Check out this fantastic video made by Crana College about what they got up to during Science Week 2014

In their first ever school science exhibition, small groups of first year students worked together on a science project.The topics were picked by the students and work was performed in their class and at home.

The Science fair projects provided our students with the opportunity to think critically, and address their interests through inquiry-based learning.ICT use was encouraged and the use of google classroom as a communication tool was vital.

Read More

Climate fund receives $9.3bn pledge

Thirty nations meeting in Berlin have pledged $9.3bn (£6bn) for a fund to help developing countries cut emissions and prepare for climate change.
Read More

Galaxies may be aligned across 1 billion light-years

The cores of several distant galaxies, spread out across roughly 1 billion light-years, appear to mysteriously align with one another. If confirmed, the new observations could be a hint of some unknown mechanism that shapes the largest structures in the universe.
Read More

Science students need to reach out to the blue skies beyond – not limit their thinking to the commercial

Have you ever heard of Albert Einstein? How about Thomas Midgley Jnr? Einstein is the physics guy who basically told us how the universe works. Midgley is the guy who had a major impact on the environment, inventing leaded petrol and also some of the first CFCs, chlorofluorocarbons, the chemicals that each year gobble up the ozone layer above us.

Einstein is also the guy who, if he had been applying for research funding in today’s Ireland would have been turned down. Midgley on the other hand would likely have been given buckets of cash because his work translated from research into a product that could be sold.

Read More

Save the blackboard: an endangered species that is essential to scientific success

Here’s a curious thing. Some of the finest and most esoteric achievements of human culture are made with the simplest of technologies. The arcane physics equations that predicted the Higgs boson and the calculations that underpin the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – the biggest and most sophisticated instrument humans have ever built – were all made by people using chalk on a blackboard.

Read More

Philae lander ‘goes to sleep’ after sending data to earth

A pioneering robotic spacecraft shut down today (Saturday 15th Nov) after radioing results of its first and probably last batch of scientific experiments from the surface of a comet.

Mission controllers put the European Space Agency (ESA) lander to sleep after power in its batteries dwindled to dangerous levels, but not before the craft transmitted a flood of science data to Earth.

Read More

Researchers at the University of Limerick are revolutionizing the way we understand and treat back pain

Researchers at the University of Limerick are revolutionising the way we understand and treat back pain and other musculoskeletal conditions through a holistic approach which ranges from diagnosis and treatment to impacting public health policy.
Dr Kieran O’Sullivan explains: “It’s all about treating the person, not just the bones or the muscles. Globally there are vast levels of misinformation around conditions like back pain, such as the idea that structures such as bones and discs can go out of place. Not only is this inaccurate, the fear it creates actually adds to disability. What is important is that we identify the impact pain has on people’s lives, understand their personal and unique barriers to recovery and empower them to regain control of their lives.”

The team co-led with the HSE the establishment of a first-of-its kind programme National Musculoskeletal Triage Initiative across 12 HSE hospitals which reduced hospital waiting lists by 22,000 patients

Read More