A St Peter’s professor was found dead at a property in Southmoor, Abingdon on Wednesday night. Police are investigating the incident as murder.

A 49-year-old man has been arrested and is currently being held in custody.

Professor Steven Gregory Rawlings, a Tutorial Fellow in Physics and Professor in Astrophysics, was reported injured after “an incident” at a house on Laurel Drive at 11.22pm, according to Thames Valley Police. The 50-year-old was subsequently pronounced dead at the scene.

The property is believed to belong to Dr Devinder Sivia, a Stipendiary Lecturer in Mathematics for the Sciences at St John’s, who co-wrote a book with Professor Rawlings.

Students at St Peter’s and St John’s were sent emails by their Heads of College yesterday, both of which referred to an ongoing police investigation.

Mark Damazer, Master of St Peter’s, stated, “We are all greatly saddened and shocked. Our deepest condolences go to his wife Linda and all his family, friends, colleagues and students.”

Sir Michael Scholar, President of St John’s, warned students about potential media interest over the coming days “following an incident which took place near Oxford yesterday evening”.

Detective Superintendent Rob Mason, of the Major Crime Unit, said, “The investigation is still in the early stages and we are endeavouring to establish what has happened in the house and we are keeping an open mind until all our enquires are concluded.

“On attendance at the address CPR was administered by a member of the public, police officers and paramedics, but unfortunately the man had passed away.

“Officers have located family members and I would like to extend our condolences to the man’s family and friends at this very difficult time.”

The initial post-mortem was “unable to establish a cause of death at this time.”

Professor Rawlings joined St Peter’s in 1992, holding positions first as a Lecturer in Mathematics, before becoming a professor in 1994. He was Head of the sub-Department of Astrophysics and took leading roles in the international Square Kilometre Array project and the redevelopment of the Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station as a radio astronomy facility.

University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton, said, “The entire University community has been profoundly saddened and shocked by the tragic and untimely death of Professor Steve Rawlings. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.”

Sam Lecacheur, a second year Physicist at St Peter’s, commented, “He really was a good tutor and a great person. He achieved so much in his field, and he was very inspirational as a teacher. What’s happened is a real shock.”

Statistics released on the 10th January by the ‘Campaign to End Poverty’, providing a child poverty map of the whole of the UK, have shown that 22% of children in Oxford are living below the poverty line.

This presents a stark comparison to the 7% child poverty rate found in Witney, the Prime Minister’s own constituency. In Blackbird Leys 36% of children are living in poverty, whilst only 4% of children in St Margaret’s, and 5% of children in Headington are deemed to be below the poverty line.

With cuts and changes to benefits in place, the Institute of Fiscal Studies has previously warned the Coalition Government that unless they alter their approach to tackling national debt, child poverty in the UK could rise by 400,000 by 2015. Peter Skinner, Labour MEP for the South East stated that ‘leaving children on the poverty scrapheap costs us billions picking up the pieces of damaged lives and unrealised potential. It’s a false economy if we don’t prioritise looking after children today.’ Continuing his attack on government policy, he alleged, ‘In the last year the UK economy has flatlined and unemployment has hit a 17 year high as brutal cuts hit places like Oxford. Families will be £1,000 a year worse off and this will push them into poverty.’

He suggested that a better approach to the current economic situation would be Labour’s five point plan, which would fund up to 5,000 jobs for young people in the South East. However, Benjamin Maconick, Keble student and co-chair of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats claimed that ‘yes the average family will be worse off, but there isn’t any way of eliminating a deficit (i.e. cutting spending and raising taxes) that doesn’t make the average family worse off.’ Changing the focus of the debate, he stated that question that should be being asked is why ‘so little was done to address child poverty in the good years? It was virtually stagnant under the Labour government despite the longest sustained period of growth in post war history.’ And the raising income tax threshold, increases in capital gains tax, the continuation of the bank levy and the 50% income tax band were measures that Maconick highlighted to illustrate that the coalition is not ‘targeting’ poor families.’

