News Highlights
From space to bees and Brexit, we explore Queen Mary's media highlights over the last year.
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The first stars of the universe
An astronomer from Queen Mary's School of Physics and Astronomy, alongside a team from other international universities, has discovered new insights into the birth and death of the very first stars in the Universe. The enlightening research provides insight into when the first supernovae exploded and the time when the first hot stars bathed the Universe in light. The work was covered in Astronomy Now, Wired, Seeker, Earth Sky and Space.com.
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Professor Carl Murray and Cassini, 27 years later
Professor Carl Murray, from the School of Physics and Astronomy and the only UK member of Cassini Imaging Team, ended his 27 year love affair with the Cassini-Huygens mission as it plunged into the skies of Saturn earlier this year. The spacecraft entered into orbit around Saturn in 2004 and has sent over 450,000 images back to Earth for scientists to analyse, as well as providing some of the best in-depth data on Saturn to date. Scientists across the world have hailed it as one of the most successful space explorations ever. The end of the mission received coverage in almost all major news outlets such as BBC News, Gizmodo, The Guardian and Vice.
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Space Sound Effects Short-Film Festival
Dr Martin Archer's SSFX (Space Sound Effects) Short-Film Festival challenged independent filmmakers from around the world to create short-films incorporating a series of strange sounds recorded in space by satellites. The first ever awards ceremony and screening was held at Rich Mix in Shoreditch, London.
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Bees reveal complex learning abilities
Queen Mary's love affair with the bee continued in 2017 - researchers were able to train bumblebees to score goals using a mini-ball. This revealed that bees, with a brain the size of a pinhead, have unprecedented learning abilities. The research paper published in Science received widespread national and international coverage from New Scientist, The Guardian, Quartz, Popular Science and The Telegraph magazine, as well as international outlets such as Globo TV.
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Trophy hunting may cause extinction
Research from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences revealed trophy hunting and other activities involving the targeting of high-quality male animals could lead to the extinction of certain species faced with changing environmental conditions. The study, which didn't call for a ban on trophy hunting but a different management approach, received international coverage on BBC News, National Geographic, The Independent, The Times, Daily Mail and iNews.
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Starfish reveal genome sequencing
Academics from the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences won their bid to have the genome of the common starfish (Asterias rubens) sequenced by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute as part of their 25 genomes project. This may provide answers as to how the intriguing starfish is able to lose and re-grow its arms, and is capable of prising open a mussel despite not having a brain. -
Double trouble for EU coverage
In an analysis of 16,400 newspaper articles in five periods during which the EU was highly prominent in the UK news, Queen Mary research found that critical reporting has significantly increased between 1974 and 2013, at the expense of positive and neutral coverage. Positive coverage overall fell from 25 per cent in 1974-75 to 10 per cent in 2012-13. The researchers, from the School of Politics and International Relations, argued that the study supports the idea that Euroscepticism in the UK is a classic case of 'issue capture', where a small but committed minority view comes to be accepted into the mainstream of public life. The results were featured in The Independent.
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Just one in five Londoners think Britain will be better off after Brexit
Queen Mary's Mile End Institute achieved national coverage throughout 2017 for its London Polling series (with YouGov) and for its high-profile programme of events, 'In Conversation'. A highlight was the 2017 polls that found Londoners gloomy about the prospects for post-Brexit Britain, with 48 per cent expecting the country to be economically worse off as a result of leaving the European Union. Another poll, during the 2017 election period, was among the first to detect the Labour surge – when the party moved 17 points ahead of the Conservatives in London. The poll was featured in the Evening Standard.
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Researchers piece together a portrait of the real Mr Darcy
New research co-led by Professor Amanda Vickery from Queen Mary's School of History highlighted how the features associated with attractiveness have changed dramatically over the past two centuries. The month-long study focused on Jane Austen's iconic literary heart-throb, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, along with socio-economic and cultural factors to illustrate how he would really look, debunking the modern-day portrayal of 'tall, dark and handsome'. This was covered in The Independent , The Guardian and The Telegraph. -
Bank of England ledgers reveal failure of World War One loan scheme
A major study co-led by researchers from the School of Geography found that the British government's initial efforts to pay for World War One through loans from the public was a spectacular failure. The study used previously restricted Bank of England ledgers. The study was the first of its kind, showing that the scheme had a significant impact on Britain's approach to war-time fundraising. The story was covered by BBC News, Financial Times and The Times.
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Women who have HPV jab may only need three cervical screens in a lifetime
Researchers from Queen Mary's Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, funded by Cancer Research UK, found that women who have had the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine would get the same benefit from three cervical screens at age 30, 40 and 55 as the 12 lifetime screens currently offered in England. The evidence has been said to potentially free up resources for where they are needed most, and offer a unique opportunity to reassess how often women are invited for cervical screens during their life. The story was covered by BBC News, ITV News and The Sun.
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Helping cancer survivors cope after treatment
Even though cancer survivors may be in good physical health or in long-term remission, the impact of cancer and its treatment can be very difficult. In Queen Mary's efforts to transform aftercare for those people, researchers from the university will develop and test a new talking-based therapy for cancer survivors. The SURECAN project has been awarded £2.5m from the National Institute for Health Research and will look at safety and cost-effectiveness, evaluate for whom and how the therapy works best, and how it could be adapted for different cultures.
