Jocelyn Bell Burnell has been elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics.

Katherine Blundell has been awarded the Bragg Medal "For promoting engagement in and learning of physics both by carrying research in astronomy into schools in developing countries and by helping graduate students and postdocs in the UK to talk to schoolchildren about their science."

On Monday 2nd July, the Lindemann Theatre in the Clarendon Laboratory hosted the 'Horizon' BBC film crew, where Robert Taylor (Professor of Condensed Matter) and Marcus du Sautoy (Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics) filmed an episode that was all about temperature scales and the role of Lord Kelvin. They included demonstrations of the transition from normal to superfluid helium and the triple point of nitrogen.

Oxford University Computing Services' OxTALENT program has awarded First Prize in the Student IT Innovation category to Mihran Vardanyan for his development of the iCosmos cosmology calculator.

The IceCube telescope buried beneath the South Pole has failed to detect any high energy neutrinos accompanying exploding fireballs in space, undermining a leading theory of how cosmic rays are born (Nature 484:351,2012).

Physics has long been a male-dominated subject. To fulfil the department's scientific mission, it is vital that we use the full potential of the population and redress that imbalance. Since 2010, the department has been developing a portfolio of new and existing actions to improve the employment conditions and practice for all staff and students. Good practice benefits everyone, but disproportionately benefits women. These actions, and the critical assessment that led to them, are described in our application for an Athena Swan Silver Award.

The prize is awarded annually to the candidate who has displayed excellence in the execution of the scientific method as witnessed by the award of Doctor of Philosophy in Plasma science from a UK or Irish university. The thesis content should exhibit significant new work and originality, clearly driven by the nominee, be well explained and demonstrate a good understanding of the subject. The prize consists of £500 in cash plus an expenses paid trip to the annual IOP plasma physics conference, where the recipient will be asked to give an invited talk.

Oxford Physics researcher Andrew Steele will be competing in the UK final of FameLab on Wednesday evening. His three-minute talk on a scientific topic will be pitted against those from nine other national finalists, selected at heats around the country.

The final will take place at the Royal Institution in London, for those who can’t make it to the capital, it should also be viewable as a live stream online.