Reacting to the news, Ameer Kotecha, Vice-President of RAG (Raise and Give), Oxford Student Union’s Fundraising Organisation, explained that RAG’s chosen charities for this year are Refuge, Oxford Development Abroad, Oxford Homeless Pathways and Oxford Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre (OSAARC). He clarified that whilst none specifically deal with child poverty, Refuge assists children suffering from domestic violence, and OSAARC those who have suffered rape. In the past, child poverty charities have been aided and RAG can do so in the future, as any individual is free to nominate a charity for them to support, and the entire student body votes on all nominations.

Oxford City Council is considering implementing a night time patrol to combat excessive noise in the early hours.

The scheme, proposed by Councillor John Tanner, aims to introduce ‘an Environmental Health Officer and a police officer going out in the small hours, looking for noise at key times,’ specifically at the beginning and end of term, and on streets where there have often been complaints.

The intention of the scheme is to ensure that ‘people who have to be up in the morning, including many students, can get a good night’s sleep’. The Council can point to 4, 289 complaints received over the last three years about loud noise and parties.

Despite Tanner’s claim that the patrols are ‘not specifically anti-student’, some students have complained about the scheme. Rhiannon Garth-Jones, a fourth year Classicist who has lived both in Cowley and around Oxford on a barge, noted that ‘noise in Cowley can be quite bad, but that’s from pubs, bars and clubs as much as house parties and it’s part of living in the centre of a city, especially a student city’, going on to point out that ‘both Oxford and Oxford Brookes contribute a lot to the city, and student nightlife is an element of thriving universities’.

She said, ‘a ‘party patrol’ seems a bit like the parents coming round to tell you to turn the lights off and go to sleep. The council could probably find a more adult and effective way to deal with noise issues.’

Henry Blauth, a third year at Balliol, added that rather than a patrol, ‘a little community spirit and co-operation are all that is needed.’

However OUSU’s Communities and Charities Officer, Dan Stone, praised the scheme and explained that ‘students need not be alarmed’ as it was an attempt to ‘to make the existing provisions more efficient.’

Other Councils throughout the UK employ noise patrols at key times, but these tend to be London Boroughs such as Camden, which has a population density three times that of Oxford. Cambridge City Council, for example, do not have a ‘patrol’ as such, but instead an officer on standby who can respond to noise complaints as they are made throughout the night. At present Oxford pays officers to be on call, who may be in Bicester or Abingdon, leading to slow response times.

The scheme is set to cost £12,000, but Tanner explained, ‘we propose to save money by only having people on-call at the peak problem times, between say midnight and four in the morning.’ He stressed that in terms of the patrol in general, they would ‘experiment and see what works’.

A spokesperson for Oxford University stated,’Anyone can be a noisy neighbour, whether or not they are a student. We would of course encourage all students to be considerate about their neighbours.’

On the 8th January, scientists gathered at a symposium in Cambridge to celebrate Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday, an occasion few had imagined they would ever see.

Hawking was given just a few years to live after being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease in 1964, at the age of 20. His condition has progressed over the years and has left him almost completely paralysed and unable to speak.

Brian Dickie, research director at the Motor Neurone Disease Association, stated: “Only five percent live longer than 10 years and in those cases it’s 15 or maybe 20 years. Stephen Hawking is at one extreme end of that spectrum and the quality of his care cannot explain why the disease has progressed so slowly in him.”

Hawking was propelled to fame by his 1980 book A Brief History of Time, in which he outlined the concept of a universe with no boundaries in space or time. It has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. He held the position of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics for thirty years at Cambridge, although he completed his undergraduate degree (in Physics) at University College, Oxford.

In a recent interview Hawking admitted that he regularly completed only an hour of work a day in his early life as a student, commenting, “You were supposed to be brilliant without effort, or to accept your limitations and get a fourth class degree.”

The professor himself was unable to attend the birthday celebrations because he was too unwell. However, the guests enjoyed a pre-recorded version of the lecture in which Hawking spoke of the happiness he felt knowing that he had made a small contribution to our understanding of the universe. He concluded with the following message to his wellwishers, “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”

A lost world of previously unknown creatures has been found flourishing next to boiling vents of water, miles under the surface of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.

