NFL fans and ESPN reporters overly optimistic about team prospects

17 September 2015

US fans of the National Football League (NFL) and sports reporters assigned to specific teams have unrealistic expectations about how well their team will perform, finds new research from UCL and Oxford University. The study also reveals which teams are most liked and disliked, as well as which teams have the most optimistic fans.

New England Patriots NFL Football fans at Gillette Stadium, New England Patriots vs. the Dallas Cowboys on October 16, 2011 in Foxborough, Boston, MA

The main results are from an April 2015 survey of 1,116 US-based NFL fans, who were asked to predict how many games their favourite and least favourite teams would win in the 2015 season. As each team plays 16 games and only one team can win each game, the overall average number of wins across all teams will always be eight. However, the average number of wins across all favoured teams as predicted by fans was 9.59, showing that they were all overly optimistic and cannot all be right.

Singula Bio, a new Oxford spin-out company - Cancer need not be fatal

25 February 2021

Singula Bio, a bold new seed-stage biotechnology company spun out of Oxford University, has been launched with the intention of helping show that cancer need not be fatal. Led by three Oxford cancer specialists, the firm is aims to become a world leader in therapies to use against difficult-to-treat solid malignancies such as ovarian cancer - using the body’s own immune system to fight previously fatal cancers.

Major rise in public support for COVID vaccine – Oxford study

24 February 2021

More than three quarters of people in the UK now say they are ’very likely’ to have the vaccine – up from 50% among the same group of survey respondents five months ago –according to a two-wave Oxford University survey published today.

Three ways virtual reality could transform mental health treatment

22 February 2021

Coronavirus vaccination linked to substantial reduction in hospitalisation, real-world data suggests

22 February 2021

The first study to describe the effects in real-world communities of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine has been reported in a pre-print publication today, showing a clear reduction in the risk of hospitalisation from COVID-19 amongst those who have received the vaccine.

Reprogramming tumour cells using an antimalarial drug

18 February 2021

Results from the ATOM clinical trial at the University of Oxford have shown that the anti-malarial drug Atovaquone can reduce very low oxygen tumour environments. This has the potential to make cancers behave less aggressively and to improve the impact of everyday cancer treatments.

Oxford-led technology to help those at high risk from Covid-19

16 February 2021

More people in England at high risk from Covid-19 will get priority access to vaccines thanks to new technology developed by a University of Oxford-led team of researchers that can identify those who may be most vulnerable to the virus.