Sheffield joins forces with Futurity

The University of Sheffield, along with six other members of the UK´s Russell Group of leading universities, have joined forces with the US research news website Futurity (www.futurity.org). The move will allow discoveries made by scientists at British institutions to have a much bigger impact across the Atlantic and all over the world. Since launching in September 2009, Futurity has attracted more than 400,000 visitors to stories covering topics such as health, culture, the environment, science, engineering and technology. The site features the latest discoveries from 46 research universities in the United States and Canada—all of which are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU). The project was co-founded and is led by Duke University, Stanford University, and the University of Rochester. Recent posts have profiled a massive black hole devouring a distant star discovered by University of Sheffield astronomers and the finding by University of Leeds researchers that communication between family doctors, specialists and patients can be as effective as drugs in some cases. Membership of Futurity has been restricted to leading universities in North America to ensure the high quality of research but in January, Futurity's members agreed to expand membership to the Russell Group, which represents the 20 leading research universities in the UK.