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Women in Science
Using your science to understand volcanic eruptions
Volcanoes are present across the Earth, from the barren wastes of Antarctica to densely populated regions in Europe, Asia and the Americas, and are both spectacular and deadly. But what makes a volcano erupt, and how deadly might that eruption be? By creating a mini-...
Nikol Lambeva
I am a DPhil student in Condensed Matter Physics, part of the Physics and Application of Soluble Semiconductors group working with Prof Donal Bradley. My main research interests include (i) probing the electronic structure and transport in novel materials for applications in the solar cell, lighting and display technologies, and (ii) studying...
How do you grow rice faster?
Currently over three billion people depend on rice for survival, and, owing to predicted population increases and a general trend towards urbanisation, land that provided enough rice to feed 27 people in 2010 will need to support 43 by 2050.
In the hopes of meeting the food needs of billions of people around the world, scientists have...
Christina Potter
I am originally from Florida, in the United States. In 2010 I received a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Miami. My first research position was as a clinical research assistant at Brown University in Rhode Island, USA, where I worked with families of children with asthma and allergic rhinitis. Here I learned the...
The Women in Science series
The Women in Science series provides talks from the support network OxFEST (Oxford Females in Engineering, Science and Technology) which aims to promote and encourage women in their scientific careers. The series provides information and resources, which may aid females in pursuing their careers. The series includes talks from a range of...
What can Chemists learn from nature?
Enzymes are the catalysts inside all living cells. They are responsible for speeding up chemical reactions, turning one chemical (the starter chemical) into another chemical (the product).
Nature is full of chemicals – flavours, fragrances, medicines. Living systems have been making these useful chemicals for billions of years, but usually only tiny quantities, because that’s all they need! In this animation we find out how chemists are learning from nature to create these chemicals in much larger quantities, to satisfy our...
Did volcanoes help kill off the dinosaurs?
Earth formed over 4.5 billion years ago. We should take a moment to realise how much history that is! Volcanoes are just one of Earth’s creations that have stood the test of time and on this Big Questions podcast we want to know: did volcanoes help kill off the dinosaurs?
To find out the answer we visited the Department of Earth Sciences...
How big a deal is that picture of a black hole?
By now you have probably seen that picture of the BLACK HOLE! But we have some questions….in this episode of the Big Questions podcast we are asking: how big a deal is that picture of a black hole?
To find out we visited the Department of Physics, University of Oxford, and met with astrophysicist, Dr Becky Smethurst...
Alex Jamieson
Ever since I was little, I have wanted to be an archaeologist. As soon as I was old enough, I went on archaeological excavations uncovering artefacts buried deep in the ground for hundreds of years. In secondary school I began to really enjoy science, and I even wrote a book review on genetics in archaeology. I then went on to study...
