OU News
News from The Open University
- Home
- Category: Science, maths, computing and technology
Category: Science, maths, computing and technology
Fukushima: ten years on from the disaster, was Japan’s response right?
by William Nuttall, professor of energy, The Open University and Philip Thomas, professor of risk management, University of Bristol The world saw something never before caught on camera on March 12, 2011: an explosion ripping the roof off a nuclear power plant – Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi. The blast wasn’t actually nuclear, it was the result of […]
Read more about Fukushima: ten years on from the disaster, was Japan’s response right?
How scientists found rare fireball meteorite pieces on a UK driveway – and what it could teach us
by Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary Sciences, The Open University As people in the UK were settling down to watch the late evening news on February 28, a fresh news story, quite literally, appeared in the night sky. A large and very bright fireball was seen over southern England and northern France at 21:54 GMT. […]
Unimaginable: The first scientist to confirm and identify extremely rare meteorite that fell to Earth
Just over a week ago on Sunday 28th February at about 10pm a bright fireball lit up the sky. This was seen by over 1,000 eyewitnesses across the UK and northern Europe and the event was captured on meteor cameras and home surveillance systems. This created a flurry of excitement in the hunt for any […]
TV cameras explore rich story of goldmining in Scottish Highlands
For almost 40 years, it has been known that there is gold in the hills just outside the village of Tyndrum in the Scottish Highlands. Now a new Open University/BBC Scotland documentary, Gold Town, follows the fortunes of a band of miners as they attempt to extract it and establish Scotland’s very first commercial gold […]
Read more about TV cameras explore rich story of goldmining in Scottish Highlands
OU scientists discover extra-terrestrial organic compounds on asteroid from space
A paper has just been published in the renowned science journal SpringerNature which highlights just how ground breaking our OU scientists are. The report looks into the painstaking analysis undertaken on particles from the Hayabusa space mission, that set off in 2003 and returned to Earth in 2010, after taking samples from asteroid Itokawa. Using […]
Read more about OU scientists discover extra-terrestrial organic compounds on asteroid from space
Q&A: Dr Barbara Kunz – helping to advance our knowledge in Earth Sciences
Meet Dr Barbara Kunz – a Geochemist, Petrologist and Project Officer at the School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences here at The Open University. Barbara is an expert in LA-ICP-MS analysis, which involves analysing trace elements of various geological material. As part of British Science Week 2021 Barbara shares an insight into the innovative […]
Read more about Q&A: Dr Barbara Kunz – helping to advance our knowledge in Earth Sciences
Can the laws of physics disprove God?
Monica Grady, professor of planetary and space sciences at The Open University, discusses how the laws of physics might disprove God, as part of The Conversation’s ‘Life’s Big Questions’ series. I still believed in God (I am now an atheist) when I heard the following question at a seminar, first posed by Einstein, and was […]
Rising water vapour holds clues to possibility of past life on Mars
An international team of researchers have observed the transport of water vapour high up into the atmosphere of the Red Planet, providing another clue in answering the mystery of when Mars might have been habitable for life. New findings from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) […]
Read more about Rising water vapour holds clues to possibility of past life on Mars
New facial profile genes discovered
An international research team, including academics from The Open University, have discovered new genes that determine the shape of a person’s facial profile. Researchers identified 32 gene regions that affect our facial features such as the nose, lip, jaw, and brow shape. Nine of these were gene regions never known before, while the other 23 […]
Mars: how scientists prevent Earth’s microbes from contaminating other planets
There are two planned Mars landings in 2021. First, Nasa’s Perseverance rover is due to land on the planet later this month. Then China’s Tianwen rover will follow in May. Both missions intend to search the planet for signs of life. Dr Thomas Cheney, Lecturer in Space Governance at The Open University, explains more. But […]
Read more about Mars: how scientists prevent Earth’s microbes from contaminating other planets
Page 27 of 57
Explore
Undergraduate
Postgraduate
Policy
-
Follow us on Social media
-
