Bipolar disorder – formerly known as manic depression – is a chronic, recurrent mental illness characterised by extreme swings in mood. The condition is thought to affect at least one in every 100 adults worldwide and has the highest rate of suicide among psychiatric disorders.
If you've ever been captivated by slow-motion footage on a wildlife documentary, or you've shuddered when similar technology is used to replay highlights from a boxing match, you'll know how impressive advancements in ultra-fast science can be.
For over 100 years engineers have known that hydrogen can cause metals to become incredibly brittle, but they've been able to do little to protect against it. Now, Oxford University researchers are working on a large collaborative project to build the metals of the future, that can retain their strength in the presence of this disruptive gas.
On 15 June 2015, V404 Cygni (V404 Cyg), a binary system comprising a sun-like star orbiting a black hole, woke up. A huge outburst of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum ‘lit up’ the sky. The last such outburst was 1989.
We probably all know someone who has dementia. By 2025, there will be 1 million people affected by it in the UK. Alzheimer’s disease is well known as the most common cause of dementia. But what about the third most common cause of dementia, Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB)?
Biologist Doctor Adam Hargreaves studies genetic alterations, how they give rise to novel phenotypes, and how these relate to evolutionary adaptation. His initial studies were of venomous reptiles, which led him to debunk a commonly accepted hypothesis.
Ponatinib is an anti-cancer drug which has earned some notoriety for its cost (£90,000 per patient per year) and side-effects that were serious enough to temporarily suspend its use.
Despite huge efforts to treat and eradicate the disease, in 2013, 198 million people were infected with Malaria. 584,000 died. More than 525,000 of those deaths were African children aged under five.
The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology is an international centre of excellence for researching inflammation in the body, from causes to treatments. Professor Irina Udalova is the Institute's principal investigator of the genomics of inflammation.
Gels are useful: we shave, brush our teeth, and fix our hair with them; in the form of soft contact lenses they can even improve our eyesight.
Recently, researchers at Oxford University’s Department of Engineering Science have been investigating ‘smart gels’ that can switch from a stable gel to a liquid suspension of very small particles (a ‘sol’).
