Science - News & Events | Trinity College Dublin

Pesticides detected in pollen and nectar may pose a long-term hazard for pollinators

Pesticides have been detected in flowers not targeted with the chemicals that could be an additional, underestimated threat to pollinators according to new findings by Trinity and DCU, published in the Science of the Total Environment.

6 Apr 2023

Environment|Research|Science|Sustainability

Rare 14-ft smalltooth sand tiger shark washes up on Wexford shore

A huge 14ft smalltooth sand tiger shark washed up at Kilmore Quay, Co. Wexford, this weekend. Scientists believe it to be the first official record of the species being found in Ireland’s waters.

4 Apr 2023

Environment|Research|Science

Dr Susan Murphy wins highly prestigious ERC Starting Grant award

The funding of €1.5 million will help Trinity team transform the field of international development governance theory and practice.

21 Mar 2023

Awards and Funding|Research|Science

Indigenous Ashaninka DNA helps geneticists write new chapters of pre-colonial history in South America

Geneticists have written new chapters in the reconstruction of pre-colonial Americas history after using DNA from the indigenous Ashaninka people from Amazonian Peru.

16 Mar 2023

Research|Science

We used to think diamonds were everywhere. New research suggests they’ve always been rare

Emma Tomlinson, Assistant Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, co-authored this piece about what her collaborative research is teaching us about the formation of diamonds throughout time.

16 Mar 2023

Environment|Research|Science

Rock stars solve long-standing diamond conundrum

Three researchers from Queensland University of Technology and Trinity College Dublin have solved a long-held geological conundrum about how diamonds formed in the deep roots of the earth’s ancient continents.

16 Mar 2023

Research|Science

Hacking the brain’s accelerator: novel therapies for epilepsy?

On Thursday 23rd March, Professor Mark Cunningham, Ellen Mayston Bates Professor of Neurophysiology of Epilepsy and the Head of the Discipline of Physiology at Trinity College Dublin, will deliver his inaugural lecture entitled “Hacking the brain’s accelerator: novel therapies for epilepsy?”. The lecture will take place in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute at 6pm, and you can register for it here. The lecture is free and open to the public.

9 Mar 2023

Health|Research|Science

Fresh understanding of ageing in the brain offers hope for treating neurological diseases

Scientists from the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) have shed new light on ageing processes in the brain. By linking the increased presence of specialised immune cells to conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury for the first time, they have unearthed a possible new target for therapies aimed at treating age-related neurological diseases.

8 Mar 2023

Health|Research|Science

Trinity and Cambridge scientists unearth potential new therapeutic target for inflammatory diseases

Scientists working in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute at Trinity have made an important breakthrough in understanding what goes wrong in our bodies during the progression of inflammatory diseases and – in doing so – unearthed a potential new therapeutic target.

8 Mar 2023

Health|Research|Science

Minister Malcolm Noonan announces €1.5 million in funding to transform Trinity’s herbarium

The funding will enable Trinity to transform, digitise and safeguard its herbarium by providing physical infrastructure and enable the digitisation of 400,000 specimens, some of which are centuries old – making them easily accessible to the international research community as well as the public.

8 Mar 2023

Awards and Funding|Environment|Research|Science

Creativity and brain science collide at Creative Brain Week 2023

The exciting week-long event puts Ireland on the world stage, hosting global experts to discuss creativity's impact on our health and well-being through the themes of conflict, joy and imagination.

6 Mar 2023

Five Trinity teams to inspire public engagement with STEM via SFI Discover Programme awards

The winning projects are among those to have secured funding in the latest Science Foundation Ireland Discover Programme competition, which is designed to empower and inspire deep public engagement with STEM education.

6 Mar 2023

Awards and Funding|Science

Bees’ pesticide risk is species and landscape-dependent

In a new study, ecologists have shown that bees' pesticide exposure depends upon their interaction with the environment, meaning different species face different risks in any given environment.

2 Mar 2023

Environment|Research|Science|Sustainability

School of Physics hosts Diversity in Quantum Event

The School of Physics joined forces with SandboxAQ, a US based quantum technology company, to celebrate and promote diversity in the rapidly growing field of quantum science and technology.

1 Mar 2023

Research|Science

Scientists synthesise cerium mineral which holds promise for biomedical research

Trinity geoscientists have developed a cheap and environmentally friendly method for the synthesis of the rare earth mineral which holds promise for the treatment of diseases associated with inflammation, including cancer.

