In this talk Professor Bell Burnell will describe how unraveling a mysterious pulsating radio signal led to the discovery of an unsuspected new kind of star (now called a pulsar). These bizarre stars have some amazing features. Professor Bell Burnell will outline what we now understand pulsars to be.

Professor Bell Burnell is a Visiting Professor in Oxford, a Pro-Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin, and (the first female) President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh - Scotland's Academy. She discovered pulsars as a graduate student in radio astronomy in Cambridge, opening up a new branch of astrophysics - work recognised by the award of a Nobel Prize to her supervisor.

The STAG Research Centre brings together world-leading academics from three research groups - Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Gravitation - to explore issues of fundamental physics and astronomy.