#university of glasgow

[informationatlas]

Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots, then develop friendships with each other

Researchers from Northeastern University, in conjunction with scientists from MIT and the University of Glasgow, conducted a study exploring the impact of teaching a group of domesticated birds to communicate using tablets and smartphones. The findings indicate that utilizing video calls may assist parrots in mimicking the communication patterns observed in wild birds, potentially enhancing their behavior and overall well-being in the homes of their owners.

via smithsonianmag.com

[hiyutekivigil]

the perfect weather conditions…

[melancholyromantic]

Had the last class of my MLitt degree today! Just got three essays and a dissertation to go

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Prototype lenses can block epileptic-seizure causing wavelengths

People with photosensitive epilepsy could benefit from a prototype pair of glasses with lenses that block out wavelengths that are known to cause seizures in some people. In a study published in Cell Reports Physical Science, researchers from the University of Glasgow and University of Birmingham have developed a prototype of a liquid crystal lens that they believe could help photosensitive epilepsy sufferers. The lenses are controlled by very small changes in temperature that can be built into the lens, and when activated can block more than 98% of light in the 660–720nm wavelength range, known to affect the greatest number of people suffering from photosensitive epilepsy.

Read more.

[bandcampsnoop]

9/27/24.

I got pretty excited when seeing this on Bandcamp. I hadn't even pressed the play button and I was pretty pysched - this looked like a reissue and the band is Glaswegian.

It is not a reissue but the band is from Glasgow. And they're a pretty unlikely crew. Look at this picture:

"The Tenementals are made up academics and musicians who came together to delve into the history of Glasgow through the power of music." It looks like they all are based at the University of Glasgow. They've been around for a few years and did a remake of a 1933 song written by "group of communist and socialist inmates of Borgenmoor Concentration Camp". That song is Die Moorsoldaten/Peat Bog Soldiers and has also been performed by Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson.

This band sounds nothing like folk music. Listen to "The Owl of Minerva" (Donner Party also has a song called this and it's equally great). For some reason, the picture reminds me of the great group picture of the Able Tasmans on "A Cuppa Tea and Lie Down".

Professor David Archibald is the lead vocalist (he has a bit of Sleaford Mods in him) here and this album focuses on the history of Glasgow. It is being released by Glasgow based label Strength in Numbers Records.

[theragingmoon]

university of glasgow, pro-palestine student walkout and protest

25/10/2023

[ohsalome]

The University of Cambridge is among almost a dozen UK universities accused of helping to develop Iran’s weapons including “suicide drones”.

At least 11 British universities are involved, with staff producing at least 16 studies with potential Iranian military applications.

Key pieces of research have been conducted by academics at the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the University of Glasgow, Cranfield University and Northumbria University.

In one project, funded by Tehran, researchers in the UK worked to improve drone engines by boosting their altitude, speed and range. Another British university worked with Iranian researchers to test new controls for jet engines to increase their “manoeuvrability and response time” in military applications.

“It is quite possible these collaborations are assisting in the gender apartheid within Iran, and its hostile interference and violence across the Middle East or even helping to massacre civilians in Ukraine,” she added.

[mothyca]

University of Glasgow

December 11th 2023.

[househuntingscotland]

2 bedroom flat for sale on Vinicombe Street, Hillhead, Glasgow

Asking price: £269,000

Sold price: £310,000

[brian-in-finance]

Diana Gabaldon spoke at the University of Glasgow's Outlander conference. Photo: Martin Shields

Diana Gabaldon recalls how first Outlander book ‘almost cancelled’

Best-selling Outlander author Diana Gabaldon has created nine beloved books and a seven-season TV series - but the franchise almost didn't happen.

The American writer told fans in Glasgow her first novel was almost cancelled because publishers could not decide what to do with it.

It took more than a year to go on sale as a debate raged about where it would sit on bookshop shelves.

The series has boosted Scottish tourism with fans flocking to Scotland to visit the book and TV programme's locations.

The author spoke at the word's first international academic Outlander conference at the University of Glasgow, which has been the backdrop for several scenes in the Starz TV series.

Expert scholars and Outlander fans have come together for events in the city, exploring themes such as Jacobite history, screen production, Scottish tourism, Gaelic and Scots, costume design, fandom, main character Claire Fraser's medicine, and witchcraft.

Ms Gabaldon - originally an academic herself - was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university in June last year.

The drama series stars Catriona Balfe and Sam Heughan as Claire and Jamie Fraser. Photo: Starz

Speaking about her first book, she said: "It took the publishers 18 months to figure out what to do with it. I learned later that they came very close to cancelling the contract and giving me back the book because they couldn't decide how to sell it.

"This was before Amazon where a book can be classified as several things at once and people can pick off the web what they want, and they still get the same book.

"Back in the day it was only bookstores, you had to put a book on a certain shelf, the shelf had to have a label and the book also had to have that label."

She said the decision to sell it as a romance came as a shock.

"My agent finally called me up and said they had decided to publish it but sell it as a romance. I said, 'What?' that isn't what I wrote.

"He pointed out that a best seller in fantasy fiction was 50,000 copies in paperback while in romance it is 500,000 copies. So we sold it as romance."

'Too weird'

She said that the success of the books was down to readers' recommendations.

"My first editor said to me early on these have to be word of mouths books because they are too weird to describe, which is totally true and that is also true about the word of mouth.

"So that being the case it made total sense to expose the book to 500,000 people in the romance category who will go out and tell their friends and the word will spread.

"So we did that and that is exactly what happened."

The Outlander series is currently nine books, with the author working on the tenth - and believed to be the final - book.

