners on every street looking desperately to fit in the final few miles of practice before the big day – but what effect does running have on the body?
Recently comedian Eddie Izzard completed 27 marathons for Sport Relief and scientist Dr Francois-Xavier Li from Birmingham University commented “With this level of exertion, there can be dangerous biological effects.”
Perhaps the most obvious side effect is fatigue and also joint pain, Osteoarthritis for example is a common side effect due to the pounding nature of the running itself, particularly on hard ground. Biology and Medicine applicants may want to think about the short term solutions to impact injuries and how the NHS can combat common avoidable injuries.
Human Sciences applicants may wish to consider the viability of marathons, considering since we have historical evidence of cardiac events dating back to the death of Pheidippides in 530BC who apparently ran the plains of Athens before suddenly dropping dead after the finish line!
Speaking to the BBC Li did, however, comment that because so much of the marathon is a “mental” game, that older runners actually seem to have a bigger advantage – which at 51, Izzard likely played to his advantage: “We see in ultra-endurance, people of older age perform just as well as much younger people, probably because a lot of it is mental. As mentioned we can do a lot more than we think and if we put our mind to something we can achieve more than one would expect, and maybe older people have a little bit more resilience, a little bit more patience, a little bit more long-term view, and they are able to cope better with this kind of thing.”
A group of tattoo artists have filed a lawsuit claiming they have ownership of the tattoos of several famous sport stars.
The New York Federal Court is currently examining the case of Solid Oak Sketches v Take-Two Interactive, a video game developing company who created the NBA 2K game. In the game, basketball players LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and DeAndre Jordan are shown sporting their real-life tattoos, all received from Solid Oak Sketches.
It is this realism in the game, however, which is prompting the tattoo artists to take legal action, claiming that the tattoos are copyrighted material that belong to the artists who made them. They argue that playing a song incurs royalties for the creator, and showing representations of art provides the artist with compensation. Why would tattoos be any different?
Philosophy and Medicine students should consider the wider implications of what tattoo artists owning their work means; taking the case of LeBron, it is now arguable that he does not have autonomy over his own body and that the art takes precedence over his right of presentation. The law suit is about a representation of him in a video game, and yet he has no say.
Another factor to consider is the collaborative element; LeBron chose the tattoo and may have had input into its outcome. His body is also part of the artwork – do we see the paint as separate from the canvas when considering other forms of art? Lawyers should consider how ownership and intellectual property rights are used in this case, and History of Art students should explore how tattoos have been conceptualised as both art and vandalism throughout history.
“How would you poison someone without the police finding out?” This is just one example of a question that has been asked at a Cambridge interview, in this case, to those aspiring to study Medicine. From Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic to Veterinary Medicine, bizarre interview questions abound in an Oxbridge interview. For centuries, students have been faced with left-field questions to test their lateral thinking skills and determine whether they will thrive in an environment which seeks to nurture their academic potential and curiosity. So, what should you expect at a Cambridge interview and how can you prepare?
Law applicants are likely to be asked their opinion on a fictitious or past legal case or point of law, an example being “If a wife had expressed distaste for it previously, would her husband’s habit of putting marmalade in his egg at breakfast be grounds for divorce?” No prior knowledge is required; solely an ability to present a logical and reasoned argument.
Students going for Medicine may be asked questions around medical ethics, such as “At what point is a person “dead”?Medicine applicants (like all applicants), should also keep up to date with current affairs and be prepared to discuss a wide range of topics, such as their opinion on the government’s latest reforms to junior doctor contracts.
Economics candidates may be asked to put a monetary value on an item or be invited to create an alternative process for a current economic conundrum or controversial issue. Students should be able to apply previous knowledge where applicable, whilst also thinking of new and creative approaches.
So in the weeks leading up to the interview, we would advise you to do at least three things:
We wish you all the best in your forthcoming interview.
Last night, the biggest names in documentary film-making got together to celebrate the best of British factual production.
The Grierson Awards have been running for 43 years and have previously championed the likes of David Attenborough, Nick Broomfield, and Banksy for their contributions to film-making. Although the awards are mainly industry facing, they offer a fantastic opportunity to highlight some of the best documentaries of the year.
The big winners this year were Grayson Perry as best presenter, The Romanians are Coming as the best series, and Virunga, a film about protecting the last mountain gorillas in Congo, won best cinema documentary. Other notable winners include Cambridge Alumni, Brian Woods, who was celebrated for his fantastic film “Curing Cancer” and Kim Longinotto who got this year’s lifetime achievement award.
Attentive Oxbridge candidates could mine these films for a wealth of engaging and relevant material to bolster their knowledge ahead of their interviews. Arch and Anth students should look to Kim Longinotto’s breath-taking collaborations with anthropologists for global insight or “The Romanians are Coming” for a contemporary example of multi-cultural Britain. Similarly History, Biology and Medical students could look to films about the First World War, species preservation, and cancer research respectively for inspiration. For the most forward thinking candidates the awards highlight how relevant academic subjects are in contemporary media and perhaps even inspire an amazing career to pursue after their degrees.
Following a $900m class-action lawsuit settlement between the NFL and former players, heightened concern over player welfare has accelerated the introduction of measures to address concussion and head trauma.
It’s a complex issue, as the effects are often not notable until after a player has retired and is no longer and part of a franchise’s daily infrastructure. However, rather than absolve the NFL of accountability, this only serves to heighten the need for care during a player’s career.
One solution is technology such as Linx IAS, originally a military tool designed to measure the invisible impact of shockwaves from an explosive blast. The tool can give medical staff a sense of the severity of the impact of the shockwave on an individual, which in turn can help the triage process.
Keeping track of impact over time will allow coaches to remove players from the field before lasting damage is done, and is a real step forward in sports medics’ attempts to understand and address head injuries in real time.
