science wire

X-rays resurrect 200-year-old lost opera
15 Jun 2013 Audiences can hear a 200-year-old opera by composer Luigi Cherubini in full for the first time in centuries after scientists used X-rays to reveal hidden notes. At first glance the beautifully bound 1797 Luigi Cherubini opera "Médée" looks like an impeccably preserved relic of opera's golden age.

Birmingham’s Barber Institute and London’s National Gallery swap masterpieces to celebrate anniversary
An outstanding group of Old Master and 19th-century paintings – including masterpieces by Poussin, Turner, Monet and Manet – go on show at the National Gallery, London this summer as part

Event showcases talent and creativity at region's top art and design university
Plymouth University was ranked in the top 20 institutions nationally, and first in the region, for its Art and Design courses in the recent Guardian University Guide.

Royal Pavilion’s dazzling colour is the subject of researcher’s display
Royal Pavilion's dazzling colour is the subject of researcher's display An additional feast for the eyes awaits visitors to the Royal Pavilion Brighton at a special display inspired by University of Sussex research that opens to the public today (15 June 2013).

Study to explore how the arts can generate economic growth in the North
The University of Liverpool is leading a study that will explore how universities across the North of England can work more closely with the arts and humanities to generate growth and address a diverse range of research questions.

Grant Museum taken over by artists for Sculpture Season

Innovative composer invited to perform particle physics duet in San Francisco
Dr Alexis Kirke, a member of Plymouth University’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research, will perform his acclaimed Cloud Chamber at the 26th Lepton-Photon Conference, the world’s premiere conference for the field of elementary particle physics.

Captain Cook’s Maori paddles: an artefact of encounter
Maori paddles presented to Captain Cook's crew on their first voyage of discovery capture the spirit of a first encounter between two cultures. they enter'd into a traffick with our people... giving in exchange their padddles William Monkhouse, Ship's Surgeon, HMS Endeavour Living in a multicultural, globalised world, it's hard to imagine the moment when different cultures first met, or a time when people's knowledge of each other's worlds was nonexistent.

The un-Limited Edition
Emerging new digital editions at Cambridge are effecting a sea-change in the nature of the scholarly edition, radicalising access to vital source materials and opening up new possibilities for research.

Conference on performance for musicians with a hearing impairment
The University of Liverpool and the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) are organising a conference to disseminate their research exploring group performance for musicians with a hearing impairment that considers whether the use of vibration could be used to aid interaction.

Postcard: Dr Iain Jackson in India
Gathering stones from riverbeds surrounding the Indian city of Chandigarh in 1958, Nek Chand, a local road inspector, began to build what is now the country's second most popular tourist destination after the Taj Mahal.

BBC Radio 3 announces new broadcasting star
Fern Riddell, a PhD student in the Department of History, has been selected to take part in BBC Radio 3's New Generation Thinkers scheme for 2013.

History meets innovation for new live gaming experience
Resurgam: The Lost Pearl of Plymouth will see gamers using mobile technology to navigate their way around the City’s maritime heritage.

Major motion pictures from our prehistoric past
Cambridge archaeologists are illuminating some of the oldest graphic art of the past, by applying some of the most advanced graphic technology of the present.

University production house launches Plymouth City of Culture film
A company made up of talented students, graduates and lecturers from Plymouth University has produced an energetic and visually stunning film, showcasing and celebrating Plymouth’s culture in all its glory.

Cinematic geographies of Battersea
Research is combining film 'archaeology' with digital technology to create a new approach to 'sites of memory' for the London borough of Battersea.

The first book of fashion
Fashion conveys complex messages.

Refurbishment of Attenborough Centre about to begin

Manchester Review out now
30 Apr 2013 The tenth edition of The University of Manchester's online arts journal the Manchester Review is now live.

Forging connections: digital humanities in Cambridge and beyond
To launch our month-long focus on digital humanities research, Professor John Rink and Professor Simon Goldhill - Co-Directors of Cambridge's Digital Humanities Network - explain how digital tools are transforming scholarship in Cambridge.

Exhibition tells story of Crawley author’s creepy tales
Exhibition tells story of Crawley author's creepy tales The life and works of Richard Marsh – a celebrated bestselling author at the turn of the 19 th century but largely forgotten today

UCL Festival of the Arts: Q&A with Professor Jonathan Wolff
With the UCL Festival of the Arts running from 7 - 17 May, UCL News spoke to Professor Jonathan Wolff (UCL Philosophy), Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, about the festival, and the importance of celebrating the arts at the time when many courses at other institutions are under threat.

The secrets of Britain’s most successful marriage maker revealed
Historians are today launching an online resource that will provide a permanent and publicly accessible record of the letters of one of Elizabethan England's most remarkable figures.

Bowie's lyrics and sales inspire new musical composition
David Bowie’s extraordinary career is being transformed into new compositions as part of an event celebrating his impact on the global music scene.

