University of Oxford

Researchers have revealed that an ancient retrovirus, found in between 5 and 10 percent of the world’s population, is significantly associated with addiction. The study uncovered a connection between the retrovirus and a gene that could make individuals prone to a variety of addictive behaviors.

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.

A promising new cancer drug delivery system has successfully passed early human safety trials. The treatment delivers cancer drugs in heat-activated capsules to tumors in the liver and then uses a focused ultrasound beam to remotely trigger the targeted release of their drug payload.

If you could sniff a planet, what would it smell like? According to an international team of scientists,if you could get a whiff of the planet Uranus, it would have the pungent odor of rotten eggs due to the presence of the noxious gas hydrogen sulfide.

Scientists have long suspected that ticks feasted on the blood of dinosaurs. Preserved in a 99 million-year-old chunk of amber lies a hard tick grasping the feather of a dinosaur, suggesting that the parasitic insects did indeed harbor a penchant for prehistoric plasma. ​

Studying how stem cells move in the body is a critical step to understanding cancer. Researchers have just provided a window into this process by building a machine that beams flatworms with x-rays that kill just enough stem cells to allow the others to move freely around while being tracked.

Dickinsonia was a strange, segmented organism that lived 550 million years ago, but just what kind of lifeform it was has been a mystery. A new British study offers substantial evidence that the creature was indeed an animal, and previous beliefs about how it grew have been flipped on their head.

The first written records of the number "0" were believed to be tied between a temple and a manuscript found in India, but now a team from Oxford has used carbon dating to crown the winner. The Bakhshali manuscript appears to be about 500 years older.

Previous studies seemed to tell the tale of the last population of Neanderthals huddled in a Croatian cave 32,000 years ago as modern humans invaded Europe. But an Oxford team has analyzed bones using a new radiocarbon dating technique and found the Neanderthal remains were too old to fit the story.

​Although ticks are generally thought of as being the spreaders of illness, they may actually be able to help save peoples' lives. According to a new study, proteins found in tick saliva could be used to treat a potentially fatal heart disease.

Scientists from the University of Oxford investigating the social networks of a bird species have found that those sharing similar personality traits tend to nest near one another, with mating success appearing to be one of the underlying motives.

​Repairing people's sense of sight by way of retinal implants is a field of research that is seeing some rather promising advances. Now researchers say they have broken new ground in the area, which brings with it the prospect of more successful integration in the human body.