#University of Portsmouth

[thepastisalreadywritten]

[materialsscienceandengineering]

A detailed plan to transform product packaging and significantly cut plastic production and pollution has been developed by researchers. The study comes as government representatives meet in Paris to negotiate a legally binding global plastics treaty with a mandate to end plastic pollution. The research, published today by the University of Portsmouth's Global Plastics Policy Centre, commissioned by the Break Free From Plastic movement, consolidates 320 articles and papers, plus 55 new interviews with reuse experts from around the world [1], to suggest a universal definition of reuse systems and, for the first time, assess how all nations can move away from throw-away packaging. Packaging is responsible for 40% of all plastic in the EU, and plastic packaging waste is set to grow by 46% by 2030, according to the European Commission. The 10 most commonly found single-use plastic items on European beaches, alongside fishing gear, represent 70% of all marine litter in the EU, it says. Reuse systems could cut plastic pollution by 30 percent by 2040.

Read more.

[designernadia]

#university of Portsmouth library ☺️

#resarch&practice

[syntaclenig]

Blooming from doubt.

Yinka’s hands trembled, the weight of the operations management textbook, a reminder of what was to be. Sunlight streamed through the double paned library windows, illuminating aisles of library shelves, computers, students and desks. The library, an amoebic shaped theatre of unending dreams stood at what looked like the centre of the University of Portsmouth, well, at least from experience of…

[jscarrattgraphicdesign]

This project was completed as part of a module called Live Design Briefs during my second year at the University of Portsmouth, the module consisted of picking one of the briefs from the D&AD New Blood awards. I picked a brief from Gymshark with the goal to design an app to tie into Gymsharks main products and makes use of their social media image they’ve already built. I designed a partner app to a fitness app they already have that could help people to prepare for careers that require a certain level of fitness.

[reportwire]

New link between fatal muscle wasting disease gene and cancer discovered

Newswise — Mutations of the gene encoding dystrophins have long been known to cause the debilitating muscle-wasting disease DMD, which affects one in every 5,000 boys born. People with the condition will usually only live into their 20s or 30s. Now, a study, led by the University of Portsmouth, has found that the same gene has a role in oncology. A team of international researchers analysed a…

[anky123]

This post will show you the Top 4 Universities that you can join without IELTS in the UK. This post has the details to get into universities such as the University of Plymouth, the University of Portsmouth, and many more. To know more, read it and contact our UK study visa consultants in Chandigarh today.

[newsfromtherooftop]

Students share love of reading to asylum-seeker children

University of Portsmouth has been sharing their love of reading with asylum-seeking families | Initiative with Illustration staff and students to help families #University #PCoS

The University of Portsmouth has been helping children from asylum-seeking families to enjoy books and reading. BA (Hons) Illustration staff and students developed a reading and drawing project to invite families from the Portsmouth City of Sanctuary (PCoS) asylum seeker community into the University Library. Working with Anita David from PCoS, children and their families with little access to…

[brutalistinteriors]

Portsmouth Polytechnic library, now University of Portsmouth. ABK Architects.

[jamesfitzjamesdotcom]

Dissertation, Fitzertation!

Today I handed in my dissertation for the MA Naval History at the University of Portsmouth. I didn't have nearly enough words to tell the full Fitzjames story, but at least I now have a draft of the biography. After two years of doing the MA, I'm excited to now have more time to devote to writing the Fitzjames biography and the Fitzjames letters book. While also writing my FitzBarrow romance historical fiction on the side. 💕 The Fitzfuture is looking goooood!

I would also like to again say how much I appreciate the support I get from people. You guys keep me going. 🙏

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

African Social Spiders: these spiders live in colonies that can contain up to 2,000 spiders, most of which are female; they hunt, forage, maintain their web, and raise their offspring as a group, without any dominance hierarchy or caste system

This communal behavior is extremely rare among spiders, which are normally solitary creatures. The African social spider (Stegodyphus dumicola) is one of the few species that has been identified as a true "social spider," forming colonies and living in communal nests where the spiders work together to hunt, forage, build webs, and care for their offspring.

Above: an African social spider feeding the young spiderlings of her colony by regurgitating food for them, exhibiting a level of maternal/allomaternal care that is relatively uncommon in both spiders and insects

African social spiders can be found in various parts of southwestern Africa, where they will often build a dense silk nest in the branches of a thorn tree and/or shrub. Most of the spiders in the colony are female (more than 85%, according to some studies) and the species itself also has a female-biased primary sex ratio, as researchers have found that female embryos develop in more than 80% of the eggs that the spiders produce.

Above: a group of African social spiders working together to subdue their prey, which will be taken back to the nest so that it can be shared with the rest of the colony

There is no evidence that any dominance hierarchy or caste system exists within S. dumicola colonies. The spiders all cooperate to complete a variety of tasks, such as hunting, repairing the web, foraging, defending the colony, caring for the colony's offspring, etc. While none of them are exclusively assigned to a single task, many have a primary role that they fill, often based on their physical size and condition.

