World Day for Laboratory Animals is marked annually on the 24th of April to raise awareness about experimenting on animals. Animal models have been used for scientific purposes, such as helping us understand cell mechanisms, complex biological functions and in finding new cures for diseases. Due to anatomical and physiological similarities between humans and animals, especially mammals, potential medications, vaccines and therapies are first investigated on animal (and non-animal) models. Clearly, not all results conducted on animals can be directly applied to humans; rather, they help us understand crucial processes and decide whether it is safe to move on to the next level. It is almost impossible to imagine biomedical research being run without animal models as they are crucial for fundamental discoveries – from ancient dissections to contemporary gene editing technology.
Category: Issue 11
Co-author: Ivana Osredek
Hello, everyone! We are proud to present our new category – Careers in Science! As a natural sequel to our series of posts on studying abroad, where we compared the application processes for various countries and universities around the world, now we want to show you what the process of studying itself looks like and what path(s) you can take after completing your studies! In this issue, we will talk about different job opportunities in academia.
Academia is a widely used term for research and professorship. Unfortunately, it is not uniformly structured globally, since different countries have different names, qualifications and conditions for various positions. However, they are becoming standardized all over the world, which will enable researchers to study and improve their knowledge and skills wherever they want.
When you hear the name Star Wars, (possibly) the most popular saga in history, one of the first things that may come to mind is The Force. For those, however, who are guilty of not having seen the saga, The Force is an energy field created by all life that connects everything in the universe. Cool, right? What if I told you that there is actually a theory for our universe which states that all the known forces can be explained away with only four fundamental ones? The Standard Model is going to surprise you!