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Tech & Science Daily speak to Andrew Parfery, programme manager at the Venture Builder incubator at the University of Edinburgh, about the new device which could mean the end of ‘uncomfortable’ smear tests.
Postgraduate student Sânziana Foia’s company, Papcup, was part of the 2023 cohort of the VBI programme, which is an incubator that helps doctoral students and researchers from throughout the UK develop their business ideas and grow startup companies.
Papcup works by looking for signs of cancer-causing HPV by analysing a small swab of blood that women can take at home.
Foia is now gauging interest in the system through a website that can take pre-orders, this will help her demonstrate demand for the device to potential investors and the NHS.
NHS data reveals that currently around a third of women in the UK miss their smear tests each year due to concerns such as pain, embarrassment, fear and body consciousness.
Vittorio Tantucci, senior lecturer in linguistics at Lancaster University, explains the findings of his study which has found that British people are increasingly copying each other’s speaking style, but there’s a clear divide amongst social classes.
The tendency amongst some to reuse words used by the people they’re speaking with is a phenomenon known as resonance.
Resonance in conversation is a key sign of social inclusion as it indicates that the people involved are looking to make the other feel “heard”. However, consistent absence of it during conversation, can indicate a lack of engagement.
And the rest
Ready for Wimbledon? We’ve got all the new generative AI features IBM is rolling out for the tournament.
Scientists make rhino horns 'radioactive' to tackle poaching, and Apple issues 'massive' warning to all 1.46 billion iPhone users that appears to be about Google Chrome.
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Here’s an automated transcript of today’s episode:
Hi, I'm Rochelle Travers, and this is The Standard's Tech and Science Daily podcast.
Coming up: Game, Set, Match, the new generative AI features coming to Wimbledon.
Now, let's get into it.
A new device called a Papcup could mean the end of uncomfortable smear tests.
This company called Papcup came on the Venture Builder incubator.
It's founded by someone called Sânziana Foia, and she's developed a non-invasive cervical cancer screening product, which can be used at home.
That's Andrew Parfery, Programme Manager at the Venture Builder incubator at the University of Edinburgh.
What it effectively does is enable you to take a swab sample of menstrual blood and have it analysed in the device that she's developed, and within 15 minutes, it will therefore give you the results of that test.
So, gone now, hopefully will be the days of having to go somewhere, have an invasive procedure and indeed have to wait weeks for the results.
Postgraduate student, Foia's company, Papcup, was part of the 2023 cohort of the VBI Programme, which is an incubator that helps doctoral students and researchers from throughout the UK develop their business ideas and grow start-up companies.
Foia is now gauging interest in the system through a website that can take pre-orders.
This will help her demonstrate demand for the device to potential investors and the NHS.
NHS data reveals that currently around a third of women in the UK miss their smear tests each year due to concerns such as pain, embarrassment, fear and body consciousness.
Sânziana, at the moment, is now fully into prototyping phase and then after that obviously will come clinical trials.
But she's at the very point where she's now looking for investment from investors who are able to accelerate the pace at which she can get through these next phases and bring this to market to have impact.
Andrew says the Papcup is a great example of how VBI can help academics and hopes to encourage more people to submit applications for their next cohort.
And the whole idea is that this program is designed for PhD students and academic staff, researchers at universities across the UK.
And what we're really aiming to do is to help and support them to take that innovation or that idea or that discovery and bring it into the real world.
So we're here open for applications until the 15th of July, in particular, to help people looking at health and social care innovations.
Now, a study has found that British people are increasingly copying each other's speaking style.
When we speak to one another, we constantly imitate each other.
We use similar gestures, our accents converge, let alone gaze, facial expressions.
And most interestingly, we very often reuse the words and the expressions of one another in interaction.
So this is something that is distinctive of human communication, it's something that we do all the time.
That's Vittorio Tantucci, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at Lancaster University and first author of the study.
The tendency amongst some to reuse words used by the people they're speaking with is a phenomenon known as resonance.
What we found, however, in this paper is that in certain classes of British society, this tendency, a tendency that we call resonance, has increased dramatically over a period of 20 years.
Vittorio says that over the past 20 years, there's been a clear marked divide in how people from different classes interact with one another.
What we found is that in higher social grades, including people working in the corporate world, in higher education and neighbouring fields, well, people working in these areas tend to reuse one another's language and expressions much, much more.
People from lower social grades, such as state pensioners, casual lowest grade workers, they seem to have the same conversational style that they used to have in the 1990s.
Resonance in conversation is a key sign of social inclusion, as it indicates that the people involved are looking to make the other feel heard.
However, consistent absence of it during conversation can indicate a lack of engagement.
We all know that in British society there is a very strong gap across classes, and this might make this gap even wider.
If the language that is used among people working in certain sectors of British society tend to converge and to be so distinctively different from the language that is used by people from other sectors, well, when people from different sectors interact with one another, they might perceive this difference.
The final countdown to Wimbledon is on.
The All England Lawn Tennis Club and IBM are expanding their use of generative AI for this year's championships with some impressive new features.
This year we are introducing a brand new feature called Catch Me Up.
This is a way of fans seeing stories about their favourite players as the tournament unfolds.
That's Kevin Farrar, Head of Sport Partnerships at IBM UK.
One of the key things and challenges around the work we've been doing with Wimbledon is ensuring that the outputs from the generative AI are trustworthy.
Obviously, the Wimbledon brand is very important to them and we need to make sure that we get the balance right between tradition and heritage and innovation and technology.
However, it's been confirmed that Wimbledon will not be using AI commentary during the tournament following much criticism of the feature last year, including from BBC Pundit and former British number one, Annabel Croft.
All the action gets underway at Tennis' most prestigious tournament on Monday the 1st of July.
Let's go to the ads.
Coming up: why scientists are making rhino horns radioactive... And Apple takes aim at Google Chrome.
Welcome back.
Scientists are making rhino horns radioactive to try to prevent poaching.
A team from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa has begun implanting tiny radioactive chips in the animal's horns.
They say the radioactive material will render the horn useless, essentially poisonous for human consumption.
However, the dose will not pose any risk to the rhinos themselves or the environment around them.
The animals also do not feel any pain from the chips. In total, 20 rhinos will be part of the pilot project.
And, in addition to radiation detectors installed at ports and airports, border agents often have handheld radiation detectors.
And finally, Apple has issued a massive warning to all 1.46 billion iPhone users that seems to be aimed at Google Chrome.
The tech giant has taken out billboards across the globe to promote its Safari search app, saying it's a browser that's actually private.
The ad didn't mention Google Chrome by name, but Alphabet did reveal earlier this year that it collects data from anyone who uses Chrome.
It's also the top downloaded search browser for smartphones, surpassing Safari by more than 2 million.
The billboards have been spotted in London, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore and Australia.
You’re up to date, come back at 4pm for The Standard podcast for all the latest news and analysis.
Tech and Science Daily will be back on Monday at 1pm.
See you then!
