Oxford University

Scientists have developed a sensor made of incredibly thin strands of sapphire that can withstand extreme heat and radiation, and possibly be put to work in the harsh environment of nuclear fusion reactors and enable more streamlined air travel.

A UK company says it's demonstrated fusion in record time, on a shoestring US$59 million budget, using an innovative new approach that embeds fuel pellets in tiny, falling cube targets, then shoots projectiles at them at 19 times the speed of sound.

Researchers at Oxford have developed a new smart window coating that can be tuned on the fly to emit or reflect heat from the Sun in different amounts, reducing the energy costs of heating and cooling by up to a third.

A new study has used a VR-based treatment to help people overcome a fear of heights. The treatment is the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of a completely automated therapy guided by a computer-generated virtual therapist that responds to the patient's voice.

​Lip-reading is an inexact science, with motoring mouths making it hard to attribute sounds to each individual movement. Computer scientists at Oxford University have teamed up with Google's DeepMind to develop artificial intelligence that might give the hearing impaired a helping hand.

Having been launched over 18 months ago and introduced to the public in September last year, the "Low-carbon Urban Transport Zone" (LUTZ) Pathfinder has now been demonstrated in pedestrian areas around the UK's Milton Keynes.

Zaha Hadid Architects has completed work on a striking new £11 million (US$17 million) addition to the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. The Investcorp Building is clad in stainless steel and features the architect's trademark curving style.

Some scientists are suggesting that sodium-ion batteries could be a less costly alternative to lithium-ions. To that end, Williams Advanced Engineering recently demonstrated that they could be used to power an electric bike.

A new driverless vehicle that should soon be available for the public to use has been unveiled in the UK. The Lutz Pathfinder is an autonomous pod that is designed to drive on pavements and in pedestrianized areas. Once successfully trialed, the pods will transport people around Milton Keynes.

When Dr. Thomas Povey was on a mountaineering trip, he became acutely aware of how much fuel was required to boil water using his conventional cookware. This inspired him to develop a new type of cooking pan, that would make better use of available heat. The result is the "finned" Flare Pan.

Scientists in the UK have developed created a prototype device that features pixels just 30 x 30 nanometers in size. The development could lead to extremely high-resolution displays that put the pixel densities found in current displays to shame.