Above: close-up photo of S. dumicola

This species also engages in extreme allomaternal care, meaning that many different spiders (including both mothers and "allomothers") all share the responsibility of caring for the colony's offspring; even the unmated females help out with brood care. The mothers/allomothers tend to the eggsacs, regurgitate food for the baby spiderlings, and even engage in matriphagy, which means that they will eventually be cannibalized by the babies.

From The Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior:

... some proportion of females do not reproduce – sometimes as much as 60% – but remain as helpers, contributing to foraging and brood care (allo-mothering). Both breeding females and virgin allo-mothers regurgitate food for colony offspring and eventually let the young consume their bodies. ...

Young that are raised with both mothers and allo-mothers show higher survival and growth than young raised by their mothers alone, suggesting a clear fitness benefit of cooperative breeding.

Spiders of this species generally measure about 2.5 - 3.5mm long; they can be found in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho, and Eswatini.

Sources & More Info:

Science Direct: Social Spiders

Current Biology: Quick Guide to Social Spiders (PDF)

Phys.org: Untangling the Social Lives of Spiders

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: The Age & Evolution of Sociality in Stegodyphus Spiders

Entomology Today: Social Spiders Divide Labor According to Body Size & Condition

Animal Behaviour: Extreme Allomaternal Care by Unmated Females in a Cooperatively Breeding Spider

National Geographic: Baby Spiders Eat their Mothers

University of Portsmouth: Social Spiders Have Different Ways of Hunting in Groups

Behavioral Ecology: Spider Societies Mitigate Risk by Prioritizing Caution

Behavioral Processes: Warring Arthropod Societies

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology: Does the African Social Spider Stegodyphus dumicola Control the Sex of Individual Offspring?

[elephantaday]

Day 955 of posting pictures of elephants.

Source: University of Portsmouth

[jscarrattgraphicdesign]

I called it Gymshark X Careers and focused on tying in the fitness requirements within the various police forces of the UK as well as the army. The results were branding material and a presentation to be presented to a review board at the D&AD New Blood awards.

[probablyasocialecologist]

An innovation that propelled Britain to become the world’s leading iron exporter during the Industrial Revolution was appropriated from an 18th-century Jamaican foundry, historical records suggest. The Cort process, which allowed wrought iron to be mass-produced from scrap iron for the first time, has long been attributed to the British financier turned ironmaster Henry Cort. It helped launch Britain as an economic superpower and transformed the face of the country with “iron palaces”, including Crystal Palace, Kew Gardens’ Temperate House and the arches at St Pancras train station. Now, an analysis of correspondence, shipping records and contemporary newspaper reports reveals the innovation was first developed by 76 black Jamaican metallurgists at an ironworks near Morant Bay, Jamaica. Many of these metalworkers were enslaved people trafficked from west and central Africa, which had thriving iron-working industries at the time. Dr Jenny Bulstrode, a lecturer in history of science and technology at University College London (UCL) and author of the paper, said: “This innovation kicks off Britain as a major iron producer and … was one of the most important innovations in the making of the modern world.” The technique was patented by Cort in the 1780s and he is widely credited as the inventor, with the Times lauding him as “father of the iron trade” after his death. The latest research presents a different narrative, suggesting Cort shipped his machinery – and the fully fledged innovation – to Portsmouth from a Jamaican foundry that was forcibly shut down.

[...]

The paper, published in the journal History and Technology, traces how Cort learned of the Jamaican ironworks from a visiting cousin, a West Indies ship’s master who regularly transported “prizes” – vessels, cargo and equipment seized through military action – from Jamaica to England. Just months later, the British government placed Jamaica under military law and ordered the ironworks to be destroyed, claiming it could be used by rebels to convert scrap metal into weapons to overthrow colonial rule. “The story here is Britain closing down, through military force, competition,” said Bulstrode. The machinery was acquired by Cort and shipped to Portsmouth, where he patented the innovation. Five years later, Cort was discovered to have embezzled vast sums from navy wages and the patents were confiscated and made public, allowing widespread adoption in British ironworks. Bulstrode hopes to challenge existing narratives of innovation. “If you ask people about the model of an innovator, they think of Elon Musk or some old white guy in a lab coat,” she said. “They don’t think of black people, enslaved, in Jamaica in the 18th century.”

[newsfromtherooftop]

International recognition for film exploring gender-based violence

International recognition for film exploring gender-based violence | Animation reflects on violence against women in South Sudan @portsmouthuni #VAWG #SouthSudan

An animated film produced by academics at the University of Portsmouth, that reflects on and explores violence against women in South Sudan, has received awards at several international film festivals. The animation was produced by Dr Louis Netter, Senior Lecturer in Illustration in the School of Art and Design at the University of Portsmouth, for a research project by Professor Tamsin Bradley,…