Analysis: How the brain builds a sense of self from the people around us - new research

Here's a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial. From commencing a space study despite COVID-19 challenges, to a new drug and diet combo treatment for cancer, here is some quick-read news from across the College.

Low-income workers are almost twice as likely to be laid-off or furloughed as high-income workers, according to a new UCL study examining income and consumption effects of Covid-19. The working paper, published by Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research , highlights that a significant proportion of those low-income workers - 70 percent from the bottom fifth of the income distribution - have struggled to afford living costs.

People from BAME backgrounds have had higher levels of depression and anxiety throughout the Covid-19 lockdown, as well as lower levels of happiness and life satisfaction, finds UCL's Covid-19 Social Study.

In an in-depth study, Agroscope analysed the possible environmental impacts of implementing the Drinking-Water Initiative. The life-cycle assessment shows that pesticide and nutrient pollution of Swiss water bodies and groundwater could be reduced.

An international team of scientists from Austria, Germany and Ukraine has found a new superconducting system in which magnetic flux quanta can move at velocities of 10-15 km/s. This opens access to investigations of the rich physics of non-equilibrium collective systems and renders a direct-write Nb-C superconductor as a candidate material for single-photon detectors. The results are published.

Breast cancer patients who are overweight or obese might benefit less from treatment with docetaxel, a common chemotherapy drug, than lean patients. An international team of researchers based this conclusion on a retrospective analysis of data from a large clinical trial.