Abstract: The DLS is a bit like the LHC, except it works...
"Sure the DLS is a VIP, but it's certainly no LHC." My wife shook her head rather sadly at my pathetic attempt to introduce a bit of pop culture into the realm of physics. She was right. All I had succeeded in doing was making a comparison between two very important particle-accelerators (VIPs) sound like a rap-off between a couple of boy bands.
It's hard to argue that CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) hasn't hogged most of the limelight in the recent study of particle physics - it's big, really big, very expensive and, amongst other things, is apparently looking for all the answers of the Universe - but they're hidden in something particularly small called, rather humbly, The God Particle.
As such the LHC holds all the ingredients of a good story:
Diamond Light Source: Just call it The Eureka Doughnut
Bar-headed geese and the physiology of high-altitude flight
Abstract: How geese can beat their wings where angels fear to fly...
Imagine you're a mountaineer of the highest order. After years of training and planning you're on Mount Everest; and after weeks of acclimatisation, you've left base camp far behind and are on the last stretch to the summit.
The air is so thin, the temperature so low and the winds so strong that without the specially designed clothing you're wearing and the oxygen you're breathing you'd be dead within minutes. You're clawing your way upward, bit by bit, every breath belaboured even with the precious oxygen you're using.
Eventually, almost unbelievably, you make it to the summit. You have only minutes before you have to descend; but for those few, brief moments in time, you're on top of the world. You gaze around knowing that nothing else lives at this height. You slowly,
Cost of medicines a killer in developing countries
Abstract: Even essential medicines are not finding their way to developing countries...
Every seven years, hundreds of people from all over the world - academics and people involved in health administration - meet to evaluate and discuss ways in which essential medicines can be used more effectively in non-industrialised, lower and middle-income countries. The third ICIUM (International Conference for Improving Use of Medicines) was held last month in Antalya, Turkey.
Speaking on 8th December at a feedback session from ICIUM 2011, Dr Hans Hogerzeil, Professor of Global Health at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and the former Director for Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies for the World Health Organisation (WHO), presented an appeal for government regulation to address two of the major problems identified at the conference: the highly inflated costs of essential medicines for some of the world's poorest communities -
What’s the future for big pharma?
Abstract: The model for big pharma has changed. So, now what?...
If there's one thing big pharmaceutical companies and their investors agree on, it was captured yesterday in the words of British Prime Minister David Cameron: "the old big pharma model is in flux - a new model is emerging."
The Prime Minister was speaking at the FT Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Conference in London, where he laid out the Government's plans to encourage life sciences research in the UK.
The words came at a time when many big pharmaceutical companies are in fact looking more at emerging markets such as India and China, not only as markets for their products but also as locations for research facilities. The most recent evidence came just a few months ago when Pfizer announced the closing of its research and development facility in Sandwich, Kent.
The lure of emerging markets
Their