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Researchers at the University of Warwick have been awarded £1.1 million to develop the statistics needed to pool the vast quantities of data generated by brain scans. The University has also been awarded £500,000 to improve quality control in 3D printing. Both projects are joint between the Department of Statistics and WMG, exploiting the unique strengths of each group.

Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Chicago have uncovered an important mechanism behind the generation of astrophysical magnetic fields such as that of the Sun. Scientists have known since the 18th Century that the Sun regularly oscillates between periods of high and low solar activity in an 11-year cycle, but have been unable to fully explain how this cycle is generated.

The more choices people have, the riskier the decisions they make, according to a new study which sheds light on how we behave when faced with large amounts of information. Researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Lugano set up a gambling game in which they analysed how decision-making is affected when people are faced with a large number of potential gambles.

Researchers have produced a mathematical model to describe how conflicting opinions are resolved over articles that appear on Wikipedia, the collaboratively-edited encyclopaedia. The study maps the evolution of opinion over time, showing that even widely diverging opinions eventually converge. The researchers say this pattern in collective human behaviour is reminiscent of the interaction of particles in physics, such as when wind-blown grains of sand eventually create sand dunes.

Currently, approximately 10 million adults in Britain smoke. A one percentage point decline would equate to 500,000 people who will not suffer the health effects of smoking." —Professor Theresa Marteau, Director of the University of Cambridge's Behaviour and Health Research Unit Experts believe that plain packaging of tobacco products would cut smoking, a new study has found.

Building a quantum computer is one of the great challenges of modern physics, and it is hoped that the new teleportation protocol will lead to advances in this area." —Sergii Strelchuk For the last ten years, theoretical physicists have shown that the intense connections generated between particles as established in the quantum law of 'entanglement' may hold the key to eventual teleportation of information.

Future sea level rise due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could be substantially larger than estimated in Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, according to new research from the University of Bristol. The study, published today , is the first of its kind on ice sheet melting to use structured expert elicitation (EE) together with an approach which mathematically pools experts' opinions.

A team of researchers from the University of Warwick, working with the University of Manchester, have been awarded £5.2 million to investigate our immune response and how it is affected by ageing. The grant is part of BBSRC 's Strategic Longer and Larger Awards scheme, which give world-leading teams the time and resources to address areas of key strategic importance.

A new study suggests that the system used by the Government to inform key decisions about the performance of NHS hospitals is inadequate. Research published online today in the journal BMJ Quality and Safety shows that Standardised Mortality Ratios (SMRs) are not a reliable indicator of the quality of hospital care and therefore should not be used to trigger inquiries such as the high-profile probe being conducted into the performance of Mid Staffordshire Hospital.

A new mathematical method can help to predict a couple's chances of becoming pregnant, according to how long they have been trying. The model may also shed light on how long they should wait before seeking medical help. For example, the researchers have found that, if the woman is aged 35, after just six months of trying, her chance of getting pregnant in the next cycle is then less than 10 per cent.

Many people remember struggling with maths at school, but few of us would expect that professional scientists suffer from a similar problem in their daily work. A new study by biologists at the University of Bristol shows that scientists tend to overlook their colleagues' research if it is packed full of mathematical equations.

Engineers and scientists at the University of Glasgow are developing a new method of treating head and neck cancers they believe will make therapy more targeted and effective. Cancer kills over 150,000 people in the UK every year and oral/head and neck cancer (HNC) is in the top ten worldwide, with major risk factors being tobacco and alcohol consumption.

Oxford researchers trying to improve the understanding of financial systems have new facilities to store and analyse huge volumes of financial data, which should speed up the research process. The Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance (OMI) has established a virtual 'data lab', which mirrors the systems that are being used by commercial financial institutions worldwide.

The US presidential election dominates the global media every four years, with news articles, which are carefully analysed by commentators and campaign strategists, playing a major role in shaping voter opinion. Academics at the University of Bristol's Intelligent Systems Laboratory have developed an online tool, Election Watch, which analyses the content of news about the US election by the international media.

In the race to breed better crops to feed the increasing world population, scientists at The University of Nottingham are using maths to find out how a vital plant hormone affects growth. Gibberellin is a hormone which plays a key part in development throughout the plant, from the root to the flowers and leaves.

New research provides the first mathematical understanding of the shape of a ponytail and could have implications for the textile industry, computer animation and personal care products. From Leonardo Da Vinci to the Brothers Grimm, the properties of hair have been of enduring interest in science and art.

New research provides the first mathematical understanding of the shape of a ponytail and could have implications for the textile industry, computer animation and personal care products. Our findings solve a problem that has puzzled scientists and artists ever since Leonardo da Vinci remarked on the fluid-like streamlines of hair in his notebooks 500 years ago." —Professor Ray Goldstein From Leonardo Da Vinci to the Brothers Grimm, the properties of hair have been of enduring interest in science and art.

The world can deliver sudden and nasty shocks. Economies can crash, fisheries can collapse, and climate can pass tipping points. Providing ample warning of such transitions presently requires the collection of enormous - and often prohibitive - amounts of data. A new method developed by Thilo Gross , Senior Lecturer in Engineering Mathematic's at the University of Bristol and Steven Lade from the Max-Planck-Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany promises to change this.

Studies showing that women's underachievement in maths is due to their own poor self-image are fundamentally flawed, according to psychologists Gijsbert Stoet, from the University of Leeds, and Professor David Geary from the University of Missouri. Their findings suggest that recent strategies aimed at improving girls' performance in maths - which are based on these studies - are misguided and unlikely to work.

Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider have received an early Christmas present. Using apparatus partly designed in Bristol, the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) collaboration has presented the first tentative evidence of the Higgs boson. The discovery of this new particle has been described as the 'holy grail of particle physics' and would confirm our understanding of the fundamental laws of nature.