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About one billion people worldwide take regular aspirin, usually to prevent heart attacks or strokes. Writing in The Lancet , researchers have shown that 'one-dose-fits-all' use of aspirin to prevent heart attacks, stroke or cancer, is ineffective or harmful in the majority of people, and that a more tailored strategy is required.

The struggle to shape the experiences young people have online is now part of modern parenthood. As children and teenagers spend increasing amounts of time online, a significant share of parents and guardians now use Internet filtering tools (such as parental controls) to protect their children from accessing sexual material online.

A study published in The Lancet Psychiatry  provides first evidence that psychological therapy can be successfully delivered in virtual reality (VR). Fear of heights is a significant problem for one in five people at some point in their lives, and most never receive treatment. Although VR has been used in the past for phobias, it has always required a therapist to guide the user through the treatment.

It is widely accepted that the human race originated from Africa - likely from a single ancestral population. However, a new Oxford University research collaboration has challenged this perception of evolution, suggesting that instead of one group growing from a specific region in Africa, our ancestors lived across the entire continent, and as a result, people were diverse both physically and culturally, from the very beginning.

Researchers have made a breakthrough in more precisely targeting drugs to cancers. Using ultrasound and lipid drug carriers (liposomes), a multi-disciplinary team of biomedical engineers, oncologists, radiologists and anaesthetists at the University of Oxford have developed a new way to improve the targeting of cancer drugs to tumours.

The arrival of European settlers, in the Americas, beginning in the 15th century, all but wiped out the dogs that had lived alongside people on the continent for thousands of years, according to new Oxford University-led research published today in Science. However, one close relative of these native dogs lives on in an unexpected place - as a transmissible cancer whose genome is that of the original dog in which it appeared, but which has since spread throughout the world.

Regular contact with healthcare professionals, support from peers and engaging in organised exercise could help people with chronic lung conditions to lead more active - and generally better lives, according to new research. Physical inactivity in those with COPD, a common and preventable respiratory condition that is manageable, but is not currently curable, can lead to poor prognosis across the course of the disease, including increased risk of hospitalisation and death.

European countries do not appear to feel threatened by the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union, a study of media coverage of Brexit has revealed. The study, based on coverage in 39 media outlets in France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden, found that most Brexit reporting was neutral and fact-based.

A new prediction tool for managing patients with suspected high blood pressure in primary care could reduce by half the number of people needing to wear 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitors to confirm a diagnosis of hypertension. High blood pressure - also known as hypertension - affects more than one in four adults in England.

Using data from nearly 74,000 images, volunteer armchair scientists have helped Oxford University researchers to capture and better understand, the breeding habits of penguin breeding colonies across the Antarctic Peninsula, South Shetland Islands and South Georgia. The study features in Scientific Data , and was undertaken as part of Oxford's 'Penguin Watch' programme, which runs as part of the Zooniverse - the world's largest and most popular volunteer science platform.

As World Cup fever sets in, increased hooliganism and football related violence are legitimate international concerns. Previous research has linked sports-related hooliganism to 'social maladjustment' e.g. previous episodes of violence or dysfunctional behaviour at home, work or school etc.

A new framework to understand how uneven the effects of a 1.5°C world are for different countries around the world has been published today in Geophysical Research Letters, led by researchers from the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at the Oxford University Department of Geography. It has been long understood that climate change will affect some regions more severely than others.

As World Cup fever sets in, increased hooliganism and football related violence are legitimate international concerns. Previous research has linked sports-related hooliganism to 'social maladjustment' e.g. previous episodes of violence or dysfunctional behaviour at home, work or school etc.

A new Oxford University research collaboration could transform the design and development of a number of next generation materials, including thermoelectrics, which are used in products that support everyday life, capturing waste heat and recycling it into electricity. A new Oxford University research collaboration could transform the design and development of a number of next generation materials, including thermoelectrics.

New research from the University of Oxford and collaborators at several other institutions provides compelling evidence that meeting the global warming target of 1.5°C may not be enough to limit the damage caused by extreme weather. The paper, published today , demonstrates that higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations directly increase temperature and rainfall extremes, meaning there could be dangerous changes in these extremes even if the global mean temperature rise remains within 1.5°C.

New research from the University of Oxford and UFZ Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany shows the gap between Europe's haves and have-nots has been narrowing over the past 35 years. The paper, a major comparative study of European urban and regional growth patterns, reveals that since 1980 cities and regions across the EU have been converging economically, becoming increasingly similar in per capita incomes and real growth rates.

A new Oxford University collaboration has shed light on the damaging health consequences of Britain's car addiction - revealing that it is likely costing our NHS and society in general more than £6 billion per year. Commissioned by Global Action Plan - who coordinate the forthcoming Clean Air Day (21 June) ,  and conducted in collaboration with the University of Bath, the researchers' in-depth analysis found for the first time that the health impact costs of diesel cars are significantly higher than petrol, electric and hybrid vehicles.

Business Secretary Greg Clark has today launched the £103m Rosalind Franklin Institute (RFI), a national centre of excellence that will harness disruptive technologies such as AI and robotics to improve dramatically our understanding of biology. The development of the RFI was spearheaded by Oxford's Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Professor Ian Walmsley.

Research published in the journal Science highlights the environmental impacts of thousands of food producers and their products, demonstrating the need for new technology to monitor agriculture, and the need for environmental labels on food products. Researchers at Oxford University and the Swiss agricultural research institute, Agroscope, have created the most comprehensive database yet on the environmental impacts of nearly 40,000 farms, and 1,600 processors, packaging types, and retailers.

As microbes have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics and antimicrobials scientists have become interested in new solutions to the growing superbug crisis, including the use of defensive microbes and faecal transplants. In new research, Oxford University scientists have developed a lab-based approach, creating positive co-dependent relationships between hosts and bacteria, quickly - termed 'mutualisms'. These lab-developed bacterial relationships demonstrate how microbes can work with their hosts to prevent infection.