1 Mar 2023

Environment|Health|Research|Science

Ireland has lost almost all of its native forests – here’s how to bring them back

Martha O'Hagan Luff, Associate Professor in Trinity Business School, explains why it is important that we re-establish native forests in Ireland and how we can do it in this piece first published by The Conversation.

27 Feb 2023

Environment|Science|Sustainability

School of Engineering has six projects shortlisted for national climate challenge fund

The six teams were short-listed among a group of 26 teams for their exciting proposals to create real-world solutions to support Ireland’s drive towards climate neutrality by 2050.

16 Feb 2023

Awards and Funding|Environment|Research|Science

Majority of tourism visits have no identifiable impact on environment

New research from the School of Natural Sciences suggests the “Conservation versus tourism” narrative is false.

7 Feb 2023

Environment|Research|Science

Professor Cliona O’Farrelly named 2022 AAAS Fellow

Cliona has been honoured for her outstanding achievements as a researcher in the field of comparative immunology.

31 Jan 2023

Awards and Funding|Research|Science

Trinity researchers secure prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant awards

Drs Sarah Doyle and Marius de Leeuw have been successful in the latest round of results, which have been released today. They will explore how we can harness our immune system to fight blindness and seek models that could help us understand and explore uncharted sub-fields of physics.

31 Jan 2023

Awards and Funding|Research|Science

Novel gene therapy shows promise for treating multiple eye diseases

The gene therapeutic approach, which shows promise for treating age related macular degeneration (AMD), may also be effective in treating other eye conditions such as glaucoma. It provided benefit in three additional models of mitochondrial dysfunction, including cells taken from patients living with an optic neuropathy.

30 Jan 2023

Health|Research|Science

Size matters! Flock numbers and new faces are important in boosting flamingo populations

Flocking flamingos in groups of 50 or more and introducing new faces to a population may hold the keys to encouraging successful reproduction, according to a study published this month in Zoo Biology, which was led by Trinity zoologists.

26 Jan 2023

Environment|Research|Science

Discovery offers significant hope for improved vaccines

Scientists have discovered there is a “Goldilocks” effect in identifying the size of a “vaccine adjuvant” that can trigger strong immune responses and, as an example, have shown that a safe, biodegradable adjuvant can boost the action of cancer-killing cells – if the particles are the correct size.

20 Jan 2023

Health|Research|Science

Bees exposed to EU’s most common weedkiller via wildflower nectar

Bees may be at risk from exposure to glyphosate – an active ingredient in some of the EU’s most commonly used weedkillers – via contaminated wildflower nectar, according to new research from Trinity and DCU scientists.

17 Jan 2023

Environment|Research|Science|Sustainability

Humans continue to evolve with the emergence of new genes

Modern humans evolutionarily split from our chimpanzee ancestors nearly 7 million years ago, yet we are continuing to evolve – with new analyses conducted by scientists from Trinity highlighting that two new human-specific “microgenes” have arisen from scratch.

20 Dec 2022

Research|Science

Immune surprise: unexpected function for recently evolved alarm molecule in driving inflammation

Scientists from Trinity have made an important breakthrough in understanding how inflammation is regulated. They have just discovered that a key immune alarm protein previously believed to calm down the immune response actually does the opposite.

16 Dec 2022

Health|Research|Science

Professor Luke O’Neill appointed to ERC Scientific Council

Composed of 22 distinguished researchers representing the European scientific community, the Council is the independent governing body of the European Research Council (ERC). Its main role is setting the ERC strategy and selecting the peer review evaluators.

8 Dec 2022

Research|Science

Ancient amphibians had their bones cooked

Scientists have solved a decades-long mystery as to why ancient tetrapods – amphibian-like creatures that lived over 300 million years ago – preserved in one of Ireland’s most important fossil sites seemingly had their bones cooked after they died.

7 Dec 2022

Environment|Research|Science

Genetic causes of bone tumours discovered in 1,000-year-old Irish skeletons

Two men buried long ago in a medieval graveyard in Co. Donegal had a genetic condition called Multiple Osteochondromas, which causes benign bone tumours. One of the disease mutations is a new discovery, so this is the first time such information has been unlocked from ancient genomic data.

5 Dec 2022

Health|Research|Science

Scientists homing in on why COVID-19 affects people so differently

Researchers from the Institut Pasteur, Inserm, St. James’s Hospital Dublin and Trinity are getting closer to understanding what makes some people so vulnerable to COVID-19-induced illness, which in turn may guide the development of new therapeutic strategies.

1 Dec 2022

Health|Research|Science