The University of Exeter could lose millions of pounds of European Union research funding as a result of Brexit, new analysis reveals. A key fund which could be cut includes the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, which supports many projects in the region, including research into sustainable energy and lung disease prevention. With £1 billion […]
Research
Grow a Brain
How do you make a mini-brain? Methods vary, but you want to start with some human pluripotent stem cells, stem cells that can split into multiple cells when you put them in the right environment – for some other organs, you can use adult stem cells too – and let them multiply. This means that […]
Study Find Link Between Blue Light and Increased Cancer Risk
A study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, involving researchers from the University of Exeter, has discovered a link between the ‘blue light’ emitted by LED streetlights in many large cities and increased risk of breast and prostate cancer. The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, utilised data from more than 4,000 […]
University of Exeter receives £10 million for new Mireille Gillings Neuroimaging Centre
On the 18th of April, the University of Exeter announced that it had received its biggest ever single donation of £10 million from the Dennis and Mireille Gillings Foundation. The sum will be used for the new Mireille Gillings Neuroimaging Centre, which will focus primarily on dementia research and diagnosis. The facility will be built […]
Immune response to Fast Food
We’re all partial to a little fast food now and then – I know I am. But do we really think about the effects it has on our bodies? A new study from the University of Bonn has been investigating, and the results are certainly Food for Thought (Pun intended). Researchers fed mice with a […]
University tracks turtles
Researchers from the University of Exeter have used the forensic technique of ‘stable isotope ratios’, a chemical signature, combined with satellite tracking, to discover what foraging grounds green turtles breeding in Cyprus have come from. Their findings, published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series, highlight their discovery that Lake Bardawil, a shallow saline lake on […]
Do jellyfish sleep?
Sleep remains highly elusive to both scientists and students. Questions, such as ‘why do we sleep?’ and ‘when did sleep first evolve?’ plague sleep scientists in the same way that questions such as ‘when will sleep come next?’ and ‘why is it two days past my bedtime?’ plague the general student population. Until very recently, […]
Ig Nobel Prizes 2017
The IgNobel prize honours the most baffling questions that science has to offer, giving centre stage to papers which make you laugh at first, but then lead you to a deeper level of thought. Given the recent release of the 2017 prize-winners, it seems only right to give some (dis)honourable mentions to the questions that […]
Flaming ‘hot Jupiter’!
The eponymous ‘they’ strike again. You may know ‘them’ from such a sentence as “Well, you know what they say”, but this time ‘they’ are a team of international researchers lead by Exeter’s own Dr. Tom Evans. Their most recent research, conducted using NASA’s Hubble space telescope has discovered the most significant evidence to date […]
Do you know caffeine?
Caffeine is an inevitable staple in any student’s diet. Early mornings are more doable after that cup of joe. Late night study sessions are enabled by your caffeine obsession, and hangovers are (slightly) more bearable after that warm cuppa. We are being bred into fully fledged adults with unquestionable coffee obsessions. But what do we […]