The mathematics of avalanches
01 September 2007Each year more than a million avalanches fall worldwide, killing around a hundred people in the Alps alone. Can mathematical models be used to predict...
Examining the psychosocial effects of molecular genetic diagnosis
01 September 2007What does it mean to be a member of a family that is affected by a genetic disease? What is it like for a woman...
Finding the ‘genetic signposts’ of disease
01 September 2007One of the biggest projects ever undertaken to identify genetic variants that predispose some people to certain diseases was begun in 2005, thanks to £9...
Conflict in cities
01 September 2007Conflict is inherent to the urban condition, yet only in some cities do contention and dissent erupt to unacceptable and destructive levels. How do contested...
Can I patent and publish?
01 September 2007A patent for an invention is granted by the state to an inventor, giving the inventor the right for a limited period to stop others...
Parasites: the master manipulators
01 September 2007The common view has been that parasitic infections cause disease and must be eliminated. But can we live without them?
An invention to help the ageing eye
01 September 2007Progressive loss in accommodative power by the lens of the human eye – a condition known as presbyopia – affects almost everybody who enters middle...
Can a voice identify a criminal?
01 September 2007Innovative research in the Department of Linguistics suggests that dynamic features of speech could provide a clue to forensic speaker identification.
Going feral
01 September 2007Are there any wild places left in Britain and Ireland? Robert Macfarlane has travelled in search of them, reflecting on the meaning of ‘wildness’ and...
Hunting for protostars
01 September 2007Looking deep inside the swirling dust clouds that make up stellar nurseries – the birth place of stars – can help unravel mysteries of the...