‘In The City’ celebrates Yorkshire dialect, women of steel and uncommon people
A series of public talks and events celebrating the local region's identity and heritage begins next month (3 May - 17 August 2013), entitled In The City.

Plymouth gets a flavour of Hollywood’s golden age
For five weeks from April 27, the Peninsula Arts Gallery will host an exhibition which features a recreation of a Los Angeles coffee house, complete with authentic entertainment and a working vintage espresso machine.

From Austen to French cinema: UCL celebrates the arts

From Exhibition Road to Hollywood Boulevard
Two Imperial alumni have won Academy Awards for their work in visual film effects. Last month some of biggest megastars on the planet picked up their iconic statuettes at the annual pinnacle of the film industry.

Women, the Arts and Globalization
The first anthology to specifically explore the relationships between transnational feminism and women's art practices across a range of contemporary media, edited by Dr Dorothy Rowe of the Universit

Arts and sciences combine for exploration of human cognition
Researchers from the arts and sciences are joining forces in a bid to explore one of the greatest scientific challenges of our time – the workings of the human brain.

UCL project uncovering hidden gems in Slade Archive
A new project between the Slade School of Fine Art and UCL Centre for Digital Humanities is exploring and mapping hidden gems from the Slade Archive.  The project will trial various online platfor

Renowned minimalist composer discusses work on 9/11
During a rare visit to the UK, a world-renowned American composer told an enthralled audience at the University of Sussex yesterday (7 March) how he came to write a work about the events surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Queen and Imperial College London honoured with a music heritage award

Supporting university cultural engagement
Cardiff is one of 45 universities to have been awarded funding to help arts and humanities PhD students develop skills in relation to the wider impact of their research.

Acts of creativity, audiences and us
A conference in Cambridge next month will explore the notion of performance as a dynamic means of looking at the complex interactions between works of art and audiences -  both real and imagined, past and present - in a digital age.

Flaxman Exchange offers new perspectives on UCL collections

University awarded funding to work with cultural organisations

Does increased exposure to a piece of art make us like it more?
When it comes to judging art, beauty may not just be in the eye of the beholder, according to a study from the University of Leeds. The research challenges the idea that what people value in art is largely what they are used to, or that people will come to like any image if they see it enough times.

King’s partners with Royal Opera House on digital project
The Department of Digital Humanities at King's is partnering with the Royal Opera House and digital agency POP on one of the first collaborative projects funded by the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts programme.

Youth ambassadors and murdered policeman's widow
Two Durham University students who led a mass peace campaign in Northern Ireland are helping to launch a new network for peace across the UK.

Make a date with discovery at Imperial’s Arts Experiment
Take part in a unique experiment and blur the lines between science and the arts at an Imperial Fringe event on Thursday in the Main Entrance on Exhibition Road from 17.00-2000 .

Community arts get connected across Sheffield

Oxford announces honorary degrees for 2013

Volunteers needed to chart fifty years of ch-ch-changes in pop music
Music lovers are invited to take part in an online experiment to explore the ways that popular music has evolved between 1960 and the present day.

Help UCL Art museum in national BBC campaign

Filmmaker Mark Cousins appointed Honorary Professor
The documentary filmmaker and author Mark Cousins has accepted an Honorary Professorship at the University of Glasgow.

Public artworks projected onto University Place tonight
The event launches a nationwide celebration of Your Paintings - a BBC website showing the entire UK national collection of over 210,000 oil paintings.

Jesus College Choir to bring music to some of India’s poorest children

Roll up, roll up! Sheffield’s show heritage on display
The University of Sheffield's Vanessa Toulmin opens the doors to her new exhibition of shows, fairs and circuses in Sheffield over the past 200 years this week (Thursday 7 February - 6 May 2013).

Spreading the classical music bug to boost school achievement
Music students from The University of Nottingham will be mentoring primary schoolchildren in the city as part of a new scheme to tackle social deprivation through music.

Potted histories
The vitrines are meant to be happened upon as you come and go....

Music in Vienna
David Wyn Jones, Head of the School of Music at Cardiff, has been awarded a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust to research a long overdue, alternative approach to the history of music in Vienna.

AMRC creates new industrial icon for Sheffield
The University of Sheffield's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) has completed production of a two metre model of a proposed landmark sculpture for the Sheffield city region.

Read the full article
Tom Whittaker from the Department of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies has been appointed as the as the inaugural Franklin-Morris International Scholar.

Chipping away at the history of plaster in sculpture and medicine
A new exhibition about plaster and the casting process, highlighting the sculpture models of the neo-classical artist John Flaxman (1755-1826), starts at the UCL Art Museum this month.

The Barber Institute at 80
was a very special day for the University. On that day 80 years ago, Lady Barber and the original trustees signed the Deed of Settlement, which effectively founded the Barber Institute of Fine Arts that was bequeathed to the University 'for the study and encouragement of art and music'.

Presenters go back to nature with support for literary project
Two of the nation’s most celebrated naturalists will have their voices heard by literary fans across the globe this Christmas thanks to a project led by Plymouth University.