science wire

Workers’ strikes and Facebook likes
Research on Egypt is looking at how to read revolution and grass roots opposition through social media.

UCL academic honoured by Indian government

Extreme pornography laws should be reformed, experts say
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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.

Leveson could sort out English football, says Andy Burnham MP
21 May 2013 Shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham MP, believes the proposed Leveson model for press regulation should be used to regulate English football.

Female conversion to Islam in Britain examined in unique research project
A ground-breaking report examining the experiences of nearly 50 British women of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds and faiths (or no faith) - who have all converted to Islam - was launched in London yesterday by the University of Cambridge.

Salt consumption in India: the need for data to initiate population-based prevention efforts
International researchers are studying the salt intake of Indian adults to provide vital new data to aid the development of a national salt reduction strategy. Scientists from the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), the University of Birmingham, Imperial College London and the University of Sydney are carrying out an assessment of dietary salt intake among 1,400 adults over 24 years in urban Delhi and rural Haryana.

Project to explore the social history of Nottingham’s green ’lungs’
PA 162/13 The social history of the green open spaces that ring Nottingham's city centre is to be explored as part of a new research project being led by The University of Nottingham.

Tributes paid to leading engineer, Professor Nabil Gindy
Tributes have been paid to Professor Nabil Gindy, a leading academic at The University of Nottingham, who has died at the age of 62.

Plymouth University welcomes 'One Week Job' man Matt Frost
30-year-old Matt, from Liskeard in Cornwall, is currently trying his hand at 52 jobs in a year and is on week 19 of his challenge.

Tree health: Spot pests and diseases for new national OPAL survey
Researchers need help checking the health of Britain's trees using the Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) national survey on Tree Health, which opens today.

Pressure ulcer research uncertainties
09 May 2013 A new study involving researchers at the universities of York and Manchester has revealed substantial areas of doubt and uncertainty about the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers. The findings by the James Lind Alliance Pressure Ulcer Priority Setting Partnership (JLAPUP), which includes The University of Manchester's School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, suggest that more research is needed to guide practice on how to prevent and treat pressure ulcers - pressure sores or bed sores.

WW2 soldiers radicalised by their diaries, finds study
09 May 2013 A historian studying World War Two soldiers responsible for violent atrocities in the Far East, says they were partly radicalised by their own dairies.

Cricket book hits Beyond a Boundary
One of the most celebrated and influential sports books of modern times is to be the focus of a major conference that will take place at the University of Glasgow.

Mood-tracking app paves way for pocket therapy
An Android app which keeps tabs on users' mood swings and works out what might be causing them has been developed by researchers, with implications for psychological therapy and improving well-being. Behind the scenes, smartphones are constantly collecting data that can turn them into a key medical and psychological tool.

Sussex academic elected chair of British Association for American Studies
Sussex academic elected chair of British Association for American Studies A Sussex academic has been elected as the new chair of the British Association for American Studies.

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.

Sussex co-organises unique workshop in China on genetics and ethnicity
Sussex co-organises unique workshop in China on genetics and ethnicity An international workshop at the weekend on genetics and race was the first of its kind to be held in China.

Fostering understanding between the Islamic world and the west
Frankie Martin, MPhil student in the Department of Social Anthropology will speak tonight at the showing of a documentary Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam .

UKIP is becoming patriotic party of England
Following UKIP's surge in the local elections, new survey data indicates that one possible explanation of their success - until now largely overlooked - is their emergence as the party with the strongest appeal to English patriots.

Branded for life? Researchers examine impact of consumer culture on UK’s children
Branded for life? Researchers examine impact of consumer culture on UK's children Consumers of fashionable brands, the latest gadgets, and the coolest looks are getting ever younger. Yet, children who immerse themselves in consumer culture feel worse about themselves, not better, say researchers at the University of Sussex.

Professor’s research to address plight of the bumblebee
Professor's research to address plight of the bumblebee The plight of the bumblebee is the guiding passion behind research projects at the University of Sussex led by newly-appointed biologist and conservationist Professor Dave Goulson.

£4m study of key social issues to help build better public services
Pressing issues such as crime rates, racial segregation, and social inequality are among concerns to be addressed by experts in a £4 million research initiative.

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.

