news 2018

From gaseous jets shooting out the center of supermassive black holes to fluorescent tags elucidating the intricacies of the brain, science has a close relationship with light. As a multi-purpose tool, light can reveal hidden functions, magnify areas of interest, provide a means of measurement and trigger activity.

First measurement of its kind could provide stepping stone to practical quantum computing. Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have recorded, for the first time, the "temporal coherence" of a graphene qubit - meaning how long it can maintain a special state that allows it to represent two logical states simultaneously.

The past 12 months have provided many eye-grabbing headlines from the Imperial community, from world-leading research to incredible innovations. Before 2019 is upon us, we take a quick look back at the most popular articles on our award-winning news site (ranked by the number of page views). Here are our top 10 stories of 2018.

Neutrinos, ghostly fundamental particles that are famously difficult to study, could provide scientists with clues about the evolution of the universe. They are so difficult to catch, in fact, that it's possible there's a fourth type that's been hiding right under our noses for decades. Scientists at the UChicago-affiliated Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , site of the most extensive neutrino research in the world, are leading an international collaboration to explore the possibility of a completely new particle.

Exercise more, lose weight, spend less money, learn a new skill - these common New Year's resolutions can be hard to keep. That's why Stanford researchers have looked at how to positively change one's lifestyle. Here are some of their findings. In January, many will set a goal for the New Year that for most will be hard to keep.

In a small trial, brain scans revealed who was most at risk of relapsing after being treated for addiction to stimulants like amphetamines or cocaine. The finding could identify people who need help staying drug-free. Predicting who will remain drug-free and who will relapse following treatment for drug addiction has been impossible - so far.

This year, researchers at Imperial made several important breakthroughs in understanding and potentially treating aggressive cancer types. The past few decades have seen remarkable progress in the survival rates of some cancers - particularly in the developed world, and particularly for cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and bowel.

Some surprise headlines need a second look, and quirky studies can often have serious impact on our lives. From holographic teachers to turtles that breathe through their genitals, here are a handful of the stories that made readers do a double-take in 2018. Napoleon dynamite In August, research from Dr Matthew Genge revealed that electrically charged volcanic ash short-circuited Earth's atmosphere in 1815 causing global poor weather - and Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

UAntwerp researchers from the CMT group, Dr. Mehmet Yagmurcukardes and Prof. Francois Peeters, in collaboration with a team from Manchester have uncovered novel 2D materials. (Nanowerk News) A team of researchers at the National Graphene Institute at The University of Manchester have developed a new method to synthesize 2D materials that are thought to be impossible or, at least, unobtainable by current technologies.

"Magic-angle" graphene named 2018 Breakthrough of the Year; first ionic plane and earliest evidence of hydrogen gas named to top 10 breakthroughs. Three scientific and engineering advances led by researchers in the MIT community have been named to Physics World's  10 Breakthroughs of 2018. One MIT-led discovery received the magazine's top honor: 2018 Breakthrough of the Year.

Why is water densest at around 4 degrees Celsius' Why does ice float? Why does heavy water have a different melting point compared to normal water? Why do snowflakes have a six-fold symmetry? A collaborative study of researchers from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the University of Göttingen and the University of Vienna and just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, provides physical insights into these questions by marrying data-driven machine learning techniques and quantum mechanics.

Big Brains Podcast Climate change's human cost with Michael Greenstone The happiness we feel after a particular event or activity diminishes each time we experience that event, a phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation. But giving to others may be the exception to this rule, according to new research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

On today's increasingly crowded globe, human migration can strain infrastructure and resources. Accurate data on migration flows could help governments plan for and respond to immigrants. Yet these figures, when available, tend to be spotty and error-ridden, even in the developed world. Researchers have developed approaches to estimate migration rates, but even the best of these rely on unrealistic assumptions about the mass movement of people and yield migration rates that can fall far below reality.

The cereal-box sized GomX-4B - ESA's biggest small CubeSat yet flown - has completed its mission for the Agency, testing out new miniaturised technologies including: intersatellite link communication with its GomX-4A twin, a hyperspectral imager, star tracker and butane-based propulsion system. "This multifaceted little mission has performed extremely well in flight," says Roger Walker, overseeing ESA's Technology CubeSats.

The cereal-box sized GomX-4B - ESA's biggest small CubeSat yet flown - has completed its mission for the Agency, testing out new miniaturised technologies including: intersatellite link communication with its GomX-4A twin, a hyperspectral imager, star tracker and butane-based propulsion system. "This multifaceted little mission has performed extremely well in flight," says Roger Walker, overseeing ESA's Technology CubeSats.

ESA's technical centre in the Netherlands has begun running a pulsar-based clock. The 'PulChron' system measures the passing of time using millisecond-frequency radio pulses from multiple fast-spinning neutron stars. Operating since the end of November, this pulsar-based timing system is hosted in the Galileo Timing and Geodetic Validation Facility of ESA's ESTEC establishment, at Noordwijk in the Netherlands, and relies on ongoing observations by a five-strong array of radio telescopes across Europe.

Bacteria make use of a number of natural resistance strategies to overcome antibiotics. And it seems that this bacterial toolbox may be much more varied than previously thought. Scientists at the Institut Pasteur, in collaboration with Inserm, INRA, the CNRS and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, have recently revealed an entirely unknown resistance mechanism in Listeria monocytogenes bacteria.

FINDINGS Emergency medical personnel in Alameda County, California, use a screening process for determining whether to "medically clear" patients experiencing psychiatric emergencies before transporting them. They identify patients who are at low risk for medical emergencies and take them directly to a special psychiatric emergency service facility specifically designed for people experiencing psychiatric crises.

Advances in artificial intelligence have created new threats to the privacy of health data, a new UC Berkeley study shows. The study, led by professor Anil Aswani of the Industrial Engineering & Operations Research Department (IEOR) in the College of Engineering and his team, suggests current laws and regulations are nowhere near sufficient to keep an individual's health status private in the face of AI development.

New research shows that a comprehensive, coordinated care program for people with dementia and their caregivers significantly decreased the likelihood that the individuals would enter a nursing home. The study also shows that the program saved Medicare money and was cost-neutral after accounting for program costs.