The first large-scale study of its kind has uncovered more than 4,000 years’ worth of distinctive foraging behaviour in a species once driven to the brink of extinction. An international team of researchers, led by the University of Leicester, identified long-term patterns in the behaviour of the short-tailed albatross (Phoebastria albatrus) in the North Pacific […]
University of Leicester
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Chickens to be marker of Anthropocene
Dec. 12, 2018 – Modern meat chickens are a defining feature of the Anthropocene according to new research by Dr Carys Bennett and colleagues from the University of Leicester in conjunction with Nottingham Trent University, the University of Nottingham and North West University, South Africa. The Anthropocene is the proposed new geological epoch that marks […]
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Are we doomed? New online course asks how we can make the modern world sustainable
Dec. 20, 2017 – A new online course from the University of Leicester, available on the FutureLearn social learning platform, will unpick the complex global challenge that is sustainability and provide a deeper understanding of what it means to be a global citizen. The University has launched a new online short course entitled ‘Concepts in […]
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Scale of human impact on planet has changed course of Earth’s history, scientists suggest
Oct. 2, 2017 – The significant scale of human impact on our planet has changed the course of Earth history, an international team of scientists led by the University of Leicester has suggested. The researchers suggest that a multitude of human impacts have changed the course of Earth’s geological history, and the scale of these […]
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Discovery of new fossil from half billion years ago sheds light on life on Earth
Jan. 30, 2017 – Dr Tom Harvey from the Department of Geology, University of Leicester, together with Professor Nicholas Butterfield, University of Cambridge, discovered the new species while conducting a survey of microfossils in mudstones from western Canada. To their surprise, the samples yielded miniscule loriciferans: a type of animal so small it has been […]
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Earth’s ‘technosphere’ now weighs 30 trillion tons, research finds
Nov. 30, 2016 – An international team led by University of Leicester geologists has made the first estimate of the sheer size of the physical structure of the planet’s technosphere – suggesting that its mass approximates to an enormous 30 trillion tons. The technosphere is comprised of all of the structures that humans have constructed […]
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How segregationists sold their message on US television
August 31, 2016 – The effective use of national television broadcasts by white segregationists during the civil rights movement could provide valuable insights into the persistence of white nationalism in the United States today in a project by a PhD student from the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham. Scott Weightman is the recipient of a […]