Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
The seventh of April 2017 brought with it the sad passing of Ray Guillery FRS, celebrated neurophysiologist and neuroanatomist, world leader in thalamo-cortical communication, and Dr Lee’s professor of anatomy and fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, from 1984 to 1996. Dr Lizzie Burns kindly shares her memories of working with Ray on his final book, The Brain as a Tool, for which she was the illustrator.
Beer has been a vitally important drink through much of human history, be it just as a drink that was safe to consume when water might not have been, through to having significant economic and even political significance. The earliest written laws included regulations on beer, tax income from beer funded centuries of British imperialist conquests, and beer is the subject of the oldest international trademark dispute.
Athletes’ maximum performance, also known as peak performance, is often characterized or accompanied by what is called a “flow state” or “peak experience.” Athletes describe this state as being “on automatic pilot,” “totally involved,” “hot,” “on a roll,” “in a groove,” or “in the zone.” An excellent example is provided by the great German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn in the 2001 champions league final game, between his team FC Bayern Munich and FC Valencia.
When two young veterans came to our elementary school to give a talk and show slides about their experience in Afghanistan, the children were captivated with their presentation. The slides brought to life much of what the soldiers saw and experienced. As the music teacher, I planned to have the children say thank you in a musical way. I didn’t choose a patriotic song, but a song that exemplified the love and appreciation we all had for these soldiers. I chose one song that the entire student body of the school could sing together.
To celebrate Thanksgiving this year, we’ve asked Oxford employees to share their holidays traditions. Referencing The Oxford Companion to Food, we put together a slideshow of fun food facts to accompany some of our favorite traditions.
Distinctive and familiar, loved and loathed by different sections of the public, the badger is iconic of the British countryside. But Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) has discovered that, due to their sensitivity to prevailing weather, badgers, like the proverbial canary in a coal mine, are also sentinels of climate change.
Battles, butchers, and tyrants – CULLODEN. The battle of Culloden took place on 16 April 1746 between the forces of the Catholic “Young Pretender” Charles Edward Stuart, who was at the head of the Jacobites, and those of the government, led by Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland.
Where were you in 1987? Platoon wins the best picture Oscar, the Channel Tunnel gets the go ahead, and The Great Storm batters South East England. Meanwhile in a Greek restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush, Francis Rose and publisher Alistair MacQueen come up with the idea of the Blackstone’s Statutes series. Thirty years later the series is still going strong thanks to careful editorship and a conscientious selection of legislation.
John Pierre, a renowned pastry chef, is making a new batch of chocolate. Not paying attention, he leaves the chocolate in the oven for an extra five minutes by mistake, resulting in the chocolate having a different taste than he had intended. In light of this chef’s mistake, how interested are you in buying this chocolate? Companies, in general, hesitate to release mistakes, much less advertise them to consumers as a unique product.
Pentecostalism is a Christian revival movement. It emerged at the beginning of the 20th century and is marked by a focus on the Holy Spirit and its gifts. Pentecostals believe that the Holy Spirit can award them specific gifts such as the gifts of healing, prophecy, and speaking in tongues. In terms of membership growth, Pentecostalism has been the most successful religious movement in the 20th century.
The MRCP (UK) Part 1 exam set by the Royal College of Physicians is designed to test doctors on a wide range of topics to determine if they have the required level of knowledge to begin their postgraduate training as physician. The exam, which is sat over one day and features 200 multiple-choice (best of five) questions, can first seem very daunting; that’s why we’ve created this quiz to fit easily into your revision schedule.
Since entering office, the Trump administration has diverged from its predecessor on many fronts. Environmental regulation and drug control are two prime examples. Under Scott Pruitt, the EPA has loosened or eliminated numerous Obama administration rules on pollution and jettisoned climate-change research. At the Department of Justice, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has instructed federal prosecutors to seek maximum penalties for drug-law offenders
As we approach the end of 2017, we are also winding down our search for the Place of the Year. Thank you to those of you who participated in the voting period for our Place of the Year 2017 longlist, which took us from Puerto Rico in the tropics to the Arctic further north, to beyond our planet and into the Sun. The top four contenders have moved on to the next round into our shortlist, and we need your help again.
As short as it is, the verb ‘be’ has a range of meanings and uses that have developed over the last 1,500 years. It is—after ‘the’—the second most frequent word in the English language, and if you’re not afraid to use it, it can help you become a better writer. For National Novel Writing Month, we’ve laid out the various uses of ‘be’, taken from the Story of Be, to help aid you with your writing.
This year, Russia was chosen as one of the nominees for Oxford University Press’s Place of the Year. Russia dominated the news cycle throughout the year—from investigations on their interference in the 2016 US elections to Kremlin’s interventions in Ukraine and Syria. The following excerpt from Russia: What Everyone Needs to Know provides an overview of President Vladimir Putin and his meteoric rise to power.
“There are two dominant narratives about the function of higher education today.” Higher Education has changed dramatically over the past few decades, and debates over college costs have intensified. Examining how college funding is associated with course selection, Social Forces Editor Arne L. Kalleberg interviews Natasha Quadlin about her research about the effects of college funding sources.