Category: Subjects

Pop quiz: Name more than one female scientist

How many famous female scientists can you name — not including Marie Curie? If you’re having trouble thinking of any, you’re not alone; even scientists struggle to answer this question.

Brainy beauty ... actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr.
Brainy beauty … actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr.

The ongoing Public Perception of Famous Female Scientists survey has, since 2004, asked over 1000 scientists and members of the general public in the UK and Western Europe to name 10 famous women scientists. So far, just over 1 per cent of respondents have been up to the task while 30 per cent could name only Marie Curie, the Polish-French two-time Nobel Prize winner for her work on radioactivity and the discovery of the elements radium and polonium. DNA researcher Rosalind Franklin and pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale (included for her statistical work) rounded out the the top three.
Continue reading “Pop quiz: Name more than one female scientist”

Full-STEAM ahead: The Scots College team wins NSW robotics competition

A team of budding engineers at The Scots College have claimed the state’s junior robot soccer crown for 2016.

Playing with machines that they built and programmed themselves, the boys led Scots to a 10-point victory in the NSW RoboCup Junior Championship soccer division held last month at the University of NSW.

Founded in 1997, RoboCup, short for Robot Soccer World Cup, is an international competition in which teams of university students field handmade robots in a soccer tournament. Australia has great form in this competition with the UNSW team winning the Standard Platform League division last year. Continue reading “Full-STEAM ahead: The Scots College team wins NSW robotics competition”

Going for gold

While Australia racks up the medals in Rio, another set of Olympians is doing the country proud this year: our competitors in the International Science Olympiads.

The Olympiads are a series of international science-based competitions for high school students held annually in various locations throughout the world.

Entry is restricted to the winners of each participating country’s national Olympiad, with a maximum of six students per science subject making it onto a national team.

With over 100 countries competing in 13 science-related fields, the championships are an elite event for the world’s smartest teenagers.

To qualify for an Olympiad is an incredible achievement in itself and to win a medal is a genius-level accomplishment. To win a medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad four years in a row would seem almost impossible; yet, that is exactly what Knox Grammar School Year 12 student Seyoon Ragavan managed this year. Continue reading “Going for gold”