A new study led by researchers in the Department of Biology has demonstrated that bumblebees make choices while foraging to maximize the rate of energy return, i.e. the amount of nectar sugar collected each minute.
As the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated, viruses can quickly evolve new ways of evading our immune systems, undermining our efforts to control outbreaks. But a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool developed by researchers in the Department of Computer Science and Harvard Medical School could help predict new viral variants before they emerge.
Oxford will be the international headquarters for the Breakthrough Listen initiative, the largest ever astronomical programme searching for \u2018technosignatures\u2019 - evidence of past or present technology that would signal the presence of life beyond planet Earth.
A global team of scientists led by researchers in the Department of Physics have announced the results of an unprecedented collaboration to search for the source of the largest ever seismic event recorded on Mars. The study rules out a meteorite impact, suggesting instead that the quake was the result of enormous tectonic forces within Mars\u2019 crust.
Lia Yeh, a DPhil student in the Department of Computer Science, is one of 67 doctoral students around the world, and the only one in the UK, to be awarded a 2023 Google PhD Fellowship.
A new study led by the Department of Earth Sciences has overturned the view that natural rock weathering acts as a CO2 sink, indicating instead that this can act as a large CO2 source, rivalling that of volcanoes. The results, published today in the journal Nature, have important implications for modelling climate change scenarios.
A breakthrough technique developed by University of Oxford researchers could one day provide tailored repairs for those who suffer brain injuries. The researchers demonstrated for the first time that neural cells can be 3D printed to mimic the architecture of the cerebral cortex.
An international group of scientists, including botanists at the University of Oxford\u2019s Botanic Garden, has issued an urgent call for coordinated action to save the iconic genus Rafflesia, which contains the world\u2019s largest flowers. This follows a new study which found that most of the 42 species are severely threatened.
In February 2020 the Radcliffe Science Library (RSL) team packed up their boxes, moved their books to the VHL and closed the doors on the RSL. This was to allow a thorough refurbishment of the building. Now more than three years later they will be reopening. Read more in this article from the RSL team.
University of Oxford researchers have made a significant step towards realising miniature bio-integrated devices, capable of directly stimulating cells. The work has been published in the journal Nature.
University of Oxford researchers have contributed to the first successful extraction of ancient DNA from a 2,900 year-old clay brick. The analysis provides a fascinating insight into the diversity of plant species cultivated at that time and place, and could open the way to similar studies.
Plate divergence at Mid Ocean Ridges where new tectonic plates are formed is generally thought to be a passive process dominated by the gravitational pull of subducting plates. However, this new study shows that at some diverging locations this process is likely to be less passive than originally thought.
A team including Oxford chemists has shown that influential reports of magnetic field effects on Drosophila (fruit fly) behaviour cannot be reproduced. Drosophila have been widely used as a model organism for studying the mechanism of the magnetic compass sense of migratory songbirds.
A team of scientists led by the University of Oxford have achieved a significant breakthrough in detecting modifications on protein structures. The method, published in Nature Nanotechnology, employs innovative nanopore technology to identify structural variations at the single-molecule level, even deep within long protein chains.
Maitha Al Shimmari, a research student in Oxford's Department of Engineering Science, joins the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center's fifth cohort of leading women under the age of 35 in the fields of energy and climate research.
An international team involving four University of Oxford researchers has harnessed the exquisite sensitivity of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to achieve the first precise characterisation of interstellar dust during the early stages of the Universe.
The UK, Switzerland and Norway top the list of countries heading for dramatic increases in uncomfortably hot days - if temperatures break the international 1.5\u00baC target, according to new research from Oxford. But, the researchers maintain, such countries are \u2018dangerously unprepared\u2019.
In the most comprehensive survey to date, researchers have revealed the scale of plastic pollution on coral reefs, even at great depths. These results, however, suggest promising strategies to better protect these biodiversity hotspots.
A new study from the Department of Biology has revealed that two-fifths of species likely threatened by the international wildlife trade are not covered by the global agreement that regulates it.
A research study led by researchers in the Department of Biology provides a transformational new insight into how antimicrobial resistance (AMR) emerges in patients with bacterial infections which could help develop more effective interventions to prevent AMR infections developing in vulnerable patients.
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