Researchers studying wild banded mongooses in Uganda have discovered that these small mammals have either cooperative or selfish personalities which last for their entire lifetime. The findings of the 15-year study are published in the journal Animal Behaviour. (more…)
Pioneering new research has unlocked a new technique to help combat the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, that cause debilitating and often life-threatening human illness.
Researchers from the University of Exeter has shown that the use of ‘sequential treatments’ – using alternating doses of antibiotics – might offer effective treatment against bacterial infection. (more…)
Males that mate more often are more insecure about their social status than those mating less, according to new research on the behaviour of burying beetles.
The study, published in the journal Evolution, provides new evidence that the social sensitivity of male behaviour is linked to how often male beetles mate. (more…)
15 ancient skeletons have been discovered on an archaeological dig in Ipplepen, a major Romano-British settlement in Devon and now the best preserved Roman cemetery. University of Exeter archaeologists and a team of students and volunteers uncovered the human remains during an excavation of a Roman Road and found a roadside cemetery, the like of which has never been seen in the region.
The significance of the discovery took on further importance when one of the skeletons was found to date from around 250 to 350 years after the Roman period, an era often referred to as the ‘dark ages’. These discoveries are of both national and regional value in providing a glimpse into Romano-British life and how the settlement continued into post-Roman times. (more…)
Pioneering new research has debunked the theory that the asteroid that is thought to have led to the extinction of dinosaurs also caused vast global firestorms that ravaged planet Earth.
A team of researchers from the University of Exeter, University of Edinburgh and Imperial College London recreated the immense energy released from an extra-terrestrial collision with Earth that occurred around the time that dinosaurs became extinct. They found that the intense but short-lived heat near the impact site could not have ignited live plants, challenging the idea that the impact led to global firestorms. (more…)
To mark the 250th anniversary of the earliest Gothic novel, first published on Christmas Eve 1764 as a seasonal ghost story, a new edition of The Castle of Otranto introduced by a University of Exeter academic is now available.
Author Horace Walpole described his literary work as a “Gothic story”, yet for him the Gothic meant very different things from what it might do today. While the Gothic was associated with the supernatural, it was predominantly a theory of English progress rooted in Anglo Saxon and medieval history. (more…)
You can hear the sound of former bustling coral reefs dying due to the impact of human activity, according to new research from the Universities of Exeter and Essex.
Coral reefs are amongst the noisiest environments on our planet and healthy reefs can be heard using underwater microphones from kilometres away. (more…)
A pioneering Cornish research partnership is providing invaluable information to the UK’s shellfish industry by improving understanding of what seafood people choose to eat and why.
University of Exeter Medical School PhD student, Nick Boase, is conducting surveys across the country to shed light on what people understand about shellfish, and uncover reasons why they might shy away from consuming produce grown in the UK. (more…)
