News in 2014
- Woodhoopoe work on cover of Current Biology 22 December 2014 New work showing that bird battles promote unity on the front line is featured on the front cover of Current Biology this month.
- Sophie Nedelec wins Alumni Foundation Student Award 19 December 2014 Sophie Nedelec has won an Alumni Foundation Student Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to public engagement and widening participation, especially among school children, throughout her time in Bristol.
- Distance-dependent defensive coloration 17 December 2014 A new study by Bristol University's CamoLab shows that animal camouflage and warning colours can be combined to send different information to predators at different distances.
- Electric Bees at Great British Bioscience Festival 27 November 2014 Last weekend, thousands of visitors flocked to the Great British Bioscience Festival to discover how bioscience fuels us, feeds us and keeps us healthy. Twenty interactive exhibits from across the UK fascinated and inspired visitors, as they had the chance to conduct their own experiments, play games and even walk through a giant colon.
- Mongoose sentinels respond flexibly to threats 13 November 2014 Just as soldiers on sentry duty constantly adjust their behaviour to match the current threat level, dwarf mongoose sentinels exhibit flexible decision-making in relation to predation risk, new research from the University of Bristol has shown.
- A Tale of Two Seas: Last Ice Age has shaped Sharks across Europe 12 November 2014 Shark populations in the Mediterranean are highly divided, as concluded by international team of scientists, led by Dr Andrew Griffiths of the University of Bristol. Many previous studies on sharks suggest they move over large distances. But catsharks in the Mediterranean Sea appear to move and migrate much less, as shown by this study, published today in the new journal Royal Society Open Science. This can have important implications for conserving and managing sharks more widely, suggesting they may be more vulnerable to over-fishing than previously thought.
- A New Understanding of How Animals Produce Structural Colours 22 October 2014 “All that glitters is not gold” - William Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice A new paper from the Visual Ecology Group has discovered that there is a universal explanation for why many animals appear a dazzling metallic colour or a mirror like silver.
- New study to discover why plants tell the time 21 October 2014 An exciting new project in the laboratory of Dr Antony Dodd will investigate how biological clocks adapt plants to their environment.
- Experiment on the ultrasonic hearing of pet cats on TV 21 October 2014 With equipment and training from Professor Gareth Jones and PhD student Andy Wakefield, the makers of the recent BBC series 'Cat Watch 2014: The New Horizon Experiment' successfully conducted an experiment whereby cats were shown to locate a hidden speaker emitting ultrasonic mouse calls undetectable to their owners.
- Andy Wakefield talks about light pollution on 'Shared Planet' 17 October 2014 Andy Wakefield was interviewed on Radio 4's 'Shared Planet' about his research on how different types of streetlights differ in their ability to attract insects.
- Sir David Attenborough opens world-class Life Sciences building 6 October 2014 Britain's best-known natural history film-maker Sir David Attenborough has officially opened the University of Bristol’s new £56.5 million Life Sciences building.
- The evolution of acoustic communication in fossil and extant insects 6 October 2014 Fernando Montealegre-Z (Lincoln), Daniel Robert and Kate Robson-Brown (Archeology at UoB) have been awarded a £250k grant by the Leverhulme Trust. Entitled "The evolution of acoustic communication in fossil and extant insects", this award will enable research into the mechanisms of acoustic communication in bushcrickets, investigating the biomechanics of both sound reception and production.
- Deceptive Iridescence 1 October 2014 Heather Whitney, Innes Cuthill and Nick Scott-Samuel (Experimental Psychology) have been awarded £768k from the BBSRC for a 3-year grant investigation ‘Deceptive Iridescence’.
- BBSRC strategic LoLa grant for parasite management 1 October 2014 Dr Eric Morgan has been awarded £290,655 to help farmers manage parasites in livestock.
- Bristol and Kyoto Plant Sciences come together 1 October 2014 An exciting relationship is developing between plant scientists in Bristol and Kyoto Universities as a consequence of the Bristol-Kyoto Partnership. Last week, the University of Bristol welcomed 15 academics and PhD students from Kyoto University to a scientific workshop involving plant biologists from the two universities. Whilst the workshop included scientific presentations, the main focus was a variety of types of networking events designed to develop and cement scientific connections between academics in the two institutions. An agreement was also signed between Prof. Simon Hiscock, Director of the University of Bristol Botanic Garden and Prof. Minoru Tamura of Kyoto University Botanic Garden, which will lead to a sharing of knowledge and materials between the two gardens. The workshop was held in the brand new £56m Bristol Life Sciences Building.
- Super Senses: The Secret Powers of Animals 30 September 2014 Dr Marc Holderied’s research featured in new BBC 2 series ‘Super Senses: The Secret Powers of Animals’.
- Bats change strategy when food is scarce 5 September 2014 Bats could be more flexible in their echolocation behaviour than previously thought, according to a new study into the foraging techniques of the desert long-eared bat by researchers at the University of Bristol.
- Bristol student finds new species of tree frog 20 August 2014 A new species of tree frog has been discovered in the forests of Madagascar by an MSc student at the University of Bristol.
- Raising support for unique lemur study 10 June 2014 A University of Bristol PhD student is aiming to raise money to undertake the first ever long-term study of one of the rarest lemurs in the world - the Sahamalaza Sportive Lemur.
- Teaching Technicians Team win University Award! 9 May 2014 Biological Sciences Teaching Technicians team win the University Award for Education in the Faculty of Science as part of the 2014 Bristol Teaching Awards.
- 'Wild Flowers of the Algarve' published 9 May 2014 Chris Thorogood and Simon Hiscock have (finally) published their flora of the Algarve: A Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Algarve (Kew Publishing).
- Unusual species of Spider found on Bristol Downs 15 April 2014 Unusual species of Spider found on Bristol Downs this month by undergraduate, James Brown
- Biological Sciences PhD Graduate awarded John Marsden Medal 6 March 2014 Dr Orly Razgour has been awarded the John C. Marsden Medal 2014 by the Linnean Society
- Duke of York visits Bristol 13 February 2014 The Duke of York visits the Bristol Robotics Lab
- BBSRC Grant 31 January 2014 £13.6m BBSRC grant to establish new research centre in synthetic biology
- Professor John McNamara awarded Weldon Memorial Prize 13 January 2014 John McNamara, Professor of Mathematics and Biology, has been awarded the 2014 Weldon Memorial Prize.
- Invertebrate of the Year: Top-Gear Planthopper 7 January 2014 The School of Biological Sciences is pleased to announce that Dr Gregory Sutton and Dr Heather Whitney's paper has been declared by Science to be the 'Invertebrate of the year' paper.
- Nature's Images of the Year 6 January 2014 Biological Sciences Demonstrator, Dominic Clarke has had one of his images chosen as one of 'Nature's' images of the year!