Welcome to Scientia

Opening a dialogue between science and society

Scientia is a series of outreach research publications. Simply put, we connect people: scientists and educators, policy-makers and researchers, and the public and private sectors. We provide high-quality, technically sound, visually engaging, and relevant information for our vast audience of thinkers and explorers.

Importantly Scientia helps researchers communicate their findings beyond their specialty and into the wider world. Scientia offers the research community significant visibility and accessibility to those both inside and outside the community to take an interest in science and research. Often technical, scientific language serves as a barrier to creating social impact and that’s where our publication plays a vital role in reaching a global stakeholder network.

Latest Articles

Professor Phillip Hylemon | Professor Huiping Zhou – Bile Acids Are Not Just for Digestion

Over the last two decades, bile acids have gone from being thought of as mere helpers during digestion of fats and fat-soluble vitamins, to crucial players in the signalling pathways operating in the liver. Professor Phillip Hylemon and Professor Huiping Zhou, from...

Professor Andrea Duina – The Many Complexities of DNA Packing and Gene Expression

Although fundamental to life itself, many processes involving DNA and its packing inside cells still remain to be elucidated. Here, we follow the work of Professor Andrea Duina and his team at Hendrix College, Arkansas, USA, in their efforts to understand the...

Dr Claudio Fiocchi – An Integrated Approach to Fighting Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) causes significant pain and discomfort to sufferers and severely affects quality of life. Research on IBD focusing on the individual contributing factors has failed to provide truly effective treatment options, and the broader...

Professor Charles Bangham – The Forgotten Cousin of HIV

The catastrophic impact of HIV – human immunodeficiency virus – is well-known worldwide. Not so well known is its distant cousin HTLV-1, human T cell leukaemia virus type 1, which also has the potential to destroy lives. The study of HTLV-1 can shed light on...

Dr Nathalie Dubois – Lake Sediments Unlock the Past

People don’t often think about mud, but this valuable sediment can record history, especially when deposited in lakes. The study of such lake sediment is known as palaeolimnology – analysing the physical, chemical and biological information preserved in sediments to...

Dr Mark Hixon – Combatting the Lionfish Invasion

Lionfish are predators that typically inhabit Pacific and Indian Ocean coral reefs. In areas where they have been introduced, they have become troublesome invaders. Populations have spread and grown in some regions to the extent that they are wreaking havoc on local...

Professor KC Olson – Protecting the Plains: A Comprehensive Approach to Invasive Plant Control

Around the world, invasive species provide a major threat to global biodiversity. The Great Plains of the United States are among the most threatened ecosystems, where a noxious invasive weed is overpowering the native tallgrass prairies. Professor KC Olson and his...

Professor John F. Padgett – The Social Context of Innovation

The Florence Renaissance was a time of unprecedented innovation across multiple domains of culture, science and politics. The causes of such widespread advances are often debated, and difficult to pin down. Professor John F. Padgett uses social network analysis to...

Professor Friedemann Freund – Changing the Landscape of Geology: Forecasting Earthquakes

Imagine a world where we knew about earthquakes before they strike – days before a potentially lethal event. A world with an early warning system that would give us time to evacuate vulnerable buildings, to activate civil defence organisations, to minimise the...

Dr Stephen Hecht – Biological Mechanisms Link Smoking, Lung Cancer and Ethnicity

Cigarette smoking is a leading cause of cancer globally. Dr Stephen Hecht and co-workers at the University of Minnesota are investigating the substances present in cigarette smoke and in the urine and saliva of cigarette smokers that contribute to lung cancer. In a...

Scientia Issue #119

PIONEERING APPROACHES TO INCLUSIVE EDUCATION This special issue of Scientia focuses on enhancing education, ranging from early childhood schooling to postgraduate training and beyond, with a particular emphasis on STEM subjects. We explore an impressive range of initiatives aiming to promote uptake, retainment and achievement in STEM. In the first section of the edition, we look at the important work of researchers who recognise the necessity of introducing children to science at a young age. Here, we read how...