The discoveries, made by teams led by the University of Oxford and Southampton in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey, include a new species of yeti crab, a forbidding pale octopus and a predatory seven-armed starfish.

The hydrothermal vents of the East Scotia Ridge are powered by underwater volcanoes, and produce springs of black, smoky water capable of reaching temperatures as high as 400C (752F). They are of interest to deep-sea biologists as they host animals found nowhere else that derive their energy not from sunlight but from the bacterial oxidation of chemicals in the vent fluids. These discoveries therefore help scientists to build a picture of what elements are actually required for life to exist.

The vents were discovered to be competing grounds for massive densities of crabs. Up to 600 of the crustaceans compete for each square metre of land, attempting to get as close as possible to the vents without accidentally cooking themselves in the scalding fissures.

The findings represent the latest in a string of discoveries of crab communities in the South Pacific since the first known yeti crab, the Kiwa hirsuta, was identified in 2005. However, the crabs were not only observed in much greater numbers in the East Scotia Ridge, but discovered to possess a unique physical trait. Whereas the hirsuta is characterised by the long, silky hairs that grow on its claws, thick clumps of hair cling to the undersides of the new species.

Nicolai Roterman, A DPhil student here at Oxford researching the genetic makeup of these creatures, was the mastermind behind a now infamous nickname for the new species. “I dubbed it the ‘Hoff Crab’ owing to its hairy chest”. He explains that the tufts “provide an ideal growing environment for bacteria which are then grazed upon by the crab – sort of using their own bodies as a farm”.

Roterman describes a gruelling work schedule on board the RSS James Cook, the team becoming accustomed to working 16-18 hour shifts over the course of the six weeks in order to make the most of an expensive opportunity. “Occasionally the volume of material found meant that some of us would be working for more than 30 hours straight before being relieved in order that everything was done correctly. This was imperative because you never know if the weather would suddenly deteriorate and potential science hours lost due to rough seas.” Resilience in testing conditions however proved worthwhile when breakthroughs were made – “I think all in all, we were delirious with excitement from the discoveries”.

During the expedition in January 2010, the team used a purpose-built, remotely operated vehicle called the Isis, boasting a HD video camera, a “slurp gun” for picking up delicate invertebrates and a sophisticated acoustic mapping system, to access the deep-sea vents. The ROV, about the size of a Land Rover, cost approximately £3 million to build and is capable of diving 6500m. Without the groundbreaking Isis, the team would not have been able to uncover and unearth some 12,000 samples of rocks, bacteria and other marine life.

The South Pacific is attractive to deep-sea biologists at the cutting-edge of research as it has been considered as an important gateway for the dispersal of vent animals between the other major oceans of the world over geological timescales. “We expected to find a mixture of animals probably reflecting such dispersal, certainly shrimp and possibly mussels and other animals”, says expedition leader and Professor of Conservation Biology Alex Rogers.However, the nature of the sea-life confronting the team surprised as much as it delighted. “We were fairly certain that the Southern Ocean was a major missing piece in our understanding of the distribution of vent species but we never expected something so new.” The Somerville Fellow adds, “what we didn’t find is almost as surprising as what we did. Many animals such as tubeworms, vent mussels, vent crabs, and vent shrimps, which are found in hydrothermal vents in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, simply weren’t there.”

Prof. Rogers explains that the discoveries have significant implications in terms of an understanding of the marine life of the Indian Ocean, rewriting the story of vent biogeography. Just last month, more yeti crabs have been spotted by a research team following the lead of Rogers’ team, based at Southampton.

He hopes that the findings will encourage a new generation of marine biologists to involve themselves in deep-sea research. “With modern research vehicles the images we have are fantastic and really help to engender enthusiasm for the subject. For me, teaching students about the deep ocean is a pleasure. To reveal to anyone for the first time the wonders of the deep ocean and seeing their reactions is always great.”

A report detailing the research has been published in the open-access journal PLoS Biology.