Reducing toxic mercury emissions Scientists at the University of Oxford are applying their knowledge to inform national and international policy on mercury, which is one of the most dangerous environmental pollutants. www.ox.ac.uk/oxfordimpacts Mercury is an unusual metal – liquid at room Recognising that mercury is a serious environ- temperature, it releases a toxic vapour into the mental and health problem, the Integrating atmosphere which eventually combines with the Knowledge to Inform Mercury Policy (IKIMP), led soil and enters the food chain, causing brain and by Professor Pyle, harnesses scientific knowledge nervous system defects in developing babies. to develop ways to safely store and reduce toxic mercury. IKIMP works closely with the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to provide evidence to the European Union and United Nations (UN) on mercury policy. The UN is now bringing in strict legalisation on mercury – industrial use of mercury will be phased out, the production of new mercury will be banned and it will against the law to move mercury across national borders. IKIMP is now working on understanding mercury’s cycle in nature and how climate change may affect it – forest and peat fires can produce high levels of toxic mercury, for example. The group is also developing better measurement techniques so that it will be possible to track whether atmospheric mercury reduces to safer levels after the implementation of the new UN policies. ‘IKIMP has directly addressed several critical A large fraction of mercury emissions occur as a gaps in the scientific knowledge base result of natural events like volcanic eruptions and underpinning the achievement of these policy forest fires, and understanding this process was the objectives, such as the applicability of proposed original scientific interest of Professor David Pyle methods for mercury storage/disposal and from the Department of Earth Sciences. Manmade understanding the global mercury cycle. Their mercury emissions are mainly produced by industrial future work will be vital in allowing policy makers plants and gold-mining. As mercury can stay in to set practical emission targets.’ the atmosphere for up to a year before it enters Dr Mike Roberts, Defra the food chain, toxic mercury is a global problem irrespective of where it is emitted. www.earth.ox.ac.uk www.mercurypolicy.com 1 Funded by: The Natural Environmental Research Council. Influencing contemporary theatre practice Research on Greek and Roman drama has offered theatre professionals new skills and insights. www.ox.ac.uk/oxfordimpacts This knowledge and expertise, which has been The research team has had significant input at developed by a research team based at the Archive rehearsals, initiating discussions on the historical of Performance of Greek and Roman Drama dimension of drama and performance interpretation. at the University of Oxford through a project This has informed many contemporary productions, that examined the international production and including Katie Mitchell’s National Theatre production reception of classical plays since antiquity, is of Ted Hughes’s translation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, helping to sustain the distinctive and dynamic the Northern Broadsides production of his adaptation nature of the UK theatre sector. of Euripides’ Alcestis and a new version of Euripides’ Medea at the Oxford Playhouse. A series of public lectures led by the group with prominent international theatre directors, including Poland’s Wlodzimierz Staniewski, has drawn much attention from UK theatre practitioners. Researchers have also given public talks on aspects of classical theatre and have been featured on BBC Radios 3 and 4. A large digital archive is widely accessible and of particular interest to directors, composers, designers, choreographers and actors. Since 2005, this online database has received more than 10,000 hits. It has also led to the Onassis Programme, which commissions and produces work by international theatre artists inspired by classical Greek drama and a five-year grant of £400,000 from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation to further the programme’s research. ‘The life of drama is in performance and the archive at Oxford opens up what has been locked in a more narrow academic discipline into a potentially much wider and more generally available field of interest and study.’ Tony Harrison, poet, translator and dramatist www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk 2 Funded by: The Arts and Humanities Research Council. Digitising Jane Austen’s f iction manuscripts For the first time since 1845, Jane Austen’s handwritten manuscripts have been reunited, thanks to digital technology, to reveal fresh understanding of her working methods as a writer. www.ox.ac.uk/oxfordimpacts Few scholars have examined these manuscripts in close detail, and now anyone with an interest in Austen can read her original hand thanks to a project led by Professor Kathryn Sutherland from the English Faculty of the University of Oxford. More than 1,100 pages in total, the manuscripts were written throughout Jane Austen’s life, from childhood through to the year of her death. They were held in a single collection until 1845, when, at her sister Cassandra’s death, they were dispersed. The manuscripts remain scattered in museums and private collections around the world. Professor Sutherland worked in collaboration with the Bodleian Library, the British Library and other libraries and private collectors around the world to produce digital images of Austen’s manuscripts. The owners of the manuscripts have retained the copies of the images and their licence, which greatly enhances their own resources. ‘This has been an intellectually and institutionally In collaboration with King’s College London, fruitful partnership that benefits curators and and with the help of the photographer who scholars alike.’ shot pictures of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Dr Chris Fletcher, Keeper of Western Manuscripts, the highest quality images were taken of every Bodleian Library page. The images were then transcribed and XML encoded to make them fully searchable – even the ‘This immensely rich resource breaks new ground punctuation and the order in which Austen wrote in the online presentation of any author’s can be analysed. manuscript materials by providing painstakingly faithful transcriptions alongside digital facsimiles. Professor Sutherland is now piloting a transcription It enormously enhances remote access and tool for schools which will enable them to interact amplifies the potential for new research into and engage with the manuscripts. They can test Austen’s imagination at work.’ their skills in deciphering Austen’s hand and gain Dr Declan Kiely, Curator, the Morgan Library & Museum, insight into how the mind of the writer worked by New York tracking her writing process. www.english.ox.ac.uk www.janeausten.ac.uk 3 Funded by: The Arts and Humanities Research Council. Preventing strokes Two projects led by Professor Peter Rothwell, from the Department of Clinical Neurology, University of Oxford, are leading to major improvements in the effectiveness of stroke prevention. www.ox.ac.uk/oxfordimpacts The second study has made important advances in understanding how best to prevent strokes related to high blood pressure, which is the most common cause of stroke. Clinical guidelines on management of high blood pressure focus on measuring and treating the average underlying level of blood pressure, but Professor Rothwell and colleagues showed that variability in blood pressure is also a very powerful risk factor for stroke. Crucially, they also found that some drugs currently used to treat high blood pressure actually increase variability and therefore, paradoxically, increase stroke risk despite lowering average blood pressure, whereas others reduce both variability and the average level and are therefore much more effective in preventing stroke. First, results from a series of studies of urgent Given that about half of all adults in the UK have prevention after a minor stroke have been used high blood pressure and that stroke is the most to redesign stroke-prevention services in the UK common complication, these findings have major and elsewhere, and informed the Department implications for the identification of individuals at of Health’s National Stroke Strategy. Professor risk of stroke and for effective prevention. Rothwell and colleagues showed that the early risk of a major stroke after these more minor ‘warning’ ‘This work could have a huge impact on the events was much higher than had previously future prevention of strokes.’ been supposed and that urgent assessment and Joe Korner, The Stroke Association treatment were therefore required. Results from the study (named EXPRESS) indicated that urgent use of existing treatments (including antiplatelet drugs, blood pressure- lowering and cholesterol-lowering drugs) reduced the risk of major stroke by about 80% compared with standard treatment. This strategy is now being rolled out across the UK, with the expectation of preventing about 10,000 strokes per year and saving the NHS up to £200 million in acute care costs alone. www.clneuro.ox.ac.uk Funded by: The Medical Research Council, National Institute of Health 4 Research (NIHR), Stroke Association, Dunhill Medical Trust and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford. One giant leap How the space race influenced art and film was a research interest of Paul Bonaventura, Senior Research Fellow in Fine Art Studies at the University of Oxford’s Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, which he shared with the public by working with the British Film Institute (BFI). www.ox.ac.uk/oxfordimpacts By bringing together creative minds focused on space from different art forms, Mr Bonaventura’s expertise created a rich, cultural and educational experience for visitors. One Giant Leap recorded the second highest ticket sales for a film season in 2009 and the second highest attendance levels for an exhibition in the BFI Gallery. ‘Paul Bonaventura provoked our thinking about curatorial processes and methods of research and consistently brought energy, enthusiasm and insights to the wider planning processes.