University of Bristol

There are a number of different display technologies that provide the illusion of 3D images on a 2D screen. A team of researchers led by the University of Bristol has offered a new take on things by creating “Tilt Display” – a prototype screen that's split in a 3x3 configuration with the nine individual sub-screens physically moving and tilting up and down to physically represent the three dimensional content being displayed.  Read More

Are you getting blotto on lager more often than you should? If the University of Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology is to be believed, then you can (try to) blame your glass. According to Dr. Angela Atwood, drinking out of a curved glass makes you drink lager faster.  Read More

If you’ve ever watched a cephalopod such as a squid changing color, then you’ll know that it’s a pretty amazing process – they can instantly change the appearance of their skin from dark to light and back again, or even create pulsating bands of color that travel across it. They are able to do this thanks to muscles that manipulate the pigmentation of their skin. Now, scientists from the University of Bristol have succeeded in creating artificial muscles and cells, that might someday allow for the same sort of color changes in smart clothing that can camouflage itself against different backgrounds.  Read More

When oil gets spilled in a waterway, clean-up crews will often introduce a solution known as a surfactant. This is a detergent that lessens the surface tension between the water and the overlaying oil slick, causing the oil to form into individual droplets which then sink or get dispersed by wave action. Unfortunately, such detergents aren’t entirely environmentally-friendly themselves, so the use of them on oil spills has been criticized as simply replacing one pollutant with another. Now, however, scientists from the University of Bristol have created a magnetic soap, that could be removed from the water once it had done its job.  Read More

Researchers claim a newly discovered molecule found in the Earth’s atmosphere holds the potential to help offset global warming by actually cooling the planet. The molecule is a Criegee biradical or Criegee intermediate, which are chemical intermediaries that are powerful oxidizers of pollutants produced by combustion, such as nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. They have the ability to naturally clean up the atmosphere by helping break down nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide to form sulfate and nitrate, which ultimately leads to cloud formation that could help cool the planet.  Read More

Every year, approximately 1.7 million people in the U.S. and Europe tear a meniscus – children and athletes are especially prone to such injuries. But first, just what is a meniscus? It’s one of two pieces of cartilage located inside each knee, that provide a cushion between the tibia and the femur. While smaller tears can heal on their own, larger tears often require a partial or complete removal of the meniscus. Within several years, this can result in the early onset of osteoarthritis. Recently, a new type of stem cell-seeded bandage, developed at the University of Bristol, has been approved for a clinical trial on meniscal tears. It may greatly reduce the need for menisectomies.  Read More

Researchers at the University of Bristol have developed a seismological "speed gun" which takes multiple seismic readings of single events to determine how quickly the Earth's mantle is moving. While the instruments used to measure this movement aren't hand-held or new to the field, the way that the data is interpreted is ground breaking.  Read More

Research conducted at the University of Bristol means a number of quantum computing algorithms may soon be able to execute calculations of a complexity far beyond what today's computers allow us to do. The breakthrough involves the use of a specially designed optical chip to perform what's known as a "quantum walk" with two particles ... and it suggests the era of quantum computing may be approaching faster than the scientific establishment had predicted.  Read More

In news that might be a little worrying when coupled with our recent story of the flesh-eating robotic clock, UK researchers have developed a Chewing Robot. Thankfully the uses for the Chewing Robot are more benign - it has been developed to study the wear and tear on dental elements, such as fillings, crowns and bridges. By reproducing the motion and forces sustained by teeth within a human mouth, the robot has the potential to dramatically improve the process of developing and testing new dental materials.  Read More