Scientists discover fundamental property of light – 150 years after Maxwell

Scientists have shed light on light. Taras Mykytyuk/Flickr, CC BY-SA

By Clive Emary, Lecturer in Physics

Light plays a vital role in our everyday lives and technologies based on light are all around us. So we might expect that our understanding of light is pretty settled. But scientists have just uncovered a new fundamental property of light that gives new insight into the 150-year-old classical theory of electromagnetism and which could lead to applications manipulating light at the nanoscale.

£1.7m National Lottery grant to protect UK’s threatened marine life

Residents in Scarborough and along the East Coast will be able to take part in a UK wide environmental project thanks to scientists at the University of Hull. The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has awarded £1.7million to “Capturing our Coast”, a project designed to explore how the marine environment is responding to global climate change and Dr Sue Hull at the University of Hull’s Scarborough Campus is one of the partners in the project.

How life on Earth recovers after a devastating mass extinction

Bye bye humanity…. now what? NASA

By David Bond, NERC Advanced Research Fellow and Lecturer in Geology

Life on Earth is entering the greatest mass extinction since the death of the dinosaurs, according to a major new study – and humans may be among the casualties. Such a catastrophic loss of species would leave a huge hole in the world’s ecosystems, and all sorts of weird and wonderful life would evolve into the vacancies left behind.

To consider what life after a mass extinction might involve, we can look to the past. There have been five major mass extinctions in Earth’s history – though colleagues and I recently proposed a sixth – and comparing current rates of change to the geological record of the “Big Five” extinctions suggests that this time the warning signs are real.

So let’s be pessimistic, and assume the apocalypse is going to happen. What does Earth look like afterwards?

This Father’s Day, be grateful your dad is a human

By James Gilbert, Lecturer in Zoology at the University of Hull

Each father’s day we celebrate male parental care. But this year – perhaps while getting the old man an appreciative gift -– maybe have a think about why men want to care for their children at all. As opposed to, say, eating them alive.

Galactico Christiano Ronaldo has the earliest stars in the universe named after him

Artist’s impression of CR7. ESO/M. Kornmesser, CC B

By Kevin Pimbblet, Senior Lecturer in Physics at the University of Hull

Astronomers have caught a glimpse of what could be the earliest stars ever spotted. Found in a very distant galaxy, which has been nicknamed “CR7” in reference to the Portuguese footballer Christiano Ronaldo, the stars would have lived shortly after the Big Bang. They belong to a class of stars that has possibly never been seen before – stars that are uncontaminated with the metals that appeared later in the evolution of the universe.

Artificial recreation of happy memories may become the next big weapon against depression

How happy days can be remembered as they really were. Surkov Vladimir/Shutterstock

By Giuliana Mazzoni, Professor of Psychology at University of Hull

Urging a depressed person to stay positive by remembering the good things in life is unlikely to be helpful advice. That is because depression blocks access to happy memories. But what if we could somehow artificially recreate such memories to allow for some more positive thinking? A study suggests that this is indeed possible – at least in rats.

Surprisingly, the psychology and physiology of rodents is not so distant from our own. And if the same effect could be observed in humans, it might help open depressed individuals up to positive general interpretation of life experiences that make it possible to lift the dark veil of depression.

Five amazing extinct creatures that aren’t dinosaurs

Jumping the shark. Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY-SA

By Charlotte Stephenson, PhD candidate, palaeoenvironments & palaeobotany at University of Hull

The release of Jurassic World has reignited our love for palaeontology. Many of us share a longing to understand the dinosaurs that roamed the Earth long before we arrived. But palaeontology is a discipline much broader than this.

Dinosaurs dominated the land for 135 million years, but what happened during the rest of the Earth’s 4.6 billion-year history? The role of palaeontologists past and present has been to unravel the mysteries of life on Earth, and in doing so they’ve found a lot more than just dinosaur bones.

Grants awarded in May 2015 (over £10k)

Dr J Wadhawan, £18,000, Schlumberger Ltd, Electrochemical Sensor for Scaling Ions in Formation Water

Miss K L Hemingway, Mr N D Cutts, Prof M Elliott, £37,765, Hull City Council, Hull Cruise Terminal Marine Survey, Assessment & EIA Scoping Study

Miss K L Hemingway, Mr N D Cutts, Prof M Elliott, £15,095, Environment Agency, Middle Humber Waterbird Status Assessment for Flood Protection Option Scoping

Dr G Abt, Prof P Jiang, £17,431, Yorkshire Innovation Fund, Research and Development Project: iMonSys Ltd

Dr K Earle, £15,000, Tigers Sport and Education Trust, Hull City Football Club consultancy

Prof T Coulthard, £35,000, Environment Agency, The Humber FRMS and the Dynamic Humber model – calibration of the December 5^th Event and future flood scenarios

Dr J Sturge, Dr G Stasiuk, £100,000, Prostate Cancer UK, Development Of A Multimodal Bioimaging Platform For Detecting The Switch To Aggressive Prostate Cancer

International symposium on ecological networks heads to the UK

Ecology experts across the globe are invited to come together this September at an international symposium on ecological networks.

Dr Darren Evans, Reader in Conservation Biology at the University of Hull, is co-organising the event, where the theme is ‘Ecological networks: theory, empiricism and practice in a changing world’.

Following on from the success of the first international symposium in Coimbra, Portugal in 2013, this second symposium is to be held at the University of Bristol, UK.

The conference on 7 and 8 September will see keynote speakers from New Zealand, Spain, Austria and the UK, plus poster and flash talk sessions to allow authors to promote their posters.

Visit the website for further details about the event.

University to FEED the world

A team of experts at the University of Hull are aiming to FEED the world with the creation of a new research centre into food sustainability.

The @FEED Centre (with @FEED standing for Agriculture, Technology, Food, Environment, Energy and Democracy) will explore the global challenge of feeding a growing population while protecting the Earth’s resources. Comprising a distinctive group of experts from a number of different disciplines across the University including science, technology, geography, economics and law, the centre is uniquely placed to deliver comprehensive solutions to the growing problem of food sustainability.