The week started with nationwide coverage of a study co-led by Professor Nilesh Samani, Head of the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, revealing 13 genes recently linked to heart disease. Following the coverage on Sky News (6 March), Monday saw the story appear in the Daily Mail (7 March), Daily Express (7 March), the Scotsman (7 March) and references in the Sun (7 March) and Daily Mirror (7 March). It was covered by local newspapers including the Leicester Mercury (7 March) and Glasgow Herald (7 March) and websites internationally, including Top News New Zealand (7 March) and Isaude.net (7 March). Professor Samani also gave an interview for ITV Central (7 March).

A number of academics were in the media spotlight this week:

Head of the Space Research Centre Professor George Fraser was interviewed on the viability of a spaceport in Moray, Scotland, for STV (9 March);

Professor Paul Cooper of the School of Education discussed the lack of Special Educational Needs training in schools in SecEd (11 March);

Drs Philip Lynch and Richard Whitaker from the Department of Politics and International Relations wrote a blog for global news agency Reuters (8 March) on how UKIP could replace the Liberal Democrats as the ‘third-party’ in the UK;

The Department of Geology’s Dr Richard England commented on the magnitude of the earthquake that hit Japan this week, and his comments were picked up by NERC (11 March);

Research in Archaeology and Ancient History on ‘chemical warfare’ in ancient times received a second tranche of media coverage following the original release in January 2009!  The same story appeared in a number of international publications including the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (10 March)

And Gabi Witthaus from the Beyond Distance Research Alliance was interviewed by the Guardian Weekly (8 March) about utilising online tools like Second Life for the MA Tesol course at Leicester.

The One Show also filmed the Department of Biology’s Professor Heslop-Harrison in a piece to be broadcast soon.