The Open University

A journey to Mercury: TEDxLondon talk by Professor David Rothery

17 July 2018

Professor David Rothery spoke at TEDxLondon in July 2018, talking about the upcoming BepiColombo mission, Europe’s first mission to Mercury. Setting off in October 2018, the mission will take seven years to reach its destination, with the spacecraft completing a complex trajectory to reach the planet before examining its surface and magnetic field in detail. […]

Tropical forests can recover from destructive impact of human activity, suggests OU research

16 July 2018

New research The Open University published in Nature Ecology and Evolution reveals that tropical forests may be more resilient to the effects of our behaviour than previously thought and offers hope that, if undisturbed, tropical forests may be able to recover from the harmful effects of human activity. Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) […]

OU graduate and former Associate Lecturer wins top engineering award

12 July 2018

OU graduate and former associate lecturer, Dr Phebe Mann, has been recognised with a Top 50 Women in Engineering Award (WE50) for her outstanding achievements in engineering. The initiative aims to raise awareness of the skills shortage facing the industry and the huge discrepancy between the number of men vs. women currently in engineering professions, to […]

Standing on our soapboxes to shout about women in science

29 June 2018

Dancing stars and what forms a mountain are just two of the topics female academics from the OU will be speaking to members of the public about at Soapbox Science MK 2018. PhD Researchers, Eleni Wood and Heidi Thiemann and Planetary Scientist, Dr Nisha Ramkissoon, will join nine other scientists at thecentre:mk in Milton Keynes […]

Comet or asteroid? Mysterious ‘Oumuamua shows why we may need a new classification system

28 June 2018

Ever since space scientists first spotted the odd, cigar-shaped object known as 1I/‘Oumuamua in the sky, they have been debating what it is exactly. Suggestions have included an asteroid, a comet and even alien spaceship. Now a study, published in Nature, suggests it may actually be a comet – but an unusual one. The fascinating […]

Is there a new volcano on Hawaii?

27 June 2018

Kilauea, the most active volcano on Hawaii, has been in continual eruption since 1983. It entered a new phase in early May when fractures along a rift on the eastern side of the volcano opened during a series of earthquakes – some of which became volcanic fissures from which lava was erupted. These fissures allowed […]

Dangerous climate change is likely, concludes OU research

25 June 2018

Research by scientists at The Open University reveals that sensitive regions of the world are still at risk from the dangerous and potentially irreversible effects of climate change; even if we meet the target of not increasing global temperature above 1.5°C over the next 100 years. The research, which reviewed the targets set in the 2015 Paris […]

Lords launch of Institute of Coding

22 June 2018

Open University (OU) academics were among the 200 guests at the formal launch at the House of Lords of the Institute of Coding (IoC) – a consortium, with a mission to develop the next generation of digital talent. Working with the IoC , the OU will bring together the worlds of academia and industry with […]

Medical Detection Dogs at Buckingham Palace

Scientist, and dogs who “sniff for cancer”, meet Her Majesty The Queen

8 June 2018

A group of incredible dogs who detect cancer cells in biological samples accompanied one of the leading animal-computer interaction scientists to meet Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. Head of The Open University Animal-Computer Interaction Lab and Senior Lecturer in Computing and Communications, Dr Clara Mancini, was invited to Buckingham Palace to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the […]

Fuego volcano: the deadly pyroclastic flows that have killed dozens in Guatemala

5 June 2018

Dozens of people have been killed, and with many more missing, after Volcán de Fuego (Fuego) in Guatemala erupted on June 3 2018. In recent years, Fuego has regularly ejected small gas and ash eruptions, which hold little risk to surrounding populations. But Fuego also has a reputation for producing larger explosive eruptions. These larger […]

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Category: Science, maths, computing and technology