News: January 2019

Prestigious early career award goes to PhD student

Publication date: 31 January 2019

Psychology PhD Student dances her PhD for international competition

Publication date: 31 January 2019

True cost of gambling underestimated, say new publications

The current focus on individual ‘problem gamblers’ fails to take into account the full health and social cost of gambling because it overlooks the wider impact on families, friends and communities, according to new work published today.

The joint work by Bangor University, Public Health Wales, Heather Wardle Research and Swansea University also shows that problem gambling rates are highest in the most deprived communities of Wales

Publication date: 29 January 2019

Cancer Research Wales funding boosts efforts to fight Cancer at Bangor

The majority of people will have been affected directly or indirectly by cancer. Though curing cancer remains an enormous challenge, years of gradual progress have resulted in earlier diagnosis, improved treatments and increased survival times for many cancer patients. 

Publication date: 21 January 2019

Enhanced research reporting method to improve patient care

Patients could benefit from improved care and outcomes thanks to new research reporting guidance developed from a study that Bangor University researchers contributed to.

Experts have developed an approach that enables better reporting of findings from the combination of qualitative studies such as information garnered from patient interviews and focus groups.

The study has led to the creation of the first-ever tailored reporting guidance for the methodology, known as meta-ethnography. It will give researchers and healthcare bosses greater confidence in the findings of qualitative studies and, ultimately, aid the improvement of patient care and services.

Publication date: 17 January 2019

Exercise can fast-track your workplace well-being - here's how

Exercise has been found to reduce stress, increase positive mood, decrease anxiety and alleviate depression. But you may not know that the emotional well-being associated with exercise is also linked to key attributes that can help us while we work.

This article by Rhi Willmot, PhD Researcher in Behavioural and Positive Psychology at the School of Psychology is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Publication date: 17 January 2019

Call for Applications: British Library PhD research placements scheme

Publication date: 15 January 2019

How our unconscious visual biases change the way we perceive objects

 As the old saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But while we can appreciate that others might hold different opinions of objects we see, not many people know that factors beyond our control can influence how we perceive the basic attributes of these objects. We might argue that something is beautiful or ugly, for example, but we would be surprised to learn that the same object is perceived as a sphere by one person but as a cube by another.

This article by Beverley Pickard-Jones, PhD Researcher, at the School of Psychology is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Publication date: 15 January 2019

Assessing the value of dementia support groups

New ageing and dementia research at Bangor University will soon be underway, with a team from the Bangor Institute of Health and Medical Research in the School of Health Sciences being the only university in Wales to be awarded funding as part of the ESRC-NIHR Dementia Research Initiative 2018.

This programme of work, led by partners at University College London, centres around people living with rare dementias, and will involve the first major study of the value of support groups for people living with or caring for someone with a rare form of dementia.

Publication date: 10 January 2019

Why foraging for free is food for the soul

 In the past few years, there’s been a resurgence in the idea of foraging for food. The practice of hand gathering plants and animals for bait, money or the table has long taken place, but more recently top chefs have been popularising the idea, while urban foragers have told of the lengths they go to to find wild food in big cities.

This article by PhD candidate at the School of Ocean Sciences, Elisabeth S. Morris-Webb, is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Publication date: 10 January 2019

“For services to tackling poverty abroad and to education in Derby”

Dr Daljit Singh Virk, a Senior Research Fellow at Bangor University is to receive the OBE.

The award recognises the impact of Dr Virk’s scientific contributions as geneticist and plant breeder as well as his leading role in establishing the Sikh faith Akaal Primary School, in Derby in 2015. The free school was established under the Academies Act.

Dr Virk has been at the heart of one of Bangor University’s most impactful research projects, which has contributed to improved food security and livelihoods for millions of households in some of the most impoverished countries.

Publication date: 8 January 2019

Lynette Roberts: Welsh poet who fused touch and sight into sound

The name of Lynette Roberts may not be the first that springs to mind in the history of Welsh writing in English, possibly because her futuristic poetry of World War II still sounds new and strange. In her epic poem Gods With Stainless Ears she imagines postwar humans in a technologised, ecologically damaged landscape:

This article by Zoë Skoulding, Reader in English at the School of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Publication date: 2 January 2019