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PhD researcher Sam Briggs successfully summed up his research into the chemical origins of life to win the University of Bristol's Three Minute Thesis competition, which challenges postgraduate students to present years of work that go into a PhD thesis in just three minutes.

Researchers have compiled the first global set of observations of flow within the Earth's mantle - the layer between the crust and the core - and found that it is moving much faster than has been predicted. Although we're talking about timescales that seem incredibly long to you or me, in geological terms, the Earth's surface bobs up and down like a yo-yo.

Migration to and from the UK has always been a central part of the history of the UK, but have previous narratives largely ignored the everyday experiences of women?

The writer Nan Shepherd (1893-1981), who was quietly acclaimed in her lifetime, is the face of a new Royal Bank of Scotland bank note.

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The UK has seen a 20% fall in the incidence of dementia over the past two decades, according to new research from England, led by the University of Cambridge, leading to an estimated 40,000 fewer cases of dementia than previously predicted. However, Our evidence shows that the so-called dementia 'tsunami' is not an inevitability: we can help turn the tide if we take action now Carol Brayne Reports in both the media and from governments have suggested that the world is facing a dementia 'tsunami' of ever-increasing numbers, particularly as populations age.

Dr Kate Hendry, Royal Society Research Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences, has joined an EU-funded project to examine the ecology and diversity of deep-sea sponge ecosystems in the North Atlantic.

Oliver Lamb is a PhD student in the  Volcanology research group  in the University's School of Environmental Sciences. "Volcanoes are a spectacular and dangerous embodiment of the dynamic nature of our planet. An estimated 800 million people now live within 100 km of an active volcano around the world, and this figure continues to increase every year.

For the first time, an international group of scientists, has come up with a way to estimate on a large scale how phosphorus flows through an environment over many decades. The research team, including the University of Bristol, found the UK is using less fertilizer to grow food and that both historically and currently, it is a world leader in modern wastewater treatment.

University of Sussex appoints Adam Tickell as Vice-Chancellor The University of Sussex has appointed Professor Adam Tickell as its eighth Vice-Chancellor.

Water joins as well as divides - and maritime communities often defy the borders imposed by the state.

Scientists from the University of Liverpool have developed computer models of the bodies of sauropod dinosaurs to examine the evolution of their body shape.

Humans are releasing carbon about 10 times faster than during any event in the past 66 million years, according to new research from the University of Hawaii, the University of Bristol and the University of California, published.

Scientists have discovered a 'bizarre' microorganism which plays a key role in the food web of Earth's oceans. Researchers from Spain's Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), alongside colleagues at the University of Bristol in the UK, discovered that symbiotic phytoplankton capable of fertilising the ocean with nitrogen 'fertilizer' evolved back in the Cretaceous at a time when the oceans were nutrient deprived.

Alice Trevail from the University's School of Environmental Sciences has recently returned from field work for her PhD in Antarctica: "Myself and one other seabird researcher, Sebastien Descamps from

Volcanologists from the University took part in an international volcanoes workshop which was held on the active Santiaguito volcano in Guatemala. Santiaguito volcano has been erupting lava since 1922 and every few hours explosions spurt hot ash and fragmented rocks, making it an ideal "natural laboratory" for scientists to study explosive eruptions.

Makoto Takahashi (Department of Geography) discusses the impact of the Fukushima disaster and Japan's nuclear-liability laws.

An Imperial nuclear expert describes his visit last year to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactor Power Plant, five years on from the crisis.

The first book in a new series on material culture and modern conflict, co-edited by Professor Nicholas Saunders of the University of Bristol's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, will be published this week. Conflict Landscapes and Archaeology from Above ,edited by Birger Stichelbaut and David Cowley, reflects how the study of conflict archaeology has developed rapidly over the last decade, fuelled by technological advances and creative analytical frameworks.

Ichthyosaurs - shark-like marine reptiles from the time of dinosaurs - were driven to extinction by intense climate change and their own failure to evolve quickly enough, according to new research by an international team of scientists.

In this edition: Radiation research five years on from Fukushima, food research at the latest Fringe event and aurora adventures.

The earliest example of an organism living on land - an early type of fungus - has been identified. The organism, from 440 million years ago, likely kick-started the process of rot and soil formation, which encouraged the later growth and diversification of life on land. Before there could be flowering plants or trees, or the animals that depend on them, the processes of rot and soil formation needed to be established.

Researchers have modelled how wetlands might respond to rising sea levels, and found that as much as four-fifths of wetlands worldwide could be lost by the end of the century if sea levels continue to rise. We need integrated management of wetlands and coastal protections on a national and international scale.

