As the festive season approaches, the debate of Mash vs Roast potatoes takes centre stage in the culinary conversations of Christmas dinner enthusiasts. The University of Warwick weighs in on this perennial debate, delving into the historical significance of the potato and offering an expert opinion from food historian and professor Rebecca Earle.

The expanding clutter in space, driven by an influx of orbiting satellites, poses a significant challenge. This surge in space traffic is accelerating the build-up of discarded satellite parts, rocket remnants, and other fragments of debris, threatening critical spacecraft. Committed to tackling this issue, experts at the University of Warwick are studying these burgeoning hazards to safeguard our satellite infrastructure – and of course, make the path clear for Father Christmas.

Christmas Dinners are one of the UK’s most cherished traditions, and Christmas menus have evolved greatly over the years. Today, turkey is the typical meat of choice, going back 500 years it was beef, venison, and wild boar in Henry VIII’s festive feasts. Looking to the future, researchers at the University of Warwick think that lab-grown meat, or cultivated meat, might end up being the centrepiece on our Christmas tables.

Christmas landed at the University of Warwick this week, as Christmas Lecturers made a return for another year. They featured some of the university's most esteemed scientists stepping out of their labs to amaze attendees in the spirit of Christmas.

The University of Warwick is bringing together its students, staff and the local community to celebrate the Spirit of Togetherness this Christmas with a diverse programme of activities, events and shows.  

As scores of children prepare to look to the skies this Christmas Eve, they will be relieved to know scientists are helping to clear a path for Santa in space.

New research shows that attending a Cathedral Christmas Carol Service has a positive impact on mental health and well-being.

Physicists at the University of Warwick will be working their way onto your Christmas viewing schedules as their spectacular Christmas Lectures return once again, with a little bit of Christmas magic (explained by physics). The University of Warwick Department of Physics has moved its annual science extravaganza online and they are available from 15 December.

A slime Santa beard has been made by Ian Hands-Portman at the University of Warwick using slime molds, a myxomycete which is a single giant cell with multiple nuclei that lives in dark damp places and likes to feed off bacteria and fungi and things that have started to decay.

Lasers, chemical reactions and the biggest explosion allowed in Warwick Arts Centre are among the spectacles promised at this year’s Christmas Lectures at the University of Warwick.

For many families, sitting down to watch a Christmas Special is as much a part of the holiday season as the Queen’s Speech, a carol service in the parish church, or a trip to the pantomime.But when did the tradition of a holiday-themed premiere start? Professor Paul Raffield of Warwick Law School argues that the Christmas special can be traced back to the creative mind of William Shakespeare, and specifically the premiere of The Comedy of Errors at Gray’s Inn on 28 December 1594.

You can offset some of the effects of Christmas overindulgence with a few easy steps – quite literally!

Today we associate sharing ghost stories round a fire with Hallowe'en - but for the Victorians, a spine-chilling tale in front of the hearth was an essential Christmas tradition. It's one of which Charles Dickens was a master. But were his tales drawn from imagination...or from real life? Dr Fabio Camilletti from Warwick’s School of Modern Languages and Cultures investigates one possible source of Dickens' terrifying Christmas tales.

Say goodbye to tangled up Christmas lights, as self-lighting Christmas trees could be the future thanks to scientists from the Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre (WISB) at the University of Warwick using VR.

Coventry’s universities are to embark on a series of collaborations to bring their research directly to Coventrians in the run up to UK City of Culture 2021.

Working with local cultural groups the University of Warwick and Coventry University will collaborate on 13 projects during the spring and summer of 2018 that will support Coventry City Council’s Cultural Strategy.

Partying, pantomime, feasting and gift-giving are all established traditions of the Christmas season. At the same time of the year over 2000 years ago, Romans had the very same customs in celebration of a different festival – Saturnalia.

BRANDY is the UK’s favourite Christmas spirit, according to research into our festive online searches from the University of Warwick.

Santa’s winter workshop might be in space, as University of Warwick researchers are exploring whether snowy moons over a billion kilometres away from Earth are potentially habitable.

University of Warwick researcher Professor Nickie Charles looks at the ways we make our dogs and other companion animals part of our Christmas and asks whether pets really enjoy the rituals of Christmas alongside their human companions.

A researcher at the University of Warwick is challenging the theory that ‘Santa got stuck up the chimney’ by suggesting that he uses ‘quantum tunnelling’ to get himself in and out of our homes.