Sixth Form Blog

MPT : FIFTY YEARS OF MODERN POETRY IN TRANSLATION

Thanks to the organisation of the science society, Rhys Jones gave a fascinating talk to a few sixth form students on the ability of scientists to add a fluorescent protein to proteins of biological interest in order to follow its progress through organisms. This technique is used by scientists who don't have access to more expensive Scanning Electron Microscopes to see structures inside cells. It basically consists of cutting a section of a protein that creates the fluorescent glow of jellyfish and pasting it onto the end of the protein that the scientist wants to observe. This can then be easily seen by scientists as it goes through synthesis, transport through the cell, and different functions.

A Syrian refugee child who fled the violence from the Syrian town of Flita, near Yabroud, poses for a photograph at the border town of Arsal, in the eastern Bekaa Valley March 20, 2014. Tensions have been especially high in and around Arsal after Syrian forces and the Lebanese Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah recaptured the Syrian border town of Yabroud from rebels on Sunday, sending a stream of refugees and fighters across the border. Lebanon's border area has been steadily sucked into Syria's three-year-old conflict as President Bashar al-Assad's forces attack nearby rebel bases and suspected Syrian rebels fire rockets at Shi'ite towns to punish Hezbollah for sending fighters to support Assad. REUTERS/Hassan Abdallah (LEBANON - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTR3HY4X

CENTURION, SOUTH AFRICA - JANUARY 23: Joe Root of England bats during day two of the 4th Test at Supersport Park on January 23, 2016 in Centurion, South Africa. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Do you want to climb Snowdon? A sponsored walk up Snowdon will take place on the 17th-18th June to raise money for Amantani. Amantani is a charity based in Peru that aims to help children access education in rural areas. Children in the most isolated areas of Peru often have to walk up to 8 hours to get to and from school, leaving them exhausted, too tired to learn. Amantani has set set up boarding houses for the children, near their schools so that they can get the most out of their education. The time that they would spend walking to and from school is spent on  "academic support classes, extra-curricular activities, personal development workshops and community outreach projects".

Back in September of 2015, 8 budding engineers met in the design technology department of the senior school and were tasked with designing and producing something entirely new. With no brief other than the requirement to solve a problem, we set about trying to invent something entirely new, with the end goal of presenting it to a team of engineers from successful companies from all areas of the industry. With the help of two engineers from ARM, one team set about designing an automated pill dispenser to assist pharmacists, while the other team attempted to solve a very local problem – bike theft – by designing an electronic bike lock, which could be controlled from a mobile phone.