Research

A researcher at The Open University will encourage children to do their own research into bullying as a way of empowering them, during National Antibullying Week this week (19 November).

According to Professor Mary Kellett, Director of the Children’s Research Centre at The Open University, bullying can have devastating effects on children. She carried out some research into cyberbullying with colleague Saima Tarapdar and found that this rapidly evolving form of bullying is more prevalent than previously thought.

The researchers found that among 1,500 young people aged 12 to16, 38 per cent of them had been affected by cyberbullying.
“Levels of cyberbullying have not dissipated,” she said. “This requires the school, the community and more private settings to sharpen protection and response.”

Professor Kellett will drew on these findings at the Diana Award National Antibullying Week Event in London on Monday 19 November where she is lead a workshop for teachers around the benefits of empowering students to undertake their own research into bullying in schools.

The theme of the event was “We’re better without bullying” and its aim was to raise awareness of the issue of bullying and to encourage young people and professionals of all ages to take a stand and bring about positive change.

Find out more:

• Further information about Professor Kellett and her research

 

Water warm enough to support life could have existed on Mars, according to new evidence published by researchers from the University of Leicester and The Open University.

Their study has determined that water temperatures on the Red Planet ranged from 50°C to 150°C. Microbes on Earth can live in similar waters, for example in the volcanic thermal springs at Yellowstone Park in the US.

Their conclusions are based on detailed scrutiny of Mars meteorites, using powerful microscopes in the University of Leicester Department of Physics and Astronomy combined with computer modelling work at The Open University.

They studied a type of Mars meteorite called a nakhlite, which contains small veins filled with minerals formed by the action of water near the surface of Mars. Analysis of the minerals indicates the temperature of the water when they were formed.

Microbes can use the reactions which take place during mineral formation to gain energy and elements essential for their survival.

The driving force behind heating the water may have been an impact into the Martian surface, the researchers suggests. The surface of Mars has many impact craters.

The project was led by Dr John Bridges, Reader in Planetary Science in the University of Leicester Space Research Centre; and Dr Susanne Schwenzer, Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Physical Sciences at The Open University, was in charge of the computer modelling.

For more detailed information see OU media release. 

Research reference
Bridges J.C. and Schwenzer S.P. The nakhlite hydrothermal brine on Mars. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 359–360 (2012) 117–123.

Photo shows hydrothermal fractures around a Martian impact crater. Image: University of Leicester

A new paper reveals that changes in the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean quickly translate into climate change in western Amazonia.

North Atlantic forcing of Amazonian precipitation during the last ice age is co-authored by Dr Will Gosling of The Open University with the Florida Institute of Technology, and appears in this week’s Nature Geoscience.

The research details chemical analysis of stalagmites recovered from a cave in Ecuadorean Amazonia that provides a record of changes in rainfall for almost the last 100,000 years. The data shows that Amazonia remained wet for that entire period, although there were rapid changes to drought and wet events. These rapid changes in rainfall correlated closely with changes in sea-surface temperature in the North Atlantic Ocean. For much of that time, cool ocean conditions induced wet events, whereas a warm ocean induced drought in the Amazon.

Professor Mark Bush, leader of the Florida Institute of Technology research group, said: “The exciting thing about the data is that it shows the quick response of the tropics to changes that took place in the Atlantic Ocean. A longstanding question in Amazonian ecology, the center of biodiversity, has been whether the ice ages were so dry that the area of rainforest contracted. The data suggests that Amazonia was as wet, or wetter, than present during the coldest period of the ice age."

Another unusual finding was that the changes that occurred were more rapid than previously reported, and that the Amazonian climate became decoupled from that of the Atlantic Ocean and the adjacent Andes during the coldest time of the last ice age, from about 40,000 to 17,000 years ago.

Dr Will Gosling, Lecturer in Earth Sciences at the OU, said: “The reason for the more recent decoupling is not clear, but the data is of considerable importance. As we generate an understanding of the pace of past climate change, we can make more informed estimates of future changes.”

The climatic future of Amazonia is uncertain, but some models suggest that because of drying, most of the rainforest will be reduced to shrubby grasslands by 2050-2080 AD. Although the paleoclimatic record featured droughts in the past, none were of sufficient intensity to cause a loss of forest cover but, as Professor Bush states: "as the Atlantic Ocean warms, drought is inevitable for Amazonia, probably occurring on a scale that has not been evident in at least the last 100,000 years."

The research was funded by grants from the National Geographic Society (USA) and the National Science Foundation (USA), The Open University (UK) and the Natural Environment Research Council (UK).