Not only beneficial for sports players and fans alike, the developments are interesting on a number of levels. Medics may choose to explore how assessing head injuries objectively compares with subjective examination and more antiquated concussion tests, whilst Engineering applicants may wish to engage with how that technology might be put together. Lawyers, on the other hand, may like to consider the settlement that kick-started this movement – is the NFL responsible for compensating its players many years after they retire? Who should take ownership of caring for the players? In any case, embracing technology, rather than rejecting it, seems like a step in the right direction.
Halloween is nigh and, appropriately, the world has been overrun with Zombies. We’re safe in the UK…for now. However, Dr Adam Kucharski of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has come up with a terrifying model of the spread this infectious disease that we need your help with.
Economics, Mathematics, Medicine and Natural Sciences students should all try their hands at solving the problem of how quickly the spread of infectious disease can occur. They should consider the factors that can influence how infectious disease moves through populations, and what similarities it may bear to other macroeconomic models.
History and English students are also welcome to tackle the problem, but the less mathematically minded might want to consider the cultural role of Zombies, and Zombie-like creatures, in the history of nineteenth and twentieth century fiction and film. George A. Romero’s classic Dawn of the Deadwas both a Zombie flick and critique of post-war American capitalism and consumerist culture. In a similar vein, John Wyndham’s Midwich Cuckoos can be read as a haunting and disturbing allegory for the infiltration of communism and communist ideologies in 1950s British society.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has just introduced a compulsory charge of 5p per plastic bag for all supermarkets and large shops. The move, aimed at reducing waste, follows similar schemes in Scotland and Wales, which have seen decreases in plastic bag usage by as much as 79% in three years. Prospective Lawyers should read about this law’s means of implementation, which is a form of secondary legislation.
While curbing wasteful activities has long been a part of effective environmental policy, limiting plastic waste is a particular priority, according to many scientists, policymakers and activists. Huge quantities of plastic enter our oceans every year, with one estimate putting the annual influx at 8 million tonnes. Geography applicants should read more widely about the issues of plastic in the oceans, in particular about the North Pacific Gyre.
The issue is compounded by the fact that once plastics are in ocean ecosystems they fail to break down. With plastics being entirely manmade polymers, no species has yet evolved to break them down chemically. The result is that they only break down physically into smaller and smaller particles. These, in turn, are ingested by plankton, and other small sea creatures, and stay in the food chain permanently. Research by the Exeter University indicates that anyone consuming the average amount of seafood will ingest around 11,000 plastic particles each year.
Medics should consider the challenges with assessing the long-term health risks of our consumption of such amounts of plastic. Politics and HSPS applicants might think about how governments are seemingly more prepared to address environmental issues like this when they carry a direct potential human health risk.
In terms of long-term solutions to the wider problem of plastics in our ecosystems, Chemistry applicants should think about the plausibility of creating new materials which are less likely to do such lasting potential harm, while still meeting our practical needs. Those interested in applying for Biology or Biological Natural Sciences should look into how evolution might one day even lead to the digestion of plastic particles in nature.
Some 100,000 people from around the world die from poisonous snake bites every year, 30,000 of them in sub-Saharan Africa. It has recently been reported in the journal Nature, that the humanitarian aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières has sounded a serious warning about antivenom supplies.
The concern has been raised about the highly regarded antidote, Fav-Afrique. This is an effective treatment for bites from ten different species of snake across the sub-Saharan region. However, at up to $500 dollars to treat one person, It is much more expensive than competing products. Citing competitors selling cheaper (albeit less effective) alternatives in the region, the antivenom’s only producer recently halted production, with the last batch sold In January 2014.
While there has reportedly been some talk of transferring production to other suppliers, some have argued that the real issue is not a lack of pharmaceutical production. Johan Marais, who heads the African Snakebite Institute, argues that more pressing concerns are the lack of global distribution networks, and insufficient training for local doctors.
Medics should read up on snake bites, and look specifically at how Fav-Afrique works. Economists should look at the challenge of providing these expensive treatments to some of the poorest parts of the planet. Politics applicants may consider how international initiatives, such as subsidies from the World Health Organisation, might come about. Lawyers might want to think about the constraints that patents place on providing medical help to people, and explore the ethical questions behind them.
While activism in the forms of using social media platforms or doing viral challenges has been criticised, research shows that it actually is a force for social good.
The Ice Bucket Challenge, designed to raise money and awareness for sufferers of ALS, did not receive all the praise and admiration that one might assume. Given its good intentions, many criticised the challenge as ‘slacktivism’; that is, a lazy form of activism that has the guise of doing good but actually contributes very little to a cause and in some cases, detracts from it. In more blunt terms, “pouring ice cold water over your head . . . could not really help find a cure for ALS, a terrible neurodegenerative disease.”
A recent paper published this August in Science has outlined the discovery of a faulty protein in ALS patients’ neurons that could be blamed for the disease. Medicine applicants should read further about the protein, TDP-43, which does not work in 97% of ALS cases. One of the paper’s authors, Jonathan Ling, says that this discovery was helped in part by the collection of funds from the Ice Bucket Challenge, which helped raise $220 million in donations.
The Ice Bucket Challenge is not the only example of so-called ‘slacktivism’ doing concrete good. The ongoing eminence of police brutality and racial inequality in the USA has been brought into conversation through social media campaigns like #blacklivesmatter – not only did this bring awareness, but a digital petition on this subject lead to the removal of the racist Confederate Flag from South Carolina’s capitol.
PPE applicants should consider the differential impact of political protests from remote locations versus the physicality of traditional protests such as marches and occupations, while Economics students should investigate charity fundraising and charity spend, to assess whether the impact of viral fundraising campaigns and the monetary gains they bring in.
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