University of Bristol

Spraying crops with weed-killer is not only harmful to the environment, but it's also costly for farmers. With those problems in mind, scientists have conducted a study which suggests that less herbicide could be used for the same results, if applied at the right time of day.

A new study from the University of Bristol claims to have, for the first time, found direct, definitive evidence of the food eaten by medieval common folk in England based on the chemical analysis of food residue found on pottery fragments from excavations of the village of West Cotton.

​An academic from the University of Bristol in the UK has reportedly cracked the codex behind the so-called Voynich code. The language used in the 200-page manuscript has remained a mystery since it came to light more than a century ago.

​For many years now, scientists have been seeking methods of helping to heal chronic wounds such as those suffered by diabetics. One of the latest possible techniques involves re-engineering the membranes of stem cells, so that those cells essentially get welded together.

​It takes millions of years for life to fully recover from a catastrophic extinction event, according to a new study that examined the aftermath of the asteroid strike that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

​It was just last month that we heard about a brain implant which dispenses a protein to stop seizures in epileptic rats. An unrelated study now suggests that a brain implant in humans, which delivers that same protein, could be used to treat and even reverse the effects of Parkinson's disease.

A recent study indicated that fewer horseflies land on mannequins with stripes painted onto them. The research was inspired by observations that zebras also tend not to be bothered much by flies. A separate study now offers an explanation as to why that's the case.

A new study paints pterosaurs as far cuddlier creatures than we might have thought. According to an international team of palaeontologists, pterosaurs were covered in no less than four different types of feathers, pushing back the origin of this bodily covering by about 70 million years.

​Bats eat a lot of moths, which they locate in the dark via echolocation. According to new research, however, some moths have evolved sound-absorbing fur as a passive means of defence – and it could inspire advances in human technology.

​Would you want to climb up an active volcano to deposit a sensor at its crater? Probably not, and it's something that safety-conscious volcanologists would prefer not to do, too. With that in mind, British scientists have created drone-deployed sensing devices known as "dragon eggs."

The further back in time you go, the patchier our understanding of life on Earth gets. Now, British scientists have used a different method known as a molecular clock to plot out a rough timeline of all life on Earth, tracing the first organisms back to about 4.5 billion years ago.

​Fossils are certainly fascinating, but the darn things do take rather a long time to form. What if you want to fossilize something as fast as possible? Well, scientists have developed a method of doing so within about 24 hours – and it could lead to big advances in the field of paleontology.