Beekeepers call on MP’s to halt bee decline

Bumblebees on lavender have it licked
Research shows bumblebees on lavender have it licked New research by the University of Sussex shows why lavender flowers attract more bumblebees than honey bees – it's down to the bumble bee's longer tongue and ability to visit flowers more quickly. The tubular flowers of lavender make nectar extraction harder for the shorter-tongued honey bee, which has to jam its head into each flower to get to the nectar, Nick Balfour and fellow researchers at the University of Sussex observed when studying bees visiting an experimental flower garden at the University.

Improved care needed for mothers from ethnic minority groups
Women in some disadvantaged communities are missing out on support that could potentially reduce high rates of infant mortality, according to an exploratory study at the University of Leeds.

The honey and the ivy - why gardeners’ foe is the bees’ friend
The honey and the ivy - why gardeners' foe is the bees' friend Ivy, often maligned as a garden pest, is vital to honey bees and other pollinators seeking food in autumn, new research from the University of Sussex reveals. The research, carried out by scientists at the University's Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects ( LASI ) is published online today (26 April 2013) in the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity 1 .

Cultural Olympiad reinforces Britain’s reputation as a world leader in culture
An evaluation of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad by the University of Liverpool has found that it reinforced Britain's reputation abroad as a world leader in culture.

Lessons for UK from US digital campaign experts
Members of the team behind Obama's successful 2012 re-election bid joined other technology experts at King's College London this week to share insights into the US Presidential campaign that revolutionised political campaigning in a digital age.

Launch of Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise
At the end of last year Plymouth University became the first university in the world to be awarded the Social Enterprise Mark in recognition of its long-standing support for the sector.

The story of ’comfort women’ highlights human rights violations
The fascinating story of ‘comfort women' — the women and girls recruited by force or by deception into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War — will be the focus of a symposium to be staged at The University of Nottingham next week.

Sheffield Centre for Early Modern Studies launches

How the wild men of the Highlands were tamed
Researchers have shed light on what tamed the violent, untamed alcohol-fuelled 'wild men' of the Scottish Highlands and heralded the dawn of a new period of ‘Highland Enlightenment'.

Sussex digital project shares 1980s views of Thatcher’s Britain
Sussex digital project shares 1980s views of Thatcher's Britain A University of Sussex digital project offers fascinating insights into the social history and cultural changes as experienced by those living during the 1980s in Thatcher's Britain.

Manchester professor and former UN chief calls for more help in Syria
11 Apr 2013 A former United Nations (UN) chief and University of Manchester Professor, who let the world know about genocide in Darfur, has called for more to be done in Syria ahead of a debate in Manchester next week.

UK Health progress below the European average
Liverpool scientists, as part of an international consortium, have found that progress in preventing premature deaths is below average compared to other countries in Europe.

Founding Director of adoption centre appointed
Founding Director of adoption centre appointed Professor Gordon Harold – an expert in child development and the role of the family in children's psychological development - has been appointed to the new post of the Andrew and Virginia Rudd Chair in Psychology. His focus after arriving at Sussex this October will be to establish and lead a new adoption research centre at the University.

Viewpoint: Resignation of UK Youth Commissioner
Dr Stephanie Petrie is an Honorary Research Fellow in the University of Liverpool's School of Law and Social Justice "The disapprobation expressed by adults for tweets sent two years before Pari

Demand for flexible working prompts growth in mobile technology
The desire for flexible working amongst staff has resulted in more businesses in the south west moving towards new mobile technologies, an IT study has found.

Life on the divide: the Buriad people and the world’s longest border
A major project - Where Rising Powers Meet - looks at life along the border that separates Russia, China and Mongolia.

Survey charts emergence of new class system
The traditional view of a Britain made up working, middle and upper class people is no longer accurate, according to one of the largest studies of its kind.

Poor more generous than rich in recession, study shows
Professor Yaojun Li, of the Institute for Social Change, University of Manchester, analysed survey data on over 100,000 adults in England and Wales, over ten years to 2011. He will tell the British Sociological Association's annual conference in London that the average people gave to charity in the four weeks before being questioned during the year 2010/11 was £16, compared with £15 given by those questioned during 2007/08.

Researchers seek participants for study into problem gambling
Gambling addicts may be putting themselves and their families at risk despite not even realising they have a problem, academics have suggested. The claim from Plymouth University’s Drug and Alcohol Research Unit (DARU) comes as a new study is launched looking into people’s gambling habits, and examining the ways people can reduce the potential for harm to both themselves and those around them.

The Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK Survey 2012: Headline results for Scotland
The Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK Survey 2012: Headline results for Scotland The Poverty and Social Exclusion report is the result of two surveys undertaken in 2012 that spoke to over 2700 individuals in Scotland (and 14,000 across the UK).

Largest study into poverty reveals extent of deprivation in the UK
Today 33 per cent of the UK population suffers from multiple deprivation - it was 14 per cent in 1983, and over 30 million people (almost half the population) are suffering some degree of financial insecurity. These are just some of the stark findings from the largest and most authoritative study of poverty and deprivation ever conducted in the UK. The Poverty and Social Exclusion [PSE] project , led by academics at the University of Bristol and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC] , publishes its first report ' The Impoverishment of the UK ' today [28 Mar].

Manchester Museum to share in Lottery grant success
IWM North, part of Imperial War Museums, working in partnership with Manchester Museum, part of The University of Manchester, are today celebrating the news of a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant of £528,700 for a ground-breaking volunteer and learning programme.

Consortium plays host to British Election Study
PA 96/13 The University of Nottingham has joined forces with the Universities of Manchester and Oxford to form a consortium which will study long-term political change in British politics.

Combating cybercrime
Cyber Security and Cyber Crime experts in the University's Schools of Computer Science and Informatics and Social Sciences have been awarded £1.2M to study the human and technical factors in cybercrime.

Access to Russell Group universities ‘far from fair’, according to new research
Access to Russell Group universities is 'far from fair', according to a new study. The research by Dr Vikki Boliver, a lecturer in the School of Applied Social Sciences , shows that applicants from state schools and from black and Asian ethnic backgrounds are less likely to be admitted to Russell Group universities than their peers with the same A-level results from private schools and white ethnic backgrounds.

Forecasting the future
Internationally recognised social and computer scientists at the Cardiff Online Social Media Observatory (COSMOS) at Cardiff University will analyse tweets to help predict offline social behaviour such as crime and disorder.

Picturing China exhibition opens in Beijing
An exhibition of historical photographs of China, brought together by a University of Bristol project, was opened at the JW Marriott in Beijing today by the British Ambassador to China, Sebastian Wood CMG.

Sussex builds links with China and Hong Kong

Big ideas in small packages
A video project demonstrates how academic research can be communicated in an engaging format that puts across complex ideas in a nutshell.

People with learning disabilities are more likely to have a premature death compared with general population
A three-year study into the extent of premature death in people with learning disabilities has found that those with learning disabilities are more likely to have a premature death compared with indi

Index identifies poorer countries where poverty is 'shrinking'
An Oxford University study shows poverty is shrinking in many parts of the world. The index devised by researchers at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) measures reductions in multidimensional poverty – overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards – rather than income.

The land of make-believe
Children with autism are often described as visual thinkers, so by externalising the mental image somewhere else in their reality, it may help them pick up the concept of imaginative play Zhen

New forum uses Oxford research to connect Britain with South-East Asia
A forum that disseminates Oxford University research to policymakers and business leaders via the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has held its inaugural meeting.

Letting the future in: helping children and young people overcome the effects of sexual abuse
Sexual abuse has an often devastating and long-term impact on the lives of many children and young people - for these children the future can be very dark indeed. A new study will evaluate the effectiveness of a therapeutic service designed to help children and young people who have been affected by sexual abuse.

European survey aims to gauge perceptions of marine litter
The survey, being conducted by Plymouth University, will assess how people’s attitudes towards the impacts and the potential solutions to this growing environmental problem vary between countries and

Researchers report on ’lad culture’ at British universities
New research carried out by Sussex academics suggests that ‘lad culture' is widespread at universities in England and Scotland.

Cambridge in Sharjah: Building the foundations of research
Parody as resistance, religious broadcasting in the Arab world and China's relationship with the Gulf will all come under scrutiny as academics from Cambridge's Centre of Islamic Studies gather in the Gulf on March 10.

Young women may reject feminism as marginal and old-fashioned
European women who reject feminism often see it as obsolete or associated with extreme views, according to research from King's College London.

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Totalitarianism, violence and the silent majority
The 'horrifying genius' of Soviet totalitarianism and its ability to control and quell protest will be examined tonight by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum.