Scientia Issue #118

DYNAMIC APPROACHES TO HEALTHCARE In this edition of Scientia, we meet many dedicated researchers across the globe who are tackling some of today’s biggest problems in healthcare and medicine. To open the edition, we have had the pleasure of speaking with FutSci and Orthopaedic Research UK, who discuss the future of science funding. Our first full section then takes us on a journey into the inner workings of the cell. By deciphering the signals and pathways within cells that control their basic functions, researchers...

Scientia Issue #117

REVELATIONS IN CONSERVATION & SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE Our ever-growing human population has led to drastic declines in Earth’s biodiversity, through various factors including climate change, habitat destruction and pollution. In fact, studies have estimated that Earth is losing species at a frequency of somewhere between 100 and 1000 times the normal background extinction rate, plunging the planet into its sixth mass extinction event. Therefore, concentrating our research efforts on preserving and restoring...

Scientia Issue #116

SEISMIC SHIFTS IN EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE It is my great pleasure to introduce this compelling edition of Scientia, where we showcase a diverse collection of research projects, on topics ranging from climate change to galaxy evolution. To kick-start the edition, we have had the opportunity to speak with Dr John Nemeth, former Executive Director and CEO of Sigma Xi – the Scientific Research Honor Society. In this exclusive interview, Dr Nemeth discusses the Society’s rich history, and the ways that its members have been...

Scientia Issue #115

SHIFTING PARADIGMS IN PHYSICS AND ENGINEERING In this electrifying edition of Scientia, we showcase the work of various research groups across the globe, each dedicated to shifting paradigms in the diverse fields of physical science and engineering. To begin, we delve deep into the most fundamental building blocks of our Universe – the elementary particles. Here, we explore everything from the trillions of cosmic neutrinos that pass through our bodies every second, to the antimatter positrons used in medical imaging...

Scientia Issue #114

HUMAN HEALTH & HAPPINESS In this diverse edition of Scientia, we explore the variety of ways that scientific research enhances our health and happiness, from cell biology to social science. We kick-start the edition by investigating human health at the most fundamental level – the molecular processes that occur in our cells. Here, we showcase the work of several researchers, each dedicated to unravelling these intricate mechanisms, and the ways in which they can go wrong. As we’ll see, this type of basic research lays...

Scientia Issue #113

CELEBRATING AND SUSTAINING LIFE ON EARTH In this exciting new edition of Scientia, we celebrate our living planet, by showcasing a diverse collection of research projects dedicated to understanding life on Earth, and devising new ways to preserve and restore it. To open the issue, we have had the pleasure of speaking to Dr Hazel Norman, Executive Director of The British Ecological Society, who tells us about how the Society communicates worldleading ecological science, promotes diversity and collaboration within the field of...

Scientia Issue #112

FROM CLIMATE CHANGE TO THE COSMIC WEB I am delighted to present this enticing new edition of Scientia, which covers a range of important research areas, from geology to climatology, and from aeronomy to astronomy. Mitigating disaster is one pressing theme that pervades this edition, and we start off by featuring research devoted to predicting devastating seismic events. Here, we showcase the work of two scientists, who are developing creative ways to forecast volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The lion’s share of this edition...

Scientia Issue #111

HIGHLIGHTS IN HEALTH RESEARCH Fragility and mortality are inherent traits of every lifeform on Earth, and human beings are no exception. The complexity of biological systems means there are many things that can go wrong – and they frequently do. This vulnerability has driven the healthcare revolution over the last few decades, where modern research techniques and empirical evidence have resulted in our living longer and more comfortably than ever before. In this edition of Scientia, we celebrate some of the many researchers at...

Scientia Issue #110

CELEBRATING CELL BIOLOGY AND BIOCHEMISTRY Cell biologists, biochemists and molecular biologists alike have illuminated many of the microscopic mechanisms essential to life on Earth. Because of their tireless efforts, we now understand the most fundamental processes that characterise living cells, such as the replication of DNA and its translation into proteins with specific amino acid sequences. This insight has given us a molecular basis for how the first unicellular life forms evolved into the vast multitude of different...