science wire

UCL is to build a new second campus on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, to form part of a wider Education and Cultural Quarter following the government's announcement of £141m in support of the project.

All UCL interns are to be paid at the rate of the London Living Wage (LLW) with effect from today (1 December), under UCL's updated Internships, Work Experience and Volunteering Policy.

UCL and the Institute of Education (IOE) have today confirmed that they will be merging with effect from 2 December.

A psychological intervention that provides stress relief and emotional support for people caring for relatives with dementia can reduce depression and anxiety and improve wellbeing at no extra cost to standard care, finds new UCL research published in Lancet Psychiatry . The study led by Professor Gill Livingston (UCL Psychiatry) found that family caregivers receiving the START (STrAtegies for RelaTives) programme were seven times less likely to develop clinically significant depression than those given usual care, with benefits lasting for at least 2 years.

A Progress Report on the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme, produced by UCL along with four other academic institutions, has demonstrated that it is enabling participating businesses to grow faster and create more jobs than they otherwise would have.

The Chinese Cities of Tianjin and Shanghai have joined Cities Changing Diabetes - an initiative by Novo Nordisk, UCL and the Steno Diabetes Centre to fight the urban diabetes epidemic - today, World Diabetes Day.

A majority of obese people in Britain would not describe themselves as "obese", and many would not even describe themselves as "very overweight", according to research by UCL and Cancer Research UK published in BMJ Open.

A new model for scientific research is being piloted by UCL neuroscientists, who will be launching 'The Experiment' on Monday 24 November at a secret underground venue in Clerkenwell. Participants in The Experiment will be not only subjects, but experimenters, observers, and audience members in an immersive experience.

Gas could play an important role as a 'bridging fuel' to a low-carbon economy but it won't be long before gas becomes part of the problem rather than the solution, finds a study involving UCL scientists.

Self-compassion can be learned using avatars in an immersive virtual reality, finds new research led by UCL. This innovative approach reduced self-criticism and increased self-compassion and feelings of contentment in naturally self-critical individuals. The scientists behind the MRC-funded study say it could be applied to treat a range of clinical conditions including depression.

London and other cities in Britain could be made a safer for cyclists finds a study by researchers at UCL and  Loughborough University .

European immigrants to the UK have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, helping to relieve the fiscal burden on UK-born workers and contributing to the financing of public services - according to new research by the UCL Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).

UCL has been awarded £4.2 million from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to fund a Blood and Transplant Research Unit for stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy, due to launch in October 2015.

Houston, Texas has joined the Cities Changing Diabetes initiative, an initiative by Novo Nordisk, UCL and the Steno Diabetes Centre to fight the urban diabetes epidemic today.

The systematic neglect of culture is the single biggest barrier to advancing the highest attainable standard of health worldwide, say the authors of a major new report on culture and health, led by Professor David Napier, a leading medical anthropologist from UCL and published in The Lancet .

As part of the Clinical Research Infrastructure Initiative, UCL has been awarded £13.5 million for a number of projects to help advance clinical research.

UCL presents an evening of space exploration at Stratford Picture House to mark the upcoming release of Christopher Nolan's new sci-fi blockbuster Interstellar .

UCL Council has today (20 October) confirmed its decision that UCL should merge with the Institute of Education (IOE). Subject to legal agreements and final approval at the meeting of IOE Council on 25 November, the two universities will merge from 2 December 2014. Having embarked on a strategic partnership in October 2012, the two institutions announced in February this year that they were to consult on a proposed merger.

UCL Institute of Archaeology and the British Museum are asking for public help in conducting, designing and funding research about archaeology, history and heritage.

Cassini spacecraft received the equivalent of a 200 volt electric shock from the electrostatically charged surface of Saturn's moon, Hyperion, confirming that objects in the outer Solar System can have charged surfaces, according to UCL research. The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters , reports that Cassini was briefly magnetically connected to the surface of Hyperion, allowing it to be caught by a beam of electrons coming from the moon's surface.

The 'Curing Cancer' documentary broadcast on Channel 4 on the 15 October follows four UCLH patients taking part in trials of advanced cancer treatments, from the labs of the UCL Cancer Institute to the wards of UCLH.

A man who was paralysed from the chest down following a knife attack can now walk using a frame, following a pioneering cell transplantation treatment developed by scientists at UCL and applied by surgeons at Wroclaw University Hospital, Poland.

Using stents to keep neck arteries open is just as effective as invasive neck surgery for long-term prevention of fatal and disabling strokes, reports an international trial led by UCL funded by the Medical Research Council and Stroke Association. The research paper, published today in the Lancet, was authored by researchers from UCL, Basel University, Switzerland, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Newcastle University.

Poor oral health affecting athletes' general health and performance shows 'no signs of improvement' and must be remedied, say a group of UCL-led health experts and sporting bodies.

Professor John O'Keefe, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, has today been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain - an 'inner GPS' - that enables us to orient ourselves.

Scientists from UCL, Stanford Engineering, Google, Chalmers and Mozilla Research have built a new system that protects Internet users' privacy whilst increasing the flexibility for web developers to

Thirty PhD studentships will be available annually for the next five years in the areas of agriculture and food security, industrial biotechnology and bioenergy, health and other frontier biosciences following a £15M grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

An entrepreneur who has just graduated from UCL is launching a new Kickstarter campaign to fund the opening of a revolutionary type of concept store.

People with lower incomes attempting to quit smoking are 36% more likely to succeed if they use a new interactive website called 'StopAdvisor' than if they use a static information website, finds a randomised controlled trial led by UCL researchers.

The mechanism by which statins increase the risk of type 2 diabetes has been investigated in a large-scale analysis from an international team led by researchers from UCL and the University of Glasgow, using information from genetic studies and clinical trials. Published in The Lancet, the work received support from a number of funders including the Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, Rosetrees Trust and National Institute for Health Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre.

Dr Rodney Harrison (UCL Institute of Archaeology) has been awarded a £1.6million AHRC Large Grant to lead an innovative research programme called 'Assembling Alternative Futures for Heritage', one of three grants announced today by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Sugars in the diet should make up no more than 3% of total energy intake to reduce the significant financial and social burdens of tooth decay, finds new research from UCL and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.