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Blood cell discovery identifies patients with aggressive prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in Western world, but patients who have aggressive prostate cancer could be identified by a highly accurate and simple blood test, according to an early study by Queen Mary researchers from Barts Cancer Institute. This could have major implications for their treatment and would meet a key unmet medical need. The study was featured in Daily Mail, Daily Express and The Sun.
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High BMI and blood pressure create a heavy heart
New research led by Queen Mary found that being overweight or obese creates damaging changes to the structure of the heart. The British Heart Foundation-funded research used cardiac magnetic resonance imaging to carefully study the structure and function of the hearts of 4,561 people from the UK Biobank database - an international health resource that follows the health and well-being of 500,000 volunteer participants. The research was featured in the Daily Mail.
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UK obesity levels among the worst in Europe
A study by researchers at Queen Mary's Barts Heart Centre warns that deaths from heart disease and strokes in the UK are set to rise because of the obesity epidemic, threatening to reverse a downward trend stretching back over the past 50 years. The statistics reveal that while the UK performs well in some aspects of heart disease prevention, it is doing comparatively badly with others. The study received notable national coverage in the Daily Mail, The Express, The Independent and iNews.
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Drug could cut transplant rejection
Reducing the risk of the body rejecting an organ transplant could happen in the near future, thanks to researchers at Queen Mary's William Harvey Research Institute, funded by the British Heart Foundation and Barts Charity. The team discovered the enzyme, glucokinase, could help regulatory T cells, which act as guardians of the immune system, and prevent them from rejecting a transplanted organ. Ultimately researchers hope the findings will allow people who have undergone this procedure to live longer, healthier lives. The findings were featured in the Daily Mail, Evening Standard and The Express.
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Major events
Professor Green supported a huge fundraising appeal led by Queen Mary’s Barts Charity, the ‘Transform Trauma’ project.
A number of high-profile politicians and figures spoke at events at Queen Mary during 2017. The Mile End Institute's ‘In Conversation’ series featured talks from Neil Kinnock, Yvette Cooper and Nick Clegg, among others.
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New buildings
HRH The Princess Royal officially opened Queen Mary’s new Graduate Centre. The seven-storey building includes 7,700 square metres of new learning and teaching space, a new home for the Doctoral College, and a dedicated study space – complete with panoramic views of London – for graduate students. The £39m building is home to the School of Economics and Finance, and includes a 200-seat Peston Lecture Theatre, named in memory of Maurice Peston, who founded the School of Economics and Finance at Queen Mary. The opening received local coverage in The East London Advertiser.
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Queen Mary partners with Hunan University
Queen Mary and Hunan University in China (HNU) signed a new agreement that allows students from HNU to have a study year abroad in the final year of their degree programme. The high-profile agreement signed by HRH The Princess Royal strengthens Queen Mary's relations with China. Queen Mary has numerous established agreements with Chinese universities such as Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) and Nanchang University.
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Establishing new links in South-East Asia
Queen Mary and Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines signed an agreement demonstrating their commitment to build on existing and establish new links in South-East Asia. The creation of the joint development of transnational education programmes, focusing on digital innovation and big data science, was covered by international media outlets such as The Economic Times and the Manila Bulletin.
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What's the magic word?
Researchers from the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science taught a computer to co-create a word association magic trick. The study provides further evidence that computers can be used as aids in creative tasks and prompt further creativity, as they can uncover suggestions the magician may not have considered. The researchers hope it will introduce the use of computer technology as a tool for magic trick design purposes in the future. The work was covered in BBC Radio 5 Live’s The Naked Scientists, Smithsonian Magazine and Digital Trends.
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AI gets musical
Queen Mary research has shown how artificial intelligence (AI) can write Celtic folk music, exploring whether this opens new areas of creativity. The music written by the AI was then performed by a live band, alongside traditional songs, to see if audiences could tell the difference. The study received national coverage and was featured in Vice, The Independent and the Daily Mail.
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£1m grant for nuclear robotics
A £1m grant was awarded to the Queen Mary’s Centre for Advanced Robotics by the research council EPSRC to help set-up a world-leading centre of excellence for nuclear robotics in the UK. The grant will support a multi-university project to build a National Centre for Nuclear Robotics. It will provide Queen Mary with an excellent opportunity to develop a variety of robotics capable of tackling the UK’s nuclear waste problem, and to undertake further research into the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of robotics.
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Predicting organ failure in critically injured patients
Coinciding with the Barts Charity ‘Transform Trauma’ appeal, an early study led by Queen Mary researchers found out that testing blood samples within the first two hours of injury could help predict which critically injured patients are more likely to develop Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome. The findings may be able to help bring dramatic improvements through better diagnostics and therapeutics in the emergency room. The findings were profiled in The Express as part of the fundraising appeal.
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£2.4 million awarded for international trial on major traumatic bleeding
A £2.4m grant from the National Institute for Health Research and Barts Charity was awarded to Queen Mary’s Centre for Trauma Sciences to carry out a large multi-centre clinical trial to evaluate a new treatment in major traumatic haemorrhage. The trial will analyse whether a particular protein found in the blood, and helps stop bleeding by forming blood clots, could save more lives. This will be the first national transfusion study in the UK since trauma networks were established in England and Wales. Improved transfusion practices have the potential to save millions of lives globally.