Research
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Search below for a range of research stories by department or topic. These stories include impact case studies, videos, news and the research in conversation series. For more information please see individual department websites.
Researching new materials and materials to change patients’ lives
Video
Professor Andrew Carr leads the Orthopaedics theme at the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Unit at NDORMS, aiming to improve evidence for the effectiveness of surgery generally and to translate novel biomaterials and biological therapies into the clinic.
Twelve DNA areas 'linked with the age at which we have our first child and family size'
News
Researchers have identified 12 specific areas of the DNA sequence that are robustly related with the age at which we have our first child, and the total number of children we have during the course of our life.
Strong link between increased benefit sanctions and higher foodbank use
News
'Monkeys make stone flakes too so humans are not unique after all'
News
In a paper, published in Nature, the research team says this finding is significant because archaeologists had always understood that the production of multiple stone flakes with characteristics such as conchoidal fractures and sharp cutting edges was a behaviour unique to hominins.
Statistical expertise in drug discovery
Ancient Britons' teeth reveal people were 'highly mobile' 4,000 years ago
News
The study is part of the international Beaker People project led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson of University College London, and involves scientists from many institutions, including the universities of Oxford, Durham, Bradford, University College London, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolu
Being kind to others does make you 'slightly happier'
News
The claim that 'helping makes you happy' has become a staple of pop psychology and self-help manuals. Performing 'random acts of kindness' has been touted as a sure-fire way of boosting your mood — doing good makes you feel good, as well as benefiting others.
Using mobile learning technology to improve access to healthcare in East Africa
Rise of online work captured in the first Online Labour Index
News
The 'online gig economy' is a new labour market where employers use online labour platforms to engage workers for piecemeal, short-term or project-based work delivered over the internet.
The science behind the 1.5 °C climate goal
News
The ambition of the 2015 Paris Agreement of the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change took the world by surprise.
Largest UK trial of treatment for prostate cancer publishes first results
China's infrastructure investments 'threaten its economic growth'
News
The study authored by Atif Ansar, Bent Flyvbjerg, Alexander Budzier and Daniel Lunn is based on the largest dataset of its kind. It analyses 95 large Chinese road and rail transport projects, and 806 transport projects built in rich democracies.
The economy's improving but many Ethiopian boys still 'feel hopeless'
News
A picture has emerged of many boys being taken out of school to work on the family farm or business, or in paid work. Girls had greater flexibility to combine their household responsibilities with their schooling so were able to progress academically.
Downs as well as the ups of a football club's fortunes build fans' loyalty
News
Anthropologists have discovered that intense experiences of crucial wins and losses shared with fellow fans bind them more tightly to one another and their club.
'Clocks' in tree-rings that could reset chronologies across the ancient world
News
Until now scholars have had only vague evidence for dating when events happened during the earliest periods of civilisation, with estimates being within hundreds of years.
New research challenges Uber's claims about making roads safer
News
Researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Southern California examined whether road traffic deaths related to drunk driving declined in counties where Uber had started operating.
Monkeys in Brazil have used stone tools for hundreds of years at least
News
Researchers say, to date, they have found the earliest archaeological examples of monkey tool use outside of Africa.
Deaths during heatwave in two cities 'due to man-made climate change'
News
They calculate that in Paris, the hottest city in Europe during the heatwave in summer 2003, 506 out of 735 summer deaths recorded in the French capital were due to a heatwave made worse by man-made climate change.
Innovation of Stone Age humans 'not linked with climate change'
News
Environmental records obtained from archaeological sites where there are Middle Stone Age deposits are the subject of the study published in the journal, PLOS ONE.
Foster carers facing allegations of abuse 'need better support'
News
The study drew on 190 records of unproven allegations against foster carers from all over England.
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