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Understanding wildfires

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Protecting chocolate

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Why do I feel sleepy in winter? Yawning cat.

Why do I feel sleepy in winter?

It’s dark and cold outside. Your bed is warm and cosy. Even after you’ve got up, you struggle to feel awake. Why is this? Why do we feel so tired during the winter months? And is there anything we can do to solve the problem? Julia Lindsay from the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry…

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Why do I always spill my coffee?

Why do I always spill my coffee?

Here we go, just a short walk from the office kitchen to the desk and…. “urgh”. Not again! Precious coffee coats your fingers – ouch, hot! – and maybe there are a few drips on the floor. Why is it so easy to spill drinks while walking? Is there anything we can do to keep…

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A New View on Cancer

A New View on Cancer

“It looked like a child’s colouring book where you can’t go over the lines – but the consequences of any inaccuracy would be more serious” – Rob Stepney. Medical writer Rob Stepney was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer in 2011, but radical treatment wasn’t required for ten years. Here he discusses his experiences as part…

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Isolation of infected individuals can help to stop the spread

Understanding Covid-19 transmission, informing control

Tackling a previously unseen pathogen – like the one that causes COVID-19 – is like piecing together a puzzle. There are many different parameters to investigate before the pathogen can be fully understood, and before effective control measures can be put in place. So how do scientists go about solving the puzzle, and why is…

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Is This A Fossil I See Before Me?

Lockdown Walks – Is this a fossil I see before me?

You find fossils on the beach, right? If you’re really lucky and spend ages looking? WRONG! Fossils – by which we mean the preserved remains of ancient life – can be found all around us! Including, as Matt Sutton tells us, in the centre of town…Make sure you look out for one next time you’re…

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Walk Your Worries Away!

Lockdown Walks – Walk Your Worries Away!

It’s no surprise that walking is good for us physically, but did you know that walking can actually make us worry less? Taking a stroll has a positive effect on our mental wellbeing – particularly if you can get out into nature. Join Dr Jen Wild for this episode of Lockdown Walks, where she discusses…

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The Big Questions Podcasts

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Woman wearing a face mask, with ear phones and a beanie

Umm…Should I be wearing a mask?

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic there was a lot of confusion, as we all tried to figure out what we should and shouldn’t do to best protect ourselves and others. Fortunately, we now have more definitive answers to some of our most pressing questions – which are backed-up by data – including…

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How can satellites prevent mining disasters?

How can satellites prevent mining disasters?

Satellites have been orbiting our planet for the past few decades. We might be familiar with how they can be used to track weather, or beam television and phone signals around the world. But did you know, that by capturing images of the Earth outside the visible spectrum, they’re able to offer a unique perspective…

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How do you stop megafires?

From California to Greece to Australia, it seems like every time we switch on the news there’s another wildfire report. Some fires are natural – in fact, they’re a fundamental part of many ecosystems – but the severity and frequency of the wildfires we are now witnessing is beyond natural levels. Human-ignited “megafires” are causing…

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Could chocolate go extinct?

Chocolate. It’s rare to find anyone who isn’t partial to a square or two of this delicious treat. But is its very existence in danger? (*Cue worried faces.*) In this episode of the Big Questions Podcast we chat to chocoholic and researcher Acheampong Atta-Boateng, who studies the relationship between cocoa trees and their micro-pollinators. We…

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Should all robots have an ethical black box?

Nowadays, the idea of encountering robots in our daily lives isn’t pure science fiction. Many of us interact with AI every day, and the use of robots in, for example, healthcare settings, is already on the horizon. But what if something goes wrong? The RoboTIPS team at the University of Oxford is developing an innovative feature – an ‘ethical black box’…

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Is a snack tax on the horizon?

Do you remember when the price of fizzy drinks in the UK went up slightly a few years ago? Soda fans, perhaps you remember all too clearly…! Well, this was because the UK government introduced a sugar tax (or the Soft Drinks Industrial Levy, to be precise), requiring manufacturers to pay a tax on sugary…

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Meet the Scientists

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Julia Lindsay profile picture

Julia Lindsay

My research focuses on the effects of sleep on mental health. I did my undergraduate degree in Human Cognition at the University of British Columbia, Canada and then came to Oxford as a postgraduate researcher in the Department of Psychiatry.

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Melinda Mills profile picture

Melinda Mills

Melinda Mills (MBE, FBA) is Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) and Professor of Demography and Sociology at the University of Oxford and Nuffield College. She received her PhD in Demography from the University of Groningen, and her Bachelor and Masters degrees at the University of Alberta, Canada. She has supervised over…

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Sophie Abrahams

Sophie Abrahams

I enjoyed both maths and physics at school as they explain how the world works, and some amazing teachers helped to build my enthusiasm in these topics. I went on to complete an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Physics at UCL. During my degree, I chose to focus on applied mathematics as the tools and…

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Imma Oliveras Menor

Imma Oliveras Menor

I was born in a rural town in the mountains of Catalonia, and I have had a passion for nature since I was a toddler. At the age of nine, I witnessed how wildfires sweeped across the neighbouring mountains next to home, and over the years I followed the vegetation recovery. This sparked many questions that…

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Mafalda Santos

I’m originally from Lisbon, Portugal where I finished my degree in 2006. My first real contact with science was when I moved to London to the School of Pharmacy, UCL and working with Prof. John Moses discovered the use of click chemistry to develop new and better drugs against cancer, those were really exciting times!…

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Tanesha Allen

My ancestors were slaves, my grandparents attended segregated schools during the Jim Crow era in the American South, and my parents work as a janitor and a receptionist. Obviously, my working-class background doesn’t match the stereotypical privileged background associated with Oxford students. Nevertheless, the privilege of being raised an hour south of Seattle, Washington –…

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Meta must do better – data from social media giant essential to mental health research

By Professor Andrew Pryzbylski, senior research fellow Oxford Internet Institute. People are rightly sceptical about scientific discoveries made in secret or without scrutiny. And anyone claiming to have found a new planet with a toy telescope, would not be taken seriously. Recent leaks of internal Facebook research on the mental health of children and young people…

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Meta could do better – data from social media giant essential to mental health research

By Professor Andrew Pryzbylski, senior research fellow Oxford Internet Institute. People are rightly sceptical about scientific discoveries made in secret or without scrutiny. And anyone claiming to have found a new planet with a toy telescope, would not be taken seriously. Recent leaks of internal Facebook research on the mental health of children and young people…

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Prizes announced for inaugural creative writing award founded by Nobel Prize laureate

The competition for a short story attracted 70 entries and judges included Boyd Tonkin, former chair of the judging panel of the Man Booker International Prize, and Liz Trubridge, Executive Producer of Downton Abbey.

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