EU commitment needed on preventing mass atrocities
The EU needs to strengthen its commitment, and its strategic toolkit, to prevent mass atrocities, such as those perpetrated in Syria, according to a new report by the Task Force on the EU Prevention of Mass Atrocities, co-chaired by Christoph Meyer, released today.

Free web-based meditation course is launched
Designed by researchers at Cardiff University, the Web Wellbeing Experience study will assess the impact of Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM) and light physical exercise on the health of participants from a range of backgrounds and abilities.

People with disabilities at greater risk of violence and mental illness
Their analysis also revealed that victims with disability were twice as likely to experience emotional difficulties following violence than non-disabled victims. Across England and Wales in 2009, approximately 224,000 people with disabilities experienced violence, resulting in an excess economic burden of £1.51 billion.

Disabled at greater risk of violence and subsequent mental ill-health
People with disabilities are at a greater risk of being the victims of violence and of suffering mental ill health when victimised, according to research published today in the open access journal PLOS ONE . The research, led by Hind Khalifeh (UCL Brain Sciences) with colleagues from UCL and King's College London, is the first to assess the extent to which people with disabilities experience different kinds of violence and the associated health and economic costs.

Cities and how we live in them
Richard Sennett argues that learning how to live in cities made up from disparate groups represents the biggest challenge facing society today." There is debate about which of the world's cities is the largest because it all depends on the criteria you decide to use.

How Shakespeare's writing was influenced by his lead actor
The influence of one of Shakespeare's principal actors on many of the bard's plays has been revealed by an Oxford University academic.

Out of the ashes of Empire
—Dr Barak Kushner Barack Obama's resolution to kick off foreign policy for his second term with a tour of the Asia-Pacific region, at the end of 2012, was testimony not only to that area's growing economic importance, but also to the  increasing significance of its politics.

Lenox is named Manchester Champion at city awards ceremony

Plymouth University academic writes about China's emergence as a global superpower
As billions of people across the globe prepare to celebrate Chinese New Year, Plymouth University's Associate Professor in International Relations Jamie Gaskarth asks what the nation’s emergence

Women trafficked into crime in UK are imprisoned without support or protection
I did not understand what was going on. I was crying... I just wanted to be able to tell them everything - I wanted them to listen and understand." —Victim of sex trafficking Most foreign national women trafficked into the UK and forced to commit offences are given custodial sentences without help or support if arrested – despite being victims of often horrifying crime and abuse themselves, says a Cambridge-led report.

People born abroad more ‘likely to speak English and feel British’
Researchers at The University of Manchester say commentators should not use numbers of people born abroad to measure the needs of immigrants trying to integrate into the communities they choose to settle.

Golden moment as Paralympian David Stone awarded honorary doctorate at Sussex graduation

Rethink how we prepare for flu pandemics, say scientists
That a new pandemic will arrive, sooner or later, is probably the only thing about pandemic influenza upon which scientists agree.

David Stone MBE

Labour’s membership crisis: no end in sight
Labour's latest campaign to attract members has run into the sands because the party has failed to learn the lessons of past failure in the Blair years, according to an article by two University of Bristol academics published today in the journal British Politics.

More ethnically diverse populations for UK local areas
In 40 years' time the UK will be a more diverse but more integrated society, according to research at the University of Leeds.

People with mental disorders more likely to have experienced domestic violence
Men and women with mental health disorders, across all diagnoses, are more likely to have experienced domestic violence than the general population, according to new research from King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, in collaboration with the University of Bristol.  Previous studies into the link between domestic violence and mental health problems have mainly focused on depression, but this is the first study to look at a wide range of mental health problems in both male and female victims.

Amsterdam looks to Cardiff for violence tackling action
A University-designed violence prevention model has been adopted by the Dutch government in an effort to reduce violent behaviour.

2011 CENSUS: independent analysis available
10 Dec 2012 The University of Manchester's new research Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity will also be preparing four separate briefing documents, using the census data, on the growth of ethnic diversity, on integration, immigration, and on segregation.

Violence and domestic abuse
Legislative proposals aimed at ending violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence in Wales have been informed by two Cardiff academics.

‘Votes for Prisoners? Democracy and the European Convention on Human Rights’

Research criticises young offenders’ institution for gang-related violence
PA 352/12 A youth offending facility in the East Midlands has been criticised in a new report for taking criminals from rival gangs in Leicester and Nottingham.