Articles Archives

Physical Sciences

Sticking together: Another look at chemical bonds and bonding

The making and breaking of bonds lies at the heart of chemical reactions. The ability of atoms to form bonds with each other allows the formation of molecules. It is exactly this formation and breaking of bonds that chemists are trying to master in the lab, as innovative new ways to control chemical bonds make it possible to make novel […]

Behavioural Sciences

Home advantage in the NHL

Since his retirement in 2003, Dr Marshall Jones, a professor at Penn State’s College of Medicine, has focused his research efforts on trying to explain how the home advantage in team sports works. The home advantage is the tendency for the home team to win more often than it loses. In the National Hockey League (NHL) the home advantage had […]

Health & Medicine

Breaking down the fort: Combatting clinical biofilms

Treating bacterial infections can be challenging, even more so when they build a fort. These forts, or ‘biofilms’, form on living and non-living surfaces, such as heart valves, and protect bacteria from immune responses and antibiotics. This can lead to serious, chronic conditions, for instance an infection of the heart’s lining (endocarditis), relapsing infections and increased mortality. To help combat […]

Thought Leaders

Nesta: Collective intelligence, people-powered results and experimentation

The world is changing faster than ever, and solutions to the challenges faced by governments, the health and public sectors and educational institutions need to be innovative and inventive to match. At the Nesta foundation, experts are using research-based evidence to come up with frameworks and programmes to support those people trying to solve some of Europe’s trickiest public conundrums. […]

Physical Sciences

Improving prospects for polymer surface coatings

Within the automotive light industry, aluminium is evaporated on plastic high gloss reflector surfaces. From a quality point of view and to meet industry standards, this surface must retain its luminance and reflectiveness for 15 years. However, the non-treated metal parts oxidise, meaning that it loses its luminance and reflectiveness. For this reason, it is protected with silicon oxide or […]

Earth & Environment

Quantum theory for sustainability transformations

Agriculture significantly contributes to environmental issues and requires deep and urgent transformations in order to be sustainable. Agroecological transition is not only technical but involves the evolution of farmers’ ways of seeing and interpreting the world. Dr Cyrille Rigolot at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), explores the potential of quantum theory as a […]

Health & Medicine

Value Added Data systems: An architecture for end-user informed data preparation

As the myriad of data sources continues to grow, so does the need for cost-effective, scalable and principled techniques for integrating and cleaning big data in order to optimise the data quality and thus increase its value. Dr Norman Paton, Professor of Computer Science and Dr Nikolaos Konstantinou, a Research Fellow with the Department of Computer Science, both from the […]

Biology

Action research creates a shared future for elephants and humans

In 2009 a crisis faced the elephant and human populations of central Mali, when a vital fresh water source dried up. Reduced rainfall and increased human activity, including vast herds of domestic cattle, contributed to this critical problem. Dr Susan Canney of the University of Oxford and Director of the Mali Elephant Project, decided a new and prompt approach was […]

Biology

Rice husk biochar with beneficial microbes: A promising agricultural inoculant and soil ameliorant

The research of Shohei Ebe and Takashi Ano from Kindai University into the relationship between a microbe and rice husk biochar (RHB) suggests the latter is an activator of beneficial microbes that can be used to combat phytopathogenic microorganisms. Having isolated a novel lipopeptide producing Bacillus sp. that benefits from RHB presence in the soil, these are promising insights into […]

Behavioural Sciences

Creative or destructive: The perspective may be a matter of convenience

Creativity is largely understood as the production of novel and useful ideas or things. In this article, we look at the research of Chetan Walia, who argues for a new dynamic definition of creativity in order to better understand the difference between creativity, creator, and creation. This new dynamic definition will allow us to more effectively consider how negative creativity […]