BSJ

The Butler Scholarly Journal

Category: Science

  1. Nuclear Power – The ethics of millennia of containment

    Ethics in engineering have perhaps never been as critical as they are now, with the development of ever more powerful and consequential technologies. The proliferation of nuclear power has resulted in a growing quantity of radioactive byproducts. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), about 20 metric tonnes of used nuclear fuel waste is produced each year per facility. This waste is categorized as either low-level or high-level depending on its potential for destruction. A large percentage of the low-level waste has a relatively short half-life, and will decay to background radiation levels within 100 years. High-level fuel waste can…

  2. HIV Stigma: The Importance of Talking About Sex

    When we think about HIV, what may immediately springs to mind is the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the infection is spreading dramatically. Most of us will be aware of the devastating situation there, with extreme death rates and only a small percentage of people aware that they have the infection. Though rates of infection have dropped, around 1.2 million people in the area are dying each year, which is still an alarming and tragic statistic. This seems a world away from the situation in the UK and much of the Western world, where HIV has been controlled much better….

  3. Mitigating Armageddon

    On the morning of the 15th of February 2013 at about 09:20 local time, the sky above the Russian town of Chelyabinsk – nearly 2000km east of Moscow and just north of the border with Kazakhstan – was rent asunder by a bright flash of light and shockwave of sound. There had been a huge explosion at an altitude of about 76,000 feet and on a scale of about 20-30 times that of the nuclear fission bomb that was exploded over Hiroshima in 1945. A superbolide with a mass of between 12,000 and 13,000 metric tonnes (about 20m in diameter)…

  4. Say No to Rhino Horn

    Rhino poaching has become an ever increasing problem over the past few years. Since 2008 cases of rhino poaching, especially in South Africa which contains 80% of all of Africa’s rhinos, have increased dramatically. 2011 saw 448 cases of poaching in South Africa, indicating an increase of 3000% since 2007. 668 rhinos were killed in the country in 2012 and the number is set to be even higher for this year. This is obviously devastating news for the rhinos of Africa, especially black rhinos, which are already critically endangered in the wild. If poaching on this scale continues, we face…

  5. Fracking Hell

    Hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’, is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks and release natural gas or oil. Fractures provide a conductive path connecting a larger volume of the reservoir to the well. Some hydraulic fractures form naturally, such as veins or dykes, and can create conduits along which gas and petroleum from source rocks may migrate to reservoir rocks. Induced hydraulic fracturing (fracking) enables the production of natural gas and oil from rock formations at depths of up to 20000ft, where there may not be sufficient…

  6. Is science an art?

    After attending the seminar on ‘art in Universities’ I found several points very interesting. The main topic that I would like to discuss is the question as whether science is an art. As a Natural Science student studying Physics and Earth Sciences I am quite opinionated on this issue.  Obviously, this is a very controversial issue with no real right answer; however, I would like to argue the point that the arts and sciences are different topics by their definition. A very good point was made by a mathematician that maths is very linked to the arts. Many mathematical concepts…

  7. Time Documentary

    This is the first documentary produced by the Butler Scholarly Journal on the topic of ‘Time’. What is time? When did time begin? Is time travel possible? These questions are discussed by Matt Armitage and Jack Bryan in terms of physics, by Hannah Buckley in terms of philosophy, and Ruby Lawrence in terms of English Literature. Produced by Carmen Horrocks Edited by Bryn Coombe

  8. Pauli: The Quantum Croupier

    You are at a poker table, a poker hand face down in front of you, accompanied by several poker faced players, and the scent of whisky and cigars no poker game is without! As you look around, waiting for the first of five cards to be revealed, you think hard about what the card might be; one of four suits, and thirteen numbers. Until it’s turned over, you have no choice but to think of it as any one of these cards. Finally, the moment arrives. You peer down at the card, apprehensive (though no one notices, because you also have…

  9. Building Blocks of the Universe

    ‘You’re a star’ is a term often used to thank someone when they have done something kind for you, but how accurate is this statement? Realistically, that person is clearly not a giant astronomical object fusing hydrogen in their centre of mass and emitting high levels of radiation, but on a fundamental scale, a human and a star are actually composed of the exact same things. Consider the chair that you are probably sat on. It is most likely either made from plastic or wood. Let us assume that it is plastic, or more specifically, polyethylene, which is a common type…

  10. Dragons on Mars

    On May 25th of this year, one of the most significant milestones of the space age was achieved. An unmanned spacecraft, Dragon, docked with the International Space Station: the first commercial vehicle to do so. Dragon is a transportation space craft, designed and built by the private organisation SpaceX, which has been collaborating with NASA since 2010. The COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Service) program in that year saw NASA fund several private companies, such as SpaceX, half a million dollars to develop reusable spacecraft. The rationale was described by NASA administrator Michael Griffin several years prior; “We believe that when we…