Bristol students put their brains to the test for BBC 6 Music hack event
Students and young people from across Bristol will be harnessing the power of music at an exciting ‘hack’ event, part of The Fringe supported by BBC Radio 6 Music Festival.
News in February
Bristol Team places fifth in international Drones for Good awards
Dr Tom Scott and Dr Oliver Payton, with Bristol spin-out company ImiTec Ltd, took their Advanced Airborne Radiation Monitoring System to Dubai and took on 1017 entrants from 165 countries.
Bristol student breaks Atlantic rowing record
After battling storms, sharks, sunstroke and sleep deprivation, University of Bristol student Freddie Wright and best friend Jack Galsworthy have become the youngest pair to row the Atlantic.
Ocean acidification makes coralline algae less robust
Ocean acidification (the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth’s oceans, caused by the uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere), is affecting the formation of the skeleton of coralline algae which play an important part in marine biodiversity, new research from the University of Bristol has found.
New book explores Neolithic island ritual
Ritual life on Neolithic islands is the subject of a new book edited by Dr George Nash of the University of Bristol’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology and the late Andrew Townsend, who completed a PhD in archaeology at Bristol.
Dr A Brian Hawkins, 1934-2016
Dr Brian Hawkins, former Reader in Engineering Geology, died in January. His colleague Dr David Nash offers a remembrance.
Bristol archaeologists help pupils explore school’s history
University of Bristol archaeologists have been working with local primary school children to explore the history of land adjoining Two Mile Hill Primary School in Kingswood.
Motorboat noise gives predators a deadly advantage
The rate that fish are captured by predators can double when boats are motoring nearby, according to pioneering work led by the University of Exeter and co-authored by the University of Bristol, published today in Nature Communications.
Spotlight on Chinese wartime science at Bristol Museum
A pop-up exhibition of photographs providing a fascinating insight into Chinese science during the Second World War will feature as part of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery’s Chinese New Year celebrations this weekend.
Virtual museum to bring evolutionary education out of the Stone Age
Fossils from around the world will be displayed in an online ‘computer game museum’ designed to help teach pupils about the evolution of life on earth. The Virtual Natural History Museum, a project which is being led by a team of palaeontology experts at the University of Bristol, will provide a unique resource to teachers – offering digital access to specimens rarely seen outside of academia.
Women are seen more than heard in online news
It has long been argued that women are under-represented and marginalised in relation to men in the world’s news media. New research, using artificial intelligence (AI), has analysed over two million articles to find out how gender is represented in online news. The study, which is the largest undertaken to date, found men’s views and voices are represented more in online news than women’s.
Loss of wild flowers across Britain matches pollinator decline
The first ever Britain-wide assessment of the value of wild flowers as food for pollinators, led by the University of Bristol, shows that decreasing resources mirror the decline of pollinating insects, providing new evidence to support the link between plant and pollinator decline.
Sonic tractor beam goes to Hollywood
University of Bristol research assistant Asier Marzo demonstrated the world’s first sonic tractor beam to Hollywood actors Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell on the Spanish TV programme El Hormiguero.
Greenland ice sheet releasing “Mississippi River” worth of phosphorus
Not only is Greenland's melting ice sheet adding huge amounts of water to the oceans, it could also be unleashing 400,000 metric tons of phosphorus every year – as much as the mighty Mississippi River releases into the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new study.
University research underpins pursuit of resilience in banking sector
Dr Evarist Stoja, Reader in Finance in the University of Bristol’s Department of Accounting and Finance, has collaborated with colleagues in the Bank of England to publish an article on how banks fare in stressful macroeconomic conditions.
Severe droughts no longer caused just by nature
A group of key water researchers from 13 organisations in eight countries, including the University of Bristol and Cabot Institute, is calling for a revision of how the world should study and tackle drought. The researchers propose broadening the definition of drought to include water shortage caused and made worse – or sometimes improved - by human activity.
New frontiers in communication systems
Data centres such as the ones used by Google and Facebook are the fundamental backbone for a range of services and applications including cloud and fog computing, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), social networking, weather forecasting, earthquake and tsunami prediction and cyber security. As such they are a hidden, yet integral part of modern life and human progress. New research by the universities of Bristol, Keio and industrial partners have unlocked 80 THz of fibre-optic bandwidth that will enable future exascale data centres and transform 5G networks.
International award for political journalist and Bristol alumnus Kenneth
A former student at the University of Bristol who’s a renowned news report in Hong Kong is hitting the headlines himself after winning an international award.
Exploring the genomic basis of parasitism
The genes that cause parasitism in a group of intestinal worms, responsible for one of most prevalent tropical diseases in the developing world, have been identified by an international team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol.
Government announces new consortium to lead R&D in secure wireless connectivity for autonomous vehicles
The University of Bristol, as part of the FLOURISH consortium, is among the recipients of the government’s multi-million pound research grant to fuel development in user-centric autonomous vehicle technology and connected transport systems. The new programme, co-funded by the UK’s innovation agency - Innovate UK, will focus on the core themes of wireless connectivity, security and customer interaction.
Teacher training revamp needed to avert looming supply crisis, say leading academics
Leading education academics have called for urgent action to safeguard the future of initial teacher training in England. Dr Janet Orchard, from the University of Bristol, and Professor Christopher Winch from King’s College London, argue in a briefing from PolicyBristol that the value of education theory and the intrinsic role of universities in initial teacher training need to be recognised, and the training system overhauled.
Bristol welcomes the Year of the Monkey
A cultural spectacular will welcome the Year of the Monkey at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery this weekend. Students and staff from the University of Bristol will be helping visitors to celebrate Chinese New Year in traditional style, with dancing lion performances, martial arts, traditional Chinese dances, storytelling, family trails, arts and craft activities, live music and much more on Saturday and Sunday [6 and 7 February].