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Environment
Sara Lil Middleton
I was always a curious child growing up, trying to understand the natural world around me through climbing trees, studying and collecting spiders and watching nature documentaries. My love for nature and the environment continued throughout my schooling and higher education. I studied science at A Level (Physics, Biology and Geography), which...
Why does my phone battery suck?
Most people use their phones every single day for communicating with others, using the Internet, playing games via apps. But there’s nothing worse than looking down at your phone and realising the battery is running out of juice—or worse yet, that it’s already completely dead.
One of the most common problems with smart phones is a...
Bacteria Safari: The Forest on your Fingernail
What on Earth can tiny microorganisms tell us about the animal and plant life around us? Bacteria are tiny organisms that exist everywhere; including on us! Watch this animation to find out how studying tiny organisms can shed...
Electricity Access for All
How can we sustainably electrify parts of the world that don't currently have access to clean and reliable energy? How can we improve Sierra Leone's energy sector, so that its capital, Freetown, no longer has an average of 53 blackouts a day? These are just two of the important questions being tackled by Oxford researchers Dr Susann Stritzke...
Read about the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project
The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project, or OuTrop, was established in 1999 to understand and protect the ecosystems of the Borneo rainforest of Sabangu, home to many endangered species including the largest known population of Borneo orangutans....
Seabird monitoring - witnesses in the wild
Seabirds – including penguins – are amongst the most threatened animals on the planet. They are also very useful indicators of wider environmental change. But how do you effectively monitor species which live in hard-to-reach places, such as Antarctica? A team of scientists at the University of Oxford has come up with a...
Land, Sea and Air 2 - The state of the oceans
What's in the deep ocean? And how can we study these remote and extreme ecosystems? And how is climate change affecting ocean ecosystems?
Tom Hart
My research centres around how to monitor penguins and other marine predators in difficult environments such as Antarctica. Many of the most important environments on the planet are too data deficient to understand the changes occurring there, and the implications for global change, which in turn stalls effective management. I spend a lot of...
Simon Hiscock
Prof Simon Hiscock is Director of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum, and a Professor of Botany in the Department of Plant Sciences.
His research focuses on using genetics and genomics to explore the fundamental processes underlying plant reproduction and evolution. He is currently working on the Senecio (ragworts,...
Botanic Garden: Chemistry audio tour
Join researchers for a chemistry-based audio tour of the Oxford Botanical Gardens! The lectures discuss a variety of fascinating topics, from photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation, to why ginger smells the way it does and how coffee is decaffeinated. Follow the link below to find out more: