science wire

The year 2023 has been one of innovation, growth and achievement across UCL, with the launch of the new UCL East campus, a visit from the Queen, and the accolade of being named University of the Year by the Times and Sunday Times.

Scientists at the UCL Institute of Immunity & Transplantation (IIT) are part of a team to receive £997,000 from the Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge, a new partnership involving The Steve Morgan Foundation, Diabetes UK and JDRF.

A re-usable vest that can map the electrical activity of the heart in fine detail could potentially be used to better identify people at high risk of sudden cardiac death, suggests a new study led by UCL researchers. Electrical signals trigger our hearts to contract, regulating our heartbeat. Problems with these signals result in heart rhythm disorders, experienced by two million people in the UK, and can cause sudden death.

In The Conversation, Dr Susannah Fisher (UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction) says COP28 only managed to yield incremental progress on tackling climate change, and that the wait for a genuine leap forward at the necessary pace and scale goes on.

A decades-long decline in smoking prevalence in England has nearly ground to a halt since the start of the pandemic, according to a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, funded by Cancer Research UK and published in the journal BMC Medicine , looked at survey responses from 101,960 adults between June 2017 and August 2022.

UCL has published a new policy and agreed on an initial five-year action plan to create campuses that are inclusive, welcoming and accessible to everyone in our community.

UCL has published a new policy and agreed on an initial five-year action plan to create campuses that are inclusive, welcoming and accessible to everyone in our community.

Scientists at UCL are helping to develop an experiment to test whether gravity is quantum - one of the deepest questions about our universe.

Professor Iain Borden (UCL Bartlett School of Architecture) and Dr Patrick Quinn (UCL Institute of Archaeology) reflect on Historic Environment Scotland's proposition to add a skatepark near Edinburgh to its roster of historic sites.

A new effort to more fully understand children's experiences of living in temporary accommodation in Scotland will be co-led by a UCL researcher.

A new study by UCL researchers shows how it's possible to phase out fossil fuels without sacrificing electoral popularity - even in coal mining regions. The new paper, published in the American Political Science Review , illustrates how a government that phased out coal mining was able to avoid a backlash from the affected coal regions.

Dr Youba Sokona (UCL Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy), with other academics, highlights a new report into actions that could be taken across Africa to address climate change and improve public health in The Conversation.

Reducing oxygen levels in critically ill children on mechanical ventilators in intensive care could save tens of young lives each year, finds a new study led by researchers at UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Four in five primary caregivers of nine-month-old babies reported cuddling, talking and playing with their little one several times a day, in the first national long-term study of babies in over two decades, led by UCL.

Students from under-represented backgrounds such as working class or racially minoritised people record the highest rates of degree non-completion, particularly in subjects such as computing, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.

The number of people identifying as transgender in their GP records in the UK has increased between 2000 and 2018, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The research, published in BMJ Medicine , is the first large-scale study in the UK to estimate the number of people whose gender identity is different to their sex assigned at birth.

In the wake of Sir Patrick Vallance's evidence at the Covid inquiry, Professor James Cheshire (UCL Geography) and Rob Davidson (UCL Political Science) explain how scientists can create better data visualisations to help policymakers grasp statistics in The Conversation.

The baseline for avoiding a disaster is bringing a wide variety of people together in a symphony of action, writes Professor Ilan Kelman (UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction) in The Conversation alongside colleagues from other universities.

UCL researchers will play a role in building a new instrument on the Rosalind Franklin rover, replacing Russian-made components, so that the Mars mission can launch in 2028.

Change in clinical practice would have clear benefits for patients undergoing major bowel surgery, according to analysis conducted by researchers from UCL and the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. The study, published in The British Journal of Surgery , provides evidence that giving iron intravenously before colorectal surgery improves outcomes for patients, reducing the need for blood transfusion by 33%.