It follows the story of a post-World War Two nurse visiting Scotland who accidentally time travels to the Jacobite era.

Roger (Richard Rankin) and Brianna (Sophie Skelton) are main characters in the show. Photo: Aimee Spinks

It has now become one of the bestselling book series of all time and spawned the popular TV series, currently in its seventh season.

Ms Gabaldon's talk was entitled, '"Why Scotland? Why Not Mexico?" Genes, Borders, Culture and Fiction: Why They Matter and When They Don't'.

In it, she explained why she picked Scotland as the location of Outlander.

She said: "What I learned from my research and contact with Scots is that Scots are, and historically were, very literate. They wrote down things. They also have a very strong oral culture, they told their stories.

"They also have a lot of history available. Then there is the nature of Scottish history, it has a lot of heroes and heroines as well as conflict which is what you need for a good story."

The conference runs until Saturday and has seen fringe events including music concerts and battle re-enactments in the university's famous cloisters.

Transformative impact

Senior Lecturer in Gaelic at the University, Gillebride Macmillan, who has appeared in the programme, said it had been really important for the Gaelic language.

"It's so important for a minoritized language, such as Gaelic, to be seen on a world level, on a world stage, and Outlander gives Gaelic that opportunity.

"And I think it's been fantastic to hear Gaelic spoken by the actors and in the books, and also the use of Gaelic music, Gaelic song. I've been very lucky myself to be a part of that and I think it's been an incredibly positive thing for the language.

"Which I think has been born out by things such as, one and a half million people learning Gaelic in Duolingo. Obviously, many people are learning Gaelic for many different reasons, but Outlander has been one of the major factors for that."

Prof Willy Maley, professor of Renaissance studies (English Literature), at the university, said: "Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series has had a transformative impact on Scottish culture, generating global interest in the history, languages and landscapes of Scotland.

"Vivid and visceral, Outlander is an otherworldly but never unworldly phenomenon that takes a time-travelling nurse-turned-doctor and propels her from 1946 to 1743, two worlds of war that collide in an elaborate and painstaking reconstruction that make the series much more than historical fiction and more an innovative and pioneering rethinking of how we excavate and examine the narratives of the past.

"Outlander has also been a brilliant boost for the Scottish film industry."

BBC News

Gifs: @scotsmanandsassenach S01E03 The Way Out, Gillebride Macmillan as Gwyllyn the bard

Remember… I think it's been fantastic to hear Gaelic spoken by the actors and in the books, and also the use of Gaelic music, Gaelic song. I've been very lucky myself to be a part of that and I think it's been an incredibly positive thing for the language. — Gillebride Macmillan

[jazleighwrites]

My MLitt Creative Writing Reading List (so far)

With inductions over, classes will be starting next week! We received a partial reading list for one of my first-year modules (Craft & Experimentation), so I thought I'd share it with you and add to it when more is added:

No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe

Exquisite Cadavers by Meena Kandasamy

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson

The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos by Anne Carson

Indeterminate Inflorescence: Lectures on Poetry by Lee Seong-bok

[chronicallyphysics]

HAIIII GUYZ QUICK UPDATE ^_^

i keep forgetting to post here because i have been in a slump recently but i am ready to get back on the grind now (hopefully).

academic updates from the past couple months !!

⚝ I got all A's on my exams !! (idk if i mentioned that already)

⚝ I applied to uni in early october. made my application to cambridge (MSci natural sciences), st andrews (MPhys astrophysics), manchester (MPhys physics with astrophysics), glasgow (MSci physics with astrophysics) and edinburgh (MPhys astrophysics)

⚝ I got unconditional offers to edinburgh and glasgow !! (unconditional means i could fail all my exams this year and still get a guaranteed place in the course, a conditional offer would be that my place is only given if i get certain exam results) and also a conditional offer to manchester (AAA in my exams including As in maths and physics)

⚝ and the super scary one, i got interviews to both manchester and cambridge 😰😰

i did my manchester interview last week and my first cambridge interview is TOMORROW and i also have one on friday

im gonna try to be more active on here because i REALLY want to get into cambridge lol. academic comeback starts TODAY !!!!

okii thats all the updates so far, still waiting to hear back from st andrews, but they probably wont respond until april/may. hoping to get an unconditional !!

if i stop posting again someone pls pressure me into getting back on the grind, i need the reminders

[hiyutekivigil]

'tis a rock day

[scotianostra]

Death mask of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Chasing the Jacobite Dream.

A death mask is a cast made of a person’s face once they have died. Death masks have several functions; they are a memento of the person who has died, and they are sometimes used as the basis for posthumous sculpture or portraits, or as an effigy of the deceased for state funerals.

Apparently there are a few of these around, I know Inverness Museum has one, they would have all been copied from the original taken after Charlie popped his clogs.

The Hunterian have a few death masks from different famous faces thought the years including Isaac Newton, Voltaire, and William Hunter, the man the museum is named after.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Modeling system could enable future generations of self-sensing materials

Research that eliminates the guesswork in developing advanced 3D printed materials could help accelerate the development of new forms of "self-sensing" airplanes, robots, bridges and more. A team of engineers led by researchers from the University of Glasgow have developed the first system capable of modeling the complex physics of 3D-printed composites capable of detecting strain, load, and damage using nothing more than a measure of electrical current. By allowing material scientists to predict in advance for the first time how new structures can be fine-tuned to produce specific combinations of strength, stiffness, and self-sensing properties, it could help catalyze the development of revolutionary new applications for the technology.

Read more.

[downfalldestiny]

University of Glasgow, Scotland,

United Kingdom 🇬🇧 !.