An international collaboration dedicated to identifying and recording geographical references in historical documents is launched today at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

A major dinosaur exhibition is coming to Nottingham next summer, thanks to the University's links with China.

An international team of scientists, led by the China University of Geosciences in Beijing and including palaeontologists from the University of Bristol, has shed new light on some unusual dinosaur tracks from northern China. The tracks appear to have been made by four-legged sauropod dinosaurs yet only two of their feet have left prints behind.

Dr Claire Shovlin this week published research suggesting iron treatments may trigger DNA damage to cells in the laboratory, after just 10 minutes. Although Dr Shovlin stresses extra iron can be crucial to the health of many people, she says her research suggests we need to think more carefully about the doses doctors prescribe.

Helping people manage and manipulate tens of thousands of images is the mission of Oxford spinout Zegami, which has raised seed funding from investors including Parkwalk Advisors and Oxford Sciences Innovation.

A team of researchers have discovered that the increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere during the last ice age did not result from reduced density of the deep ocean as previously thought. In the first study of its kind, the team, made up of researchers from The University of Nottingham , the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey, were able to disprove the theory that the CO2 (that came from the depths of the ocean), was released because deep water became less dense, able to overturn, and ventilate its dissolved carbon to the atmosphere.

Hannah Whitby is a PhD student in the University's Department of  Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences : "The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funds my PhD in marine biogeochemistry, which my friends like to call 'oceans and potions'. The title of my project is 'the relationship between iron, copper and humic substances'.

University researchers have been awarded an Urgency Grant from the Natural Environment Research Council to study lake sedimentary records to see if they provide an insight into how these extreme rece

Researchers have found that glacial erosion and melting ice caps both played a key role in driving the observed global increase in volcanic activity at the end of the last ice age.

A new app which tries to guess your regional accent based on your pronunciation of 26 words and colloquialisms will help Cambridge academics track the movement and changes to English dialects in the modern era.

Simon Redfern (Department of Earth Sciences) discusses how the "Star of Adam" sapphire was formed in the highlands of Sri Lanka.

Professor Dan Faulkner , from the University of Liverpool's Department of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences, has been awarded a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship to further his research into the mechanics of earthquakes.

University of Bristol Cabot Institute researchers and their colleagues today published research that further documents the unprecedented rate of environmental change occurring today, compared to that which occurred during natural events in Earth's history.

The diversity of mammals on Earth exploded straight after the dinosaur extinction event, according to UCL researchers. New analysis of the fossil record shows that placental mammals, the group that today includes nearly 5000 species including humans, became more varied in anatomy during the Paleocene epoch - the 10 million years immediately following the event.

Cichlid fish from a tiny volcanic crater lake in Africa have been caught in the act of sympatric speciation, whereby a new species evolves when there is no geographic barrier to physically separate the new species from the old.

Scientists join together to map and assess thousands of co-seismic and post-seismic landslides in aftermath of earthquake.

Scientists join together to map and assess thousands of co-seismic and post-seismic landslides in aftermath of earthquake. Knowing where the landslides are is very useful for policymakers to be able to assess ongoing hazards and plan rebuilding. Evan Miles The 2015 Nepal earthquake which led to the death of around 9,000 people and caused widespread damage initiated fewer landslides than similar seismic events and could have been much worse, according to research released by geologists and glacier experts.

Direct observations of the reduction and melting of the Greenland ice sheet during the last 110 years, made by an international team of climate researchers led by the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and including Professor Jonathan Bamber of the University of Bristol, have been published today in Nature.

Excavation of two quarries in Wales by a UCL-led team of archaeologists and geologists has confirmed they are sources of Stonehenge's 'bluestones'- and shed light on how they were quarried and transported.

Academics from the University of Bristol Cabot Institute are representing the University at the Conference of Parties (COP21), the United Nations climate change conference in Paris.

Prof Chris MacLeod leads team on a cruise to the Indian Ocean to drill into the Earth's interior An international team of scientists, co-led by Professor Chris MacLeod from the School of Earth and Oc

David Norman (Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences) discusses the fossil discoveries that really made a difference to science.

A rare fossil from eastern North America of a dog-sized horned dinosaur has been identified by Dr Nick Longrich. The fossil provides evidence of an east-west divide in North American dinosaur evolution. During the Late Cretaceous period, 66-100 million years ago, the land mass that is now North America was split in two continents by a shallow sea, the Western Interior Seaway, which ran from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean.