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His words and poetry are known around the world. Yet more than 250 years after his death, Robert Burns, the man, continues to remain a bit of an enigma to the public. Now academics at the University of Glasgow's Centre for Robert Burns Studies are revealing new insights into the man behind some of the world's greatest known poems and songs.

Researchers from the School of Geographical & Earth Sciences have contributed to a new study ­of a Martian meteorite which could provide insights into the reactions that led to the building blocks of life on early Earth. The study, led by the Carnegie Institution for Science and , demonstrates that organic molecules found in a meteorite that hurtled to Earth from Mars were synthesized during interactions between water and rocks that occurred on the Red Planet about 4 billion years ago.

The age of the oldest fossils in eastern Africa widely recognised as representing our species, Homo sapiens, has long been uncertain. Now, dating of a massive volcanic eruption in Ethiopia reveals they are much older than previously thought. The remains - known as Omo I - were found in Ethiopia in the late 1960s, and scientists have been attempting to date them precisely ever since, by using the chemical fingerprints of volcanic ash layers found above and below the sediments in which the fossils were found.

Postgraduate researchers at UK universities suffer from high rates of mental ill-health, with female, non-binary and LGBTQ+ communities faring particularly badly, new research suggests. The findings, published in the journal Current Psychology , are drawn from a survey of 479 postgraduate researchers (PGRs) working at 48 UK universities.

Celebrities and famous people are seen as more "attractive" which helps to protect them much more than ordinary people when they are cyberabused, new research has revealed. While being a celebrity doesn't make them immune from the cyberbullies, when they do become targets of the trolls these incidents were seen as much more severe than those involving other people.

People with multimorbidity - two or more long-term health conditions - showed a greater association with chronic pain, according to a new study. The new research - from the University of Glasgow and published in the Journal of Multimorbidity and Comorbidity - represents the first study of the prevalence of chronic pain in people with a broad range of long-term conditions and different levels of multimorbidity.

A new method of analysing the complex data from massive astronomical events could help gravitational wave astronomers avoid a looming computational crunch. Researchers from the University of Glasgow have used machine learning to develop a new system for processing the data collected from detectors like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Lockdown affected people's sex lives in a variety of different ways with young people and those not living with a partner reporting the greatest changes, according to researchers from UCL, the University of Glasgow and the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen). The peer-reviewed paper, which is the largest national study of sexual behaviours since the beginning of the pandemic, is published today in BMJ Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Commercial fishing, particularly in reduced fish populations, may be responsible for genetic changes and affect overall population resilience if not carefully managed. A new study, led by the University of Glasgow and published in PNAS, examined how commercial fishing practices - such as trawling - impacted the genetic evolution of fish populations, both directly and through reduced fish population density, mimicking declines in stocks due to over-fishing.

A new imaging technique, allowing 3D imaging at video rates through a fibre the width of a human hair, could transform imaging for a wide range of applications in industrial inspection and environmental monitoring. In the longer term the technique could be further developed for applications in medical imaging.

Vaccines are effective in decreasing hospitalization and deaths from COVID-19 infection but the emergence of viral variants of concern may diminish their efficacy, according to a new study. The study - published today in PLOS Pathogens, by Emma Thomson, Brian Willett, and colleagues at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research - suggests that COVID-19 Delta variant may be more successful at evading the protective response of vaccines.

A new test for hepatitis C which uses origami-style folded paper to deliver fast, accurate and affordable diagnoses could help the global fight against the deadly virus. The test, developed by biomedical engineers and virologists from the University of Glasgow, delivers lateral-flow results similar to a COVID-19 home test in around 30 minutes.

An international team of scientists may have solved a key mystery about the origins of the Earth's water, after uncovering persuasive new evidence pointing to an unlikely culprit - the Sun. In a new paper published today in the journal Nature Astronomy , a team of researchers from the UK, Australia and America describe how new analysis of an ancient asteroid suggests that extraterrestrial dust grains carried water to Earth as the planet formed.

An international team of scientists and pharmaceutical collaborators have made a breakthrough 'bench to bedside' discovery, ten years in the making, which they hope will advance the future treatment of Alzheimer's Disease in patients.

People with multiple health conditions - known as multimorbidity - are at risk of unplanned admissions to hospital. Now, new research has found the rates of hospitalisation in these people are even higher if one of their conditions is chronic kidney disease. The new research, led by the University of Glasgow and published in BMC Medicine, examined the rates of hospitalisation in people with multimorbidity, including those who also have chronic kidney disease as one of those conditions.

New research into the powerful magnetic fields which form inside the sun and cause violent eruptions could help predict solar flares. Mathematicians and astrophysicists from the UK and Italy have comprehensively modelled the emergence of twisted magnetic fields into the solar atmosphere, and verified their models through observations - a breakthrough in scientific understanding of the process by which solar flares occur.

There are more than 7bn people on the planet, and each of them has their own unique face. The sum of a person's eyes, nose, cheeks and mouth all individual to them. And now, new research shows that the emotion information transmitted by facial expressions appears to be just as diverse, rich, and complex as the faces themselves.

A newly published extensive body of research into Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness, has revealed new insights into the deadly parasitic disease that threatens the lives of millions of people in 36 sub-Saharan African countries.

Researchers involved in a major COVID-19 study - launched in Scotland earlier in the year to understand the long-term health of people who have had COVID-19 - are encouraging the public to participate if they receive a new invitation.

A new method of 'sliding' delicate high-performance electronics onto flexible surfaces could enable future developments in electronics, scientists say. Engineers from the University of Glasgow claim they have found a way to solve one of the key problems of contact printing - a method of planting electronics onto bendable plastic surfaces to create flexible electronic circuits and devices.