News round-up
Acidic clouds nourish world’s oceans
Researchers from the School of Earth and Environment have discovered that acidic clouds are feeding bioavailable iron to the oceans – a finding which sheds light on the natural processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Acid in the atmosphere breaks down large particles of iron found in dust into small, extremely soluble iron nanoparticles, which are more readily used by plankton. This is an important finding because lack of iron can limit plankton growth, and addition of
iron nanoparticles would trigger increased absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
“There’s only a very small amount of soluble iron in the ocean and if plankton use the iron nanoparticles formed in clouds then the whole flux of bioavailable iron to the oceans needs to be revised,” says Dr Zongbo Shi, lead author of the research which was funded by NERC.
Emily is Woman of the Year
University of Leeds student Emily Cummins, 22, has been named the winner of The Barclays Woman of the Year Award 2009. An enterprise scholar in the final year of a Business Management degree, Emily invented a sustainable fridge that’s ideal for use in the developing world. It requires neither electricity nor solar panels, is built from ordinary household materials and uses energy from the sun to cool medicines and other small items, via evaporation. During her gap year Emily took a prototype to a Namibian township and aims to develop a commercial model.
Ranking maintained
Leeds has maintained its ranking of 101-151 in this year’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) published by the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific and number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science.
The full table is available at http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009_2.jsp
A helping hand for children with dyspraxia
A high-tech robotic arm that can be used to help children with dyspraxia – difficulties with coordination and movement – has been developed by a team of researchers at the University.
Around 5% of children are affected by dyspraxia but, due to limited resources, many only receive limited occupational therapy. The new system allows children to practise fun, therapist-prescribed exercises at home. Using a pen guided by a robotic arm, they push objects along a 3D track shown on a computer screen whilst an interactive
desk-top monitors how they move and measures things like smoothness and speed of movement.
“This project...has the potential to help improve children’s movement and writing skills, opening a window of hope for the many children who experience the profound problems associated with dyspraxia,” says Professor Mark Mon-Williams, Institute of Psychological Sciences, leader of the research team.
