22 May 2013
About 55.5 million years ago, geologically rapid emission of a large volume of greenhouse gases at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (PETM) led to global warming of about 5oC, severe ocean acidification, and widespread extinction of microscopic organisms living on the deep-sea floor (foraminifera). A study of survivors of the extinction provides unique insight into the response of deep-sea calcifiers to past episodes which resemble the potential future consequences of fossil fuel CO2 emissions. The organisms, contrary to expectations from experiments, actually increased the thickness of their shells during ocean acidification, with organisms living buried within the sediment able to survive better than forms living on the sediment surface. The research, by scientists from the University of Bristol (UK) and Yale University (USA), is reported in this week's early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
21 May 2013
Eleven research teams in eight of the University's Schools have received grants totalling £170,000 to accelerate the impact of their research. These awards were made through pilot funding schemes from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
20 May 2013
A new study conducted at the University of Bristol and published online today in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology sheds light on how the brain and inner ear developed in dinosaurs.
14 May 2013
Limiting the amount of warming experienced by the world's oceans in the future could buy some time for tropical coral reefs, say researchers from the University of Bristol.
03 May 2013
Ghostly tales, dinosaur bones and rare books are just some of the fascinating treasures from the vaults of the University of Bristol which will be shown to the public as part of the Museums at Night initiative – an annual late night festival of art, culture and heritage.
02 May 2013
Using information gathered from field-based studies at the Kima’Kho tuya, an extinct subglacial volcano in northern British Columbia, Canada, researchers from the University of British Columbia, Dickinson College and the University of Bristol report how they have determined palaeo icesheet thickness.
25 April 2013
The rediscovery of a mystery animal in a museum’s underground storeroom by an undergraduate at the University of Bristol proves that a non-native ‘big cat’ prowled the British countryside at the turn of the last century.
27 March 2013
How do we know what colour dinosaur feathers were? Paleontologists are one step closer to solving this long-standing mystery thanks to recreating the fossilisation process to see what effect high pressure and temperatures have on the colour of feathers.
26 March 2013
A 320 million-year-old fossilised skull – found in Newsham, Blyth in Northumberland in the 18th century by a local grocer – has undergone state-of-the-art CT scanning by a University of Bristol researcher at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital.
26 March 2013
Using information gathered from samples of deep sea sediments, researchers from the University of Bristol report new findings regarding the dynamics of the eruption of Mount Tambora, Indonesia in 1815 – one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the last 1,000 years. Interpretation and understanding of such past eruptions are important for the assessment of hazards related to future eruptions.
