The Open University

Radio 4 shines a light on OU academic

29 June 2016

One of the OU’s leading academics has been recounting her career studying volcanoes on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific. Professor Hazel Rymer has recently been appointed the OU’s Pro Vice-Chancellor for Learning, Teaching and Innovation. However, her career to date has been spent as a leading volcanologist, travelling the globe to study the world’s […]

Urban heat loss ‘major influence on climate change’, concludes OU study

20 June 2016

A study led by The Open University has concluded that man-made heat loss is one of the main contributing factors to national temperature variations. Published in the American Geophysical Union (AGU) journal, Earth’s Future, and developed in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, ‘From Urban to National Heat Island’ has established a strong correlation between […]

International Space Station experiment journeys back to Earth with Tim Peake

17 June 2016

British Astronaut, Tim Peake, returns from a six-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS). We spoke to Lecturer in Ecology, Dr Karen Olsson-Francis, about an experiment supported by the OU that is on the journey with Tim back to Earth. What is the experiment that the OU has supported? “The BIOMEX (Biology and Mars […]

Three OU scientists in front of a computer screen

Sniffing out life on Mars: mid-cruise check-out (and it’s 1-0 to England)

14 June 2016

Data is currently being received and reviewed from the ExoMars Mission – the launch of a spacecraft in March to demonstrate Europe’s first ever landing on Mars later this year, and an attempt to sniff out signs of life on the Red Planet. The ExoMars Orbiter is carrying an instrument with significant OU involvement which […]

Q&A: Astronaut Ron Garan – space travel for all will make the Earth a better place

13 June 2016

Professor Monica Grady explains why she thinks space travel will make earth a better place to live. There is a small but growing set of people who have had the opportunity to see the Earth as a planet, and view its changing seasons and weather patterns from above. Astronauts are a rare breed: men, and, […]

Asteroids most likely delivered water to the moon – here’s how we cracked it

1 June 2016

One of the moon’s greatest mysteries has long been whether it has any water. During the Apollo era in 1960s and 70s, scientists were convinced it was dry and dusty – estimating there was less than one part in a billion water. However, over the last decade, analyses of lunar samples have revealed that there […]

A comet, cancer and the space in between

26 May 2016

Space, it’s very out there. The exploration of the stars, galaxies and moons is all very exciting but it can seem a bit removed from our everyday lives. Things are different at The Open University, where space exploration is not done in isolation. Take the Rosetta Mission: This ground-breaking mission involved the OU creating the Ptolemy […]

Solar storms could solve longstanding paradox of how life on Earth arose

24 May 2016

It was only a matter of 700 million years or so after Earth formed and its surface cooled and solidified that life began to flourish on Earth. All studies suggest that life requires water – and we know from rocks on Earth that the climate in this distant past was sufficiently warm for liquid water […]

Advance preview: Scientific telescope aims to be a blockbuster

23 May 2016

The world’s astronomers – including scientists from the OU – are creating a telescope which they hope will uncover the mysteries of space. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will be the world’s largest digital camera and is expected to capture the biggest and best images from the universe for all to see. The OU is among a […]

OU expert on ‘pregnancy, artificial sweetener and overweight children’ stats

13 May 2016

Research into women who consume diet fizzy drinks during pregnancy has revealed they’re more likely to have overweight children by the time they reach their first birthday. The study was conducted by a university in Canada with 3,000 women. But Professor Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics at the OU, says casual conclusions can’t be drawn […]

OU News

Category: Science, maths, computing and technology