news 2012

Mathematics - Literature/Linguistics - 23.04
Online tool can detect patterns in US election news coverage
The US presidential election dominates the global media every four years, with news articles, which are carefully analysed by commentators and campaign strategists, playing a major role in shaping voter opinion.

Literature/Linguistics - 29.02
Listening to the past - new study into the changing accent of Glasgow
A research team, led by Jane Stuart-Smith of the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow has been awarded £235,000 by the Leverhulme Trust to study the evolution of speech in the city over the course of the past century.

Literature/Linguistics - 13.01
I recognise you! But how did I do it?
Are you someone who easily recognises everyone you've ever met? Or maybe you struggle, even with familiar faces? It is already known that we are better at recognising faces from our own race but researchers have only recently questioned how we assimilate the information we use to recognise people.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Literature/Linguistics - 18.11.2011
Mining the language of science
Scientists are developing a computer that can read vast amounts of scientific literature, make connections between facts and develop hypotheses. Ask any biomedical scientist whether they manage to keep on top of reading all of the publications in their field, let alone an adjacent field, and few will say yes.

Literature/Linguistics - Computer Science/Telecom - 22.06.2011
Database explains strange survival of irregular verbs
An historical study of the development of irregular verbs in the hundreds of Romance languages including French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Catalan has revealed how these structures survive.

Literature/Linguistics - 4.02.2011
Hidden pornographic poems explain 'bestseller' success of C18 poetical volumes
Art 04 Feb 11 The title page of the Cabinet of Love, which appears unannounced at the end of The Works, a copy of which is held in the Bodleian. Credit: Bodleian Libraries An Oxford University academic has explained the secret behind the success of two of the best selling volumes of poetic miscellanies in the 18th Century – a series of pornographic poems were hidden at the back of the book.

History/Philosophy - Literature/Linguistics - 6.01.2011
Forgotten chapter in Bible history
New research has uncovered a forgotten chapter in the history of the Bible, offering a rare glimpse of Byzantine Jewish life and culture. The study by the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH) at King's College London, in collaboration with Cambridge University researchers, suggests that, contrary to long-accepted views, Jews continued to use a Greek version of the Bible in synagogues for centuries longer than previously thought.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Literature/Linguistics - 11.11.2010
Real cause of Brecht’s demise revealed
A dogged piece of detective work by a University professor has uncovered the truth about how one of the world's greatest playwrights died 54 years ago. Rumours have long surrounded the official version of Bertolt Brecht's death from a heart attack in 1956 in Communist East Berlin.

Literature/Linguistics - History/Philosophy - 23.10.2010
Austen's famous style may not be hers after all
Arts 23 Oct 10 Austen's 'The History of England', a spoof history written by a teenage Jane Austen. Image by kind permission of the British Library and Jane Austen's Fiction Manuscripts Digital Edition.

Literature/Linguistics - 23.07.2010
University archive inspires Hollywood directors
A film to be made by Hollywood directors Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald was inspired by day diaries kept in the University of Sussex Mass Observation Archive. People around the world are being asked to upload personal films about their lives on YouTube tomorrow (Saturday 24 July) for the biggest ever user-generated film to be made.

Earth Sciences - Literature/Linguistics - 5.05.2010
Scientists celebrate 25th anniversary of ozone hole discovery
An international group of scientists will gather at the University of Cambridge on Friday 7 May 2010 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer, one of the most dramatic scientific findings of modern times.

Literature/Linguistics - 8.10.2009
The letters of Robert Southey to go online
PA 263/09 Thousands of letters written by the controversial Poet Laureate Robert Southey (1774-1843) are to be published in full and for the first time on a free access website. Once complete The Collected Letters of Robert Southey will contain some 7,000 letters penned between 1791 and 1839.

Literature/Linguistics - 25.04
Shakespeare's co-author revealed
All's Well that Ends Well may be a collaboration between William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, Oxford University academics have found. It has long been thought the comedy in the First Folio of 1623 is textually problematic: it has a low incidence of Shakespeare's spelling, inconsistent speech prefixes and unusually narrative phrasing in its stage directions.

History/Philosophy - Literature/Linguistics - 9.03
It’s ‘not’ history
University of Cambridge linguists have pieced together the curious evolving history of the word 'not' across the languages of Europe. In doing so, they suggest that overuse of words such as 'literally' may be a natural linguistic development.

Literature/Linguistics - 12.12.2011
Cambridge gives Newton papers to the world
Isaac Newton's own annotated copy of his Principia Mathematica is among his notebooks and manuscripts being made available online by Cambridge University Library.