How Facebook suggests friends, studies of crystals, why mobile radiation is not harmful to health, and where new alien species come from is all research out of the Faculty of Science. To celebrate 100 years since it was founded Think magazine has just released its Science Issue.
The Mediterranean Sea is warming up. The increase in temperature is destroying temperature barriers allowing newcomer and alien species to thrive around Malta. A newly widened Suez Canal has increased shipping transport making the problem worse. To monitor this changing environment Prof. Patrick J. Schembri is part of a Mediterranean-wide network studying marine protected areas facing these threats
Over half the Maltese public uses Facebook. These are all connected in a huge web that can only be understood using the mathematical discipline called Graph Theory. This maths has its origin in 1737 when Leonhard Euler created a mathematical description based on the islands and bridges of a town. Like islands and bridges build networks, so do social media connections on Facebook.
Researchers at the Department of Geosciences (University of Malta) are figuring out just how polluted Maltese air is and how climate change is affecting the Mediterranean. Also on human health, Prof. Charles Sammut and his team have studied how mobile phone antennaes effect people since 2001. No long-term, harmful effects were found, instead they are now seeing how microwave radiation can help diagnose and cure diseases.
Other studies see Maltese researchers crash testing the largest experiment in the world. Dr Marija Cauchi tested the LHC to help protect it from itself. From mega experiments to much smaller ones that fit in the palm of your hand, the PEST research group uses continuous mutation testing to help make apps for smart phones and tablets more reliable cheaply.
Apps could help you learn a new language, but not every app covers every skill you need to learn a language. Veronica Stivala interviews a few academics to find out if there really is an app for that. Another story linked to language talks about Tommaso Vella’s first Maltese mathematics textbook, Aritmetica Bil Malti u Bl’Inglis (1913). Vella wrote the book the same way the language was spoken: sometimes a sentence starts in Maltese and ends in English, with a few equations thrown in.